2. Clara
2
Gathergill’s Mini Mart did stock Gorgonzola! Which meant River would be welcomed home with smelly cheese, and she would escape the displeasure of her mother. Clara pushed the pungent package into her bag, stepped out into the June morning and pulled the supermarket door closed behind her. A salty breeze was blowing through the trees, and seagulls were screeching on the village green as they fought over an empty crisp packet.
Clara walked through the village which was preparing for the daily influx of tourists. Cobbled streets were being washed clean, shop fronts made ready and freshly caught fish laid out on ice in the fishmonger’s window.
Dotted here and there were posters for the Brellasham Manor Charity Fete and Open Day. The annual event raised a lot of money for local good causes and was keenly anticipated by the locals of Heaven’s Cove – partly because it was the only day of the year when they were allowed to wander around the grand house.
Clara had once suggested that River’s father, Geoffrey, open the manor to paying visitors throughout the year. It seemed a shame that its impressive rooms and perfectly proportioned architecture went unseen. But he’d baulked at the idea of ‘strangers invading the place and gawping’ so she’d let it drop.
It was about time the Brellasham family shared their good fortune, she decided as she reached the ruined castle that sat overlooking the sea.
The castle keep, a square tower of red-tinged stone, rose into the sky and, around it, stone walls, eight centuries old and now fallen into disrepair, marked the boundary of the castle that had once been home to hundreds of people.
What were they like? Clara wondered. These shadowy people who once lived and loved here. Did they have day-to-day worries that sometimes seemed overwhelming? Were their mothers a nightmare too? Talking of which…Clara glanced at her watch and frowned. It was already eight o’clock so she’d better get a move on.
Hurrying down the dip in the land, that had once housed a moat, she set off at a brisk pace.
The weather had been glorious recently, with unseasonably high temperatures, and only puffs of white cloud were scudding across the sky this morning. It was going to be another beautiful early summer’s day. The perfect day for a long-awaited homecoming.
Clara sniffed, suddenly weary of her bad mood. River’s return was nothing to do with her, and he’d probably disappear again soon. But her mother was happy about it, and that was enough. Anything that lifted her mum’s spirits had to be a good thing.
Clara walked on through the village, thinking about her father, who had died twelve months earlier. Then, she tried very hard to focus, instead, on the cobbled street in front of her and the fresh smell of the sea.
It still hurt when the gaping hole left in her life by her father’s absence suddenly yawned wide. Some days it threatened to swallow her, but today she needed to be focused on other things – on people returning, rather than people who were gone for ever.
Clara walked on, along the lane that left Heaven’s Cove behind. Few tourists ventured past the edge of the village and along this narrow track that led towards the moors.
They didn’t know what they were missing, thought Clara, listening to sheep bleating in the fields beyond the high hedge, and a stream tinkling over stones. There was a sense of peace about this place that she loved. A permanence that made her feel grounded.
Clara undid her jacket, feeling warm in the sunshine as a butterfly flitted past. Spring was done and summer had arrived with a bang. Another summer of…who knew what? She could guess. The next few months would bring more hours spent helping Mum at the manor house, intermittent freelance work as a virtual PA – and awkward first dates in The Smugglers Haunt, that led absolutely nowhere.
Finding Mr Right seemed increasingly unlikely and Clara was becoming jaded. It was hard not to be when she met so many Mr Wrongs. She was starting to think the problem was her and she’d never find a man with whom she could imagine settling down. Not that she needed a man to make her life complete, even if her mother didn’t agree with her.
Her mood was dipping again, and she deliberately pulled her shoulders back as she reached the tall metal gates of Brellasham Manor.
Beyond them lay the gravel drive that River’s car would crunch along in a short while. What would he be like after all this time? she wondered. Would he even remember her, the girl with whom he’d been friends so long ago?
She walked along the drive that was edged with tall poplar trees and past the small cottage where she and her mother lived. Then, she turned a corner and caught sight of the manor house.
She’d seen it hundreds of times before, but this first daily sighting always made her heart leap because the house was just…perfect.
Made of pale red stone, Brellasham Manor sat in the shelter of moorland that rose up behind it.
To look at, the house seemed perfectly balanced with large windows on either side of a stone porch that was held aloft by four stone pillars. A walled kitchen garden sat to the right-hand side of the building, and to its left the lawn fell away, down to the sea. The small, private cove was almost hidden from the house by a line of trees.
On days like today, the sea was a beautiful blue. But Clara had walked on that beach when the water was dark and rough. And it always made a shiver run down her spine.
This bay, far smaller than the public beach that gave Heaven’s Cove its name, was where Audrey Brellasham, the lady of the manor, had drowned almost seventy years ago, when she was younger than Clara. Her body had never been found – it was swept out to sea and lost for ever. But in winter, when the wind roared and waves crashed onto the sand, Clara couldn’t help imagining that, one day, her bones might wash up on the shore.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of a lolloping golden retriever that wound its way around her legs, almost knocking her over.
‘Hey, Grayson.’ Clara bent down and tickled behind the dog’s ear. ‘What are you doing out here on your own, boy?’
Grayson trotted ahead as she made her way around the back of the house to what Geoffrey Brellasham, the current ‘lord of the manor’, referred to as ‘the tradesmen’s entrance’.
Clara found that rather patronising and snobby. But Geoffrey had exhibited a streak of snobbery for as long as she’d known him, which was all her life.
Julie, heavily pregnant with her, had been here, doing the washing up, when her waters broke – or so the family story went. And the labour progressed so quickly that Clara was almost born on the kitchen tiles.
The ambulance summoned by Geoffrey’s father – Edwin Brellasham – arrived in the nick of time, so Clara actually took her first breath in the local hospital. But she still felt an attachment to this old house that went beyond the ties her family had had to it for generations.
She had grown up here, in the cottage in the grounds, skinning her knees as she climbed trees, and playing hide and seek with River, and sometimes his older cousin, Bartie.
Her stomach flipped at the thought of Bartie – handsome Bartholomew – the first boy she’d ever fallen for.
‘There you are,’ said her mother, poking her head out of the kitchen door. Julie glanced at her watch and frowned. ‘You’re almost five minutes late.’ But after looking Clara up and down, she nodded approvingly. ‘That dress suits you. It brings out your colouring. Those shoes could do with a polish but I suppose they’re better than your trainers. Anyway, come on in. He’ll be here in an hour or so.’
Clara stepped into the large kitchen and carefully wiped her feet on the mat.
‘I can’t wait to see River again,’ said her mother, brushing a strand of greying hair from her face. ‘Aren’t you excited?’
Clara wrinkled her nose. She couldn’t deny that she was curious to see her childhood playmate again. But excited? No. So much had changed since they’d walked together in the manor grounds and hunted for shells at the cove: her grandmother and then her father had died; she’d moved away from the house she’d always called home and come back again; she’d grown up.
Yet, in some ways, nothing had changed at all. Not here at the manor where time seemed to stand still. Her mother was still housekeeping for Geoffrey, the grandfather clock in the hall continued to mark the passing of every minute, and the house stood as it had done for almost two hundred and fifty years. Its rooms elegant and quiet. Its secrets well hidden.
Clara walked softly through the rooms, on a mission from her mother to make sure that nothing was ‘amiss’.
Quite what might be amiss, Clara wasn’t sure. But, first, she inspected the formal drawing room and the smaller, more cosy parlour – their walls papered with chinoiserie depictions of oriental birds and flowers. Both rooms were immaculate, with marble fireplaces, squashy sofas, and polished walnut tables.
Then, she paused in the grand library to admire its impressive array of leather-bound books, all neatly stored on shelving that stretched from floor to ceiling.
A comfortable armchair had been placed next to the window that looked out over the gardens, towards the cove, and Clara rearranged the cushion – more for something to do, rather than because it needed adjusting.
Geoffrey would often sit here in the mornings, staring through the window and drinking tea. Clara often wondered if he was remembering his son playing out there, before he left for Australia.
No one knew because Geoffrey rarely mentioned River, and there were few photos of him in the house. If he missed his son, he kept it to himself – Geoffrey’s thoughts and emotions were a closed book.
‘He must be lonely in that big old house on his own,’ her mother would say over the dinner table. ‘But he’s an aristocrat and they don’t have feelings like we do.’
Which was bonkers, Clara had realised, even from a young age. Of course the rich and privileged had feelings. The difference was they kept them well hidden behind stiff upper lips.
Time was ticking on so Clara walked up the thickly carpeted stairs to the first and second floors, to inspect the bedrooms.
Each room looked immaculate and, happy that all was as it should be, Clara paused on the second-floor landing. She often stopped here to study the portrait that hung next to the door to the third floor of the manor.
The large portrait, done in oils, showed a striking woman in a beautiful yellow dress: Audrey Brellasham. Her blonde hair was pulled into an elegant bun, and at her throat lay the intricate diamond necklace that had disappeared with her so long ago. The necklace that, rumour had it, was gifted to a long-ago Brellasham by Queen Victoria herself.
Audrey was only twenty-four years old when she died, but the painting made her look older. Clara tilted her head, taking in the faint blush on Audrey’s cheeks and the creamy glow of her skin. She was pictured sitting in the library, with a book on the table next to her – Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier – and another one on her lap, Palmer’s Grand Dictionary of the English Language.
Clara pictured the many hundreds of books in the manor’s library and frowned. Rebecca was amongst Clara’s favourite novels and she could imagine it being one of Audrey’s, too. However, a dictionary was a curious choice to be for ever immortalised in oil, especially as Audrey’s hand was almost cradling the leather-bound volume.
The dictionary had always seemed out of place to Clara, along with the sadness on the face of the woman staring out at her from the gilt frame.
She took a step closer to study the woman’s blue eyes that the artist had flecked with gold. Audrey was a beautiful woman, yet she looked troubled.
Why was that? Clara wondered – as she always did whenever she stopped to stare at the portrait. Audrey seemingly had everything: a devoted husband, Edwin; a stepson, Geoffrey; and such a wonderful house. Her life had appeared perfect, and yet she’d walked into a stormy sea on a September evening, fully clothed.
Audrey must have known that she would not survive. That she would never again walk upstairs to the suite of rooms she and her husband shared on the third floor of this house. The suite of rooms that had been closed off ever since the tragedy.
Clara glanced at the door that led upstairs and looked over her shoulder before trying the handle. As always, it was locked. No one ever went up there, except for Glenda, the cleaner, who would not be drawn on what lay above Clara’s head.
Even Julie, the manor’s housekeeper for decades, had never been up to the third floor, and she seemed reluctant to say anything about it.
Once, following incessant questioning from Clara, she’d told her: ‘Your gran was housekeeper at the time of the tragedy and told me that Edwin, Audrey’s husband, couldn’t bear to go up there after losing his wife. So he blocked off the whole floor and Geoffrey has respected his wishes. It’s never been used since.’
Echoes of the tragedy were still reverberating down the years, thought Clara, trying the locked door again, in case it had mysteriously unlocked itself in the last few seconds.
It remained resolutely closed, so she turned again to the portrait.
‘What happened?’ she murmured. ‘Why did you walk into the waves that night?’
Her eyes met Audrey’s direct gaze which, immortalised on canvas, kept her secrets safe from beyond the grave. What secrets did she have?
The only person who might know more was Geoffrey but they had never spoken about his tragic stepmother. In fact, they’d never spoken about much, really, even though Clara had known him her whole life.
The sound of hurried footsteps on the stairs broke into her thoughts and she jumped back from the portrait as her mother hurried along the landing.
‘Come on, Clara. What are you doing mooning over that painting again when River will be here any minute? You spend far too long, these days, staring at that picture. You’re brewing an unhealthy obsession with a dead woman.’
‘No, I’m not,’ said Clara, feeling caught out because her mother had a point. She had spent a lot of time, recently, wondering why a woman with seemingly everything would drown herself. Though perhaps the only ‘reason’ was poor mental health which could affect anyone, whatever their circumstances.
‘Grayson ran into the kitchen table and two plates fell onto the tiles and smashed,’ said Julie, leading the way down the stairs. ‘That dog is a menace. But I’ll have to clear up in a minute because I’ve heard on the grapevine that River’s car has been seen in the village.’
‘Do you have people standing on watch?’ asked Clara, raising an eyebrow.
Julie glanced over her shoulder. ‘What have I told you about sarcasm? Belinda was in the bakery and she spotted River’s car going by and gave me a call.’
‘How on earth did she recognise him? She didn’t move to the village until after he’d gone to Australia.’
‘She looked him up on the internet and found a photo of him fire-fighting in the bush or something.’ Clara smiled, well able to imagine Belinda, the biggest gossip in Heaven’s Cove, stalking the returning prodigal son online. ‘Anyway, look sharp because River will be here any second and Geoffrey wants us to line up in the hall to greet him.’
‘I’m not sure that’s a very good idea.’
‘Well, Geoffrey thinks it is,’ said Julie, shepherding Clara into the large, square hall where a little group had already gathered.
The front door was wide open and sunlight was streaming in across the Victorian floor tiles.
Geoffrey was standing on the doorstep and lined up behind him were Phillip, the gardener, Jean, Geoffrey’s part-time PA, Martin, Geoffrey’s solicitor, and, bizarrely, Patricia, the chiropodist who came out to the manor house to tend to Geoffrey’s feet. Julie joined the end of the welcome line and gestured for Clara to do the same.
Rolling her eyes at the fuss, Clara stood where she was told and watched as a midnight-blue car came into view. It crunched across the gravel and came to a halt outside the front door.
A man in smart jeans and a green sweatshirt stepped out of the driver’s seat and Clara felt suddenly as though time was dislocating.
The man in front of them, brushing long, fair hair from his eyes, was undeniably River. He had the same oval face and wide smile. But he was taller and broader with a short, neat beard. His teeth were bright against his golden tan.
She glanced again at the car because someone else was stepping from it. A man in a charcoal suit who looked familiar. And Clara’s heart missed a beat as she realised that it was Bartie.