8. Clara
8
Clara was sitting next to her mother in the room that had once echoed to the sound of Audrey’s grand ball. The dance, so keenly anticipated, that seemed to have sparked the chain of events that led to her death.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ Julie leaned closer and stared into her face. ‘You look a bit peaky this morning.’
‘Thanks, Mum.’ Clara ran a hand through her hair, hoping she didn’t look too much of a fright. ‘I didn’t sleep too well last night. I had bad dreams.’
‘Sparked by a bad conscience, I dare say.’
Clara swallowed. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You promised to finish the washing up before you came up to bed but there were still a few dirty pots on the kitchen counter when I got up.’
Clara’s jaw unclenched as she realised her late-night forage through the bin was still a secret. ‘Sorry, Mum. I forgot. I’ll do them before I start work.’
‘No need. I did them before you got up.’ Julie looked around the room, which was buzzing with the hum of conversation. ‘I didn’t realise that Geoffrey had invited so many of us. He must be absolutely delighted by River’s return and keen to share his excitement.’
‘Maybe,’ said Clara, who found it hard to imagine Geoffrey – a man not known for being emotional – being excited, let alone wanting to share it.
In all the years she’d known him, Clara had never seen Geoffrey lose his temper and had rarely seen him smile. He always seemed level, distant and somewhat cold – a combination that River had found difficult to cope with as a teenager.
Clara, who’d had a close and loving relationship with her father, had sometimes felt sorry for him back then: the poor little rich boy wanting for nothing, save paternal approval. His Australian mother, Lucia, was the opposite – vibrant, caring and tactile – so it was little wonder that her marriage to much older Geoffrey had come to such a messy end.
Her mum nudged her arm. ‘This is a beautiful room, don’t you think? It’s such a shame that it’s hardly used these days.’
‘It is,’ said Clara, taking in the portraits of long-gone Brellashams, the twinkling chandeliers, huge windows overlooking the gardens, and the opulent flocked wallpaper.
Sometimes, when the house was quiet, Clara would stand in here and imagine dancers in beautiful crinolines, being whirled around the floor by their beaux. Their faces lit by flickering candlelight while an orchestra played. Sometimes she fancied she could hear strains of the music – violins soaring to meet the intricately plastered ceiling. And now she knew that Audrey and Edwin had danced on these floorboards on September the seventh 1957.
Everything is black and broken. Audrey’s words written in her diary two days later sprang into Clara’s mind. What had happened here in this room to cause such a catastrophic change in her mental health? she wondered, as the past and present began to collide.
A sharp dig in the ribs from her mother’s elbow cut into Clara’s thoughts.
‘I hope there will be enough refreshments for everyone. Geoffrey seems to have invited every tradesman who’s ever worked on the house.’ She tutted. ‘I wish he’d given me a better idea of numbers.’
‘Don’t worry. I’m sure people won’t expect much, and I can give you a hand with making tea and coffee later, if you’d like,’ said Clara, whose guilty conscience about fishing Audrey’s diary out of the bin currently outweighed any worries about getting her freelance work finished.
‘That would be helpful. Thank you. Oh, here they are!’ Julie tilted her head towards the door. ‘It’s so lovely to see the boys together again, isn’t it? Don’t they both look handsome!’
A hush fell over the ballroom as River and Bartie walked across the floor and sat in two of the three chairs that had been placed in front of the windows. They bent their heads close together in conversation and Clara had a chance to take a good look at the two men she’d once known as boys.
In appearance, they were chalk and cheese – short-haired Bartie with his dark, leading man good looks, and River, with his thick, fair hair reaching to his shoulders. He wasn’t as conventionally handsome as Bartie but, Clara had to agree with her mother, he was good looking too. Once all limbs and sharp features, he seemed to have grown into his body. Now he was a strapping man of thirty-one, with a golden tan that accentuated the soulful brown eyes he’d inherited from his mother.
Overall, he looked far more like his mum than his dad, thought Clara, studying him closely. Geoffrey wasn’t bad looking, in spite of his tragic comb-over, but he’d become paunchy over the years. Whereas River looked taut and lean, as if he’d been working out in Australia. His shoulders were broad and the muscles in his upper arms were well defined.
He suddenly glanced up and caught Clara’s eye. ‘Awkward,’ she murmured to herself, looking away and feeling embarrassed.
Fortunately, Geoffrey chose that moment to make his entrance and everyone’s attention turned to him as he walked to the windows and stood beside his son.
It was good to see the two of them back together, Clara realised, though their close proximity only exacerbated their differences. River was still wearing jeans, with a pale blue T-shirt hanging loose. Whereas Geoffrey had on a checked shirt and mustard-yellow trousers, as if he was trying to live up to the stereotype of an aristocrat.
Beside them both, in smart grey chinos and a crisp white shirt, Bartie leaned back in his chair and gave Clara a wink. Clara swallowed and shifted in her seat.
‘Stop fidgeting,’ hissed her mother as Geoffrey stepped forward. ‘He’s about to speak.’
Geoffrey stood for a moment, looking out at the expectant gathering and cleared his throat.
‘Thank you all for coming,’ he said in his booming voice. ‘I have a few things of importance that I’d like to impart.’
When he clasped his hands together, Clara realised that he was nervous, and a shiver went down her spine. Why were they really here, a ragtag group of employees, past and present, in a room that had once rung to the sound of festivities?
‘Thank you all for coming this morning,’ he said, unclasping his hands. He winced. ‘I do believe I’ve said that already. Anyway, it’s wonderful to have my son, River, here, and Bartholomew – Bartie – too, of course.’
He cleared his throat again. ‘You all know and love Brellasham Manor, as do I. This house has been home to my family since it was built, more than two hundred years ago. However, unfortunately, that is the problem.’
He glanced at Bartie, who gave him an almost imperceptible nod. ‘It has become increasingly expensive to manage the upkeep of this house, especially as it is so close to the sea and is battered by ferocious weather every winter.
‘You all do a marvellous job in keeping this house, and me, running. You have done over the years.’ Geoffrey looked at Clara’s mother and gave her a faint smile. ‘But frankly, it’s all becoming too much.’
People in the room had started exchanging glances. Clara looked at River, trying to read his expression, to anticipate what was coming next. But he was staring resolutely ahead, his face neutral. Was his father stepping aside so that he could take over as ‘lord of the manor’?
Geoffrey turned his palms towards the ceiling. ‘Basically, the situation cannot continue as it is. It’s taken me some time to come to terms with that fact but’ – he swallowed – ‘it’s now time to move on and pass this house into other hands. It’s time to sell Brellasham Manor.’
A collective gasp echoed around the room and Clara’s stomach did a flip.
Geoffrey held up his hand to staunch any comments from the floor. ‘Obviously, I don’t want to sell this house but I have come to understand that it’s the only way forward. It’s time to pass it on to a developer who can make this house work, as a new type of accommodation. Bartie has some ideas about that. It seems that the manor could be transformed into a number of luxury apartments.’
He raised his hand again to quell a hum of dissent from his audience. ‘I realise that this will come as a shock to you, and leaving this house will be’ – he paused – ‘difficult, but it appears to be the only option.
‘I will, of course, keep you informed as I appreciate that your livelihoods will be affected, and for that I am sorry.’ He stopped and studied his feet for a moment, before raising his head. ‘But we will do our best to ensure that none of you are left in the lurch. I’m afraid that needs must and, while I may not like it, I learned from my father, who never shirked from doing what was necessary, that hard decisions sometimes have to be made.’
He sat down, his audience now stunned into silence. Clara blinked, hardly able to believe what she’d just heard. Luxury apartments – meaning swanky homes that locals like her could never hope to afford.
Clara loved this house. It had been a part of her life since she was born, and the thought of not being able to walk its rooms, or dangle her feet in the stone fountain on hot days, or sit on the sand and gaze at the ocean, took her breath away.
Then, she felt guilty because both Geoffrey and her mother faced losing far more – though it was hard to feel as sorry for Geoffrey as it was for her mum. It was devastating, of course, that he would have to leave a home that had been in his family for generations. But the money from the sale would mean he could live out his days in comfort.
Whereas, her mother would lose both her home and her job – a job which had helped to keep her life turning over following the death of her husband. She would have to find rented accommodation somewhere else and, if new work was hard to come by, her finances would take a battering.
When Clara reached across and clasped her mother’s hand, Julie squeezed her fingers. She’d gone pale and was blinking, as if she might cry.
Being the housekeeper here was more than a job to her. The Netherway family had been a part of Brellasham Manor for so many years. They’d maintained the grounds, kept its occupants fed and – Clara thought of the diary in her bedside table, and its strange sequences of numbers – they’d kept its secrets safe.
‘There will be time for questions later,’ said Geoffrey, speaking from his chair. ‘But first, let’s hear from Bartie, who, along with River, will be managing the sale.’
All eyes turned to Bartie, who slowly got to his feet and smiled at the upturned faces in front of him.
‘Hi, everyone. I’m related to the Brellasham family. What’s our connection, Geoffrey?’ He turned to Geoffrey, who was staring at his hands clasped in his lap. ‘First cousin twice removed? Second cousin once removed? Something like that.’
He turned back to his audience, with his easy grin that lit up his handsome face.
‘But I’m also a successful entrepreneur who dabbles in property and I have a variety of contacts in the development market. So, when I heard that Geoffrey was enduring stressful financial challenges, I said I’d be happy to help him seek a viable solution.
‘We all know that this house is wonderful but it’s also, not to put too fine a point on it, a money pit. Damp is an ongoing problem, utility bills are increasingly onerous, and the roof, despite patch-ups here and there over the years, has increasingly fallen into disrepair. It’s now reached a state where most if not all of the roof needs to be replaced and that’s no easy feat. We have to use expensive slate tiles, which means the bill is likely to be eye-wateringly high.’
He smiled again which seemed jarring in the circumstances. ‘In short, I’m afraid there’s nothing to be done other than sell the house. And I’m here to help ensure that Geoffrey receives the best possible price, while also preserving the special feel of this amazing house that has been a haven to me ever since I was a child.’
It might have been a haven when he was a teenager, but Clara didn’t think he’d been back here for a good few years. Perhaps she was wrong and her mum hadn’t mentioned his more recent visits.
Phillip, the manor’s part-time gardener-cum-handyman, raised his hand, as if he was at school.
Bartie glanced at him. ‘Yes? Did you have a question?’
‘Yeah, I do. I can see why Geof…Mr Brellasham is finding the house a handful. Not meaning to be rude but he’s getting on a bit.’
‘That is quite rude,’ muttered Julie, but Phillip continued unabashed.
‘To be honest, I have enough trouble making ends meet and I live in a cottage – I’m in the old harbour master’s place by the lifeboat station.’ People around him nodded. ‘But why doesn’t the son take the house on?’ He glanced over at River. ‘Sorry, I can’t remember your name, mate. Storm, or something?’
‘It’s River,’ said Bartie, twisting his mouth in amusement. ‘I think River feels that…Actually, why don’t we hear from the man himself? River, over to you.’
Bartie sat down, clearing the floor for River, who got to his feet.
‘Thanks, Bartie, and thanks to, um, Geoffrey.’
He’d used his first name. River and Geoffrey had never been particularly close but, sixteen years ago, at least he’d called him ‘father’.
‘Thank you to all of you for being here.’ His eyes briefly settled on Clara and then moved on. ‘I’m sorry that we’ve had to give you bad news today.’
He shifted from foot to foot and cleared his throat. ‘For those of you who don’t know me, I spent the first years of my life in this house before my mother and I moved to Australia when I was a teenager.’ The Australian twang in his voice was unmistakable.
‘Though I’ve seen my father in Australia since then, I’ve never been back to England. However, I recently became aware of the difficulties that Geoffrey is facing with this house so I’ve come over to offer what help I can. Along with my cousin Bartie, who, like me, has links to the manor but, unlike me, has the expertise to push a sale forward. I don’t think my work as a software programmer has equipped me for striking a hard-nosed property deal.’
He gave an awkward laugh as Clara remembered River’s interest in computers and IT as a teenager. So, he’d made it his career.
‘But couldn’t you stay and take on the house?’ urged Phillip.
River shook his head. ‘I’m afraid not. The financial difficulties posed by this house would be exactly the same for me, and my work and life are back in Australia. Brellasham Manor isn’t my home and it hasn’t been for a long time.’ He glanced at Geoffrey, who was still staring into his lap. ‘Anyway, that’s all we know at the moment but we’ll keep you informed.’
‘Yes,’ said Geoffrey, pushing himself up from his chair. ‘We wanted to make you aware of the situation and we’ll keep you abreast of our plans to sell and how your jobs will be affected. Thank you for coming.’
‘Well,’ said Julie as a discontented murmur rose around them. ‘That’s that then.’
‘I can’t believe it,’ muttered Clara, trying to make sense of what they’d just been told. ‘Are you all right, Mum?’
‘Of course I am.’ Julie stood up abruptly and smoothed her hands down her skirt. ‘All good things come to an end. Isn’t that what they say? Well, there’s no point in crying over spilt milk. Worse things happen at sea.’
Clara blinked at the deluge of platitudes. ‘If you say so, Mum, but don’t you think?—’
‘It’s best not to think, I find,’ said Julie tartly. ‘Now, we’d better get refreshments organised for everyone. You said you could help me with that.’
‘Of course I can, but?—’
Julie raised a hand. ‘Let’s get on with it, then. There’s absolutely no point in panicking because I’m sure that someone will pull a rabbit out of a hat and come to Brellasham Manor’s rescue. Don’t you think?’
‘Um… probably. Possibly.’
Julie nodded towards River, Bartie and Geoffrey, who were surrounded by people asking questions. ‘Perhaps Bartie will come up with a solution, or River will decide to stay after all.’
‘Mmm.’ Clara twisted her mouth. ‘I doubt it, to be honest, Mum. He said himself that he doesn’t feel he belongs here.’
‘Then perhaps Katrina will change his mind,’ said Julie, raising an eyebrow at the village vamp who had once done some work for Geoffrey and was now standing far too close to River.
‘I hardly think so.’
There was a strange fizzing feeling in Clara’s chest. River would never fall for Katrina’s outrageous flirting, would he? She was totally wrong for him, though Clara didn’t know how she could be sure of that after so many years.
Back when they were teenagers, River took little notice of the pretty girls in Heaven’s Cove. He said he preferred ‘interesting’ girls with stories to tell. Though he was probably only being kind to Clara, who felt like an ugly duckling, with her unruly, thick hair and freckles. They’d got on so well back then. Clara had trusted him implicitly, and he’d entrusted her with his secrets. But then he’d let her down.
However, none of that mattered now, thought Clara. The manor was going to be sold and its link with generations of Brellasham and Netherway families severed. River would head back to Australia, after having a fling with Katrina or not – and, however brave Julie was about the situation, nothing would ever be the same again, either for the Brellasham family or for the Netherways.