Freya North - Rumours

If one didn’t know of Longbridge Hall then one might well assume the gates off the high street heralded a country park. Certainly, Stella was surprised that in all her visits to Mercy Benton’s cottage in Long Dansbury, she’d never given more than a passing glance at them. On the Tuesday morning, at 11.00, she drove through the gates, noting how one was slightly crooked and both needed painting black again. Halfway up the drive, she said, oh God, where on earth is the house – I was here at 11.00, I’ve been going for miles and now I’m going to be late. However, even in the April shower that had suddenly descended, when the house came into view it was a breathtaking sight. Stella followed the driveway around it, until it ended in a flourish: a vast turning circle the size of a roundabout, with a small maze of box hedging at the centre. Stella checked her reflection and smoothed her hair and wondered if she should use the main front doors or what looked like a tradesmen’s entrance off to one side. She also wondered whether she should curtsey. Clearing her throat, she made her way past the two stone lions at the base of the steps leading up to the front door. She gave the bell pole a pull and then did so again, with more force, and heard it clanging inside the house.

‘Open the door, woman! Open the door!’

Stella panicked that the voice was shouting at her but even though she heaved her shoulder against them, the front doors were definitely shut.

Did she dare ring that bell again?

Luckily, a plump woman, wearing what her mother would call a pinny, opened one of the doors a fraction. She said nothing.

‘Hullo,’ said Stella.

‘Hullo.’

‘I’m expected.’

‘Who are you?’

‘I’m Stella – Hutton.’

‘One moment.’ The woman left the door ajar and disappeared. Was that Lydia? Lady Fortescue? Mrs Barbary?

‘Is it Elmfield?’ she could hear another voice asking.

‘No, it’s Stella Someone.’

‘Well, it’s probably Stella Someone from Elmfield’s. Gracious me!’

That must be Lady Fortescue.

The plump woman returned. ‘Are you from Elmfield’s?’

‘Yes,’ said Stella. ‘Sorry – I should have said.’

‘Come this way, please. Coat.’

But what Stella really wanted to do was stand still for a moment and take it all in. Beyond the entrance hall was the grand stairwell, lit from above by a beautiful glass lantern roof, a swooping double staircase leading upwards to a galleried landing. But her coat was being all but wrenched from her back.

‘I’m Mrs Biggins – I’m housekeeper here. Lady Lydia takes coffee at this time – would you like coffee?’

‘No, thanks. Well – just a glass of water, please.’

‘Or tea?’

‘Tea! Oh yes, please – I’m gasping for a cup.’

The woman looked her up and down. ‘You’ll take it strong – like me.’ Stella was unsure whether she was referring to her own strength or a well-brewed cup, whether the woman’s remark was an observation, or a statement not open to dispute. If the housekeeper was this disarming, what could Lady Fortescue be like? Mrs Biggins opened the soaring double doors in front of them and gave Stella a little shove. The room was so stunning, in a thoroughly Alice in Wonderland way with everything oversized, that momentarily Stella forgot all about locating the owner of the house and making her introduction. It was dual aspect, occupying three bays of the east front of the house and one bay south, and the four magnificent sash windows, at least eighteen feet high, flooded the room with light despite the dreary day outside. Stella was, quite literally, dazzled.

‘Good morning.’

Sitting in a wingback leather chair, Lydia slowly folded the Telegraph and placed it across her lap. Her knees were together, her legs neatly at an elegant angle; hair in a chignon with stray strands like spun silver. She wore a woollen skirt the colour of peat and a twinset the colour of heather. Her shoes were buffed and the decorative buckles shone. Neutral hosiery gathered just perceptibly in creases around the ankle – like a ploughed field seen from a distance.

‘Mrs Fortescue, I’m Stella Hutton.’ And immediately, Stella thought, oh God, I’ve addressed her incorrectly already. ‘Lady.’ No! That sounded plain rude.

Lydia did not rise. Indeed, she sat motionless and expressionless. ‘I see.’

‘I’m here on behalf of Elmfield Estates.’

‘Yes.’

Should she backtrack and apologize for the botched greeting? Stella was unsure. She didn’t know what she was meant to do next. Sit, stand, talk, wait, what? She was being looked at, assessed; she could feel it. It was as nerve-wracking as the one time she’d been hauled in front of the headmistress at the age of thirteen. She felt hot and self-conscious. Did she appear suitably estate-agenty? Or was the fact that she really didn’t do the navy skirt-suit and court-shoe thing actually in her favour? She was today wearing slim-fitting black trousers and black suede ankle boots with a Cuban heel and a white shirt. Perhaps she looked too much like a waitress. Damn it! She’d been in the pale blue shirt first thing, but had changed at the last minute. Perhaps Mrs Lady Barbary-Fortescue was waiting for her to be a little more estate-agenty. Perhaps she should deliver the Elmfield Estates mission statement.

What Stella really wanted to do was to sink into one of the sofas and say, wow, what an extraordinary place, how long have you lived here, tell me about the house, who is the lady in the painting – is it School of Reynolds? The rug is Persian, isn’t it?

She was enamoured by everything: the carved frieze above the fireplace of cherubs apparently hunting down a deer; the wealth of photos from sepia, to tinted, to full colour, in a crowd on the grand piano, the thick velvet drapes, the Chinese paintings on silk. The glass-fronted book cabinet. The vast silk rug – yes, most certainly Persian – threadbare in one or two places but still magnificent, yet which went only some way in covering the impressive run of wide floorboards. Huge, heavy columnar curtains with flamboyant pelmets that reminded her of a theatre. More furniture than she, her brothers and her mother had between them. Finally, she noticed the archaic-looking electric bar heater standing in front of the capacious fireplace, trying valiantly to take the chill off the room and adding a warm down-to-earthness too. If there was so much to look at even in this one room, what delights could the rest of the house hold?

‘Let me look at you.’

Stella felt like Tess being summoned by Mrs d’Urberville. But then she thought she remembered Mrs d’Urberville being blind and suddenly she felt very self-conscious that she really wasn’t smart enough and why had she popped her slightly greasy hair into a hasty pony-tail when she’d had the time to wash and dry it? As she approached, Stella decided to polish up her vowels and use words like ‘frightfully’ and ‘splendid’.

‘You’re not as I expected.’ Lady Lydia sounded disappointed. ‘But then, Mercy Benton’s powers of description have always been limited. She described her own daughter’s wedding dress as simply a “nice frock” and her son-in-law as a “nice lad”. She said you were a “fine woman” and “everything one could hope for” in an agent.’ She paused, as if waiting for Stella to take the bait. But Stella just nodded with a wry smile in a ‘Gosh, well – you know Mercy Benton’ kind of way.

Lydia rose a little shakily. ‘You look like a girl – a waitress.’ She was not impressed.

‘That’s probably why my clients like me, Lady Fortescue,’ Stella said meekly. ‘I don’t boss them around. I take their order – be it for a house or a sale – and I deliver it to them.’ Stella thought about it. ‘With no spillage.’