Freya North - Rumours

Mercy Benton’s cottage was compact and immaculate and though the kitchen was old it could be modernized with minimal fuss. Stella walked around with the owner, genuinely charmed by the features and also by the owner’s furniture and trinkets. It reminded her of her late grandmother’s place. A porcelain ornament of a Shire horse and foal. A cut-glass lidded bowl full of stripy humbugs. Antimacassars on an olive-green velvet sofa and armchair. Photographs of family on top of the telly.

‘I love it!’ Stella told her.

‘I do too,’ said Mrs Benton. ‘But it’s time to go.’

‘And you’ve found an apartment at Summerhill Place?’

‘Oh, it’s lovely. It really is.’

‘So I’ve heard,’ said Stella.

‘You know it was once a country mansion? How grand that I’ll be living there! They’ve done a lovely job. It’s all self-contained apartments now – but with tea served in a smashing room downstairs for residents every afternoon. And a cleaner once a week. And bridge on Tuesdays. Bingo on Thursdays. Recitals and the like on Saturdays. And an emergency call button. All sorts going on. Such lovely grounds – ever so grand. Beryl went there a year ago. Loves it. We were at school together, you know.’

Stella nodded. ‘Was Beryl from Long Dansbury too?’

Mercy Benton laughed. ‘Of course!’ She paused. ‘Silly bugger.’

‘Sorry?’

‘That fast-talking chappy from John Denby.’ Mercy thought about it quietly. He’d expressed no interest in her home – only in the house. He couldn’t see the intrinsic difference. He hadn’t even asked a thing about Summerhill Place. That’s why, twelve weeks later and with only a dribble of viewings, Mercy had decided to invite Elmfield Estates to cast an eye. She liked this young woman. Look at her now, peering at the face on the toby jug as if it was someone she recognized; running her fingers lightly back and forth across the tasselled edging of the tapestry cushion. She had gazed and gazed at the view of the garden from the back bedroom. She’d asked Mercy what flowered out there. Made notes on her pad of all Mercy told her.

‘Would you be considering Elmfield as joint agents? Alongside Denby?’

‘What do you suggest, dear?’

‘Between you and me, Mrs Benton, if you haven’t had an offer in three months, they are showing the wrong people around. Off the top of my head, I have two clients on my list – this beautiful home would suit either of them down to the ground. Also, if you give Elmfield a crack as sole agents, the commission you pay is much less.’

‘Will it be you?’

‘I wish I could afford it. I’d love to live here.’

‘No, dear – I mean, will it be you who does all of the everything?’

‘ All of the everything ,’ Stella smiled. ‘Yes, it’ll be me. I assure you. Everything. Phone calls, visits, negotiations. The lot. Just me, Mrs Benton.’

‘Call me Mercy.’

‘Well, Mercy, I’ll need a couple of days to organize the particulars, photographs and red tape – and hopefully, by midweek at the latest, I’ll be back, with my clients.’

‘Would you like a humbug?’

‘I’d love one. Thank you! And Mercy – when I bring people to view, offer them a humbug too, or a cuppa. It helps.’

That brash young man from Denby’s had recommended she go out when he brought anyone to her home. ‘Thank you, dear.’

‘Thank you .’

Despite the sprint home, Xander wasn’t particularly happy with his time. And he couldn’t really blame the young woman who’d all but floored him. She hadn’t really slowed him down more than a few seconds. He’d rest tomorrow. Possibly the next day too. His legs felt heavy. He was heading towards the run less run faster period in his training which, though he knew it was sensible, today still seemed like a contradiction.

He looked in his wardrobe. Tea with Lydia. He chose a white Oxford shirt with button-down collar and looked from his choice of ties to his one good jacket. It would be one or the other. He couldn’t bear both at the same time, he’d feel trussed up and garrotted. Ultimately, he went for the tie. It was vivid blue with a pale lemon stripe. He couldn’t remember when last he’d worn it.

The afternoon was bright and the morning’s breeze had subsided – a brisk walk to Longbridge in shirtsleeves would be fine, but home again later, he knew the air would have chilled considerably. He grabbed his North Face jacket and set off with it slung over his shoulder, strolling down from the Back End along the high street to the gates to Longbridge. He could have gone the back way – walked uphill to the end of his lane and along the footpath, over two fields and through the side gate hidden in the yew hedge after the farmyard. But the track could be muddy this time of year. And it was lambing season. He waved to Mercy Benton, her headscarf tied neatly under her chin, pulling her old tartan shopping trolley as if it was a reluctant, aged dog. He spoke to the Pickards, out for a stroll, and he told the Pittman kid who lived at Wisteria House to pick up the crisp packet and put it in the bin. They were dreadful, that family – money, but no manners.

Up the driveway to Longbridge, a force of habit compelled Xander to try and count each of the two hundred and fifty-two panes of glass in the twenty-one sash windows by the time the avenue of limes had ended and the formal box hedging had begun. The approach to Longbridge was an exception to the rule of distances seeming shorter, places seeming smaller, than childhood memories decreed. Though he knew the house well – even down to the one missing stone support on the balustrade parapet high up where the brick walls ended and the hipped slate roof began, or which of the window panes were new glass and not the beautiful shimmering original – familiarity had not compromised the pleasure of the sight of this grand old building. He still felt awestruck by its sedate, imposing grandeur. He never climbed the broad stone entrance steps without patting one of the stone lions that stood guarding it, he never rang the clanking great doorbell to the side of the mahogany double doors without looking up and marvelling at the fanlight – vast yet as delicate as lacework.

He waited, wondered whether he should ring again or give the doors a polite rap. But he didn’t want to be given short shrift – he’d been on the receiving end of that, once before, when he was a teenager and he’d seen Lydia a little way ahead of him along the high street. Yoo hoo! he’d called that day. Yoo hoo! The public dressing-down she’d exacted had been mortifying.

No. He’d wait. Up until a couple of years ago, Barnaby the black Labrador would have retaliated at the doorbell with a cacophony of howls – but he was deaf now. And it had been a long while since there’d been an excitable posse of Jack Russells at Longbridge bred, it seemed, precisely for the purpose of nipping the ankles of any visitor.

‘Xander!’

But the door hadn’t opened.

He turned to find Lydia standing at the bottom of the steps, swamped by an ancient waxed jacket, a headscarf neatly under her chin, a walking stick used so naturally, so deftly, that it was more like an extension of her arm than a crutch of any sort. She climbed the stairs slowly, not taking her eyes off him.

‘You’ve grown!’

‘You always say that,’ Xander laughed. ‘It’s only been a month.’

‘Five weeks. And you never say I’m shrinking,’ Lydia said, ‘but I’ll bet you think it.’

‘Not when you have that walking stick with you!’ said Xander. ‘Your cheek, Lydia, what have you done?’

‘Nothing, just a silly knock. Looks far worse than it feels. Have you rung the bell?’