Sara Craven - Past All Forgetting

‘The Crown’s the other way.’ She twisted around in her seat and looked at the grey town lying in the sheltered valley behind them. ‘Darling, I know I said I had an hour, but it doesn’t last for ever.’

‘I know. But I do have a surprise for you, my love. Be patient.’

‘All right.’ She looked ahead of them uncertainly. ‘But there’s nothing up here, you know. Only Carrisbeck House.’

She was glad that Colin had no idea what an effort it cost her to say that.

‘Correct. Clever girl! Go to the top of the class.’

To her dismay, the car was slowing, and Colin was indicating his intention to turn left.

‘But we can’t go in there,’ she protested, fighting her panic. ‘It—it’s empty. It has been for years.’

‘I know,’ Colin said casually as they drove through the gates and up the long curve of the drive. ‘Tragedy, isn’t it?’

Towering rhododendrons crowded on each side of the gravel. The last time she had driven up this drive they had been covered in blossom, she thought confusedly, and she had sat in the back of a much less opulent car than Colin’s, almost sick with excitement because she was going to a party at Carrisbeck House and because he would be there. And because tonight—that night—she was going to make him notice her.

She shivered suddenly, closing her eyes.

‘Grey goose flying over your grave?’ Colin’s voice was almost jocular. The car had stopped and when she opened her eyes, it wasn’t a nightmare. It was really happening. They were really parked in front of Carrisbeck House. It looked just the same, with the short flight of shallow steps leading up to the front door. The only difference was that the two great stone urns which flanked the steps looked empty and neglected. Mrs Tempest had always kept them filled with flowers, she thought. Summer or winter, it seemed there had always been something in bloom to welcome you at the door. Now there was nothing, and the curtainless windows seemed to stare down at her inimically as if they were remembering that other Janna Prentiss, not quite seventeen and much more sure of herself than she had ever been since.

‘We can’t go in.’ Her voice sounded strained and breathless even in her own ears. ‘I know it’s empty, but it still belongs to Colonel Tempest even so …’

Colin reached into his pocket and produced a bunch of keys tied to a label.

‘No longer, I’m afraid. I’m surprised you haven’t heard, but it will be in the Advertiser at the weekend. Colonel Tempest died last week, so the house is on the market. Barry Windrush’s father is handling the sale and Barry gave me a tip-off.’ He gave a swift, excited laugh and drew her unresponsive body against his. ‘Don’t you understand, darling? That’s going to be our house!’

The silence was endless and then she said stupidly, ‘But—we can’t buy that.’

‘What’s to prevent us? Don’t be an idiot, my sweet.’ The affection in his voice had an added note of exasperation. ‘I’ve spoken to Dad, and he’s given us the go-ahead. In fact, he’s all for it. It’s ideal—close to the works, big enough to do all the entertaining, but not so massive that you’d need an immense staff to help you run it. I believe the Tempests had a housekeeper. She’s been keeping an eye on the place, I understand, so its condition should be quite reasonable. And her husband has been keeping the garden in order. I know they’re neither of them young any more, but Barry reckons they might be quite willing to stay on, if they were asked, and that would solve all sorts of problems. Janna, what is it? Are you all right?’

‘Yes, I’m fine,’ she lied, trying desperately to catch at the rags of her self-control. She gave him a meaningless smile. ‘But you can’t be serious, Colin. How can we live here? It’s the old Tempest house. Everyone knows that.’

He shrugged irritably. ‘No doubt, but what happens now that there are no more “old Tempests” to occupy it? Do you really think a lovely place like this should be left to moulder away and fall down? Not if I know it. Come on, darling,’ he added with an impatient look at his watch. ‘It’s you that has to get back. Come and have a look round.’

She had no option but to obey. If she refused to go in at all, he would have every reason to accuse her of being illogical, and she couldn’t explain.

As they reached the top of the steps, she said carefully. ‘But there are more Tempests, aren’t there? What about the—the nephew?’

Colin shrugged, intent on fitting the key into the lock. ‘I wouldn’t know, darling. I didn’t even know there was a nephew. Whatever has happened to him, he hasn’t inherited the estate.’

The big panelled hall was just as she remembered it, with the sweep of the stairs leading up to the galleried landing above.

‘Barry says they used to hold dances in here.’ Colin looked around. ‘I must say there’s room enough. I’m quite sorry I never came to any of them. I suppose you never did, darling? You were probably too young.’

‘I came—once,’ she said, then walked over to the drawing room door and turned the handle. It was a beautiful room. She had always loved it with the great French windows looking out over the sloping gardens, and the gleam of the river in the distance. It looked forlorn without the deep sofas and chairs with their charming chintz covers. She could see the marks on the walls where pictures had once hung. The fire-irons still stood in the hearth to the left of the empty grate where sweet-smelling pine cones and logs had once burned. There had been a low-seated Victorian chair by that hearth once, she remembered, and Janna the schoolgirl had once sat nervously on its edge, clutching a bone china plate while Mrs Tempest poured tea and asked what she intended to do when she left school. And she had said quickly, ‘I’d like to travel,’ and tried to stop herself glancing too eagerly towards the door, waiting for the moment when it would open and he would come in. Rian. Rian Tempest, Colonel Tempest’s nephew and sole relative, who worked as a foreign correspondent on a newspaper and travelled all over the world.

But he did not come, and Janna’s excuse for her visit—she had volunteered to deliver the parish magazine for Mrs Hardwick who had a sprained ankle—was a complete waste. And she still had dozens of the beastly things to hike around in the sun. It was less a sense of duty and more a fear of retribution, divine or all too human, which had stopped her giving them decent burial behind some convenient hedge. But perhaps, she’d thought, giving her imagination full rein, Mrs Tempest might mention that evening over dinner that she’d been there. ‘That lovely Prentiss child’—which wasn’t really conceit because she’d heard it said so many times, and Rian might take a new look at her and see that she wasn’t really a child any more but a woman—a woman …

As she stood in the middle of the empty drawing room, Janna’s cheeks burned at the memory of her own naïveté. It had all seemed so simple then. You stretched out your hand and said ‘Give me’ and a kindly Providence dispensed whatever was required, because you were lovely and so nearly seventeen and spoiled by everyone.

Someone had left a key on the inside of the french windows leading to the terrace. The key was stiff in the lock, but eventually it yielded and Janna walked outside into the fresh air. Somewhere at the back of her mind a warning voice was shouting at her, ‘Don’t look back.’ All these years it had worked so well. Glimpsing the house as she drove past on her way somewhere else, hearing the Tempests mentioned, she had managed to avert her gaze and closed her ears.

It had been difficult, though, when she had heard that Mrs Tempest had died. She had never been a robust woman, Janna thought, remembering the finely boned face under its coronet of silvering hair. Colonel Tempest had always been openly protective towards his wife, and Rian’s attitude to his aunt had echoed this.