The Empty House

  “Who did?”

  “Mrs. Thomas, my housekeeper … like a drink, would you?” He went to open a fridge, to take a can of beer from the inside of the door.

  “No, thank you.”

  He smiled. “I haven’t got any Coke.”

  “I don’t want a drink.”

  As they spoke, Virginia looked about her, terrified that anything in this marvellous room should have been altered, that Eustace might have changed something, moved the furniture, painted the walls. But it was just as she remembered. The scrubbed table pulled into the bay of the window, the geraniums on the window-sills, the dresser packed with bright china. After all these years it remained the epitome of everything a proper kitchen should be, the heart of the house.

  When they had taken over Kirkton and were doing it up, cellar to attic, she had tried to get a kitchen like the Penfolda one. Somewhere comfortable and warm where the family would congregate, and drink tea and gossip round the scrubbed table.

  “Who wants to go into a kitchen?” Anthony had asked, not understanding at all.

  “Everybody. A farmhouse kitchen’s like a living-room.”

  “Well, I’m not going to live in any kitchen, I’ll tell you that.”

  And he ordered stainless steel fitments and bright Formica worktops and a black and white chequered floor that showed every mark and was the devil to keep clean.

  Now Virginia leaned against the table and said with deep satisfaction, “I was afraid it would have changed, but it’s just the same.”

  “Why should it have changed?”

  “No reason. I was just afraid. Things do change. Eustace, Alice told me that your mother had died … I’m sorry.”

  “Yes. Two years ago. She had a fall. Got pneumonia.” He chucked the empty can neatly into a trashbucket and turned to survey her, propping his length against the edge of the sink. “And how about your own mother?”

  His voice held no expression; she could detect no undertones of sarcasm or dislike.

  “She died, Eustace. She became very ill a couple of years after Anthony and I were married. It was dreadful, because she was ill for so long. And it was difficult, because she was in London and I was at Kirkton … I couldn’t be with her all the time.”

  “And I suppose you were all the family she had?”

  “Yes. That was part of the trouble. I used to visit her as often as I could, but in the end we had to bring her up to Scotland, and eventually she went into a nursing home in Relkirk, and she died there.”

  “That’s bad.”

  “Yes. And she was so young. It’s a funny thing when your mother dies. You never really grow up till that happens.” She amended this. “At least, I suppose that’s how some people feel. You were grown up long before then.”

  “I don’t know about that,” said Eustace. “But I know what you mean.”

  “Anyway, it was all over years ago. Don’t let’s talk about miserable things. Tell me about you, and Mrs. Thomas. Do you know, Alice Lingard said you’d either have a domesticated mistress or a sexy housekeeper? I can’t wait to meet her.”

  “Well, you’ll have to. She’s gone to Penzance to see her sister.”

  “Does she live at Penfolda?”

  “She has the cottage at the other end of the house. This used to be three cottages, you know, in the old days, before my grandfather bought the place. Three families lived here and farmed a few acres. Probably had half a dozen cows for milking and sent their sons down the tin mines to keep the wolf from the door.”

  “Two days ago,” said Virginia, “I drove out to Lanyon and sat on the hill, and there were combine harvesters out, and men haymaking. I thought one of them was probably you.”

  “Probably was.”

  She said, “I thought you’d be married.”

  “I’m not.”

  “I know. Alice Lingard said that you weren’t.”

  After he had finished his beer, he took knives and forks from a drawer and began to lay the table but Virginia stopped him. “It’s too nice indoors. Couldn’t we eat the pasties in the garden?”

  Eustace looked amazed, but said, “All right,” and found her a basket for the knives and forks and plates and the salt and pepper and glasses, and he eased the piping hot pasties out of the oven on to a great flowered china dish, and they went out of a side door into the sunshine and the untidy little farmhouse garden. The grass needed cutting and the flower-beds were brimming with cheerful cottage flowers, and there was a washing line, flapping with bright white sheets and pillow-cases.

  Eustace had no garden furniture so they sat on the grass, tall with daisies and plantains, with the dishes of their picnic spread about them.

  The pasties were enormous, and Virginia had only eaten half of hers, and was defeated by the remainder, by the time that Eustace, propped on an elbow, had consumed the whole length of his.

  She said. “I can’t eat any more,” and gave him the rest of hers, which he took and placidly demolished. He said, through a mouthful of pastry and potato: “If I weren’t so hungry, I’d make you eat it, fatten you up a bit.”

  “I don’t want to be fat.”

  “But you’re much too thin. You were always small enough, but now you look as though a puff of wind would blow you away. And you’ve cut your hair. It used to be long, right down your back, flowing about in the wind.” He put out a hand and circled her wrist with his thumb and forefinger. “There’s nothing of you.”

  “Perhaps it was the ’flu.”

  “I thought you’d be enormous after all these years of eating porridge and herrings and haggis.”

  “You mean, that’s what people eat in Scotland.”

  “It’s what I’ve been told.” He let go of her wrist and peacefully finished the pasty, and then began to collect the plates and the basket and carry everything indoors. Virginia made movements as though to help, but he told her to stay where she was, so she did this, lying back in the grass and staring at the straight grey roof on the barn, and the seagulls perched there, and the scudding shapes of small, white fine-weather clouds, blown from the sea across the incredibly blue sky.

  Eustace returned, carrying cigarettes and green eating apples and a Thermos of tea. Virginia lay where she was, and he tossed her an apple and she caught it, and he sat beside her again, unscrewing the cap of the Thermos.

  “Tell me about Scotland.”

  Virginia turned the apple, cool and smooth, in her hands.

  “What shall I tell you?”

  “What did your husband do?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Didn’t he have a job?”

  “Not exactly. Not a nine-to-five job. But he’d been left this estate…”

  “Kirkton?”

  “… Yes, Kirkton … by an uncle. A great big house and about a thousand acres of land, and after we’d got the house in order, that seemed to take up most of his time. He grew trees, and farmed in a rather gentlemanly way … I mean, he had a grieve—a bailiff you’d call him—who lived in the farmhouse. Mr. McGregor. It was he who really did most of the work, but Anthony was always occupied. I mean…” she finished feebly … “he seemed to be able to fill in his days.”

  Shooting five days a week in the season, fishing and playing golf. Driving north for the stalking, taking off for St. Moritz for a couple of months every winter. It was no good trying to explain a man like Anthony Keile to a man like Eustace Philips. They belonged to different worlds.

  “And what about Kirkton now?”

  “I told you, the grieve looks after it.”

  “And the house?”

  “It’s empty. At least, the furniture’s all there, but there’s nobody living in it.”

  “Are you going back to this empty house?”

  “I suppose so. Some time.”

  “What about the children?”

  “They’re in London, with Anthony’s mother.”

  “Why aren’t they with you?” asked Eustace, sounding not critical, merely c
urious, as though he simply wished to know.

  “It just seemed a good idea, my coming away on my own. Alice Lingard wrote and asked me to come, and it seemed a good idea, that’s all.”

  “Why didn’t you bring the children too?”

  “Oh, I don’t know…” Even to herself her own voice sounded elaborately casual, unconvincing. “Alice doesn’t have any children and her house isn’t geared for them … I mean, everything’s rather special and rare and breakable. You know how it is.”

  “In fact, I don’t, but go on.”

  “Anyway, Lady Keile likes having them with her…”

  “Lady Keile?”

  “Anthony’s mother. And Nanny likes going there because she used to work for Lady Keile. She was Anthony’s own Nanny when he was a little boy.”

  “But I thought the children were quite big.”

  “Cara’s eight and Nicholas is six.”

  “But why do they have to have a Nanny? Why can’t you look after them?”

  Over the years Virginia had asked herself that question time without number, and had come up with no sort of an answer, but for Eustace to voice it, unasked, out of the blue, filled her with a perverse resentment.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just what I say.”

  “I do look after them. I mean, I see a lot of them…”

  “If they’ve just lost their father, surely the one person they need to be with is their mother, not a grandmother and an old inherited Nanny. They’ll think everybody’s deserting them.”

  “They won’t think anything of the sort.”

  “If you’re so sure, why are you getting so hot under the collar?”

  “Because I don’t like you interfering, airing your opinions about something you know nothing about.”

  “I know about you.”

  “What about me?”

  “I know your infinite capacity for being pushed around.”

  “And who pushes me around?”

  “I wouldn’t know for sure.” She realized with some astonishment that, in a cold way, he was becoming as angry as she. “But at a rough guess I would say your mother-in-law. Perhaps she took over where your own mother left off?”

  “Don’t you dare to speak about my mother like that.”

  “But it’s true, isn’t it?”

  “No, it’s not true.”

  “Then get your children down here. It’s inhuman leaving them in London for the summer holidays, in weather like this, when they should be running wild by the sea and in the fields. Take your finger out, ring up your mother-in-law and tell her to put them on a train. And if Alice Lingard doesn’t want them at Wheal House, because she’s afraid of the ornaments getting broken, then take them to a pub, or rent a cottage…”

  “That’s exactly what I intend doing, and I didn’t need you to tell me.”

  “Then you’d better start looking for one.”

  “I already have.”

  He was momentarily silenced, and she thought with satisfaction: That took the wind out of his sails.

  But only momentarily. “Have you found anything?”

  “I looked at one house this morning but it was impossible.”

  “Where?”

  “Here. In Lanyon.” He waited for her to tell him. “It was called Bosithick,” she added ungraciously.

  “Bosithick!” He appeared delighted. “But that’s a marvellous house.”

  “It’s a terrible house”

  “Terrible?” He could not believe his ears. “You do mean the cottage up the hill where Aubrey Crane used to live? The one that the Kernows inherited from his old aunt.”

  “That’s the one, and it’s creepy and quite impossible.”

  “What does creepy mean? Haunted?”

  “I don’t know. Just creepy.”

  “If it’s haunted by the ghost of Aubrey Crane you might have quite an amusing time. My mother remembered him, said he was a dear man. And very fond of children,” he added with what seemed to Virginia a classic example of a non sequitur.

  “I don’t care what sort of a man he was, I’m not going to take the house.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m not.”

  “Give me three good reasons…”

  Virginia lost her patience. “Oh, for heaven’s sake…” She made as if to get to her feet, but Eustace, with unexpected speed for such a large man, caught her wrist in his hand and pulled her back on to the grass. She looked angrily into his eyes and saw them cold as blue stones.

  “Three good reasons,” he said again.

  She looked down at his hand on her arm. He made no effort to move it and she said, “There’s no fridge.”

  “I’ll lend you a meat-safe. Reason number two.”

  “I told you. It’s got a spooky atmosphere. The children have never lived anywhere like that. They’d be frightened.”

  “Not unless they’re as hen-brained as their mother. Now, number three.”

  Desperately she tried to think up some good, watertight reason, something that would convince Eustace of her nameless horror of the odd little house on the hill. But all she came out with was a string of petty excuses, each sounding more feeble than the last. “It’s too small, and it’s dirty, and where would I wash the children’s things, and I don’t even know it there’s an iron for the ironing or a lawn-mower to cut the grass. And there’s no garden, just a sort of washing green place, and inside all the furniture is so depressing and…”

  He interrupted her. “These aren’t reasons, Virginia, and you know they’re not. They’re just a lot of bloody excuses.”

  “Bloody excuses for what?”

  “For not having a show-down with your mother-in-law or the old Nanny or possibly both. For making a scene and asserting yourself and bringing your own children up the way you want them to go.”

  Fury at him caught in her throat, a great lump that rendered her speechless. She felt the blood surge to her cheeks, she began to tremble, but although he must have seen all this, he went calmly on, saying all the terrible things that the voice in the back of her head had been saying for years, but to which she had never had the moral courage to pay any attention.

  “I don’t think you can give a damn for your children. You don’t want to be bothered with them. Someone else has always done the washing and the ironing and you’re not going to start now. You’re too bloody idle to take them for picnics and read them books and put them to bed. It’s really nothing to do with Bosithick. Whatever house you found, you’d be sure to find something wrong with it. Any excuse would do provided you never have to admit to yourself that you can’t be bloody bothered to take care of your own children.”

  Before the last word was out of his mouth, she was on her feet, tearing her arm free of his grip.

  “It’s not true! It’s none of it true! I do want them! I’ve been wanting them ever since I got here…!”

  “Then get them here, you little fool…” He was on his feet too, and they were shouting at each other across three feet of grass as though it were a desert.

  “That’s what I’m going to do. That’s just exactly what I’m going to do.”

  “I’ll believe that when you do it!”

  She turned and fled and was into her car before she remembered her handbag, still lying on the kitchen table. By now in floods of tears, she was out of the car and running into the house to retrieve it before Eustace reached her again. Then back to the car and turning it furiously, dangerously in the narrow confines of the farmyard, then back up the lane, with a roar of the engine and a great spattering of loose gravel from the back wheels.

  “Virginia!”

  Through tears, through the driving-mirror she saw him standing far behind her. She jammed her foot on the accelerator and swung out on to the main road without bothering to wait and see if anything was coming. By good chance it wasn’t, but she didn’t slow down all the way back to Porthkerris, down into the town and up the other side, parking the ca
r on the double yellow lines outside the solicitors’ office and leaving it there while she ran inside.

  This time she did not ring the bell, nor wait for Miss Leddra, but went, like the wind, through the outer office to fling open wide the door of Mr. Williams’s room, where Mr. Williams was rudely interrupted in the course of interviewing an autocratic old lady from Truro about the seventh set of alterations to her will.

  Both Mr. Williams and the old lady, silenced by astonishment, stared, open-mouthed. Mr. Williams, recovering first, began to scramble to his feet. “Mrs. Keile!” But before he could say another word Virginia had flung the keys of Bosithick on to his desk and said, “I’ll take it. I’ll take it right away. And as soon’s I’ve got my children, I’m moving in!”

  4

  Alice said, “I’m sorry Virginia, but I think you’re making the most terrible mistake. What’s more, it’s a classic mistake and one so many people make when they suddenly find themselves alone in the world. You’re acting on impulse, you haven’t really thought about this at all…”

  “I have thought about it.”

  “But the children are fine, you know they are, settled and happy with Nanny and your mother-in-law. The life they’re leading is simply an extension of life at Kirkton, all the things they know and that helps them to feel secure. Their father’s dead, and nothing’s ever going to be the same for them again. But if there have to be changes, at least let them happen slowly, gradually; let Cara and Nicholas have time to get used to them.”

  “They’re my children.”

  “But you’ve never looked after them. You’ve never had them on your own, except the odd times when Nanny could be persuaded to take a holiday. They’ll exhaust you, and honestly, Virginia, at the moment I don’t think you’re physically capable of doing it. After all, that’s why you came here, to recuperate from that loathsome ’flu, and generally have a little peace and quiet, give yourself time to get over the bad things that have been happening. Don’t deprive yourself of that. You’re going to need all your resources when you do eventually go back to Kirkton and start picking up the threads and learning to live without Anthony.”

  “I’m not going to Kirkton. I’m going to Bosithick. I’ve already paid the first week’s rent.”