‘I’ll just run these bags upstairs,’ Henry said. He nodded towards double doors on the left of the hallway. ‘That’s the drawing room. Father and Ellie will be in there. Just go on in.’ He set off up the stairs at a brisk trot, leaving Cat feeling that she ought to knock. But this wasn’t some Sunday-evening period drama, she reminded herself. This was the twenty-first century and this was her friends’ home. So, cautiously, she opened the door and stuck her head round.
‘Come in, come in,’ the General called. Although he had arrived only moments before them, he looked as if he hadn’t budged since breakfast, sitting in a stylish leather chair with the Telegraph open on his lap.
Cat slipped inside, letting her gaze move out from the General to encompass the room as a whole. After the grandeur of the hall, it was a massive disappointment. Not the scale; that was grand and well-proportioned, dominated by a circular turret that consisted of tall windows supported by a delicate tracery of sandstone beams. It was the décor that astonished and dismayed her. Instead of a massive carved fireplace, rough stone walls and a flagged floor, the room looked like an illustration from a Scandinavian lifestyle magazine. Blond wooden floors with bright modern rugs, plastered walls adorned not with stags’ heads and salmon in display cases but with tapestries and hangings in contemporary style. The furniture flew in the face of tradition also; everything had been designed to within an inch of its life with comfort, beauty and function carrying equal weight. Treacherously, Cat remembered James talking about the family home of an Oxford friend – ‘So cool it wanted to snog itself.’ Given that she’d been expecting atmosphere and cobwebs, Cat felt almost distraught. It reminded her of nothing so much as the ultra-modern home of the vampires in the first Twilight film.
Seeing her look but perceiving nothing of what lay behind it, the General gave an expansive wave. ‘As you see, Cat, we live simply. Nothing for show, everything for daily use. This used to be like a museum, but we took it in hand, didn’t we, Eleanor? No more draughts, no more gloomy corners. Now it’s all about comfort. We’ve not quite finished the project, as you’ll see in your own room, but we’re getting there.’
‘It’s lovely,’ Cat said, thinking a little wistfully of the kitchen in the vicarage with all its draughts and unmatched chairs with their surprise cargoes of cats. Nobody had ever given it a design makeover; it would have reduced a TV presenter to tears. But it was welcoming and warm, not sterile with all the elegance money could buy.
The General glanced at his watch. ‘I don’t imagine anyone wants lunch after our visit to Lachie’s? An early dinner it is, then. I’ll tell Mrs Calman, service at six. Eleanor, why don’t you show Catherine to her room? I’m sure you girls have plenty to occupy yourselves till then.’
No dismissal short of grasping the scruff of her neck could have been clearer. Cat followed Ellie out of the room and they made for the stairs. ‘The drawing room’s amazing,’ Cat said.
‘After my mother died, Father went through the ground floor like a whirlwind. He didn’t want anything that reminded him of her taste, of how she liked things. The entrance hall was the only bit that escaped – Historic Scotland dug their heels in and he couldn’t get listed building consent to strip it out.’ Ellie gave Cat a conspiratorial look. ‘Even Father thought twice about defying Historic Scotland.’
‘I’m glad,’ said Cat as they began to climb the wide, shallow steps with their indentations made by hundreds of years of ascending and descending feet. ‘There’s so much atmosphere here.’
‘I think you’ll find your bedroom’s pretty atmospheric,’ Ellie said. ‘Once he’d sorted out all the rooms he goes into routinely, Father more or less ran out of steam. It’s not quite medieval in the guest wing, but it’s not that modern either, apart from the plumbing. When Father came back from the Falklands, he had a real bee in his bonnet about efficient plumbing, so you will at least have a bathroom that works!’
Once they reached the gallery, Ellie pointed to a corridor on the right. ‘That’s the family corridor. Where Henry and Freddie and I have our bedrooms, and our sitting room. The middle corridor is Father’s domain. And here –’ she led the way into a long corridor that snaked away from the staircase ‘– is the guest wing. I had Mrs Calman put you right at the end because that’s got the best views.’ The stone flags echoed as the two girls continued through a dog-leg that cut off the view back to the main stairs. They reached the end of the passage and Ellie turned to a door on the right. ‘Here we are.’ Ellie lingered on the threshold, as if she was reluctant to enter. ‘The door opposite leads to the back stairs, which brings you out opposite the dining room. I brought you this way so you’d know how to find our sitting room. It’s at the end of the corridor I showed you at the top of the stairs. Why don’t you join us there when you’ve got yourself settled in?’ And she was off, walking briskly back in the direction she’d come from.
Feeling a little mystified, Cat let herself into the room. It was a generous, unremarkable cube. The walls were plastered and painted the pale lemon of weak sunlight. A large painting of a seascape hung on one wall. It reminded Cat of the McTaggarts she had seen at the Kirkcaldy gallery where she’d gone with the Allens to the Vettriano exhibition. It felt like light years ago now. The floor was covered in sisal matting, and the king-sized pine bed was set against a wall so that from it the occupant had a view through two windows across treetops to distant hills. A heavily ornate Victorian wardrobe and matching chest of drawers stood in the far corner, and in the shallow bay of one window there was a black japanned chest about four feet in height.
It was the only object in the room that excited Cat’s interest, but this wasn’t the time to explore it. A look wouldn’t hurt, though. ‘Oh, but you are so tempting,’ she said, running a hand over its smoothly lacquered top. She took a moment to examine it, seeing that the front was split in two, as if it were two doors. But they were doors without a lock and without handles. Puzzled, she looked more closely and realised the lid over-lapped the doors and acted as a means of closure. Satisfied that she’d be able to return to it in her own time, she turned away and took out her phone, snapping several shots of her bedroom and the marble-lined bathroom beyond, with its roll-top bath and smoked-glass shower cubicle.
But when she went to send the photos to Bella and her sisters, she was dismayed to see there was no phone signal. Nor was there any indication that there was an available wifi connection. Surely that couldn’t be right? The Tilneys couldn’t exist in this isolated place without digital connections, could they? She knew there were a handful of people in the village who didn’t have email or mobile phones, but they were either old or weird. The General might be eccentric but she didn’t think he was weird. There had to be a reason for this lack of connection, and the creepy little voice she didn’t want to listen to had one or two ideas what that might be.
Giving herself a mental shake, Cat realised Ellie and Henry might be wondering what was taking her so long. She opened her bag and thrust her clothes randomly into the chest of drawers, then ran back down to the junction at the top of the stairs. She gave a curious glance down General Tilney’s corridor, but she could see nothing but blank walls and closed doors. She scuttled on down past more closed doors until she arrived at one that was ajar. Through the door floated the sound of a guitar played with no little skill.
Cat pushed the door open and Henry looked up from a somewhat battered old guitar. He gave her a welcoming smile. ‘You found us. Ellie was afraid she hadn’t given you clear enough directions. Come in and join us. We like to think of this as the Slytherin common room.’
‘Hardly,’ Ellie said, rising from the comfy chintz sofa where she was sprawled. ‘When you’re around, it’s more like Hufflepuff. Typical lawyer, all hot air and bluster.’
There was certainly a feel of boarding school common room about the place. Shelves groaned with books that ranged from children’s classics to current bestsellers. Towers of board games and jigsaws leaned drunkenly in o
ne corner. An electric keyboard, a drum machine and an expensive-looking sound system filled another. A TV, DVD and games console completed the possibilities. The furniture was battered and scruffy but everything looked comfortable. It was, Cat thought, almost like home.
She lowered herself into an armchair piled with cushions and luxuriated in the comfort. ‘What a great room,’ she said.
‘It’s always been the place we could escape from order and orders,’ Henry said. ‘Your room OK?’
Cat nodded. ‘Better than OK. It’s lovely. Great views.’
‘Mother always said it had the best light in the house. When she was piecing a quilt she used to take her fabrics down there to see how the colours truly looked together,’ Ellie said.
‘There’s no phone signal, though,’ Cat said, taking out her phone and checking. Still nothing.
‘Father refuses point-blank to have a tower on our land, so we’re in a black hole here,’ Henry said. ‘Sometimes you can pick up one or two bars up by the lodge, but if you want anything decent, you have to go a couple of miles down the Kelso road. Sorry about that. If you need to phone home, there’s not a problem, we’ve got a perfectly functional landline.’
‘What about wifi? I’ve got nothing coming up in my phone menu.’
Ellie groaned. ‘I know. I’m sorry. We do have wireless, but Father is completely paranoid about it. He’s convinced that if he leaves the router switched on, all sorts of hackers and spies will crawl inside our computers to spy on us and empty our bank accounts.’
‘They’re welcome to mine,’ Henry muttered. ‘If they can find anything in it.’
‘So he only switches it on when he wants to use it, which is almost never.’
‘You mean, you don’t get to use your own wifi?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Ellie said.
‘But how do you do Facebook and Twitter and stuff?’
Ellie and Henry exchanged a look. ‘When I’m here, we go into Kelso. There’s a coffee shop with free wifi,’ Henry said.
‘And when he’s not here . . .’ Ellie looked embarrassed, ‘the Calmans have their own wifi and I know the password. When they’re both busy, I sneak up to the lodge and sit on their windowsill.’
What was it she’d read in that Scott Fitzgerald short story, that the rich were different, that getting things early made them soft? It looked like there was some truth in that. Cat couldn’t imagine herself or any of her siblings giving in so meekly to such a ridiculous interdiction.
Unless of course the Tilneys had other reasons, deeper reasons for wanting to keep their privacy intact.
22
Cat had hoped for an afternoon in the company of both Tilneys; as much as she enjoyed Ellie’s company, it was Henry who brought out the sparkle in her. But he barely stayed with them a quarter of an hour, dragging himself away with apparent reluctance to prepare a briefing paper. ‘Do you have to do it today?’ Ellie asked. ‘When Cat’s just got here?’
Henry spread his hands. ‘What can I do? It’s for my devilmaster.’
His response startled and alarmed Cat, and both Tilneys burst out laughing at her expression. ‘If you could see your face,’ Ellie giggled.
‘It’s a Scottish legal term,’ Henry said. ‘Technically, I’m a devil. That’s what they call a trainee advocate. In a couple of months, hopefully my devilmaster will decide I’m fit for purpose and he’ll recommend to the principal devilmaster that I should be admitted to the Faculty of Advocates. But till then, I spend my days devilling.’
‘What a bizarre name for it. My brother is a pupil barrister in Newcastle, he’s never claimed to be a devil!’
‘That’s because he’s not.’ Henry put the guitar down and stood up. ‘It’s one of those things that marks the difference between Scottish and English law. But perhaps your father would have put the blocks on you coming to visit a house with a resident devil?’
‘I don’t know if he believes in that kind of devil,’ Cat said uneasily.
‘What? He doesn’t do exorcisms?’
‘No, he’s just an ordinary vicar.’
‘Perhaps it’s about time he started, if you’re going to be hanging out with the devilish Tilneys.’ It was Henry’s parting shot as he left the room.
Left to their own devices, Cat and Ellie had no problem entertaining themselves. They put on a music DVD then talked their way through it, slumped on the sofa together. Who knows what they discussed; only that it was of no consequence to anyone but themselves. But at last, Ellie told an anecdote about a family holiday that featured her mother. And Cat found the courage to ask her about matters of more weight. ‘How old were you when your mother died?’
Ellie shifted away from her. ‘Thirteen,’ she said.
‘That sucks,’ Cat said. ‘I don’t know how I’d have got through the last four years without my mum. I mean, sometimes she drives me completely tonto, but mostly she’s like a great big security blanket.’
‘That’s a great way of describing it,’ Ellie said. ‘And when you lose that, it’s like falling through space with no bottom.’
‘Was it sudden, when she died? Or did you have time to get used to the idea? Not that I suppose you can ever get used to an idea like that.’
Ellie shook her head. ‘She kept saying she felt tired, so eventually Father took her off to some specialist in Edinburgh for tests. It was in the Christmas holidays.’ She gave a sad little noise that might have been an attempt at a laugh. ‘He wasn’t very sympathetic. He thought the doctor would just tell her to pull herself together. When they came home, they both looked shell-shocked. They just said there was something wrong with her blood then shut themselves away in Father’s study. Henry and I were terrified.’
‘Anyone would have been. But, something wrong with her blood? What was it? Did you find out?’
Ellie gave a heartfelt sigh. ‘Mother told us later that night. She had a rare form of leukaemia. It’s got a long complicated name so they just call it T-PLL. It’s very aggressive. She told us the chances were that she only had a few months to live.’
‘Was there no treatment?’ Cat couldn’t imagine what it must be like to hear such news. She didn’t think she could bear it if it happened to her mother.
‘She didn’t want to do the chemo. She said it wasn’t going to save her from dying and she wanted to make the most of the time she had with us.’ Ellie’s mouth twisted in a bitter grimace. ‘It turned out there wasn’t much of that. She was dead inside two months.’
Impulsively, Cat put her arm round Ellie’s shoulders and pulled her friend close. ‘I’m so, so sorry,’ she said. But she couldn’t help a tiny niggling voice in the back of her head muttering about bad blood and vampires.
‘It all happened so fast,’ Ellie said. ‘And Father just cut himself off from all of us. Freddie’s useless when it comes to emotions, so that left me and Henry to cope on our own. I suppose that’s why we’re so close now.’
They said nothing for a time while the music DVD continued, irrelevantly upbeat about love and heartbreak. The mood was broken by a knock at the door and a short red-faced woman bustled in without pausing for an invitation. ‘I thought I’d better remind you dinner’s early tonight,’ she said. ‘You know how your father hates to be kept waiting.’ Her accent was so broad Cat felt herself translating into English in her head.
Ellie sprang up like a guilty thing surprised. ‘Mrs C! This is my friend Catherine Morland.’ She turned to Cat. ‘This is Mrs Calman. Calman’s wife. Obviously. She runs the house for us. We’d be lost without her.’
‘Everybody calls me Cat.’ She wasn’t sure of the etiquette. Should she shake hands or not?
Mrs Calman surveyed her from head to toe with small dark eyes like currants in a scarlet bun. ‘Welcome to Northanger Abbey, Miss Morland. I hope you enjoy your stay with us. If you need anything at all, just see me.’ It sounded more like a threat than an offer.
‘Thank you.’ Cat gave an uncertain smile. ‘This is an amazing house.?
??
‘Aye,’ Mrs Calman said. ‘If these walls could talk . . .’ She turned to Ellie. ‘Don’t forget now, Eleanor. I’ll be putting the soup on the table in half an hour. Whether you’re there or not.’ She nodded at them both and left, closing the door firmly behind her.
‘Wow. She’s a bit of a dragon,’ Cat said.
‘She used to be in the army. That’s how she met Calman. I think they both think that working for Father is as close as it gets to still being in uniform.’
‘If it was a novel, she’d have been the one who clasped you to her bosom after your mother died and revealed her previously unsuspected heart of gold.’
Ellie snorted. ‘Trust me, my life is definitely not a novel. We’d better get ready for dinner. I’ll meet you at the top of the stairs in twenty minutes.’
Cat looked at her jeans and T-shirt. ‘Should I get changed?’
Ellie gave her a critical once-over. ‘Jeans are OK, but I’d lose the T-shirt. Father likes to pretend the last hundred years never happened.’
They parted in the hallway and Cat hurried back to her room. She decided to ditch both the jeans and the T-shirt in favour of a long floaty skirt layered in different shades of green and blue, topped with a plain white cambric blouse. If the General wanted to live in the past, she’d do her best to be a demure young woman. She looked longingly at the japanned chest, but told herself to be patient, to wait till the house had settled down for the night. Just as well she had, for only moments later, Ellie knocked on her door, impatient for her company.