face and decided against it. ‘Of course,’ she said, although she wondered what help she could be.
‘We have the money Dad left us but that’s about it,’ he said, thinking aloud.
‘We could turn it into a hotel?’ suggested Kitty, having seen it done on TV before.
‘What the hell do we know about that, Kit? It would be worse than Fawlty Towers I think,’ he said.
Kitty laughed. ‘Yes well, I suppose you’re right.’
‘I wish there was buried treasure somewhere. Dad always said that his great-great-great-grandmother had said there was something of worth in the house, but I have no idea what he meant. He spent his life searching for it, but who knows what she was talking about?’ he said.
Poppy looked at Merritt, her eyes wide. ‘Treasure? I’ll find it!’ she said.
Kitty smiled at her indulgently. ‘Well if you do then you can have some of it,’ she said to the small girl, whose cheeks were flushed from the country air.
Merritt stuffed two pikelets into his mouth at once. ‘I wonder what the hell she meant,’ he pondered.
‘I have no idea. There aren’t even any paintings left of George’s,’ said Kitty as she refilled her chipped mug, referring to their ancestor who had built the house. His paintings, once worthless, were now well regarded by the art community. Their father had watched with painful fascination every time a new painting went up for sale at one of the major auction houses.
‘Should be our money,’ he used to say to the children when he saw the rising prices of George Middlemist’s works in the marketplace.
Family legend was that once George and his wife Clementina had separated, she sold all his works to keep herself and her children in the lifestyle they were accustomed to. Divorce was not an option in Victorian England, Edward’s father had told Merritt and Kitty, and once George had had the affair with his life model Clementina threw him out of Middlemist, where she stayed until she died of old age.
Clementina had been an artist too, but not of the same calibre as George, and the only paintings left in the house were hers. They weren’t likely to get the same price as George’s art and so the family had them stacked away in the eaves, in what was once George’s studio.
Merritt stood up and bowed to Kitty and Lucian. ‘Well, Lady Poppy and Lord Lucian, it was my pleasure to escort you today. Please feel free to see me at any time and let me know if I can be of assistance. No matter is too small or too big; I am at your service.’
Poppy giggled and Lucian looked straight ahead. Merritt walked over to the phone on the bench and took the pen and pad that lay next to it.
‘I’m off to see what work lies ahead of me,’ he said, and he walked out the door. Lucian got out of his seat and watched as Merritt walked away.
‘He’ll come back,’ said Kitty to Lucian, who was peering through the dirty glass. He turned to Kitty and then looked back out of the window again. That’s odd, she thought, he never notices anyone.
Kitty forgot about Lucian quickly as Jinty’s wails came crackling through the kitchen on the baby monitor. ‘Your sister’s awake. How about I get her up and we see what she’s up to?’ said Kitty cheerfully, and she took the two other children upstairs to see their sister.
Merritt walked around the Lady’s Garden, as it was known, taking notes and thinking about Willow’s children. He hadn’t spent much time with children at all, but Lucian reminded him of a client’s child he had seen in Florida. He was the eight-year-old son of a wealthy polo player from South America. They were a lovely family, he remembered, enthusiastic about Merritt’s ideas, and they included their child in everything. Merritt had stayed nearby the house for six weeks to ensure the proper placement of their large collection of rare trees, and he had spoken at length with the wife about her son. He tried to remember what she had said her child’s condition was. She had asked Merritt to design a sensory garden for him and he had had much delight in working with the boy, getting him to choose plants and flowers that would stimulate him.
A few times a week a special teacher would come and work with him and mostly they worked outside on the green lawn, playing games and rolling on sports equipment, even crawling together. Merritt had watched with interest and he even saw small improvements by the time he left. Merritt reminded himself to email the woman to ask for more information so he could give it to Kitty for Willow.
Inside the house Kitty was fighting with Poppy, who was insisting on using her crayons on the wooden oak panels in the hallway. ‘No,’ said Kitty. ‘These are not for drawing on.’
‘Well I want to draw. I want my art things and you didn’t bring them,’ moaned Poppy accusingly.
‘Well I’m sure we have some paper somewhere,’ said Kitty, licking her thumb and trying to get the green crayon off the wall.
‘I want real art things,’ said Poppy, making a face that Kitty knew from experience would turn into a giant wail.
Kitty thought of the eaves, where all of Clementina’s paintings were housed. Perhaps there were things up there. She remembered her mother and her father had dabbled in art, and they had also encouraged Merritt and Kitty to paint, hoping that their ancestor’s genes would come through – but to no avail. Eventually it had all been packed away. Kitty wondered if it was all still stored up there in the eaves.
‘Alright, come on then,’ she said impatiently, and picking up Jinty and gently pushing Lucian ahead of her she led the way for Poppy to follow her up to the eaves. The stairs got smaller as they climbed and it became darker, the air mustier. Jinty started to cry and squirm in Kitty’s arms. ‘Hang on, nearly there,’ she said, and they came to a small wooden door. Kitty hadn’t been up here in years, and she pushed open the door wondering what she would find.
The room was dank and smelt of stale air and oil paints. Kitty held Jinty as she drew back one of the blinds and sunlight flooded the room. All of Clementina’s paintings leant against the far wall and there were many easels and canvases with half-finished paintings. A red chaise longue in tattered velvet was the only piece of real furniture in the room apart from a small table with a tarnished bowl sitting on top of it. There were shelves of books and art supplies and a small sink in the corner of the room.
There were trunks stacked on top of each other and a few boxes marked ‘Iris’. No doubt her mother’s things that her father had hidden away after her death, thought Kitty sadly. She remembered how desolate her father had been. That’s when he forgot me, she thought, trying to hold back the tears that pricked her eyes.
Kitty’s father had been so enveloped in his own grief that he’d let Kitty do as she pleased. He had ignored her failing at school, her lack of confidence and her sadness. She had lost her mother, but that was not enough to pierce his veil of desolation, and so they had lived in the same house, sometimes not speaking for days. She felt like her mother had abandoned her first by dying, then Merritt had abandoned her when he and Eliza split up, and then her own father had abandoned her in her own house.
Kitty sat on the sagging chaise longue. The emotion threatened to overwhelm her and she wondered at the strange turn of events that had brought her here, back at Middlemist with Willow’s children and Merritt, sitting in the eaves.
Poppy danced around the room. ‘Look at all the things! Can I have them?’ she asked, expecting the answer to be yes, as it usually was.
