style="font-size:15px;"> ‘And now it’s in Sybella’s,’ his grandfather said smugly.
Sybella.
Nik couldn’t help picturing one of the matronly women who had picketed the drive, in her husband’s oversized hunting jacket and wellington boots, face like the back of a shovel, shouting about British heritage and marching a troop of equally appalling kids through his grandfather’s home. When she wasn’t going through Deda’s papers and possibly siphoning his bank account.
This was not what he wanted to hear. He had a new pipe starting up in Archangelsk, which would keep him in the north for much of this year. Business was expanding and he needed to be on site.
But now he had a new problem: a white elephant of a property sitting up in the English Cotswolds he’d been ignoring for too long, currently housing his grandfather and apparently the local historical group.
Nik didn’t have time for this, but he knew he was going to have to make time.
‘And what does this Sybella have to do with the Heritage Trust when she’s not cooking and cleaning and herding children?’ he asked tightly.
His grandfather chuckled and delivered the coup de grâce. ‘She runs it.’
THE PRESIDENT OF the local branch of the Heritage Trust stood up, removed her glasses and announced somewhat dolefully to the committee members assembled that a legal document had been lodged this morning at the trust’s London office suspending any further activity of the trust in the Hall.
‘Does that mean we can’t use the empty gatehouse as a visitors’ centre?’ Mrs Merrywether wanted to know. ‘Because Sybella said we could.’
A dozen grey heads turned and Sybella found herself sinking a little lower in her chair, because she had indeed waved a letter around last month claiming they had the right.
But dodging responsibility wasn’t her way.
‘I can’t understand why this has happened,’ she told the meeting, feeling very guilty and responsible for the confusion that had gripped the room. ‘I’ll look into it and sort it out. I promise.’
Seated beside her Mr Williams, the retired local accountant, patted her arm. ‘We know you will, Sybella, we trust your judgement. You haven’t led us wrong once.’
There was a hum of agreement, which only made Sybella feel worse as she packed up her notes and made her usual early departure.
She had worked hard for twelve months to make Edbury Hall a place of life and activity for its new incumbent, Mr Voronov, and continue to earn its keep for the village. While this house might personally remind her of some grim stage set for a horror film starring Christopher Lee, the Hall also brought in its share of the tourist trade and kept the local shops turning over.
If this all collapsed it would affect everybody. And she would be responsible.
Rugging herself up in the boot room for her dash home, Sybella fished her phone out of her jeans back pocket and rang her sister-in-law.
Meg lived in a jaunty little semi-detached house on a busy road in Oxford, where she taught art to people with no real aptitude for painting and belly danced at a local Egyptian restaurant. She took off and travelled at the drop of a hat. Her life was possibly the one Sybella would have gravitated towards if life in all its infinite twists of fate hadn’t set her on another course, with much more responsibility and less room to move. Sybella considered Meg her best friend.
‘It’s the letters. I should have known,’ she groaned after a brief rundown on tonight’s meeting. ‘Nobody writes letters any more.’
‘Unless you’re a lonely seventy-nine-year-old man rattling around in a big empty house, trying to fill it with people,’ said Meg.
Sybella sighed. Every time something new occurred at the Hall Mr Voronov gave the same advice.
‘Just write to my grandson and let him know. I’m sure there will be no problems.’
So she had. She’d written just as she’d been writing every month for the past year detailing events at Edbury Hall.
Because she’d been too damn timid to face him on the phone.
She’d let her native shyness trip her up—again—and this was the tip, Sybella suspected, of a huge iceberg that was going to take her little ship out. She said as much, leaving out the bit about being a timid mouse. Meg didn’t cut you slack for being a mouse.
‘My ship, Meg. My ship of fools, me being the captain!’
Meg was silent and Sybella already knew what was coming.
‘You know what this is a result of? That weird life you lead in the village.’
‘Please, Meg, not now.’ Sybella shouldered her way out of the boot room. The corridor was dark and faintly menacing, although she suspected anyone coming across her would probably run the other way. She was wearing her Climb and Ski gear that was packed with a substance that was supposed to keep you warm and dry in the Arctic. It wasn’t particularly flattering to a woman’s figure and it also inhibited natural movement. She was aware she currently resembled a yeti.
Meg was persistent. ‘You hang around with all those oldies...’
‘You know why I volunteer with the Heritage Trust. It’s going to get me a job in the end.’
Sybella made her way to the servants’ entrance, from which she could slip unnoticed out of the house, cross the courtyard and disappear through a space in the hedge that led to the lane that wound down the hill to the top of her road.
‘Really? You’ve been doing unpaid work for them for over a year. When does it pay off for you?’
‘It’s work experience in my field. Do you know how difficult it is to get a job with just a degree?’
‘I don’t know why you won’t move down to Oxford with me. It’s bristling with opportunities.’
‘Your parents are here,’ she said firmly. She was always firm when it came to her daughter’s well-being. ‘And I’m not removing Fleur from her home.’
‘It’s a two-hour drive. They can see her on weekends.’
‘Who is going to look after her while I’m at work? Think of the practicalities, Meg.’ God knew she had to. If she hadn’t been so busy juggling all the balls life had thrown at her she might have thought through those practicalities with a little more precision at the Hall.
‘Fair enough,’ conceded Meg. ‘But you’ve put a lot of eggs in that house of horrors basket.’
‘Yes, because I have a growing daughter who has her roots in this village—a village with no other job opportunities in my chosen field. I’ve tried Stansfield Castle, Belfort Castle and Lark House. None are interested in someone with lots of education but no on-the-ground experience. Without Edbury Hall, Meg, I’m stuck!’
