Authors: Priscilla Masters
So the years passed until 1991.
It was early on a Wednesday morning and Dick was reading the Society gossip page in his newspaper over the breakfast table.
‘You missed out on something there, Zanna,’ he said, giving me a cheeky grin over the top of the page.
I was well used to his teasing. ‘What?’
He pushed the paper across the table. It was a picture of Paul, in a dinner suit, his arm draped across the shoulders of a slim youth I assumed must be Junior – the likeness was so strong. In fact, with the blonde hair, he looked very like the Paul I had first set eyes on at the country-house sale. The young buck, as Richard had called him. Underneath the picture the story read… ‘Paul Wernier-King and his son share a box at the London Opera House.’
The article continued, ‘Paul Wernier-King, whose bank was floated on the stock market yesterday, celebrates
with a night out with his son. The Wernier-King Bank has gone from strength to strength since its director, Paul Wernier-King, took over the reins three years ago.’
There was more gossipy stuff about his house and his relationships and it covered his divorce. It finished with the comment that he was considered one of the world’s most eligible bachelors.
It was a shock to see him again. I stared at the picture with a mixture of emotions and read something hard in Paul’s face which I had never seen before. But I was glad to see that his affection for his son was patently so strong. I passed the paper back to Dick without comment. ‘Water under the bridge,’ I said. ‘Now get on with your swotting.’
At the beginning of July 1991 Dick finally left school and joined Bottle Kiln Antiques. In fact he had excelled in his A levels with two ‘As’ and a ‘B’. He had chosen to specialise in the arts and had studied English and art and oddly enough biology. I was looking forward to him joining me but I didn’t want to be selfish. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to go to university?’
He shook his head very firmly.
It seemed that he had only been in the business for a matter of weeks before we were approached on behalf of a Canadian to furnish his house with ‘British antiques’. He gave us a budget of a million pounds sterling and furnished us with descriptions of the type of pieces he would like. He faxed detailed dimensions of the rooms
and the number of an interior decorator who was to work with us selecting pieces. It was a huge commission and, even timed with Dick’s partnership in the firm, promised to keep us very busy.
The real irony is that unless Dick had joined the firm I would not have accepted such an undertaking. It would have been too much for me alone – too much money, too much searching, too much travelling and too much responsibility. It is hard to choose pieces for another. But I was anxious for Dick to have plenty of work to do. I knew he would welcome the challenge and it was a good start to his new career. So after a brief discussion we took it on.
There was only one drawback that niggled me. The amount of money was so great that for the first time ever I used Hall o’th’Wood as collateral.
I hated doing it but Richard and I talked late into the night and we could see no other way. The Canadian had put the money up front but there were still insurances and shipping costs which we would initially bear until the pieces had arrived in New York and been approved.
The Canadian customer had unusual tastes. He liked chinoiserie, period walnut and Regency pieces, rather than decorative Victoriana, which made each individual piece expensive. We managed to track down two or three pieces of fine Queen Anne walnut and a lovely pair of Regency rosewood bookcases that I was sure would meet with his approval but filling the container kept us both busy.
We bought a few paintings too, mainly hunting scenes which he had stipulated, and two very fine still lifes.
By Christmas we had almost finished our buying. We were nearly up to our million mark and were anxious to gain our commission. So – we nailed down the containers and watched them being loaded on the quayside in Liverpool for their trip. Then we settled down for Christmas.
It was the time of year when we both missed Michael and Linda. We had taken to inviting Sara and her brood but it wasn’t the same. Besides, my sister had never really forgiven me for sacrificing Paul and even now found it hard to steer clear of the subject.
Like many families we were relieved when the festive season was over.
The nightmare began halfway through January when we had a phone call from our irate buyer to say that the container had not arrived.
At first I did not panic. There were plenty of possible explanations. His freight trucks had met the wrong boat. The pieces were in the wrong depot. The ship was delayed. My natural optimism found all sorts of rational explanations for the missing containers.
But at the back of my mind a little worm was boring.
If they didn’t turn up we were in trouble. I couldn’t stand the loss without having to remortgage Hall o’th’Wood. It could even be worse than that.
They would turn up, I told myself. But when, two weeks later, there was still no sign of the four containers,
our customer was furious – to say the least. He was starting to call us names and threaten legal action and I began to feel real terror overwhelming me.
A million, we had said so glibly. But it was an awful lot of money.
By early February I was panicking. The containers still hadn’t turned up and we were having trouble tracking them down. They had, it seemed, arrived at the dockside in New York and been picked up. The paperwork was faxed over to me. There was a signature purporting to be from our customer’s firm of carriers but they denied all knowledge. It was even harder trying to work out what had happened from the UK. In the pit of my stomach I believed they had been stolen and alerted the police who seemed to get nowhere.
Richard and I paced the house endlessly. Our assets had been frozen so business stagnated. Without money we could not buy and without stock we had nothing new to sell therefore no income.
It is a terrible fact that when no money is coming in to a household it seems to spitefully leak out all the faster.
I began to suffer from sleeplessness, to find it hard to concentrate. I would stand in front of the portrait of Richard and try to apologise to him. But did I read forgiveness in his eyes?
I don’t think so. He would not forgive this risk to his beloved house. In fact sometimes when I stood in front of his portrait I seemed to read scorn there and I began to feel that I had failed him after all.
And his grandson and I began to argue and point fingers at one another. Whose idea had it been to go ahead with this deal? When we knew we had both been in agreement. It was a terrible time.
And then, right out of the blue, at about three o’clock in the afternoon in the middle of February the telephone rang.
I picked it up, half-hopeful, half-dreading further bad news.
‘Susanna.’ It was a well-remembered voice.
‘You know where I live. You want your stuff back you’ll have to come and get it. Otherwise I’ll put a match to it.’ The phone clicked. The line was dead. I stared at it, wondering whether I had dreamt the whole thing.
Then I was galvanised into action. I ran upstairs to pack a bag and told Richard to book the next flight to New York. I half-explained what was happening but I didn’t really understand myself. He drove me to Manchester airport and waved me off. ‘Good luck, Zanna,’ he shouted. ‘Good luck.’ Then, ‘And don’t let him bully you.’
New York is not cold in February. It is freezing. I landed straight into an icy fog which penetrated even the fur coat I wore over a cream, wool dress and leather boots. I took a cab all the way from Newark to Tacoma and peered in through the gates while the cab driver spoke into the intercom. They swung open and I again saw the façade of Tacoma. It looked still and lifeless and cold. As we drove towards it a flock of Canada geese flew overhead marking the sky with their wings.
I paid the cabbie, knocked on the front door and stood back, watching the car slide back down the drive towards the gates. I watched them close behind him.
The door was opened by a black-frocked maid – no one I recognised. Not Lola or Jemima. I gave my name and she led me into the great hall with its white statues, then along the corridor to the small sitting room where I had been ushered on my first visit to Tacoma.
She opened the door, announced my name and left.
Paul was standing with his back to me, leaning against the fireplace. And even from behind I could see he had changed. He was not the Paul I had once known but a stranger. His once yellow hair was paler. He had put on a bit of weight, only a few pounds, but it made his frame look more powerful. He was not the slim youth he had been but a middle-aged man. And he was wearing a lounge suit which made me smile. The Paul I had known had practically never worn a suit – except occasionally a dinner suit.
I stood awkwardly.
He turned around and I saw the hardness I had read correctly from the newspaper photograph. He regarded me steadily and with some hostility for a while before speaking.
‘You look older.’
‘I am older,’ I said angrily. ‘And it might not have escaped your attention that I have had a worrying time lately.’
The shadow of a smile fleeted across his face and I saw that he was the same Paul. Memories flashed through my brain: the day I had first met him – the gangly youth in white trousers who had tried to speak and provoked such fury in my husband; his face – vulnerable when I had told him I could not have the child he so wanted; the day he had turned up at Casa Rosada and we had become lovers; his joy when I had agreed to marry him which had turned to white-hot anger when I had told him I was staying at Hall o’th’Wood. The lopsided,
awkward, uncertain grin. He had threaded through almost my entire life but I had been too blind to see it. Blinded by Hall o’th’Wood and Richard, blinded by what I had thought was my destiny and blinded by my duty to young Richard. I stared at him, speechless with the realisation of all that I had got wrong and he stared back.
I spoke first. ‘The furniture,’ I said. ‘What have you done with it?’
‘It’s safe,’ he said.
‘Surely,’ I asked curiously, ‘you wouldn’t really burn it? Knowing about antiques as you do.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because you value it. You would be destroying so much of beauty.’
He moved a step closer, his eyes burning with emotion. ‘And what were you prepared to destroy?’
I had no answer.
‘You walked in here, took everything away from me. You didn’t care about all the plans I had for us – and Junior. How do you think I felt cancelling the wedding, telling everyone that you’d walked out on me?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I didn’t think. Only of my promise to take care of Richard.’
He nodded. ‘It was still Richard,’ he said.
I stared back at him steadily. ‘It was still Hall o’th’Wood and my stepgrandson,’ I corrected.
‘Well now you have the choice.’ His eyes were very bright. They reminded me of the day he had fished me
out of the sea. ‘If you lose all that furniture you’ll have to sell Hall o’th’Wood now that Richard is a partner in the firm.’
I listened.
‘But you can have it back after you’ve married me.’
‘What?’ Even for Paul it was stunning.
‘You heard,’ he said softly.
I felt my face smile. ‘OK,’ I said.
‘Tomorrow.’
I raised my eyebrows.
He moved closer still. ‘I’m taking no chances this time around,’ he said.
We ate dinner early. Paul excused himself saying he had things to do and so I wandered, alone, through the house, to revisit the octagonal room and look again at the pieces of Staffordshire pottery which had, after all, brought us together.
Perhaps it was in this pretty room that I really understood the depth of emotion Paul felt for me. I knew then the constancy of his love. The room was neglected, dark and cold, the figures thick with dust. I opened a cabinet door and ran my finger over the face of Queen Victoria. No one had touched them for years. And in this house which bristled with servants this told me, more than anything, how deeply I had hurt him. I set Her Majesty back down, next to her consort and resolved that I would finally make him happy.
I had thought I would not sleep that night. I had plenty on my mind but I must have been exhausted because I
fell into a deep, black, dreamless sleep and was awakened the next morning by a soft tapping on the door.
I sat up. Paul manoeuvred his way into my room carrying a dry-cleaning bag and a welcome mug of steaming coffee.
He grinned. ‘I got your frock cleaned,’ he said and handed me the coffee.
He sat on the side of the bed. He was relaxed and smiling. ‘It’s OK, Susanna,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t really want you to go through with all this unless it’s what you want.’
I eyed him over the rim of the mug. ‘You didn’t need to go to all that trouble, you know. You only had to pick up the phone.’
‘And what? Ask you again? Did you never hear of something called pride? Besides.’ His grin broadened. ‘It kind of suited my sense of drama. I enjoyed planning it all, watching and waiting, getting the timing just right.’
I nodded. It figured.
‘The JP’s coming at eleven,’ he said. ‘Do you want any help with your hair or…?’
I shook my head.
I reflected as I dressed on that morning that it was a far cry from our original, planned wedding but as I descended the wide staircase of the great house I was happy. The library was filled with flowers. Junior was there and two of Paul’s closest friends. It was a very quiet wedding.
So finally, Paul Wernier-King and I were married at Tacoma on 14
th
February, St Valentine’s Day, in 1992 and the first person I told was young Richard Oliver.
I am sitting at my desk, in my small study, penning my memories and waiting for my husband to come home.
Paul and I spend some of our time here, at Elijah Hobson’s lodge house, in the grounds of Hall o’th’Wood. Through the open window I can see Richard’s children playing, Richard and his wife, Janner. And on the ridge at the end of the field, I see the great house.
Richard and Junior are walking up from the tennis courts. They are sweating and laughing. A pair of chums.
My eyes leave the window and swing round the room. Over the fireplace hangs my aunt’s swirling painting of Hall o’th’Wood which I see now fairly represents the turmoil the place has caused. The couple, standing at its side, wooden, like Rousseau’s figures, are almost oblivious to the objects swirling around them – furniture,
pieces of pottery, hearts and flowers. The man, in a grey suit, is tempestuous with fiery eyes and the woman serene in a long, white nightdress.
My eyes drift away from the painting. On the mantelpiece stands the photograph of Richard and me on our third wedding anniversary. Next to that is a wedding photograph of Paul and myself. Happy at last.
In the corner, in a glazed cabinet, stands the jug, the beginning of it all. Knowing its story Richard insisted it stay with me where, he felt, it belonged. Next to that, a small, grey, pottery rabbit nibbles a piece of lettuce and beyond that sits a barnacle-encrusted Chinese porcelain dish with the Nanking label on its undersurface. My Tudor portraits hang in our sitting room.
All these inanimate objects are the silent witnesses to the drama which has been my life.
When Paul and I are not in England or the Casa Rosada we live in a wing of Tacoma. I have learnt to love this place too, learnt to accept what I cannot change and adapt to a different life. I have laid all my ghosts to rest and remain in love with Hall o’th’Wood and its occupants while loving too my husband.
And Paul? Well Paul is Paul. Irascible, unpredictable but above all loyal and constant. Clever and easily bored. He will not change but will always be as he is.
And this I can accept.
Richard now manages Bottle Kiln Antiques and when I am in England I help him.
I find plenty to do in Long Island also. There are
museums and art galleries who are often glad of my help and advice and Paul and I share a good life there when we are not travelling.
I never knew the true story behind the jug but I found clues. The bedroom I shared with Richard, the same room which had imprisoned Rebekah Grindall, has low windows. It is possible that she leant out – too far. There is an old repair in the stone mullions. I cannot say how long ago the stonework crumbled except that it was not recent. Paul and I were invited to name a rose by an American rose-growing society. Blood-red and robust, with a strong scent. We decided to call it after Rebekah Grindall, whose fate became bound up with my own. I have replanted parts of the knot garden beneath the fateful window with this lovely flower and breathe in the fragrance whenever I walk through this part of the garden. It brings me pleasure now – not pain.
The final piece of the complicated jigsaw which is my life finally slotted into place last week so I knew I had arrived at my final destiny.
I was in the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao, standing in front of a painting which had been bought for a huge amount a few months before.
An Australian couple were behind me, discussing it. ‘Do you see that?’ the man enquired of his wife. ‘It’s an Eleanor Paris. Now she was a genius.’
It was the moment that I had waited for.
I hear the front door open, footsteps along the hall. Another door opens and I feel a light hand on my
shoulder. ‘Susanna?’ There is always that faint question in his voice, some slight anxiety in his eyes and I know he is wondering what I am writing.
When I am finished I will let him read it but not until then.
Destiny has stopped using me for her sport. She has stopped mocking me and instead allows me to lead my autumn years in peace. Sometimes I wonder. What would have happened if I had not bought the jug on that day but it had been knocked down to someone else – perhaps Eric Goodwood or John Carpenter – and I reflect that if that had happened my entire life would have turned out quite different. And so I close – again on a question. What if…?
Written this day by Susanna Wernier-King, who used to be Susanna Oliver who once, long ago, was Susanna Paris who attended Sotheby’s sale and bought a jug.