‘I’ve only ever had one pet,’ said Clare with a sad smile as she snapped on her Marigolds. ‘A goldfish that I won at a fair. I had him for a year and I sobbed for days
when he died.’
Raine was curious. ‘I thought you’d be the sort of person who had lots of animals.’
‘I work too many hours.’ Clare sighed. ‘Wouldn’t be fair.’
‘Didn’t you have pets as a child?’
‘No,’ said Clare, imagining a cat sitting on one of her mother’s cushions and leaving hairs. She shuddered at the scene that would have followed. ‘My parents aren’t
really animal people. Shall I make you a cup of tea before I start?’
‘Just a cup of cold water will be fine, please,’ said Raine.
‘I should drink more water,’ said Clare. ‘I’m always telling myself that. Might lose some weight off my bottom if I flushed out my toxins.’’ She fetched the
cup for Raine and then rubbed her hands, impatient to get started on making the house spick and span. She didn’t mind that Raine watched her. She liked the old lady, felt comfortable in her
presence.
‘What do you work as? A cleaner?’ asked Raine after a while. ‘You’re very good at it.’ She nodded with admiration at the shine Clare had brought up on her brass
ornaments.
‘Me? I’m an accountant,’ replied Clare, squeezing a lemon into a bowl of water. She always had lemons among her cleaning materials. ‘I work in London for one of the
top-rated financial firms. So I sort out people’s messes and try and save them from bankruptcy. And I’ve just been promoted to partner. I start my new job as soon as I get
home.’
‘That’s very impressive.’
Clare dunked her cloth into the lemon water.
‘I’ve worked long and hard to know what I’m doing.’ No one had worked harder or for longer hours than Clare.
‘There’s no ring on your finger, I notice.’
‘It’s difficult doing the job I do and being in a relationship.’ But as she was saying this Clare realized that the male partners in the firm seemed to manage it somehow.
‘So there’s no young man in your life.’
‘No. But I’m fine with that.’ Clare conjured up a smile. She would have to get used to saying that she was single again. ‘I’m the first woman to be made a partner
in the firm, ever. I don’t need a man.’
‘What a shame you have no one. You’re a beautiful girl. Singular.’
‘I’m nothing special.’ This was not false modesty. Clare really didn’t think she was.
‘One day you will meet a man who makes you feel special.’ Raine put her head to one side. ‘If you haven’t already.’
‘I doubt it,’ said Clare. ‘I’m married to the job. I’m like a nun but my husband isn’t Christ, it’s a double-entry ledger.’
‘I gave up everything to be with my husband,’ said Raine, a mist in her eyes. ‘My home, all that was familiar to me. But I knew from the first moment that I wanted to be with
him and I never regretted following him.’
‘Love at first sight?’ Clare smiled. ‘Does it really exist?’
‘Those who fall in love at first sight would argue that it does.’ Some wispy white strands of hair had broken loose from the long plait she wore and Raine tucked them behind her
ear.
‘There was someone,’ Clare admitted. ‘Until recently.’ She climbed down from the sink and stepped back to check that the window was smear-free. ‘We had known each
other since primary school. He’d moved over from Germany and was a class oddity, like me. He had his funny accent; I had my funny eyes. We were friends for many years before we became a
couple. He’s very clever, handsome, funny, kind . . .’
‘And where he is now?’
‘Dubai. He is doing the job he loves over there. I’m doing the job I love over here.’ She rinsed her cloth in the sink then wrung it hard, twisting it with force. ‘We
obviously didn’t love each other quite enough in the end. Work got in the way.’
‘That’s a great shame,’ said Raine. ‘Seymour was a very special man. I would have given up anything for him, and the reverse was true also.’
Seymour. The name on the mysterious gravestone that she had seen the other day. Clare wondered if she dare mention it and ask why it was that he was originally buried outside the churchyard. She
decided that she daren’t. Not yet.
Albert yawned and then stretched out his furry legs in an effort to ease out the stiff arthritic pains in them before settling down again in a different position on Raine’s knee.
‘I heard’ –
felt –
‘you yesterday outside the door.’ Raine pointed to an old locked door in the wall opposite her chair. ‘You should have
knocked and come in.’
Clare felt a blush spring to her cheeks.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know where the steps led until I heard your voice. I never thought that the two houses might be connected.’
Raine smiled. ‘It’s a smugglers’ cave. Joshua Hathersage, who built both cottages, was a renowned smuggler of spices.’
‘Clever.’ Clare nodded, impressed. ‘I’m presuming he’s an ancestor of Gene Hathersage – the guy we’re renting our cottage from.’
‘Oh yes. A renowned cad.’
Clare didn’t know if Raine meant Joshua or Gene.
‘Quite a feat, though – carving those steps.’
‘Oh, yes. But spices made men rich so it was all worth it for them.’ Raine putt the old bones of Albert down on the floor. ‘My dear, would you put some food in Albert’s
dish for him? He likes the fish type best.’
‘Of course,’ said Clare, smiling as Albert made a stiff robotic walk into the kitchen and sat by his bowl. She ripped off the top of a pouch of trout-flavoured food and squeezed it
out for him. He greedily dived head first into it.
‘How do you cope up here, Raine? Wouldn’t you be better in the village amongst people? How do you get into bed and onto the loo?’
‘I cope,’ said Raine. ‘And I have all my memories here. I came to this cottage as a bride.’ Her strange old face creased into a nostalgic smile. ‘I have been very
happy here.’
Clare turned her attention back to her cleaning as a sudden vision came to her and she saw herself as old as Raine. She would have no memories of a loved one who had gone. Only recollections of
numbers she had worked on. She’d be rich and lonely and cold inside, however many crocheted blankets sat on her legs.
Gladys found Edwin asleep on the library sofa wrapped up in a blanket. He had never slept out of bed in all the years she had known him. There was a bathchair outside the front
door, one which usually resided in the shed at the side of the cottage where Joan was staying. It wasn’t hard to work out that she had wheeled him home. Why he hadn’t walked was obvious
when Gladys bent over him and smelled his breath. She comforted herself by thinking that at least he was here and she hadn’t found him in Joan’s bed.
She poked him with her finger to wake him and he groaned as if in pain. Joan had plied him with drink and Gladys could guess at why.
She strode out of the kitchen and down to the old cottage, then rapped hard on the door. She had to knock twice more before Joan opened it, hair bedraggled, no make-up on her face, wrapped in a
bright-red dressing gown and shivering.
‘Hello, Gladys. I’m not feeling very well,’ said Joan, her voice trembling. ‘Is Lord Carlton okay? I wheeled him back home last night and thought the library sofa would
be the most comfortable place for him. I made him some supper, you see, for being so kind to me, and I’m convinced the prawns were off. I haven’t stopped throwing up.’
She really didn’t look well at all, Gladys had to admit.
‘He’s hungover, that’s what I think,’ she said starchily. ‘And he doesn’t drink so how’s that happened, then?’
‘He had some sherry trifle,’ said Joan, holding her hand to her mouth as she retched a little. ‘I was quite heavy-handed with the sherry – for the taste – but he
couldn’t have got drunk on that. I know it was those prawns. I’ve a good mind to go back to Wellem market and have a word with that fishmonger.’
‘Well.’ Gladys swallowed, taken in completely. ‘You’d better get back to bed and I’ll look after Lord Carlton. Can I get you anything?’
‘I just need to sleep,’ replied Joan, sniffing hard.
‘You do that, then.’ Gladys spoke stiffly but not unkindly.
‘Thank you, Gladys. Please pass on my apologies. I only wanted to say thank you to him for being so kind to me. I can’t believe we’re both so ill. It has to be those
prawns.’ And with that the door closed and Gladys took a much less charged walk back to attend to Edwin. She did not think to look in the bin outside the cottage that might have told her more
of the truth than she had just been handed.
Clare scrubbed and dusted and fettled until the tiny cottage shone. She took down the curtains, washed them and pegged them outside, and in the sea breeze they were dry within
half an hour. They were scented with salty air when Clare hung them back up above the crystal-clear windows. As she worked, Clare told Raine more about her friends: how long they had known each
other, how they didn’t see each other as much as they should. The old lady was so easy to talk to. Hours flew by as quickly as a finger-click.
Raine listened with interest to everything Clare said. Maybe this is why she is here, she thought. There had to be a reason why their paths had crossed. She could feel it in her old bones.
‘Aren’t you tired?’ asked Raine, watching Clare polish the old cabinet at the back of the room. ‘You haven’t stopped.’
‘I love doing this,’ said Clare, the truth of it shining in her eyes.
‘More than your work with numbers?’
Clare laughed. ‘Easily!’ As her duster passed over the last fingerprint on the wood she looked at the only picture standing in a frame on the cabinet, a pencil drawing of a
man’s profile. He had a thin face, a long nose and a full beard and yet his features fitted well together; he was not an unhandsome man. ‘Is this your husband?’
‘Yes, that is my Seymour.’
‘I, er . . .’ Clare began. She had to ask. ‘I saw a gravestone the other day, with the name Seymour on it. In the churchyard.’
‘That was him. There are no more Seymours lying there.’
‘Why is his grave in a line of twelve?’ Clare couldn’t help wincing at how nosey that sounded. Raine merely nodded, though, without looking as if she had taken any offence.
‘My husband was a fisherman, part of a crew of twelve men due to go out sailing one particular day but the sea was very rough. The lord of the manor at the time, Gilbert Carlton, put
pressure on the captain to take him out in the boat with the men, to amuse him, and it sank. The men all managed to make it to shore – all thirteen of them. Gilbert Carlton was buried in the
church crypt with the rest of his family but the others shared a bond because of their experience and wanted to be united in death as they had been in life.’
‘Why was . . .’ Clare bit off the question.
‘Why was Seymour buried outside the church grounds?’ Raine continued for her. ‘At the time of his passing, Reverend Unwin was in charge of the church. He was a horrid, sour man
married to a snipey little wife and living a life of frustration. He was very envious of Seymour and myself, of our love and devotion to each other. He let him lie next to his friends but he
refused to bury him on consecrated ground. He said Seymour had committed a sin against God that would not allow him to be interred on church land. This was reversed later when Unwin died and a
kinder pastor took over – a cousin of my husband. But at the time Unwin was immovable. The Unwins were always a strange family, full of bitterness and malcontent. Even though an Unwin was in
the fishing boat that sank and was saved.’
‘Jeez,’ said Clare. ‘What a vile man. What on earth did Seymour do that could justify that sort of prejudice?’
‘He married me.’ Raine smiled.
‘Jeez,’ said Clare again, for the want of something better to say.
‘I’m an offcumden,’ Raine clarified. ‘Unwin didn’t like me.’
‘And yet he was jealous of you and Seymour, of your relationship?’
Raine nodded. ‘He was a man of many contradictions, and I have no reservations about talking ill of him, dead as he is. He told Seymour before he died that he would never be buried on
church land. Seymour laughed in his face, told him that I was worth his petty censure and he had no doubt that God would disapprove of Unwin’s actions. He had a strong enough faith, thank
goodness, not to be cowed by Unwin’s threat. Unwin said that Seymour was cursed in marrying me, and the proof of that was that we couldn’t have children. Ironically – neither
could he and Sarah, but that was “God’s will”.’
Clare whistled. ‘Strong stuff. What happened to him?’
‘He had a small pleasure boat,’ answered Raine. ‘He took it out in the bay one day with Sarah and the boat ran aground on the rocks. They both drowned. No one could understand
it as the sea was as calm as a millpond on that day and Jeremiah Unwin was an excellent sailor.’
‘Wow,’ said Clare. She almost looked around for Scooby Doo. Mystery piled on mystery. If she had dared to, she would have asked Raine hundreds more questions about the Unwins. They
sounded not unlike the Borgias.
Instead she grinned and said, ‘Where did you meet Seymour, then, if you were such a pariah?’
‘I was visiting the area,’ said Raine, looking wistfully past Clare to the drawing of Seymour. ‘As soon as I saw him, I knew.’
‘You must be very lonely without him.’
‘I am. Too lonely and too old.’
Clare watched Raine’s smile dropping by degrees.
Well done, Clare
, said a little voice inside her.
Why not remind the lady a little bit more about her lonesome
existence?
‘I’ll come back in a couple of days, if you like,’ she said breezily, in an attempt to jolly up Raine.
‘I would not want to interrupt your holiday,’ said Raine. ‘But I have so enjoyed your company and would welcome it again.’
‘I’ve disturbed a lot of dust. It will settle and need shifting. It would be a pleasure, honestly.’
‘Thank you,’ said Raine. ‘Then it will be an equal pleasure to see you again.’
‘It’s good exercise for burning off calories. I might even go home a couple of pounds lighter.’