Up ahead a sign points to a turning between enormous stone gateposts with an open wrought-iron gate.
“That’s it – Fallowmill House.” Hal flicks the indicator on and pushes his sunglasses further up the bridge of his nose, hunching over the steering wheel. A screen of trees separates the road from the house ahead as we follow the curve of the drive. “I guess we’ll just have to play it by ear…woah.”
The drive has swept around a patch of woodland, carrying us with it…and suddenly opened up onto a view of the house. “Woah” just about sums it up.
Unlike Hopwood, which is perched on top of a hill that makes it look small at first, Fallowmill wants to impress. It sits squarely at the end of its long, wide drive, an enormous fountain right in front of it, and stares right back at us with rows of glittering windows. Out of the corner of my eye, I spot the lake through the trees.
“Imagine living somewhere like that,” Hal mutters, staring at it as it looms towards us.
I peer over my sunglasses at it. It peers back.
When the car creeps to a halt, Hal switches off the ignition…but then he doesn’t move.
“Are you okay?”
“Hmm?” For a second, he looks confused to see me there, as though it’s hard to pull himself back from wherever he went – but then his eyes clear and he shakes whatever thoughts he was having away. “Yep. Yep, I’m good. I was just…thinking.”
“About your grandfather?”
“About lots of things. Maybe I should try not thinking for a bit. Everybody tells me I overthink everything anyway.” He drums his thumbs on the edge of the steering wheel as though he’s afraid of what I’ll say.
“Me too! Overthink things, I mean. People tell me I do that.” I stop. It feels like the best idea.
Sterling work there, Flora.
But if I’ve bothered him, he doesn’t show it. Instead he’s climbing out of the car, reaching back to grab his bag stuffed with notebooks and whatever else he carries around with him on this quest of his.
Clambering out of the car, I try to straighten my pinafore, which has somehow managed to twist itself around my lower body. Stupid dress.
The house really feels enormous up close. Most places like this are just glorified big houses, but Fallowmill? Fallowmill is a proper stately home. Between the thundering fountain, with its spray drifting across the gravel, and the tall windows along the front, it’s built to make anyone standing out here feel small, dwarfed by everything up to the row of carved angels and lions peering down from the roof.
Hal strides across the drive as though he owns the place, bounding up the steps. He stops at the top, turns and looks back towards me, pulling off his sunglasses to see me better. “Are you coming?”
The way he moves his hand, the way his hair falls over his face as his sunglasses come away from his eyes, the way he stands…maybe these could fill in the space where my Fallowmill memories should be. I could take all of this, now, and drop it into the gaps in the middle of my puzzle and pretend this was the picture that had been there all along. Maybe it would even work – for a while, anyway.
A woman – older, serious-looking, probably the curator Hal spoke to on the phone – appears in the open front doorway. Hal – still turned towards me – doesn’t see the expression on her face, wiped away the instant he turns to face her and replaced by something carefully blank…But I do. It’s the look of someone who thinks you can’t possibly matter, that you’re too unimportant to count. They don’t usually bother trying to disguise it for me.
Her face expectant now, she offers her hand to Hal and he takes it, shakes it.
“Mr Waverley.”
“Hello.” Hal beams at her, but judging by her scowl she’s immune to his charm. Maybe she’s immune to everyone who arrives without a camera crew.
“If you’d like to follow me?” It’s less a question than a command.
Inside, our footsteps echo around the enormous hall. The stairs sweep away up to the first floor in a whirl of carvings; paintings of every size line the walls. There are portraits of the family who lived here, landscapes, horses, still-lifes of piles of fruit and vases full of flowers – all hung on dark walls faded by time. But something else is different here – the feel of the place. Hopwood Home always feels welcoming. Fallowmill is more sombre…as though something broke here, or went missing a long time ago, and was never quite found again.
It feels a bit like a tomb.
Or a prison.
The woman stops outside a small wooden door marked PRIVATE, tucked discreetly into a corner – so discreetly, in fact, that I completely miss it, and almost pile into Hal’s back. I end up doing a weird sidestep to avoid crashing into him, catching the faintest scent of lemons and green woods as I do.
Judging by the smile Hal’s trying to hide, he’s either amused, charmed or exasperated by this. “Do you want to come? To the archive?”
I open my mouth to reply, because of course I want to come to the archive…and then behind him, I see her raised eyebrow and pinched mouth. I see the pale white patches either side of her nose. “The papers we store here are very delicate. Very fragile. Too much exposure to people will do them no good at all.”
I guess I’m not welcome.
“Then you’re probably better off without me to start with – but I’ll help you go through anything good?” I say.
“You’re sure?”
The curator rests a hand on the doorknob, turning it, opening the door a crack. Beyond it I can see stacks of boxes, rows of cupboards and a couple of narrow desks – the past, lined up and catalogued and inescapable.
I smile, hoping it’s enough to cover everything in my head. “Of course. Come find me when you need me.”
This is the correct answer as far as the curator is concerned, her mouth unpuckers slightly and she nods. She holds out a small square of laminated card to me. “Why don’t you take a look around the house while you wait? This is a guest pass for the house and the grounds. There’s no need to pay. Just show this to anyone who asks – and please, keep to the public areas?”
Like I don’t know what a door marked private means…
I pocket the pass and smile at Hal. “I’ll be around.” He gives me a slightly anxious smile, and before he has a chance to step into the archive, I lay a hand on his arm. He flinches – his eyes flicking down to the spot where I’m touching him – and then smiles at me again, less anxiously this time. A flush creeps up his cheeks. “I hope you find something. Good luck.”
After the curator closes the door behind them, I turn the guest pass around in my pocket. Through the tall windows overlooking the drive, out past the fountain and a formal border of scraggy-looking roses, the lake glints darkly at me.
Baby steps.
I follow the signs that guide visitors around the house, through a chintzy sitting room with a card table set up in the middle, cards laid out as if someone is mid-game. I know the idea is to make the house look like it did when it was still lived in, but the overall effect is creepy, like the players have all left the room at once and could walk back in at any moment. Next is a dining room with a huge table laid with china and crystal and silver. Then there’s another sitting room, and then another and one more, which makes me start to wonder exactly how many rooms anyone really needs for just sitting. And then a dusty sign points to a door that opens onto a small staircase – I’d know a servants’ staircase anywhere. I follow it down to the kitchens, and even though they don’t look anything like our modern industrial kitchen back at the hotel – with its stainless steel units and benches, its ovens and walk-in fridges – I can still see the resemblance. Once upon a time, Hopwood must have looked like this too.