Secrets of the Heart

matron.

‘I hope you didn’t burn anything important,’ was all she said.

‘We’re so bored,’ snapped Maud. ‘So bored. Aren’t we, Bea?’

‘Are we, dear? I don’t think it’s quite as drastic as that.’

‘Darlings, have you had breakfast?’

‘Not yet.’ Bea dangled a pair of frail varicosed legs over the edge of the bed. ‘You must be exhausted, Agnes. I’ll go and get some.’

Agnes pushed her back gently on to the pillows. ‘You stay where you are. I’ll make it.’ She looked at her watch. ‘They’ll be here at ten thirty.’

Maud drove the needles through the ball of wool with a samurai twist. ‘Who? Do I know about this?’

Bea and Agnes exchanged looks. ‘Dear,’ said Bea, ‘it’s the lawyer and the others. You know. You promised.’ She leaned over and prised the knitting, a lacy baby’s shawl, from her sister’s grasp. ‘Let’s get up, shall we?’

Maud grimaced and the dusting of pink-orange powder from yesterday’s maquillage cracked. Bea patted it away. ‘There, we’ll make you all nice.’

Agnes said comfortingly, ‘If I put them in the dining room they’ll freeze and they won’t stay long.’

Peter Bingham, the lawyer, arrived with Mr Dawkins, who was in charge of her uncle’s investments and what remained of the Campion trust. They were standing in the hall as an unfamiliar Porsche shot into the drive and parked smack in front of the door. A short young man climbed out, walked into the hall and stood knotting his tie.

‘Hi,’ he said, ‘I’m Paul and I’m here to do the valuations for probate. I rang.’ His gaze ricocheted around the hall and fell. ‘It shouldn’t take more than a few secs.’

Maud, who was descending the stairs at that point, said, ‘Tiens, and the house has been standing for centuries.’

‘How do you do?’ said Agnes, and held out her hand.

Paul ignored it. He was busy pushing the ends of the tie into his waistband. ‘As I say, shouldn’t take too long.’ He snapped open his briefcase, extracted a notebook and positioned himself in front of the portrait of the seventeenth-century Agnes. ‘I don’t care for this sort of thing myself. I can never see the point.’ He moved on to examine the lamp on the side table made of spun glass in which a ship rode a crystal sea in full sail. When it was turned on, the ship flew through a sea of light.

Agnes reckoned he could not have been more than twenty-five.

Paul turned his attention to the elephant’s foot, which was used for umbrellas. ‘Now, that’s more like it. There’s a good market for this sort of thing out East.’ There was a minute inflection of curiosity in his tone. ‘How old is this place, then?’

She told him that it depended where you were in it. With a knowing smile, he responded, ‘It’s very flung together, then, isn’t it?’

The dining room was in the Victorian wing, which had been tacked on to the main house by an Archibald Campion, who had made money in jute. It was furnished with brocade curtains and had a series of dull portraits of later Campions on the wall. The room was north-facing, and within seconds everyone was freezing and could concentrate on nothing except the temperature.

They sat round the table and, their feet numbing, tried to agree on strategy. Peter Bingham was young, ambitious and computer literate. He and Agnes had quickly established an understanding. Coming up for retirement, Mr Dawkins belonged to a different era.

Bingham was at pains to tell the Campion women that although John Campion had done his best to protect his house he had been able to do little in the later years, just routine maintenance.

‘Yes, I know,’ said Agnes. ‘I had talked to him about it from time to time, but the subject upset him.’

Agnes was used to meetings and to controlling them, but this one kept disintegrating as Maud demanded, first, the bungalow she craved and, second, more money to live on. Failing those, she wanted a new central-heating system installed. Then she burst into an uncharacteristic flood of tears. Bea hastened to comfort her.

‘Mrs Campion,’ Bingham was embarrassed, ‘your husband’s will stipulates that you have a home in the house as long as you wish. There is no need for you to move to a bungalow or anywhere else. Indeed, it would be impossible.’ He turned to Mr Dawkins. ‘Am I correct?’

Mr Dawkins shuffled his papers.

‘Have you anything to say, Mr Dawkins?’ Maud blew her nose defiantly, and Agnes deduced that these two were old adversaries.

‘As you know well, Mrs Campion, there is money -just – put aside for the Inheritance Tax but nothing else.’ Mr Dawkins refused to look at Maud.

‘’Scuse me.’ Paul popped his head round the door. ‘I wouldn’t say no to a cup of coffee.’

Bea was on her feet before he finished speaking. ‘I’ll do it. Everything’s ready.’

Mr Dawkins looked sick. ‘I believe,’ he addressed Agnes, ‘you are going to have to negotiate a loan from the bank if you wish to do any repairs to the house.’ He made a second raid on his papers. ‘Of course, there are grants for this sort of house… Perhaps the heritage people would help.’

Agnes steepled her fingers and rested her chin on them. ‘How much is there?’

Mr Dawkins named the sum, and Agnes winced.

‘Oh, good, you’re still there.’ Paul’s head reappeared. ‘I’ve had a teeny accident with the coffee on the stairs. Do you have a J-cloth handy?’

By one o’clock, they had all gone, leaving a trio of strung-out women. Thinking of lunch, Agnes hunted for a saucepan to boil potatoes, and discovered one in the pantry with several pairs of dun-coloured stockings soaking in it.

The phone rang. ‘Darling,’ said Dickie, from the BBC, ‘can’t seem to get hold of you for love or mon. Just to say I’ve secured the budgets for the lovesick farmer and the breastmilk thingy. If you can find out where the girl went, terrif. Hurry is the word…’

She sighed, wiped her hands on her apron and got on with peeling the potatoes.

‘Agnes,’ Maud fiddled around with the food that Agnes had eventually served, ‘John did say that you were to look after me, didn’t he?’

‘Yes.’ Agnes was wary.

‘Well,’ Agnes had often wondered how eyes managed to look cunning, but her aunt’s did, ‘I would very much like to go on the tour devoted to The Sound of Music.’ Maud did not wait for Agnes’s reaction. ‘We fly to Austria and are taken to the places where the film was made, and then to Salzburg for a special showing.’

Agnes sensed what was coming.

‘Bea and I need a break. We need to go.’

Bea looked embarrassed. ‘We don’t have to, dear. Not if it’s inconvenient.’

‘Please,’ wheedled Maud.

Agnes looked at her watch. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

‘While you are tackling the frightful Dawkins, Agnes, I need a bit extra for one or two things. And the headstone for John’s grave. It must be organized.’ Maud rubbed fretfully at a worm of lipstick wriggling at the corner of her mouth.

‘I’ll see what I can do.’ There was no escape now from the next attack.

‘I can’t think why John didn’t leave me all the money instead of putting it in trust for you.’ The gear shifted into the role of the wronged widow – a role Maud had seized as one that held infinite possibilities. But, then again, Agnes thought wryly, she was a wronged widow. ‘You would have got it in the end, Agnes. Do you know why your uncle cut me off at the knees?’

Bea assumed her frozen look, and Agnes knew that she was withdrawing into the still place that she had at her centre, a place where her sister failed to reach her. Agnes summoned her charity. She had to be fair, but dealing with Maud was like dealing with an ageing car. Some days it functioned smoothly, sometimes lack of oil caused the engine to blow up.

‘It’s so cruel of John to exclude me. So thoughtless of you to agree.’ Maud looked round at Bea as if to say, There, I’ve cleared the air.

But Agnes flashed back, ‘Perhaps you mentioned the word “bungalow” too often.’