Silence apart from the river, distant sheep.
Vera persisted. ‘You must have seen the will?’
‘He’d transferred ownership of the house to me some years before his death.’
‘Oh, I know about that. A wheeze to avoid inheritance tax. But he had other assets. The rent from the tenancies. And there must have been savings, stocks and shares.’
Juliet wanted to laugh. ‘There were mostly debts. Why do you think most of the house is so fucking Arctic?’ Mark’s phrase again, but she felt the need to shock Vera, to make her see that what she was implying was impossible.
‘Did you see the will?’
‘There was no need. Mother was my father’s executor and a solicitor in Kimmerston drew it up and held it. I knew what was in it. Dad discussed it with me before it was all arranged. I’d just turned twenty-one and the house was transferred into my name. He still ran the estate, of course. The remaining assets would go to my mother for her lifetime and then to me and my children.’
‘But you have no children.’ Vera’s voice was gentle now. ‘And nor do I, and as far as I can see I’m the only other living relative. Officially. These men love the idea of family, don’t they? Their family. Their bloodline. Like fancy race horses or prize cows. It occurred to me that Crispin might have changed his will, put in something about any child Lorna might have. If that child happened to be a boy. That he might have wanted any son to inherit a part of the estate, to keep it going. A man running the place again.’ A pause. ‘Unless you were planning to have bairns yourself?’ She left the question hanging and the silence returned.
‘I would love children,’ Juliet said. ‘It just hasn’t happened.’
Vera looked at her, not shocked at all. ‘I thought it might be like that. I could tell by the way you were with Thomas.’ A pause and something close to a shiver of distaste. ‘I’ve never fancied the idea of motherhood myself.’
Then Juliet found the words spewing out, gushing, and she was telling Vera about the tests and the IVF, the circle of hope and nightmare disappointment, of failure and early pregnancies and miscarriage. The realization that there was no way she could put herself through the stress of another cycle, the dull, empty ache. The panic of time passing, of approaching middle age. Suddenly, somehow, Vera had taken her in her arms, wrapped her up, and Juliet was crying, certain that there would be tears and possibly snot on Vera’s coat, and even in that moment of embarrassment, it occurred to her that Harriet had never held her like this, not even when she was very young.
‘What does your chap make of all this?’ Vera asked. ‘It must be hard for him too.’
Now the embarrassment did kick in. Juliet freed herself and moved away a little, found a tissue in her jeans pocket and turned so she could dry her eyes without Vera watching. ‘I think it’s different for men,’ she said at last. ‘Mark’s disappointed, of course, but I think he sees it as a failure, in an almost professional way. Like a project at work that he couldn’t quite complete or a play he’s directed that has had bad reviews. Though I’m the problem, not him. He could father a child with someone else.’ She bent to tickle Wren’s neck.
‘And your mother?’ Vera asked. ‘She’ll have been some support?’
‘Oh, Mother was a failure too,’ Juliet said. ‘In the eyes of my father, at least. Only one child and that was a girl. My father loved me, of course, doted on me even, but it was never the same as if I was a boy. I was a kind of indulgence. A boy would have been a responsibility. There would have been expectations – university or the army, then to be trained in the ways of the estate.’ She paused. ‘I think Mother would have been a different woman, their relationship might have been different, if there’d been more children.’
‘Oh, hinnie, it sounds like something from another era. Something you see on TV on Sunday evenings. All long frocks and footmen.’
Juliet couldn’t help laughing at that. There was, after all, still something very feudal about rural Northumberland.
‘Your father will never have known that Lorna had a lad.’
Juliet shook her head. ‘He died before Lorna was pregnant.’
Now Vera seemed almost to be talking to herself. ‘I’m not sure where that leaves us then. I had some crazy scheme in my head about wills and inheritance. It’s this place.’ She nodded up the bank towards the house, which was half-hidden by trees. ‘It drags you back into the past.’ She paused. ‘But even if your dad had left all his money and the estate lands to Lorna, none of you would get your hands on it now, because it would go to her lad. At least, I presume it would.’
‘You think any of us would kill for this?’ Juliet felt herself on the verge of hysteria just at the thought of it. ‘Mother would rather a place in the city, close to her friends and the shops, Mark likes the idea of being lord of the manor, but the discomfort is already starting to bore him. And me? I’d give the whole place up in a second in return for a child.’ She found that she was crying again and turned away. She’d made enough of a scene already. Harriet would be furious at the idea that Juliet had lost control in front of Hector’s daughter.
This time there was no hug from Vera. Only a nod of understanding when Juliet turned back to face her. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘I know.’
They walked back towards the house then. Vera seemed deep in thought and didn’t speak until they were nearly there. As they approached the door, she stopped, arms folded below the
