Esme's Inheritance Read online

  Kate broke the silence, “It’s absolutely bloody enormous, was your nan royalty or something?”

  I didn’t reply because I actually was speechless. There in front of me was this huge beautiful old house, built of grey stone under a sagging slate roof and it belonged to me. As we got out of the car, a grey-haired man in dark green cords and a checked shirt appeared and waved. He introduced himself as Steven Stokes, shook our hands and enquired about our journey.

  “I’ve taken the liberty of opening up the house for you and checking that the electricity has been reconnected. Would you like me to show you around? There is some paperwork that I need to go through with you, and there are some things that need signing. What would you like to do first?” he asked smiling kindly.

  “Maybe you could give us a quick tour of the inside, and then we could go through the paperwork?” I said.

  “Excellent, of course. Follow me, we’ll go in through the back door,” said Mr. Stokes striding off round the side of the house. We walked under a stone arch way and through a door with peeling green paint into a gloomy hallway. There was a damp musty smell, and the air was cold. We followed Mr. Stokes into the kitchen, which was huge and dark, my whole flat could have fitted into it easily with room to spare.

  “Jago, my son, has lit the range for you,” said Mr. Stokes waving his arm towards an ancient black contraption which looked like it should be in a museum. “You can cook on the range, and it also heats your water.”

  Kate and I glanced at each other in bewilderment, “Mr. Stokes, how exactly do we cook on that thing?” asked Kate.

  Mr. Stokes smiled patiently, “Please, call me Steven. There are four ovens here,” he said opening one of the doors on the front, “and if you lift these lids on the top, you’ll find the hot plates.”

  Kate nodded but looked confused.

  Our tour continued into the first of three sitting rooms, which had a cavernous granite fireplace taking up most of one wall. Someone, Jago I’m guessing, had neatly stacked logs beside each of the three fire places.

  “These rooms will soon warm up once you get the fires lit,” Steven said with a smile. The furniture was old, dark and covered in a thick layer of dust, the sofas were sagging, but at least we had something to sit on. There were thick black wooden beams on the ceilings, from which hung the biggest cobwebs I’d ever seen. I definitely didn’t want to see the spiders capable of weaving those webs. Upstairs, was, if anything worse. The bedrooms were huge, most had thread bare carpets and rugs on the floor while the white paint was flaking off the rough, uneven walls. The biggest bedroom housed an ancient four-poster bed, the wooden floor was slightly sloping and creaked underfoot. Through the dusty windows there were amazing views across the fields, I’m guessing this had been my grandmother’s room. One of the bedrooms at the far end of the house had a hole in the ceiling, and black mould growing on the wall. Steven told me that the roof needed attention as there were missing tiles, and the rain was coming in. There were three bathrooms which had huge deep claw footed baths. To say they were filthy, would be an understatement.

  “This takes shabby chic to a whole new level,” breathed Kate.

  Steven looked terribly embarrassed, “Having been empty for two years it needs considerable cleaning and restoration I’m afraid.”

  “Not to worry,” I said smiling, “We’ve bought cleaning things with us, and we have another friend joining us this afternoon. We like a challenge.”

  Steven smiled politely, “Jago has offered to pop by tomorrow afternoon to give you a tour of the outside, and to run through anything I may have missed. He was very fond of your grandmother and did a lot of work around the place for her.”

  “That’s brilliant, we look forward to meeting him.”

  Kate offered to unload the car, while Steven and I went through the paperwork. There were several papers to read through and sign. I had been left some money too, £27,000 to be exact. Steven advised me to spend it on repairs to the house, to make it both saleable and habitable. My brain felt ready to explode with the enormity of how my life was about to change. If I sold the house, I would be a millionaire, I mean how crazy is that? A millionaire at twenty-four years old. If I decide to keep it and live in it, how on earth will I make it pay for itself? I had some major decisions to make but decided to wait until I’d spent a week in the house, just so I got the feel of things, if that makes sense. Steven asked me to phone him at his office towards the end of the week just to touch base. He assured me he wasn’t just going to abandon me; my grandmother had made him promise to make sure I was well looked after.

  Finally, he handed me an envelope, “This is a letter from your grandmother,” he patted me on the shoulder, “Speak to you in the week.”

  I sat down in a dusty armchair and opened the envelope.

  My Dearest Esme,

  If you’re reading this letter, then I am gone and you’re now the owner of Larkworthy. Growing old without ever getting to know you has been ghastly, but your mother made her choices and I had to accept them. I will never understand why she wanted to deprive me of my only grandchild, but she obviously had her reasons.

  I hope you’re not too phased at becoming the custodian of such a big old house. It may be a bit daunting at first, but you’ll soon get used to it. If you decide to sell it, please make sure the new owners will love and cherish it, as I did, and not turn it into a theme park, or something equally as dreadful. Larkworthy was my home for 62 years and it holds an incredibly special place in my heart, it would be lovely if it became your home too, no pressure though gorgeous girl.

  It’s time for me to say goodbye now Esme. Do your best to live a full and happy life, whatever it throws at you.

  With all my love, hugs and kisses

  Maria, your loving grandmother.

  It was only when my tears dripped onto the paper that I realised I was crying. My grandmother sounded wonderful, and I wish I could have got to know her. I wiped my eyes on my sleeve and put the letter in my pocket. I could hear Kate banging and crashing around so headed in the direction of the noise.

  Kate had made a start in cleaning the kitchen. All the windows were open, and the musty smell didn’t seem quite as bad. I armed myself with a cloth and started to attack the work tops, while Kate bravely tackled the fridge which was growing an impressive collection of moulds. The kitchen cupboards were full of mismatched crockery, cutlery, baking trays and dishes, I very much doubt that my grandmother had ever thrown anything away. We were just debating whether to start sorting through the cupboards and washing the mountain of stuff inside when Lee arrived looking slightly bemused.

  “Darlings I’m here. Esme this place is beautiful, you lucky, lucky bugger inheriting such a pile. Kate, stick the kettle on, I’m starving for a coffee. I’ve just had a rather bizarre shopping experience.”

  I frowned, “Where are the shops? The only one we saw was in the village, and that looked tiny.”

  Kate plonked three mugs of steaming coffee on the kitchen table and opened a packet of chocolate digestives.

  “Well come on then, what happened?” she said through a mouthful of crumbs.

  Lee pushed his trademark hair band a bit further back into his hair, “I stopped at that village shop to buy a bottle of champers, thought it might be nice to toast the lady of the manor,” he beamed, nudging me in the ribs. I grinned and nudged him back.

  “I asked the lady behind the counter what champagne she stocked, she looked at me as if I’d asked for a bottle of unicorn blood! Apparently, there’s not much call for it round here. Then, and you couldn’t make this up, she asked if I was an actor because I looked familiar, and had I been in Midsomer Murders.”

  Kate and I screamed with laughter, Lee rolled his eyes, “She could at least have suggested I’d been in Corrie or Enders, but Midsomer Murders for goodness’ sake. I don’t exactly look like an axe wielding murderer, do I?”

  Kate and I exchanged glances and burst out laughing again.

/>   “Come on,” I said pushing my chair back, “Let’s give you the grand tour. Obviously, this is the kitchen. Can you look at it as though it’s a job for you, and give me some tips on how to make it look half decent?”

  Lee looked around the kitchen in silence for several minutes before speaking.

  “OK, here’s what I think for this room. Red tiled work tops, cream cupboard and drawer fronts, very pale lemon walls. Keep the range, the Welsh dresser, the slate floor and the Belfast sink.”

  I nodded, “I like the sound of that.” We wandered into the first of the sitting rooms.

  “Let’s get these windows open,” suggested Lee, “Get rid of the dreadful musty smell.”

  With a struggle we managed to get the windows open, although bits of the window frame splintered and fell off one of them.

  Lee prowled around the room, looking at it from different angles, “I’m thinking yellow and grey for this room, maybe some tweed.”

  We moved from room to room, with Lee getting more excited and animated the further we went. He declared that he was designing this house whether I liked it or not. Well of course I did like it, very much, but my budget was miniscule for such a big house. When I tentatively said I probably couldn’t afford it, he hugged me, called me a dopey mare and said he wouldn’t charge for his time and expertise if he could photograph it to use it in his portfolio. Lee spent the next couple of hours drifting from room to room writing, taking photo’s and doing sketches in his notebook. I unearthed an exhausted looking hoover from a cupboard in the utility room and made a start on cleaning the main living room. After I’d emptied the hoover canister for the fourth time, I decided it was time to down tools, we’d had a knackering day and now it was time to chill out. Chill being the operative word as the house really was freezing.

  CHAPTER 3

  The three of us sat on the floor in front of the unlit fire, “How hard can it be to light a fire?” I asked.

  “Not hard at all if we knew how to do it,” replied Lee, “and unfortunately, none of us do.”

  “I reckon we lay the newspaper in the bottom of the fire, pile those small bits of wood on top and then chuck the bigger logs on,” said Kate grabbing one of the newspapers from the pile. It sounded logical so that’s what we did. Except it didn’t work. The paper burnt, and a few of the small sticks caught fire briefly, but as soon as we chucked the logs on top, the flames were smothered and went out. Back to the drawing board.

  After several failed attempts, Lee had a brainwave, “Right, let’s scrunch the paper up and make a mini paper mountain, then lay the sticks against it. Now, if we put the bigger bits of wood in a square around the paper mountain then they might just catch fire.”

  I must say, our creation looked like it had been constructed by Bear Grylls on one of those survival programmes on some uninhabited island, Lee even took a picture of it on his phone.

  “If this doesn’t work,” said Kate, “Then we’re going to have to syphon some petrol out of one of the cars. Petrol is brilliant for lighting fires, that’s why arsonists always use it.”

  “Jesus wept,” said Lee shaking his head, “We can’t even light a fire, so syphoning petrol out of a car is going to be well out of our league.”

  He had a point. Luckily, Lee’s construction worked and soon we had a lovely fire blazing away. The other two rooms had wood burners, which proved really tricky to light, but we eventually managed it. We left the lounge doors open, the theory being that the heat would float around the house making it lovely and warm and cosy. Our theories were rubbish, the house was still freezing.

  It was nearly dark, and we were hungry, as none of us wanted to attempt cooking on the range we had a sort of picnic in front of the fire. Kate found some tablecloths in a drawer, so we laid one on the floor and put our feast on it. I say feast, but basically it was sandwiches, crisps, monster munch, biscuits and wine. We had closed the door in our room, and it began to feel a bit warmer. It had started raining, and the wind was blowing the rain against the windows, we drew the heavy red velvet curtains and huddled closer to the fire. I looked over at Kate, she could barely keep her eyes open, even Lee had gone quiet.

  “Shall we go to bed?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I reckon so,” Lee replied getting to his feet and holding his hand out for Kate.

  The three of us climbed the creaky old stairs, I opened the door to my grandmother’s room.

  “I’m having this room,” I said. As I spoke, I could see my breath in the air.

  “Lee, do you want the room opposite, and then Kate can go in the one next to me?” We stood in silence looking at Lee’s room, the windows were rattling in the wind and the air was damp and cold. It was a bit like something out of one of those old black and white horror films.

  “Sod it,” said Kate, “Let’s sleep in the living room, at least it’s warm.”

  After gathering up our sleeping bags and blankets we set up camp. Between us we dragged the two sofas closer to the fire, Kate and I shared the biggest one while Lee took the smaller. Snuggled into our sleeping bags, with the orange glow from the fire lighting the room, it began to actually feel quite cosy. I couldn’t believe how dark it was outside, and how quiet. My flat is on a fairly busy road so there was traffic noise all night, and there were streetlights outside which lit the corner of my bedroom. I preferred this beautiful black silence, it felt sort of safe and comforting. Although, it wasn’t really all that silent. There was the wind and rain, then there were noises outside in the garden, it sounded like someone screaming. I lay awake listening.

  “Are you awake?” whispered Kate.

  “Yes, can you hear that noise?”

  “What is it?” Kate replied with a slight tremor in her voice.

  “I don’t know, but I don’t like it.”

  “Lee, wake up,” whispered Kate, “There’s something outside, go and see what it is.”

  “I’m not going out there, it sounds like someone’s being tortured.”

  We lay in silence for a while as the noises drifted off before getting louder again. Lee waddled over to our sofa in his sleeping bag and squeezed in between us. Whatever was making the noises was just outside the window.

  Lee grabbed his phone and turned the torch on, “I’m going to look out the window.” He tiptoed over to the window, and very cautiously pulled open a bit of the curtain and shone his torch through.

  He laughed softly, “Come and look at this.”

  Kate and I crept over and looked through the crack in the curtains, there in the overgrown garden were two foxes playing. Their red coats were drenched from the rain, but they didn’t seem to mind as they chased each other round while making weird shrieking noises before stopping, staring at each other and then pouncing. I’d never seen a fox in real life before, they were beautiful but also had a slightly sinister air to them, I don’t know why I thought that, but I did. Now the mystery was solved we returned to our sofas and fell into the deep sleep of the totally knackered.

  We woke to the sort of day that weather forecasters call blustery. As our log pile was getting low, we needed to find some more wood. After an early breakfast, the three of us headed outside. Round the side of the house, we found a heap of logs and a rusty wheelbarrow in an old wooden barn. Several trips later, all three fireplaces once again had a pile of logs, and there were three fires attempting to heat the huge house. We decided to crack on with the cleaning while waiting for Jago Stokes to arrive. As we scrubbed, dusted and hoovered we sang the soundtrack from Grease, one of our favourite films. We acted out some of the parts too which was easy as we knew the dialogue off by heart. By the time we stopped for lunch all three sitting rooms were relatively dust free, and the musty smell was replaced with summer bouquet furniture polish. It’s going to sound a bit weird, but the house feels different, as though it’s happy to have people in it again.

  As we sat round the kitchen table eating peanut butter sandwiches and chocolate cake, the conversation turned to Jago.
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  “I wonder if he’s fit,” Kate mused as she licked chocolatey fingers.

  “I’m hoping he’s fit, gay and single,” said Lee.

  “What about your photographer?” I asked, “I thought he was lush.”

  Lee screwed up his face, “He looks hot, but he’s dead boring. Kept name dropping all the famous people he’s photographed.”

  “Ooh,” Kate squealed, “Spill the beans, who has he photographed that’s famous?”

  Lee shrugged, “No one really, well apart from that really annoying woman on the coffee advert, but she’s only famous for being annoying so she doesn’t really count.”

  “So, you didn’t take him home and ride him till dawn then?” I asked with a grin.

  Lee laughed, “No, I was home and in bed alone by ten.”

  Kate sighed, “I wonder if I might find love in the countryside.”

  “Maybe we all will,” I said hopefully.

  “Unlikely,” said Lee, “If we can’t find suitable partners in our hometown where we know loads of people, what chance have we got out here? Anyway, it’s all farmers and game keepers in the countryside, clad in damp tweed striding through the undergrowth with dead pheasants draped over their shoulders and a pack of hounds at their heels.”