A Year at Meadowbrook Manor Read online

  ‘Connor, Gwen, come join us,’ Harriet said, recovering, determined to resume control, of herself mainly.

  ‘Yes, it’ll be nice to toast your father, just the family,’ Gwen said, her voice catching as if on a rusty nail. Harriet felt her grief. It was all around her. In her siblings, in Gwen and Connor. She knew it was there, but even though she hurt inside, she was angry that she couldn’t see it in herself.

  ‘Goodness, how long does it take to get ice,’ Freddie cried, grabbing the ice bucket from Gus, as they returned to the study, and organising drinks for everyone. Finally, everyone had a very large, expensive whisky in their hands.

  ‘I propose a toast, to the old man,’ Freddie said, with a grin. They all drank.

  ‘And to his children,’ Gwen added. ‘He’d be very proud of you all today.’

  Would he though? Harriet was pretty sure that he wouldn’t be proud of her in the slightest.

  Chapter 2

  ‘Thank you for coming,’ Freddie said for the millionth time as people began to leave the wake. Pippa pinched him. ‘Ow. What?’ he asked, glaring at her.

  ‘It’s Mark, Pippa’s husband,’ Mark pointed out, shaking his head.

  ‘Oh goodness I didn’t recognise you.’ Freddie was slurring his words and Harriet knew he had put away enough whisky to render him almost blind. Freddie had always liked a drink, he was almost expelled from school for trying to brew his own vodka from potatoes when he was thirteen, but he excused it as part of his job as a party organiser in some of the hottest clubs.

  Mark smiled, patiently. ‘I was in the pew with you in the church,’ he pointed out. He had his arm around Pippa, Harriet noticed with a pang of something akin to envy; he had been by her side for the whole of the wake. Although Harriet hadn’t had much of a chance to talk to Mark, she was grateful for him being there for her sister. Sad that she didn’t have anyone but happy Pippa did.

  ‘Oh, I’m sure you were, dear brother-in-law,’ Freddie said, pleasantly. ‘But unfortunately you have one of those forgettable faces.’

  Harriet gaped at Mark, who looked a little red-faced, but then, to everyone’s relief, he laughed. Harriet let herself relax, and Pippa giggled. Freddie was a terror, but so lovable. She’d almost forgotten.

  Her relationship with Gus over the years was distant, and Freddie was well, Freddie. Pippa had kept in touch via email but those emails didn’t tell the story of what was really going on, nor did Harriet’s replies. Harriet felt as if her siblings were out of her reach in many ways. Being back at home with them, having to say goodbye to her father, it hit her how much she actually missed them. How she should have tried harder to keep them together. How much she wished her father was still here to tell her how.

  Thank goodness the wake was winding down – if Harriet had to smile any more, she felt her face would split in two. Her feet were killing her, she hadn’t anticipated how much standing she would have to do, but it had definitely been an event. The Singers didn’t have any other family; her father had been an only child, her mother’s family was pretty much an unknown quantity, but the villagers had shown up in full. It seemed as if most of Parker’s Hollow had come to her father’s send-off and it was clear, touchingly clear, that her father was a very popular man.

  Either that or the village had heard about his wine collection.

  Impulsively Harriet grabbed Pippa’s hand.

  ‘Come with me,’ she said, dragging her away as Mark was being cornered by one of the village’s older ladies.

  Harriet ushered Pippa into the study, where she sat down and started spinning in her father’s chair. She felt dizzy and a little nauseous, so it possibly wasn’t her best idea. Pippa sat on the desk, cross-legged, taking up most of the available space. It was a scene from their childhood. But Pippa was no longer a child, she was a woman, a married grown-up. A stunning grown-up woman.

  Harriet didn’t think she was beautiful like her younger sister. Pippa looked like their late mother with her white-blonde hair, blue eyes and slender figure. Harriet took after their father more. She had dark hair, was taller than Pip and her features were even, some would say striking, but not ethereal like Pippa’s.

  ‘I miss him,’ Harriet said, simply.

  Pippa’s eyes filled with tears, but Harriet remained dry-eyed. She wanted to cry for her father, but it was as if the tap of tears had been turned firmly off. Not that Harriet was much of a crier. She had cried a lot when she was a child, well she probably had; she assumed she did. But after her mother died, she realised that she was the oldest and that meant she had to behave as such. She had to look out for her brothers and sister and suddenly tears didn’t seem to have much of a place in her life. Harriet had become so good at shutting off her feelings, she wasn’t sure how to conjure them up anymore.

  ‘Me too. I still think he’s going to walk in any minute. It’s funny isn’t it, how long it’s been since we’ve all been together.’ Pippa sighed. ‘I mean, it’s been years since I’ve spent any proper time with you.’

  ‘I know, it’s my fault. I mean, being in New York. I didn’t even come home for Christmas. I hadn’t seen Dad since your wedding. I Skyped him every week, but I didn’t come and visit. And now he’s gone.’ Harriet swung the chair violently. The guilt was strangling her.

  ‘We didn’t know he was going to die,’ Pippa said quietly.

  Harriet nodded. No, they had no idea that he was dying, and she knew if she had she would have rushed back to see him. But what sort of daughter did that make her? One who would only fly across the ocean to say goodbye? It didn’t make her feel any better about herself.

  ‘Pip, shall we go to the summer house?’ Harriet asked. She had no other ideas of how to reconnect with her siblings, but the summer house was somewhere they all spent time together when they were children. She wanted to find some of the closeness they used to have, which at the moment felt as if it was out of reach.

  ‘Yes please,’ Pippa replied, wiping tears from her cheeks.

  ‘What do you think Dad would make of this?’ Freddie asked later as the sky darkened and the four of them sat on comfy floral sofas in the summer house, their childhood den, drinking champagne straight from the bottle.

  ‘That we are a bunch of delinquents but at least the champagne is vintage,’ Harriet laughed.

  ‘He certainly thought I was a delinquent,’ Freddie said, laughing sadly. No one argued. Freddie was tall, over six foot, with blond hair and blue eyes, like Pippa he took after their mother. He was so good-looking that often women – and sometimes men – threw themselves at him.

  ‘But would he think we were OK?’ Gus asked. ‘I mean, would he, like Gwen said, be proud of us?’ Gus sounded so downcast, Harriet wished she knew how to reach out to him. Gus looked more like her than the others. Dark hair, as tall as Freddie, but with features which as he got older more resembled their father. He was good-looking but his face so full of sorrow that it was hard to see how attractive he used to be.

  ‘He loved us all, I know that,’ Pippa said fiercely. ‘I know he was hard on you guys, but he did love us all.’ It was clear that Pippa felt guilty that she had had an easier time of it than her siblings. It was as if their father used up all his expectations on the older ones and let Pippa do pretty much what she wanted, including not going to boarding school.

  ‘He did. I know he did. He might have been a bit unorthodox as a parent sometimes,’ Harriet said, swigging from the bottle again, ‘but I agree with Pip, he loved us.’

  ‘I will miss the old bugger,’ Freddie said, and she saw his eyes fill with watery tears. She wanted to reach across and hug him but she still didn’t know how.

  ‘Me too.’ Gus looked forlorn.

  ‘Let’s drink to that,’ Harriet said, needing to lift everyone’s spirits, including her own. ‘Our wonderful father, the old bugger, may he rest in peace.’

  ‘Either that or haunt us all for eternity,’ Freddie finished.

  Chapter 3

  Harriet felt
her hangover taunting her before she was ready to wake up. Her head was pounding, her mouth dry and, as she tried to process the events of the previous day, she wanted to vomit. Bury father, be polite to strangers at his wake, attempt to bond with siblings. Cry? No, her eyes were still resolutely dry.

  It had been bittersweet spending time with her brothers and sister yesterday. They had got drunk, yes, and they had also talked, or at least tried to. It was still slightly awkward between them, they were all lost in their own thoughts about their father, but it was progress of sorts. There had been no terrible row, but they had all drifted and it felt as if she was in the company of three polite strangers – or two polite strangers and Freddie. Harriet knew that she had to ensure her siblings didn’t drift apart again, and she had to find a way for them all to reconnect. Keeping the family together would be her priority even when she was back in New York. After all, now that her father was gone, she was head of the family.

  The summer house party had ended when Mark and Gwen arrived, asking if they wanted anything to eat. Pippa had got up, stumbled, so Mark had said he would take her back to the house for a lie-down. He practically had to carry her as they all went back up to the house where leftover food from the wake served as supper.

  She woke up in her childhood bedroom, although at first it seemed alien. When each child turned twenty-one, the rooms had been redecorated one by one, starting of course with Harriet’s. Her father said it would always be her room but a grown-up version, suitable for her becoming an adult. It had been transformed, a beautiful king-size bed with a fabric headboard, the bed linen matched the curtains and the room was painted a pale blue. She had kept her dressing table, which once belonged to her mother, but that was the only thing left from her childhood. It was a gorgeous room, with an en suite bathroom, but she had barely spent time in it. As she stretched out in bed, she was hit with another bolt of regret. She wished she had visited more, she knew she would feel remorse for not seeing her father – in person rather than on a computer screen – before he died, for the rest of her life. She wished the house hadn’t become a stranger to her and she wished she hadn’t let her relationship with her siblings drift the way it had. But she also knew that all these thoughts weren’t going to do her any good. Self-pity wasn’t something that Harriet usually entertained; she wasn’t going to start now.

  As she slowly sat up, she noticed she was only half undressed. Which meant she had committed the cardinal sin of not taking her make-up off. But then it wasn’t every day you buried your last remaining parent, so surely she was allowed this one sinful night? She wondered what time it was in New York. She wondered what the markets were doing, what her trading floor was up to? But then she realised it would be shut, quiet, sleeping right now. As she should be.

  She assumed she was suffering from jet lag, as it was only five in the morning, either that or too much alcohol. Harriet liked a drink; her lifestyle allowed for the odd bottle of wine, or a few cocktails at the weekend, but she rarely got drunk. It was one of her many control issues. She had always been charged with being a control freak; she had only a flimsy argument against that accusation.

  She reached into her still unpacked suitcase – another unusual thing, normally when she went anywhere the first thing she did was unpack and hang up her clothes – and rummaged for her gym clothes. She pulled them on and made her way downstairs.

  The house was quiet as she went to the kitchen, grabbed a bottle of water and then made her way to the basement which her father had converted into a gym and swimming pool. She smiled at the memory of him doing it. It was an ambitious move, turning a dusty basement into a state-of-the-art fitness centre, and they’d all been over the moon at the idea of having a swimming pool. Gosh, she never fully realised quite how spoilt they were. They had had parties there as teenagers; weekends at Meadowbrook Manor were very popular among her friends. Her father liked having the house full, he said it gave the place life, and kept him young.

  Andrew also said it was his way of taking good care of himself. He swam every day, and she replayed the pride in his voice when he told her: ‘Fifty lengths at least every day, Harry. I’m in tip-top condition.’ She felt her heart hurt as she heard his words. Because he was only seventy and for a man who ruled the world as he ruled his world, it was far too young to die.

  Feeling angry, suddenly – angry, tired, and fed up – she made her way to the treadmill and started pounding as hard as she could. She wanted to outrun the hangover, she wanted to outrun the grief that was beginning to chase her and she wanted to outrun the feelings that were creeping into her. But she knew she would never really outrun any of it. She put her music on as loudly as she could bear and kept running.

  It was nine by the time she had taken a long shower and made it downstairs to the dining room where a full breakfast was laid out waiting for them. Her father had probably studied Upstairs, Downstairs, when he first became rich, because breakfast was always laid out, buffet-style, in heated silver dishes on the sideboard in the dining room. According to Gwen, she did it even when it was just him. Harriet felt a pang at the vision of her father sat on his own at the huge dining table, eating a breakfast fit for a king. Not to mention poor Gwen who would have probably been happier serving Coco Pops and toast, but no, there was a full English – fried bread, toast, eggs, even kippers. He was a big fan of kippers.

  Gus was sitting at the table, with a newspaper, Pippa was sitting opposite, Mark next to her. Harriet smiled at each of them.

  ‘No sign of Freddie?’ she asked, trying to sound breezy as she went to fill her plate. She was glad of the full English, goodness knows her hangover needed it. The treadmill had dulled it a bit but it was still there.

  ‘Probably still in bed,’ Gus replied.

  ‘Can I pour you some coffee?’ Pippa asked, picking up a silver coffee pot. No sign of a hangover on her face.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ Mark cut in before Harriet had a chance to reply. ‘So … does anyone know what the plan is?’ Mark asked as he leant across the table to pour Harriet’s coffee.

  She tried to weigh him up, as she had no idea what he was like. He was older – ten years older than Pippa – but handsome and well dressed. Conservative. Pippa, who had always been quite bohemian growing up, hair flying wildly behind her, barefoot if she could, had definitely changed. She was wearing slacks and a blouse, something the old Pippa would never have owned, and her hair was perfectly done up in a chignon. She sported a full face of make-up and expensive pearls at her neck. But then what did Harriet expect? They had all morphed into adulthood, and she was different now, of course they all were.

  ‘What plan?’ Harriet asked, stirring her coffee and hoping it might make her feel better.

  ‘Well, unfortunately I need to get back to Cheltenham, to work …’ Mark started. He was incredibly attentive to his wife.

  ‘The will’s being read today,’ Gus said, without looking up from the paper. ‘Pip needs to be here for that.’

  ‘Darling, you can go home and I’ll get someone to drive me after,’ Pippa offered, touching her husband on the arm.

  ‘No, darling, you need my support. I’ll stay here. I’ll juggle a few things.’ He kissed his wife on the cheek.

  ‘But I don’t want to put you out?’

  ‘Pippa, I’m staying, that’s that. You need me.’

  ‘Oh there you are!’ Freddie, looking utterly dishevelled, appeared at the door, interrupting any further debate.

  ‘Fred, are you all right?’ Harriet asked.

  ‘I think so, although I need to throw up.’

  Harriet wasn’t sure who was the most surprised as he did just that, all over the dining room floor.

  ‘I’m going for a walk around the garden if anyone fancies it. Goodness knows, I need some fresh air,’ Harriet announced after breakfast was finished. Gwen had not only cleaned up after Freddie but she’d also brushed away any offers of help to clear up after breakfast. Harriet had learnt from an early age that it wa
s best not to argue with Gwen. She was very much in charge of the house, and although that meant clearing up after everyone, she liked it that way. If Harriet so much as tried to move a plate, Gwen seemed to appear from nowhere and snatch it away.

  Gwen used to live in a cottage on the estate, which was still hers as far as Harriet was aware, but she had moved into the house after Pippa left home. It always gladdened Harriet to think of her father having Gwen there to take care of him. She wondered what she would do now.

  ‘I’ll come,’ Pippa said. ‘I’m sure Mark will welcome some peace.’ She smiled.

  ‘Well I could come—’ Mark started.

  ‘Really, no need, you do some work, I want to catch up with the others anyway,’ Pippa said.

  ‘I’m in. Shall I try to get Freddie or leave him?’ Gus asked.

  ‘No, get him, if he’s cleaned himself up.’

  As Gus went to see if Freddie was going to join them, Harriet felt her spirits lift a little. They were all together and she was slowly remembering how much she loved her siblings. She wondered if their father was watching them now. Of course she didn’t believe in all that life after death stuff, but she liked the idea that he was.

  The four of them stood by the back door – Mark had gone off to do some work. Harriet was wearing her gym trainers, the only flat shoes she owned, jeans and a light sweater. Pippa pulled on a pair of wellingtons that she kept at the house, Gus was wearing trainers and Freddie, a pair of ratty Converse.

  ‘Shall we go survey the land?’ Freddie asked, looking a bit the worse for wear but sounding like someone from Downton Abbey.

  ‘Sure, let’s do it,’ Harriet laughed. ‘Or at least the top gardens, Pip said that Dad had done a great job with them lately.’

  ‘He has, they’re really beautiful.’