A dozen grey heads turned and Sybella found herself sinking a little lower in her chair, because she had indeed waved a letter around last month claiming they had the right.
But dodging responsibility wasn’t her way.
‘I can’t understand why this has happened,’ she told the meeting, feeling very guilty and responsible for the confusion that had gripped the room. ‘I’ll look into it and sort it out. I promise.’
Seated beside her Mr Williams, the retired local accountant, patted her arm. ‘We know you will, Sybella, we trust your judgement. You haven’t led us wrong once.’
There was a hum of agreement, which only made Sybella feel worse as she packed up her notes and made her usual early departure.
She had worked hard for twelve months to make Edbury Hall a place of life and activity for its new incumbent, Mr Voronov, and continue to earn its keep for the village. While this house might personally remind her of some grim stage set for a horror film starring Christopher Lee, the Hall also brought in its share of the tourist trade and kept the local shops turning over.
If this all collapsed it would affect everybody. And she would be responsible.
Rugging herself up in the boot room for her dash home, Sybella fished her phone out of her jeans back pocket and rang her sister-in-law.
Meg lived in a jaunty little semi-detached house on a busy road in Oxford, where she taught art to people with no real aptitude for painting and belly danced at a local Egyptian restaurant. She took off and travelled at the drop of a hat. Her life was possibly the one Sybella would have gravitated towards if life in all its infinite twists of fate hadn’t set her on another course, with much more responsibility and less room to move. Sybella considered Meg her best friend.
‘It’s the letters. I should have known,’ she groaned after a brief rundown on tonight’s meeting. ‘Nobody writes letters any more.’
‘Unless you’re a lonely seventy-nine-year-old man rattling around in a big empty house, trying to fill it with people,’ said Meg.
Sybella sighed. Every time something new occurred at the Hall Mr Voronov gave the same advice.
‘Just write to my grandson and let him know. I’m sure there will be no problems.’
So she had. She’d written just as she’d been writing every month for the past year detailing events at Edbury Hall.
Because she’d been too damn timid to face him on the phone.
She’d let her native shyness trip her up—again—and this was the tip, Sybella suspected, of a huge iceberg that was going to take her little ship out. She said as much, leaving out the bit about being a timid mouse. Meg didn’t cut you slack for being a mouse.
‘My ship, Meg. My ship of fools, me being the captain!’
Meg was silent and Sybella already knew what was coming.
‘You know what this is a result of? That weird life you lead in the village.’
‘Please, Meg, not now.’ Sybella shouldered her way out of the boot room. The corridor was dark and faintly menacing, although she suspected anyone coming across her would probably run the other way. She was wearing her Climb and Ski gear that was packed with a substance that was supposed to keep you warm and dry in the Arctic. It wasn’t particularly flattering to a woman’s figure and it also inhibited natural movement. She was aware she currently resembled a yeti.
Meg was persistent. ‘You hang around with all those oldies...’
‘You know why I volunteer with the Heritage Trust. It’s going to get me a job in the end.’
Sybella made her way to the servants’ entrance, from which she could slip unnoticed out of the house, cross the courtyard and disappear through a space in the hedge that led to the lane that wound down the hill to the top of her road.
‘Really? You’ve been doing unpaid work for them for over a year. When does it pay off for you?’
‘It’s work experience in my field. Do you know how difficult it is to get a job with just a degree?’
‘I don’t know why you won’t move down to Oxford with me. It’s bristling with opportunities.’
‘Your parents are here,’ she said firmly. She was always firm when it came to her daughter’s well-being. ‘And I’m not removing Fleur from her home.’
‘It’s a two-hour drive. They can see her on weekends.’
‘Who is going to look after her while I’m at work? Think of the practicalities, Meg.’ God knew she had to. If she hadn’t been so busy juggling all the balls life had thrown at her she might have thought through those practicalities with a little more precision at the Hall.
‘Fair enough,’ conceded Meg. ‘But you’ve put a lot of eggs in that house of horrors basket.’
‘Yes, because I have a growing daughter who has her roots in this village—a village with no other job opportunities in my chosen field. I’ve tried Stansfield Castle, Belfort Castle and Lark House. None are interested in someone with lots of education but no on-the-ground experience. Without Edbury Hall, Meg, I’m stuck!’
‘So in the meantime you’re writing letters to a man you’re never going to meet. Should I ask about your love life?’
‘What has my love life got to do with the letters?’
‘I think if you had a boyfriend you wouldn’t have all this extra time to sit around writing letters and sealing envelopes. You’d be like the rest of us and use freaking email.’
‘It wasn’t extra time. It was extra effort. Besides, I do use email. And I’m not looking for a romantic relationship, Meg Parminter.’
‘I don’t know why not. My brother’s been gone six years. You can’t keep hiding away in Mouldering Manor with those oldies, Syb. Seize the day!’
Given her days were quite long, what with her part-time archivist job at the town hall, her volunteer work with the Heritage Trust and sole responsibility for her home-schooled five-year-old daughter, Sybella wasn’t quite sure which part of the day she wasn’t seizing.
Besides, the idea of taking off her clothes in front of a man after six years of not having to endure that specific kind of embarrassment with Simon was not an encouraging one.
‘You know that film you love, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir?’ Meg asked. ‘Do you remember at the end when her daughter comes home all grown up with the fiancé? One day that will be Fleur, feeling guilty because she’s got a life and you haven’t!’
‘I will have a life,’ Sybella shot back, confident at least on this point. ‘I’ll be in the midst of a brilliant career as a curator and very fulfilled in my life’s ambition, thank you very much.’
‘Okay, maybe that analogy doesn’t work in the twenty-first century,’ Meg grudgingly allowed. ‘But are you really going to wait another twenty years before you pull the “take a detour” sign down off your bed?’
Sybella pushed open the heavy wooden door and made her way outside. She blew out a breath and watched it take shape in the air.
Blast, it was cold.
‘It’s not a priority for me, Meg.’
‘Well, it should be!’
Sybella looked around to make sure no one was lurking in the bushes to overhear this.
‘I really don’t want to discuss my sex life, or lack of. I’m just not interested,’ she said firmly. ‘There, I’ve said it. Not. Interested. In. Sex. I am, however, very interested in what I’m going to say to Mr Voronov’s grandson when he prosecutes us!’
Which was when she noticed a pricey-looking off-road vehicle