The Inheritance: Racy, pacy and very funny!

To top it all off, Mrs Worsley had been called away to a family emergency, something to do with her sister and a boiler (Angela had only been half listening), and was not due back until tea time, only a few hours before Brett walked through the door. Which left Jason, who’d been in a world of his own these past few days, as Angela’s sole helper. (Unless you counted Logan who, last time Angela had seen her, had been painting her toenails in rainbow stripes with a packet of felt tip pens on the kitchen floor.) Now Jason, too, was gone.

Perhaps my son and four Belgian lace cushions are together somewhere, knocking back sour apple martinis and enjoying themselves while I lose my mind? Angela thought hysterically. She’d been pacing the library like a madwoman for the last five minutes, as if a two-by-three-foot crate from the General Trading Company were going to magically materialize before her eyes, simply because she remembered leaving it there yesterday.

The ringing doorbell did nothing to calm her jarred nerves.

‘Coming!’

Running into the hall, she collided with Jason, still in his pyjamas and looking as if he hadn’t slept a wink. Insomnia was one of the worst parts of depression, but Angela was too frazzled to offer much sympathy this morning.

‘Where have you been?’ she wailed. ‘I need you.’

‘In bed. Sorry.’

‘Have you seen the new cushions? They were in that big box …’

‘They’re in your dressing room. Mrs Worsley carried them up last night, remember?’

Clearly, Angela didn’t remember. She hadn’t felt this stressed since the day that horrendous Tricia woman showed up at the house in Sydney and announced, cool as a cucumber, that she and Brett were ‘madly in love’. The doorbell rang again.

‘Yes, yes! I’m coming. Give me a chance, for God’s sake.’

She pulled open the door, unaware of quite how deeply she was frowning, or how far her voice had carried.

‘I’m s-so sorry,’ the man on the doorstep stammered. ‘I do apologize. I’ve come at a bad time.’

The man was older, maybe a decade older than Brett, with a fan of wrinkles around each eye, but he wasn’t unattractive. Tall, and still only partially grey, with a slightly military bearing and a kind, intelligent face, he looked quintessentially English in his tweed jacket and bottle-green corduroy trousers. Angela could see at once that she’d embarrassed him by being so unwelcoming.

‘Not at all. God, please. I’m sorry. What must you think of me? I’m not normally so rude. Or so scruffy.’ She looked down at her crumpled jeans, stained at the knees with wood polish, and at the chipped nail enamel on her bare feet, and blushed what she knew to be a perfectly hideous tomato-red. ‘How can I help?’

She’s not at all what I expected, thought Max Bingley. He’d imagined diamonds and perfectly coiffed hair and a fleet of servants answering the door, not a harassed housewife with bags under her eyes dressed like a charwoman. Perhaps the Cranleys were not as well off as local gossip suggested?

‘Max Bingley.’ He proffered his hand. ‘I’m the new headmaster at St Hilda’s, the primary school in the village. I understand your daughter will be joining us next term?’

‘You’re Logan’s headmaster? Oh, crap.’ The words were out of her mouth before she knew she’d said them. Angela’s colour deepened. ‘I can’t believe I just said that out loud! I am soooo sorry.’

Max laughed. Her discomfiture clearly amused him.

‘That’s quite all right, Mrs Cranley. I promise I won’t be sending you to my office. Or your daughter. Not yet, anyway. What did you say her name was?’

‘Logan,’ said Angela, smoothing down her dishevelled hair.

Max resisted the urge to say ‘like the berry?’ and merely smiled politely.

‘We have a son too. Jason. But he’s twenty so I doubt you’re going to want him in your classroom, ha ha ha ha!’

What’s wrong with me? thought Angela. Why am I babbling away like a lunatic?

‘No. Quite so.’ Max shifted awkwardly from foot to foot. This was the moment when he’d expected her to invite him inside for a cup of tea, or at least to ask a few polite questions about the school. Instead she just stood in the doorway looking flustered. I shouldn’t have come. I should have waited to meet her at school like everybody else. ‘Well, I won’t keep you. I just wanted to say welcome and I look forward to meeting … Logan.’

He turned the word over in his mouth as if it were some strange fruit he’d never tasted before. There weren’t too many Logans to the pound in Fittlescombe. Or in England, come to that.

‘Right, well. I look forward to seeing you both at school,’ Max finished awkwardly. ‘Goodbye!’

He smiled and gave a cheery wave, but it had clearly been an embarrassing encounter for both of them.

Angela walked back into the hall, closing the front door behind her. ‘I just made a total dick of myself in front of the village headmaster,’ she told Jason.

‘I’m sure you didn’t,’ said Jason, not looking up from the box of books he was unpacking.

‘I did. I said “crap”.’

Jason smiled. ‘I reckon he’ll recover, Mum. Crap’s not that bad. It’s not even a real swear word.’

‘It fucking well is,’ said Angela. They both giggled.

‘You need to chill out, you know,’ said Jason. ‘It’s only Dad coming home. It’s not the pope.’

‘I know,’ Angela sighed. ‘But I promised him the house would be ready and it’s a bloody disaster.’

Jason hugged his mother. He hated to hear the fear in her voice. But the truth was, Angela was afraid of Brett. They all were. Not physically afraid. But afraid of his disapproval, his censure, his disappointment. Brett Cranley was a bully.

So what if you promised him? Jason wanted to scream. What about all the promises he made to you, and didn’t keep? Anyone would think you were the one who’d been unfaithful, not him. But he knew it would do no good.

‘The house is not a disaster. It’s beautiful. Dad’s gonna love it, you’ll see. Now go and have a bath and get changed.’

‘A bath? I can’t. The cushions …’

‘I’ll do the damn cushions. And I’ll unpack the rest of these boxes too,’ said Jason. ‘Please, go and take a chill pill before you hurt yourself. You’re no use to anyone in this state.’

Once she’d gone, reluctantly and only after leaving a barrage of instructions about what needed to be done in the next hour, Jason returned to unpacking. The few books the family had had shipped from Australia looked ridiculous in Furlings’ enormous library. Rory Flint-Hamilton had bequeathed his vast collection of Victorian first editions to Sussex University, so the endless shelves in the grand mahogany-panelled room were bare. Like the mouth of an old man who’s lost all his teeth, thought Jason. He couldn’t imagine how they were ever going to fill them.

Perhaps he could persuade his parents to turn it into a music room? The acoustics would be perfect for a Steinway grand piano. Jason’s father had never encouraged his music, partly because he considered it to be a useless attribute in a man, and partly because, as he told Jason brutally, ‘You’re not good enough, mate.’

In this latter observation, however, Brett was correct. Jason was a good, solid pianist, but he lacked the talent and flair to make it professionally, at concert-level. The idea that a person might want to play the piano for pleasure, without making any money from it, was anathema to Brett Cranley.

‘Why don’t you do something useful? Something you can make a living at?’ Brett would ask his son. Jason had long ago given up trying to reason with his dad. It would be like an eagle trying to communicate with a gorilla. Utterly futile.

The doorbell rang again. People were seriously social in this village. Jason hesitated – he was still in his pyjamas – but he knew if he didn’t get it, Angela would heave herself out of the bath like something out of The Kraken Wakes and run dripping down the stairs. She’d probably open the door stark naked, she was in such a bloody state about Dad and the house.

Skidding back into the hallway, sliding along in his socks like Tom Cruise in Risky Business, he opened the door.

‘Oh my goodness. Hello.’

The most beautiful woman Jason Cranley had ever seen stood before him, looking him up and down, curling her upper lip with a combination of amusement and disdain.

‘Do you know who I am?’

No, thought Jason. But suddenly, I want to. The girl was tall and slim, with a cascade of honey-blonde waves falling onto her shoulders and down her back. She was wearing tight jeans tucked into riding boots, a dark green cashmere sweater that clung unashamedly to her large, pert breasts, and aviator sunglasses that hid her eyes but could not conceal the chiselled beauty of her features. Her cheekbones looked as if they could cut through glass.

‘I’m Tatiana Flint-Hamilton,’ the goddess announced, without waiting for an answer. Just as well, as all Jason seemed able to do was to open and close his mouth like a guppy. ‘I’m here for my painting.’

Pushing past him, Tati strode into the hall. She’d both longingly anticipated and dreaded coming here today to face Furlings’ new owners. Or rather, to face the imposters who had, temporarily, appropriated her birthright. Tati would never, ever view the Cranleys as anything other than squatters, no matter how many pieces of paper they or their lawyers waved in front of her. This was her home. She had no intention of giving it up without a fight, and indeed had already engaged a solicitor to contest Rory’s will on her behalf.

She clung tight to her indignation now, as a tumult of emotions threatened to overwhelm her. Nostalgia. Grief. Regret. Ignoring Jason completely, she stormed off down the corridor, pushing open doors into rooms that were either bare or filled with strange, jarring, modern furniture. Other people’s furniture. Tati found herself fighting back tears. She’d stayed here herself only a few weeks ago for the fete, and it had still felt like home. She’d inhaled the smell of stone and wood, faintly infused with smoke from last winter’s fires, and run her fingers lovingly along the heavy, damask curtains in the drawing room. She used to like to hide behind those curtains as a child, eating Carlsbad plums she’d stolen from the pantry, much to Mrs Worsley’s fury. But now the curtains were gone and the house smelled of lavender and some Godawful room spray from The White Company. Like a bloody hotel!

Tatiana turned on Jason, who’d been following her around silently like a confused puppy since she arrived.

‘Where’s Mrs Worsley?’

She said it accusingly, as if Jason had kidnapped the housekeeper, or murdered her in her bed and concealed the body.

‘She took the day off.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. She never takes days off. To do what?’

‘Erm, I think her sister …’ He left the sentence hanging, both intimidated and enthralled by Tatiana’s beauty and her astonishing confidence. She hadn’t asked if she could come in, or even inquired as to his name. She’d simply swept past him, like a queen reclaiming her castle.

‘Is there anything I can help with? I’m Jason by the way.’

Tatiana deigned to remove her Ray-Bans. ‘Jason. How do you do? I would say it’s nice to meet you but, under the circumstances,’ she smiled thinly, ‘I won’t bother. When will Mrs Worsley be back?’

‘I’m back now.’

The disapproving Scottish voice that Tatiana knew as well as her own rang out behind her, filling the room that until a few months ago had been Rory Flint-Hamilton’s study.

‘What do you want, Tatiana?’

Tatiana looked at the housekeeper with narrowed eyes. She was certain the old witch must have known about the changes to her father’s will. She’d probably encouraged him. God knows she’d had enough opportunity to sow the seeds of doubt in Rory’s mind. Tati could hear her now:

‘It would be tragic to think of Furlings going to wrack and ruin.’

‘Poor Tatiana’s her own worst enemy. The last thing she needs is more cash in her hand.’

She probably thought Daddy would leave her something as a token of his appreciation. The sanctimonious, money-grubbing, scheming old shrew.

Underneath Tatiana’s anger there was love there, and a grudging respect for the woman who had practically raised her. But, as on Mrs Worsley’s side, the hurt feelings ran deep, with both women feeling let down and betrayed by the other.

Tatiana had insisted on staying at Furlings in the run-up to the fete, but Mrs Worsley clearly hadn’t wanted her there. Perhaps unsure of her status since Rory’s death, she had given in and allowed it anyway, despite her better judgement. But now, with the Cranleys safely installed, she obviously felt emboldened.

‘You know you shouldn’t be here,’ she chided.

‘I’ve come for Granny’s painting,’ Tatiana responded stiffly.

‘I see. Well, you know where to find it.’

‘Obviously.’

While the two women glared at one another, arms folded, the doorbell rang yet again.

What now? thought Jason, irritated to have to go back to the front door rather than stay and watch the standoff.

‘Can I help you?’

It was a man at the door this time, blond and stocky and with a disarmingly genuine smile.

‘Gabriel Baxter. We’re neighbours.’ Gabe offered Jason his hand. ‘Is your father at home?’

Just at that moment, Angela came downstairs. Fresh from the bath, with her still damp hair tied up in a bun, she looked younger than her forty-two years in a plain white Gap T-shirt and a pair of cut-off jeans. She wore no make-up and seemed fragile and tiny in her bare feet.

‘My husband’s still in London.’ She smiled at Gabe. Having made such a poor impression on Max Bingley, she was determined to be friendly to any other villagers who showed up on the doorstep. ‘We’re expecting him this evening. I’m Angela. Would you like a cup of tea?’

Tatiana, her painting tucked under one arm, marched back into the hallway. She was about to storm straight out but stopped in her tracks when she saw Gabe.

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked rudely, her eyes narrowed in suspicion. Tatiana knew Gabe was one of the leading voices against her in the village. She also knew that when her father had been alive, Gabe had tried relentlessly to convince Rory to sell off parcels of Furlings’ land. She didn’t trust him an inch.

‘Just being neighbourly,’ lied Gabe. ‘How about you?’

I live here, Tati wanted to shout. It’s my fucking house. But she managed to restrain herself.

‘I’m collecting a painting. My grandmother’s portrait. One of the few pieces of my inheritance that wasn’t stolen from me,’ she added caustically. Belatedly catching sight of Angela, she introduced herself, extending the hand not holding the painting with regal disdain.

‘Tatiana Flint-Hamilton.’

‘Oh!’ Angela smiled warmly. ‘Hello. I didn’t know you were coming. I’m Angela. I’m so sorry about the mess. You should have called.’

‘Should I indeed?’ Tati’s voice quivered with resentment and hostility.

‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ Angela blushed. ‘I just meant …’

‘Don’t apologize,’ Gabe Baxter interjected. ‘It’s your house.’

Tati shot him a look that would have turned a lesser man to stone.

‘Besides, you’re quite right. Tatiana should have called.’

‘Don’t you have a ewe that needs lambing, Gabriel?’ sniped Tati. ‘Or an episode of The Archers to listen to? Gabriel’s terribly rustic,’ she added patronizingly to Angela and Jason. ‘A real local character. If you ask him nicely, I expect he’ll come round and do a spot of Morris dancing for you, won’t you, Gabriel? It’s really quite adorable.’

Gabe’s features hardened. He looked at his watch.

‘My goodness, is that the time? You’d best get home to your rented cottage, Tatiana. It’s almost coke-o’clock.’

Blushing scarlet, Tatiana pushed past him and stormed out, throwing the painting into the back seat of her Mini Cooper and driving off. Gabe Baxter followed swiftly after, promising to come back and call on Brett at the weekend.

Once the door closed behind him, Angela and Jason exchanged shocked glances.

‘Is everybody in Fittlescombe so … dramatic?’ Angela asked Mrs Worsley.

Or so attractive? thought Jason. Watching Gabe and Tatiana going at it was like watching a pair of peacocks fanning out their tails for battle. Terrifying but beautiful.

‘No ma’am,’ said Mrs Worsley with feeling. ‘I can assure you that most of your neighbours are quite normal, sane and friendly people. Miss Flint-Hamilton – Tatiana – I’m afraid she can bring out the worst in folk. Especially around here.’

Angela bit her lower lip anxiously. She’d already heard whispers in the village about Tatiana’s legal challenge to the will. Brett had assured her that the legacy was watertight, and Furlings was theirs. But having seen Tatiana in the flesh, Angela got the strong sense that Rory Flint-Hamilton’s daughter was a force to be reckoned with. Perhaps Brett had underestimated her?

‘You don’t think she plans to cause trouble, do you?’

She looked at Mrs Worsley nervously.

‘Unfortunately Mrs Cranley, Tatiana’s done nothing but cause trouble since the day she was born. And since she turned fifteen …’ She rolled her eyes heavenwards. ‘Her father was always too soft on her, bless his soul. Try not to worry, though,’ she added, noticing Angela’s tense expression. ‘She’s full of hot air about the will.’

‘Do you really think so?’

‘Oh, yes. She would need the support of the whole village to be able to launch a challenge, and she certainly hasn’t got that. Even if she did, Mr Flint-Hamilton was a clever man, and a thorough one. These so-called loopholes are all in Tatiana’s head.’

‘I do hope so,’ said Angela.

The thought of packing everything up and returning to Sydney, Tricia and their old life now was more than she could bear.

Twenty minutes later, pushing open the stiff door of Greystones Farm, Tatiana collapsed on the ugly, brown sofa feeling exhausted and depressed.

It had been a pretty devastating two days.

Unable to afford a decent London lawyer, she’d retained a local, Chichester man, Raymond Baines of Baines, Bailey & Wilson. Their meeting yesterday had been less than Tati had hoped for.

‘To be perfectly honest with you, Miss Flint-Hamilton, I don’t believe you have a case.’

Short and bald, with thick, owlish glasses and a distinctly passive, mild-mannered, absolute-opposite-of-a-go-getter-lawyer demeanour, Ray Baines looked at his would-be client steadily.

‘But I already have half the village behind me,’ Tati protested. ‘The tide of local opinion is definitely turning. Nobody wants some upstart Australian installed at Furlings. I made good headway running the fete committee, and by the time it comes to court I’m sure I can—’

‘It won’t matter,’ Raymond Baines cut her off, not unkindly. ‘That’s what I’m trying to tell you.’

‘Are you saying you are unable to act for me, Mr Baines?’ Masking her disappointment with anger, Tatiana bristled with aggression.

‘No, Miss Flint-Hamilton. I am able to act for you. And technically speaking you are correct. We could mount a challenge based on the premise that Furlings was subject to an ‘effective’ entailment which your father had no legal authority to break. However I am advising you that it is my legal opinion that such a challenge will fail. With or without local support.’

‘Yes, but you don’t know that. You only think it.’

‘I think it very strongly.’

Tatiana knew she was clutching at straws. But drowning as she was in a sea of shattered hopes, she had no choice but to clutch on regardless.

‘What are your fees, Mr Baines?’

Raymond Baines told her. The number was modest, a tiny fraction of what Tati’s godfather’s firm would have charged for the same service. But it would still represent a dent in Tati’s meagre savings that she could ill afford.

‘Savings’ was perhaps the wrong word for the few thousand pounds remaining in Tatiana’s bank account. Having split from Piers, her latest wealthy lover, and moved out of his Belgravia flat, Tatiana had taken the jewellery he’d given her, along with any other gifts from former paramours she suspected might be of value, and auctioned the lot at Christie’s. The resulting windfall had been enough to pay off her debts, rent Greystones for six months, and leave a modest sum to fund a legal battle with the Cranleys.

Unfortunately, she would need a lot more than a modest sum. At a minimum, she would need full access to the pittance of a trust fund her father had deigned to leave her. That would mean crawling cap-in-hand to St Hilda’s new headmaster, Harry Hotham’s replacement, to beg for a job. So far Tati’s pride had prevented her from availing herself of this much-needed source of funds. It was bad enough having to leave London and return to Fittlescombe, but that was a necessity. Ending it with Piers meant she’d lost the roof over her head, and rents in any part of London where she might actually want to live were astronomical. Still, if the court case dragged on as long as Raymond Baines seemed to think it might, the fact was she was going to need a job of some kind. And as the school job was the only one that unlocked her trusts, this was the obvious path to take.

The prospect terrified her. Tatiana Flint-Hamilton had never worked a day in her life. As for teaching, she wished she shared her godfather’s faith in her abilities. Or her father’s, for that matter. The simple truth was that she no more knew how to control a class full of children than she knew how to mill flour or discover a cure for cancer.

She’d hoped that going back to Furlings today and seeing the new owners installed there might revive her fighting spirit and boost her courage. Remind her that the fight was worth it. In fact, all it had done was make her desperately sad. The fact that the Cranley family seemed so nice and friendly, and so ensconced already, only made Tati feel worse. Mrs Worsley was already firmly on their side, defending their right to be there like the wretched dragon that she was. It didn’t seem to bother her in the least that Furlings might end up in the hands of a boy named Jason with a sister who, if local gossip was correct, appeared to have been named after a berry. Granny Flint-Hamilton would be rolling in her grave! As for Gabe Baxter, he was little more than a jumped-up farmhand himself. It was hardly any wonder that he was pro-the Cranleys, already hanging around Furlings like a bad smell. People like Gabe ran on envy the same way a car runs on petrol.

Shit-stirring little Bolshevik. I wonder what he’s after, exactly?

Getting up from the sofa, Tati wandered into the kitchen and put the kettle on, more for something to do than anything else. It was a long time since she’d felt so profoundly alone. Greystones, the farmhouse she’d rented, was simply furnished, almost to the point of sparseness, and Tati had brought nothing with her from London, beyond some bed sheets and a preposterously expensive couture wardrobe, wholly unsuitable for country life. Her shoe collection alone, more than fifty pairs of Jonathan Kelsey, Manolo Blahnik and Emma Hope stilettos in a rainbow of gleaming, candy colours, would have been enough for a deposit on a house like this one, if only she’d spent her money a little more wisely. Then again, she’d assumed she would always be rich. And why wouldn’t she? How was she supposed to know that her vengeful bloody father had been plotting to disinherit her all along, in some sort of macabre, sick joke from beyond the grave?

Having never put roots down anywhere other than Furlings, it had never occurred to Tati to acquire furniture or clocks or books or favourite cushions, the things that would have helped to turn a house like this into a home. She hated the poo-brown sofas, and the incongruously modern, sixties-style Ikea plastic chairs around the dining-room table. As for her landlady’s rugs, they were so vile – swirly affairs in orange and lime green and other colours that had no place in a beautiful, Grade II-listed Sussex hall house – that Tati had rolled them all up on the day she’d arrived and stacked them en masse in the back of the garage. The original flagstones and wide-beamed oak floors beneath were infinitely preferable. But without a single rug of her own to warm the place up a bit, the overall effect was one of bareness. Stark and barren, like a tree stripped of its leaves after a storm.