Page 2 of Boomerville at Ballymegille

Jo watchedHattie and wondered how long she would keep up the performance. The quiet and submissive Hattie wandering around the room, shaking hands and smiling with Hugo’s ageing contemporaries and family, whom she loathed, was a far cry from the fun-loving and boisterous person who’d arrived at this house some ten months before.

Hugo’s death had knocked the stuffing out of her.

She watched Hattie exchange pleasantries with an elderly cousin who looked scathingly at the recently bereaved wife. In the days leading up to Hugo’s funeral, the cousin had questioned Hattie about her future. The Mulberry family were affluent and had lived in the village for generations, where their cider business employed many of the working population. Raven Hall, in its day, had enjoyed a full complement of staff, from a butler and house-staff, to gardeners and farm-workers tenanted on the estate.

Jo knew that Mulberry offspring married into families of similar standing. They had been shocked when Hugo and his brother, Sir Henry, a widower, vacationed at Jo’s hotel in Cumbria and ripples of discontent soon turned into a flood as Sir Henry became engaged to Lucinda, a bohemian art teacher, and Hugo married Hattie, the hotel manager.

As Jo studied the mourners, she thought that it seemed such a short time since she’d stood on this very same spot, to attend Sir Henry’s funeral the previous year. She wondered if her business had contributed to the brothers’ demise, for both had fully participated in their Boomerville experience. The hotel, in the village of Kirkton Sowerby, was a retreat that encouraged learning and new hobbies for those in the middle and later years and Hugo and Henry had embraced everything with gusto.

When Hugo proposed to Hattie, no one could have been more surprised than Jo. She hadn’t seen it coming and had been shocked when she’d realised that Hattie would be leaving and heading south to live at Raven Hall.

But Jo had given her blessing and now, as she watched Hattie move away from the odious cousin and help herself to another drink, her heart went out to her friend.

Hattie was lost.

Lost in in a world that she didn’t want to be a part of. Life without Hugo in this rambling old pile had no meaning and, with relatives that didn’t warm to the widow, things looked bleak. Jo wanted to scoop Hattie up and take her back to Cumbria but Hattie was stubborn and for all Jo knew, she had other plans.

She looked around at the faces in the room. A few were familiar, friends and guests from the hotel who’d known Hugo and Hattie. Seated on a chair, by a window overlooking the garden, Lucinda Brown held court. Flame-coloured hair billowed around her angular face and her pale skin, accentuated by rouged cheeks, folded in lines at the corners of her eyes. She held an unlit cigarette, placed in an elegant holder and, with long legs crossed, exposed a thin thigh beneath a silk tunic. A ruby engagement ring encased in diamonds, a Mulberry family heirloom, gleamed on the artist’s bony finger.

Jo watched Hattie lean in to talk to Lucinda. Geoffrey Mulberry stood nearby and Jo could see that his brow was furrowed and his eyes half-closed, as he glared at the two women. She knew that he thought his father and uncle had been bewitched and could almost feel his pent-up anger.

How would things have turned out if the brothers had lived?

But Sir Henry had died of a heart attack on the night of his engagement to Lucinda, and Hugo, suffering a fatal stroke, had landed face down in his dinner at the captain’s table, during a Caribbean cruise with Hattie. Jo thought that Geoffrey must be thanking all the cider angels in brewery heaven that Lucinda and Hattie hadn’t become permanent fixtures at Raven Hall. Imagine the upheaval to Mulberry life!

Fortunately for Geoffrey, Lucinda had returned to Cumbria and made a life under Jo’s roof, teaching art. Jo’s intuition told her that now he was intent on removing Hattie too, thus ensuring Raven Hall remained safely intact for his overpowering family.

Jo sighed; she needed to speak to Hattie. Moving forward, she reached out to touch her arm. ‘Can I have a word?’ she asked.

Hattie turned and, excusing herself from Lucinda, followed Jo from the room. They went out of the house and across the drive, to sit on a bench overlooking the immaculate garden.

Two ravens appeared and perched on the stone wall.

‘They mate for life,’ Hattie said and nodded towards the birds. ‘Hugo told me they live in pairs in a fixed territory.’

‘Just like the Mulberry family,’ Jo replied.

‘Aye, that’s true.’ Hattie chuckled.

‘Has Geoffrey spoken to you about the future?’

‘He thinks I should move on, go back to Cumbria.’ She grimaced as she thought about their conversation the previous day. ‘He was very aggressive.’

‘Geoffrey certainly hasn’t inherited any good genes from his father,’ Jo said. ‘Sir Henry would be turning in his grave if he knew how his sister-in-law was being treated.’

They watched the ravens parade; silent sentries on guard.

Hattie felt their piercing glare. ‘I know what you’re going to say,’ she said, ‘this place isn’t right for me.’

‘I hate the thought of you being stuck here.’ Jo reached down and picked up a pebble; she tossed it towards the ravens.

Neither bird moved.

‘Will you come back to Boomerville?’ Jo asked, her tone almost pleading. ‘Cumbria is your home and we need you.’

‘You’re very kind, not like the selfish buggers here, who can’t wait to see the back of me.’

Hattie glanced at the library window, where Geoffrey stood, glass in hand, his stare disdainful as he looked out.

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