Page 15 of Secrets and Seashells at Rainbow Bay
I unpack a few necessary things, insisting that Charlie helps me, even though it is all I can do to stop him abseiling down the tower wall to escape this torture. Then when I can stand his miserable face no longer, I agree we can go and take Charlie’s first proper look around his new home.
While the Northumbrian skies show no signs of rain, we decide to explore the exterior first. Chesterford has more extensive grounds than I’d first realised. In the areas directly outside the inner castle walls there are wide expanses of green grass, dotted occasionally with large beds of luscious shrubs and pretty spring bulbs. We walk on a little further and find a few outbuildings – most of which seem empty, and some pretty derelict – and then on the very edge of the walled border are a series of tiny cottages, only one of which seems to be inhabited.
‘Big, isn’t it?’ Charlie says as we walk along the seaward side of the castle.
‘A bit bigger than our old flat, that’s for sure!’
‘And the house we used to live in with Dad. We had a garden there, didn’t we?’
I nod silently. My stomach still twists sharply when Charlie mentions his father.
‘But it was nothing like this!’ Charlie carries on excitedly. ‘Ooh, where does this lead, do you think?’ he asks as we stumble upon a little gateway in the wall.
I shrug and shake my head, but as always Charlie’s enthusiasm is not only contagious, it lifts me immediately from my melancholy.
‘Let’s see, shall we?’ I suggest in a lighter voice, delighted to see some colour already appearing in Charlie’s pale cheeks. There’s a large rusty key already in the lock, so I turn it and we swing open the door.
The gateway leads down a small walled pathway towards the sea, and at the end we find ourselves stepping directly on to the beach.
‘How cool is that?’ Charlie says, running on to the sand. ‘Our own private entrance to a beach!’
As he scampers off in front of me, I take a moment to breathe in the fresh sea air.
Glorious.
We spend about twenty minutes on the sand together, walking along the water’s edge, jumping when the waves nearly wash over our inappropriately shod feet, and picking up pretty shells and interestingly shaped pebbles with which Charlie insists on filling his trouser pockets.
‘Why don’t you just choose one special shell or pebble?’ I suggest. ‘You’re going to be coming down here quite a lot. If you only pick one each time then you’ll still leave some for the sand to look after.’
Charlie thinks about this. Then he empties his pockets, and after much careful consideration chooses one conical shell.
‘This will be my first-day-here shell,’ he announces proudly. ‘When I look at this shell I will remember our first day in our new home together.’
‘Excellent idea,’ I tell him proudly, pulling him towards me for a hug. ‘Oh, I do hope we’ll be happy here, Charlie.’ I sigh wistfully and gaze up at the castle behind us.
‘Of course we will, Mum,’ Charlie tells me pragmatically. ‘We’re always happy as long as we’re together, aren’t we?’
I’m so touched by his words, I can’t reply. So I just pull him into me again until I’ve blinked away my tell-tale tears.
Reluctantly we eventually have to leave the beach. So we head back up the path, through the gate, which I’m careful to lock behind us, and then I take Charlie on a tour around the parts of the castle I saw on my first visit. Charlie is mostly bored by this, not appreciating at all the antique furniture andobjets d’artwe find in all the public rooms, that is until we walk into the large ground-floor room known as the Great Hall and he spies a suit of armour standing guard in the corner. While he hurries over to examine it, I take a closer look at this vast room with its intricate wooden panelling and high vaulted ceilings, and in particular the many paintings that hang in between tapestries on the impressive dark oak walls.
Many of the paintings are portraits of past Earls of Chesterford – my ancestors, I suppose.This is a very masculine room, I decide as I move along the rows of portraits, a motley crew of men lined up within their ornate gold frames.I wonder what went on here throughout the castle’s history?
‘That’s the last Earl you’re looking at there,’ Arthur’s voice says behind me as I gaze up at one of the more modern portraits. ‘A fine man he was too. Perhaps a tad unstable towards the end, but he was a wonderful master to serve.’
I flinch at the word master, and think it best not to mention what Dorothy had said earlier about her old boss.
‘The paintings in here are all of past Earls, then?’
‘They are indeed. Many banquets, meetings and important decisions have taken place in this very room over the years, right back to the Norman Conquest.’
‘Obviously decisions made by men,’ I add, looking at all the paintings. ‘Has there never been a female in charge at Chesterford? What about all the countesses; where are the portraits of them?’
Arthur eyes me warily. ‘One of them feminist types, are you?’ he asks.
‘That depends on whattypeyou mean? Am I in favour of equality for women? Then yes. But do I take offence if a man holds a door open for me? Well, no, definitely not.’
‘Nothing wrong with a bit of chivalry,’ Arthur says approvingly.
