Page 7 of A Fresh Start at Bramble Cottage
Up here there were more signs of problems that would need fixing. An ominous dark stain in the corner of the ceiling suggested a leaky roof — or possibly just a loose gutter. Several of the wooden window frames on the side exposed to the sea were going to need more than just a lick of paint.
The bathroom was a festival of Edwardian plumbing, with an enamel roll-top bath — unfortunately badly chipped, but it could possibly be repaired. Those kinds of baths were popular with buyers. But the sink wasn’t worth bothering with, and the toilet cistern was hanging precariously from one bracket high on the wall.
There were two small bedrooms — neither of them looked as if they had been used for years. The smallest was the one she had slept in when she was little. There was no furniture. A windowpane was cracked, there was another mouldy stain on the wall, and the bare floorboards were thick with dust.
In the slightly larger of the two, the only furniture was a double bed with a bare mattress, a heavy old wardrobe, empty, and a rather battered chest of drawers — also empty. Again there was thick dust everywhere.
That left only Molly’s room. Vicky hesitated as she opened the door — she had rarely been in here before. More than any of the others it seemed to hold Molly’s spirit.
This was the room where she had slept, had brushed her hair while sitting at that dressing table, had delicately dabbed the rose-scented perfume she had always worn onto her wrist and throat — its fragrance still lingered in the air.
Auntie Molly... A single tear spilled from the corner of her eye and tracked down her cheek. Impatiently she brushed it away. It was silly to cry — it had been so long since she had even seen her; she had been just a child.
It was a lovely room, if a bit too pink for her own taste. Delicately feminine, with dainty rosebud wallpaper and a lace-trimmed bedcover that matched the curtains. The carpet was a dusty pink, a pink-shaded lamp stood on the bedside table, and a sheepskin rug beside the bed would welcome bare feet when you got up in the morning.
Strolling over to the walnut dressing table, she sat down on the pink-upholstered stool in front of it. Like everything else, the surface was covered with a thin film of dust.
She touched each item lightly with one fingertip — a silver-backed hair brush, a crackled-glass bowl containing potpourri, a pretty enamelled trinket dish holding hair grips, a couple of elastic bands and a pearl button.
The large triple mirror reflected back her own image and the room behind her. She propped her elbow on the dressing table and dropped her chin into her cupped hand. More than forty years Aunt Molly had lived here, according to the solicitor.
Why had she chosen this little village on the pretty South Devon coast? Had she been happy here for all those years? She knew almost nothing about her...
As she gazed at the reflection of the room, something caught her eye — something that seemed jarringly out of place. A painting in a plain dark wooden frame, about eighteen inches high, on the wall opposite the bed. She didn’t recall that she had ever noticed it before.
It was a portrait — sort of. Weird, slightly exaggerated, slightly surreal. The eyes were large and luminous, the lips full and red. But... the features were sharply angular, the skin had the colour and texture of driftwood. And the hair looked as if it was made from shavings of mahogany.
But even more weirdly, it was of Aunt Molly. A much younger Molly, but unmistakeably her.
Vicky stood for a moment, staring at it. It was certainly strange, and yet... as you looked at it, it became oddly beautiful. There was no signature, just a small symbol in the bottom left-hand corner — anMperhaps, or twoNs. Even a pair of rabbit’s ears.
Who had painted it, and when? It wasn’t at all the sort of thing she could have imagined Aunt Molly liking. But then itmust have been painted years ago — in spite of the distortion it looked as if she had been maybe in her thirties.
Bemused, she shook her head and turned to go back downstairs to the kitchen. She was tired after her long drive from London, and hungry. She had brought some groceries, so she could make herself something to eat.
But first she needed to make up the bed in the spare room — she couldn’t quite face sleeping in Molly’s room. It would feel like she was... intruding, somehow.
She had brought her own bedding, on the advice of Jeremy’s mother: ‘Her sheets will probably be those awful nylon things that old people like. And anyway they won’t be aired.’
* * *
Sunshine pouring in through a gap in the curtains, and the sweet-throated song of a thrush, brought Vicky gently awake. She lay for a long moment, just breathing slowly. No thunder of traffic from the Shepherds Bush Road a few hundred yards away, no splashing from the bathroom where Jeremy would be showering and shaving.
Peace.
With a luxurious stretch she tossed aside the duvet, rolled out of bed and crossed to the window. The garden looked lovely in the soft early morning light. She could still trace the outline of overgrown flowerbeds, where a few brave rose bushes and japonicas were holding on.
The wooden fence looked as if it was going to need some urgent repairs. Beyond, a long field rolled down to a stand of trees, and over their leafy tops she could glimpse the vivid blue of the sea.
A surge of excitement rose inside her, just as when she had been seven years old and couldn’t wait to run down to the beach to build a sandcastle, to paddle in the waves, to lick a deliciousice-cream cornet — somehow ice cream had never tasted so good at home.
But before she could do that, she needed to ring the garage and get her car sorted out.
Barry from the garage was a little doubtful at first. “Ah, now, I don’t know if I can come out today, my luvver. We get pretty busy on weekends up on the moor, see, what with all the tourists. I might be able to get out to you tomorrow, but Tuesday’s more likely.”
“Oh.” That was a disappointment, though not entirely a surprise. “Tom said you’d probably be very busy.”
“Tom?”
