Justin looked up from his drawing board with a start and realised that the room was flooded with light. He must have been drawing for at least two hours now. He had been something of an insomniac since his student days in London – then it had been a nuisance because he needed his sleep to recover from late nights of drinking and drugs – not that he’d been much into drugs – unlike his brother Jason who had been a bit rebellious and wild all his life. Besides, getting into the Architectural Association had been a hard slog and he hadn’t wanted to compromise his potential employment prospects with the reputation of always being stoned. Now his inability to sleep meant he was often up and at his drawing board in the early hours. Strangely, his creative brain was frantically fertile in those pre-dawn hours and design problems were more easily solved.
He stood up and stretched his long rangy limbs as he walked towards the window, hugging his ancient dressing gown around him. He leant towards the mullioned window with his breath momentarily obscuring the view that he looked forward to every morning. Despite the cold, he pushed open the old, metal-framed window with its small panes of undulating glass and leaned out to fill his soul with the Derbyshire landscape. The roofs of the estate buildings lay beneath with their sagging lines of Staffordshire blue tiles or in many cases, the beautiful heavy stone tiles that had managed to survive. They glistened with the sparkle of overnight frost as the early morning sun threw its pale, watery gaze across them. He ruffled his hands through his boisterous black hair and swept his eyes up and over the village. In the far distance he could see the eerie isolated clumps of trees outlined on the top of Minninglow Hill. A light scattering of snow had dusted the tops of the hills as so often happened on spring mornings in the Peak District. The pale pink sky washed the countryside with the anticipated glow of yet another beautiful day; He could never get enough of this view. Living in London for the past ten years, he had missed this daily sojourn with his earthly roots. His urban friends had scoffed as he waxed lyrical about the countryside of his childhood and couldn’t understand why he took every opportunity to escape back to his mother’s cottage in Parwich. How do you begin to explain to anaesthetised city dwellers that every day in his Derbyshire countryside was a visual delight? In London, the days and seasons rolled into one long suffocating year, interspersed with occasional days lazing in Kensington Gardens amongst the stiff floral displays, trying to cut out the smell of exhaust fumes and the endless background hum of traffic.
He closed the window and glanced towards the dip in the hills where he knew Parwich and his mother’s cottage lay concealed. His thoughts drifted and he reflected on the extraordinary events that had unfolded a year ago. That strange email from his mother, just before his and Jason’s thirtieth birthday, had simply asked for the twins to come home as soon as they could because she needed to talk to them. Their mother’s emails were usually huge epistles of the daily life and happenings of village life – the strains and pleasures of her job as headmistress of the tiny village school and all the web of intrigue and gossip that held the tiny community of four hundred souls together.
They had left London late on Sunday afternoon, after their birthday bash on a Thames party boat. They had promised their Mum and Dad that they would stay for a few days to catch up and recharge their batteries; not that Justin thought Jason needed a rest. Justin wasn’t sure exactly what his twin brother got up to but his job as an investment banker with Hazlet’s didn’t seem too onerous. It hadn’t surprised him when Jason had been subsequently released in the first wave of city bank redundancies.
On that sunny spring afternoon they had driven up together in Jason’s black Ferrari Enzo. It was one of the better journeys back up the M40 ands M42 and despite his anxieties over his brother’s attempts to emulate ‘The Stig’, he had eventually relaxed and they had chattered idly about this ’thing’ that their mother needed to discuss with them. Their speculations soon degenerated into ever-wilder silly fantasies but nothing could have prepared them for the stranger than fiction events that would change both their lives.
*********
Annie blinked her eyes open lazily. She had forgotten to close the heavy damask curtains the night before and a shaft of sunlight had reached through the tiny window to warm her face. She snuggled the quilt up around her neck, her thoughts roaming and then suddenly, she sat up with a start. Her heart was racing as she realised that this was the first morning since that nightmare day in the hospital that she had not woken with a heavy suffocating stone lying on her chest- remembering that Quentin was dead. She tentatively probed her mind and found she could think about him without that heavy blanket of black fog smothering her. Despite her many misgivings, she wondered if maybe her heart was going to heal after all
Her eyes drifted around the room and rested on the ring lying on the worn oak surface of her bedside table. She reached out and tried it on. Surprised, she found that it fitted her ring finger perfectly, above her grandmother’s old ring.’ Whoever this belonged to must have tiny hands like me’, she thought. She examined it more closely. It did not have any hallmarks and somehow she felt that it’s buttery yellow colour and simple engraved design meant that it was 22ct gold and possibly Georgian.
She swung her legs out of bed and clutching the heavily patterned bedspread to her breasts, padded towards the boarded oak door to fetch her dressing gown. She glanced at the mirrored Edwardian wardrobe and caught sight of her reflection. With her bare shoulders peeping above the folds of heavy material that she clutched to her breasts she looked fleetingly like some ancestral portrait in a stately home. The ring on her finger shot rainbows of light as it caught the sun. Annie stepped forwards to examine the reflection of her cascading red curls and velvety brown eyes. Quentin used to tease her, telling her she was a genetic aberration because red heads should really have blue eyes. She would retort that she was a rarity not an aberration. Now, she stared into those dark pools as if the future might reveal itself there.
Annie shook herself and decided to get dressed and then read the old newspaper cutting that came with the ring, while eating her breakfast.
Downstairs she sat at the heavily ridged pine table and trailed a spoonful of golden syrup across the surface of her porridge. Ever since childhood she had never been able to resist trying to write her initials. And today was no different. A little tear prickled behind her eyelids as she recalled that in the days coming up to her wedding she had practised A J instead of A C. Annie sighed and reached for the yellow folds of newspaper.
She opened the blotched paper carefully – the folds were pitted with holes and she was afraid it would fall apart. The stains and gaps made it difficult to read. It was obviously very old with an old-fashioned decorative typeface. Unfortunately it had been cut out of the newspaper without either a date or heading so she had no idea which paper it was from. The caption was easy enough to read….’Aristocrat’s Son Lost At Sea On The White Star Line Olympic’ She tried to read the rest but struggled to make sense of it. As far as she could tell, it seemed that the son of a Lord Fitzwilliam had been sailing to America to fetch his fiancée Catherine who was the heiress to…some fortune that she couldn’t quite read. His cabin had apparently been found empty by the steward bringing his breakfast and despite a search of the entire ship, no trace of him could be found. It was rumoured that he had been very unhappy to leave England following some scandal with a woman at his father’s estate in Lillington, Derbyshire.
‘How peculiar ‘ thought Annie, ‘life is full of coincidences, here I am, staying in Dorothy Cundy’s cottage not five miles from Lillington House. Maybe the letters will tell me more.’ She reached for the small bundle and began to pull carefully at the dark red ribbon. A rap at the window startled her and she looked up to see a face peering through the small windowpanes.
*******
‘Justin, Justin,’ he heard his fathers voice and turned to face him in the bright sunlight of the cobbled estate yard. ‘Have you by any chance finished those drawings of the barn conversion ready for the Peak Park meeting? You know how difficult they can be and I would like to have sorted out their last lot of gripes,’
“Nearly done” said Justin and hesitated – he still found it difficult to know quite how to address this man and so usually avoided saying anything.’ I don’t know – all the years I worked for Fosters in London and I swear it was easier to build the Gherkin than it is to do a simple barn conversion in the Peak Park.’
“I know,” sighed his father,” but you know how they want us all to live in a Georgian time warp.’
Justin laughed, ‘yes, and how months of discussions can be swept aside by the vagaries of yet a different planning officer!’
‘Well, I’ll see you later’ said his father as he turned and strode off towards the stables for his early morning ride.
Justin stared after the retreating figure, full of mixed emotions. All his life this man had meant one thing to him and suddenly, a year ago all that had changed.
‘Hi Justin’ a girlish laugh interrupted his confused thoughts and a dervish of blonde curls threw itself into his arms.
‘Mmm.., hi Sally’ he said as he buried his nose in the nape of her neck to inhale her fresh, spicy scent. ’You’re up early this morning.’
‘Yes’ she said as she flashed her bright blue eyes at him, ‘I had a kiln cooling all night and I can’t wait to see if it’s all masterpieces or all disasters. Knowing my luck it will be the second.’
Sally was one of his childhood friends from Parwich School and now she was one of the tenants of Lillington Hall Craft Yard. A group of former estate offices had been cleverly converted by his father’s wife into studios and workshops. It housed Sally’s studio pottery, a glass blower, a wildlife artist, a furniture maker, a weaver and an antique shop. Besides bringing in a welcome rent, its huge popularity had encouraged visitors to the many other attractions that Penelope had introduced over the years. She kept the visitor attractions cleverly tucked away behind the main house so that Lillington Hall could continue to be used as a film location for BBC costume dramas and big feature films that loved it’s Jacobean authenticity.
Of course, Justin felt he was particularly lucky as he had the whole of the top floor of the east side of the block for his drawing office and flat. The rooms were strung out in a long line, which meant he got both the morning and evening light. Perfect. Well nearly, he thought. He still had difficulty getting to grips with the last year’s events. Not so Jason, his cavalier brother who was revelling in the added attraction of his new connections using his amiable, devilish charm to lure every willing local beauty into his bed. That new feisty little redhead over in Parwich will be next, he thought. Somehow, that thought disturbed him but he couldn’t quite think why – it wasn’t as if she was his type. Justin decided he felt like company and knowing his lazy brother would still be in bed, he decided to walk across to Parwich to see his mum.
Justin walked along the main avenue towards the Tissington trail, feasting his eyes on the secrets of an early spring morning. Sometimes when he did this walk he could convince himself that no other person had walked this way for years. Wildlife seemed unafraid and he would often come across rabbits and hares bounding across the fields. This particular morning, a familiar dog fox leapt up onto a drystone wall and walked arrogantly in sharp silhouette against the bright morning sky; it wouldn’t be long before the badgers started to venture out. Justin came to the stone bridge over the trail and looked down into the deep shadows cast by the massive stone cutting. He could recall every moment of that fateful evening when and Jason had come back and knew he would remember it for the rest of his life. He and his brother had walked up the lavender lined path of his parents cottage still laughing and bantering as they went through the door. Although the usual log fire had been burning in the cosy front sitting room, the air of tension had been palpable. His mother had jumped up from the sofa and had immediately been flanked, almost protectively, by his father and, of all people, Edward Fitzwilliam.
Their mother had hugged them both and then without the usual preamble of ‘tea and cake?’ had said, ‘sit down both of you, we have something to tell you.’
He had noticed that his mother was shaking but she had taken a huge breath and said, ‘ there’s no easy way to say this so I’ll just go straight in, and please, let me get to the end before you ask any questions.
I know you both think that Robert is your father, but he’s not. Edward is.’
Justin physically started just as he had then and pushed himself away from the stone bridge. The memory of those words still cut through him, adrenaline coursed like a tidal wave through his veins and he had to stride down the hill to expend some energy. He marched across the fields down towards the marshy bletch, scattering the startled sheep in his way as he recalled his mothers continuing tale; ‘You know that your Dad and I came to Parwich when both you boys were just four and Robert set up his veterinary practice. We came with your fathers name as the Lomas family. But what neither you nor anyone else in the village knew, except for my sister Dorothy, was that we were keeping our own secret. I had been seeing something of Edward after we had met up at a party in London while I was doing my teaching degree. We always knew that the relationship couldn’t go anywhere because his father intentions were for him to marry Penelope Caissons whose family fortune was critical to the future of the Lillington estate. We were not as careful as we should have been and suddenly I found I was pregnant. We considered an abortion but they were still tricky in those days and besides, I knew I couldn’t go through with it.’
She had smiled weakly at them and said ‘ Of course that would have been a tragedy because then we wouldn’t have been blessed with you two.’
As Justin picked his way through the boggy stepping-stones, his pace slowed slightly as the approaching hill used up more energy and he began calming down. His mother had continued, ‘ Edward offered to marry me even though he knew his father would be apoplectic but I refused. I knew it would never have worked and besides, I was already seeing Robert who had swept me off my feet on our very first date. Robert knew about the pregnancy – but not that you were twins,’ and she had laughed nervously and looked to our father who had gently hugged her. ‘ Anyway, in a nutshell, Robert asked me to marry him and I did. However, Edward was and still is, a good man and has always generously contributed financially so that you could go to Repton and have many of the other more expensive hobbies that you both had. Edward and Penelope married soon after us but Penelope knew nothing about you two. That’s how it should have continued and if things had gone as we had planned then both of you would never have needed to know. But life’s never that easy. Sadly, Penelope and Edward have never had children and now they know that it’s too late. So….Edward wants to legitimise your births so that Lillington can have a true heir.’
Justin clambered over the worn oak stile by the holly tree at the top of the hill and looked down on Parwich and his parents’ house. He recalled the deafening silence that had strangled the room. He remembered the drained ashen faces of his family and the growing feeling of panic, as his familiar, safe world seemed to have crashed around him.
Parwich Heights 
Leave a Reply