The Debutante

There was a noise.

Cate tensed as she listened to Jack cross the landing at the end of the hallway.

He was looking for her.

Gathering the things together, she put them back in the box, hastily retying the lid with the ribbon.

It ought to go back where she found it. Or she should show it to Jack.

That was the right thing to do.

‘Cate? Cate?’ He was heading down the stairs. ‘Cate!’ Instead she tucked the box under her arm, racing soundlessly along the corridor, heart pounding, back to her room.

They began their work at the front of the house, with the entrance hall, working fastidiously at what seemed like a painfully slow speed. Little stickers went on each item with a number. Each number corresponded to a description dictated to Cate by Jack and then they took a photograph, sometimes several from different angles. Every figurine, every painting, every detail of the lives that were once lived here were recorded and priced for quick sale.

Each piece had an estimated value. Cate filled in the figures next to the descriptions in uncharacteristically careful, neat handwriting, the total mounting by the minute. It was mind-numbing. How sad that all these objects, acquired and beloved through generations, were to be reduced to nothing but a few lines in a catalogue. Endsleigh had been a home once – a refuge against life and the world. Some of these things had been favourites; treasured. Now she and Jack were the last people ever to stay there in its incarnation as a private home. A couple of strangers; strangers to the house and its history, strangers even to each other. Soon bulldozers would be knocking down Mrs Williams’s low-ceilinged cottage to make way for a luxury spa; the front hallway transformed into a reception area and bar. Already she could imagine the delight of tourists as they arrived for their country-house weekend.

Jack was good at his job, clever and concise, reeling off complicated accounts of styles and conditions of objects without pausing for breath. And Cate was grateful for the lack of demanding interaction between them. He dictated; she recorded. She was invisible and it soothed her to forget for a while who she was and how she’d ended up here. By the time they stopped at seven, her fingers ached from the effort of trying to write clearly and yet at speed.

‘Shall we leave it here for tonight?’ he suggested.

She nodded gratefully, filing away the forms in a folder.

‘I think I can smell something cooking,’ he added, yawning and stretching his arms above his head.

They wandered into the kitchen. Mrs Williams had been hard at work – the shepherd’s pie was browning nicely in the oven and two place settings were laid out on the long pine table along with a green salad, a bowl of fruit and some cheese.

‘Thank God for that!’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘I’m famished!’

‘And yet where is the invisible Mrs Williams?’ Cate wondered, leaning up against the worktop. ‘This is like something out of a fairy tale; Beauty and the Beast.’

‘Don’t we all wish we had staff like that?’

‘Hmm.’

‘Oh, and here’s just the thing!’ Jack picked up a bottle of red wine airing on the worktop next to two glasses. ‘Can I pour you one?’

‘No, thank you.’

‘Really? Are you sure?’

‘I’m fine, thanks.’

Then he remembered his conversation with Rachel, some mention of her father being an alcoholic. Of course, he wasn’t meant to know anything about her. He poured out a glass. ‘I hope you don’t mind.’

‘Why would I mind?’

He shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant. ‘No reason.’

Feeling self-conscious, he smiled and sipped, as if to prove that he was completely ignorant of her family history.

Cate frowned, unable to disguise her irritation. Rachel had obviously been talking. ‘It’s so hot in here!’ She turned away, looking out of the window.

‘You’re right. Let’s eat outside instead.’

‘Fine.’

Once out in the garden, the tension relaxed. It was good to get away from the heat of the kitchen with its ancient Aga. They sat under the chestnut tree again at the same low table where they’d had their tea, carrying the food out on trays.

A cool breeze rustled through the foliage. And suddenly, after the pleasant anonymity of working together for hours, the strangeness of being alone was palpable again.

‘So,’ Cate pushed her food around on her plate, ‘have you always been a valuer?’

It sounded dry and stupid.

Jack looked across at her. ‘No. You’re an artist, aren’t you?’

‘Yes.’ She hadn’t expected him to bat the conversation back at her quite so quickly.

‘What kind of work do you do?’

‘I paint. Reproductions.’

Up shot an eyebrow. ‘Really? You mean Whistler’s Mother and that sort of thing?’

She tore at a piece of bread. ‘I specialise in French and Russian eighteenth-century Romantic painting.’

‘The Enlightenment?’

‘Yes.’

He chuckled.

‘What?’

‘Rachel didn’t tell me you were a faker.’ He looked at her sideways. ‘Ever try to pass anything off?’

‘It’s all real,’ she said, jabbing the bread into a pocket of gravy. ‘It’s just not original. And yes, pieces get “passed off” all the time. Most of the work I do is for insurance purposes. Very few people can afford to lose a masterpiece, even a minor one, to theft or fire.’

‘I’ve offended you. I’m sorry. My mother always told me I had the social skills of a cabbage.’

‘I’m sure she was just being kind.’

He laughed. ‘Mothers are bound to be indulgent. So,’ he tried again, ‘why that period?’

‘I sort of fell into it.’

‘Into the Age of Reason?’