C is for – Coming home

…

“I’m sorry,” Barnaby said in his usual matter-of-fact manner, “but this is the end. You have done your bit. Now it’s time to move on.”

Sitting next to Barnaby in the back of the limousine, I could not believe what I was hearing. “This is the end?”

“No. Just the end of your service. You have gone above and beyond. We are grateful, very grateful. But now it’s time to reintegrate into the world.

“Where are we?”

“In the city we picked you up from all those years ago.”

“Cinnamon Falls?”

The limousine slowed and then stopped. The shades went up on all the windows of the car, and I could see a park, the bandstand, and a row of dead-looking rose bushes. There was a layer of snow on the ground and piled up by the side of the road.

“Your hometown.”

Was it? I was sure I came from some small backwater place, but it was so long ago, and I’d been to so many places, what I was looking at was as alien as if they had dropped me off on Mars.

“Sure as hell doesn’t look like anywhere I’d come from.”

“Well, our records don’t lie. You have your ID, which is your real name, documents to prove it, and a bank account with enough funds to tide you over till you find a job.”

“Job?”

“Yes. You know. A place where you go, toil for eight hours and then go home. You’ll get the hang of it.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Impossible. You’ve been trained to be anyone, anywhere, and do anything. I have complete faith in you.”

“Will I see you again, anyone again?”

“No. When you get out of the car, that’s it. We never existed. Now, it’s time to go.”

I could see there was no arguing with Barnaby. He had said, a long time ago, this time would come. It had. I opened the door. A cold blast of air came in.

I shrugged. “Thanks for the ride.”

In more ways than one.

I got out, took a last look at the old man, then closed the door. I watched the car drive off, until it turned the corner and disappeared.

It was the first day of the rest of my life.

…

Cinnamon Falls was one of those small, forgettable little towns scattered about the Midwest.  My parents had been ranchers, as had their parents before them and so on.

Other family members were shopkeepers, soldiers on the frontier, and immigrants before that. 

Now, I had no idea who they were.

My parents had died very recently, my older brother, Sherman, and his wife, Madeleine, the proverbial childhood sweetheart he’d known from grade school, who were the ranchers now, were the only family I knew.

The rest had died out or moved on.

I stood on the sidewalk and looked at the bandstand.  My first kiss was under that roof, with a girl called Amy Deacon, the minister’s daughter.

He was a fire-and-brimstone preacher of the old school who castigated his flock every Sunday about sins and the wrath of God.  Everyone was too scared not to turn up.

I wondered what had happened to her.  Married to Archie, her prom date no doubt.  I was going to ask her, but somehow never got around to it.  She was my first love, the one who really hurt when it didn’t work out.

The first flakes of snow that had been chasing us into town started to fall, and it was going to get cold.  There was no time to look up whether Sherman, my brother, was still on the farm; that was a tomorrow job.

Today I’d get a room at the hotel and decide what to do tomorrow.

The Falls Motel was old and decrepit when I left 20 years ago and hadn’t improved except for a coat of paint.

The sign had a missing ‘l’ in Falls, and the no vacancy sign had no ‘ancy’.  There were three cars outside the 20 rooms, which meant it was not full.

Darkness was setting in as I reached the front door, and it opened with a screech from unoiled hinges.  Perhaps that was how the receptionist knew there was a customer.

Or not.  After a minute, I banged on the desk bell, the one that had a handwritten sign that said, ‘ring for service’. 

Not immediate service anyway.

A girl about 15 or so came out of the back room, swaying to music that I couldn’t hear.  Ear buds.

She pulled one out and said, “What do you want?”

The obvious, I thought.  “You do have rooms for the night, don’t you?”

She looked at me like I was from another planet.  “Duh.  You want a room?”

“Please.”

She shoved a book in front of me with a pen without a lid.  “Sign in.”

I put my name and no address because I didn’t have one, then scribbled a signature.

“Card or cash.”

“Cash.”  I pulled out my wallet.

“A hundred bucks.”

It was a bit more than the last time I stayed there.

She slapped a key with the number 10 attached to it.  “You want breakfast, the diner’s 200 yards up the road.  Leave by 10 am.”

By the time I got to the door, she was gone.

The snow was falling harder by the time I reached the door.  Two rooms I passed that had cars out the front had TV’s blaring. 

When I opened the door, I was greeted by a combination of disuse and disinfectant.  It could be worse.  It could be better.

The bathroom had soap and shampoo, the bed had clean sheets, and the TV had CNN.  It was as much as anyone could hope for.

…

Like any time in a new or different city, I woke slightly disoriented.  It took a minute or two to remember who I was and why I was there.  Not on an operation, but as a cast-off.

It was still dark, but early, about the time I usually woke.  The snow had stopped, but the cold had become more intense.  I put the air conditioner on, but it only blew cold air.

I dressed and headed up to the diner.

It was once owned by a relative, but it was clear that someone else owned it now.  None of my relatives was Chinese.  I sat at the counter, and a middle-aged lady who looked like one of my grade teachers served coffee.

There were a half dozen customers, some sitting in booths, and the chef behind the servery was looking busy.  He shoved two plates of fried stuff on the servery and banged a bell.  The middle-aged lady collected and delivered them to a man and a woman in a booth.

They had been arguing quietly as I came in and were now looking at me.  Townspeople trying to identify a stranger, perhaps.

The middle-aged lady returned.  “From outta town?”

“Yes and no.  I’ll have the special.”

It didn’t say what it was, but it was one of three items on the menu board above the servery.

She wrote it down and gave it to the chef.

The coffee was oddly good.

A police car pulled up outside the diner in a specially marked parking space, and a Deputy got out.  He was slightly older than me, bigger and stronger and in his tailored uniform looked good.

Ben Frasher.  Dad was a sheriff; his dad was a sheriff, it was how things worked.  Ben, though, has been a wild youth, so it was a surprise to see he had followed in his father’s footsteps.

He adjusted the uniform after getting out, holstered the gun, looked at his reflection on the car window, and then came in.

A younger girl, a waitress come bounding out of the back.  “Deputy Frasher, the usual?”

He smiled.  “Of course, Daisy.”  A nod to the middle-aged lady, a quick look around at the customers, and then stopping at me.

I’d changed considerably in 20 years, and he might not recognise me.

“Jack Dawson?”  There was incredulity in his tone.

“It might not be.”

“But there again it might.  When did you get back?”

To him, it seemed like it was only yesterday I left town.

“Last night.”

He came over and sat on the seat next to mine.  I would have preferred he hadn’t, but he was the law.

“Been home?”

“No.”

“Going home?”

“Depends.”

My brother was either going to welcome me or shoot me.  He had threatened the latter when I told him I had to go.  It wasn’t for the reasons he thought it was, and not the lies certain people spread after I was gone.

20 years was a long time, maybe they’d forgotten, but knowing this town, I doubted it.

“You won’t be welcome.”

An understatement.  “It’s been a long time.”

“I can take you, of you like.  It might help prevent trouble.”

It might, or I might not get there.  The Frashers, father and sons, never liked us.  “I’ve got to collect a car and take myself.  Thanks for offering.”

The young waitress put a takeaway cup of coffee on the counter in front of him and smiled.

He nodded in her direction.  “Thanks, Daisy.”  He picked it up and walked slowly towards the door, then stopped and turned.  “No trouble, Jack.  This is a peaceful town now.”

…

It was odd that he thought that I would be the one to start any trouble when, in the first instance, in what could only be described as an ambush, father and son Frasher came after my brother and me based on a lie.

And if anything, the only one in our family who had the right to pick up a shotgun and use it would be me, not my brother.  We both knew who the problem was and who took the fall, but it was how they spun the story after I left.

I was never expected to come back.  I never expected that I would be deposited back in my hometown. 

Maybe Barnaby didn’t know what he had done, but that was hard to believe when he often bragged that he knew everything and could be trusted.  This was just the sort of stunt he would pull, either as a test or an active scenario.

It was not a test.

It was a scenario that was designed to take a problem off his hands.

The middle-aged server dropped a takeaway coffee on the counter in front of me.  “It’s cold out, and you’ll need it.”

“You weren’t one of my grade teachers, were you?  Miss Penman?”  I thought I recognised her.

She smiled.  “My mother.  You’re Jack Dawson.  She always said you were one of the good ones.  I didn’t believe for a moment you were the one who burned the Frasher barn down.  They haven’t improved over the years, doubt they ever will.  You were lucky to escape this place.”

She picked up the empty plate.  “Don’t hang around.  Go see your brother, then leave quietly.  The town is not the same one you left behind.”

I’d seen that expression before, many times.  Fear.  And sadness.

“I’m not planning on staying.  I wasn’t planning on visiting, but sometimes shit happens.”

“That it does.”

…

The car rental place had three cars out front.  The storefront had been recently painted, and the windows looked new.

It looked to me like they’d been replaced, and a closer look, before going in, showed glass fragments inside, under the ledge.

Intimidation?

The man behind the counter was not a local.  The car company was a branch of a well-known brand.  He looked up as I came in.

“How can I help you?”

“I have a car booked.”

“Name?”

“Dawson.”

He looked at his computer and frowned.  “This tells me you cancelled the booking.”

“Ten minutes ago?”

He looked at the screen.  He shook his head and didn’t look at me.

“Frasher called you.  Which car was set aside?”

“The red Acura.”

I held out my hand.  “Don’t mess with the people who made the booking.  Frasher is about to find that out.”

He took the key off the wall rack and gave it to me.  “There’s no excess if you have an accident.  Try to return it in the same condition as you picked it up.  A full tank of gas would be appreciated.  Have a nice day, Mr Dawson.”

Before I got in the car, I looked up and down the street.  Next block, tucked in behind a Ford, was a cruiser.  Watching and waiting.

The Frashers were worried.  My return caused them more angst than my family simply because I was the one who knew the truth.

…

I got in the car, pulled out of the parking space and onto the main road that passed through the town, and then on to the crossroad five miles outside of town.

The police cruiser followed me, keeping pace.

At the intersection where the lane to what used to be my home and the main road in and out of town, two cruisers and a large Suburban, the vehicle of choice for the current sheriff, blocked the three roads.

Another cruiser joined the one behind me, and when I stopped, about five cars from the roadblock, they stopped a similar distance behind me.

An odd thought popped into my head: if I had a gang, they could be robbing the main street shops right now because all the police were here.

I typed a message on the phone and sent it to the one number in my contact list, then got out of the car.  I did not have a weapon like I would usually, so it was an unusual feeling.

It is, I thought, what it is.  not the time to be worrying about consequences.

The sheriff and his mentors did likewise; those other than the sheriff waited by their cars, weapons drawn but not pointing them at me.

Yet.

I walked to the front of my car and leaned against the bonnet, hands where they could see them.  Deputies in this county had a reputation for shooting first and asking questions later.

The sheriff walked five steps towards me and stopped.  He took a moment, then took off the dark glasses.  He looked old and tired.

“Sheriff Frasher,” I said in my most congenial tone.  What came out sounded like I was being strangled.

“Jack.”  He shifted his weight from foot to foot, as if his boots were new and hurting his feet.  Then, “You need to turn around and go back to the airport, and back to where you came from.  This town doesn’t need or want you.”

“I think that’s more about you not wanting me here, Sheriff.”

“I want what’s best for the town.  That means not having you here to stir up trouble.”

I looked around at the deputies by their vehicles.  Three of them were Frashers.  I guess anyone could be a Deputy these days.

“I’m not here to stir up trouble.  I’m just here to see my brother, but with all this attention, I have to wonder why you don’t want me to see him.”

“He might not want to see you.”

True, but the sheriff could not know that for sure.  “Well, be that as it may, I will still be visiting my brother.”

“Just… ” His cell phone started ringing. 

I saw him look at the screen with a perplexed expression before answering.  The stiffening of the shoulders and the almost standing to attention told me this was neither a conversation he wanted, but, most of all, wasn’t expecting.

To tell the truth, neither was I, nor at least not as soon as this.  But then Barnaby always knew how to put the wind up people, people whom others never dared to try.

I heard the sheriff distinctly say no several times, and ‘of course’ once near the end of the conversation.

A few seconds later, it was over.  After another long, mournful glare at the screen, he put the phone back in his pocket.

Then he looked at me with a curious expression. 

“Just who the hell are you?”

“No one.  I’m sure if you looked me up, you would find no trace of me from the day I left this town till I arrived back yesterday.”

“Then how…”

“That is a long story.”

A sudden gust of wind came from the north, bringing with it the promise of more snow.  It was not the time to be standing around talking.

I shivered, partly because of the cold, but mostly from a momentary memory of another time, in another country, with similar people, people obsessed with wealth and power.

Frasher was either too stupid or too stubborn to let this go.

“Enlighten me.”

I sighed.  Light snow started to fall out of the sky.  The wind picked up, and a blizzard was in the offing.  I left in a blizzard, to me it was an omen.

“Giles Bentley, Sheriff.”  I held up my cell phone.  “You have a choice.  Now.  In five minutes, you won’t.  I’m sure you and your deputies have better things to do.”

He still didn’t look happy, but then, once I mentioned the name that had not been mentioned before, he didn’t have much of a choice.  And given his expression, he knew he had overstepped.

“Wrap it up, boys, and get back to work.  Now.”

They didn’t need to be told twice.  The snow was coming down much thicker and settling on everything.  Another half hour we would be snowed in.

I got back in my car and started the engine.  By the time I was ready to drive, all but the Sheriff’s vehicle had gone.  A last look at me, he got in his vehicle and moved to the side of the road.

As I drove past, I could see him on his cell phone, talking and gesturing, like a man who knew his time was up.

…

Everybody had a piper they had to pay.  Frasher was no exception.  Barnaby was no exception.  Neither was I.  There was always someone above our pay grade pulling strings.

My father made a mistake 20 years ago, and I paid the price for that mistake.  No one but my father and Giles Bentley knew exactly what it was, and Frasher had been the one to oversee it.

Lies had been told by all three to cover it up.

I was never supposed to return to Cinnamon Falls, but Frasher senior and my father had both died recently, and Barnaby decided that I should not be punished any more.

It was the subject of a text I received just as I was about to finally fall asleep.  Typical poor timing that was Barnaby’s modus operandi.

I hadn’t been retired.  I had been released, my sentence over.  My troubles were over. 

I drove those last five miles wondering if I could ever just close my eyes and sleep peacefully, the sort of sleep where you weren’t expecting trouble, where you no longer had to look over your shoulder.  A 20-year habit that would be hard to break.

I drove under the sign that announced you were entering the Excelsior Ranch, the Dawson family home for over a hundred and fifty years, reputedly won by Alexander Dawson in a card game.

Such stories were told and retold until they became just that, stories with no basis in fact; they just sounded good on paper.

The thing is, it was true, we had the piece of paper, signed by the hapless Bentley, the gambler and wastrel relative, who lost it in a card game, a document witnessed by a Frasher.

It was a story that changed depending on who told it.  Now it didn’t matter.  All promises and obligations were discharged.  The Excelsior belonged to the Dawsons.  The County Sheriff would always be a Frasher, and the Bentleys had a presidential candidate who didn’t need a scandal.

I felt sorry for Sheriff Frasher.  Well, maybe not.  The Frashers always were dumb as dog shit.

I stopped the car at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the veranda where Sherman and Madeleine were waiting.

I got out, and for a moment, the snow stopped swirling.  Long enough for me to get up the stairs and under cover.

“Jack.”  Sherman held out his hand.

“Sherman.”  I took it, and we shook hands like two men sealing a deal.

Then it was hugs all round until I saw Amy Deacon standing back.  She smiled and said, in her usual laconic manner, “You are a sight for sore eyes, young Jack.”

I was home, once and for all.

…

©  Charles Heath  2025-2026

C is for – Coming home

…

“I’m sorry,” Barnaby said in his usual matter-of-fact manner, “but this is the end. You have done your bit. Now it’s time to move on.”

Sitting next to Barnaby in the back of the limousine, I could not believe what I was hearing. “This is the end?”

“No. Just the end of your service. You have gone above and beyond. We are grateful, very grateful. But now it’s time to reintegrate into the world.

“Where are we?”

“In the city we picked you up from all those years ago.”

“Cinnamon Falls?”

The limousine slowed and then stopped. The shades went up on all the windows of the car, and I could see a park, the bandstand, and a row of dead-looking rose bushes. There was a layer of snow on the ground and piled up by the side of the road.

“Your hometown.”

Was it? I was sure I came from some small backwater place, but it was so long ago, and I’d been to so many places, what I was looking at was as alien as if they had dropped me off on Mars.

“Sure as hell doesn’t look like anywhere I’d come from.”

“Well, our records don’t lie. You have your ID, which is your real name, documents to prove it, and a bank account with enough funds to tide you over till you find a job.”

“Job?”

“Yes. You know. A place where you go, toil for eight hours and then go home. You’ll get the hang of it.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Impossible. You’ve been trained to be anyone, anywhere, and do anything. I have complete faith in you.”

“Will I see you again, anyone again?”

“No. When you get out of the car, that’s it. We never existed. Now, it’s time to go.”

I could see there was no arguing with Barnaby. He had said, a long time ago, this time would come. It had. I opened the door. A cold blast of air came in.

I shrugged. “Thanks for the ride.”

In more ways than one.

I got out, took a last look at the old man, then closed the door. I watched the car drive off, until it turned the corner and disappeared.

It was the first day of the rest of my life.

…

Cinnamon Falls was one of those small, forgettable little towns scattered about the Midwest.  My parents had been ranchers, as had their parents before them and so on.

Other family members were shopkeepers, soldiers on the frontier, and immigrants before that. 

Now, I had no idea who they were.

My parents had died very recently, my older brother, Sherman, and his wife, Madeleine, the proverbial childhood sweetheart he’d known from grade school, who were the ranchers now, were the only family I knew.

The rest had died out or moved on.

I stood on the sidewalk and looked at the bandstand.  My first kiss was under that roof, with a girl called Amy Deacon, the minister’s daughter.

He was a fire-and-brimstone preacher of the old school who castigated his flock every Sunday about sins and the wrath of God.  Everyone was too scared not to turn up.

I wondered what had happened to her.  Married to Archie, her prom date no doubt.  I was going to ask her, but somehow never got around to it.  She was my first love, the one who really hurt when it didn’t work out.

The first flakes of snow that had been chasing us into town started to fall, and it was going to get cold.  There was no time to look up whether Sherman, my brother, was still on the farm; that was a tomorrow job.

Today I’d get a room at the hotel and decide what to do tomorrow.

The Falls Motel was old and decrepit when I left 20 years ago and hadn’t improved except for a coat of paint.

The sign had a missing ‘l’ in Falls, and the no vacancy sign had no ‘ancy’.  There were three cars outside the 20 rooms, which meant it was not full.

Darkness was setting in as I reached the front door, and it opened with a screech from unoiled hinges.  Perhaps that was how the receptionist knew there was a customer.

Or not.  After a minute, I banged on the desk bell, the one that had a handwritten sign that said, ‘ring for service’. 

Not immediate service anyway.

A girl about 15 or so came out of the back room, swaying to music that I couldn’t hear.  Ear buds.

She pulled one out and said, “What do you want?”

The obvious, I thought.  “You do have rooms for the night, don’t you?”

She looked at me like I was from another planet.  “Duh.  You want a room?”

“Please.”

She shoved a book in front of me with a pen without a lid.  “Sign in.”

I put my name and no address because I didn’t have one, then scribbled a signature.

“Card or cash.”

“Cash.”  I pulled out my wallet.

“A hundred bucks.”

It was a bit more than the last time I stayed there.

She slapped a key with the number 10 attached to it.  “You want breakfast, the diner’s 200 yards up the road.  Leave by 10 am.”

By the time I got to the door, she was gone.

The snow was falling harder by the time I reached the door.  Two rooms I passed that had cars out the front had TV’s blaring. 

When I opened the door, I was greeted by a combination of disuse and disinfectant.  It could be worse.  It could be better.

The bathroom had soap and shampoo, the bed had clean sheets, and the TV had CNN.  It was as much as anyone could hope for.

…

Like any time in a new or different city, I woke slightly disoriented.  It took a minute or two to remember who I was and why I was there.  Not on an operation, but as a cast-off.

It was still dark, but early, about the time I usually woke.  The snow had stopped, but the cold had become more intense.  I put the air conditioner on, but it only blew cold air.

I dressed and headed up to the diner.

It was once owned by a relative, but it was clear that someone else owned it now.  None of my relatives was Chinese.  I sat at the counter, and a middle-aged lady who looked like one of my grade teachers served coffee.

There were a half dozen customers, some sitting in booths, and the chef behind the servery was looking busy.  He shoved two plates of fried stuff on the servery and banged a bell.  The middle-aged lady collected and delivered them to a man and a woman in a booth.

They had been arguing quietly as I came in and were now looking at me.  Townspeople trying to identify a stranger, perhaps.

The middle-aged lady returned.  “From outta town?”

“Yes and no.  I’ll have the special.”

It didn’t say what it was, but it was one of three items on the menu board above the servery.

She wrote it down and gave it to the chef.

The coffee was oddly good.

A police car pulled up outside the diner in a specially marked parking space, and a Deputy got out.  He was slightly older than me, bigger and stronger and in his tailored uniform looked good.

Ben Frasher.  Dad was a sheriff; his dad was a sheriff, it was how things worked.  Ben, though, has been a wild youth, so it was a surprise to see he had followed in his father’s footsteps.

He adjusted the uniform after getting out, holstered the gun, looked at his reflection on the car window, and then came in.

A younger girl, a waitress come bounding out of the back.  “Deputy Frasher, the usual?”

He smiled.  “Of course, Daisy.”  A nod to the middle-aged lady, a quick look around at the customers, and then stopping at me.

I’d changed considerably in 20 years, and he might not recognise me.

“Jack Dawson?”  There was incredulity in his tone.

“It might not be.”

“But there again it might.  When did you get back?”

To him, it seemed like it was only yesterday I left town.

“Last night.”

He came over and sat on the seat next to mine.  I would have preferred he hadn’t, but he was the law.

“Been home?”

“No.”

“Going home?”

“Depends.”

My brother was either going to welcome me or shoot me.  He had threatened the latter when I told him I had to go.  It wasn’t for the reasons he thought it was, and not the lies certain people spread after I was gone.

20 years was a long time, maybe they’d forgotten, but knowing this town, I doubted it.

“You won’t be welcome.”

An understatement.  “It’s been a long time.”

“I can take you, of you like.  It might help prevent trouble.”

It might, or I might not get there.  The Frashers, father and sons, never liked us.  “I’ve got to collect a car and take myself.  Thanks for offering.”

The young waitress put a takeaway cup of coffee on the counter in front of him and smiled.

He nodded in her direction.  “Thanks, Daisy.”  He picked it up and walked slowly towards the door, then stopped and turned.  “No trouble, Jack.  This is a peaceful town now.”

…

It was odd that he thought that I would be the one to start any trouble when, in the first instance, in what could only be described as an ambush, father and son Frasher came after my brother and me based on a lie.

And if anything, the only one in our family who had the right to pick up a shotgun and use it would be me, not my brother.  We both knew who the problem was and who took the fall, but it was how they spun the story after I left.

I was never expected to come back.  I never expected that I would be deposited back in my hometown. 

Maybe Barnaby didn’t know what he had done, but that was hard to believe when he often bragged that he knew everything and could be trusted.  This was just the sort of stunt he would pull, either as a test or an active scenario.

It was not a test.

It was a scenario that was designed to take a problem off his hands.

The middle-aged server dropped a takeaway coffee on the counter in front of me.  “It’s cold out, and you’ll need it.”

“You weren’t one of my grade teachers, were you?  Miss Penman?”  I thought I recognised her.

She smiled.  “My mother.  You’re Jack Dawson.  She always said you were one of the good ones.  I didn’t believe for a moment you were the one who burned the Frasher barn down.  They haven’t improved over the years, doubt they ever will.  You were lucky to escape this place.”

She picked up the empty plate.  “Don’t hang around.  Go see your brother, then leave quietly.  The town is not the same one you left behind.”

I’d seen that expression before, many times.  Fear.  And sadness.

“I’m not planning on staying.  I wasn’t planning on visiting, but sometimes shit happens.”

“That it does.”

…

The car rental place had three cars out front.  The storefront had been recently painted, and the windows looked new.

It looked to me like they’d been replaced, and a closer look, before going in, showed glass fragments inside, under the ledge.

Intimidation?

The man behind the counter was not a local.  The car company was a branch of a well-known brand.  He looked up as I came in.

“How can I help you?”

“I have a car booked.”

“Name?”

“Dawson.”

He looked at his computer and frowned.  “This tells me you cancelled the booking.”

“Ten minutes ago?”

He looked at the screen.  He shook his head and didn’t look at me.

“Frasher called you.  Which car was set aside?”

“The red Acura.”

I held out my hand.  “Don’t mess with the people who made the booking.  Frasher is about to find that out.”

He took the key off the wall rack and gave it to me.  “There’s no excess if you have an accident.  Try to return it in the same condition as you picked it up.  A full tank of gas would be appreciated.  Have a nice day, Mr Dawson.”

Before I got in the car, I looked up and down the street.  Next block, tucked in behind a Ford, was a cruiser.  Watching and waiting.

The Frashers were worried.  My return caused them more angst than my family simply because I was the one who knew the truth.

…

I got in the car, pulled out of the parking space and onto the main road that passed through the town, and then on to the crossroad five miles outside of town.

The police cruiser followed me, keeping pace.

At the intersection where the lane to what used to be my home and the main road in and out of town, two cruisers and a large Suburban, the vehicle of choice for the current sheriff, blocked the three roads.

Another cruiser joined the one behind me, and when I stopped, about five cars from the roadblock, they stopped a similar distance behind me.

An odd thought popped into my head: if I had a gang, they could be robbing the main street shops right now because all the police were here.

I typed a message on the phone and sent it to the one number in my contact list, then got out of the car.  I did not have a weapon like I would usually, so it was an unusual feeling.

It is, I thought, what it is.  not the time to be worrying about consequences.

The sheriff and his mentors did likewise; those other than the sheriff waited by their cars, weapons drawn but not pointing them at me.

Yet.

I walked to the front of my car and leaned against the bonnet, hands where they could see them.  Deputies in this county had a reputation for shooting first and asking questions later.

The sheriff walked five steps towards me and stopped.  He took a moment, then took off the dark glasses.  He looked old and tired.

“Sheriff Frasher,” I said in my most congenial tone.  What came out sounded like I was being strangled.

“Jack.”  He shifted his weight from foot to foot, as if his boots were new and hurting his feet.  Then, “You need to turn around and go back to the airport, and back to where you came from.  This town doesn’t need or want you.”

“I think that’s more about you not wanting me here, Sheriff.”

“I want what’s best for the town.  That means not having you here to stir up trouble.”

I looked around at the deputies by their vehicles.  Three of them were Frashers.  I guess anyone could be a Deputy these days.

“I’m not here to stir up trouble.  I’m just here to see my brother, but with all this attention, I have to wonder why you don’t want me to see him.”

“He might not want to see you.”

True, but the sheriff could not know that for sure.  “Well, be that as it may, I will still be visiting my brother.”

“Just… ” His cell phone started ringing. 

I saw him look at the screen with a perplexed expression before answering.  The stiffening of the shoulders and the almost standing to attention told me this was neither a conversation he wanted, but, most of all, wasn’t expecting.

To tell the truth, neither was I, nor at least not as soon as this.  But then Barnaby always knew how to put the wind up people, people whom others never dared to try.

I heard the sheriff distinctly say no several times, and ‘of course’ once near the end of the conversation.

A few seconds later, it was over.  After another long, mournful glare at the screen, he put the phone back in his pocket.

Then he looked at me with a curious expression. 

“Just who the hell are you?”

“No one.  I’m sure if you looked me up, you would find no trace of me from the day I left this town till I arrived back yesterday.”

“Then how…”

“That is a long story.”

A sudden gust of wind came from the north, bringing with it the promise of more snow.  It was not the time to be standing around talking.

I shivered, partly because of the cold, but mostly from a momentary memory of another time, in another country, with similar people, people obsessed with wealth and power.

Frasher was either too stupid or too stubborn to let this go.

“Enlighten me.”

I sighed.  Light snow started to fall out of the sky.  The wind picked up, and a blizzard was in the offing.  I left in a blizzard, to me it was an omen.

“Giles Bentley, Sheriff.”  I held up my cell phone.  “You have a choice.  Now.  In five minutes, you won’t.  I’m sure you and your deputies have better things to do.”

He still didn’t look happy, but then, once I mentioned the name that had not been mentioned before, he didn’t have much of a choice.  And given his expression, he knew he had overstepped.

“Wrap it up, boys, and get back to work.  Now.”

They didn’t need to be told twice.  The snow was coming down much thicker and settling on everything.  Another half hour we would be snowed in.

I got back in my car and started the engine.  By the time I was ready to drive, all but the Sheriff’s vehicle had gone.  A last look at me, he got in his vehicle and moved to the side of the road.

As I drove past, I could see him on his cell phone, talking and gesturing, like a man who knew his time was up.

…

Everybody had a piper they had to pay.  Frasher was no exception.  Barnaby was no exception.  Neither was I.  There was always someone above our pay grade pulling strings.

My father made a mistake 20 years ago, and I paid the price for that mistake.  No one but my father and Giles Bentley knew exactly what it was, and Frasher had been the one to oversee it.

Lies had been told by all three to cover it up.

I was never supposed to return to Cinnamon Falls, but Frasher senior and my father had both died recently, and Barnaby decided that I should not be punished any more.

It was the subject of a text I received just as I was about to finally fall asleep.  Typical poor timing that was Barnaby’s modus operandi.

I hadn’t been retired.  I had been released, my sentence over.  My troubles were over. 

I drove those last five miles wondering if I could ever just close my eyes and sleep peacefully, the sort of sleep where you weren’t expecting trouble, where you no longer had to look over your shoulder.  A 20-year habit that would be hard to break.

I drove under the sign that announced you were entering the Excelsior Ranch, the Dawson family home for over a hundred and fifty years, reputedly won by Alexander Dawson in a card game.

Such stories were told and retold until they became just that, stories with no basis in fact; they just sounded good on paper.

The thing is, it was true, we had the piece of paper, signed by the hapless Bentley, the gambler and wastrel relative, who lost it in a card game, a document witnessed by a Frasher.

It was a story that changed depending on who told it.  Now it didn’t matter.  All promises and obligations were discharged.  The Excelsior belonged to the Dawsons.  The County Sheriff would always be a Frasher, and the Bentleys had a presidential candidate who didn’t need a scandal.

I felt sorry for Sheriff Frasher.  Well, maybe not.  The Frashers always were dumb as dog shit.

I stopped the car at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the veranda where Sherman and Madeleine were waiting.

I got out, and for a moment, the snow stopped swirling.  Long enough for me to get up the stairs and under cover.

“Jack.”  Sherman held out his hand.

“Sherman.”  I took it, and we shook hands like two men sealing a deal.

Then it was hugs all round until I saw Amy Deacon standing back.  She smiled and said, in her usual laconic manner, “You are a sight for sore eyes, young Jack.”

I was home, once and for all.

…

©  Charles Heath  2025-2026

B is for – Bullies can be beaten

…

It was the sort of stuff spy novels had in abundance.

But it was my imagination, fuelled by scores of those very same stories all rolled into one, that I used to explain why I was missing from school to classmates who thought I was the most boring and uninteresting person they had ever known.

I knew what they’d say, so I was going to take them on a journey, and in my childish mind, I was going to make it as believable as I could.

Of course, what a child imagines to be true and what is are two very different things.

But, like everything that ever happened to me, it didn’t start out as an opportunity to do the right thing; it was at the end of some very stinging barbs from Alistair Goodall, my tormentor and school bully.

…

I glared at him with all the hatred I could muster, which, considering he was a foot taller and about 50 pounds heavier than I, was really a waste of time.

He had just told everyone within hearing range that my absence had simply been because I was too scared to come to school, because he had threatened to beat me up.

It was true, but I wasn’t going to let that be my defining moment. Instead, I blurted out, “The whole family had to go into hiding because of things my father knew, and his life was in danger.”

Yes, we had gone away, but it was to another country, where my mother’s parents lived, and they had been killed in an accident. It was quite sudden; my mother and sister had gone first, and then my father and I followed. He had difficulty getting away, and it had been a last-minute decision.

He had to come back, and despite my pleas to leave me with my mother, he dragged me back, oblivious to the predicament I was in with Alistair Goodall.

Goodall looked at me incredulously at first, then with a smile. “Good try, squirt. You almost had me believing it. Your dad an informer? My dad’s a cop, so I’ll ask him, but we both know what he’s going to say.” He took a step closer. I braced for impact.

But then, realising I was digging a bigger hole, one that I might not get out of, “Your dad wouldn’t have a clue about witness protection. It wouldn’t be witness protection if everyone knew about it. This is stuff beyond his pay grade.”

I remembered a TV show I had seen while away, about witness protection, and how it was supposed to be secret, but the witness was sold out by the bad guy’s man in the police force.

“My dad’s very important,” he said, his voice raised an octave, a sure sign he was losing this war of words.

“Then if you went home and started asking questions about witnesses who are supposed to be in protection, then he would lose his job, or worse, go to jail for blabbing secrets.”

“Your blabbing secrets.”

“You’re threatening to beat me up if I don’t tell you where I’ve been. Just threatening me into telling you is going to get you into a heap of trouble. I suggest you let it go, and we keep this between us. Or can’t you keep secrets?”

“I can too.”

The whine in his voice told me that I had bested him, but for how long was a moot question. He was not going to keep this a secret.

…

The school term ended in an uneasy truce between Alistair and me, and the whole school broke for the summer holidays. It meant I could escape Alistair’s persecution, at least for a few weeks, time enough for the rest of the family to return, and a semblance of normalcy to return.

I had just about put the great lie out of my mind when Alistair turned up outside my house with a smug smile. That idea of keeping secrets was not one of his strong points.

“You’re really for it, now, squirt. My dad knows nothing about this crap story of yours. In fact, he copped a serve at work, and he’s coming around to put the pair of you straight.”

Damn. Why could the miserable twisted arse just let it go?

“You want to be anywhere but here when he gets here.”

He walked off laughing, thinking he’d bought me a whole new world of pain.

My father was home for a week, which was a shame, because he was never home, always busy, too busy to be bothered with any of us. It would have been better if he hadn’t, or my mother was here, which she was not, still delayed in her return.

I spent a good hour trying to think of how I was going to get out of this one, but whatever I did, there was no chance I was not going to get a beating for this. Goodall was a copper, and although my father said he was a bully and a terrible excuse for a local plod, as he called him, he was still the law. Previous infractions I had been accused of were all true, and it had got me into trouble and a warning; there had better not be a next time.

This was the next time, and it was a doozy.

There was only one path I could go down.

My father was in his study when I went to look for him. He was always working on something, with books and charts all over the desk. I never asked, and he never volunteered what his job was, but I would have to ask one day.

I knocked on the door and waited a minute or two before he asked me to come in.

“Did I hear you talking to someone before?”

“Alistair Goodall, bully son of the local copper. As bad as his father, he uses him as a shield. I’d complain about him, but you keep saying I have to man up. There’s no manning up against the likes of him.”

I had considered whinging about the kid, but I knew my father wouldn’t accept that as trying hard enough to find my own solution, and it was useless telling him there wasn’t one.

He looked at. “Your mother said you were being bullied. Why didn’t you come and see me?”

“You’re never home, and you reckon I have to sort it out myself. Bit hard when he’s taller and heavier than I am. And I don’t think you’d appreciate me hitting him with a baseball bat.”

“Drastic but effective, no doubt, but not worth the jail time. Why are you telling me this?”

“He wanted to know why I was away recently. I couldn’t tell him; he threatened to beat me up, so I made up a lie. The truth was too lame for a moron like him.”

“What lie?”

I told him and watched the already dark features go a lot darker.

“And you expected he wouldn’t take it to his father for confirmation?”

“Plods don’t get told anything, of course, he wouldn’t know, and even if it was true, no one from up the chain would share that with a fool like Goodall. Even I know that much.”

“How do you know all this stuff?”

“Reading. I’ve read a lot of books, seen films and TV shows. I know a lot of it is make-believe, but there has to be elements of it that are true. The point is that I told Alistair that it was a secret and asked him to keep it. I mean, in real circumstances, we would be trusting him, which you would think from all the bluster that he could. If it had been a test, he failed spectacularly. As for his father, sure, he would understand the nature of witness protection and the necessity for secrecy, so blabbing it to his superiors was wrong on so many levels. I’m sure they would have said they knew nothing about it, even if they did.”

My father thought about that for a minute, perhaps looking to point out the flaws in the logic, but I couldn’t see any.

“I don’t like Goodall. Got on my wrong side when he first became a Sergeant. Too smug by half, and, as you say, a bully who uses his position. You were wrong to lie. Now, go upstairs. I’ll deal with Goodall.”

…

I was sitting behind the wall at the top of the stairs, waiting for Goodall to come. I wondered if he would bring the toad Alistair with him.

The pounding on the door almost made my heart stop. My father took his time to answer the door, and then, “Sergeant Goodall, what do we owe the honour of this visit?” It was the most pleasant tone I’d ever heard my father use, to anyone.

“Mr. Laramie…” Goodall senior only had one level of speaking, loud and confrontational.

“Sergeant Goodall, there are two things I expect from any visitor who comes to my door: that the visitor addresses me in a civil tone and the other, not to make their cases on my doorstep. Now, if you give me your word you will be civil, I will invite you in.”

He must have nodded because I heard footsteps and the door closed. His office was on the ground floor, up the passage. I would be able to hear them if the door to the office weren’t closed.

“Now, Sergeant Goodall, what exactly is the problem?”

“Your son is telling preposterous lies.”

“Your son is a bully, and my son fears going to school because of him. I think you should be attending to your son’s proclivities rather than worrying about what my son says. Most kids his age speak utter gibberish at the best of times.”

A moment’s silence before, “It’s not the fact, it’s lies, it’s the nature of the lie.”

“Oh. The fact that we were away. Well, there’s something else you should be admonishing that wretch of a child of yours for. My son told him the truth. and gave him a warning that it was not to be put about, in fact, as I understand it, he told your son that it was to be kept secret, and because he believed your son, being the son of a respectable policeman who understands the nature of these sorts of secrets, could keep it. The fact that he couldn’t keep that simple secret disappointed my son, disappointed me, and disappointed the people who arranged our sojourn, while some very nasty people were put away. They are, at the very least, extremely disappointed that you were poking around in matters that were way above your pay grade. If my son comes home any time in the new year complaining about your son, I will forget about being magnanimous this one time, in the hope you can address the issues you have; if he comes home with a complaint, all bets are off. Do I make myself clear?”

“He was not lying?”

“He was trying to avoid being beaten up by a thug, Goodall. He trusted your boy, and he let him down badly. This matter should not be discussed, here or anywhere, and I expect by the time you pass through my front door, the matter of our sojourn will be forgotten, and the problem with your child will be on the way to being resolved. Now, if that’s all….”

A few seconds later, I heard Goodall being bundled out the door, and it closed firmly behind him.

…

My father took a risk, but it paid off.

By the end of the summer holidays, Goodall had moved on to another station and taken his wretched son with him.

Goodall wasn’t the only bully at that school, but I learned a new way to deal with them, one that didn’t include elaborate lies. Those I saved for the stories I started writing.

…

©  Charles Heath 2025-2026

B is for – Bullies can be beaten

…

It was the sort of stuff spy novels had in abundance.

But it was my imagination, fuelled by scores of those very same stories all rolled into one, that I used to explain why I was missing from school to classmates who thought I was the most boring and uninteresting person they had ever known.

I knew what they’d say, so I was going to take them on a journey, and in my childish mind, I was going to make it as believable as I could.

Of course, what a child imagines to be true and what is are two very different things.

But, like everything that ever happened to me, it didn’t start out as an opportunity to do the right thing; it was at the end of some very stinging barbs from Alistair Goodall, my tormentor and school bully.

…

I glared at him with all the hatred I could muster, which, considering he was a foot taller and about 50 pounds heavier than I, was really a waste of time.

He had just told everyone within hearing range that my absence had simply been because I was too scared to come to school, because he had threatened to beat me up.

It was true, but I wasn’t going to let that be my defining moment. Instead, I blurted out, “The whole family had to go into hiding because of things my father knew, and his life was in danger.”

Yes, we had gone away, but it was to another country, where my mother’s parents lived, and they had been killed in an accident. It was quite sudden; my mother and sister had gone first, and then my father and I followed. He had difficulty getting away, and it had been a last-minute decision.

He had to come back, and despite my pleas to leave me with my mother, he dragged me back, oblivious to the predicament I was in with Alistair Goodall.

Goodall looked at me incredulously at first, then with a smile. “Good try, squirt. You almost had me believing it. Your dad an informer? My dad’s a cop, so I’ll ask him, but we both know what he’s going to say.” He took a step closer. I braced for impact.

But then, realising I was digging a bigger hole, one that I might not get out of, “Your dad wouldn’t have a clue about witness protection. It wouldn’t be witness protection if everyone knew about it. This is stuff beyond his pay grade.”

I remembered a TV show I had seen while away, about witness protection, and how it was supposed to be secret, but the witness was sold out by the bad guy’s man in the police force.

“My dad’s very important,” he said, his voice raised an octave, a sure sign he was losing this war of words.

“Then if you went home and started asking questions about witnesses who are supposed to be in protection, then he would lose his job, or worse, go to jail for blabbing secrets.”

“Your blabbing secrets.”

“You’re threatening to beat me up if I don’t tell you where I’ve been. Just threatening me into telling you is going to get you into a heap of trouble. I suggest you let it go, and we keep this between us. Or can’t you keep secrets?”

“I can too.”

The whine in his voice told me that I had bested him, but for how long was a moot question. He was not going to keep this a secret.

…

The school term ended in an uneasy truce between Alistair and me, and the whole school broke for the summer holidays. It meant I could escape Alistair’s persecution, at least for a few weeks, time enough for the rest of the family to return, and a semblance of normalcy to return.

I had just about put the great lie out of my mind when Alistair turned up outside my house with a smug smile. That idea of keeping secrets was not one of his strong points.

“You’re really for it, now, squirt. My dad knows nothing about this crap story of yours. In fact, he copped a serve at work, and he’s coming around to put the pair of you straight.”

Damn. Why could the miserable twisted arse just let it go?

“You want to be anywhere but here when he gets here.”

He walked off laughing, thinking he’d bought me a whole new world of pain.

My father was home for a week, which was a shame, because he was never home, always busy, too busy to be bothered with any of us. It would have been better if he hadn’t, or my mother was here, which she was not, still delayed in her return.

I spent a good hour trying to think of how I was going to get out of this one, but whatever I did, there was no chance I was not going to get a beating for this. Goodall was a copper, and although my father said he was a bully and a terrible excuse for a local plod, as he called him, he was still the law. Previous infractions I had been accused of were all true, and it had got me into trouble and a warning; there had better not be a next time.

This was the next time, and it was a doozy.

There was only one path I could go down.

My father was in his study when I went to look for him. He was always working on something, with books and charts all over the desk. I never asked, and he never volunteered what his job was, but I would have to ask one day.

I knocked on the door and waited a minute or two before he asked me to come in.

“Did I hear you talking to someone before?”

“Alistair Goodall, bully son of the local copper. As bad as his father, he uses him as a shield. I’d complain about him, but you keep saying I have to man up. There’s no manning up against the likes of him.”

I had considered whinging about the kid, but I knew my father wouldn’t accept that as trying hard enough to find my own solution, and it was useless telling him there wasn’t one.

He looked at. “Your mother said you were being bullied. Why didn’t you come and see me?”

“You’re never home, and you reckon I have to sort it out myself. Bit hard when he’s taller and heavier than I am. And I don’t think you’d appreciate me hitting him with a baseball bat.”

“Drastic but effective, no doubt, but not worth the jail time. Why are you telling me this?”

“He wanted to know why I was away recently. I couldn’t tell him; he threatened to beat me up, so I made up a lie. The truth was too lame for a moron like him.”

“What lie?”

I told him and watched the already dark features go a lot darker.

“And you expected he wouldn’t take it to his father for confirmation?”

“Plods don’t get told anything, of course, he wouldn’t know, and even if it was true, no one from up the chain would share that with a fool like Goodall. Even I know that much.”

“How do you know all this stuff?”

“Reading. I’ve read a lot of books, seen films and TV shows. I know a lot of it is make-believe, but there has to be elements of it that are true. The point is that I told Alistair that it was a secret and asked him to keep it. I mean, in real circumstances, we would be trusting him, which you would think from all the bluster that he could. If it had been a test, he failed spectacularly. As for his father, sure, he would understand the nature of witness protection and the necessity for secrecy, so blabbing it to his superiors was wrong on so many levels. I’m sure they would have said they knew nothing about it, even if they did.”

My father thought about that for a minute, perhaps looking to point out the flaws in the logic, but I couldn’t see any.

“I don’t like Goodall. Got on my wrong side when he first became a Sergeant. Too smug by half, and, as you say, a bully who uses his position. You were wrong to lie. Now, go upstairs. I’ll deal with Goodall.”

…

I was sitting behind the wall at the top of the stairs, waiting for Goodall to come. I wondered if he would bring the toad Alistair with him.

The pounding on the door almost made my heart stop. My father took his time to answer the door, and then, “Sergeant Goodall, what do we owe the honour of this visit?” It was the most pleasant tone I’d ever heard my father use, to anyone.

“Mr. Laramie…” Goodall senior only had one level of speaking, loud and confrontational.

“Sergeant Goodall, there are two things I expect from any visitor who comes to my door: that the visitor addresses me in a civil tone and the other, not to make their cases on my doorstep. Now, if you give me your word you will be civil, I will invite you in.”

He must have nodded because I heard footsteps and the door closed. His office was on the ground floor, up the passage. I would be able to hear them if the door to the office weren’t closed.

“Now, Sergeant Goodall, what exactly is the problem?”

“Your son is telling preposterous lies.”

“Your son is a bully, and my son fears going to school because of him. I think you should be attending to your son’s proclivities rather than worrying about what my son says. Most kids his age speak utter gibberish at the best of times.”

A moment’s silence before, “It’s not the fact, it’s lies, it’s the nature of the lie.”

“Oh. The fact that we were away. Well, there’s something else you should be admonishing that wretch of a child of yours for. My son told him the truth. and gave him a warning that it was not to be put about, in fact, as I understand it, he told your son that it was to be kept secret, and because he believed your son, being the son of a respectable policeman who understands the nature of these sorts of secrets, could keep it. The fact that he couldn’t keep that simple secret disappointed my son, disappointed me, and disappointed the people who arranged our sojourn, while some very nasty people were put away. They are, at the very least, extremely disappointed that you were poking around in matters that were way above your pay grade. If my son comes home any time in the new year complaining about your son, I will forget about being magnanimous this one time, in the hope you can address the issues you have; if he comes home with a complaint, all bets are off. Do I make myself clear?”

“He was not lying?”

“He was trying to avoid being beaten up by a thug, Goodall. He trusted your boy, and he let him down badly. This matter should not be discussed, here or anywhere, and I expect by the time you pass through my front door, the matter of our sojourn will be forgotten, and the problem with your child will be on the way to being resolved. Now, if that’s all….”

A few seconds later, I heard Goodall being bundled out the door, and it closed firmly behind him.

…

My father took a risk, but it paid off.

By the end of the summer holidays, Goodall had moved on to another station and taken his wretched son with him.

Goodall wasn’t the only bully at that school, but I learned a new way to deal with them, one that didn’t include elaborate lies. Those I saved for the stories I started writing.

…

©  Charles Heath 2025-2026

A is for – A Ghost from the past

…

Sometimes, when you are in the moment, you don’t get to see what comes out of left field.

First, the inheritance.

A castle, yes, a real castle with a moat and a drawbridge.  Towers at each corner and a thousand acres of adjoining lands

Second, the responsibility.

Not to hand it over to the blood-sucking developers who wanted to turn the property into a golf course and millionaire condos.

Third, the fact that my life was so consumed with work, and then more work.

I didn’t know just how hard it was to run an estate such as the castle and its surroundings.  I had no idea how my grandmother had done it or why she had picked me for the job.

My brother would have made a better fist of it, but he was too busy chasing the girl of his dreams in Bermuda. Now, he had his inheritance.

He felt sorry for me after briefly lamenting that our grandmother hadn’t left him the place.

Good thing, too. He would have sold it out from under us and blown away any chance of regaining the affinity we were supposed to have with the land we had inhabited since William the Conqueror.

Our names were in the Doomsday Book.

This morning was like any other morning: busy, and I was out of my depth. The help I had, those who had last helped grandmother, had lost their patience with the new Master, and several had given their notice.

I was trying to organise replacements with a hiring company in London, and it looked like I would have to go down

That’s when Broadhurst, the butler, whom my grandmother specifically asked to keep on, came in, after lightly rapping on the door to the study, which was supposed to be my refuge.

“What is it that can’t wait?” I asked in a slightly testy tone.  It was not his fault I was losing it, but there was a limit, and I’d reached it.

“There’s a lady to see you, Miss Emily Wentworth.”

“Who is she?”

“I believe an old friend of your grandmother’s who hadn’t seen her for years came to visit.”

“You did tell me she died recently?”

“Not part of my remit, sir,” with the most inscrutable expression I’d ever seen.  He could be covered in blood, a knife in each hand, and still look that inscrutable.

I glared at him.  Nothing, apparently, was part of his remit.

“Where is she?’

“In the drawing room, sir.”

“Tea for two?”

“Already in hand, sir.”

He could make the word sir sound like an insult, and had it not been for my grandmother’s insistence that he stay on, I would have long since tossed him to the wolves.

I looked over towards Mary, my late grandmother’s personal assistant, a woman who was as impossible to work with as she was a walking encyclopaedia of my grandmother’s reign as mistress.

“You know an Emily Wentworth?”

“No, sir.  Not in the ten years I was working with her.”

“Who do you think she is?”

“Someone from before my time.  She knew a lot of different people.  Hundreds of Christmas cards.  Christmas was an event, sir.”

“Thank you, Mary.  We’ll pick this up later.”

…

I went down the passage and left towards the drawing room, my favourite room in the building.  It was where breakfast was served, where the book collection, dating back well over two hundred years, existed.

When I was feeling overwhelmed, I just found a first edition of one of my favourite authors, the same into the luxurious leather lounge chairs, and read.

I opened the double doors to the room and went in.  The sun was out, and the gardens were looking immaculate.

An old lady, older than my grandmother, stood by the window looking out.  She turned as I came into the room.

“Young David, I believe?”

“Miss Wentworth.  You have me at a disadvantage.”

“Oh, I’m an old friend, very old, and hadn’t realised she had recently passed.  I am so sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you.  What can I do for you?”

“Your grandmother once said that I’d I ever needed a place to stay. I would be very welcome to stay here with her.  It seems that might be difficult now that she is no longer here.”

“Slightly.  She did not mention you in any of the papers she left for me.”  They had mentioned about a hundred others, some I was familiar with, others she warned me about, and the rest were worth half a line or two.

At least there were no scheming relatives I had to challenge to a duel.

Yet.

She rummaged around in her voluminous handbag and pulled out a yellowed, crumpled envelope and handed it to me.  “This might explain the circumstances.”

I took it.  It had a furious aroma of mildew and mothballs.  I took out the single folded sheet and read,

My dear Emily,

It was with interest and alarm that I read of your predicament, first in the newspaper and then in your letter.

I always suspected that Adolf was one of those men.
You poor thing.  Of course, you may come and stay for as long as it takes to regain your sanity.

I am looking forward to your imminent arrival.

Love, Matilda

It was my grandmother’s writing.  But it was dated 13th December 1957, some 68 years ago.  The woman before me had to be approaching a hundred, but hardly looked a day over seventy.

“You do realise this invitation was written 69l8 years ago.”

“I was in America.  It took a long time to get here.”

I was waiting for her to tell me she had walked, but no.  She chose to leave the conversation right there.

I shrugged.

“Have you been here before?”

“On the occasion of her wedding to your grandfather.  Did she tell you about me?”

“She did not.”

“Pity.  It might have been possible you were my grandson, but your grandfather chose her, not me.  There’s a story there, but not today.”

Broadhurst appeared as if I had summoned him.  He had a habit of doing that, and it was scary.

“Sir?”

I shook my head.  “Take her to whatever spare room is available.  She will be staying for a while.  Tell the cook, there’s an extra person for dinner.”

“Thank you,” she said.  “Your grandmother was right about you.”

It wasn’t until after she left the room that I realised that she couldn’t know anything about me.  If she had not seen my grandmother in 68 years, how could she know about the 40-year-old grandson?

A question to ask at dinner.

..

I spent the afternoon reading through my grandmother’s diaries for that period from 75 years ago, and sure enough, Emily Wentworth was there, large as life, the girl who was bold, brave, and rebellious

The girl who got into mischief at Miss Irene Davenport’s Finishing school, where apparently raggle-taggle guttersnipes were turned into elegant and charming young ladies.

I could not imagine my grandmother being a raggle-taggle guttersnipe.  Emily Wentworth was a different story and had that look of defiance even now.  I could be easily persuaded to believe Emily would lead her well and truly down the garden path.

I remember my mother once telling me how she had easily been led in her younger days.  It was hard to imagine it, in her later years, when she presented as almost formidable.

It seemed those days at the finishing school would have made interesting reading, but pages had been ripped out, perhaps because she preferred to forget about them.

There was, however, a section around the time of her wedding to my grandfather.

The incomparable and treacherous Miss Emily Wentworth arrived this morning; in defiance of her mother’s orders, she was barred at the gate.

That despicable act of trying to entrap Herbert in an attempt to snatch him away from me was about as low as she could get.  This is the girl who could have any man she wanted.

And with Herbert denying the affair, well, this wedding is hanging by a knife’s edge.  Daddy wants to kill him and is certain to challenge him to a duel at dawn.

It’s an impossible situation.

There was nothing more written until two weeks later, the first day of her honeymoon, with the wonderful Herbert.

Two weeks of intrigue.  I was looking forward to dinner.

…

I had dined formally once since I had arrived at the castle.  A group of my grandmother’s friends insisted on a wake, and Broadhurst and two serving girls presided over what could only be described as a feast.

Although there would be two of us, it would be no less a feast, presided over by Broadhurst and Anna, who attended breakfast time.

One feature of dinner was dressing up, a tradition I took seriously, as did Emily, who had an amazing gown befitting the dowager she was.

I escorted her into the dining room, and Broadhurst made sure she was seated comfortably.  There was no sitting at either end of a table that sat 24.  We’d need cell phones to talk.

We started with a glass of champagne and the first verbal duel. I led with the first question, “Tell me about Miss Irene Davenport’s Finishing School.”

She smiled, “My, if I were a betting woman, I would not have expected that question.  Miss Davenport.”  She closed her eyes and, after a few seconds, sighed.   “Yes.  All the girls believed she was a witch.”

“At that age, somewhere around sixteen, I think, all girls would have thought that.  After being indulged by your parents all your life, I guess running into a formidable disciplinarian would have been a shock.”

She looked at me with a curious expression, one that told me that she had probably thought I would not have such knowledge.

“You must have had some interesting conversations with your grandmother.”

“She maintained a diary, well, quite a few.”

An almost imperceptible change in expression.  “Well, that’s surprising.  She never struck me as a person who would.  Certainly, she never mentioned it, and we were best friends, shared everything when we were younger.”

Perhaps without realising that she had overstepped certain boundaries.  Or that Emily was that sort of friend who assumed she could.  I had read more about the relationship that existed between them, and my interpretation was that Emily was more worldly than her friend and had to a certain extent, both taken advantage of the situation and of her naivety.

It made me wonder just why she was here.

The question was asked in a tone that suggested an answer or comment to repudiate it was expected, a test to see exactly how much I knew.  She had not lost any of her powers of manipulation.

“Yes.  It was what I understood from her writing.  Typical girlish stuff.  She never mentioned anything about her time at Miss Davenport’s to my mother or to me, but she did tell me about her dancing lessons in Paris, under Mademoiselle Dubois.  She always insisted that the foundation for becoming a proper gentleman was grooming, manners, and being able to execute a perfect tango.”

“That’s one thing she excelled at, the tango.  It was what brought Matilda and Herbert together.  They could set the dance floor alight.”

Was it said as a wistful memory or with just a touch of envy?

“Sadly, my rendition of the tango is somewhat lacking.  She tried to smooth the rough edges, but I think in the end, she decided I was a lost cause.”

“Are you married?”

“No.  There hasn’t been a one to dazzle with my dancing skills or lack thereof.  I lack that certain charm my father and grandfather possessed.  Now, being lord of the manor, what girl would want to live in a draughty castle?”

“More than you could imagine.”  That was a wistful expression, and given what I’d read, perhaps she had at one time been one of them.

It was the right time for soup to be served.

…

Broadhurst had selected a very good Cabernet Sauvignon from the cellar and had poured two glasses.

The entrees were beef cheek, something I’d had before and found that a little went a long way, but no less an amazing dish.

A bit like the conversation at that time, she was picking over the memories of her best friend that she could share, perhaps with the intent of finding out how much I did know.

It was leading us into the main course, roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, which I’d had before and could take or leave.  But given the culinary experience of my grandmother’s selection of cook, I was preparing myself for an experience.

It was something I could get used to.

It also bothered me that it was difficult to consume all of the food that was prepared, given that there was mostly one of me, and the twenty-odd permanent staff who lived and worked in the castle, and on the estate.  There were a hundred or so others who didn’t.

My grandmother had decided that meals were to be provided for all those working in the castle and nearby, and I had extended that to everyone who requested a meal.  It meant hiring more staff, much needed in an area where unemployment was growing.  It was a discussion that I’d had with Mary, who had been juggling requests from organisations and individuals for employment opportunities, and one project in particular, a live-in farming community where troubled youth could break the spiral into crime and drugs by being given something useful to occupy their minds.

I know my grandmother would have taken it on in an instant.

“How are you finding being lord of the manor, as you call it?”

“More interesting than living in a tiny flat in a run-down building.”

She seemed surprised.  “You were not always wealthy.  Your mother, I believe, was a countess.”

Yes.  She was.  Married to a man who was a Count, a real Count with a real title, but one who had no money and had married her thinking he could tap into her family’s wealth and restore his fortunes.

It worked for a year before he got greedy, and his grandmother cut her off.  She got pregnant, he hung around until after I was born, and then he left.  Or not so much left as he started innumerable affairs, and Mother kicked him out.

After that, it was all downhill.  Grandmother and mother were estranged and never spoke to each other again after she had been cut off.  I visited from time to time once I left home, only because I knew my mother would explode if she knew I was seeing her.  Then my mother died, a drug overdose, the end of a very unhappy life, and I disappeared into obscurity.  It seemed appropriate because, for a long time, I blamed her for my mother’s death.

“In name only, there was a title and nothing else but a pile of debts.  I’m ashamed to say my father was a scoundrel of the worst sort and only hastened my troubled mother’s path to the grave.  Wealth had never made her happy.  In fact, it was a curse.  To be honest, being lord of the manor has no real meaning. I live in a bigger house and eat better food, but my job is endlessly trying to juggle impossible projects and demanding people.”

“Perhaps you should just tell them all where to go and move to the Bahamas.  You don’t have to burden yourself with other people’s problems.”

Was that what she would do?  I had to ask.  “What would you do in my place?”

The look of amusement turned into a smile.  “I admit, once upon a time, I had thought about it.  Would it be worth pursuing Herbert to become the Marquis and Marquess?  I also admit that I envied Matilda because she had it all and never had to struggle once in her life.  It was annoying sometimes to listen to her complain endlessly about how bad it was.  I’m not sure what she writes, but I suspect there’ll be comments on me that are hardly flattering.”

She took a deep breath and took a moment.  Perhaps she was considering how far she would share her experiences.  Decision made.

“I get it.  We were teenagers, young, at times stupid, and sometimes volatile.  It’s one of the most testing times that period from 15 to 21, and we had some interesting arguments, bust-ups, and reconciliations.  But we ended up best friends, as you can see by that letter, written after she married Herbert.”

Anna came and cleared the dishes from the table and left us wondering what was for dessert.  I could use some coffee to dilute the effects of the wine.

When Broadhurst brought out the tray, I knew instantly it was my favourite, a pudding my grandmother insisted on when I visited.

Roly Poly.

I could see Emily’s eyes light up when she saw it.

Of course, there could be no more conversation until we had devoured two helpings, one with custard, the other with clotted cream.  I could not remember the last time I had it because I could never find the recipe, or that is to say, the proper recipe.

Then, when the coffee came, along with a vintage Portuguese port, I could see she had more to say.

“Let’s stop dancing around the elephant in the room.”

It was a curious expression, one my grandmother used and at times my mother.  I’d been known to use it myself.

“You will have read, no doubt, about my efforts to steal Herbert away from your grandmother.  It’s true.  I did.  Try, that is.  I got tired of her telling me how he was the one, that he had only eyes for her, that there was no other woman for him.  It was tosh, but I doubt she would have believed me if I told her he was dating two other girls at the same time he was dating her.”

It was not surprising, after what my mother had told me.  The affairs continued after the wedding, mostly unknown to his wife.

“It was a month before the wedding, and Matilda had organised a birthday party for him and invited a few close friends.  One of those was a girl called Eloise, daughter of a Duke, another of Miss Davenport’s protégés, and as it happens, a former girlfriend of said Herbert.  I knew from a friend of a friend that they were still an item, only more on the hush-hush side because his family needed the family connection to Matildas.”

In my mind, I would have thought a Duke was better than a Marquis, but I could be wrong.  But the story that marriages were arranged for such reasons was common and had an element of truth, especially considering the times.  Could I believe it of my grandmother, perhaps?  She had always said she would have married for love, that she had never been forced into marriage, but it could have been orchestrated by scheming parents.

“Did you try?”

“Of course, and was disappointed when he turned up in my room late one night, one where Matilda decided she needed a heart-to-heart. It was as if I expected him to come; I had dropped hints, not expecting him to act on them.  He did. She came, and it all blew up.”

“Yet you came to the wedding?”

“Matilda’s mother contacted me about a week later, after Matilda had told Herbert that the wedding was off and that she never wanted to see me again.  It was quite an affair.  The problem was that Herbert’s parents couldn’t afford for this match to come to fruition.  She asked me what my game was, and I told her it was simply to prove that Herbert was not exactly the man he made himself out to be and that I never had any intention of trying to seduce him.”

At a time when there was a far stricter moral code enforced on daughters, it was not hard to imagine the scenes that played out in those weeks before the wedding.  Men could virtually do whatever they liked, and women couldn’t because of the risk to their virtue and getting a reputation that could ruin their position in society.  I remember my grandmother lamenting the fact that men had all the freedom and women had none.

It also gave me pause in how I considered my grandmother, given this information.  If it was correct.  I still didn’t know what the purpose of telling all this was.

“I can’t see my grandmother forgiving you.”

“It wasn’t the first time.  We were not exactly angels when we were at Miss Davenport’s.  That place was one where, if you were so inclined, you could get into a great deal of trouble.  Two of the girls in the class did.  The dance instructor, a devilishly handsome Frenchman with the most exotic accent, had his way with them, resulting in the worst possible outcome.  None of us was immune to his wiles.”

“Are you saying…”

“He had his way with her.  Yes.  But he did with me, too.  I think it was the first time for both of us, and as impressionable girls, it was a delirious, happy time followed by the depths of despair when we were rejected.  Still, although I never knew for certain because I didn’t see her again for about a year, I believe she got pregnant, had a child, and then had it adopted.  Or her parents would have.”

If it happened, I could see why it had been kept a secret.  Her reputation and character would be ruined.  But I was trying to reconcile the description Emily was giving me with what I knew of her.  It was impossible.

I took a deep breath.  “Why are you telling me this?”

“I’m not here to cause trouble.  Nor am I here to drag skeletons out of the closet.  The fact is, I’m here to warn you.  Heed it or not is up to you.  Believe me or not, it is up to you.  I still have friends, though, as you can imagine, most of them have passed.  I received a letter about three weeks ago from someone whose name I didn’t recognise.  It asked me if I knew the name of the baby your grandmother had.  The first baby.  You could have knocked me over with a feather.”

“What did you do?”

“I wrote back and told them wherever they got their information it was a lie.”

“Then they sent an official copy of the birth certificate with the girl’s name and the two parents, one of whom was Matilda.  It was her signature on the document.”

“Could it be a forgery?”

“It could, so I had it checked out.  It was legitimate.  Then I wrote back and told them I would not help them prove or disprove anything out of respect for my friend.  I fear these people will not go away.  If they have gone to all this effort, then they want something from you.”

“Money, and a lot of it, or a slice of the inheritance. The thing is, if it was legitimate, why haven’t they got lawyers onto it?  Did the person who wrote the letter have a name?”

She pulled out an envelope from a hidden pocket and slid it over to me.  Inside, there was the birth certificate and a copy of the first letter written and signed by Josephine Llewellen.

“I suggest you get a team of private investigators to check her out and get ahead of it.”

“What do you want?”

“Nothing.  I’m here out of respect for my friend and to warn you of what might be possible trouble.  Other than that, a place to rest my weary bones.  I’m not long for this earth, and this is the place where I was most happy.”

She slowly got out of her chair and stood for a moment.  “Thank you for your indulgence, and a room at the inn.  I am more grateful than you could ever know.”

…

It was still a strange experience to wake up in what was the master bedroom in the castle.  The bed itself was so large it could fit half a dozen people with room to move.

That same bed was over three hundred years old, an antique four-poster with the curtains more like tapestries than curtains.

Broadhurst had opened the curtains and brought water and the folder with the day’s activities.  I had a quick scan, and there was nothing to attract attention

It was another half hour before I came downstairs and into the morning room.  Anna was there, refreshing the coffee, making me marvel again at how the internal communication system knew exactly where I was.

“Good morning, sir?”

“Good morning, Anna.  Has Emily been down for breakfast?”

“Who, sir?”  She looked genuinely surprised.

“The lady who arrived yesterday afternoon.  Emily Wentworth.  We had dinner last night.”

“No, sir.  There’s been no visitors.”

Broadhurst came into the room with a tray.

“Is there a problem, sir?”

“Emily Wentworth, the lady who arrived here yesterday afternoon.  You told me of her arrival.”

He looked blank; it was the only way I could describe his expression. 

“I don’t believe I did, sir.  There are no visitors in the house at present, just yourself.”

He put the tray down on the sideboard and brought the plate over to where I had just sat down.

“Then I must be going crazy.  I would have sworn there was a visitor and that I had dinner with her last night.”

He shrugged.  “This place can be a little strange at times, sir.  The mistress used to talk to people whom she could only see.  Perhaps it may have been a dream, sir.  Did you sleep well last night?”

“I did.”

“It is this place, sir.  Hundreds of years of goings on, stories my mother used to tell me.  I don’t believe in ghosts, sir, but there are odd noises.”

It felt real enough.  I would go to the study later and see if the documents she had given me were still on the desk.

…

I went upstairs to the room she had been allocated, and it was empty.  Moreover, it had the look of not having been used for a while.

Then I went to the study, and there was no sign of the documents, certainly not where I left them or where i thought I left them.

Was it my imagination, or as Broadhurst suggested, a dream induced by the eeriness of the castle itself?  He wasn’t wrong. The first few nights were very creepy, and I swore I’d heard a ghost.

The chauffeur, yes, there was a chauffeur and a mechanic, and a fleet of five cars, and one of the downstairs maids had just arrived back from the town about 5 miles away, to refuel and collect the mail, and any particular stores the housekeeper needed.

I was reading a document on small farming techniques sent to me by email when Anna came in to deliver the mail.  We were still getting letters and invitations to events addressed to my grandmother, invitations that were extended to me in her stead, some of which seemed interesting.

Today’s pile had three more, and one other, a curiously old envelope with my name scrawled on it.  It was not the first time I’d seen one like it, one that belonged to a time past.

I opened it and found another inside.  Just like the one that Emily Wentworth had given me.  It had her name and address on ot, somewhere in France, but the postmark was what interested me.

It was 7th October 1943.

My hands were shaking when I took out the two sheets of paper.  One was the birth certificate; the other was a letter, also the same as the previous evening, signed by Josephine Llewellen.

What the hell?

I put everything back in the envelope in the top drawer under a pile of folders.  I needed air.

What was going on?

I got as far as the front foyer when I saw Mrs Rattigan, the housekeeper, talking to a young girl. 

“Good morning, sir,” she said when she saw me.

“Good morning, Mrs Rattigan.”  She had said I could address her by her first name, but given how formidable she looked, I still couldn’t.

“A visitor?”

“In a sense.  We are interviewing for the assistant cook position. This is Josephine Llewellen.”

…

©  Charles Heath  2025-2026

A is for – A Ghost from the past

…

Sometimes, when you are in the moment, you don’t get to see what comes out of left field.

First, the inheritance.

A castle, yes, a real castle with a moat and a drawbridge.  Towers at each corner and a thousand acres of adjoining lands

Second, the responsibility.

Not to hand it over to the blood-sucking developers who wanted to turn the property into a golf course and millionaire condos.

Third, the fact that my life was so consumed with work, and then more work.

I didn’t know just how hard it was to run an estate such as the castle and its surroundings.  I had no idea how my grandmother had done it or why she had picked me for the job.

My brother would have made a better fist of it, but he was too busy chasing the girl of his dreams in Bermuda. Now, he had his inheritance.

He felt sorry for me after briefly lamenting that our grandmother hadn’t left him the place.

Good thing, too. He would have sold it out from under us and blown away any chance of regaining the affinity we were supposed to have with the land we had inhabited since William the Conqueror.

Our names were in the Doomsday Book.

This morning was like any other morning: busy, and I was out of my depth. The help I had, those who had last helped grandmother, had lost their patience with the new Master, and several had given their notice.

I was trying to organise replacements with a hiring company in London, and it looked like I would have to go down

That’s when Broadhurst, the butler, whom my grandmother specifically asked to keep on, came in, after lightly rapping on the door to the study, which was supposed to be my refuge.

“What is it that can’t wait?” I asked in a slightly testy tone.  It was not his fault I was losing it, but there was a limit, and I’d reached it.

“There’s a lady to see you, Miss Emily Wentworth.”

“Who is she?”

“I believe an old friend of your grandmother’s who hadn’t seen her for years came to visit.”

“You did tell me she died recently?”

“Not part of my remit, sir,” with the most inscrutable expression I’d ever seen.  He could be covered in blood, a knife in each hand, and still look that inscrutable.

I glared at him.  Nothing, apparently, was part of his remit.

“Where is she?’

“In the drawing room, sir.”

“Tea for two?”

“Already in hand, sir.”

He could make the word sir sound like an insult, and had it not been for my grandmother’s insistence that he stay on, I would have long since tossed him to the wolves.

I looked over towards Mary, my late grandmother’s personal assistant, a woman who was as impossible to work with as she was a walking encyclopaedia of my grandmother’s reign as mistress.

“You know an Emily Wentworth?”

“No, sir.  Not in the ten years I was working with her.”

“Who do you think she is?”

“Someone from before my time.  She knew a lot of different people.  Hundreds of Christmas cards.  Christmas was an event, sir.”

“Thank you, Mary.  We’ll pick this up later.”

…

I went down the passage and left towards the drawing room, my favourite room in the building.  It was where breakfast was served, where the book collection, dating back well over two hundred years, existed.

When I was feeling overwhelmed, I just found a first edition of one of my favourite authors, the same into the luxurious leather lounge chairs, and read.

I opened the double doors to the room and went in.  The sun was out, and the gardens were looking immaculate.

An old lady, older than my grandmother, stood by the window looking out.  She turned as I came into the room.

“Young David, I believe?”

“Miss Wentworth.  You have me at a disadvantage.”

“Oh, I’m an old friend, very old, and hadn’t realised she had recently passed.  I am so sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you.  What can I do for you?”

“Your grandmother once said that I’d I ever needed a place to stay. I would be very welcome to stay here with her.  It seems that might be difficult now that she is no longer here.”

“Slightly.  She did not mention you in any of the papers she left for me.”  They had mentioned about a hundred others, some I was familiar with, others she warned me about, and the rest were worth half a line or two.

At least there were no scheming relatives I had to challenge to a duel.

Yet.

She rummaged around in her voluminous handbag and pulled out a yellowed, crumpled envelope and handed it to me.  “This might explain the circumstances.”

I took it.  It had a furious aroma of mildew and mothballs.  I took out the single folded sheet and read,

My dear Emily,

It was with interest and alarm that I read of your predicament, first in the newspaper and then in your letter.

I always suspected that Adolf was one of those men.
You poor thing.  Of course, you may come and stay for as long as it takes to regain your sanity.

I am looking forward to your imminent arrival.

Love, Matilda

It was my grandmother’s writing.  But it was dated 13th December 1957, some 68 years ago.  The woman before me had to be approaching a hundred, but hardly looked a day over seventy.

“You do realise this invitation was written 69l8 years ago.”

“I was in America.  It took a long time to get here.”

I was waiting for her to tell me she had walked, but no.  She chose to leave the conversation right there.

I shrugged.

“Have you been here before?”

“On the occasion of her wedding to your grandfather.  Did she tell you about me?”

“She did not.”

“Pity.  It might have been possible you were my grandson, but your grandfather chose her, not me.  There’s a story there, but not today.”

Broadhurst appeared as if I had summoned him.  He had a habit of doing that, and it was scary.

“Sir?”

I shook my head.  “Take her to whatever spare room is available.  She will be staying for a while.  Tell the cook, there’s an extra person for dinner.”

“Thank you,” she said.  “Your grandmother was right about you.”

It wasn’t until after she left the room that I realised that she couldn’t know anything about me.  If she had not seen my grandmother in 68 years, how could she know about the 40-year-old grandson?

A question to ask at dinner.

..

I spent the afternoon reading through my grandmother’s diaries for that period from 75 years ago, and sure enough, Emily Wentworth was there, large as life, the girl who was bold, brave, and rebellious

The girl who got into mischief at Miss Irene Davenport’s Finishing school, where apparently raggle-taggle guttersnipes were turned into elegant and charming young ladies.

I could not imagine my grandmother being a raggle-taggle guttersnipe.  Emily Wentworth was a different story and had that look of defiance even now.  I could be easily persuaded to believe Emily would lead her well and truly down the garden path.

I remember my mother once telling me how she had easily been led in her younger days.  It was hard to imagine it, in her later years, when she presented as almost formidable.

It seemed those days at the finishing school would have made interesting reading, but pages had been ripped out, perhaps because she preferred to forget about them.

There was, however, a section around the time of her wedding to my grandfather.

The incomparable and treacherous Miss Emily Wentworth arrived this morning; in defiance of her mother’s orders, she was barred at the gate.

That despicable act of trying to entrap Herbert in an attempt to snatch him away from me was about as low as she could get.  This is the girl who could have any man she wanted.

And with Herbert denying the affair, well, this wedding is hanging by a knife’s edge.  Daddy wants to kill him and is certain to challenge him to a duel at dawn.

It’s an impossible situation.

There was nothing more written until two weeks later, the first day of her honeymoon, with the wonderful Herbert.

Two weeks of intrigue.  I was looking forward to dinner.

…

I had dined formally once since I had arrived at the castle.  A group of my grandmother’s friends insisted on a wake, and Broadhurst and two serving girls presided over what could only be described as a feast.

Although there would be two of us, it would be no less a feast, presided over by Broadhurst and Anna, who attended breakfast time.

One feature of dinner was dressing up, a tradition I took seriously, as did Emily, who had an amazing gown befitting the dowager she was.

I escorted her into the dining room, and Broadhurst made sure she was seated comfortably.  There was no sitting at either end of a table that sat 24.  We’d need cell phones to talk.

We started with a glass of champagne and the first verbal duel. I led with the first question, “Tell me about Miss Irene Davenport’s Finishing School.”

She smiled, “My, if I were a betting woman, I would not have expected that question.  Miss Davenport.”  She closed her eyes and, after a few seconds, sighed.   “Yes.  All the girls believed she was a witch.”

“At that age, somewhere around sixteen, I think, all girls would have thought that.  After being indulged by your parents all your life, I guess running into a formidable disciplinarian would have been a shock.”

She looked at me with a curious expression, one that told me that she had probably thought I would not have such knowledge.

“You must have had some interesting conversations with your grandmother.”

“She maintained a diary, well, quite a few.”

An almost imperceptible change in expression.  “Well, that’s surprising.  She never struck me as a person who would.  Certainly, she never mentioned it, and we were best friends, shared everything when we were younger.”

Perhaps without realising that she had overstepped certain boundaries.  Or that Emily was that sort of friend who assumed she could.  I had read more about the relationship that existed between them, and my interpretation was that Emily was more worldly than her friend and had to a certain extent, both taken advantage of the situation and of her naivety.

It made me wonder just why she was here.

The question was asked in a tone that suggested an answer or comment to repudiate it was expected, a test to see exactly how much I knew.  She had not lost any of her powers of manipulation.

“Yes.  It was what I understood from her writing.  Typical girlish stuff.  She never mentioned anything about her time at Miss Davenport’s to my mother or to me, but she did tell me about her dancing lessons in Paris, under Mademoiselle Dubois.  She always insisted that the foundation for becoming a proper gentleman was grooming, manners, and being able to execute a perfect tango.”

“That’s one thing she excelled at, the tango.  It was what brought Matilda and Herbert together.  They could set the dance floor alight.”

Was it said as a wistful memory or with just a touch of envy?

“Sadly, my rendition of the tango is somewhat lacking.  She tried to smooth the rough edges, but I think in the end, she decided I was a lost cause.”

“Are you married?”

“No.  There hasn’t been a one to dazzle with my dancing skills or lack thereof.  I lack that certain charm my father and grandfather possessed.  Now, being lord of the manor, what girl would want to live in a draughty castle?”

“More than you could imagine.”  That was a wistful expression, and given what I’d read, perhaps she had at one time been one of them.

It was the right time for soup to be served.

…

Broadhurst had selected a very good Cabernet Sauvignon from the cellar and had poured two glasses.

The entrees were beef cheek, something I’d had before and found that a little went a long way, but no less an amazing dish.

A bit like the conversation at that time, she was picking over the memories of her best friend that she could share, perhaps with the intent of finding out how much I did know.

It was leading us into the main course, roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, which I’d had before and could take or leave.  But given the culinary experience of my grandmother’s selection of cook, I was preparing myself for an experience.

It was something I could get used to.

It also bothered me that it was difficult to consume all of the food that was prepared, given that there was mostly one of me, and the twenty-odd permanent staff who lived and worked in the castle, and on the estate.  There were a hundred or so others who didn’t.

My grandmother had decided that meals were to be provided for all those working in the castle and nearby, and I had extended that to everyone who requested a meal.  It meant hiring more staff, much needed in an area where unemployment was growing.  It was a discussion that I’d had with Mary, who had been juggling requests from organisations and individuals for employment opportunities, and one project in particular, a live-in farming community where troubled youth could break the spiral into crime and drugs by being given something useful to occupy their minds.

I know my grandmother would have taken it on in an instant.

“How are you finding being lord of the manor, as you call it?”

“More interesting than living in a tiny flat in a run-down building.”

She seemed surprised.  “You were not always wealthy.  Your mother, I believe, was a countess.”

Yes.  She was.  Married to a man who was a Count, a real Count with a real title, but one who had no money and had married her thinking he could tap into her family’s wealth and restore his fortunes.

It worked for a year before he got greedy, and his grandmother cut her off.  She got pregnant, he hung around until after I was born, and then he left.  Or not so much left as he started innumerable affairs, and Mother kicked him out.

After that, it was all downhill.  Grandmother and mother were estranged and never spoke to each other again after she had been cut off.  I visited from time to time once I left home, only because I knew my mother would explode if she knew I was seeing her.  Then my mother died, a drug overdose, the end of a very unhappy life, and I disappeared into obscurity.  It seemed appropriate because, for a long time, I blamed her for my mother’s death.

“In name only, there was a title and nothing else but a pile of debts.  I’m ashamed to say my father was a scoundrel of the worst sort and only hastened my troubled mother’s path to the grave.  Wealth had never made her happy.  In fact, it was a curse.  To be honest, being lord of the manor has no real meaning. I live in a bigger house and eat better food, but my job is endlessly trying to juggle impossible projects and demanding people.”

“Perhaps you should just tell them all where to go and move to the Bahamas.  You don’t have to burden yourself with other people’s problems.”

Was that what she would do?  I had to ask.  “What would you do in my place?”

The look of amusement turned into a smile.  “I admit, once upon a time, I had thought about it.  Would it be worth pursuing Herbert to become the Marquis and Marquess?  I also admit that I envied Matilda because she had it all and never had to struggle once in her life.  It was annoying sometimes to listen to her complain endlessly about how bad it was.  I’m not sure what she writes, but I suspect there’ll be comments on me that are hardly flattering.”

She took a deep breath and took a moment.  Perhaps she was considering how far she would share her experiences.  Decision made.

“I get it.  We were teenagers, young, at times stupid, and sometimes volatile.  It’s one of the most testing times that period from 15 to 21, and we had some interesting arguments, bust-ups, and reconciliations.  But we ended up best friends, as you can see by that letter, written after she married Herbert.”

Anna came and cleared the dishes from the table and left us wondering what was for dessert.  I could use some coffee to dilute the effects of the wine.

When Broadhurst brought out the tray, I knew instantly it was my favourite, a pudding my grandmother insisted on when I visited.

Roly Poly.

I could see Emily’s eyes light up when she saw it.

Of course, there could be no more conversation until we had devoured two helpings, one with custard, the other with clotted cream.  I could not remember the last time I had it because I could never find the recipe, or that is to say, the proper recipe.

Then, when the coffee came, along with a vintage Portuguese port, I could see she had more to say.

“Let’s stop dancing around the elephant in the room.”

It was a curious expression, one my grandmother used and at times my mother.  I’d been known to use it myself.

“You will have read, no doubt, about my efforts to steal Herbert away from your grandmother.  It’s true.  I did.  Try, that is.  I got tired of her telling me how he was the one, that he had only eyes for her, that there was no other woman for him.  It was tosh, but I doubt she would have believed me if I told her he was dating two other girls at the same time he was dating her.”

It was not surprising, after what my mother had told me.  The affairs continued after the wedding, mostly unknown to his wife.

“It was a month before the wedding, and Matilda had organised a birthday party for him and invited a few close friends.  One of those was a girl called Eloise, daughter of a Duke, another of Miss Davenport’s protégés, and as it happens, a former girlfriend of said Herbert.  I knew from a friend of a friend that they were still an item, only more on the hush-hush side because his family needed the family connection to Matildas.”

In my mind, I would have thought a Duke was better than a Marquis, but I could be wrong.  But the story that marriages were arranged for such reasons was common and had an element of truth, especially considering the times.  Could I believe it of my grandmother, perhaps?  She had always said she would have married for love, that she had never been forced into marriage, but it could have been orchestrated by scheming parents.

“Did you try?”

“Of course, and was disappointed when he turned up in my room late one night, one where Matilda decided she needed a heart-to-heart. It was as if I expected him to come; I had dropped hints, not expecting him to act on them.  He did. She came, and it all blew up.”

“Yet you came to the wedding?”

“Matilda’s mother contacted me about a week later, after Matilda had told Herbert that the wedding was off and that she never wanted to see me again.  It was quite an affair.  The problem was that Herbert’s parents couldn’t afford for this match to come to fruition.  She asked me what my game was, and I told her it was simply to prove that Herbert was not exactly the man he made himself out to be and that I never had any intention of trying to seduce him.”

At a time when there was a far stricter moral code enforced on daughters, it was not hard to imagine the scenes that played out in those weeks before the wedding.  Men could virtually do whatever they liked, and women couldn’t because of the risk to their virtue and getting a reputation that could ruin their position in society.  I remember my grandmother lamenting the fact that men had all the freedom and women had none.

It also gave me pause in how I considered my grandmother, given this information.  If it was correct.  I still didn’t know what the purpose of telling all this was.

“I can’t see my grandmother forgiving you.”

“It wasn’t the first time.  We were not exactly angels when we were at Miss Davenport’s.  That place was one where, if you were so inclined, you could get into a great deal of trouble.  Two of the girls in the class did.  The dance instructor, a devilishly handsome Frenchman with the most exotic accent, had his way with them, resulting in the worst possible outcome.  None of us was immune to his wiles.”

“Are you saying…”

“He had his way with her.  Yes.  But he did with me, too.  I think it was the first time for both of us, and as impressionable girls, it was a delirious, happy time followed by the depths of despair when we were rejected.  Still, although I never knew for certain because I didn’t see her again for about a year, I believe she got pregnant, had a child, and then had it adopted.  Or her parents would have.”

If it happened, I could see why it had been kept a secret.  Her reputation and character would be ruined.  But I was trying to reconcile the description Emily was giving me with what I knew of her.  It was impossible.

I took a deep breath.  “Why are you telling me this?”

“I’m not here to cause trouble.  Nor am I here to drag skeletons out of the closet.  The fact is, I’m here to warn you.  Heed it or not is up to you.  Believe me or not, it is up to you.  I still have friends, though, as you can imagine, most of them have passed.  I received a letter about three weeks ago from someone whose name I didn’t recognise.  It asked me if I knew the name of the baby your grandmother had.  The first baby.  You could have knocked me over with a feather.”

“What did you do?”

“I wrote back and told them wherever they got their information it was a lie.”

“Then they sent an official copy of the birth certificate with the girl’s name and the two parents, one of whom was Matilda.  It was her signature on the document.”

“Could it be a forgery?”

“It could, so I had it checked out.  It was legitimate.  Then I wrote back and told them I would not help them prove or disprove anything out of respect for my friend.  I fear these people will not go away.  If they have gone to all this effort, then they want something from you.”

“Money, and a lot of it, or a slice of the inheritance. The thing is, if it was legitimate, why haven’t they got lawyers onto it?  Did the person who wrote the letter have a name?”

She pulled out an envelope from a hidden pocket and slid it over to me.  Inside, there was the birth certificate and a copy of the first letter written and signed by Josephine Llewellen.

“I suggest you get a team of private investigators to check her out and get ahead of it.”

“What do you want?”

“Nothing.  I’m here out of respect for my friend and to warn you of what might be possible trouble.  Other than that, a place to rest my weary bones.  I’m not long for this earth, and this is the place where I was most happy.”

She slowly got out of her chair and stood for a moment.  “Thank you for your indulgence, and a room at the inn.  I am more grateful than you could ever know.”

…

It was still a strange experience to wake up in what was the master bedroom in the castle.  The bed itself was so large it could fit half a dozen people with room to move.

That same bed was over three hundred years old, an antique four-poster with the curtains more like tapestries than curtains.

Broadhurst had opened the curtains and brought water and the folder with the day’s activities.  I had a quick scan, and there was nothing to attract attention

It was another half hour before I came downstairs and into the morning room.  Anna was there, refreshing the coffee, making me marvel again at how the internal communication system knew exactly where I was.

“Good morning, sir?”

“Good morning, Anna.  Has Emily been down for breakfast?”

“Who, sir?”  She looked genuinely surprised.

“The lady who arrived yesterday afternoon.  Emily Wentworth.  We had dinner last night.”

“No, sir.  There’s been no visitors.”

Broadhurst came into the room with a tray.

“Is there a problem, sir?”

“Emily Wentworth, the lady who arrived here yesterday afternoon.  You told me of her arrival.”

He looked blank; it was the only way I could describe his expression. 

“I don’t believe I did, sir.  There are no visitors in the house at present, just yourself.”

He put the tray down on the sideboard and brought the plate over to where I had just sat down.

“Then I must be going crazy.  I would have sworn there was a visitor and that I had dinner with her last night.”

He shrugged.  “This place can be a little strange at times, sir.  The mistress used to talk to people whom she could only see.  Perhaps it may have been a dream, sir.  Did you sleep well last night?”

“I did.”

“It is this place, sir.  Hundreds of years of goings on, stories my mother used to tell me.  I don’t believe in ghosts, sir, but there are odd noises.”

It felt real enough.  I would go to the study later and see if the documents she had given me were still on the desk.

…

I went upstairs to the room she had been allocated, and it was empty.  Moreover, it had the look of not having been used for a while.

Then I went to the study, and there was no sign of the documents, certainly not where I left them or where i thought I left them.

Was it my imagination, or as Broadhurst suggested, a dream induced by the eeriness of the castle itself?  He wasn’t wrong. The first few nights were very creepy, and I swore I’d heard a ghost.

The chauffeur, yes, there was a chauffeur and a mechanic, and a fleet of five cars, and one of the downstairs maids had just arrived back from the town about 5 miles away, to refuel and collect the mail, and any particular stores the housekeeper needed.

I was reading a document on small farming techniques sent to me by email when Anna came in to deliver the mail.  We were still getting letters and invitations to events addressed to my grandmother, invitations that were extended to me in her stead, some of which seemed interesting.

Today’s pile had three more, and one other, a curiously old envelope with my name scrawled on it.  It was not the first time I’d seen one like it, one that belonged to a time past.

I opened it and found another inside.  Just like the one that Emily Wentworth had given me.  It had her name and address on ot, somewhere in France, but the postmark was what interested me.

It was 7th October 1943.

My hands were shaking when I took out the two sheets of paper.  One was the birth certificate; the other was a letter, also the same as the previous evening, signed by Josephine Llewellen.

What the hell?

I put everything back in the envelope in the top drawer under a pile of folders.  I needed air.

What was going on?

I got as far as the front foyer when I saw Mrs Rattigan, the housekeeper, talking to a young girl. 

“Good morning, sir,” she said when she saw me.

“Good morning, Mrs Rattigan.”  She had said I could address her by her first name, but given how formidable she looked, I still couldn’t.

“A visitor?”

“In a sense.  We are interviewing for the assistant cook position. This is Josephine Llewellen.”

…

©  Charles Heath  2025-2026