Vacant/Possession

Corinne and Stuart had always known what they would do if they inherited a large amount of money or if they won the lottery. The former was highly unlikely, as to the best of their knowledge they had no aging rich relatives, and as to the latter, well, you were always being told you were more likely to be struck by an asteroid than win the lottery jackpot. “Which I don’t get,” Corinne said, more than once “Because so far as I know, no human has ever been killed by being struck by an asteroid though it was bad news for the dinosaurs, but plenty of people have won the Lottery Jackpot.” She did have a tendency to say things that were an entirely fair point more often than she strictly needed to, but as Stuart reminded himself, she was more or less perfect in all other ways, so he could put up with it. Talking of More or Less, he had suggested on occasion that she send her query to the radio programme of that name dealing with statistics, but she had never got round to it.

     Anyway, they never got silly about the lottery, and only played two lines a week, one with family birthdays, and the other as a “lucky dip”. And if they won, they would buy a property in Norfolk, preferably down some long country road flanked (at the right time of year) by lavender fields of East Anglia, and not far from the sea, maybe with the sight of the majestic spire of Norwich cathedral on the horizon.   It would be a big property, one of those lovely old-fashioned houses, but they wouldn’t lose all sense of reason and buy a mansion with twenty bedrooms. A variant on those dreams was that they opened it as a hotel, but they were generally more inclined to think that they would have it to themselves, though inviting friends and family round, of course. If they won the lottery jackpot. Which, of course, they wouldn’t.

     But then, one Saturday in February, they did. All six balls came out to match their “lucky dip” line. It wasn’t one of those superdraws or triple rollovers, or anything like that, but they were now, officially, millionaires because as it turned out, nobody else had those numbers, and they didn’t have to share.

     They didn’t wax hysterical or swoon, or scream, but they hugged each other, after double-checking the numbers, and said, in touching unison, “Now we can buy the house in Norfolk!”

     They did not go public with their win, but did tell a few friends and family members they trusted, and all of them were genuinely pleased, not just because of their generosity to them, but because they were, as Stuart’s work colleague Ben put it, “Such thoroughly good eggs.” And Ben meant no malice or condescension when he remarked to his wife Elaine that the house in Norfolk was such a “Totally Stuart and Corinne thing.” Others might buy villas on paradise islands, or a fleet of supercars, or a string of racehorses, but Stuart and Corinne wanted a house in Norfolk. Stuart had spent childhood holidays there, and Corinne had been to university there, and they had happy memories.

     Both of them liked their work well enough – Stuart worked for the local council, and Corinne was a librarian, but not enough to be too bothered about giving it up and moving on. Not that they intended to be idle. Corinne had a talent for writing, and Stuart had a passion for gardening. He would quite appreciate the challenge of a house with a garden that needed some attention, but then maybe he would set up his own business. 

     Nobody called them boring, because they were not, but there were some whispers that while, of course, it couldn’t have happened to nicer people, it could have happened to people who would do something more exciting with it. 

     Corinne had once written a story – not, she admitted herself, one of her best ones, nor that original, when someone chanced upon a “dream house” in the wilds and discovered it was for sale. Life was not to mirror art when it came to Hopwood House. They found it in an entirely conventional way, looking in an estate agent in an old-fashioned market town where they were staying in a comfortable, but not ostentatious hotel for a couple of days. They could not decide whether it was pleasing, or a tad embarrassing, to be browsing the “executive” properties. 

     Hopwood House ticked the boxes. It was a late Victorian house, large, but not stupidly so for two people and occasional guests, down a country lane where lavender grew at the right time of year, and not far from the sea. There wasn’t quite a view of the spire of Norwich Cathedral, but it wasn’t too far away. The house was currently empty and had been for a couple of years, but it still had electricity and running water, and it might be a bit damp, but that would soon be cleared up with those ever-useful space heaters. The estate agent, Vanessa, without needing to be told, soon worked out that this pleasant young(ish) couple had recently come into money – probably a lottery win. And she was no psychic.

     But the residents of Hopwood House were. It came with the territory, though it wasn’t infallible. “Someone is coming to look, today,” said Rosa Hopwood. “Someone wants to come and live here,” she paced restlessly around the lounge, her long skirts swishing and her petticoats rustling. There was a peevish expression on her pretty face.

     “Now, don’t be silly, Rosa,” her governess, Miss Eliza Fanshawe said, sounding, as she always did, when she tried to be stern and assertive, like a frustrated goose with laryngitis. “You knew it was going to happen, and it was not so bad when – the last people were here.”

     “It was horrid,” she said, like a child speaking of broccoli. “And you didn’t like it either, Fanny.” That was her nickname for her governess. Miss Fanshawe knew it was somewhat disrespectful, but at least, she had to admit, though Rosa was spoilt and pettish, she wasn’t unkind to her the way some girls were to their governesses, so she let it pass. Rosa, as the cook Mrs Hobart said, knew which side her bread was buttered. More and more girls were going to school now as the 19^th century drew to its close, and many clamoured to. Rosa was not one of them. She would have found that considerably more than horrid, compared to being at home with her doting Papa and her distant but amiable Mama and a governess she could manage well enough.

     “They will be boring,” Rosa said, her agile fingers taking down the bun she had never got used to and letting her hair flow freely. “It will be boring. There will be no parties.”

     “There have not been parties here for some long years,” said Captain Charles Hopwood. He still wore his uniform, that uniform that had been blood-splattered on the Normandy Beaches. It had taken him a long while to understand. At first when members of his family wept or looked pensive, and said that Charlie had not come home, he wanted to scream, but I have come home, can’t you see me? They couldn’t, of course. 

     “One must learn to adapt,” said Sir Henry, sternly. None of the others argued with Sir Henry. Or very rarely, and they always wished they hadn’t. “I have been left with this.” he pointed to the livid scarlet scar that criss-crossed his face. “And a house burnt to the ground. A hundred years before someone decided that they wanted to build their new-fangled house here.” They had heard it all before. And they were never quite sure how much of his tone was still suffering, and how much just to make sure they were aware of his superiority. “As long as they leave the stables alone.”

     “But there haven’t been horses in them for – for a very long time,” said Beverley Hopwood. She didn’t raise her voice that often. After all, she had only married into the family, and had only been in the house for a couple of years. She was tolerated (and the others accepted she probably didn’t have much choice in the matter) but often left in no doubt that she was even below Fanny in the pecking order. She was also scared stiff of horses. She had fallen off one when she was a child.

     “That’s not the point, young woman!” said Sir Henry, firmly. 

     “I would like to see horses here again,” Charles’ face turned automatically towards the disused stable block. 

     “Me too,” said Rosa, who was beyond doubt, least of all her own, one of the finest horsewomen in the county.

     They would make a nice couple, thought Fanny, who was a romantic at heart, though of course she knew that could not ever be and was a stupid thought. But there was a nice couple coming. If she’d had any bones, she’d have thought it in them. Much as it pained the others to admit it, and much as she hesitated to push herself forward, she was the most reliable when it came to such matters. Rosa finally, with a determined yank and an involuntary squawk, freed the last hair pin from her hated bun.

     There was a car coming up the drive. A solid, reliable 4 by 4, the kind that could cope with country roads, but nothing flashy. Vanessa had given Corinne and Stuart the key. Stuart was already making plans about that garden. He certainly didn’t want to turn it into anything too neat or too pretentious. Some of it, at least, would be a haven for wild flowers, even a patch of nettles – after all, the butterflies and bees loved them. And there would be the flowers he and Corinne both loved – tall lupins, bright tulips, according to season. A herb garden would be nice, too. Corinne was weighing up the old stable block and wondering if she would do her writing there, at least sometimes. They weren’t particular horse lovers. Maybe, if children came along, and it still wasn’t too late, and now they could afford to see the best consultants, a plump little pony would live there one day.

     As they opened the oak-panelled front door with leaded lights (dusty now of course, but it was easy to imagine how lovely it would look when they were clean and bright and sunlight filtered through the blue and yellow panels onto the tiled hallway) it creaked almost too obligingly. The way the doors in untended old houses were supposed to, before you fixed it. 

     “Oh, look!” Corinne exclaimed, stooping down and picking something up.

     “A hairgrip,” said Stuart. She laughed. “No – not a hairgrip, or not one I’d care to put in my hair. This is one of those old-fashioned lethal hairpins!”