Mrs Lear

I know absolutely nothing about this email nonsense. So, I sent postcards. I assume my daughters, Goneril, the eldest, and Regan, got them, but they didn’t reply. Well, I say didn’t reply; they telephoned to say they’d be here. It was my 80^th birthday; you see, and as Cordelia, my housekeeper, said, ‘It’s the big eight O! Mrs Lear!’

I was not entitled to a home help from the NHS. It’s means tested, you see, and quite right too. Initially, Cordelia was paid to come once a week to help one bathe and to take my Jack Russell terrier, Bluebell, for a run. We rubbed along together so nicely that she was spending all day here, out of the kindness of her heart. She did odd jobs and took Bluebell and me out on drives in the country or to the seaside. So, I took a chance. When her husband left her to live in a static caravan with an eighteen year old dental hygienist, I asked her to move in as a companion housekeeper sort of thing. Cordelia now runs her charming 1500 century cottage, on the estate, as what she calls an ‘Airbnb’ for some passive income and on my side, she’s what they used to call in the old days ‘all found’ here, rooms and board that is, with a weekly wage. It suits us both beautifully. Entre nous, she told me her husband treated her terribly, which is why in part she’d preferred to spend her time here at Liberty Manor. She must have thought me a fool to believe that someone could walk into a door that often. Her poor face. Sometimes it broke my heart, when it was particularly bad I used to pretend to be, ‘not quite myself, and if you could possibly stay here for a few nights, dear? I’d be most grateful.’ It was the only thing I could think of doing to help her because she didn’t choose to tell me about it, and she knew I was far too polite to enquire where on earth were those black eyes or swollen cheeks were coming from.

My home, Liberty Manor, is actually my husband’s family’s home, and with no living relatives, the house fell to me; and not to put too fine of a point on it, as Cordelia said, ‘it’s bleedin’ enormous, Mrs L!’ She made me laugh, Mrs L, indeed, and even with most of the house closed off, it’s jolly difficult to heat the few rooms we use. Well, these old places are, you see. This house has been called the twin of Hever Castle; so, one can imagine.

Cordelia has all the groceries delivered, which is a new idea nowadays, but was perfectly commonplace when I was a girl. Everyone had everything delivered. She does a shop ‘on the web’ and it arrives the next day. Bluebell terrorises the delivery drivers, of course, which is a hoot. The shop for my birthday dinner was enormous, and we hired a chef and kitchen hands because of the occasion. We hired a charlady and two girls from the village to buff up the dining room and polish all the silver. We hadn’t had all the silver out since the war ended, so that was a labour of Herculean proportions. In a way, it was wonderful to feel the house come alive with so many people here, very much like the old days.

We decided on this rather a la mode idea of grazing boards. One naturally thought about ponies and had a jolly good laugh. Cordelia showed me pictures of grazing boards on Pinafore or whatever it’s called. One side of the dining room was for savoury and the other sweet. I thought it was marvellous!

On the day of the party, Cordelia arranged for a hairdresser and makeup artist. She said it was her birthday gift to me. It was very naughty of her; I adored every minute. She was showing the hairdresser photographs of me when I was first out. There was a piece in The Tatler on the Season’s most beautiful Debutante, and it was me, apparently. Stuff and nonsense, of course. It was time to dress and in no time at all, my daughters and their husbands arrived.

My daughter Regan is married to ‘something big in the city’. It’s easier to remember that than to remember what he actually does. When I was a girl, my father wouldn’t have allowed me to marry ‘trade’ or ‘new money’, but as Regan said, ‘times, mummy, are a changing.’ Her husband, Peregrine, has blonde hair, in fact, he resembles Boris Johnson to a spectacular degree. I’ve never seen him without a suit, either. Suits are not suitable attire for the country. My other daughter Goneril is on her second husband. She divorced number one after she discovered him in bed with his driver, Bill, which is really how she met number two. He was her divorce lawyer and ten years younger than her. His name was Fergus, and his fingernails were immaculate.

The grazing boards were tremendous fun, and everyone loved them. I was expecting Cordelia to join us, but she didn’t, saying they needed help in the kitchen. Fergus was getting the grand tour of the portrait gallery. There’s a couple by Holbein and a late Turner there somewhere. Henry VIII stopped at Liberty Place when he was travelling back from up north somewhere, so we have a King’s Bed in the west wing. The usual catalogue of phantoms, weeping white ladies and a headless horseman about the place, and of course, I have known no other home for sixty years. When we’d finished with the food, we retired to the drawing room for coffee. Regan said something to her husband I couldn’t quite catch, and in response, he closed the door. Odd really, because it has always been the custom to leave it ajar.

“The thing is, mummy, the death duties on this place would be staggering. Which is why this idea is such a godsend.” Regan was standing over a side table, champagne in one hand, ciggie in the other. She was gesticulating with the hand holding the cigarette at a set of blueprints.

“Raj thinks this area is ripe for a luxury country hotel, Spa and Golf course. He said the name, Tiger Woods, so this could be huge, and he said he was looking into running things up Gordon Ramsay’s flagpole.” Fergus said.

“As far as planning permission goes, that isn’t an issue. Perry’s a Mason and knows whose palms to grease, don’t you, darling?” Regan ruffled her husband’s hair.

“Oh absolutely, pumpkin. Backhanders. The only language people like that understand.”

“Would there be somewhere left on the estate for me to live with Bluebell and Cordelia?”

“Not exactly,” Peregrine was smooth as a silk “because we thought you could divide your time between our house and Goneril and Fergus’s place in Bath. We would have a granny flat built and you’ll have complete autonomy, old girl.”

“Oh, good lord! Can anyone else smell that? It’s that bloody dog, mother. I don’t know why you allow her in here. She’s an absolute menace,” Goneril opened the French doors, “go on, get out, you dreadful creature!” Bluebell whimpered, leaving me not entirely sure if Goneril hadn’t kicked her, “and FYI, mummy, Fergus will handle all the contracts and I can arrange for the more valuable items, the paintings and so forth, to be sold on the q.t. as to not alert the tax bods and give you some ready cash. Also, mummy, you simply can’t spend another winter here. The heating cost alone is astronomic and besides you might break a hip and with no help...”

“I have Cordelia, she’s...”

“She’s a drain on your resources! She’s not family. She really should be here?” Goneril was looking at her sister for backup.

“I don’t want to be the one to cast aspersions, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she hadn’t pocketed items over the last couple of years, things you couldn’t ordinarily miss, like pieces from daddy’s silver vinaigrette collection. Her type lives on eBay with that sort of thing.” Regan did not disappoint her sister.

“Shall I ask her?” I was getting quite cross, “Because I will, I’ll ask the same question of all of you, just to make it fair!” I said as I was reaching for the pull which has summoned servants in this house for four hundred years.

“Now, that’s just silly, mummy! And you don’t have to decide this evening. By the weekend will be perfectly fine!” Regan looked somewhat panic stricken.

“No, no! As your father always said, you cannot unring a bell. The bell has been rung. I want the truth!” I said imperiously as I tugged on the pull. I really don’t know what had possessed me. I would not have Cordelia talked about in this way. A few moments passed and there came a knock at the door. Peregrine opened it.

“Come in Cordelia, dear, won’t you sit down? I have a question to put to the ladies. It may seem unusual, but it’s my birthday and an old lady deserves to be indulged on her birthday. So, tell me, Regan, have you ever taken anything from this house that was not yours, to dispose of it for financial gain?”

“Mummy! What a question! Of course, I haven’t! Absolutely not.”

“Goneril, same question.”

“What absolute tosh, mummy, of course not. No! I don’t need the money; unlike some people, I suppose.”

“Cordelia? Have you?”

“Why are you asking me this? You know me, you know my character. You know I would never...”

“Answer me, yes or no, Cordelia, just a simple yes or no.”

“I will not. I just cannot believe you’re even asking me this question!” 

“Are you saying that you will not answer my question?” My heart was breaking.

“That is correct.”

I wanted to cry out why, Cordelia, why? Can’t you see what this looks like?

“Cordelia,” Fergus said in his lawyer voice, “you will leave this house in the morning before midday, I will arrange for a private security company to oversee your leaving, to ensure that you are not removing anything that doesn’t belong to you.”

“I’ll leave now, sir, and you can check my luggage.”

In time, I was moved out of Liberty Place, into a cottage on the estate. I’d heard through the grapevine that Cordelia was living with her husband again. I was getting ready to go to Goneril and Fergus’s home in Bath. I had arranged for a small amount of furniture and treasures to go on ahead. I was quite proud of myself; I was going by myself, by train, and someone called Tasha was picking me and Bluebell up at the station. The train was lovely, really; I got chatting with a young man named Dylan who was covered in tattoos. He was on his way back to university. He was doing a doctorate in Art History. He had some smoked salmon sandwiches his mum made, which he shared with me because she always makes too many. I shared my Thermos of tea with him. He gave me his phone number, in case I wanted to go for a coffee. He even gave me a hug when we parted at the station. Tasha was there. She had purple hair. She wasn’t expecting Bluebell, though.

“I think Mrs Albany might be allergic,” Tasha said as she loaded my luggage into an enormous people carrier. The house in Bath was in The Circus. It was next door to number 17, where Thomas Gainsborough lived and worked. The house was exquisite. There were no two ways about it. My domain was to be the entire lower ground floor. My furniture and so forth had arrived. Tasha said she wasn’t able to help me arrange things because her back was ‘dicky’. Goneril and Fergus were in the south of France for a month and Tasha was taking her holiday whilst they were away. I was home alone for at least four weeks. Going through the kitchen cupboards once Tasha had left, I found some pasta, a head of garlic, some butter and cheese in the fridge. I made something resembling Aglio e Olio and called Dylan on the telephone in the hall.

Dylan wouldn’t take money for helping me but said, after tasting the pasta supper I gave him, would I make him dinner once a week instead? His mother, it seems was a superb cook, and he missed her home cooking. He also ordered a shop from Marks to be delivered to me the following morning using his phone. I readily agreed. He also helped me buy a phone. A simple idiot proof one. He said, ‘ Mrs Lear, if you don’t have a phone and an email address, you may as well be dead.”

I was getting along splendidly. Bath is probably the most beautiful city in the world. I got into a routine. The only dark cloud was Cordelia. I was worried about her and I missed her dreadfully. Dylan said he tried to Google her but didn’t come up with anything, whatever that meant, and he said he’d keep trying. Just before Goneril and Fergus came home, I was dreaming about her. The dream wasn’t nice either. And when Goneril and Fergus came home, all hell broke out. Goneril said that Bluebell had ruined their Aubusson rug and dug up their courtyard lawn and he had to go. No second chances. He had to go. So, I left on the next train to London and Regan and Peregrine’s home. Bluebell came with me.

Regan met me at the station. Goneril had been in contact with her to say I was letting complete strangers in their house and that Bluebell was out of control. Regan said I couldn’t possibly stay with them because there was a hiccup with the plans for the granny flat and they simply didn’t have the room. I could stay that night, but afterwards, I had to go to a hotel. I didn’t have the strength to fight her.

Their home, in Notting Hill, is one of those gorgeous ivy covered white render and brick Georgian townhouses. Over supper, made by their au pair, Gunter, Regan was explained why we shouldn’t expect to see income from Liberty Place in the short term. Something to do with offshore funds and that we were getting into bed with the Japanese. They’re golf mad, apparently.

The funds from paintings and things, sold to give me some ready cash, had to be diverted to cover Hugo’s school fees as he’d been offered a place at Lambrook, and, didn’t I agree, that one does not turn an offer like that down? The upshot of that was that they were moving to be closer to the school. They’d found a super place already, Bracknell House; they showed me the brochure, red brick, Georgian, room for a pony, as that dreadful woman Hyacinth Bucket used to say, which was being renovated. But fear not, Peregrine had a colleague who offered us the use of his place in Berkshire while Bracknell House had its work done. That I dreamed about Cordelia, again.

The place that Regan had found for me wasn’t exactly a hotel. It was a hostel in Kensington. I had my own room, but the bathroom was shared with others, tourists mainly. Bluebell cried when she was taken from me. Jack Russell’s do that, they make a high pitched whimper. It broke my heart. Regan said she’d find a home for home for her. She was twelve years old with a dicky bladder. Who’s going to want her? As I sat on my bed writing this, I realized what a foolish old woman I’ve been. The irony is that they had both lied when I asked them that fateful question. The thing they’d stolen from Liberty Place was me.

I drifted off to sleep but was awoken about two o’clock in the morning when my phone pinged. It was a message from that dear boy, Dylan. He sent a photo of a newspaper article. Cordelia’s husband had been arrested for her murder. He asked for my address and he sai...

My name is Dylan. I came to see Mrs Lear because I was worried about her after she stopped responding to my calls and texts. After some persuasion, I had the manager of this hostel open her door. I found her. She was dead. I had only known her for a short while; she didn’t deserve this.

“How shaper that a serpent’s tooth it is, to have a thankless child.”

King Lear Act 1. Scene 4