“Terrible what happened with that motorbike,” Anne continued, shaking her head, hands on her hips as she took in the room. “You went to university after that, didn’t you?”
“Oh, um, yes,” Ellie replied, tugging out a crease. “I studied history specialising in Historical Continuity at Cardiff University.”
Anne’s eyes lit up. “How fancy! Did you get a first?”
Ellie smiled and nodded. Finding out she’d achieved the highest marks she could was still a memory that made her glow.
“Of course you did! Some people are clever just to look at, and you’re one of them. I know you wouldn’t think it from looking at me, but I have a degree too. Not quite a first, mind, but I’m still proud of it. Open University. Took me ages, but I did it.”
“You should be proud of yourself.” Ellie smiled, smoothing out a wrinkle in the sheet. “And I can’t imagine self-studying. Uni was hard enough as it is.”
“And that’s coming from a smartie pants like you,” Anne winked. “Not the average Meadowling, are you?”
Heat crept up Ellie’s neck. “Oh, I don’t know about that...”
“I didn’t mean anything by it,” Anne backpedalled. “It’s a good thing. Should stand tall and proud to be educated.” She sighed, tucking in a corner. “I only wish I was using my degree.”
“History?” Ellie asked, her throat suddenly dry.
“No, English Literature and Creative Writing,” Anne replied. “Though the first year was a lot of history. Reputations, legacies, influence, from everything from Cleopatra in Ancient Egypt to the rise of jazz in America. Made me realise I had a knack for it. History, I mean. Didn’t matter what it was, it seemed to tickle me. That’s how I got into the historical society here. But I always wanted to write.” She paused, a wistful look crossing her face. “That’s how I got to cleaning for Edmund.”
Ellie’s ears perked up at the mention of Edmund Blackwood, glad to be pivoting to the topic she wanted to discuss. As sweet as Anne seemed as she hurried about the room cleaning the already cleaned, Ellie had served enough customers like Anne at Happy Bean to know if you give them enough space and silence, they will talk at length, filling you in on dramatic tales from people’s lives she’d never heard of. Ellie couldn’t imagine talking so much, but it was fascinating to witness. This time, however, Anne left the Edmund thread dangling as she cleared the army of de-aging lotions and potions in pale glass bottles from her mother’s dressing table.
“You met Edmund through writing?” Ellie prompted, joining Anne in clearing the dresser from the other side.
“Oh, aye,” Anne said, bending down to dig through her cleaning basket. Every movement was done quickly, like she already knew the next twenty things she needed to do. “Edmund was a gem, and a brilliant storyteller. He offered me the cleaning job about half a decade ago now. We got to talking in the bookshop. I was looking for a book on story structure to freshen up my technique, and I spotted him browsing the new bestsellers. I’d seen him around the village here and there but I’d always been too nervous to introduce myself, which is funny because hark at me. I could talk for England!”
She knew it, at least, Ellie thought.
“I didn’t want to just walk up and say I was a fan, but I knew that he enjoyed reading science fiction books because he always took those from the little free library in The Old Bell.” She beckoned Ellie closer, like she was about to spill a juicy secret. “I’d just read a rave review about a book that had just come out. To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini. Problem is, I hadn’t read it. I don’t like sci-fi, myself, but I recommended it to him like I had, and there happened to be a copy right there on the shelf. He said he’d just read it, said I had good taste, and then he took an interest in what I was buying. Told him I was a writer, who was stuck as a housekeeper, and he said he had a big house he couldn’t keep on top of and the rest was, as they say, history.”
“And Edmund was a good man to work for?”
Anne smiled and confirmed it. “He took an interest in me and treated me like family from the first day. People have a problem respecting folk like me, you see. Regular folk. Folk who took the long way around to get where they always wanted to be, and he saw that. You know he grew up poor?”
“Bought back the old family home, I heard.”
Anne sighed, looking off towards Blackwood House across the green. “The family bell foundry went bust in 1825, just after they built that place. The story goes they were trying to prove to the village that things were stable and the foundry would weather the changes to industry, but bell making didn’t stay in Meadowfield for long. Edmund says his parents, who were both farmers, grew up bitter about that fact. That they should have been living behind a gate instead of hunched over in a field. Edmund said having enough money to buy that house back was one of the best days of his life.” She smiled, sniffing back a tear as she twisted the final bottle so that the label faced out. She reached out, uncapped the bottle, and spritzed some of the floral perfume on her wrists before offering it to Ellie, who declined. “Edmund bought that house when he was about your age. He thought he was about to have the best life, and then… his wife died, his children turned out rotten, his readers turned their backs on him, and he had to spend his final days...” Exhaling, she shook the thought away and turned back to place all the bottles back on the dresser. Ellie helped, but Anne rearranged each one as though there was an order. “That’s none of my business.”
But Anne couldn’t stop there.
“Spent his final days?”
“Edmund spent his final days suffering that family of his,” she admitted in a whisper, glancing up through her eyebrows. “James has always been an arrogant poser and Thomas was a user, and the apple didn’t fall far from the tree with Emma. Charles is the only sweet one amongst them. Edmund said he reminded him of himself in his younger days, when he wasn’t letting his father twist his ear, mind.” She paused, a hint of sadness in her voice. “Though I suppose that won’t happen anymore, will it?”
Anne sprayed the mirror embedded in the fitted wardrobes with polish. The housekeeper’s movements were precise and practised, her reflection multiplying on the gleaming surface.
“I was cleaning in The Old Bell for Sammy when I heard Thomas had been stabbed at the bookshop with that pen,” Anne said, catching Ellie’s eye in the mirror as she danced the cloth about like she was doing an aerobic exercise. “Rocked me to the core, it did.”
“There’s a rumour Thomas found a riddle that led him to the bookshop for Edmund’s final book,” Ellie ventured, standing around like a spare part. “Do you know anything about that?”
Anne chuckled, a knowing glint in her eye. “Because I’m the housekeeper, you mean? I see it all, eyes and ears all over the village.” She paused, wiping away a stubborn streak on the mirror. “Yes, there is truth to that, but at Blackwood House, all I heard about were family squabbles. A housekeeper can’t survive on one house alone. I get in, and I get out to the next one, but what I did always see there was that Thomas and James both tried to bleed their father dry in different ways.”
Ellie nodded, the details lining up with the reputations she’d uncovered so far. “And what about the riddles?”
“I know nothing about those, but it seems Edmund was intent on leaving the Blackwoods one last thing to fight over.” As she finished polishing, Anne leaned in close, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Something I did see at that house was that James was a very different man when he thought it was just him and his father. Cruel... mean... cold... James wanted to bring his father down a peg constantly.”
“That sounds like he was jealous.”
“Can’t imagine why,” Anne said, dripping with sarcasm as she tutted in the mirror. “James always thought he was going to surpass his father’s peak, but he never got close to even grazing Edmund’s Dark Period.”
“Do you think Thomas would want to destroy his father’s final book?”
“Did you hear that?” Surprise flickered across the housekeeper’s face. “That wouldn’t surprise me. He’d want to destroy Edmund’s final gift to the world, but if it was up to me, the book would be made available so people could read it and make up their own minds about his last story.”
So much for being the only person who didn’t ‘want’ the book. Now, with more context, she heard jealousy dripping from Thomas’s dismissal as his voice echoed from the pages of the latest volume of her memories.
“How did Edmund know this was his final story when he wrote it?” Ellie asked, picking up on what Anne had said.
“He wrote it about five years ago.”
“Before his resurgence,” Ellie pointed out, more pieces clicking into the timeline in her mind. “So, it’s not technically his final final book?”
“No, but he was an old man who thought his future was marked in months, not years. I suppose at some point, he resigned himself to life and picked up his pen again. And we’re all so thankful he did.”
“I heard they were a return to form.”
“His best work, in my humble opinion.” Anne reached for a face mask, snapping it over her ears before pulling on a pair of rubber gloves. “Anyway, time for the bathroom,” she announced, her voice slightly muffled behind the mask. As Anne turned towards the en-suite, Ellie opened her mouth to ask another question, but Anne held up a gloved hand. “You can’t follow me in, dear. Too many chemicals, and you’re not insured.”
