Prompts this week from Girl Reading by Katie Ward, randomly picked from the bookcase. This story is vaguely a continuation from Saturday (with the protagonist’s name changed :D)
She’s been putting it off. Now, with only a day before she returns to the city and her job, Angela sets about the business of clearing her mother’s belongings from the master bedroom. She plans to put the house on the market, and while the loft accumulation, the garage, the kitchen cupboards and the dining room dresser can all wait until it’s actually sold, the real estate agent baulked at showing a house until this particular job is done.
Angela opens the wardrobe doors to peer at the press of coats, skirts, jackets and blouses arranged by colour. She pulls open the tallboy’s drawers to reveal folded piles of knickers, bras and socks, floral nighties and jumpers. Her mother’s hairbrushes lie together on the dressing table alongside the simple wooden jewellery casket Angela’s mother inherited from her own mother.
The casket is the only untidiness in the room, with jewellery spilling from its half-closed dark, carved lid.
Angela doesn’t understand the agent’s reluctance. If her mother was alive and selling the house, would she be expected to erase all sign of a person living here? She asked the agent, who grimaced.
Sorry as I am for your loss, she parrotted, I find it creepy and so do viewers. She’d leaned towards Angela. Ghosts, she whispered. Not so sure they don’t exist.
Angela takes a moment to weigh these words as she lifts the lid of the jewellery casket. She reaches out to touch a string of ancient, yellowing pearls she never saw her mother wear. And jerks back her hand when the pearls wriggle back into the box, slipping into the mess of tangled gold and silver chains, tarnished brooches and scuffed leather watch bands like a snake in grass.
Not for wearing, her mother’s voice whispers in Angela’s ear, and Angela slams the casket closed and stands back, staring wide-eyed into the mirror at an image which isn’t her.
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Looking at the solicitor seated in front of her, Angela takes a moment to weigh these words.
“So, what you are saying is that my Uncle Jack, whom I have never met, has died and left his entire fortune to me,” she said incredulously.
“Exactly what I am saying, Miss Carruthers,” the lawyer replied. “You are his only living relative – he had no one else.”
“But in order to take full advantage of this inheritance I have to go and live in his castle in northern Scotland.”
“Unfortunately, yes. That is the condition of the will,” the lawyer explained. “You see, he absolutely doted on his castle and was most insistent it be cared for after his death. And he didn’t want it sold.”
Angela looked confused.
“First, you tell me I have inherited a fortune from an uncle I’ve never even heard of, let alone met, and then you tell me, in order to take advantage of this money, I have to go and live in his castle somewhere in the remote parts of Scotland. I have to say, I am absolutely flabbergasted and that is putting it mildly. You’re sure this isn’t some kind of cruel joke?”
“I can assure you, Miss Carruthers, nothing could be further from the truth.” The lawyer’s tone was patience personified.
“But I wouldn’t even know how to begin to look after a castle – presuming I even wanted to go there!”
The lawyer continued his soothing tone.
“I wouldn’t worry. It’s not as bad as you think. I mean apart from the draughts….”
“Exactly. Draughts. Freezing bloody cold more likely. And I’d be there all by myself. Terribly lonely.”
“Oh, you won’t be alone,” the lawyer intoned. “There’s plenty of staff to help run the place – including a very handsome young manager whom I’m sure you will get along with famously. He couldn’t help but break into a broad grin.
Angela sat back dumbfounded at what could just turn out to be her biggest lucky break so far in her relatively short life.
Maybe owning a castle wouldn’t be so bad after all.
Hmm. Hope the handsome manager is worth it! Tho she could make a fortune renting it out for Air BnB!
Precisely
Whooo!! Should we call Ghostbusters?? LOL