it had brought in more money that if she had put them one after another under the hammer at an auction house.
At the same time it meant that raising money was much slower than a large sale would have achieved and yet she somehow could not bear to fill the house with strangers looking for a bargain.
The Hermitage was a particularly beautiful house.
It was first built in Elizabethan times and added to by various families until it fell into her great-grandfather’s hands and he had improved it out of all recognition.
He made the garden beautiful and greatly admired by everyone in the County and it was still lovely but wild.
Charles had dispensed with all the gardeners except for one who was too old to be moved and now the lawns were overgrown and the weeds thick in the flowerbeds.
Yet it was still, in Alnina’s eyes, the enchanted haven she had found it when she was a child.
Then the fountains had all been playing and, as she had watched them throwing their water up into the sky, she thought nothing could be more etherial.
Now every room was gradually being emptied.
As she went towards the front door, she missed the grandfather clock. It had always stood just inside the hall, but she had sold it for fifty pounds last week.
It was a clock that had delighted her as a child and when it was working there was a man at the top of it bringing down a hammer every time it struck the hour.
She had found it so fascinating when she was very small and she wondered if other children somewhere else in the country were finding it as fascinating now.
Then she told herself that it was no use thinking of the past all the time.
She had to concentrate on the future.
The most immediate problem being what would she do and where would she go if the house was sold.
She was hoping that whoever bought it would take on the Brookses, but she herself would have to leave.
‘Where can I go and what can I do?’ she asked and could find no answer.
Then, as she walked across the lawn, she looked up at the sky and saw a bird flying high overhead.
‘Perhaps,’ she now told herself, ‘he will carry my thoughts into an enchanted land where everything I want will come true.’
Then she laughed at herself.
It was the sort of thought she had had when she was growing up and then the world seemed an intriguing place waiting for her to explore it.
Because her father always talked of his travels, she wanted to travel too.
She imagined herself visiting different places in the world which so far she had only read about in books and it was this yearning for something so different, something so exciting, that had made her concentrate on languages when she was at school.
She had read all the books she could find on each country whose language she had been taught to speak.
There were French books that she read avidly once she knew French. There were German books, which she did not find so delightful as she thought that German was an ugly language.
But she had loved Italian, Greek and Spanish.
Then, just when she was nearly eighteen and should have been leaving to have a Season in London, she found herself captivated by Russian.
As Russian history books were so interesting, they helped her to overcome the difficulties of the language.
‘Now,’ she thought as she looked up at the sky, ‘I will never see the places I have read about and which Papa always found entrancing.’
The one thing she was absolutely sure of was that she could not now afford to travel, unless, of course, she could become a teacher to the children of Diplomats.
Or she could become a secretary at an Embassy, otherwise she would have to be content with books instead of reality.
It was sad, but, because she did not want to feel unhappy about herself, she walked back into the house.
She was thinking that there were still parts of it she had not fully explored where there might still be something saleable.
*
Her advertisement appeared in The Times four days later.
Brooks
At the same time it meant that raising money was much slower than a large sale would have achieved and yet she somehow could not bear to fill the house with strangers looking for a bargain.
The Hermitage was a particularly beautiful house.
It was first built in Elizabethan times and added to by various families until it fell into her great-grandfather’s hands and he had improved it out of all recognition.
He made the garden beautiful and greatly admired by everyone in the County and it was still lovely but wild.
Charles had dispensed with all the gardeners except for one who was too old to be moved and now the lawns were overgrown and the weeds thick in the flowerbeds.
Yet it was still, in Alnina’s eyes, the enchanted haven she had found it when she was a child.
Then the fountains had all been playing and, as she had watched them throwing their water up into the sky, she thought nothing could be more etherial.
Now every room was gradually being emptied.
As she went towards the front door, she missed the grandfather clock. It had always stood just inside the hall, but she had sold it for fifty pounds last week.
It was a clock that had delighted her as a child and when it was working there was a man at the top of it bringing down a hammer every time it struck the hour.
She had found it so fascinating when she was very small and she wondered if other children somewhere else in the country were finding it as fascinating now.
Then she told herself that it was no use thinking of the past all the time.
She had to concentrate on the future.
The most immediate problem being what would she do and where would she go if the house was sold.
She was hoping that whoever bought it would take on the Brookses, but she herself would have to leave.
‘Where can I go and what can I do?’ she asked and could find no answer.
Then, as she walked across the lawn, she looked up at the sky and saw a bird flying high overhead.
‘Perhaps,’ she now told herself, ‘he will carry my thoughts into an enchanted land where everything I want will come true.’
Then she laughed at herself.
It was the sort of thought she had had when she was growing up and then the world seemed an intriguing place waiting for her to explore it.
Because her father always talked of his travels, she wanted to travel too.
She imagined herself visiting different places in the world which so far she had only read about in books and it was this yearning for something so different, something so exciting, that had made her concentrate on languages when she was at school.
She had read all the books she could find on each country whose language she had been taught to speak.
There were French books that she read avidly once she knew French. There were German books, which she did not find so delightful as she thought that German was an ugly language.
But she had loved Italian, Greek and Spanish.
Then, just when she was nearly eighteen and should have been leaving to have a Season in London, she found herself captivated by Russian.
As Russian history books were so interesting, they helped her to overcome the difficulties of the language.
‘Now,’ she thought as she looked up at the sky, ‘I will never see the places I have read about and which Papa always found entrancing.’
The one thing she was absolutely sure of was that she could not now afford to travel, unless, of course, she could become a teacher to the children of Diplomats.
Or she could become a secretary at an Embassy, otherwise she would have to be content with books instead of reality.
It was sad, but, because she did not want to feel unhappy about herself, she walked back into the house.
She was thinking that there were still parts of it she had not fully explored where there might still be something saleable.
*
Her advertisement appeared in The Times four days later.
Brooks
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