The Importance of Being Married: A Novel Read online

  “Sorry?” My throat caught as I spoke. “Well, you should be. Because this isn’t happening.” I turned away from him like a petulant teenager. People were always dying on me—my mother, my grandmother, my grandfather (even if I never met him I still went to the funeral, so I figured he counted), and I wasn’t going to have Grace die, too. I just wasn’t.

  He nodded sadly. “I’m afraid it is. I believe the situation took a turn for the worse quite suddenly.”

  “A turn for the worse?” I shook my head, incredulously. “She’s dead and you’re calling it a turn for the worse?” I regretted saying the word dead as soon as it came out of my mouth, as though saying it made it real. I could feel tears pricking at my eyes, tears of indignation, of anger, of sadness. And of guilt. Because I hadn’t felt like this when Grandma died. When Grandma died, I listened to the news with an attitude of resignation, kept my voice low and somber because that’s what you did in these situations. I hadn’t felt like my world was breaking into two; hadn’t wanted to rewind time to make it untrue.

  “Perhaps I can get you a drink of water?” Mr. Taylor offered. I shook my head.

  “I don’t want water. I want Grace.” I rushed to the phone and dialed Sunnymead’s number. “Yes. Grace Hampton, please. I’d like to speak to Grace Hampton.”

  “Grace Hampton?” The voice was uncertain, preparing itself to give me bad news.

  “Yes, Grace Hampton,” I said impatiently. “I want to talk to her please.”

  There was a pause. “I’m…I’m afraid to tell you that Grace…”

  I put the phone down before the woman on reception could finish, before she could repeat what Mr. Taylor had already told me. Grace was dead. I wasn’t going to see her again. Ever. Slowly, I walked back to the chair I’d been sitting on, eased myself onto it, pulled my legs up and hugged them into my chest.

  “I understand that the two of you were very close. I’m truly sorry to be the bearer of such bad news,” Mr. Taylor was saying.

  “Yes, we were close,” I said. I was angry suddenly. Angry with this man who dared to come into my flat on a Sunday night and tell me that there would be no more little chats with Grace over tea and biscuits, no more Sunnymead. And no more fantasy love affair. From now on it was just me.

  “Very close.” I felt tears in my eyes and wiped them distractedly. “I should have been there,” I heard myself say, anger suddenly being replaced by sadness, emptiness. “I should have known.”

  “I’m very sorry.” The lawyer didn’t seem to know what else to say. I looked up at him and realized how badly I was behaving. It wasn’t his fault. None of this was his fault.

  “No, I’m sorry,” I managed to say. “It’s just…well, it’s a bit of a shock.”

  “Indeed,” Mr. Taylor said sagely.

  An image came into my head of Grace on her bed, just like Grandma had been when she died, her skin almost translucent, her spirit ebbing away. I saw her being taken out of her room, her things being packed up, someone else taking her place, as though she’d never existed in the first place. Forcefully, I pushed it out.

  “Do…do you know when the funeral’s going to be yet?” I found myself asking. “Do you need a hand with anything? I mean, I know what her favorite flowers were, if that helps? And she loved ‘I Vow to Thee My Country.’ You know, if you’re wondering about hymns…” I trailed off, trying to keep my voice level.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Milton. I mean, Jessica. That’s very kind. In actual fact, Mrs. Hampton had very…specific ideas about her funeral. All written down. They don’t allow me much leeway at all.”

  I managed a rueful smile at that, imagining Grace detailing her requirements like a shopping list. She had a wonderful way of coaxing people into getting her exactly what she wanted without ever seeming to impose herself—the nurses brought her not just tea bags but Twinings English Breakfast, and I brought her not just apples but English Coxes, and only in season.

  “Okay,” I said, nodding awkwardly, not sure what I should be saying or doing. I wanted to be on my own. Wanted to feel angry and sad in privacy. “Well, thank you for coming to tell me. And you’ll let me know where and when, won’t you. And if you need anything else…”

  I waited for him to stand, but instead he gave me a funny sort of smile.

  “Actually, there is something else,” he said, clearing his throat. “There’s the matter of Mrs. Hampton’s will.”

  “Will? Oh, right.” I sat down again with an inward sigh. I knew all about wills. Grandma’s will had been read to me two days after she died. I hadn’t expected anything—I knew she’d sold the house to pay for her care at Sunnymead. What I hadn’t banked on was that wills worked both ways—that instead of inheriting money, I was inheriting all her debts.

  “Mrs. Milton,” Mr. Taylor said seriously, pulling out a folder and handing it to me. “You are the primary beneficiary of Grace’s will, and you’re going to be inheriting her estate. I can run through the details now, if you’d like, or if you’d like to come to my office one day next week, we can sort out the paperwork then and there.”

  I put the folder to one side. “Okay. I mean, I’ll look at this later, if that’s okay. When I’m…better able to…you know.”

  “You’re not interested in the contents of the estate?”

  I looked up. “Contents. Yes, of course. You mean her personal effects?” I sniffed, forcing myself to concentrate. She hadn’t had much in her room—a couple of pictures, a few books. Still, it would be nice to have something to remember her by.

  “Ah. Yes, well, I suppose that I do,” Mr. Taylor said uncertainly. “But it’s the house that forms the largest part of the legacy.”

  “The house?” I looked at him blankly.

  Mr. Taylor smiled at me as if I were a small child. “The house has been in her family for several generations. I know that she was very keen for it to come to you.” He handed me a photograph of a crumbling stone house. I say house, but really it was a huge mansion, surrounded by land. And suddenly I knew what it was; could see Grace as a young girl tearing along the corridors with her brothers, spilling out into the garden.

  “Sudbury Grange?” I gasped. “She left me Sudbury Grange?”

  “So you know the house? Well, that’s good,” the lawyer said, nodding. “In addition to the house there are some not insignificant investments, along with various paintings, jewelry, and so on. Obviously you’ll be wondering about death duties and I’m happy to tell you that Grace also provided for those, with a trust of one million pounds that should be ample to cover all your taxes.”

  My eyes widened, then I grinned. “Oh, you’re joking. For a moment there you had me. A million pounds for taxes. That’s good. That’s very good.”

  Mr. Taylor didn’t smile. Instead he cleared his throat awkwardly.

  “The liability is reduced because of various trust arrangements,” he said. “Without them, I’m afraid that the bill would be even higher.”

  “Higher?” I repeated stupidly. My skin felt prickly and I was getting rather warm.

  “Grace thought a great deal of you,” the lawyer said. He was smiling benevolently at me, like he was talking to a small child. “With no…no family of her own, I think she rather thought of you as…kin.”

  “Me, too,” I said. “But there has to be some mistake. She wouldn’t leave me her house. No way.”

  “Oh, but she did.” Mr. Taylor smiled. “You do know who Grace Hampton was, don’t you?”

  I looked at him impatiently. “Of course I knew who she was. I’ve been visiting her for nearly two years.”

  He looked relieved. “The estate, then,” he said, seriously, taking some papers out of his briefcase and passing me a photograph. “There is a husband-and-wife team who currently work full-time and live in one of the cottages. I understand that they’re happy to continue if you’d like them to. Then there’s a team of gardeners, a cook, and two cleaners who work on an ad hoc basis.”

  I was staring at the phot
ograph. It was even more incredible in real life than Grace had described, with ivy growing up the walls and acres of land around it with secret gardens and outhouses and places to hide where no one would ever find you. When I’d lived with Grandma in her small terraced house in Ipswich, I used to imagine that my mother hadn’t really died; that she was still alive somewhere, living in a crumbling house like the one in the photograph (only about a quarter of the size), and that one day she’d come and find me and take me home. Not that she ever did. And I knew it was just a dream, not real. But this house in the photograph was completely real. And it was mine?

  “It’s…very big,” I said tentatively.

  “Yes, I suppose it is,” Mr. Taylor said, nodding. “Now, I’ve got all the information here, along with details on the furniture. It’s all staying with the house, so you can go through it at your leisure, along with Lady Hampton’s personal effects.”

  “Lady…Lady Hampton?” My voice had become a squeak.

  “So you didn’t know?”

  I shook my head. Maybe I hadn’t known her as well as I’d thought.

  “Then you had no idea that her will in total amounts to in the region of four million pounds?”

  “Four million?” I couldn’t see properly. I felt like the world was closing in on me.

  Mr. Taylor started to open his briefcase, but I held up my hand. “I’m sorry,” I said, my voice now several octaves above its usual register. “Can we just rewind slightly. I thought you were talking about Grace having left me a few books or something. I didn’t know…I mean, an estate? I…And she was a lady? She never said. And I don’t want her money. That’s not…I mean…”

  “Grace considered it very important that someone she trusted take over the estate,” the lawyer said, gently. “Someone who would nurture it, perhaps have a family there. Someone whom she could trust with her possessions, too,” he said. “Grace was a very…private lady. I know that when she met you, a great weight was lifted from her shoulders, because she knew that you would be a good and trustworthy heir. That by leaving her estate to you, she would protect it. I know that this knowledge made her very happy. Very happy indeed.”

  “But…but…” I said redundantly. “Isn’t there someone else? Family? Someone other than me?”

  The lawyer nodded. “Lady Hampton did have a son. Does have a son. But they are estranged. She…disinherited him many years ago. He left home when he was eighteen.”

  My eyes widened. “She had a son? She never mentioned a son.”

  “She didn’t consider herself to still have a son,” Mr. Taylor said, the flicker of a frown crossing his face. “They…father and son argued, as I understand it. He left home when he was eighteen. I believe they haven’t been in touch since.”

  “But won’t he want the money? The house?”

  Mr. Taylor shook his head. “I understand that he’s gone abroad. I assure you, he has no claim on the will.” He was looking just to the right of me, as though he couldn’t quite look me in the eyes.

  “Right,” I nodded, my mind spinning. Grace had never mentioned a son. Then again, she’d never mentioned the four million pounds, either. Or the house.

  “Mrs. Milton, you are going to be a very rich woman,” the lawyer said. “And with wealth comes responsibility. It’s a lot to take in, so I suggest you take this folder, perhaps discuss it with your husband, and try to give some thought to what you’d like to do.”

  “To do?” I asked hoarsely. I was having trouble assimilating the information being given to me. I was going to be rich. Seriously rich. Which meant no more debts. No more anxiously checking my bank balance at the end of each month as I teetered precariously toward my overdraft limit. I’d never expected to be rich. Never hoped for it. And I couldn’t believe Grace really wanted to leave it all to me.

  “Whether you wish to move in to the estate, or…or dispose of it.”

  “Sell it?” I asked incredulously.

  The lawyer shrugged.

  “Sell the estate that Grace left to me specifically so that I could look after it?” I demanded.

  Mr. Taylor smiled. “I’m glad you see it her way,” he said. “Grace always prided herself on being a good judge of character. Still, I will leave these papers with you, if I may, and perhaps you would like to visit me in my office to discuss the transfer of assets—say, next week?”

  I nodded, my mind still racing.

  “Why was she at Sunnymead?” I asked. “I mean, if she was rich—couldn’t she have had a team of doctors and nurses at her estate or something?”

  The lawyer looked thoughtful for a moment. “She was lonely,” he said, eventually. “Grace always liked to be around people. And after her husband died, she wanted to leave the estate. She said that the house felt too empty, felt too full of memories.”

  “And she really left it all to me?”

  “She said that you were like the daughter she never had. Or the granddaughter. I know that it was very important to her that you inherit the house, in particular. She said that otherwise it would go to the government and get demolished by developers. Or turned into an ugly conference center.”

  He was smiling again, wryly this time, and I smiled back. That was exactly the sort of thing Grace would say.

  “As I was saying,” Mr. Taylor continued, “you’ll want to come to my office, I should think, to sort out the paperwork. I can go through the details of the estate and financial arrangements then.”

  “Paperwork,” I said, nodding vaguely.

  “Nothing too onerous. Just need your proof of identity, signatures, that sort of thing,” he said, smiling. “There is one rather strange but significant clause to the will, which is that the inheritance must be claimed within fifty days or it will be forfeit.”

  I frowned. “Forfeit?”

  Mr. Taylor nodded. “It’s a Hampton peculiarity—all the family wills have the same clause. It was introduced to avoid family wrangles—if anyone disputes a will beyond the fifty-day limit, the entire inheritance is lost. It’s rather an effective mechanism, actually.”

  “Fifty days.” I nodded again; words were suddenly a bit of a struggle. “That sounds…okay.”

  “It’s rather a lot to take in, isn’t it?” Mr. Taylor said kindly, and I kind of nodded and gulped both together, and shot him a smile so he wouldn’t think I was rude.

  “I can’t quite believe it,” I heard myself saying. It was like an out-of-body experience.

  “Well, you should. Mrs. Milton, you are going to be a very wealthy woman.”

  Mr. Taylor stood up then and held out his hand. “I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you for your time. I’ll be in touch shortly about the funeral—it will be in London. Kensington. Sometime next week. Perhaps you’d like to bring your husband.”

  “My husband?” I looked at him strangely, then remembered. “Oh, yes, my husband, of course. Well, yes. I mean, if he’s free. He’s very busy, you see.”

  Mr. Taylor nodded, and I shook his hand, using all my strength to keep calm, to not yelp, to act like inheriting four million pounds was no big deal at all. Inside, I was screaming, though, screaming and dancing and shaking my head in utter bewilderment. I was going to be rich. Rich beyond my wildest dreams. I couldn’t believe Grace had never said anything, never even given me a clue.

  And then, suddenly I thought of something. Something that made my stomach turn upside down rather violently.

  “Um, so, the will,” I said, trying to keep my voice casual. “Grace left everything to Jessica Milton, did she? I mean, you know, to me. In my married name?”

  “The papers cite a Mrs. Jessica Milton, that’s right.”

  I nodded, managing somehow to keep a fixed smile on my face, and suddenly needing desperately to sit down again. “It’s just that…” I paused, my mind racing. “Well, I didn’t actually change my name. So, I’m still Jessica Wild. Officially, at least. Is that…is that okay?”

  “That’s perfectly all right,” Mr. Taylor said,
and I felt relief rush through me. “I’ll need proof of identification in your maiden name—a passport or birth certificate, and then you just need to provide me with a copy of your marriage certificate so I can adjust the paperwork.”

  “Marriage certificate?”

  “That’s right. Anytime next week, Mrs. Milton. Just call this number and my secretary can arrange a time. Again, I’m so sorry to disturb you and your…” He looked vaguely back toward the kitchen. “Your cook?” he suggested, and I found myself nodding.

  “Well, I’m sorry to disturb you on a Sunday evening. I just thought you should know. Please, do send my regards to your husband, who is more than welcome to join us in my office. Thank you again. I’ll see myself out. Oh, and do you have some contact details? A telephone number?”

  I looked at him blankly. “Yes. It’s…oh-two-oh seven-six-oh…” I frowned. Oh-two-oh seven-six-oh-three. No, four. Seven-six-oh-four…” I smiled, weakly. I couldn’t even remember my own phone number. I could barely remember my own name. Sweating slightly, I reached for my bag and pulled out a business card. “Here,” I said. “My number’s on the card.”

  “Thank you.” He took the card, stood up, and left; two seconds later Helen appeared at the sitting room door.

  “So?” she demanded. “What did that man want? And why did he say he wished he had someone at home like me?”

  I smiled nervously, unsure I trusted myself to speak right now. Then I shook myself.

  “Nothing,” I said eventually. “He just…He just came to tell me Grace had died.”

  “Grace? Oh, poor you. Oh, Jess, I’m so sorry,” Helen said, rushing over to give me a hug. “Oh that’s really sad news.”

  “Sad?” I said, hardly trusting myself to speak. “Sad doesn’t even begin to cover it.”

  Chapter 4

  PROJECT: MARRIAGE DAY 1

  To do

  1. Panic

  I woke up in the middle of the night to find myself sitting bolt upright. I was totally freaked out. I’d dreamed about Grace—although it was more of a memory, really. I was in her room and we were watching some cheesy film, I can’t remember which one, and Grace turned to me and said that I should get my hair cut like the girl in the film—I think it was Drew Barrymore. And I rolled my eyes because I thought I had far more important things to think about than haircuts, and then Grace passed me a hairbrush and asked if I’d brush her hair. So I did, and she was smiling and telling me that her husband used to brush her hair, that some of her favorite moments were leaning back in his arms as he brought the brush down gently over her head. And she said that she hoped one day I’d find someone who’d brush my hair, and I don’t know why but I found a little tear pricking at my eye, which was ridiculous, I knew, but when I wiped it away, another one came up straightaway to take its place. Of course, I stopped the tears in their tracks; told myself off for being so utterly pathetic. In reality, I mean. When it actually happened. In the dream I didn’t have time to wipe my eyes or give myself a stern talking-to, because the door suddenly opened and Mr. Taylor walked in and pointed his finger at me and looked at Grace and said, “She’s the one. She’s the one who’s been lying to you.” And I jumped up off the bed and Grace was looking at me, wide-eyed, and then she was crying, shaking her head and whispering that I’d let her down, that I was a big disappointment, and then suddenly she wasn’t Grace anymore, she was Grandma, and now she wasn’t whispering, she was screaming, shouting, telling me that I was a waste of space, that she wished she’d never set eyes on me, that the sooner I learned to fend for myself the better because she’d had enough, she was sick of looking after me.