‘For any eventuality you may come across,’ he said with a twinkle in his eyes.
Isabel thanked him. ‘You are very thoughtful,’ she said gravely. ‘I promise that I shall always hold them both in equal esteem.’
Isabel de Warenne was a wealthy widow who married King Henry II’s illegitimate half-brother Hamelin in 1164. Hamelin took her name as his as far as the family line went and they seem to have had a long and happy marriage blessed by a son and three daughters.
Castle Acre in Norfolk was the core castle of Isabel’s estates, but Hamelin went on to build a magnificent fortress in Yorkshire at Conisburgh. The couple will feature significantly in my forthcoming trilogy about Eleanor of Aquitaine, The Summer Queen, The Winter Crown and The Autumn Throne.
Katie Fforde
KATIE is currently the President of the RNA and the author of twenty books. She lives in the Cotswolds with her husband, some of her three children, and three dogs. Her hobbies include being a member of a choir and Lindy Hop, a new hobby which may or may not be continued.
She declares herself to be the RNA’s biggest fan.
Isobel had always been a fan of those books set in Cornwall, where the sea roiled (there was never a book when it didn’t) and the sun danced like stars on the waves. Either the sun shone like it hadn’t done for years in real life, or the sky brooded and storms blew, lightning highlighting the passion of secret lovers, or murders, or books containing the dark secrets of the ancient family.
There was always a matriarch, always beautiful, and either with an amazing talent for something –opera singing, poetry, painting –or with a secret. Every man she met fell in love with her, even when she was in her seventies.
Life was not like this for Isobel. She had a perfectly happy life but as she had got older, her confidence had begun to wane and she longed to be the sort of powerful, charismatic older woman who starred in those books.
She also wanted the beautiful house in Cornwall. Instead of the large, detached house with plenty of garden on the edge of a very pleasant town, where she had brought up her children and where she and her husband still lived, she yearned for a wild cliff top, or the bottom of a wooded valley, either an ancient farmhouse, a large Victorian mansion, or even an architect-designed modern house with spectacular views. All of these imaginary houses would have some sort of dwelling in the grounds. Her favourite daydream was a boathouse; there was something very sexy about a boathouse.
One year, she decided to make her dream real. She searched the internet exhaustively and eventually found the perfect house. It didn’t have another dwelling in the grounds but it was right on the river and the views were sensational. She went to find her husband who was working on a model ship in his shed. He was always working on a model ship in his shed, apparently finding this more absorbing than the company of his wife, now the children had all left home.
‘Darling, I want to take the whole family on holiday. Jenny said the other day they couldn’t afford to go away this year and I suddenly thought what fun it would be to get together.’ She glanced at him and then went on. ‘It would be good for the grandchildren to spend quality time with each other.’
Rather to her surprise he didn’t grunt when she said ‘quality time’. Instead, he nodded. ‘And we pay for it all?’
‘Yes,’ Isobel said firmly. The children would never give up their holiday allowance to go to Cornwall if they had to pay.
‘OK,’ he said, and went back to his scale model of the Cutty Sark.
Isobel went back to the house, half annoyed that he hadn’t said, ‘But I wanted to take you to Antibes,’ and delighted that he’d agreed to her plan.
Her husband’s early retirement had been a bit disappointing. She’d imagined lovely days out and meals in pubs now they had time to be with each other but mostly he made models. And nowadays, if she asked him if she looked all right, he always said ‘fine’ but never glanced in her direction.
Her three children, two sons and a daughter, all married or with partners, were all keen on the idea of a paid-for holiday in a luxury holiday home. ‘Lovely to have built-in baby-sitters,’ said one son. ‘Good to have time to catch up with the sibs,’ said another.
Isobel made the booking. Now she would live the dream. She would become charismatic, beautiful, in spite of her nearly sixty years. She wouldn’t just be ‘good old Mum’.
What she hadn’t envisaged when she’d been searching for the perfect house was the amount of cooking and washing up a family holiday with grandchildren entailed –all in a kitchen a lot less well organised than her own. It was not so much ‘living the dream’ as ‘living the washing up’. What had seemed such a good idea in January, when she booked the house, now seemed a terrible idea. As for her transformation into the heroine of one of those books, she felt more like the faithful family housekeeper than her employer.
The men all loved cooking –that wasn’t a problem –except they used every implement in the house and while they sloshed water around quite a bit, they somehow never actually cleared up. Considering they had cooked this seemed sort of OK, but it was the same when she cooked. Her husband wiped half washed saucepans with clean tea towels, which meant very soon none of the tea towels were clean.
She realised sadly that she was not a matriarch, she was a woman who was a member of a book group, shopped in Waitrose and had to travel with her own pillows. And while, during the holiday at least, she had some trappings of the Yummy Mummy –the pale marks on the shoulder of every garment, the faint odour of sour milk, and Babybels loose in her handbag ready to feed a hungry toddler at a moment’s notice –she didn’t feel remotely yummy. And she didn’t even have a wicked past to look back on either. She’d married young, had children and stayed married. Her life was completely free of delicious memories of past loves. What had always seemed something to be admired now seemed plain boring.
At least the holiday was going well. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. Days on the beach with the children, with Grandpa willing to go rock pooling, buy ice creams and carry small children for miles. And later, meals cooked and served at the huge table with ample quantities of wine. Yet somehow she still found herself doing most of the donkeywork. Everyone was happy to fill the dishwasher but no one wanted to empty it, carrying the clean things to a cupboard across the kitchen. It was a job Isobel hated too but still found herself doing it several times a day.
One morning, when she’d got up early to do the washing up that the men had sworn they’d do, she went on strike halfway through. She made herself a cup of tea and took the visitors’ book out onto the terrace. The sun was shining and no one else was up. She felt entitled to a few moments not looking after people. These moments were hers.
Earlier, when they’d first arrived at the house and were reading the instructions to the Aga and the telephone number of the woman who ‘did’ plus the way to the nearest beach, which was several miles through traffic-filled lanes, Isobel had looked at the visitors’ book. In it had been a name she’d recognised. A man she’d known briefly and rather fancied –Leo Stark –had obviously stayed at the same house with his family. They’d both been married when they met but she was fairly sure there’d been some sort of spark.