A Change of Heart

He reached up and wiped away the tears that were running down Gracie's cheeks.

"Do you really mean that Bill, really?"

"Yes I do, for all the reasons good and bad, I'd miss you."

She was, as the song says, under his skin and he couldn't do anything about it.

Gracie sniffed and wiped her eyes.

"Shall I tell you something? You're the first person not to put up with me, apart from my university friends Annabelle and Jenny, and you really shocked me. Most people just go along with me 'Oh that's Gracie' or others say nothing and put up with me and then other people, well I suppose I've just ignored them, as if they didn't matter at all to me. That's pretty terrible isn't it."

"Well it might be ok in London but you'll find it doesn't work up here. By and large, people say what they mean and mean what they say. So to the fucking sheep. There is work to do, lots of it but before we do that there's something I'd like to show you. Let me get you some socks and different boots and I'll get dressed then I'll fix the quad while you make us a picnic, ok?" He stood up.

"Oh, and if you ever call me a fucking farmer again I'll spank you for real and if I ever spank you, you can call me a fucking farmer, ok?"

She swatted his shoulder.

"And if you ever leave our bed again like you did this morning, I'll make your day so miserable you'll regret that you ever woke up."

They both laughed. They were playing now for the first time and that was good.

She really wanted to like this man but to do that she had to understand what it was that drove him to be so single minded about the farm and his bloody sheep. Perhaps she'd find out when he'd shown her what he wanted to.

The quad was soon fixed, Gracie had made a picnic for them and with Jessie squeezed between them on the quad Bill set off up the mountain but in a different direction, not towards the cottage, but toward a lower ridge and as they crested it a panorama opened before them.

There in front of them was a dilapidated, abandoned country house with what had once been gardens and lawns stretching down to a lake.

It was breath taking.

"Oh Lord, it's beautiful but so sad. Bill, who owns this? Who could let such a beautiful place get into such a state. Is it for sale? Oh, I'd love this, to bring it back to life. Bill, do you know the owner?"

"It is lovely isn't it. I love it, love coming here although I've only ever known it like this. My uncle was born and lived here until just after the war. Sadly, both his elder brothers were killed in France in 1915, within a week of each other, but he survived that war and the next one but he never married. The house was closed up after he left and it slowly deteriorated until it is as you see it now. He was the last living member of his branch of the family, no one to take over running the place, but I've always believed that someday I'd restore the house and live here with my family.

"Can we look inside? How long has it been like this?"

Gracie was full of curiosity and enthused by Bill's story.

"It was closed up in 1948 I think. The villages recovered after the war but the houses didn't. With the men gone and a new age of egalitarianism the social structure needed to run them had simply disappeared and in the 1950s and 1960s more than two thousand of these houses were demolished in England alone.

A few survived as tourist attractions, museums or hotels and a very few as family homes while others like this house cling on to life as shells waiting for someone to rescue them or demolish them."

Gracie looked stunned at what he was telling her. She'd never really thought about what was needed to run a large estate and house. Her parent's house was grand alright but nothing at all like this.

Bill continued.

"I remember my uncle bringing me here when I was about five. He was a nice old chap and doted on me, perhaps the son he'd never had. After he left here he ran the pub as it then was until he was about eighty and then lived in the village until he died twenty odd years ago, just a few days short of his hundredth birthday. I can still clearly remember the smell of pipe smoke on his jacket and he used to sit me on his knee and tell me about the house and how it was when he was a child here with the carriages pulling up on the gravel outside and the parties and balls, the ladies all dressed in elegant gowns, so very grand, so long ago and so far away now."

He unlocked the door and pushed it open.

"This was the hall and here..." he led her through a gaping doorway "This was the drawing room and over there was the dining room and library and up there," he said, pointing to where the staircase should have been, "the bedrooms and then further up, the servant's rooms. And then of course at the back were the kitchens and pantries, linen rooms and cellars below ... everything needed to run a house like this. You can still see the original Tudor foundations in the cellars."

Gracie looked around, trying to take it all in. There was a faded photo on the wall of the hall how it used to be.

"But where is everything, you know the stairs and doors, all the panelling and the furniture? There must have been masses of it?

"Well, it's all in storage, a large warehouse near Carlisle. My uncle had the foresight to have it removed so it wouldn't deteriorate. The trust sees to it that the house doesn't leak and a couple of times a year everything is opened to air the place but apart from that there's no regular maintenance. I look in every now and then to see it's alright but that's it."

"Oh my god, I would so love to help restore the house." She turned to smile at him. "I know you think I'm some silly society girl from London but I do have a degree in History of Art and also a lot of contacts. It's not all fluff in here" she said tapping her head "but there would be a lot of work to do just organising a project like this and do you know, it would be the first time I'd ever used what I learned while I was at university."

Bill could believe it but Gracie's enthusiasm was infectious.

Oh Bill, would you let me help you ... please?"

"Well any thought of starting a project like this is a long, long way off but of course there are the original plans of the house and an inventory of everything that's in store but sure, if you want to have a look through all that, why not?"

Gracie was jumping up and down with excitement.

"Oh, thank you, thank you," she said flinging her arms round his neck and kissing him.

"So who owns it now?"

"It's held in trust and apparently the beneficiary of the trust, in effect the ownership of the house and the rest of the estate, is to be revealed on my birthday in a month's time but I have it on good authority that the owner won't sell."

"The rest of the estate? What's that?"

"Well, it's the house of course and its grounds, the hotel and farm, and the village as well as all the land and then there's property in London as well as other holdings in Surrey amongst other places and securities. Quite a portfolio."

"You mean the estate owns all the houses in the village? All of them?"

"Yes, and the school and the church, and they're let out at peppercorn rents which means that the villagers can afford them and they can't be sold as holiday homes that would squeeze the locals out. Most of the families have lived in the village for generations."

"Gosh, it's almost like a commune isn't it, every one helping each other."

She looked around her again.

"I'd love to live here. This puts my parent's estate to shame."

Bill smiled.

"Well, if you want to live here you'd have to get married first. There's a clause in the trust deed that the principal occupants should be married. Apparently, the trustees felt that it should be a family home."

He looked around him at the empty expanse of the house.

"She's a grand old lady isn't she? Just wants someone to love her and look after her. It's a huge task though, not something to be undertaken lightly."

He glanced at his watch.

"Why don't we have that picnic you made. The sun's out now for a while."

They went out into what had once been the gardens, the lawns now grazed short by Bill's sheep, and set out the picnic. The view before them stretched down to the lake and the hills beyond.

"What's the house called?"

"Westermere House and that's Westermere down there" he said pointing to the lake.

"The lake points due west and as the sun sets, it reflects off the lake and bathes the house in the most beautiful dappled golden light."

Gracie was quiet, her mind full of thoughts and questions. Bill's life here was assured with the hotel and the farm, even with his dream of restoring the house.

She could imagine herself living here in the beautiful house but for her that was a fantasy and then of course there was that bit about having to be married, but who to?

A thought flashed through her mind. Was Bill suggesting something? Did he have an ulterior motive for showing her the house? What was it he'd said? 'that someday I'd restore the house and live here with my family'?

She needed to know.

"Bill, do you mind if I make some calls today when we get back? I need to talk to my parents and I'll have to go down to London. There are things I need to see to."

"No of course that's fine."

They looked at each other, neither of them wanting to broach the subject that was on their lips but Gracie needed to know.

"Bill, I have to ask. Would you be happier if I just didn't come back from London? I know what I did running out on Charles was all my doing and then I just turned up here on your doorstep and upended your life but well ... I need to know because one way or the other, I need to organize some things. It'll mean a few days away but Bill, for my part I'd like to come back here and with your help I'll adjust and help in any way I can and, when you need me to, I'll just keep out of your way, I promise. I've never been as sure of anything in my life more than knowing I want to be here with you. I know you'll be honest and that it's so very soon and we've not exactly followed the rules have we? You've spanked me, I've slapped you, we've both traded insults but ..."

He also knew that this was just the third day and in a week or so the hotel would be full of guests wanting their breakfast and Gracie would be banished from the kitchen by the chef and there'd be days when he didn't come cheerfully through the door but spent the morning collecting dead lambs killed by stray dogs, of days when the work just didn't match the domestic routine and a meal lovingly prepared that at first was kept warm was finally discarded, or days when he was just so tired that all he'd want to do was sleep, uninterrupted by anyone's call on him for affection or attention.

And the holidays that got cancelled because foot and mouth disease or bird flu infected some farm unknown to them on the other side of the mountain and kept them locked in with their animals or the promised days together doing 'her things' or 'our things' that would be cancelled because the land and the animals had first claim on them?

Even so, with all his misgivings Bill wanted Gracie with him.

He put his fingers to Gracie's lips.

"I want you to come back Gracie, I want you to be here with me. I missed you this morning and held my heart in my mouth as I rode back down the hill in case you weren't still here.

So make your calls, settle with your parents, do what you need to do and then be sure that this is what you really want ... not just me or the dream of the house, but all of this, running the hotel and the farm, looking after the animals, dealing with the guests, living away from London and everything that offers, all of it, as well as living in a one-bedroomed apartment in the stable block because that's where I live when the hotel is open and most importantly, that this won't turn into another wedding that you'll take a taxi away from. Take your time and think this over while you're down south, stay longer if you need, talk to your friends Annabelle and Jenny, and then if you're still sure, then I'll be here, me and Jessie, we'll be waiting. Ok?"

Gracie looked at him, trying to measure the look in his eyes.

"Are you sure, really sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure."

She kissed him, holding him tight. "Yes, ok."

Back at the hotel, Gracie ran a bath while Bill fixed them some supper. It was a simple meal and when they'd tidied away, Bill got up from the table.

"There's one more thing I should show you. Won't be a minute."

He came back with a leather document wallet and took out

a heavily embossed envelope.

"Amongst all the cards I received on my 21st birthday was a letter from a solicitor. The message inside was simple: 'Please contact me at your earliest convenience, when you will learn something to your advantage'. and that was that.

I put the letter aside until a week or so after the partying had finished and eventually visited the solicitor. He gave me this leather document wallet containing my uncle's will and copies of the deeds to Westermere House and the rest of his estate which included the farm and the hotel, the village as well as extensive parcels of land in other parts of the country and a portfolio of properties and securities that would make any bank manager fight for my account. The solicitor told me that the house and the rest of my uncle's estate had been left to me, but with conditions. The first condition was that I had to rent the hotel and farm and run them both successfully for ten years until I was thirty-one and then, if I had managed to do that, the whole estate would become legally mine.

My birthday is in a month's time and then I'll learn if I've run the farm and hotel well enough to inherit. I've had to submit yearly accounts to a firm of accountants and they will tell me if I matched the terms of the will. Until then I just don't know so you can see that's why I've been so driven to work hard both here in the hotel and on the farm.

My uncle was a clever man; he obviously intended this ten-year period to be a time for me to learn about money and life in general, not for me to just inherit his estate and fritter it away."

Gracie sat shaking her head in wonder.

"My god Bill, I mean I don't mean to pry but how much is it all worth, I mean the whole thing?"

Bill smiled.

"Well difficult to say really but a lot, a heck of a lot."

"Really? I mean millions or ...?"

"At least millions, probably more than millions."

He took her hands across the table. She looked at him, shaking her head slowly, trying to process what he'd just told her. More than millions meant ... well billions. She knew her father was rich and Charles too, but billions?

"So now you know. I'll drive you over to Carlisle in the morning and we'll get you some clothes to travel in and then you can catch the train to London. It'll be a long day for you and me so best we get an early night."

He got up from the table but Gracie remained seated, looking up at him.

"Can we sleep together tonight? Would that be ok?"

"Yes, I'd like that."

The following morning both Bill and Gracie were subdued. They'd made love when they'd gone to bed, gentle, attentive love making although neither of them was ready to use that word so soon.

~~~

It was almost exactly two weeks to the hour since Gracie had first appeared on the steps of The Red Lion Hotel in her bedraggled wedding dress when Gracie returned, this time not in a London taxi, but in a Range Rover with a metal trunk that she'd locked her valuables, laptop and papers in, a couple of suitcases and a few bags of bits and pieces in the back.

Bill was nowhere to be seen but Mary the house keeper was there to greet her.

They hadn't met although Bill had mentioned her but her greeting was as warm as if they were old friends.

"You must be Gracie. Mr Howard told me to expect you. Come on in, you've had a long journey."

This was all so new to Gracie, being accepted without question as if she were one of the family, and Bill had told Mary to expect her. That was the best part.

"Mr Howard is on the land but come with me and I'll show you where you'll be."

It was as if there was an acceptance that, since she'd come back from London, she intended to stay and to stay with Bill.

"Mr Howard's been busy while you were away, sorting out his apartment He's had Jack in doing some redecorating ..." she said this giving Gracie a wink ... "and setting you up with your own office."

Across the yard in what once had been the stables hay loft was Bill's apartment and it was as far away from being a batchelor pad as could be imagined, pale neutral colours with art and table lamps, comfortable fabric-upholstered sofas and armchairs, what looked like a brand-new bathroom with a separate shower enclosure and a bedroom to die for with the largest double bed Gracie had ever seen.

Mary had been watching Gracie take it all in.

"Not bad hey? I can tell you, there's been a bit of a clear out and not before time in my opinion. It used to look like the cast-offs from a charity shop but it's always a woman that spurs a man on to improve himself," she said conspiratorially.

"And now, there's a separate entrance downstairs I'll show you to your private room."

In the yard, a recessed doorway led to a flight of stairs and Gracie's room with a pull-out sofa bed, a huge desk, its own shower room, a kitchenette and wardrobes and drawers for her clothes and personal belongings and on a padded hanger, looking almost pristine, was her wedding dress.

"Ah yes, your dress. Mr Howard insisted I had it cleaned for you, and a very beautiful dress it is too."

Gracie stood and stared at it, tears welling in her eyes.

"Oh Mary, that was so sweet of you. Thank you."

Mary smiled.

"Now, now, best not to get carried away. It always helps to have somewhere that's just for you, just right for when you've had enough of him," Mary laughed. "He can be a bit like that you know, lots on his mind though and between you and me, he's seen as a bit of a catch hereabouts. There was a lady friend a while ago but she wouldn't have fitted in so it's probably turned out for the best."

They went back out into the yard.

"Here's your key; I've put tea, coffee and biscuits for you and there's milk and a bottle of wine in the fridge. Bring your car round here and if you need anything at all I'll be in the hotel but whatever you do, don't go into the kitchen or Chef will have your ears off with his knife. We're full tonight and for the next few weeks and Chef doesn't like being disturbed."

Gracie collected her car and reversed it up to the entrance to her room so she could start unloading. Even with the car as close as she could get it she struggled with the suitcases but eventually all was in her room apart from her metal trunk and she just couldn't manage that on her own although she had managed to get it half way out of the car. She stood behind her car looking at it when suddenly there was a deafening crash, her car lurched backwards towards her and the metal trunk slid out of the car, landing on her chest and pinning her to the ground.

Mary and Chef both heard the crash and ran into the yard to see what had happened and they were met by a scene of chaos, kids and parents yelling at each other, mountain bikes tumbled to the ground, and Gracie's car pushed back against the brickwork of the building that surround the yard.

"You stupid fool, what on earth were you thinking?" One of the women was yelling at a man, presumably her husband. "Peter get out of the way" ... this to one of the children and to another "It's all right darling, Daddy took a wrong turning."

In the midst of this Bill arrived on the quad. A quick glance told him that even with all the noise and panic the people from the car were ok but whose car was it, backed up against the building?