Delusions Of Grandeur

Laura picked up the keys from Carl Patterson’s office on her way to her newly inherited Estate. Carl had wanted to know a thousand and one things about what she intended to do with the Estate and its goods. She got the sense that he was being overly intrusive and made her exit. She placed the keys on her passenger seat and typed the address of the Estate into her GPS and began the hour long drive.

When Laura arrived at her inherited Estate, she was met with a long winding driveway that had open rusting but still grand and imposing, metal framed gates.

The driveway was lined with large gnarled trees that reached over the drive like crippled fingers, casting most of the drive into shade. In between the trees on her left, Laura caught sight of what would have once been the gatekeepers cottage, along with a well kept lawn that had regular circular flower beds that were brimming with summer flowers. Well maintained paths wove their ways around them leading to a pond with a small water feature at its centre. Its jet of water was certainly different to the last fountain of liquid she had seen. On the right hand side of the drive there was a large field, around the size of 2 football pitches, that had strange patches of wild flowers dotted over it which lead to a dark forest with trees even older looking than the ones lining the gravel driveway. After a minute or two the drive split to cure around an empty stone hexagonal flowerbed. But neither that or the uninterrupted few of the front lawn drew Laura’s attention. A stately Victorian Manor House stood dominant and proud, despite ivy creeping over half of the left side of the facade and several missing slate roof tiles. Laura stared at the imposing Manor as she parked beside the hexagonal flowerbed. She barely blinked as she got out of her car, trying to take in as much of the building as possible. She walked around the driveway centre piece to a knee-high wall that ended the gravel driveway, and stone steps down into the front garden. From this height she could also see a low hedge maze-like section to the right. At the top to the stone steps were copper statues of female figures draped in sweeping matching shawls which had gone green with age. After taking in as much as she could see from the top of the steps, Laura began to feel a creeping sensation of being watched.

‘You’re just freaking yourself out because the house looks creepy.’

Laura turned to face the Manor that was casting the driveway into shadow. She looked at each window, expecting to see a face peering down at her as a shiver went down her spine. As she walked over to the front door, she gave her head a shake to rid her mind of the feeling of being observed. Laura found the key that had the keychain with words – front door written on a cardboard tag that was looking rather tired.

She tried to look through the little window in the door but the inside was so gloomy that she could only make out a few dark items of furniture.

Laura turned the key in the stiff lock. The door creaked open and Laura was greeted with the overpowering smell of damp and dust that was so strong it made her eyes water. She took her first tentative steps inside the large entrance hall and found a light switch on the wall to her left but when she flipped the switch, only six bulbs illuminated on the grand light fixture above.

‘Bloody typical,’ she thought as she opted for using the flashlight on her phone. The light cast strange shadows onto the walls and once or twice, Laura jumped when a piece of furniture looked like a person huddled in the corner or a cobweb covered portrait loomed over her, the painting’s eyes seemingly inspecting Laura just as much as she was inspecting the house.

As she began to explore the house, it became clear that Martha had been living in the back couple of rooms on the ground floor which included the 1970’s era kitchen, a living room that was also set up as a bedroom and a small bathroom. These rooms weren’t as neglected as the rest of the ground floor but just as cluttered. The other rooms had dust sheets covering most of the items of furniture, obscuring what they were.

‘I have no idea what I’m going to do with all this stuff.’

Laura didn’t know if any of the items were genuine antiques and valuable or just useless junk… and this was just the ground floor. But with the size of the building, she expected a lot more furniture and nicknacks and there were at least two more floors to explore.

Laura entered the living room area and felt compelled to sit herself down on a worn leather, overstuffed armchair that had a slight indent of a small framed person in it. At the side of the armchair there was a stack of boxes, four high, that all looked to be the same identical black boxes. She peaked over the arm of the chair to find two more stacks of boxes, discolouring with age and most had damage to the lids and corners. Laura lifted the first box onto her knees and took the lid off. It was filled with ageing photographs, envelopes and folded pieces of paper. Some of the photographs had names and dates or places jotted on the back and others were blank. She quickly started to notice reoccurring faces, mostly of men and then she found some faces that she knew very well.

Laura lifted out the photo that was of her parents and herself as a newborn. A sad smile tugged at her lips as she ran her thumb over the image to wipe away some age-related grime then carefully placed the photo back in the box. Martha clearly loved all these people enough to keep their photos, yet had somehow slipped into her family’s obscurity.

The bottom box of the first pile was heavier than the last few. It was jam packed with photos of a face she now recognised to be Martha, in her younger years. Every handful of photos she was pictured alongside a new handsome man and it was clear all of them were infatuated with her. When Laura reached the bottom of the box, she discovered why it was heavier than the others. There was a journal style book, bound in black leather with a small brass clasp. She popped it open and flipped through the pages. At first she assumed it was an address book, as it was filled with names and other information but upon closer inspection, she realised all the names were male, there were dates and then numbers under each name that didn’t have the format of phone numbers. Some numbers were in hundreds, others in thousands. There was page after page of the same thing. Then one number jumped out at her.

It had a pound sign at the beginning.

‘Mitchel Anderson, June 1975 – February 1977, £12,300’

Laura screwed her face up with confusion then a thought hit her like a steam train and she nearly dropped the book with shock.

‘It seems like Martha Kerns, my newly discovered Great Aunt, might have somehow been wrangling money out of these countless men for decades? Maybe she had just one rich, dead husband? No matter how she came about the money, she clearly knew what she was doing. No wonder she had 30 million in the bank!’

Laura had no idea what to do with any of this possible information. No doubt a lot of these men would be elderly or even dead and there were no complete addresses or phone numbers. There was probably no way for her to get in contact with them to find out how or why Martha, seemingly, had their money or if that was even the case and she was just letting her mind run wild.

Laura opened her phone and started googling some of the names and just like she had guessed, a lot of Obituaries were found meaning most of them were dead.

There were also a number of the men talked about in news articles, usually listed as missing or about their death being suspicious.

‘Holy shit. Were the rumours mum spoke about true… was there a chance they weren’t rumours at all? Is she money laundering? Are the men criminals and was she just a patsy?’

Laura sat back in the chair and glanced around the depressingly dreary room. This was a big house with a lot of rooms and many closets. She just hoped that she wasn’t about to find any skeletons in them. Literally or figuratively.