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course, he discovered that your mother had died in an accident. You know that her body was repatriated, and is buried in the family plot in the Sticklepond graveyard?’
I nodded. ‘Though I didn’t find out until much later what had happened.’
‘Your grandfather assumed you had been in America with her, so that is where he searched again for you, without result.’
‘No, I was fourteen by then, and I’d had enough of travelling. I didn’t like my mother’s new boyfriend much, either, so I didn’t want to go to California with them. We’d been living in a commune in Scotland and my best friend’s mother offered to look after me if I stayed, so I did until I got a live-in job at the castle, when I was sixteen.’
‘And stayed lost until someone pointed out the unusual name “Sophy Winter” in a magazine advert,’ Mr Hobbs said, ‘when, on making enquiries, Sir William discovered that you were indeed his granddaughter.’
‘Yes, I reverted to my real name after my mother died. I always felt ridiculous as a Starchild— so old hippie. And I didn’t change my name when I married Lucy’s father, I just stayed a Winter. I was only married for five minutes anyway.’
Actually, that was a slight exaggeration: it was five weeks, just long enough for me to fall pregnant and for commitment-phobe Rory to get such cold feet that he went away to find himself. So far as I know, he’s still looking.
‘Yes, that did worry your grandfather a little—but at least you had got married.’
‘Unlike my mother?’
He ignored that, smoothing out the papers in front of him with a dry, wrinkled finger. ‘You have no contact with your former husband?’
‘No, none. He was a cousin of the owner of the castle I was working in, a diver working on the oilrigs—you know, six weeks on, six off. He was ten years older than me, but we fell in love and married in Gretna Green—very romantic—and then settled down in a rented cottage. Then he supposedly went off back to work and instead vanished.’
I had waited and waited for him, sure he would comeback, until I finally realised that he’d taken everything he valued with him and never meant to return at all. With hindsight I could see that I had been the one in love with the idea of marriage and domesticity, the family I yearned for, and he had simply gone along with it in a moment of madness, or frustrated lust, or…something.
‘And that is the last you saw of him?’ Mr Hobbs prompted gently. ‘He never contacted you again?’
‘No, though I’m sure his family knew where he was. But they wouldn’t have anything to do with me, of course, because they were horrified when he married the help. I’ve heard that he has been working abroad ever since, and I divorced him eventually. There hasn’t been anyone serious in my life since then. I don’t need anyone really; I’ve usually got a dog.’
‘Quite,’ he said, though looking slightly perplexed. ‘That does, however, simplify matters. I would most earnestly advise you not to consider selling the property at this juncture, and certainly not without visiting it first. Indeed, they are all expecting you to take over the reins as soon as possible.’
‘ All? ’ I said, startled. ‘How many people are we actually talking about here?’
‘Well, your twin great-aunts—though of course they were provided for under the terms of your great-grandfather’s will. Ottilie leases the coach house, which she converted into a studio with living accommodation soon after your mother left. You do remember her?’
‘Yes, though I saw much less of her than Aunt Hebe. She didn’t come to Winter’s End much when I lived there—isn’t she a sculptor?’
‘Indeed, a very well-known one. She made something of a misalliance in her brother’s eyes when she was in her forties by marrying his last head gardener, though I believeSir William was more grieved at the thought of losing his right-hand man than at the marriage itself. But as it