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When she’d complained about it, Caitlin had said they couldn’t afford to go abroad as a family. But that was a lie because they had plenty of money. The real reason was she’d wanted shot of Maisie. That was why she’d sent her to see her ‘aunt’ for the school holidays – even though Isla wasn’t her real aunt, just as Caitlin wasn’t her real mother.
Maisie frowned, and then opened her eyes wide to eradicate any wrinkles on her forehead.
‘Are you all right?’ Caitlin asked, giving her a close look.
Maisie found her concern irritating because it was all for show. Caitlin, while not the evil stepmother of fairy tales, didn’t care about her. Not really. She’d ditch her for good, given the chance. Just as her father appeared to have done. He’d gone abroad, for work apparently, and she hadn’t heard from him for days. She could text him, of course, but this was a test, of sorts – a test to see how long he would go before checking that she was still alive. As things currently stood, quite a long time, it seemed.
To her horror, Maisie felt the prickle of tears and she blinked furiously. Crying would make her look as sad a sap as Isla, and it would ruin her eye-liner. Plus, everyone would think she was crying about the old lady, when she’d hardly known her at all. Jessie had been kind to her and Maisie was sorry that she’d died. She did feel quite sad about it, actually, but she couldn’t cry when Caitlin and Isla were currently dry-eyed.
At least her momentary loss of control hadn’t been noticed. Though Maisie began to wonder if that truly was the case when Isla put her hand on her knee and squeezed. Great! she thought, giving a long, loud sniff. Now boring Isla, with her big sad eyes and hangdog expression, was feeling sorry for her.
She fidgeted, which had the desired effect of prompting Isla to remove her hand, and pulled her phone from her pocket. A host of new WhatsApp messages had arrived and Maisie scanned through them, before wishing she hadn’t. Now she didn’t know whether to reply, in a jokey ‘what am I like?’ kind of way, or pretend she’d never seen them – though Madison and her friends would be able to check who’d opened them, wouldn’t they? It was a lose-lose situation, as far as she could see.
‘Here she is,’ said Caitlin, breaking into her thoughts, and Maisie turned off her phone, grateful to be spared making any decisions for the time being.
A stern-looking woman in a grey dress that was covered with frills came into the room. She was too old for what she was wearing, really, but Maisie had to admit she almost carried it off. Her honey-blonde hair was swept into a bun at the back of her neck and her nails were a deep pink, with lips painted to match. A pair of horn-rimmed glasses hung from a gilt chain around her neck.
The woman – the solicitor, apparently, whose name was Frances or Frankie or something similar, Maisie wasn’t properly listening – proceeded to express her condolences and to read out some boring legal stuff about Jessie’s will.
Then, she got down to dishing out the old lady’s belongings, which was sad, thought Maisie. It struck her that worldly possessions counted for nothing when you were dead, and she felt a flush of satisfaction as she realised that was quite an adult observation. Though having lots of possessions was very important while you were still alive, she decided.
Maisie pictured her large bedroom in London, decorated just as she liked it, and scowled. She didn’t get why she couldn’t have stayed at home, rather than being dragged to this tedious place full of boring people. Or she could have gone abroad with her dad – even though she knew something about him that she’d rather not. She glanced at Caitlin, wondering if her stepmother knew his secret too. Perhaps that was what they’d been fighting about. She sighed, wondering why people got more stupid as they got older.
‘Maisie?’ The solicitor had turned to look at her.
Maisie jumped, feeling awkward when everyone in the room stared at her. ‘Yeah?’
‘This part of the will mentions you.’ Frances or Frankie smiled and read from the paper in front of her. ‘To my great-granddaughter Maisie, I leave the contents of the small jewellery box in the bottom drawer of my dressing table.’
Maisie blinked again, feeling an almost overwhelming urge to cry. The old lady had left her something in her will. That was surprising enough, but it was the fact that she’d referred to her as her great-granddaughter that made the breath catch in Maisie’s throat. That was pretty decent of her, seeing as Maisie had made very little effort to speak to her at Easter. She hadn’t been rude, but she hadn’t exactly been kind either. Maisie swallowed hard, wishing she’d given Jessie more of her time. She would have, if she’d known that she was about to die.
‘That was very kind of Gran, wasn’t it,’ murmured Caitlin and Isla nodded in agreement as the solicitor carried on reading and distributing various items, from her collection of puzzle books (to Isla) to her cashmere jumpers (to Caitlin).
‘And the house…’ The solicitor stopped reading and narrowed her eyes at the little group in front of her. ‘Jessie has left her house to both of you, Isla and Caitlin.’
Maisie noticed Caitlin’s shoulders slump with relief, presumably at the prospect of a big pay-out.
‘But there is one condition attached,’ said the solicitor, hardly pausing for breath. ‘Jessie stipulates that Isla be allowed to live in the house for as long as she desires, with no sale taking place until she wishes to move out.’
Wow. Maisie glanced at Caitlin, whose jaw had dropped. That clearly wasn’t expected.
‘I’m sorry?’ Her stepmother leaned forward, smiling politely. ‘Would you mind repeating that?’
When the solicitor duly did, Caitlin leaned back in her chair again and folded her arms. She pursed her lips while Isla stared at her with an unreadable expression on her face – Maisie couldn’t work out if it was surprise, concern, or triumph.
‘O-K,’ said Caitlin slowly. ‘Well, that’s a bit of a curveball but I guess it won’t make any difference in the great scheme of things.’ She glanced at Isla, who’d got her face under control and was looking back to normal. ‘Did you know anything about this?’
Isla shook her head. ‘No, but you can count on Gran to do something unexpected.’ She swallowed loudly. ‘I miss her.’
‘I know. Me too,’ said Caitlin, giving Isla’s back a pat.
For a split second, Maisie thought she was about to give Isla a hug, which would be mega-awkward, seeing as they didn’t seem to like each other much.
But then the solicitor said: ‘There’s something else. Your grandmother left you both this letter.’ She handed a small, tattered envelope to Isla, which, Maisie noticed, reading upside down, was addressed to a Miss Edith Anstey at Rose Cottage. ‘There’s a letter inside, to a member of your family, that she found recently in her mother’s possessions. She wanted you both to have it.’
‘Do you know why?’ sniffed Isla, taking the envelope and turning it over in her hands.
‘She had her reasons,’ said the solicitor, being unnecessarily enigmatic, in Maisie’s opinion.
