Victoria Fox the Secret Letter

Caroline knew she would return to Vistacombe one day, its familiar presence stirring so many memories.

I have come this way so many times, but each time it feels new: the bright September sun hitting the cliff edge, or else the rolling clouds; winds or storms or open blue sky.

We come over the hill, there’s a curve in the road then a glittering wide stretch of silver sea – and, at last, the house comes into view.

Vistacombe. The people of Saltleigh consider its façade as much a part of the landscape as the spread of dark cedars in the cemetery, or the old lighthouse at Marley Point. I consider it at once beautiful and dreadful: an unreachable bastion of turrets and towers, its windows huge and glaring, its gardens wild and overgrown.

“Are you sure you’re up to this?” asks Jack. I watch his strong hands on the wheel, hear the concern in his voice, and not for the first time wonder if I took this job less for the money and more for the handsome man who employed me.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” I say. 

Granted, the house isn’t our usual spot. We’re normally called to terraces and cul-de-sacs, bringing our words of comfort and gentle purpose to ordinary families. Our task is to clear those possessions too painful to sort, to collect and catalogue a loved one’s belongings, to make cups of tea and listen to stories until we’re as woven into this person’s life as the ones they’ve left behind. It’s fulfilling and fascinating, a window into another world.

Vistacombe is bigger, grander – and the person who lived here a mystery.

Yet it’s the same, really, in all the important ways.

“No reason,” says Jack, as we pass through the gates.

Inside, it’s vast and draughty. Jack drops his bag in the hall. He runs a hand through his messy dark hair and glances up the twisting staircase to the vaults beyond. He whistles.