The House Next Door

In this chapter, Gladys meets Alban Scrivener, a meticulous man who endeavours to help when her new neighbours, the Blessingtons, move in.

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The gold chain hanging loosely from Alban Scrivener’s waistcoat had dulled with age, save for a short length polished constantly by fingers that could not rest.  Reaching into his watch pocket, he withdrew the timepiece once more, an act fuelled by intangible thought and one that he performed ritually in such circumstances.  Flipping open the case, he acknowledged that it was now two minutes past the hour.

The Blessingtons were late!

          Alban pondered the Hunter as he waited.  Handed to him by his father long before, it was not an expensive article by any means, certainly not a worthy reflection of their mutual professions as Solicitors at Law.  Its monetary value probably lay in the gold chain, he considered, rather than the watch itself which was a rather plain, stainless-steel affair.  Evidence of its service lay in a winder shrivelled by age and use alike, while a plethora of hair-like scratches on its back gave away the manner in which the watch would be eased gently into its own tiny corner of the dresser at the end of each working day.  Yet Alban would never release it.  Quite apart from the fact that his father had cherished the thing, its singular grace lay in the fact that it kept perfect time, an imperative to a man such as Alban, and to his father before him.

          Resurrected to his troubled mind came memory of a recent meeting with Lord Scott-Charlton.  Occurring just a week earlier, the Lord’s instructions were unequivocal.  Alban was to meet Edwin Blessington and his wife at the construction site.  From there he was to avail them of every assistance.  Alban wanted to bellow out loud that the duties of a solicitor did not include escorting would-be home purchasers from here, there and everywhere around rows of newly constructed, radically styled terraced houses.  He didn’t bellow, of course, not by any means.  Raising his voice by even a decibel had never been Alban’s way, least of all in the presence of gentry.

          ‘You’re far too timid,' his wife counselled, all-too-often.

On that last occasion she had said something more, he recollected. 

          ‘And you’re completely without a back-bone.’

          Those were her very words.  He was without a back-bone.  He was the reason why her social mobility had stalled, she added, the reason why invitations to community functions and social gatherings always seemed to stop short of her door.  Their isolation was of his making and it would doubtless be their undoing.

          Alban knew otherwise, of course.

          Scott-Charlton had gone on to say that Alban should present the Blessingtons with the revised prospectus as soon as he met them.  After that, they were to be shown any and all of the new houses that took their fancy.  The time allotted to each should be entirely at their personal discretion, he counselled. 

          That was the part that Alban liked least of all; at their discretion. 

          To a man of religious orderliness, making ready for the Blessington appointment had already incurred no end of nuisance.  In the hours after that particular meeting, almost all of his time had been devoted to cancelling or re-scheduling appointments, the consequences of which would doubtless rumble on for days, he conceded, if not weeks.

          The Blessingtons had not been married long.  Alban knew little of the husband and nothing he liked.  According to the scant few who knew the man, rarely was he in agreeable mood.  An Accountant by profession, his needs were very specific, Alban was told, the most important of these being privacy, a location of good standing, and a house large enough to facilitate certain of his business activities in absolute seclusion. 

          By contrast, Isabella Blessington was far less of a stranger to Alban, or rather, to the Scrivener business.  Long considered to be the family solicitor, Alban Scrivener senior had handled her parent’s personal needs for decades.  That she had been left alone so violently following the tragic deaths of both was, in Alban’s opinion, the most likely reason why she had rushed headlong into her marriage to Edwin Blessington, a joining that some considered to be the work of ulterior motive.  Others voiced only small surprise, suggesting that her sudden acceptance could only be attributed to her frailty, an inability to endure the rigours of life without a man at her side.

          There may well have been an element of truth in the latter, Alban thought, recalling an episode in the office when his father was still in charge; something about her vulnerability becoming her ultimate undoing.  Most confusingly, however, was that her inheritance turned out to be better than comfortable, and while that put paid to rumours about her sights being set on Edwin Blessington’s fortune, it did not explain why she married the man at all, a man much older than herself and, indeed, a man of forbidding character.

          Alban’s admiration of Isabella Blessington took root the instant he set eyes on her.  Walking two or three paces behind her husband, her sights were lowered, cultured fingers busying themselves with a small parasol that refused to be drawn.  Her apricot-tinted dress exuded elegance, its long, flowing style further enhanced by the shapely form lying but a whisper beneath its gossamer-thin silken covering.  While her husband strode purposefully towards Alban, Isabella moved with slow, inherently gracious steps, insinuating a refined gait neither rehearsed nor pretended.  Already aware of the age difference between the couple, Alban nevertheless found himself taken aback when he finally met the man face to face.  He actually looked older than his years, too old to command the attentions of so fine a lady.

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