“So, I’ve been thinking,” Buffy began the next morning while Edina bustled around her, cleaning up the kitchen.
“Are you speaking to me, Miss?” Edina asked.
Buffy smiled as she munched on her bacon. “I am.”
“I apologize. My mind is a tad scattered today I’m afraid.”
“Oh? Does it have to do with the house? Is there something I should know about?” Buffy asked, concerned.
Edina paused in her work, and then shook her head. “No, Miss. Nothing like that. Just. . . family problems.”
“Oh? Something wrong with Tara? I really like her, she was quite helpful.”
“Was she?” Edina didn’t sound as if she believed her.
“Oh, yes, she was! She helped me a great deal. I’ve decided to employ the methods she suggested. I should probably tell you –“
“The ballroom is off limits? I know, Miss. Tara informed me of it all yesterday and I came across your candle already,” Edina muttered tersely.
“Edina? Are you all right? I mean, you said family squabbles, but you seem quite tense. Maybe I could help?”
Edina looked up from the counter she’d been scrubbing to death. “No, Miss, I am very sorry for being so abrupt this morning. I have always been out of sorts with my family, and I fear that when I see some of them, it has a tendency to bring up old squabbles and issues. It rather puts me on edge.” She smiled brightly. “I am glad to hear though that Tara was of good help to you.”
“Well, if you ever need to talk or anything—“
“Thank you, Miss, but it’s quite all right. Now tell me – what were you thinking?”
“I was thinking of fixing this place up and opening it as a Bed & Breakfast. Maybe it’s something you would like to help me with?”
Edina froze, paling considerably. “You do not wish to keep this house, Miss? You wish to be rid of it?”
“Well, not rid of it—“
“Miss, may I be completely frank?”
“You may.”
“This is a gorgeous home. I am all for fixing it up – but sharing it with the public after? Wouldn’t you want to keep this as your home. It was left for you.”
“I’ve always felt this house was too big for me. I thought it was too big for my sister –“
“You do not spend enough time here. It’s a lovely home. All its nooks, crannies, squeaky floorboards – do you know that my grandmother and mother lived in this home before me?”
Buffy shook her head, she hadn’t realized that this was such an issue for the woman, but clearly it was. She hadn’t known, also, the history that Edina had with the house. Clearly, she was quite attached, as anyone would be having grown up in any home. She felt guilt flood her. She really didn’t know much about the house, about Dru’s time here, and about the staff that inhabited the home for so long. All she knew was how she felt in regards to the house.
“The house is old, I’ll give you that, but it’s home,” Edina went on, quite passionately. “Just as it was passed on from generations of Lords and Ladies that inhabited and owned it; so it was passed on in my family as well. To open it up and use it for the public would be demeaning to it.”
“I disagree,” Buffy said, feeling somewhat uneasy by Edina’s passionate display. “I think opening it up in such a way would bring even more life to it. Plus, it would be sharing its beauty with others. Edina, you wouldn’t have to leave. You could stay.”
“And where would you be?”
Buffy was startled by Edina’s behavior. She’d wanted the woman to open up and feel free to talk with her, but now that she was, Buffy wasn’t sure it was exactly what she wanted anymore. “I’d be. . . I don’t know. I’d either stay or I’d go back to the States. I haven’t worked out that –“
“So you’re saying I could feel free to stay here and make money for you.”
“Edina,” Buffy said firmly. “It was left to me. It is ultimately my decision what happens to the house. Since it is the last connection I have with my sister, I do not wish to just abandon it, but rather bring some life to it. Lord knows there’s already a lot of death in it.”
Edina pursed her lips together.
“I wished to talk with you about it since you have been the one in charge taking care of the home. I figured it’d only be fair to include you in such plans. You love your job, it seems, and since I am not sure whether or not I want to stay here or not, I figured you could keep your job, oversee the home, keep up with the maintenance of it and I could hire someone to take over the business part of it, or I would stay and do it. I’m merely figuring out my options, that’s all.”
Edina nodded. “Excuse me, Miss,” she said primly and walked slowly out of the kitchen leaving Buffy to wonder what other problems the blasted house was going to give her.
“You want to what?” William asked, dumbfounded.
Buffy sighed heavily. Apparently her Bed and Breakfast idea was not flying well. She’d decided after her confrontation with Edina that morning, she’d go see William at his office in the hopes that he could give her some help in what she was thinking for the house.
“Bed and –“
“Yeah, yeah, I heard you. Buffy, forgive me, but wouldn’t it make more sense for you to open it and stay?”
“Well, not necessarily. I could have someone else run it for me—“
“Do you realize how much money you’d lose first before you gained?”
Buffy sighed heavily. “No, I don’t realize apparently. I’m weighing my options, that’s why I came here to see you.”
“I am all for you opening the house as a Bed and Breakfast, Buffy. But it makes more sense in the long run for you to stay and run it instead of handing it over and trying to be a silent partner overseas for something as precarious as a new, budding bed and breakfast. You could always hire help to run it –“
“Like Edina?”
William furrowed his brow. “Edina? Does she know anything about business?”
“Like I do?” Buffy said incredulously.
“Perhaps you don’t, but I do,” he grinned.
“Of course you do, why am I not surprised?” Buffy said sarcastically. “What else can you do William? Can you knit? Milk a cow? Are you also working on the cure for cancer? Is there Nobel Peace Prize kicking around I don’t know about?”
“Now, now…the Nobel Peace Prize will come after I invent the cure for cancer, silly girl.”
Buffy rolled her eyes. “What does it matter if I stay or go? If I can have someone take care of the Bed and Breakfast and I cover the costs as they come up for damages or things we need –“
“Buffy. You’re jumping too far ahead. Think first that you have to fix the house up. You have some empty rooms that are in need of maintenance and furnishings. Then there are permits and loans, all these things that will take time and money—“
“Yes, and I have quite a bit of an inheritance here—“
“But time, Buffy. It will still take time. Longer than the month you were looking to stay for.”
Buffy sighed heavily and sat back, arms crossed across her chest. “Maybe it’d be worth it to just clean up the house and then see how I feel.”
William grinned. “I have a feeling that you’ll fall in love with it.”
“Maybe I’ll love it so much, I’ll want to share it with others.”
“Maybe you will. And then you stay.”
“We’ll see, William.”
“Is tonight the night you commune with your ghosts?”
Buffy giggled, despite feeling somewhat setback. “Yes.”
“May I take you out for dinner before the big event?”
She took a deep breath. “Sure. I might even give Edina the night off since I seemed to have upset her so much this afternoon.”
“She’ll get over it. And you did tell her you weren’t kicking her out. I figured she’d have loved the idea. The ability to have all these people to take care of and even more things to look after—“
“You’re being a snob, William. You’re making fun of her. It’s her home, too.”
“I’m not making fun of her, I’m stating fact. If her mother and grandmother did live in that house, if she did in fact grow up there, then it’s in her blood. She doesn’t want anything else, Buffy. You know well enough of her by now to see how much of a control freak she is. The house may very well be hers in a sense, but you know who else’s it is?”
“Dru’s.”
“Yours.”
“Yes,” she sighed, “Mine. And all the little ghosties that inhabit it.”