Harper’s Rest.
Four letters, on a lawyer’s desk, and a pen ready to sign them.
“This is what you want to do, then?”
“Yes. I’m an old man now – a very old man! – and the doctors were quite clear about my current state of health. I’ve no descendents: Frances and I were never blessed with children. But these are relatives, even if they are distant ones.”
“I wasn’t actually talking about your choice of heirs. This is an – unusual – will.”
“But it’s legal, isn’t it? You’ve made it all right and tight?”
“I have. I don’t think it could be challenged in any court.”
“Excellent. I wonder what they will all make of it…”
Archie’s family had been right, hadn’t they, he thought.
“A teacher? Why would you want to do such a menial job? You’re an Andrew Yeoman. No one from our family has ever been a teacher.” That was his father.
“Can’t see Archie being any good at it, anyway. Can you?”
“Can’t see Archie being any good at anything. No get up and go. No drive.” That was his older brothers.
And they’d been right. Trying to show the joy and release of art to stroppy fourteen year old boys? They’d eaten him alive, left him signed off with stress. But he knew he wasn’t going back.
And now this letter. He sat there thinking about it as the daylight began to fade.
“My name is Benjamin Yeoman. The fact that we share a common surname is no coincidence: let me explain. Your great-grandfather was the eldest in a family of boys: Andrew, and then Walter, James and Frederick, all born close together. The four of them inherited the family business, and as you doubtless know, quarrelled bitterly about the best way to take it forward and never spoke to each other again. A feud that persists to this day.
I was the fifth child. Twenty years younger than Frederick: a change-of-life child is, I believe, the phrase.”
No-one had ever mentioned Benjamin. His father – and grandfather, when he’d been alive – had had plenty to say, and none of it good, about Walter, Edward and Frederick’s family, but he’d never heard of Benjamin.
So how did Benjamin fit it?
“There was never any question of me inheriting a share in the business. When I was born, all my brothers were already working there. But my mother’s family owned an inn: Harper’s Rest. It dates back to Elizabethan times, though by my mother’s time it was no longer the prosperous inn it had once been and it became a dwelling house instead. It was hers and she left it to me, and my wife Frances and I lived there very happily for many years before we moved abroad. It’s a kind and well-loved house.
Frances and I had no children. I wanted to leave Harper’s Rest to someone who would appreciate it, love it maybe, but I also liked the idea of leaving it to my own kith and kin. Maybe time had taught wisdom to my brothers’ descendents.”
Not Andrew’s descendents, Archie thought, looking at the heap of mess on the floor. Like his hopes and dreams, it was just a heap of rubbish. The room, like his life, was getting messier by the week.
He moved over to the bed. It was a bit more comfortable than that creaking wicker chair.
“Alas, I saw the same bitterness and intransigence that I remembered so well. Too well. So I looked beyond my brothers’ grandchildren to their great-grandchildren. And I found you, trying to forge a different path and suffering for it also.
I am offering Harper’s rest to you. But on conditions. If you want it, then you have to earn it. You must live there for a year and a day. And this house was very dear to me: you must live there and also take care of the house. At the end of that period, my lawyer will come and inspect the house and if he deems you to have fulfilled the conditions of the will, then he is at liberty to tell you the final clause of my will.”
The short winter day was almost over now and the messy room was darkening fast. Why not go? He wasn’t going to go home, to face the jeering of his family, and there was nothing to keep him here in this place except the memory of failure. In a moment he would turn the light on and re-read the next portion of this remarkable letter.
Star had had enough! Enough of being The Family Disappointment. The one who was swept under the carpet, hidden away if possible. Boarding school from as soon as she was old enough to be sent there, holidays away… “It must be nice to be so rich,” one of her school friends, who was there on a scholarship, said longingly once. “Not to have to count every penny…” Not if your parents use their wealth to avoid you, Star thought. I’d swap you: I’ve seen how much your parents like you, enjoy you…
And then her younger sister, Angel, had come along: all blonde curls and ruffles and big blue eyes, and “Daddy darling…”
“Now she’s a true Walter Yeoman,” her father had said, full of pride. “I think Star must be a throwback – to one of the others.” The scorn in his voice had cut her to the quick.
And now, with this letter (which she’d hidden up here in the attic: no-one ever came here) she might have a way out of this unbearable situation.
“Get a job?” her father had said, when she’d suggested it after she left school. “Certainly not! People would think I couldn’t afford to support you.”
She’d tried, nevertheless, and then overheard her father telling her mother that he’d sabotaged her chances. And without a job, how could she leave home? She needed somewhere to live!
“But if you want to inherit this home, you have to earn it. You must live there for a year and a day…And you must arrive by the Christmas of this calendar year.”
Earn it? She would love to earn something. “Just send the bills to me,” her father would say: but he never gave her any money of her own. He wants to control us, she realised.
Christmas would work perfectly. It would be a much easier time to get away – she could say she was spending the night with a school friend, going to a play or pantomime together…She’d had eighteen months of not being allowed to do anything but not being wanted either, and she’d had enough. If she had somewhere to live, a part-time job even would give her enough to live on.
“It must be nice being rich…” Not when the riches became a prison. Maybe Angel was happy, but she wasn’t. And now she had a way out.
Joe sat down to think over the contents of the letter he’d just read and then tucked away safely in his pocket.
“Having looked at your father and his attitude to life, I can tell that it must have taken no little courage to embark upon your chosen course…”
“You forget yourself completely! No Edward Yeoman would ever demean himself by playing for tips! Begging! We have always paid our own way. You have brought shame upon the family name and you are no longer a son of mine!” And his brother and sister also turning their backs upon him.
His basement window looked out onto a factory courtyard. The only living thing in it was the ivy that climbed the wall. The tree had died a long time ago. It was raining, cold and sullen. The traffic noises and the mournful hoot of a passing goods train were instead of birdsong. It would be nice to be in the countryside again. And the name Harper’s Rest sounded like a good omen. He wasn’t a harper, but maybe he could learn to be a musician of sorts if he had somewhere to practise without someone pounding on the walls or ceiling to complain after the first five minutes.
“Be there by Christmas.” He’d better look up some trains. It was a good job Benjamin had thought to send the fare because he didn’t have two pennies to rub together.
She’d thought he loved her! She’d believed him, happily sunk her savings into the flower shop they were going to own and run together, happily worked there for the bare minimum “While they got it established”, watched the takings climb until it was showing a nice profit – and then he had turned round and told her he didn’t want her any more. And that she had no claim on the business: there was nothing in writing after all.
Abi had gone to see a solicitor and he’d confirmed her worst fears – and cost her the rest of her now-pitiful savings. The letter was a rescue. At least she’d have somewhere to live.
“I’m done with trusting men,” she said aloud, and surprised herself with the savagery in her voice.
Her mascara was running. She rubbed the palms of her hands over her eyes, which improved things a little. Through the window she could see her neighbour’s window box. She’d sold her the plants, potted it up for her. Well, I’m going far away from here and all these memories, Abi thought.
“There is a town nearby, but the house still remains in countryside. It was an inn for travellers, a stop on their journey…”
Countryside sounded good. She’d need to sell just about all that she owned, to pay her rent and her other bills, but she could probably do that.
She finally got off her bed. There was going to be a lot to do before she left, if she was to arrive there before Christmas. But she wasn’t going back to her family, so that they could say “I told you so”. It wasn’t that they’d not liked him – he was very charming. It was just that they hadn’t thought him the right sort of person to marry into the Frederick Yeoman clan.
“What are you doing outside my house?” Star demanded angrily.
“Your house?” Joe said. “I think you’ll find this is my house. What are you doing here?”
They had all arrived from the station at more or less the same time – and four separate taxi drivers were happily counting their fares.
“I think there must be some mistake…” Archie began hesitantly, but he was over-ruled flatly.
“This place is mine,” Abi said.
A lively squabble was breaking out between the other two. Archie groaned inwardly. He hated scenes. “Look,” he said, somewhat despairingly to the stony-faced blonde who was regarding him with outright hostility. “I had a letter from my great great uncle Benjamin Yeoman: from his lawyer actually…”
“So did I. And I’m texting him right now to tell him that I’m here and so the house is mine.”
The others whipped out their phones as well. “Two can play at that game,” Star snapped.
And then they all stopped and stared at the reply that pinged straight back at them.
“So you have arrived at Harper’s Rest. I remember it so well – a beautiful and welcoming home. My hope is that you will all..”
“All!” Star said, voicing what they were all thinking.
“…find it to be that for you as well. The quarrel between my brothers upset me deeply: I had always looked up to them. But I was unable to persuade them to reconcile, unable to bring peace. My hope is that with your generation, I might be able to achieve what I could not do then. And I also hope that in this lovely old home, you find the refuge and the comfort that I once found there.”
“The outbuildings have been rented out until very recently, so they may be in slight disrepair. However, I have been paying a caretaker to look after the home up until the beginning of this month, so that should be in good order for you. I also instructed him to stock up the fridge and freezer and buy in some staples, so you should be able to have an adequate Christmas meal together.
By Christmas next year, should you all be still living here in amity rather than enmity, and should the house be well-cared for, then the house will be yours equally between you, to sell, or keep as you wish, the proceeds to be equally shared between you. Should one or more of you wish to buy the others out, my lawyer has instructions to make that possible by way of a mortgage on the property.”
What fridge? What freezer? What food? Star stood in the kitchen, or what she presumed had been the kitchen, furious at the absent and crooked caretaker. By common consent, they’d brought their bags inside, ready to look round – and found this.
“That caretaker totally ripped off this Benjamin guy,” Star said aloud, angrily. “This place hadn’t been looked after at all. Why didn’t he mend the windows, keep it clean? And I see no fridge, no freezer, no food, nothing. He’s stolen everything.”
Joe wasn’t going to give Star the satisfaction of hearing him agree with her, but she was right. This should have been a really nice bedroom, light and spacious. Instead it was cold and damp, thanks to the broken windows. And he preferred his snow outside, thank you very much.
Archie, still downstairs, agreed with Star and said so out loud.
There were broken panes of glass in these windows too, and the snow was acting like a kind of reverse radiator. And he strongly suspected that there had been a very nice fireplace here that had been ripped out and sold.
And yet…This room would once have been lovely. The proportions were right. And it did feel peaceful. Harper’s Rest. He needed rest.
This house was lovely and loved once, Abi thought. And the gardens. And it’s been abandoned and neglected. She could feel the house and gardens calling out to her, asking to be restored, rescued. But we can’t stay here, can’t live here, not with the house in this state. We’ll literally freeze to death.
“So what are we going to do instead?” Abi asked the others.
“I’m not going back,” Star said ferociously.
“Me neither,” said Archie sadly. “But there’s the outbuildings at the side. We haven’t looked at those yet.”
“It’s a stable!” Abi said, surprised.
“Benjamin did say that this was an inn back in the Elizabethan times. Travellers needed somewhere to park their horses.” Joe said.
“It’s got a stove,” Star pointed out. “And the windows aren’t broken. And it’s not as cold as the house. I wonder why not? What’s up above?”
Archie climbed the ladder and poked his head into the loft. “Hay,” he called down. “They mustn’t have bothered to take it with them. And it’s a good insulator…”
“So if we can find some wood for the stove and something to eat and some way of cooking it…” Joe began.
“There’s a firepit outside,” Star snapped. “Didn’t you notice it?”
“…then we might make it through the night. But there’s another three hundred and sixty-five to go after that.”
“Well, I’m going to try,” Star said defiantly. “You can give up if you like – typical Edward Yeoman behaviour – but I’m not going to. At least we have a stable to sleep in…”
“Even if there are no habitable rooms at the inn,” Archie finished from above their heads. “I’m going to try too.”
“We’d better see if there’s a woodpile outside,” Abi said. “We need the warmth.”
Download the house and family here: https://www.thesims3.com/assetDetail.html?assetId=9490916
Basic renovacy rules here: https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/920867/the-renovacy-challenge-a-new-and-short-challenge/p1
Special rules for this renovacy:
Star can have a part-time job. As usual, no-one else can have a job.
All those windows have holes in them! They need fixing. You can renovate then for the usual 25 simoleons (make a donation on the mailbox) and when they've been mended, you can move the snow from under them. It is recolourable, so you can always change it to blue to look like water if you're still on with them after the winter.
The house has to be restored within a year. If you have seasons, you can set the seasons to any length you like, but each season must be the same length. However, winter is already one third over, so if you’re playing, say 13 day seasons, then you would set winter for 9 days, the other three for 13 each, and then have a spare 4 days of winter still to take after autumn.
If you don’t have seasons, then set yourself a time limit! The shorter, the harder.
If I want to see Great Aunt Addie now, I have to go at dawn. And not just because of my day work, but because there’s so often other people around. The outside of the church is restored, the scaffolding’s all down, and now it’s all about the inside.
“Marianna’s windows are beautiful, aren’t they?” I said, enjoying the early light coming through them.
“Remember what it looked like when I first arrived here?” This time she definitely shuddered.
“I did a good job though, didn’t I? As much as I could manage, anyway.”
“Tell me some more about the town. I see the changes here, but not in other places.”
“It’s progressed,” I said happily. “Apart from some of the fencing still needing replacing. It’s green and lovely, and I even saw butterflies there the other day.”
“I’ll tell you where else looks amazing – Grandpa Geo’s garden already. I can see it from my garden, and it’s beautiful – there were great swathes of daffodils earlier on, and he keeps saying, That’s just the beginning. Wait and see what I’m going to do next. Georgie says you can’t move in the house for plants in pots everywhere.”
I’ve never known Addie to be so interested in the town before. Usually it’s people – me, Lachlan (which I totally get) and Blake (which I don’t) and then Old Tench, Bess Preston, Artie and now Grandpa Geo, because they were some of the last children she taught when they were young. But today’s quiz was all about place: the Sears Roebuck Natoma house that we were doing up as a museum piece, how were the plans for repairing the ones on the either side of it going on…?
She was a bit sad when I told her that the old furniture store had been turned into something else, but perked up when I told her that one half of it was going to be a realtor.
“But what will people do for furniture?”
“What about the school?”
“…and this year they’re growing herbs, strawberries and edible flowers. Last year it was pumpkins and sunflowers. Richard and Janet Preston were busy telling me about all the different insects that are appearing in the insect houses – and Barnabas, Patience says, is obsessed with making compost. Although she suspects that he just likes an excuse to get really dirty!”
“There are two chess tables now outside, and a library with computers in it! No internet yet, of course, but all the older ones are learning how to touch-type, and they write stories, do maths puzzles and all sorts of other things on it.”
Or maybe not. Maybe she was just thinking, because after a while she started talking again.
Addie almost sounded…sad? Nostalgic? Regretful? Very un-Addie – I’m used to Miss Super-Brisk. Did she regret what she never had? But she answered that question with her next non-breath.
“Some of my old school friends used to ask, didn’t I wish I’d got married and had children of my own. What they didn’t understand was that every child in the town was my child when they were in my classroom. And I taught their children, and their children’s children…When I finally retired, I was never lonely. So many ex-pupils, so many people I knew and who knew me…”
“And then the town died and everyone left.”
