Chapter 12
CHAPTER 12
As soon as Roshni, George and the boys left, Stonemore moved smoothly into fete-preparation gear.
I had to give Tally credit; she really knew how to imagine a party into life. Despite the fact that it wasn’t even remotely her job (Fi had been perfectly happy to arrange everything), Tally decided she would lead on designing the anniversary festivities and threw herself into the task with immense enthusiasm. Different kinds of stalls and refreshments, a photo booth, and an ice-cream van (frankly overly optimistic, given it would only be the beginning of April).
There were only two drawbacks. The first was, Tally was very much an ideas person rather than a physical work person. This meant that she felt having the ideas was the most difficult part, rather than actually putting them into practice. So whilst she loved brainstorming, mood-boarding and – slightly more practically – picking up the phone and ordering people around, she didn’t enjoy sourcing tablecloths, raising purchase orders, or doing anything that might ruin her manicure. If I passed one set of gloomy volunteers attempting to tie the ends of countless shrivelled balloons, I passed a hundred.
The second drawback was that she had no desire to keep to budget. So when Fi, who was in charge of our finance system, flatly refused to raise a purchase order for a chocolate fountain (‘think of the midges, Tally’), we later found her whacking it on the estate credit card that she had nicked from Fi’s desk. In the corporate world this would have been a sackable offence, instead lovely Fi rolled her eyes and hid the card elsewhere to prevent future issues. However, when someone telephoned asking for Tally vis-à-vis the reindeer she wanted to hire, Fi took matters into her own hands. ‘A bloody reindeer?’ she said. ‘It’s April!’
‘But I’ve always wanted one,’ wailed Tally.
Fi, tight-lipped, marched off to see Jamie.
This was my cue to leave the office. In the fortnight since Roshni, George and the boys departed, Jamie and I had managed to avoid each other entirely. And life had been better. I’d been mapping the different habitats on the estate and taking soil samples. I’d finished the first draft of the rewilding plan for Stonemore Estate. Callum had submitted it to Jamie and the following morning he approved it by email. So it was time to start speaking to contractors about the gentle thinning of fir and spruce in the woodland, and the process of introducing beavers into the estate was already underway. In my downtime, I’d watched Forestcam, read a book a week, and mastered some of the healthy recipes I’d always wanted to try (crispy mushrooms in silky tofu sauce, anyone?).
Life was calm, life was quiet, life was good. Even if my flirtation with Callum had faded to practically nothing.
A week before the fete, Fi told me Tally had had her knuckles well and truly rapped by Jamie, who had marched into our office sixty seconds after I’d left it to work at Belheddonbrae and said, ‘What the hell is that?’ in response to the two foot by six foot mood board Tally had created for her ideal party. ‘No more spending’ had been the gist, ‘and stop upsetting the volunteers. I heard you made Pat cry because she couldn’t blow up a balloon.’
You’d have thought all of this would have cowed Tally, but she’d fully recovered by the time I’d returned, completely unrepentant and sharper than ever.
‘Where have you been?’ she asked.
‘Working,’ I said, gesturing to my mud-smeared jeans and the nettle leaves stuck to my fleece.
‘Humph,’ she snorted. ‘Well, just to let you know, you’re going to be on the candy floss stall.’ She bowled out, leaving a cloud of Chanel perfume in her wake.
I switched on Forestcam. ‘Candy floss?’ I said to Fi. ‘How did that get through?’
‘Under the wire,’ said Fi, and typed an email, striking the keys particularly hard.
Of course, the weather went against us. At 9.15 on the day of the fete, 45 minutes before opening, the ice-cream van gave one little jingle in a minor key and the heavens released a month’s worth of rain. Which could have been predicted because the weather forecast had been telling us that, only Tally had chosen to put her hands over her ears and say ‘la-la-la’ every time it was mentioned.
But it wasn’t that bad. Fi and I decided to move most of the amusements into Stonemore’s vast Neo-Classical entrance hall, with its marble floors and honey-coloured stone interior, which included two vast fluted columns and a staircase. At least it was well lit, thanks to a vast lightwell in the middle of the room. ‘We’re setting up in here,’ I announced to the massed volunteers’ sad faces.
‘You’re not going to make me put paper chains together, are you?’ said one as she passed Fi.
‘Absolutely not,’ said Fi, with her brightest smile.
Tally had disappeared, in mourning for her grand plans, so it was Fi and I who directed the set-up in the hall, whilst doing our fair share of lugging furniture around.
‘The carousel’s a dead loss,’ said Fi, just before 10am, ‘and we can’t do any of the throwing games inside, but there are a few things, aren’t there?’
I looked around: cake stall, tombola, crafts made out of ‘found objects’, tie-dye clothing, second-hand books, guess the weight of the sweet jar, and a few other things – including, of course, my candy floss stall, which was manned by a gnomic man called Jim dressed in a pink uniform to match his product. ‘I do not do cash handling,’ he said flatly, on arrival.
‘That’s me!’ I said. He did not smile.
The ice-cream man had decided to open up his van outside the main door. ‘People always want ice cream,’ he said cheerfully, rain dripping off his white peaked cap.
‘I think it looks good,’ I said, and Fi nodded and went to update the socials to let the village know it was still happening. But the rain was still falling so hard that the sound echoed around the austere marble-floored hall, and everyone was looking glum, when a rattling sound made a few of us turn.
It was Jamie. He was pushing a tea trolley laden with several teapots, a coffee pot, a milk jug, and plates of biscuits and pastries. He also had Hugo with him, on a tight lead, although the little beagle was definitely eyeing up the goodies.
‘You all need to keep your strength up,’ announced Jamie. ‘Come on, tuck in before we open the doors.’
I have never heard a collective sound of joy quite like it – half sigh, half contented babble. Everyone got properly stuck in, Jamie handed out steaming mugs of tea and coffee, and within a couple of minutes the gloomy volunteers who’d prepared themselves for a day of being shouted at by Tally were smiling, laughing and chatting.
Jim went to get tea, but I stood hesitantly by the candy floss stall, noticing how Jamie knew everyone’s name, chatting to people naturally, young and old alike. And this time, he didn’t look posh, or different: his navy cashmere jumper was worn thin at the elbows and his olive canvas trousers were workwear, as though he was about to go and do maintenance work on one of the dust-sheeted rooms. There was nothing showy about him as he smiled at a joke Pat made and handed someone else a cup of tea. Hugo wagged his tail as people spoke to him and fed him fragments of biscuit. I wasn’t used to this version of Jamie, and it threw me; I was so used to having my defences up.
Pat appeared by my side, carrying tea and the most enormous chocolate-sprinkled croissant I’d ever seen.
‘Jamie says you’re looking peaky and need this,’ she said. ‘I told him you and Fi had moved all the furniture for us.’
‘Thank you.’ I took it gratefully. She smiled, patted me on the shoulder, and went to recommence stroking Hugo.
I looked up, and my eyes met Jamie’s. ‘Thank you,’ I mouthed, and the slight smile that crossed his face made me look away.
I took a large bite of the croissant, which was all buttery flakes and dark, moist chocolate. It was good. Very good.
‘Doors are open.’ Fi returned from updating socials. Her hair was slightly damp and she had three pink wafers in her hand. ‘Tally’s hiding in the office. She says she’ll come out if more than one hundred people cross the threshold.’
I saw a volunteer click in the first two. When I looked back, Jamie, Hugo and the tea trolley had gone.
Jamie returned later, because people expected to see the lord of the manor, but he skirted round my stall. Probably for the best, I thought to myself, as Jim wrangled several fistfuls of candy floss onto a stick for a beaming four-year-old and I took payment. I couldn’t get over how much these people loved candy floss!
Are you coming for candy floss? I messaged Callum.
Sorry, I’m busy. Save me some though.
A couple of hours in and Dorrie on the front door had clicked in 150 people. I didn’t even know 150 people lived in the village. ‘I was good with the hashtags,’ said Fi, as she whizzed past with a clipboard. ‘And people will come from miles around just to visit without paying the entrance fee. Everyone loves a free nose around a stately home.’
‘But the other rooms are locked off, aren’t they?’ I said, gazing at Jim’s violent churning of the candy floss.
‘Yep, but that doesn’t matter for some people, as long as they can say they’ve been here. And if they meet the earl, they get bonus points on social media.’ She nodded in the direction of a group of thirty-something women who were taking a group selfie with Jamie.
Richard appeared in the doorway carrying two bulging shopping bags. ‘I told her not to click me in, because I don’t count,’ he said, smiling. ‘Jam doughnut and sticky bun delivery for the tea stall.’
‘Thank you, thank you!’ cried Fi, embracing him. ‘We’re completely out of carbs. And of course you count.’
They went off together. It was still raining, but someone had turned the lights on and it gave the room a warmer feel, helped by the low-level sound of people chatting and laughing, the clink of teacups, and a few excited children’s voices (all hopped up on candy floss). It was a large, grand, austere space, but it suddenly felt cosy, as if it had been waiting for all these people to fill it.
A few minutes later there was a brief lull in candy floss sales and I noticed Tally had drifted into the room. She stopped to speak to Pat, who uncharacteristically gave her a disrespectful two-finger salute. I stifled a laugh – Tally’s captive workforce were rebelling. I caught her eye and beckoned her over.
‘See,’ I said. ‘It’s going fine.’
She looked a bit sheepish. ‘Maybe.’ She took a breath. ‘I’m sorry I bailed on you, Anna. I may have overreacted.’ She always went extra posh when she felt uncomfortable. I felt a twinge of affection for her that I expressed through a playful shove.
‘Well, I’m glad you’re here. You can take over for ten minutes while I have a break. Or longer, if you like.’
She shook her head. ‘No, I don’t do customer-facing.’
‘Yes, you do. I’ve been on my feet for hours and I need a break.’ I took my apron off and put it on the table, then nodded my farewell to Jim. ‘I’ll be back in ten.’ I charged off before she could say another word.
I cadged a cup of tea from the refreshments stall and slipped down one of the staff corridors that came out at the orangery. Phyllis, one of the volunteers, was lying down with her legs up the wall. ‘Don’t mind me, love, my ankles are a bit swollen,’ she said when I stopped dead on the threshold.
‘I can go, if you want some privacy?’ I said.
She said not to and we chatted a little whilst I sipped my tea. Phyllis was usually a tour guide and she knew Stonemore inside out. She told me about the history of the orangery – a Neo-Gothic construction one of the Victorian earls had built for his wife.
‘Really?’ I said. ‘It seems strange to have an orangery. Not quite the climate for it.’
‘She wanted one, so he built it for her,’ she said. ‘Romantic, isn’t it? You should see their tomb in the mausoleum. The inscription on it is wonderful. Here I lie, beneath grey forbidding skies/Lost in the eternal present of your eyes .’
I bit my lip, and looked at the rain, drumming against the windows. ‘Hmm,’ I said. ‘So much to learn about this place.’
She said she’d be happy to tell me more at any time, and left me to finish my tea (‘I’d best get back to name the teddy bear or Joy will have my guts for garters’).
I glanced at my watch. Ten minutes and counting. But it felt so luxurious to be here, the rain rattling against the windows, the pale light streaming through the Neo-Gothic tracery. I sat down on one of the Victorian cast-iron chairs and savoured my last few sips of tea.
‘Don’t tell me you’ve sold out of candy floss.’
I almost dropped my cup. It was Jamie. Standing in the doorway, his hands in his pockets.
‘You almost gave me a heart attack,’ I said. Obviously, I was in flight or fight; I was so used to arguing with him, I went on high alert the moment he walked into a room. I made a mental note to re-institute the meditation practice I’d been attempting to establish.
‘It’s good to have a break, in the quiet,’ he said, with feeling.
‘Too many selfies with visitors?’
‘Yes.’ He smiled. ‘The last one told me she would make an age-appropriate countess.’
I couldn’t help myself. ‘I suppose you are getting on. What are you, thirty-five? Maybe she thought you might be open to offers.’
‘Thanks,’ he said tightly. ‘Always good to be slapped down.’ The way he held my gaze with his piercing blue eyes set my heart spinning like a worry bead.
‘Where’s Hugo?’ I valiantly tried to steer the conversation onto safe topics.
‘He’s snoring on the sofa upstairs. He was getting overwhelmed by the kids. He loves them, but after getting poked in the eye for the third time I think he fancied some alone-time too.’
I gave a cry of laughter and he smiled. But when our eyes met, I couldn’t hold his gaze. Instead, I focused on the rain falling in rivers down the glass.
‘Anna,’ he said softly, sitting down opposite me. ‘Are you okay?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘After the horse thing. I was terrified.’ He blinked, changed direction. ‘Thought you might sue me for broken bones or concussion or something.’
‘Of course not,’ I said stoutly. ‘I normally behave as though I’m slightly concussed anyway.’
‘Good to know.’
I smiled blandly.
‘Looks like that scratch is healing, anyway,’ he said. And he reached out and brushed my face with his thumb.
At his touch, a feeling trembled into life in me that I could not name. A connection that made me catch my breath.
‘I’m glad you’re safe,’ he murmured.
‘Employee safety is very important,’ I murmured back. He was close to me now, and I could smell the fresh air scent of his skin. It felt as though my skin was humming. His hand was still on my face, the lightest touch. What is happening , I thought, as our eyes locked on to each other, enough electricity in our gazes to flip the trip switch of the house. Everything was tingling at the softness of his touch as he ran his index finger down the length of my face and tipped up my chin. Moreover, I didn’t want to move away. I wanted to move towards him. When his hand gently brushed against the back of my neck I felt as though my veins were filled with liquid honey.
There was an enormous boom, as though someone had set a cannon off, and the room vibrated with a techno beat that sent us leaping apart. Someone in the hall had got the ancient boom box working and I thought I was going to have a heart attack. Again.
‘Woah,’ I gasped and started laughing.
Jamie had let go of me. He looked dazed, but he wasn’t smiling; it was as though someone had slapped him.
‘I apologise.’ He got to his feet and stood soldier-straight.
My heart was rattling in my chest a ridiculous amount. ‘Yes, best get out there,’ I said. ‘There’ll be some potential countesses queuing up.’
The look of horror on his face silenced me. ‘I’m joking,’ I said forlornly.
‘That was unprofessional of me, Anna.’ He cut through any attempt at humour. ‘Could we – forget that happened?’
My heart dropped in my chest. Really? I fought the urge to breathe on my hand and check I didn’t smell of swamp or something. I’d been just as blindsided as him, but the way he was trying to get away was pure bad manners.
‘No problem,’ I said, in a small voice.
‘Great,’ he nodded, looking anywhere but at my face. ‘I hope the rest of the day goes well. Make sure you sell all that candy floss.’
Luckily he wasn’t looking at my face so he couldn’t see the bewilderment painted across it as he disappeared out of the door.
‘You’ve been twenty-seven minutes !’ hissed Tally, as I staggered back to the candy floss stall, feeling very much like a Victorian maiden who might faint at any moment. I stood there for a moment, my face burning at the memory of Jamie scuttling back through the halls of the house as though I’d blown a raspberry in his face. The realisation was dawning on me: I had definitely wanted to kiss him. I’d been pretty sure he’d wanted to kiss me. And now, kissing him or slapping him was even.
‘ Anna ! You left me for ages!’ Tally’s voice was like a pail of iced water over the head.
‘And you’ve done fine,’ I said, observing the empty candy floss box and Jim’s thunderous expression; it was clear he and Tally had not got on. ‘Do you think the children of Northumberland have had enough sugar for now? I can go and help with teas. They look a bit inundated.’ As I glanced over, Pat mouthed ‘help’ in my direction. She wasn’t the only one who needed help. I did.
‘Fine,’ said Tally. ‘No one’s listening to me anyway.’
I felt like pointing out to her that she’d abandoned her project when things got tough. ‘It’s worked out well though, hasn’t it?’ I said.
‘I suppose,’ she said.
‘Why don’t you go and get yourself an ice cream?’ I tried not to sound patronising, but failed.
‘I might, actually,’ she said to my surprise, brightening up.
I released Jim from his purgatory then marched over to Pat and started to help with tea and scones. They’d been spreading the butter too thick (‘spread on, then spread off’, my mother used to tell me, when we were struggling to pay the gas bill), so they’d almost run out. I set about changing this and also halved the amount of jam being given out to punters. It turned out my working-class economising skills were useful at Stonemore after all.
‘That Tally was eating all of the candy floss,’ Pat said, nudging me.
‘Can I have some sugar with my tea?’ said an elderly gentleman. ‘I did ask before.’
‘Of course,’ I said brightly, as Pat raised her eyebrows. Glancing up, I saw Fi and Richard disappearing off out of the front door, hand in hand and giggling like teenagers. It was so good to see them looking carefree. Fi had recently been wearing that tired, worn look that nights spent worrying gives you. I knew they were embarking on another cycle of IVF.
‘I said coffee, not tea,’ said another woman, who had a small child hanging off her arm, begging for more candy floss.
‘Sorry!’ I got her a fresh cup and poured her a coffee.
‘Hey, trouble.’
I looked up from my daze.
Callum was there, smiling, damp-haired from the rain and with a twinkle in his eye. ‘Thought I’d drop in. How’s it going?’
I gave a little huff of relief. ‘Good, thanks. Tea? On the house?’
‘Don’t mind if I do. How are you, Pat?’
‘All the better for seeing you.’ She winked at him.
I bustled round, getting Callum his tea. Then I felt someone’s eyes on me.
Jamie, in a brief respite from greeting people and having selfies taken, was leaning against the wall and watching me. I lifted my chin and carried on working as though I hadn’t seen him, smiling brightly at Callum as he took a bite out of a biscuit and offered me the other half. Damn it, I even let him post it into my mouth then almost choked on it as Lucinda streaked past, clearly in pursuit of her earl.
I heard a door slam and when I looked back, Jamie was gone.
I could actually hear the blood thundering in my ears. Honestly, with these cardiac symptoms I should probably go and see a doctor.
Goal of the week , I wrote in my journal that night: try not to have panic-palpitations every time Jamie walks into the room .