Chapter One #2
There isn’t much to explore. One up, one down.
The ground-floor room is squarish, the ceiling low – not so low I have to stoop, but I’ll need to watch my head on the door frame.
Upstairs, I find the luxury of a double bed.
The sheets are white, with a pink flower pattern on thin, faded fabric.
The headboard is pushed up against the chimney breast – that’ll be welcome warmth come winter.
A number of cushions with needlepoint designs are scattered about.
They all show hares performing various antics: jumping, boxing, sleeping.
The furniture looks old, scuffed and warped with poor use.
When I open the wardrobe to hang up my clothes, there are deep scores in the wood on the inside, all the way round the bottom third of the door – rodents, I assume. Bloody marvellous.
From one of the bedroom windows, I spot squares of illumination that I guess come from the manor building. We’re closer neighbours than I’d imagined, me and Lady Lascy. Maybe I’ll pop round for a cup of tea, I joke to myself.
As I lie down to sleep, I’m struck by the change in soundscape.
No women moving about, no rush of late-night traffic or drunken shouts of merrymakers staggering home.
Instead, the creaks and groans of the cottage settling, the rattle of the wind.
Unfamiliar animal noises from outside. Then a scritch-scritch-scritch.
Maybe from the wardrobe. Maybe the attic.
A creature scampering with little claws on wood.
Moving in the ceiling above me – almost the sound of a rattling tin.
Not so different from Cardiff after all. Wherever you go, there’s always vermin.
The next morning, Tom takes me on a tour of the gardens. Even so early in the morning, the day is shaping up beautifully, with an open, cloudless sky the blue of cornflowers. A light breeze carries the cow-smell of manure from over the fields. Insects hum lazily at the edge of hearing.
I’m back in my overalls and work boots today, one of Dad’s straw sun hats on my head.
The familiar garments feel like a sigh of relief.
Gladys is one of my best friends and I respect her opinion to no end, but that doesn’t mean I have to listen every time.
The fact of the matter is, I’m here to be a gardener, not a secretary.
They aren’t going to care what I wear, so long as I can keep the plants alive.
Harfold’s grounds cover around forty acres, including the crop of woodland I had to walk through last night.
‘Used to be closer on three hundred when I was a lad,’ says Tom, ‘but then Lord Lascy sold a lot of it off. That’s Henry Lascy, her Ladyship’s late father.
Lots of tenant farmers lost their homes and their livelihoods overnight, as it were.
’ He shakes his head in disapproval. ‘Nasty business.’
‘Mmm,’ I say, noncommittal. Better settle in before I plunge too deep into local politics. I’m here to keep my head down, after all.
‘But yours was never a farm cottage,’ Tom continues. ‘That’s always been for the head gardener.’
From this, I take that there must once have been a team of gardeners. And now it’s just me and Tom to look after all this glorious, sweeping land.
The head gardener’s cottage is on the edge of the estate, a stream marking its border from open farms beyond, hills speckled with white and brown sheep.
A little way off to the left, more of Harfold village – a few roofs, the church tower.
On the other side, the cottage backs on to an overgrown paddock.
‘Horses, is it?’ I ask, nodding at what looks like a coach house and stables.
A shadow in Tom’s expression. ‘Not for a couple of years.’
We cross the east lawn, following an uphill slope till we catch the main driveway. Scruffy yews line its sides, their original shapes almost obscured by summer growth.
‘They’ll need doing, then,’ I say.
‘Feel free to be as artistic as you like.’ Tom has a cheeky, boyish smile that peels the decades from his face.
He’s not too bad a sort, I don’t think. Reminds me a bit of Mam – the nose for gossip.
So long as he stays interested in other people’s business and not mine, we’ll be right as rain with each other.
Up the drive, I finally get my first proper sight of the manor.
I don’t know enough about architecture to date it, but I think it’s a good age.
Georgian, possibly. The main body is a heavy oblong of red brick, decorated with lighter stone detail that oozes the aura of Old England.
Ivy clambers up its face to give it a bearded look.
The hipped roof is done in dark slate, with mouldings underneath it all carved in elaborate designs.
Everything would be beautifully symmetrical, down to the pair of slender chimney stacks, if it weren’t for an extra wing that stretches back on the west side.
Such an odd, lopsided shape for a building.
And, while the window and door frames are painted a cheery white, as we approach I see the cracks and chips, the dirt and lichen.
It’s one of those buildings that looks less and less impressive the closer you stand.
‘That’s us.’ Tom nods. ‘Nora’s in town this morning to put the orders in, but you’ll meet her later on. My wife, that is,’ he adds, when he sees me looking blank at the name.
‘And the other staff?’ I ask.
Tom chuckles. ‘It’s just us.’
‘Only the two of you to look after this whole place, you mean?’ Can’t keep the incredulity from my voice.
‘These days? Yup.’
‘And just her Ladyship living here?’
Tom nods. ‘Mr Reacher is often about, though, when he’s not in London.’
I look up at the gleaming windows. Lady Lascy must rattle round in all that space like the last match in the box.
The Allens’ wing overlooks a kitchen garden, the well in one corner and a henhouse in the other.
A hatch against the main wall that I guess must lead into a cellar.
‘You’ll help yourself to eggs, mind?’ Tom insists.
‘Nora will do us some lunch later.’ He nods in the direction of the back door. ‘Just come on through at two o’clock.’
There are several garden rooms beyond the kitchen plot: a paved terrace at the front of the house, followed by a rose garden, water garden and statue garden.
A crusty potting shed. A vast greenhouse plump with glossy tomatoes and massive, knobbled cucumbers.
And still, there’s more. Tom leads me up a set of uneven steps to the west lawn, a level rectangle that must be perfect for games.
As if to confirm this, a weathered blue summer house is stacked full of ancient-looking croquet hoops, tennis racquets and folding chairs.
But the grass is too long for anything of the sort at the moment, growing over my ankles.
A walled orchard separates the games lawn from the main road: a swarm of stately trees, twisted and knotted, heavy with the apples and pears and quinces of the season.
There are already windfalls clogging the grass underfoot.
The sweet, heady smell of decaying fruit.
Finally, right at the end of the grounds, Tom leads me to a sizeable lake and boathouse.
‘How big did you say your last place was?’ he asks, dabbing his neck with a hanky.
It’s warming up now the late summer sun has climbed a way in the sky.
I try to remember what I’d put in my application letter, if I’d even mentioned it. Another strange oversight from Reacher not to have verified my references, but then I wouldn’t be here if he’d thought to. ‘A bit smaller than this,’ I say in the end.
Tom’s eyes have drifted to a nearby coot, bobbing its head up and down in the water as it looks for food.
‘It’s a lot, mind,’ he says, ‘but Lady Lascy doesn’t want anything fancy doing with it.
’ He rummages in his pockets, pulls out a bit of bread crust. ‘It was all Bruce could do to keep up with the watering, these past months.’
It’s been an endlessly dry, hot summer, with record-breaking low rainfall. The entirety of Britain has been stinking to high heaven.
‘He’d been here for donkey’s years,’ Tom goes on, ‘but his rheumatism’s too much for it now.
He’s moved in with his sister down the village.
Nice woman. Bit of a drinker, though.’ He chucks the bread out with an under-arm throw, so it plops down a few feet from the hungry bird.
‘I’m sure he wouldn’t mind having a talk, if you’ve got any questions. It’s the white cottage by the church.’
‘I’ll look out for it,’ I say, though I doubt I’ll be making social calls round the village any time soon. I’m here to get away from the judgement of others, not to invite any more of it.
Lunch is in the Allens’ quarters. Two o’clock – Lady Lascy keeps late hours, and so must we.
My stomach’s growling loud enough to wake the dead by the time my pocket watch has ticked its way around.
I don’t know how the Allens put up with it.
I scrub the dirt from my face and hands, run a brush through my hair.
I’ve only been doing a spot of light weeding this morning, but I already look a sight.
The back entrance has its own little porch and a knocker that looks – again – like a jumping rabbit or hare.
I’m starting to think someone round here has a fondness for the creatures.
When I come closer, I find the door’s been left open a crack, propped with a stopper.
From inside, I catch the faint sound of singing – a woman’s voice, breathy and high.
After a line or so, I recognize the hymn as ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’.
I peer inside, nudging the door. ‘Hello?’ I call. ‘Tom?’