The Country Escape (2 page)

Fearless in her determination to protect the animals, Kat had never contemplated giving up on Lake Farm. She believed that the sanctuary could eventually take in old and abandoned animals in need of care locally, but she still had a lot to prove. Keeping it running was about day to day survival, and this winter had been harsh. She was aware
that the jury remained out on her suitability as a farmer – her sheep-handling skills had reduced James Stevens, the debonair vet, to tears of laughter – but nobody could fault her tenacity.

Driving out through the woods that divided the estate’s old hunting grounds from its farmland, she got tantalizing glimpses of the big house she had grown so familiar with during her time there as Constance’s
nurse.

The stately pile had never been given a precise title – hall, manor, house or castle; it was simply Eardisford, which often caused confusion because the village that abutted its park shared the name. The sub-division to Upper and Lower distinguished the local community from the main house, and many of its cottages were still tied to the estate.

The Tudor origins of Eardisford
remained on show in its half-timbered courtyard, but its east-facing front was a serious Jacobean makeover, which had added vast wings and an extra floor topped with a lantern tower, along with Dutch gables, corner turrets and an elaborate quoined, strapworked porch. The Georgians had tarted it up more, the Victorians had twiddled with Gothic touches, and a party-loving Edwardian had almost burned
the lot down, wiping out one wing along with the original fifteenth-century chapel. The house remained, though, a splendid showcase of the best of British building artistry, framed by thousands of acres of parkland, gardens, farms, woodland and the erstwhile feudal village.

The Eardisford Estate had been owned by the Mytton family for several centuries. Its last chatelaine, Constance, had
remained there until her death, having outlived her husband, Ronnie, who had added ‘Gough’ to the family name.

Kat’s enduring image of Constance was at the first wassail she’d attended in the Eardisford orchards. Constance had not witnessed the ceremony in more than a decade but had insisted that her nurse must enjoy the show and that she would accompany her. Wrapped up against the frost
in an ancient fur coat, several checked blankets and three dogs warming her knees, she’d arrived in grand fashion in the old golf buggy, which she complained that Kat drove far too slowly.

Now a lump rose in her throat as she remembered the nonagenarian joyfully spiking the wassailing cider with fifty-year-old calvados fetched up from the hall cellars, the golf cart weighed down with bags
of mince pies and sausage rolls to hand around, as well as her ubiquitous oxygen cylinders. Constance had enjoyed the evening tremendously, telling everyone she was looking forward to coming again next year.

Instead, the toughest and funniest patient Kat had ever worked with had contracted a chest infection the following autumn and died quietly while the village gathered around the giant
Bonfire Night pyre on the Green. Her five children had been at her bedside, drawn back from all corners of the world, and, as deaths went, it had been magnificently dignified and peaceful.

You’re not thinking about my death again, are you?
a voice demanded in her head.
How jolly morbid. And how many times have I told you what a bad lot that Hedges boy is? Frightful leftie. Brake!

Kat grinned as the car slid to a halt amid the leaf mulch and she jumped out to open a gate. She had known Constance for little more than a year, yet she’d been more inspired by her than anyone else she’d ever met; she still missed her terribly and often heard her voice in her head. Right now it was demanding to know what on earth she thought she was wearing:
You’re such a pretty girl, Katherine
(never ‘Kat’ – Constance had thought abbreviating names the height of ill manners),
but you have absolutely no idea how to make the best of your looks. I was exactly the same before I met Ronnie. I would have lived in jodhpurs if I could. Thank goodness he had exquisite taste, and would take me to London at the start of each season to pick out some new pieces. Every girl needs a Ronnie. We must
find you a real man, not a beardy weirdo with a vegetarian dog.

She wondered whether to risk the flooded ford track or the top one, which was on the private estate and Dair’s gamekeepers had been patrolling with border-guard vigilance all winter.

Dogs make far more reliable bed-warmers than men, and are much easier to kick off
, Constance lectured.
In fact, they’re absolutely essential
for preventing guests freezing to death in English country houses. You must lend your guest Maddie. Border terriers have terrifically warm coats
.

The elderly canine companions that had outlived Constance were now in Kat’s care. Of them all, her closest allies were the pair that their late mistress had stubbornly referred to as ‘the terriers’ although dachshund Daphne was technically more
hound (‘She behaves like a terrier and so I call her one, in the same way I called Edwina Mountbatten a boho leftie. It’s not just about breeding,’ Constance would say); there was also a contented old Labrador who divided his time between impersonating a hearth rug and a doormat, and a brace of over-bright lurchers who specialised in theft and escapology and preferred outdoor life. Kat had banished
all of them from the spare bedroom this week.

‘Dawn’s not a big dog fan.’

Why on earth did you invite her? Send her back. Better still, lend her the beardy weirdo.
Kat imagined she could hear the delighted barks of laughter now, so genuine and unstoppable, like naughty sneezes of amusement, particularly if she was feeling confessional after her six o’clock Glenfiddich.
In India,
we girls dreamed of marrying a charming army officer and returning to England to run a large country house and have families. As soon as we did, we longed to be back in the heat. Making a match is such a terribly difficult thing, isn’t it?

‘I’m not making a match, Constance. I’m free-ranging.’

As she pulled out of the narrow farm track on to the village lane, she waved at ageing
glamour-puss and sanctuary-committee stalwart Miriam, who was walking with local
roué
and hunting fanatic Frank Bingham-Ince, both carrying guns as casually as Sunday newspapers, dogs at their heels.

‘Pretty little thing. Still talks to herself non-stop, I see.’ Frank watched the car speed away. An inveterate flirt, the pepper-haired Lothario of the mounted field had a particular
weakness for redheads. ‘Heard she’s learning to ride. We must get her out with the Brom before the end of the season.’ He and Miriam were joint masters of the Brombury and Lemlow foxhound pack, known to all as ‘the Brom and Lem’.

Miriam, who had been successfully hunting hounds and husbands for at least thirty years and had plans to share more than just the mastership with Frank, wasn’t
about to let him jink on to another scent. ‘The girl’s not really a natural in the saddle, Frank. Would’ve packed it in months ago if it wasn’t for Constance insisting she had to learn as a part of the legacy. Besides, I can hardly see young Russ approving of her following hounds, can you?’

‘Ah, you’d be surprised.’ He gave a sardonic laugh. ‘He’s been following our hounds through Wednesday
country all season. Hadn’t you noticed? Of course, he calls it monitoring. Tell me, what is it about Russ Hedges that women find attractive?’ Frank’s teenage daughter’s highly inconvenient conversion to vegetarianism was down to a crush on the village renegade.

Miriam flicked back her silver blond mane, kept in a rigid Duchess of Cornwall pith helmet of flick-ups. ‘He’s terribly sexy for
an anti. And being with Kat lends him credibility. She’s far too good for him, of course.’ She sighed. ‘My godmother would have disapproved enormously, especially all that nonsense he spouts about hugging wildlife.’

‘Hope to God whoever buys Eardisford still lets the Brom and Lem hunt it,’ Frank said. ‘Oldest recorded coverts in Herefordshire – terrific fox country.’

‘To lay trails
through,’ Miriam reminded him, with a wise look.

Frank lowered his voice. ‘Is it really true there’s a buyer lined up?’

‘So I gather.’ Miriam batted her eyelashes at him as she stage-whispered, ‘
Cash.
The Big Five are ready to sign on the dotted, but naturally there’s still a lot of fuss about the Lake Farm covenant.’

There was a roar of diesel engine as Eardisford Estate
manager Dair Armitage blasted out of the track in his Range Rover, pulling up beside the dog walkers and buzzing down the nearside window. ‘Did you see Kat Mason drive past here?’ The upper part of his face was concealed as usual by a flat cap. A short, broad-shouldered Scot with a chin almost as wide as his neck, he was carrying a walkie-talkie in one hand from which a voice with a strong Herefordshire
accent was shouting, ‘Lost visual on Red Kitten. I repeat, I have lost visual on Red Kitten, over!’

‘We’ve seen nothing,’ Miriam said innocently.

‘If I catch her crossing estate land in a vehicle without permission again, she’s —’

‘Ah, Dair, just the man.’ Frank stepped forward with an ingratiating smile. ‘What are these rumours about a buyer for Eardisford?’

‘I’ve
been told nothing.’ Dair was typically brusque as he tilted back his head so that he could glare at them from beneath his cap. Then he spotted the guns.

‘I hope you’re not rough shooting on estate land?’

‘You know my godmother was always happy for me to take something for the pot occasionally.’ Miriam was indignant.

‘You won’t be able to do that now.’

‘So they’ve signed
already?’ she gasped. ‘Who is it? An oligarch?’

The cap was swiftly lowered. ‘A Seth. Into big game. But you didn’t hear it from me.’

‘Isn’t a Seth some sort of Egyptian god?’ asked Frank. ‘Is he Middle Eastern?’

‘Yorkshireman.’

The two-way radio crackled into life. ‘I now have visual on Brown Bear. Repeat, visual on Brown Bear. He is hanging round the pheasant hoppers.
Looks like he’s throwing Scampi Fries around.’

Dair bellowed like a furious Highland bull. He loathed Russ Hedges more than most, the smooth running of Eardisford’s commercial shooting and fishing interests being regularly undermined by the man’s vigilante activities. He buzzed up the window and drove off.

‘How thrilling.’ Miriam shivered. ‘Do you suppose the new owner’s single?’

‘You look fabulous! Your hair’s so long! And you’ve lost weight!’ Dawn managed three compliments as she burst off the train to gather Kat into a hug, then added the kindly backlash, ‘A bit too thin maybe,’ as she leaned back to study
her friend’s face. ‘Where’s the makeup? You’re so pale. Man, look at your hands! You
need
me!’

Kat laughed. ‘You look amazing too.’

‘Twelve months on the high seas, babe.’ Tall, curvaceous and currently bombshell blonde, Dawn was knock-out. She’d been back in England for a fortnight and the glowing Caribbean tan was not out of a bottle, the ultra-toned body shapelier than ever. With
the whitest of bleached teeth and longest of French manicures, she radiated bootyliciousness, although there was something odd about her usually grey eyes.

‘Are those coloured contact lenses?’ Kat asked.

‘Purple-tinted. Aren’t they great? They’re back on trend. Remember when we wore them first time round and blinked all night like we had conjunctivitis? These are much better – you
can even sleep in them. You wait till you see the turquoise ones. I brought them with me in case we go clubbing. I’ve got
the
most sensational new dress from Topshop. Man, this weather is biblical.’ She peered at the sheets of rain cascading down. ‘Hurricanes might hardly ever happen in Hertfordshire and Hampshire. As for Herefordshire, well… I still can’t believe you came out here because of
a typo.’

When Kat had first come to Eardisford she’d been so desperate to get out of Watford that she’d taken the first job she was offered, even though a form-filling blunder meant it was a hundred and fifty miles from her chosen area: Herefordshire had appeared instead of Hertfordshire on the nursing agency’s books. Before coming here, she’d never believed real villages filled with ancient
half-timbered houses existed beyond fairy tales, or night skies uninterrupted by light pollution. Rain, however, was a universal British staple.

‘You did bring boots and waterproofs, like I suggested?’ Kat asked anxiously. Turquoise lenses and Topshop dresses would offer scant protection against Lake Farm’s damp chill.

‘I’ll borrow something off you. I packed my old riding gear,
though. I can’t believe you’ve taken it up – you always said you preferred the gym. Remember that place I used to go to every week out near Chesham because I fancied the instructor? He was
lush
. Turned out to be gay. There’s a retail park there now. I miss my dressage.’

Kat wasn’t sure what Dawn would make of the sanctuary’s unrideable pensioners, blind Sid and his lame companion, or Sri,
with her curling ears and evil moods.

‘It’s mad I’ve not been to see you until now,’ she was saying, as they headed along the platform, dodging puddles, ‘but of course your boss had just died when I was on leave last year, and then there was all that fuss about the will and where you were going to live. All sorted now, though?’

‘Pretty much. The farm’s beautiful. I can’t wait for
you to see it.’

‘Shame you’re not in the big house any more – I was dying to have a butcher’s. Don’t suppose we can sneak in?’

‘It’s all closed up.’

‘I bet you know a way in. We’ll stick on a couple of hard hats, pretend we’re from the Endangered Bats Trust and no one’ll notice.’

‘I bet you’d be noticed.’ Kat laughed. ‘You really do look fantastic.’

‘I’ll show
you the pictures of the ship when we’re back at yours – I’ve got literally hundreds on iCloud.’

‘We’d better grab a coffee then.’ She steered away from the station car park. ‘There’s no phone signal or internet in the house, or anywhere in the village, really. Everyone on the estate uses walkie-talkies.’ Russ used his to listen to the gamekeepers in case they were tracking the wild boar
or planning an illegal badger cull, but they mostly seemed to discuss the contents of their sandwiches.

‘That’s bloody medieval.’ Dawn extended the handle of her shiny pink wheelie case and followed her across the road to a new café that had recently opened boasting fair-trade coffee and free WiFi. ‘On the cruise ship, I couldn’t see land for miles but still had crystal clear reception
and five megs connection.’

‘We’re too far from the exchange apparently.’ Kat ordered a flat white. ‘The villagers are clubbing together to get a transmitter on the church spire.’

Dawn eyed the waitress, purple eyes glittering. ‘Double half-caff, half-decaff skinny soy latte, and no foam.’

‘Sure.’ The waitress nodded, reaching for the soya milk.

‘All us spa girls drank
them on the liner,’ she told Kat, who knew it had been a test of yokelness: Dawn thought anything west of Heathrow was Wales.

‘We’re closer to London than you were in your floating five-star, you know.’ She affected a West Country accent as they found an empty table by the window.

‘Could have fooled me. If I’m still sitting on a moving train when I reach the last page of
OK!
I’ve
travelled beyond civilization. I could have flown to the Med faster.’ She looked out at the traffic whooshing by in the rain. ‘I miss having a car. I’ll get a new one when I’m sorted, but everything’s up in the air until we’ve sold the house.’

‘So you’re definitely selling?’

‘Prices are up again. Dave’s keen to get his cash out.’

When Dawn’s marriage had ended amicably but
painfully in formal separation, she and plumber Dave had rented out their little Victorian terrace in Watford’s town centre, unable to face the trauma of selling it.

Dawn was always determinedly upbeat about the break-up, claiming everybody had seen it coming for years – a direct contrast to Kat’s split from fiancé Nick, which had been as sudden as a car crash – but Kat still felt bad that
her friend had gone through it without her there as support, particularly when her Nascot Village beauty salon had gone bust after a huge hike in the rent not long afterwards.

Ever the optimist, Dawn had formed a plan to save money by working for a year on cruise ships so that she could buy out Dave’s share of the house, then set up as a mobile beauty therapist in an area where she already
had many contacts and old clients. The house was Dawn’s pride and joy, lavishly decorated to her colourful taste, with bright pink feature walls and statement furniture.

Beneath the glossy veneer, Dawn looked drained and sad. ‘Dave’s fed up of waiting, and I can’t afford to take on his share, even with the amount I’ve saved. The house is worth a lot more than we paid for it – trust us to
live in a recession-proof area. I need all my savings to buy equipment and set up the mobile business. I can’t face another cruise contract, Kat.’ She leaned forward and whispered, ‘It’s like working in a floating old people’s home. You know I joked I’d meet a rich husband? Well, I met hundreds, and their wives, average age seventy.’

‘You don’t want another husband yet!’ Kat feigned horror.
‘You’re the party girl, Dawn. Live a little. Play the field. Get divorced.’

‘Fair point.’ Dawn laughed. ‘It’s been two years since Dave and I split, but it feels like a lifetime. We’re going to get an internet divorce – it’s as easy as shopping on Ocado.’ The purple eyes glittered. Together for almost a decade, she and Dave were a long-term double act, but they’d grown so far apart in the
final years of their marriage that they’d been in separate orbits. Now she wanted to explore whole new galaxies. ‘I’ve moved back in now the tenants have gone so I can smarten it up a bit for viewings. Mum’s helping after a fashion. She’s bought a steam cleaner off QVC. It’s like a sauna in there most days. The sofa’s dripping wet and the wallpaper’s all falling off. She sends her love and asks
when you’re coming back to visit.’

‘Soon enough,’ Kat deflected, grateful to be spared an interrogation: Dawn had caught sight of her reflection in the window and let out a shriek before heading off to the loo to repair her rain-flattened hair.

Dawn had always been pernickety about her appearance. She’d also always asked a lot of questions; she joked she was Davina McCall in another
life. The two friends had met at sixteen when Dawn was part of an influx from local Watford schools that had joined a bigger comprehensive’s sixth form to study A levels. Totally lost in a labyrinth of corridors between lessons on her first day, she had fallen gratefully on Kat’s help when the small, smiling redhead had bounced around a corner and said brightly, ‘Follow my lead,’ before taking
her straight through the maze to their biology class. There, they’d bonded over a cow’s eyeball they’d had to dissect together. To Dawn’s awed admiration, Kat had plunged her knife straight in, before winking one green eye and admitting, ‘We did this at my old school last term. Half the class fainted.’

‘You mean this is your first day here too? How d’you know where to go?’

‘I just
guessed.’ Kat had shrugged. It was true: finding the right classroom had been a combination of deduction and pot luck.

The two girls had gone on to train as nurses together and were part of the same close set of friends. Dawn was no shrinking violet, but she’d frequently followed Kat’s lead – everybody did. Brave, generous and not at all self-conscious, Kat was often first to volunteer
to try a procedure or be the guinea pig in training, first on the dance floor or to the bar, first to try the water sports or eat local food on holiday, and the first to get her heart broken. Her early romances were legendary lessons in disappointment.

But it was Dawn who had been the first to get a serious boyfriend – jovial, football-mad Dave. She had dragged Kat along on endless double
dates to try to match her up with Dave’s jolly, football-loving mates before admitting defeat. Kat preferred her men edgy and challenging.

She checked her Gmail account on her phone while she waited for Dawn to come back from the loo. It was packed as usual, mostly rubbish, but an official-looking communication from the estate’s solicitor made her heart lurch. She read the first few lines
and snorted with irritation at the pompous tone.

‘Bad news?’ Dawn sat down, hair four inches higher, purple eyes repainted with mascara and liner.

‘The solicitor’s in a tizz. It’s a letter about the estate’s sale that I have to show to the charity committee. The one they sent in the post must have got lost, and they’ve been trying to ring me but our landline’s not working.’

‘And to think I get jumpy on my own even with a 4G signal on my iPhone in central Watford!’ Dawn looked horrified. ‘You mean you have no phone
or
internet
or
post and you’re living alone in the middle of nowhere?’

‘It’s only temporary.’ Kat smiled as the waitress brought over their order. ‘The overhead cable was running too close to a listed horse chestnut so —’

‘Hang on, trees are
listed?’

‘Really old ones are. There’s a yew on the estate that’s at least four hundred. Anyway, someone official took the telegraph pole down and nobody’s put it back up yet. They’ve promised the line will be working again next week, and if there’s an emergency, I can usually get mobile reception in the tree-house.’

‘Is that in the listed tree or is it ex-directory?’

‘Ha-ha.’
Kat grinned. Not having the internet beyond a glacially slow dial-up connection didn’t bother her much, except when it came to keeping in touch with old friends, like Dawn, who weren’t easy to call by old-fashioned means. In the past year, their once-regular catch-ups had become frustratingly occasional and often second hand. Under cross-examination now, she remembered why it was sometimes a
relief not to have hours of FaceTime with a friend who specialized in awkward questions.

‘What exactly
is
the deal with the farm?’ Dawn demanded, studying the bags beneath Kat’s dark green eyes. ‘I thought your old boss left it to you.’

‘It’s in trust. I’m just the tenant.’

‘But you’re safe to stay there as long as you want?’

‘Technically, yes, although it depends who
buys the estate. Russ thinks they’ll try to find a legal loophole to get me out.’

‘Is he the hippie guy? The one who rescues badgers and foxes?’

She nodded, taking a sip of coffee.

‘You thought he might be a bit of a Communist freeloader.’

‘Not at all! Did I really say that?’

‘Didn’t he hijack the village cricket match to make some sort of revolutionary speech
on your first date? Then he turned over the tea tables and made you pay for his supper later.’

Kat had forgotten the long email she’d written to Dawn about it. ‘That was the villagers versus estate workers match, and he thought the umpire was bent.’ It was the day Russ had swept Kat off her feet (almost literally as she’d been helping serve teas when he staged his Jesus-in-the-temple act
with the trestles). ‘He still scored a hundred. Then he asked me out, but he left his wallet in the pavilion so I ended up paying. I really didn’t mind – he only ate the soup,’ she remembered fondly. ‘He told me cricket was invented by shepherds who played in front of tree stumps, so it’s a working-class farm labourer’s game.’

‘And does the working-class farm labourer still bowl you over?’

‘He’s a qualified arboriculturalist, actually.’ She knew she sounded chippy and defensive. ‘You’ll meet him later. He’s staying in the house.’

‘You’re
living
together?’ Dawn looked at her sharply. ‘Are you sure you’re ready?’

‘It’s been two years since Nick too.’

‘That’s not what I asked.’

‘It’s only a temporary thing. Russ respects my need for space. We have
separate rooms and he only stays over occasionally. He’s a free spirit – and he’s good company,’ she insisted, reluctant to admit that Russ – whose caravan was far from watertight – had stayed often in recent weeks, along with his dog Ché. He had also moved in a lot of musical equipment and amplifiers that blew the fuse-box on a regular basis. For a man who insisted he travelled light, he had a lot
of stuff and liked to be surrounded by beautiful things. Unearthing a chest full of saris, floor cushions, tassels and decorative
bandhanwar
door hangings that dated back to when Constance had used Lake Farm as a retreat, he’d converted a corner of the sitting room into a Hindu love temple.