The Country Set

by Fiona Walker

  ‘What does Skulley do for a living?’ She changed the subject.

  ‘Gardening and ground maintenance and stuff. Typical jobbing Traveller.’

  ‘Is it legal?’

  ‘Depends whose rules you go by. He’s usually got his fingers in the till or in his boss’s wife. Nothing big-scale. Flogging a few Christmas trees or turf rolls for cash, the odd garden statue or fence battery that’s gone walkabout.’

  Carly was appalled. ‘Ash can’t get involved with that! I’ve got to stop him.’

  Janine kept a hand clamped round her wrist. ‘You let him do what he wants, hun. You’re not an army wife now.’

  Carly thought of the friends currently reading and liking her Hallowe’en message, so full of saccharine happiness, not for a moment betraying how hard she found it here, how lonely she felt, how different Ash was. Another picture she’d posted that day had been of a horse in a witch’s hat pulling a big, laughing face. Horses. Thank God for horses.

  ‘I am going to train as a farrier, Janine,’ she said firmly.

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ scoffed Janine. ‘That is never going to happen. You’d ruin these beauties for a start.’ She admired her handiwork. Carly’s nails looked like ten poisonous toadstools. ‘Now if that doesn’t get me some Christmas trade from the county set I’ll eat sprouts on toast for a year.’

  Having seen Janine’s eating habits, Carly thought this would be no great sacrifice.

  She looked at her hands, the fingers that felt hot as branding irons when they sensed sickness and pain now all wearing comedy hats. The blonde woman from the stud had told her she had a gift when she was with Spirit the night he was injured. The bearded vet had said the same when they’d rescued Pricey.

  Then it struck her, an idea so inspired it was as if somebody had just put their hands on her waist and lifted her overhead. ‘I’m going to heal things.’

  ‘Starting with what?’ Janine snorted.

  ‘My marriage.’

  *

  ‘OhmyGod, ohmyGod have I killed him?’ Pip wailed, wrenching open her car door and stumbling out, realising too late that there was a four-foot drop because she’d come to a halt halfway up a horsebox ramp. Landing on the cobbles with a jolt that went straight through her, she crumpled into the arms of a concerned and astonished Ronnie Percy.

  This shouldn’t be happening, Pip thought wretchedly. Why hadn’t Lester warned her? She’d have dressed up. She’d have put on the heating, aired the rooms, made up a bed and got some groceries in. She’d have baked more. She’d already marked up the Ronnie welcome recipes. Instead her cupcakes had sunk in the middle and she’d run over Lester’s dog.

  ‘He’s fine,’ Ronnie said, in her warm, no-nonsense voice. ‘Isn’t he, Lester?’

  He was running a practised hand and close eye over Stubbs, but apart from a big fright and a loss of dignity in front of the bossy heelers he’d been trying to impress with his foxy charms, the little dog was apparently unscathed. ‘If you say so.’

  ‘I say so.’

  Pip had come as fast as she could, face still hot from the oven, not even stopping to put on her coat. Which was why she was still wearing her slippers. Hoping nobody would notice, she thrust a hand out to Ronnie. ‘Welcome back to Compton Magna.’ She adopted her best super-efficient power PA voice. ‘We’re so thrilled you’re moving in at last! I’ve got everything ready for you, apart from a few last-minute preparations I need to make in the house, some of which I want to run through with you first if you have time.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘But I’ve baked cakes and brought my coffee pod machine.’

  The occupants of the lorry were stamping and snorting furiously.

  ‘I want to unload my horses.’

  ‘I’ll help!’

  ‘Not in those slippers. Let’s get these boys off, shall we, Lester?’ said Ronnie. ‘Can you move your car? I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name.’

  ‘Pip Edwards. Pip. Your father’s housekeeper.’ She grew a little smaller. ‘My dad used to call me Pipsqueak.’

  ‘How horrid of him.’ She turned away. ‘Lester, we need to double-lead the stallion in a Chifney. Car!’ she chivvied Pip.

  Pip squared her shoulders, refusing to be defeated. ‘I’ll get the it moved straight away and put the kettle on. I’ve no idea what we’re all standing around here talking for.’

  41

  Petra hurried breathlessly towards Gill on the footpath that led along the boundary of the stud, Wilf dragging her sideways to bury his nose in the hedgerow with every new smell.

  To her embarrassment, Gill had binoculars already trained on the stable-yard. ‘Isn’t that an invasion of privacy?’

  ‘Rubbish. I brought them out to look for my goshawk, but this is local history. Pip’s straight in there.’ Gill chuckled, handing her the binoculars and pointing at the small figure hovering beneath the shadow of the clock-tower in the stud’s arrival yard. ‘Looks like Ronnie’s brought a couple of horses.’

  ‘Does the village descend on the stud with pitchforks and flaming torches at any minute?’

  ‘Give them twenty-four hours,’ Gill muttered. ‘The bonfire’s already set up on the Green.’

  ‘That’s a nice-looking horse.’ Petra admired the grey now exploding out of the box. He looked like he’d been chiselled from marble to stand on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square, dark eyes as huge and expressive as a silent movie star’s.

  ‘Give those here.’ Gill grabbed the binoculars back so fast, Petra was almost garrotted. Looking through them, she took a sharp breath. ‘My God, that is nice!’ Then she gasped. ‘Hold on, that’s a stallion! You know what this means?’

  ‘That Gill Walcote can spot gonads at two hundred yards?’ Petra watched the horse throw itself into the air, body twisting up in a plunging almost vertical rear, grey legs paddling and head shaking, a blur of muscle, hoof and aggression that made her grateful there was a large field between her and it. Tiny Ronnie and wizened Lester stood their ground and clung on, coaxing the horse forward as soon as he landed, then marching him, doing a head-shaking jog, beneath the first arch and out of sight.

  ‘Ronnie Percy’s brought a new stallion in to stand at stud.’ Gill fiddled with the binoculars’ focus. ‘And there’s something else in that lorry – she might even have brought two stallions. This must mean she’s going to run the place as a going concern. She can’t possibly be selling up to developers or anybody else. The village is safe! Call Bay and let him know.’

  ‘Why should I call Bay?’

  But Gill was already on her own phone to husband Paul. ‘Great news...’

  Petra pulled her scarf tighter around her neck and watched Ronnie march back with her long stride, bounding up the ramp to fetch another horse, this one dark, rangy and long-eared.

  Although faintly embarrassed to be gawking at the stud’s legendary bolter, she found it uplifting to watch her ally return, like the day fellow Durannie Princess Diana had opened a new science block at her school. For Gill, who just wanted to know that Ronnie hadn’t brought a local planning officer with her, the sideshow was over, but Petra was fascinated by the dynamic – Lester bustling, Pip lurking and the small blonde dynamo calling the shots.

  ‘Have you called Manor Farm?’ Gill asked, when she’d rung off. ‘Bay’s been like a caged tiger waiting for this.’

  Petra fired off a slightly awkward text: Will be at party tonight after all. Bringing Fitz. Hope okay. PS Dog walking past stud and see Ronnie P is moving back in. Something she’d heard Pip say to Mitch the postman had been bugging Petra. ‘Is it possible Bay and Ronnie could ever have got it together?’ she asked Gill.

  ‘Hardly. She’s not been back and he’s nearly twenty years her junior. I know you credit him with superhuman powers of attraction, but I hardly think Ronnie would...’ She hesitated, brows creasing.

  ‘What?’

  ‘No, it’s nothing,’ Gill shook her head, lifting her binoculars again. ‘Oh... my... God.�
��

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘My goshawk! He’s got a mate. They’re sky-dancing, look! That is so rare.’ She pointed at two tiny specks. ‘Frightfully good luck.’

  ‘Aren’t they buzzards?’

  ‘Oh, maybe you’re right. Damn.’

  Petra’s phone buzzed. I could love you very, very deeply, Mrs G. Bx

  *

  ‘...and your dad used to say that if he needed anything he could just ask me and there it would be as if by magic. I do miss him – he was such a character and...’

  Ronnie had already tuned out the little woman’s voice. What was her name again? She couldn’t concentrate on a word she was saying, her head splitting. She was sure Alice had said in an email that she had let her go.

  ‘...make you another cup of tea, some light lunch maybe? There’s nothing much in the house, but I can pop home for eggs and cheese, and I’ll go shopping for you later. Your dad’s favourite was my lasagne. He used to say, “Pip, you are the Comptons’ answer to Fanny Cradock,” and...’

  Pip Edwards. That was it.

  ‘...I’d like you to feel you can call upon me any—’

  ‘That is so kind of you, Mrs Edwards,’ she cut across her, ‘but all I need right now is a paracetamol.’

  ‘Call me Pip. Dad used to call me—’

  ‘Pipsqueak, yes, you said. Unforgivable. Would you mind awfully seeing if you can find me a painkiller? Ibuprofen, aspirin, laudanum, anything.’

  ‘Straight away!’ She bustled into the house.

  Ronnie rubbed her temples and went into the Small Yard where Lester had insisted her horses must be quarantined. Having taken over settling Dickon, whose kindness was in direct contrast to Beck’s lack of anger-management, he was now rolling travel bandages proprietorially by his half-door like a jailer.

  ‘Bit tucked up from his journey, this one,’ he muttered, eyeing her dogs, who were ganging up on Stubbs again.

  ‘He’s a worrier and a warrior.’ She looked in at her favourite sidekick and heard a reassuring whicker, a rustle of straw bringing a big brown cheek against hers. She reached up a hand to rub the familiar path along the offset white blaze to the whorl on his forehead, then up into his frizzy black forelock, which always stood up like Bert’s hair in Sesame Street. Now in his golden years, Dickon was a cavalry officer of a horse. ‘We need to talk, Lester. Come in for some supper with me later.’

  ‘I’d rather not, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. We’ve got to try to get on.’

  ‘I prefer my own company of an evening.’

  ‘Still the same stubborn bugger.’ She smiled, determined not to rise. Being with him was easier than Ronnie had feared, theirs a horseman’s bond so deeply patterned through her infancy and to adulthood that she slipped back into it without thinking. She’d expected fierce independence because that had always been his way. Her plans could be drip-fed: she had time.

  ‘Then we can wait.’ She patted Dickon farewell and turned to face the old man. ‘But I do want one ground rule in place straight away. We don’t talk about Johnny or any of that business.’

  ‘Agreed.’ He couldn’t say it fast enough.

  Ronnie knew it was a cold day, the frost ahead forecast to be the coldest yet, but the sudden chill made the hairs prickle on her skin. ‘Good.’ She moved along to look in on Beck, box-walking furiously and baring his teeth on the other side of his stallion grille between furious bellows to announce his arrival. Polar opposite of Dickon, macho alpha muscle-man Beck was messy, paranoid and absolutely hated moving house. Lester had grudgingly put in the ‘toys’ he’d come with – balls, mirrors, licks and a giant dangling apple, all thrust upon Ronnie by Verity. She had no idea if they made a difference, but she was no more inclined to take them away from him than she was Lester’s authority.

  They went into Big Yard to see old Cruisoe, the grand old man of the stud, trumpeting pompously over his stable door at Beck, lifting his lip to try to get a better whiff of the usurper. In the opposite corner, his wall-eyed son had his chin propped up on the V-bar trying frantically to see what was going on.

  ‘Healing fine,’ Lester told Ronnie, when she crossed to see him, ‘Everything’s in safe hands here, Mrs Ledwell.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it is. Call me Ronnie.’ She forced another smile, head pounding now, turning towards the arch.

  ‘Brought the colts across from the Sixty Acres this morning,’ he followed her, ‘so the Manor Farm boys can clear the tree.’

  ‘Well done.’

  ‘Young Bay can’t stop bragging when we’re out with the Fosse and Wolds that Austens are buying that land.’

  ‘That’s right.’ Stopping, Ronnie sucked her cheeks in slowly, the sour taste palpable. Bay Austen. She could picture him in his scarlet hunt coat, that devilish smile. Clever Petra Gunn had very poor taste. Ronnie hoped she’d killed him off in her book.

  ‘It’s out of my hands, Lester.’ She cast an apologetic look over her shoulder, knowing he hated the thought of the stud being stripped of land as much as she did. ‘We need their money. If you excuse me, I’d better go and talk to Mrs Edwards.’

  ‘You keeping Pip on?’ The gruffness to his voice belied his worry.

  ‘I’ll think about it.’ She had far too much occupying her thoughts, but at least it stopped her mind dwelling on Blair. She winced again as a bolt of regret filled her throat, swallowing it just as quickly.

  She found the talkative housekeeper in the scullery, presiding over a large first-aid box filled with enough drugs to wipe out the entire village. Thanking her, Ronnie knocked back the two tablets she was handed – they could have been cyanide for all she knew. ‘There’s a letter that should have come here from the solicitor addressed to me,’ she told Pip. ‘Terrible bore, but they’ve been on my case about signing some papers today. Do you know where it is?’

  ‘There’s quite a bit of post,’ Pip said. ‘It’s one of the things I need to talk to you about.’ She led the way through the old servants’ door into the main entrance hall, where generations of the Percys’ best sires looked down on them from yellowing oil-paintings.

  ‘Christ.’ Ronnie came face to face with columns of post stacked in size order on the hall table. And the side table. And the floor. It was a Parthenon of post. ‘Where did all this come from?’

  ‘We hid it away in the big chest for the funeral, so I kept putting it there until it filled up.’ Pip pointed out the ornately carved antique oak coffer beneath the stairs, big as a sofa, which Ronnie remembered as being full of blankets to pull over knees through freezing winters. ‘A lot of it pre-dates your dad’s death,’ she went on, in her breathless little-girl voice. ‘He wasn’t one for opening post by the end. He used to get me to put it in the old silverware cupboards, but they got full too. Alice and Pax went through the important bills and bank stuff early on, and told Lester to forward anything official-looking to the solicitor, but they never wrote down the address and, anyway, Lester doesn’t like coming into the house. It’s mostly junk mail. I can collate it, if you like. I used to do that for the Captain.’

  Ronnie picked up a thick wedge of hand-written envelopes.

  ‘I thought it best not to open those ones without your say-so.’ The voice rattled on. ‘Isn’t it awful people still sending things to your father even though everybody must know by now? There were obituaries in the big newspapers and everything, weren’t there? I didn’t have that problem with my parents, but then again they didn’t really have a lot of friends. When Dad died I put a notice in the...’

  Tuning her out once more, Ronnie set the letters down again. Nobody had cancelled the subscription to Horse & Hound or the Field, which made up the central tower, interleaved with the NFU’s magazine and breeding-society quarterlies. Junk mail formed three piles as high as her elbow, offering mobility aids, books, Christmas gift ideas, business investments and every conceivable item of equestrian equipment. There were charity letters begging for money for beaten-up d
onkeys and neglected greyhounds. Her father had never given money to human causes. Business-like rectangular envelopes were stacked in a paving-stone patio around all these, each block ten or twenty deep, sorted rather sweetly according to colour – white, cream, manila – as well as size.

  ‘I could take the magazines to the vets’ surgery and the junk mail to the paper bank if you like,’ Pip was offering in her non-stop, breathy Brummy patter.

  Ronnie didn’t really want a housekeeper, and she certainly couldn’t afford one, but she could see she needed help, and if that person knew the house, loved the horses and looked out for Lester, it was a head start nobody else could hope to match. It would be bad form to mention money, Ronnie felt, especially as she could offer none.

  ‘It’s terribly kind of you to help out.’

  ‘As long as you need me.’ Pip stood to attention in her slippers.

  The landline rang and she picked it up proprietorially, flicking her chin back before addressing the caller with hushed suspicion. ‘Compton Magna Stud... I’ll see if she’s available. May I ask what this is in connection with?.... Yes, this is the housekeeper speaking... Oh, I see... Oh, it’s you...’ She went very pink and giggled.

  Ronnie smiled, warming to her. More Mrs Overall than Mrs Hughes maybe, but a definite character. Her father would have loved that she rushed over in slippers and barricaded the horsebox ramp. It showed dedication.

  She studied Pip as she listened to the caller, head cocked, the giggle like a cat’s purr, blush creeping into her pale cheeks, like a raspberry juice stain through cotton as she listened. She’d be pretty if it wasn’t for the drab clothes and that awful frizzy hair. Her eyes were big and startled, almost hyperthyroid, but there was secrecy in them. She reminded Ronnie of a favourite actress who stood on bleak Dorset beaches, solving murder cases. She sensed Pip Edwards was her secret weapon.