Country Rivals

by Zara Stoneley

  ‘The girl needs to get in the saddle – nothing wrong with a bit of responsibility.’

  ‘It’s cold, wouldn’t it have been better to wait until the weather warmed up?’

  ‘No point in putting things off, and ponies are too easily ignored when they’re turned out to grass.’

  Lottie sighed and wondered if it was too early to crack open a bottle of wine. ‘She’s only three years old, Gran.’ Although she was three going on thirty, but that was irrelevant.

  ‘Nearly four, by my reckoning, so she’s got long enough legs. And you can stop raising your eyebrows, young lady, she’s tall enough to sit astride. No good these little podgy toddlers, roll straight off a pony.’

  ‘Did you ask Amanda first?’

  ‘I think it’s time for a G&T, don’t you? Then I can tell you all about this nice young man I’ve invited for you to meet. Ah,’ she paused, ‘that must be him now, his name is James and I want you to be nice to him. I told him to come straight up. I do like punctuality.’ She gave Lottie, who usually raced in at the very last minute, a pointed look.

  Lottie wanted to do more than raise her eyebrows; she wanted to lie on the floor and scream. ‘How come you can hear somebody coming in and you don’t hear a word I say when I’m explaining why you can’t afford to bet on the horses? And,’ she paused, wondering if it was worth wasting her breath, but decided to crack on anyway, ‘buy the girls ponies.’

  ‘I look at it as speculating, Charlotte. And I didn’t hear him, I saw Bertie cock his ears.’

  Lottie glanced down at the fat Labrador, who was flat out at Elizabeth’s feet, his paws twitching as he ran after rabbits in his sleep, little snuffles of excitement ruffling his lips every now and then. ‘Of course you did, Gran.’

  From the moment he walked into the room, Lottie realised that it was going to be hard not to like James, with his willing-to-please but slightly awkward air. He was lanky, with a lopsided verging-on-cheeky grin and slightly too-long hair (in fact to Lottie’s eye he had a definite forelock). His jeans, which no doubt should have been skinny, had plenty of room in them (and looked like he’d rolled down a hill), his hoody hung off his frame and the outfit was finished off with Converses that were green-smudged.

  If he had been a horse she would have had to wrap her arms around his neck, kiss his nose and tell him what a clever boy he was, and assure him that everybody would love him once she’d fed him up. As it was, kissing noses might have been misinterpreted.

  Elizabeth was frowning at her – no doubt she’d read her mind again. Lottie frowned back trying to convey the message that she really, really wasn’t about to kiss anybody’s nose.

  James hadn’t noticed; he was staring at the floor. God, the poor man; here she was trying to weigh him up with her best imitation of Elizabeth’s shrewd look (although Rory always asked her if she’d got something in her eye when she tried it on him) and he no doubt thought she was some haughty lady of the manor. She’d never get to grips with the whole aristocratic thing, which Gran and Uncle Dom did so well, she’d rather hug people.

  ‘Love the stars and stripes.’

  Okay, he didn’t think she was haughty. Failed on that front, again. He was staring at her socks not the woodworm-riddled floorboards. ‘Clever to avoid convention and split them up.’

  ‘I never wear matching socks. Stars and stripes should be kept apart.’

  ‘Stars and stripes? You are not an American are you?’ Elizabeth peered at him more closely. ‘So hard to tell these days, you youngsters all sound the same. Nobody enunciates, even when one has been to a decent school.’

  ‘Gran!’ But Lottie knew it was useless trying to stop Elizabeth’s tendency towards Prince Philip-isms.

  Elizabeth gave her a look, intended to silence her, and then cleared her throat. ‘James, this is Charlotte, who is in charge of our fundraising.’

  Lottie loved the way that in one sentence her gran had managed to lower her status to that of occasional help.

  ‘It isn’t going too well at present, for obvious reasons.’ Incapable, occasional help. ‘She’s also my granddaughter and runs the estate.’ Better. ‘And will one day inherit it.’ She’d put a slightly unnecessary emphasis on the ‘one day’ Lottie thought (she could well sympathise with Prince Charles), but she grinned. Whatever Gran was plotting, it at least did have her in the position of heiress-in-waiting and not the home help. ‘Although, of course, she won’t inherit the title. This, Charlotte, is James Shilling. I found him in a rhododendron bush and he says I don’t know his mother.’ Elizabeth considered it her duty to know everybody within a twenty-mile radius, and everything about them.

  ‘Trilling.’

  Lottie stared at him. What a peculiar thing to say.

  ‘It’s Jamie Trilling, not Shilling.’ He grinned sheepishly. ‘And it’s Jamie. Everybody calls me Jamie not James.’

  ‘Well, why didn’t you say so, young man? Speak up, no use mumbling.’

  He sighed, he obviously had said it before, but Elizabeth only heard what suited her. Lottie tried not to smile, more likely she’d done it on purpose not misheard him. Reducing him to loose change, and old currency at that.

  ‘That explains it, no Trillings round here.’ She frowned. ‘So where do you come from, young man?’

  Jamie suddenly looked worried and Lottie could sympathise. Elizabeth knew just how to make somebody feel that their dream deal was inches away, that she valued their opinion, only to dash it with one carefully worded statement and then look at them like they were an alien life form. ‘Well, I …’

  ‘We’ll discuss that later. Now, tell Charlotte why you’re here. Speak up, now, we can’t sit around here all day.’ She waved an imperious finger and waited expectantly for him to perform.

  * * *

  Jamie looked from Elizabeth to Lottie and back again and felt like he was in front of a firing squad. This was worse than any interview he had ever had, not that he’d had many. She changed tack more often than a boat heading into the wind; Lady Elizabeth was unlike any old woman, well any woman, anybody, he’d ever met before.

  He’d spent several hours on the internet after meeting her, desperately trying to find out more about the Stanthorpes and the Tipping House Estate, but had largely drawn a blank. In fact, he’d discovered more when he’d popped into the Tippermere village shop to buy a newspaper on the way over.

  The woman in there had been quite chatty and had insisted on filling him in on the history of the church and local pub, as well as some rather colourful tales about Rory (that’s Lottie’s husband, such a naughty one he is), Billy (and that’s her father, the tales he could tell, won a gold medal at the Olympics, he did), a guy called Mick (he really had a soft spot for our Lottie, he did, but I reckon they’re more like brother and sister) and an Australian called Todd (you should have seen him, rode up like a knight on a charger, he did, and we all thought he was about to sweep little Lottie off her feet, but then, would you credit it, he whisked Pip off to Australia, a right character he was. Mind you, I’m not sure Elizabeth was happy, she misses that girl). In fact, by the time he’d paid for the newspaper, he felt quite dizzy, but not much the wiser about Tipping House.

  Not that he was any expert at digging for facts, he was more visual, which was why he loved the job he was doing.

  ‘I’m a location scout,’ he told Lottie.

  ‘Found him loitering in the grounds in the middle of the night, didn’t we, Bertie?’

  Lottie raised an eyebrow and Bertie gave a single thump of his tail. ‘What were you doing out in the middle of the night?’

  ‘She was in her nightie. I thought she was a ghost.’ He leapt on the opportunity to deflect attention.

  ‘Gran!’

  ‘I was quite alright, dear, had Bertie with me, couldn’t sleep.’

  ‘But … but … you met him, anything could have …’

  ‘Oh, he’s harmless.’ She waved a dismissive hand.

  ‘And she had a shotgun.’ Jamie
didn’t want to get side-tracked onto the rights and wrongs of old ladies wandering out in their nightwear on a winter’s night.

  ‘Gran, you promised not to go out shooting.’

  ‘I wasn’t shooting, Charlotte.’

  ‘You had a gun.’

  ‘Nonsense, carrying a gun and going out shooting are two totally different things. You, of all people, should know that. I went out prepared. And Bertie doesn’t sleep properly these days, now he hasn’t got Holmes, he gets restless, poor chap. Now stop fussing and let this young man explain.’

  Jamie opened his mouth and there was a loud whine. ‘That wasn’t me.’

  Lottie giggled. The noise came again, along with a sound like scrabbling rats. ‘It’s Harry, he’s found me.’ There was a loud bark as the dog heard his mistress’s voice, followed by more frenzied scrabbling at the door interspersed with snuffles and whimpers.

  Elizabeth pursed her lips and frowned.

  ‘Shall I?’ Jamie moved towards the door.

  ‘I wouldn’t—’

  It was too late, he’d thrown it open and been swept off his feet by an ecstatic spaniel and a whirlwind of brown and white fur. After trampling over the visitor’s body in his rush to see Lottie, Harry went back, his back end wagging to apologise. Followed by the terriers, who, rather than apologising, treated the boy as an obstacle to run over and round. Harry then set off again, his nose to the ground, the pack following in his wake.

  ‘He’s good at sniffing things out.’ Lottie shrugged apologetically as Jamie sat up, rubbing a bruised elbow. ‘He doesn’t like me leaving him.’

  ‘Seb is never going to believe this place.’

  ‘Seb?’ Lottie passed him a gin and tonic, which he rather felt he needed, and started to prepare a new one for Elizabeth.

  ‘He’s my boss, Seb Drakelow. I check out places to film for him, well, really I’m just an intern, which is another word for dogsbody.’ He stayed where he was, sat on the floor. It felt the safest place to be. ‘He needs a location for this drama he’s making with his wife.’

  ‘His wife?’

  ‘She’s an actress.’ One who can’t get any parts because she’s such a bitch, he thought, but didn’t say so aloud. Talk about ‘fake it until you make it’, she’d got it down to a fine art. He was pretty sure that the only part she had nailed was that of ‘prima donna’. But she’d always treated him okay, and if it hadn’t been for her help he might never have spotted the potential of Tipping House, so he really shouldn’t have any gripe with her. She just made it so difficult to like her though. ‘Pandora Drakelow.’

  Lottie was looking at him blankly. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t really watch much television.’

  ‘She’s quite, er, well known.’ Or she had been very briefly, but that was some years in the past. In fact, he reckoned he’d probably been at school when Pandora was in the one production that had achieved popular acclaim, and now she was struggling to reach those lofty heights again.

  But she had tried to help him this time – he had to give her credit for that. And if he delivered on this one he had a proper job in the bag, plus Pandora’s appreciation, which was always useful. ‘The setting is a country estate.’

  ‘Oh, so it’s like Downton Abbey?’

  He didn’t like to say no, because she was actually looking like she might be mildly interested. But he had no choice. ‘Well, no, not really. I mean I don’t know all the details, but it’s like modern-day stuff. It’s about a rock star and his wife, who buy a country pile,’ he glanced from Elizabeth to Lottie, who didn’t seem offended, ‘you know, escape to the country and all that, and she’s kind of bored with nothing to do, then decides to learn to play polo.’ Lottie was staring at him with a blank expression. ‘Well, she falls for this polo player and persuades him to teach her because she thinks it’s all glamour and thrills. That’s where you come in.’

  * * *

  Lottie suddenly realised that they were both staring at her expectantly. ‘But we don’t play polo here. We haven’t got a ground.’ She looked from Jamie to Elizabeth in confusion. ‘I’m not quite sure what this had to do with us, and it really isn’t the right time of year in this country, I mean the season doesn’t start for ages.’

  ‘He wants somewhere majestic,’ Jamie was clearly warming to the subject, ‘but warm, you know, that centuries-old lived-in thing.’

  Lottie nodded, but wasn’t sure she did know.

  ‘It kind of glows, this place, if you know what I mean?’

  She did get that bit. In fact, as they all knew, it had glowed literally not so very long ago, which wasn’t something she wanted to dwell on. It left a hollow feeling of dread in her stomach.

  ‘I saw this place in the papers, you know, after the fire and knew it would be totally amazing. Polo on your front, er, lawn. So cool, you know?’ She half-expected him to add ‘wicked’ or ‘awesome’ on the end, like Tab would have done. And he was, she thought, around the same age as their part-time groom. ‘So I, er, decided to come and have a look, and met …’ he glanced at Elizabeth.

  ‘Very fortuitous. They will pay, Charlotte, which is sadly more than your business is doing at the moment. Look on it as a temporary measure. It will fill a gap until you can start to take bookings again.’

  ‘But I thought you didn’t want people here, Gran? And they will,’ she didn’t want to offend Jamie, but she had to say it, ‘be traipsing everywhere. You said that no way would you let me open the place to the public.’ Not that she wanted to.

  ‘James?’

  ‘We’ll only work outside. We just want the grounds for shooting. The rest is all sorted.’ Jamie didn’t look offended.

  ‘But there will be people and catering vans … burgers!’ Lottie finished triumphantly, knowing her gran abhorred everything fast-food related.

  ‘I’m sure there wouldn’t be food in wrappers, would there?’

  ‘No, definitely no, I mean not. We have a very good catering van, with, er, plates and forks and everything.’ His voice tailed off as he looked from Elizabeth back to Lottie, then back again. ‘Proper forks. No plastic and lots of bins. And people to tidy up.’

  ‘There.’ Elizabeth tapped her stick on the floor, which was usually followed by a ‘that’s settled’.

  ‘But we need money now, not when the polo season starts, Gran.’

  ‘We’d want to shoot now – well soon. You know, all the setting-up shots. It’s not just polo. And,’ he paused, ‘you’d get some kind of payment as soon as the contract’s signed.’

  ‘You can’t gallop horses flat out this time of year, you’ll ruin the grounds and their legs.’

  ‘It’s not all about the game. Well, I don’t think it is much at all, to be honest. It’s about one player, mainly. There’s only a tiny bit of actual polo. The horses are just a kind of backdrop really. But, I mean, you still do stuff when you’re not in the show-jumping season, don’t you?’

  ‘Three-day eventing.’ Lottie tried not to scowl. ‘We event. It’s Dad that does the show-jumping.’ She liked the weddings because they were, well, contained. Usually. Apart from when they had the fire.

  The bloody fire. She sighed and tried to keep her attention on Jamie and the closest thing to a survival plan that they’d got. ‘So there isn’t actually any polo?’

  ‘Well, yes, there is some.’ Jamie frowned. ‘But not much. It’s not a film about polo, more a love story.’

  ‘Do you really know?’

  ‘Well, not in detail.’ He shrugged and pulled the type of comical face one of the horses did when he could smell perfume, but minus the curled lip, which would have been very strange. ‘I am just the advance party. You’d get told loads more before you had to sign the contract, you know. All your questions answered. But Seb and Pandora have both seen pictures and they’re really mad about this place. Honest.’ He looked so sincere that Lottie felt guilty about not jumping in and shouting yes. ‘They’ll be gutted if you say no.’ She tried not to feel even worse. ‘And init
ially we’ll shoot the other stuff, without the horses, well, without the riding. The story is a kind of love-triangle thing. You know, the rock star wants a hideaway and his wife isn’t keen at first because she doesn’t want to be stuck in the sticks, but then she falls in love with the glamorous house. She gets a bit carried away, wants to do the whole ladyship thing, and then meets the real deal – a guy who’s old money, posh, not like her husband. He’s the polo-player. I think at first he comes to see if they can carry on playing polo here and they have an affair, but it all goes wrong. She realises she doesn’t belong here and goes back to the city. Or something like that.’

  Lottie frowned. ‘With her rock star?’

  ‘Yeah, I guess so.’

  ‘So they aren’t actual polo-players, just actors?’ Lottie couldn’t put her finger on exactly why she didn’t like the idea, but it made her uneasy. In fact, it sounded worse now he’d told her more. It spoke of upheaval. And the fact that Elizabeth was all for it just made her even more suspicious.

  Elizabeth would rather be penniless and have battles with the bank than let riff-raff into her beloved home. They’d been dodging the march of progress for years; it had been a major triumph when she’d finally got decent broadband installed and it didn’t take three days to download an eventing entry form. But the pipes were still gurgling, the moth-eaten rugs still lay on the woodworm-riddled floor, and she’d threatened the last property developer who’d suggested a theme park and open days with a shotgun. Which made the idea of her welcoming a film crew all very strange.

  ‘Well, there is one player. He advises and sorts everything.’

  ‘One?’

  ‘Actual polo-player. He’ll be advising on all the horse stuff, the rest are actors. It’s all going to be done properly.’

  ‘And you won’t be straying around the estate, or coming inside the house, or—’

  ‘Setting it on fire? Was that really a disgruntled groom, like the paper said?’

  ‘Well he said it actually, on his Facebook page. Said we were a load of stuck-up toffs who deserved what we got.’ Lottie frowned. ‘If you don’t mind, I’m getting rather fed up of discussing it.’