Farm Fatale

by Wendy Holden

  Mark rang up immediately, yelping with excitement. Not only was the price extraordinarily reasonable—almost within their range, in fact—but the details Kane, Birch & Spankie had sent through included magic words like "heavy oak beams" and "period open fireplaces."

  As soon as Rosie put the telephone down, it rang again.

  "Amazing, isn't it?" exclaimed Bella.

  "Fantastic." Rosie wondered how she knew. Had Mark been so excited he had called her himself?

  "Going for billions apparently," Bella added.

  Rosie gasped. She'd thought the cottage was reasonably priced. Had Nigel been whiting out some of the zeros?

  "I hear Lady Gaga's after it," added Bella. "But of course she's too late."

  "What? But that's impossible!" said Rosie. The pictures of the cottage had not been clear, but even Nigel's most optimistic euphemisms had been unable to disguise that it was not only small but needed rather a lot of work.

  "Why would Lady Gaga be interested in Eight Mile Bottom?" she asked Bella.

  "What's Eight Mile Bottom, darling?" asked Bella. "Sounds like a ghastly disease."

  "Where Mark and I are buying our dream cottage, we hope. Isn't that what you're talking about?"

  "No, darling, I'm talking about the Insider piece on that Basia Briggs house. You know, darling, the one you helped me style. It's been spotted by a mystery megastar—rumor Lady Gaga—who's buying it for gazillions, apparently." She paused triumphantly. "Unbelievable, n'est-ce pas?"

  "It is unbelievable," Rosie said, appalled. "That house was absolutely disgusting." As were its owners, she added silently, as the memory of Samantha Villiers's mean little eyes and purple lips pressed tightly together loomed suddenly and unpleasantly before her. Rosie shuddered. Still, if all went according to plan, she need never clap eyes on her again.

  "Well, it needn't bother you anymore darling," said Bella, reading her thoughts. "Not now you've found your dream cottage. I must say, I really rather envy you. In some ways," she added immediately.

  "You do?"

  "Well, quite frankly, darling, Islington's going awfully downhill. Simon was in bed last night and heard our car being broken into. He shot out of bed, completely starkers, to give whoever it was a piece of his mind."

  "How terrible," said Rosie, trying not to smile as she imagined the car thief peaceably going about his business and then being confronted by a very angry, very red-faced, and very naked Simon. "What happened?"

  "Well, they ended up having the most dreadful fight. I looked out of the window and saw them rolling down the pavement together. Had to take Si to the hospital this morning to have all the windshield glass picked out of his bottom."

  As an image of a nurse patiently attending to Simon's large red rump floated irresistibly to mind, Rosie tried again not to smile. "Oh, dear."

  "Well, Simon insists he gave the thief a left hook," said Bella, sighing. "Says that all the time he was in the hospital he knew the thief was also in one. But I'm not so sure. Anyway, darling, I was thinking we might have to move somewhere a bit, well, greener."

  "Come with us," said Rosie immediately. "There's the most wonderful manor house for sale in the village."

  "Oh, no, darling," said Bella, sounding horrified. "I was thinking more of Regent's Park."

  ***

  According to Kane, Birch & Spankie Ltd., Number 2 Cinder Lane was "an atmospheric former coal-miner's cottage situated in the oldest part of the historic village of Eight Mile Bottom, near the church." Rosie registered, but chose not to dwell on, the fact that, in her experience, "atmospheric" generally heralded a pervading smell of damp and "near the church" probably meant distantly glimpsed if you stood on a chair in the attic.

  Number 2 proved to be the second in a terrace of small cottages running up a lane. "Sixteen forty-nine!" Mark pointed at the date stone above the door. "Three hundred and fifty years old!"

  Rosie thrilled to the romance of the wonkily carved numbers, their edges smoothed and blackened with age. How many people had passed under that very lintel since 1649? People, in general, seemed scarce; the row of cottages going up the lane was as silent as the graves in the churchyard at the bottom of it.

  For, much to Rosie's amazement, Number 2 Cinder Lane was, in fact, very near the church. The tower of pink-tinged stone stood peacefully amid its trees mere feet from the cottage door. She looked admiringly at the timeless scene.

  Except that it wasn't completely timeless—an old, gold-figured clock face was mounted on the side of the church tower. As they closed the car doors, it struck.

  "Twelve o'clock," said Mark, looking at his watch.

  "Sixteen o'clock." Rosie grinned, listening to the bells ringing on inside the pink tower.

  "Crunch time," said Mark, swinging the keys.

  They started, slowly, to move toward the cottage. Rosie slid her hand into Mark's, suddenly fearful that it would not be suitable. This was, she realized, their last chance. Please, God, Rosie prayed, glancing at the stone tower still reverberating from the seemingly unstoppable bells. Thirty-two o'clock now. Please, God, let this be our dream home.

  As they hesitated outside the white-painted stable door, a sudden screech of tires made them freeze in their tracks. Mark leaped round indignantly, fists clenched, face taut with aggression, and fear in his eyes. Fear, Rosie knew, that a richer, rival bidder had come to snatch the cottage and therefore his column away from him. And her dream from her. She, too, whirled suspiciously around.

  "'Ow do." The young man leaping out of the shiny red van didn't look the gazumping sort. For a start, the legend ROYAL MAIL was emblazoned across the doors of his van and, besides a wide grin, he wore a postman's pale blue shirt and navy trousers. His very bright black eyes followed over them with intense interest. "You buying this place then?"

  Rosie and Mark looked at each other. Direct questions from strangers—apart from "Any spare change, please?"—were not something London life had prepared them for.

  "Perhaps," Mark said curtly, clearly determined to release as little information as possible.

  "I'm Duffy the postman," the man said, clearly determined to do the opposite. "Where you from then?"

  "London." Mark's tone carried with it the expectation that not only would the postman be profoundly impressed by this, but that he would never have met anyone from the capital before.

  "Oh, aye? There's a woman from London coming to look at a house up the High Street as well, as it 'appens. Loaded, she is. Rolling in it."

  "Lucky her," said Mark heavily, realizing too late that he had revealed more than he intended to of their financial status. Rosie felt the urge to giggle. The postman's newsgathering skills were undeniable.

  "Barristers or something, are you?" probed the postman.

  "No," said Rosie, resisting the temptation to explain that neither of them could as much as understand the small print on insurance forms. "I'm an illustrator and Mark's a journalist."

  The postman looked interested. "Journalist, eh?" he echoed. "Once thought of doing that meself, funnily enough. Investigative, like. Not that it ever came to anything."

  "A great pity. I'm sure you would have been very good at it," Mark said. "Now, if you'll excuse us…"

  Far from looking reproved, the postman grinned more widely. "Aye. I'd best be getting on meself. I'm still doing t'first round o' post—it's all them cups o' tea slowing me down."

  "Cups of tea?" repeated Rosie, unable to make sense of this remark.

  "Oh, everyone asks me in for a cuppa. To find out what t'rest o' t'village is up to. Right," said the postman briskly, looking through the envelopes in his hands. "Nowt for you—I mean Number Two— so I hope that means they paid that red gas bill they had before they left. Mind you, that last bank statement of theirs makes you wonder how they could."

  The postman picked out a postcard and shoved it through the shiny brass letterbox of the cottage next door. "From your daughter, Mrs. W.," he shouted at someone apparently on the other side
of the window. "She's having a lovely time in France, but the weather's not all it could be. Well, ta-ra, then," he added to Rosie and Mark, leaping into his van and driving away with a screech of tires.

  "Nosy bastard," said Mark, staring after him. Rosie suppressed a smile, wondering if professional jealousy was an issue; Mark may have been the national newspaper journalist, but there was no doubting the village postman's ability to extract information.

  As they moved once again toward the cottage, Rosie had the sudden sensation of eyes upon her. Eyes that came from behind next doors impenetrable net curtains. Was the mysterious Mrs. W., whose daughter's weather wasn't up to scratch, lurking? Quickly, she scuttled after Mark through the stable door of Number 2.

  It opened directly on to a tiny sitting room whose timbered ceiling featured heavy central beams the thickness of a man. This led to a tiny dining room and, beyond, a cool and gloomy kitchen.

  "Just look at that," Mark said in awe, slapping one of the massive pieces of wood and studiously ignoring the small shower of plaster dislodged from the ceiling by the movement. Rosie was too lost in admiration of the vast sitting-room fireplace to notice. Cut from thick shortbread fingers of stone, it contained a wood-burning stove of black iron. Imagining romantic nights before flickering flames, Rosie gazed around, enraptured even by the bare concrete floor, which immediately suggested golden swathes of sisal and individually fired Tuscan peasant tiles. Excitedly, she went outside to explore the back.

  The estate agents' claim of the gardens being "in a transitional state" was accurate enough; although "in a state" would have been yet more so. Judging from the expanse of scattered Coke cans, plastic bags, and a vast coil of ribbed plastic tubing, the owners of the cottage had never set foot in it. Yet there was definitely potential there. Rosie, who had long dreamed of a garden of her own, looked around speculatively, imagining herbaceous borders where the plastic bags were strewn, a glossy lawn where the tubing now lay. It was possible. She was certain of it.

  Even if it was doubtful she would ever come up to the standards of Mrs. W. The cottage below boasted a neat little strip of a garden with a healthy, thick-grassed lawn bordered with clumps of jaunty daffodils and splashes of red tulips. There were also several hanging baskets, a tidy greenhouse, and a water butt. Rosie smiled to see the plastic cream pots used as bird scarers and the wooden Popsicle sticks—from some grandchild, perhaps—marked with the names of flowers. Mrs. W. was clearly a keen proponent of waste not want not.

  Rosie closed her eyes in the luxurious silence. For entire minutes on end, all was peaceful apart from the throaty call of a wood pigeon and the distant sound of a tractor. Quietness in London, Rosie recalled, was as rare and fragile as a lark's egg; one always knew it could—and would—be shattered in seconds. Indeed, one almost wanted it to be, to get it over with. But here it was strong and abundant, with gentle eddies of breeze rippling through it like muscles; a silence so absolute it echoed, ringing, within itself.

  A small ledge set into the crumbling wall at the back of the garden looked out over a sloping hillside, on which cattle were grazing. Beautiful beasts too, Rosie saw, admiring their level backs, sturdy legs, and tufty coats colored, not the normal black and white, but shades of ginger, auburn, black, blond, and cream. Rosie tipped her head back in the silence and gazed happily up at the coppertinted clouds as she returned to the cottage and Mark.

  She found him busily exploring the upper floor. There was really only one bedroom, the other room being a tiny, rather damp-looking spare that Mark had already commandeered as a writing room. Rosie was enchanted by the bedroom's glorious deep-silled window ledges, the most ideal size and shape on which to rest her drawing board. And which enjoyed, thanks to the square windows with their pretty, old-fashioned wrought-iron latches, better light to paint in than anything Craster Road had ever had to offer.

  "It's perfect, isn't it?" Mark urged, clasping both her hands in his. As he drew her into his arms, Rosie was unable to contradict him—even if she had wanted to. His tongue was gradually exploring her mouth, while, against her hip, she could feel the familiar hardness pressing against her.

  "Mark! We can't!" she gasped excitedly. "Not here. What if Nigel comes?"

  "May the best man come first, in that case," muttered Mark, fumbling with his trousers.

  ***

  Before going home, they stopped off once again at the Barley Mow, where, Rosie was delighted to observe, a new sign had joined the results of the local horticultural show. FERRETS, it announced. FREE TO GOOD HOMES.

  "Hello again," boomed Alan, the landlord. Today's T-shirt, Rosie noticed, maintained the hen theme already established. POULTRY IN MOTION, it proclaimed in large letters, continuing underneath with BARLEY MOW WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP HEN RACES, AUGUST 1998; GREEN WITH HENVY. For a fictional event, she thought, Alan certainly seemed to spend a lot of time promoting it. She shot a sly glance at Mark, who had apparently not noticed it.

  The landlord drummed his palms expectantly on the polished copper bar. "Becoming regulars, aren't you?"

  At a nearby table, a man with a neat white beard and twinkling eyes sniggered. "Regular? You don't get to be regular in this village until you've been here at least five generations. And even then you can forget it if you've been away at any time."

  "You've got to remember," said Alan, grinning, "that people round here think of the Plague as a fairly recent event. Some would say"—he scrabbled behind the bar and produced a newspaper—"that it's still going on. This is the obituaries page of the Slapton Sentinel."

  Rosie and Mark stared at the double-page spread almost solid with photographs and names of the recently deceased. It was an impressive and faintly disturbing sight. "Looks like t'Black Death, doesn't it?" said Alan.

  "Local newspapers are of course famous for their obituary coverage," Mark said pompously. "Two pints of Knickersplitter, please."

  "Knickersplitter's off. There's Hairy Helmet though."

  "You may joke," said the bearded man, addressing Alan as he pulled the pints, "but my grandfather shook hands with a man who had fought in the Battle of Trafalgar. And if you think about it, it's not that far back to the Anglo-Saxons. Not that far back to Jesus, come to that."

  Alan nodded. "You're right there, Bill," he said. "Especially now that the vicar's started a chat room on the church website. We've got God in cyberspace now."

  "Gerrawaywithyer," said the bearded man, grinning and raising his pint glass.

  Rosie giggled. She liked Alan. She also liked the look of the smiling woman with the shining cap of blond hair who had appeared behind him at the bar. His wife, she presumed. "I'm right, aren't I, Ann?" Alan appealed to her now. "About the vicar's chat room?"

  Ann smiled and rolled her eyes. "When are you ever not right? Like it round here, do you?" she asked Rosie and Mark as she came to collect their glasses.

  "We're thinking of buying a place," Mark told her. "We found somewhere, as it happens. Things weren't quite as bad as you made out," he added, a hint of triumph in his voice, as Alan came past the table.

  "Things never are," said Ann ruefully.

  ***

  As, reluctantly, they left the Barley Mow, Rosie asked, "Are we still thinking of buying? Or are we actually buying?"

  "What do you think?" asked Mark. As always, her heart lurched when he smiled at her. It had been quite a while since he had smiled at her in that special way.

  Chapter Eight

  Carinthia D'Arblay Sidebottom and her enviable environs had died hard. Samantha's heart was set on a village, as in Carinthia's own Chewton Mewsley, where the main street meanders casually yet purposefully between buildings that are an architectural potpourri of different periods—here Jacobean mullions, there a graceful neoclassical Georgian portico—and past a splendid, lovingly cared for village church set amid the shade of ancient beech trees. In front of the church spreads the village green with its blue jewel of a duck pond; opposite it, the cheerful bustle of the shop–cum–post office,
which, together with the little teashop and the beamed and thatched pub, forms the commercial heart of this most uncommercial of villages…

  Chewton Mewsley, therefore, was the gold standard Samantha had set for herself. As she drove off this morning to meet her relocation adviser, the slightly battered copy of Cottage Beautiful magazine in which Carinthia had first come to her attention was, as usual, tucked away in her silver folder.

  Coming, as he did, from a long line of lionhearted soldiers, Sir Hadley Bonsanquet, Bt., was not the sort of person a country lifestyle magazine would normally fill with dread. Yet his dealings with them so far had not been encouraging. A down-at-heels aristocrat whom circumstances had forced into the theoretically lucrative relocation market, he was currently cursing the persuasive young advertisement salesman through whose auspices he had taken an eighth of a page in Country Life. An eighth of a page, more to the point, that Samantha had spotted.