Rumours. Freya North

you have done me the most almighty favour in letting me live there for this amount. I know what the true rental value is, you know. My new job, Alistair – it’s a lifesaver. I can make ends meet – with commission, I might even be able to tie them in a bow.’

      He continued to look at the envelope. ‘Charlie?’ he asked, very quietly, glancing at Will who was engrossed in Sir Nigel Gresley belting along the tiny track trying to catch up with the Flying Scotsman.

      Stella shook her head.

      ‘No news?’

      She shook her head again.

      Alistair said Bastard under his breath, not so much for Stella’s sake, but for his own.

      ‘Please,’ he held the envelope out to her.

      ‘No, thanks,’ she said. She pushed her hands defiantly into her pockets, and she placed her head gently against her brother’s shoulder. She looked forward to the day when those close to her were no longer irked by Charlie.

       Chapter Four

       3 Lime Grove Cottages

       Tramfield Lane

       Long Dansbury

       Herts

       Monday

       Dear Lydia

       I hope this finds you in good health and high spirits. I took in the view of Longbridge Hall on my early morning run – the rain had lifted, a soft mist rolled quietly just above ground level, a glint of sunshine, a hint of spring – it really was a wonderful sight. Did you know there’s an extremely nice new Belgian patisserie recently opened in Ware? How about I treat you – or perhaps a bite of lunch at Hanbury Manor? Or just a stroll around Hatfield House? Audrey and Bert send their best – and I send my fondest.

       Xander

      Lady Lydia Fortescue read the letter twice. First with a smile, then with her customary wry consternation. A Belgian patisserie? In Ware? Was the boy forgetting Longbridge’s own Mrs Biggins whose scones and Victoria sponge and shortbread were legendary? Why buy foreign, dear God? And lunch at Hanbury Manor – preposterous! Rumour had it that New Money went there, and frightful Hen Party girls lolled around the place at weekends. Apparently, the hotel now had one of those gym places where men and women wore ridiculous get-ups and sweated and grunted alongside each other like toiling workhorses. A walk at Hatfield? During public opening hours? Paying for the privilege when she’d often been there as a guest of the Salisburys? And he’d written ‘Audrey and Bert’ – as if, had he just said ‘my parents’, she might be prone to have forgotten who they were.

      Lydia laughed – a little staccato rush of air through her nostrils. Dear Xander. She would love to see the boy. How long had it been? A month? Six weeks? Atrocious! She walked from the drawing room through the staircase hall and across the entrance hallway over to the library. At the writing bureau, she sat and rummaged through the chaotic upper drawer for one of her heavy, watermarked, monogrammed cards.

       Longbridge Hall

       Long Dansbury

       Hertfordshire

       Wednesday

       My dear Xander,

       A treat to hear from you. Delighted to have provided an aesthetic backdrop to your athletic endeavours. I must decline the foreign bakery, and the public liability of Hanbury or Hatfield. But do come to tea at Longbridge, dear. Shall we say Saturday next – at half past three?

       Yours,

       Lydia F

      Rifling through another drawer, becoming a little sidetracked by a clutch of old thank-you cards sent to her after some dinner party or other an age ago, Lydia found a sheet of second-class stamps. And then she came across the estimate for the roof repairs which she’d hidden on purpose months ago. She glanced at the columns of figures – the grand total – and cast her eyes to the heavens. Only, the ceiling was in the way and, taunting her, the yellow watermark ominously circumnavigating the cracked plaster of the ceiling rose. She buried the paperwork in an ancient copy of Country Life and set off for the postbox outside the village shop.

      As Lydia walked back, she chided herself for not taking the car because she was undeniably tired. And silly – it wasn’t as if anyone would judge her, not at her age, not that she was remotely concerned with what anyone thought anyway. The driveway seemed to be so long these days and when did it develop this incline? Underfoot felt hard, uneven, despite her wearing her most comfortable slip-ons. She laughed – recalling a time when she refused to even glance at comfortable shoes, let alone buy them and wear them out in public.

      Finally, she was home. And then she realized she’d forgotten her keys. No use knocking, it was Mrs Biggins’ day off. She went to the side of the house knowing the back door was unlocked because it was so tricky to lock that they’d given up years ago and just used the bolts, but she doubted it was bolted because Mrs Biggins wasn’t tall enough to shunt the topmost one across, and both she and her housekeeper were now old enough to eschew using anything one had to climb upon in order to reach something.

      There were seven stone steps leading down to the door and, through the frosted glass pane, Lydia could see the comforting welcome of the lights she’d accidentally left on in the house. Down one step, two – it was really quite chilly. Three, four, five. Finally! Six and –

      She fell. She wasn’t sure why. It didn’t matter why. But her shoulder bore the brunt and she took a knock to the side of her face too. It hurt, of course it hurt. But more significant than the pain was the shock. She felt frightened and that appalled her.

      Mrs Biggins, damn you and your day off! Lydia stayed still for a few minutes. Was anything broken? She’d fractured various bones in hunting accidents over the years – no, she didn’t think so. Still, she felt most unsure about picking herself up. Her cheekbone was throbbing and her fingers were numb.

      Hullo? Is anyone home? What a stupid question – why would there be? Mrs Biggins was probably in Bishop’s Stortford with her daughter. Mercifully, the door was indeed unlocked and Lydia finally made her way shakily inside. She checked her reflection and noted a red mark on the apple of her cheek, growing darker. Frozen peas, she thought, going into the kitchen. And then the lights flickered. Oh dear God, no. Just wait until I have the wretched peas, would you! Flickered again. And then off.

      Once again, something somewhere had fused. Even without the fall, Lydia wouldn’t go feeling and fumbling her way to the panel down in the basement. More uneven stone steps. And an ancient and hostile fuseboard in what really was a dank dungeon. Silly old cheek – it was horribly sore. Lydia clasped her way along the kitchen wall to the dresser and located a box of matches after various things fell to the floor, one of which made the undeniable sound of something thick spilling. Lighting match after match, she managed to illuminate the safest passage to the cupboard under the sink where she knew there’d be a torch. Whether or not it had a battery in it would be another matter. Luckily, it did and its soft orange beam directed her to the freezer where she retrieved the peas and placed them in a tea towel against her cheek. Really, she should phone someone – Art or Clarence. But she didn’t want to. She really didn’t. Instead, she sat in the dark in the drawing room for a while, trying to read Country Life by the waning light of the torch until she told herself she wanted an early night anyway and didn’t care for whatever it was that Mrs Biggins would have left her for her supper all the way back in the kitchen.

       Chapter Five

      The longest thing about Long Dansbury village was the high street, with all other streets branching off it in