"Why doesn't he have someone living in the house with him? It's big enough."
"Good question," said Mark dryly. "Maybe you can persuade him. All I get is-" he adopted a quavery baritone-" 'I'm not having some damn busybody poking her nose in where it isn't wanted.' "
Nancy laughed. "You can't blame him. Would you want it?"
"No, but then I'm not neglecting myself the way he is."
She nodded matter-of-factly. "We had the same problem with one of my grandmothers. In the end my father had to register his power of attorney. Have you set up a document for James?"
"Yes."
"In whose name?"
"Mine," he said reluctantly.
"My father didn't want to exercise it either," she said sympathetically. "In the end it was forced on him when Granny was threatened with having her electricity cut off. She thought the red bills were prettier than the others, and lined them up along her mantelpiece to brighten her room. It never occurred to her to pay them." She smiled in response to his smile. "It didn't make her any less lovable," she said. "So, who else lives in Shenstead?"
"Hardly anyone permanently. That's the trouble. The Bartletts in Shenstead House-retired early and made a fortune selling up in London; the Woodgates at Paddock View-they pay a peppercorn rent to the company that owns most of the holiday cottages in return for managing them; and the Weldons at Shenstead Farm." He pointed at a woodland that bordered the parkland to the west. "They own the land that way so, strictly, they're outside the village boundary. As are the Squires and the Drews to the south."
"Are they the tenant farmers you told me about?"
He nodded. "James owns everything from here to the shoreline."
"Wow!" she said again. "That's some acreage. So how come the village has a right-of-way across his land?"
"James's great-grandfather-the fellow whose ulster you saw-granted rights to fishermen to transport boats and catches to and from the coast in order to build a lobster industry in Shenstead. Ironically, he was faced with the same problem that exists today-a dying village and a dwindling workforce. It was the time of the industrial revolution and youngsters were leaving to find better-paid work in the towns. He hoped to tap in to the successful Weymouth and Lyme Regis operations."
"Did it work?"
Mark nodded. "For about fifty years. The entire village was geared to lobster production. There were carriers, boilers, preparers, packers. They used to freight ice by the ton and store it in icehouses round the village."
"Do the icehouses still exist?"
"Not as far as I know. They became redundant as soon as the fridge was invented and electricity was brought in." He nodded toward the Japanese garden. "The one that was here became that pond we've just been looking at. James has a collection of copper boiling pans in one of the outhouses, but that's about all that's survived."
"What killed it off?"
"The First World War. Fathers and sons went off to fight and didn't come back. It was the same story everywhere, of course, but the effects were devastating in a small place like this which relied on its menfolk to heave the boats in and out of the water." He led her out to the middle of the lawn. "You can just about see the shoreline. It's not a good anchorage so they had to haul the boats onto dry land. There are photographs of it in one of the bedrooms."
She shielded her eyes against the sun. "If it was that labor-intensive then it was always doomed," she said. "Prices would never have kept up with the cost of production and the industry would have died anyway. Dad always says the greatest destroyer of countryside communities was mechanization in farming. One man on a combine harvester can do the work of fifty, and he does it quicker, better, and with far less waste." She nodded toward the fields in front of them. "Presumably these two farms contract out their plowing and harvesting?"
He was impressed. "How can you tell just by looking at them?"
"I can't," she said with a laugh, "but you didn't mention any laborers living in the village. Does the farmer to the west contract out as well?"
"Dick Weldon. No, he's the contractor. He built up a business on the other side of Dorchester, then bought Shenstead Farm for peanuts three years ago when the previous owner went bankrupt. He's no fool. He's left his son in charge of the core business to the west and now he's expanding here."
Nancy eyed him curiously. "You don't like him," she said.
"What makes you think that?"
"Tone of voice."
She was more perceptive than he was, he thought. Despite her smiles and her laughs, he still hadn't learned to read her face or inflection. Her manner wasn't as dry as James's but she was certainly as self-contained. Anywhere else, and with a different woman, he would have flattered to seduce-either to be fascinated or disappointed-but he was reluctant to do anything to queer James's pitch. "Why the change of heart?" he asked abruptly.
She turned to look at the house. "You mean, why am I here?"
"Yes."
She shrugged. "Did he tell you he wrote to me?"
"Not till yesterday."
"Have you read the letters?"
"Yes."
"Then you ought to be able to answer your question yourself… but I'll give you a clue." She flicked him an amused glance. "I'm not here for his money."
9
The hunt was the shambles Julian Bartlett had predicted. The saboteurs had kept a surprisingly low profile at the start but, as soon as a fox was put up in Blantyre Wood, cars raced ahead to create avenues of safety by using hunting horns to divert the hounds onto false trails. Out of practice after the long layoff, the dogs quickly became confused and the huntsman and his whippers-in lost control. The riders circled impatiently until order was restored, but a return to Blantyre Wood to raise a second fox was no more successful.
Hunt followers in their cars attempted to block the saboteurs and shout to the huntsman the direction the fox had taken, but an amplified tape of a pack in full cry, played through loudspeakers on a van, drew the hounds away. The aggravation levels among the riders-already high-mounted alarmingly as saboteurs invaded the field and waved their arms at the horses in a criminal and dangerous attempt to unseat the riders. Julian lashed out at a foolhardy lad who tried to catch Bouncer's reins, then swore profusely when he saw he'd been photographed by a woman with a camera.
He circled and came up beside her, wrestling to keep Bouncer in check. "I'll sue if you publish that," he said through gritted teeth. "That man was frightening my horse and I was within my rights to protect myself and my mount."
"Can I quote you?" she asked, pointing the lens at his face and clicking off a fusillade of shots. "What's your name?"
"None of your damn business."
She lowered the camera on its neck strap and patted it with a grin, before pulling a notebook from her jacket pocket. "It won't take me long to find out… not with these pictures. Debbie Fowler, Wessex Times," she said, retreating to a safe distance. "I'm a neutral… just a poor little hack trying to make a living. So-" another grin-"do you want to tell me what you have against foxes… or shall I make it up?"
Julian scowled ferociously. "That's about your level, isn't it?"
"Talk to me, then," she invited. "I'm here… I'm listening. Put the hunt's side."
"What's the point? You'll paint me as the aggressor and that idiot there-" he jerked his chin at the skinny saboteur who was backing away, rubbing his arm where the crop had caught him-"as the hero, never mind he made a deliberate attempt to break my neck by unseating me."