Chapter Sixteen.
She was driving back through Langholme when she saw Lily Fulwell in the Holme Park Range Rover coming towards her. Lily stopped abruptly and flashed her headlights. Anne wondered for a moment if something vital had fallen off the grotty Fiat, but it seemed that Lily wanted to be friendly. Anne was surprised. They weren’t usually on those sort of terms. Of course Lily knew who she was. They’d been introduced when Anne had first arrived at the Priory and Lily, newly married, had taken over the running of the big house. Occasionally they bumped into each other. Lily would give her a wave from the Range Rover if she was feeling charitable or exchange a few words in the post office after collecting her child benefit. But intimacy had never been encouraged.
Anne was adept at picking up social signs and knew better, for example, than to invite the Fulwells for dinner.
Today, however, Lily was unusually chatty. She got out of the Range Rover, leaving the door wide open, though it was blocking the lane, and a toddler, strapped in the back, was howling blue murder. Robert and Lily had three children and Lily prided herself on being a real mother.
There was always some sort of nanny in the background but Lily had done the play group shift, taken them to buy their own shoes, organized birthday parties. Now the two older ones were away at school, but she was always there for them in the holidays. That was the impression that was given. Anne had overheard Robert talking to Jeremy at some charity do. “We’re off to Austria. Lily adores skiing, but she insists on taking the little buggers with us. I think she’s a bloody marvel!”
Lily was younger than her husband, still only in her early thirties.
Apparently she’d been a child bride of impeccable pedigree. She had the complexion of a schoolgirl now, short curly hair which looked as if she’d just come out of the shower and a wide friendly smile which made people trust her. People who knew the family well said she was ruthless, very much the brains behind the Holme Park operation.
“I’m so glad to have seen you.” Lily was wearing a hand-knitted cotton sweater over jeans and a Barbour. The rain had stopped and the Barbour was unzipped. There was a stain on the front of the sweater which looked as if a child had been sick. “I’ve been meaning for ages to say you must come round for coffee.”
Before the start of the project Anne would have been delighted to receive this invitation. Now she wondered what Rachael would say if she accepted. The Slateburn quarry would be developed on Holme Park land. It was a joint venture. Liaising with the developers was Peter’s job. Or Rachael’s. Certainly not a humble contract worker’s.
Lily gave one of her generous smiles.
“I wanted you to know how much we appreciate what you’re doing. Robert and I both admire it. I mean the Priory seems so cosy and you’ve given it all up to camp out in that cottage in the hills. I mean we feel we’re on the same side as you, really. Holme Park’s the children’s inheritance, isn’t it? If you find something important up there we’d be the last people in the world to want to destroy it.”
The cries of the toddler reached a crescendo.
“Oh God, we can’t talk now. I always knew we should have stopped after Harry. Two’s enough for anyone. Or perhaps it comes so hard because there’s such a big gap.”
But it really didn’t seem to come very hard. She scooped the infant out of its child seat and fixed it onto her hip, jiggling it gently while she continued to talk. The cries subsided.
“Can you make it tomorrow? Elevenish? Or doesn’t that fit in with your work?”
By now Anne was curious. Sod Rachael.
“No,” she said. “Eleven will be fine.”
“Great.” Lily gave another smile. This time of relief? Or of a successful mission accomplished? Then she deftly strapped in the baby and drove off, hitting the horn in farewell.
On Wednesday and Sunday afternoons Holme Park was open to the public.
Anne had paid her three quid once to have a nose at the gardens, which frankly weren’t up to much, but she’d never been inside. Approaching the house the following day she wasn’t sure where to go. Perhaps she should go round to the back. She imagined that this coffee party would be an informal affair. They’d probably be in the kitchen, with the toddler doing something constructive and messy with paint and dogs sprawled on the floor.
But Lily was at the front of the house chatting to a plump young woman and when Anne hesitated, not sure whether she should park in the field which the public used, Lily waved her on. They didn’t use the grand front door with the stone steps and the porticoes, but she wasn’t shown into the tradesman’s entrance either. There were two wings, lower, less daunting than the main house, built at right angles to it, and she was taken into the entrance hall of one of these.
“I’ve just asked Arabella to take the horror out for a walk,” Lily said, ‘ we can talk in peace.”
Today Lily was more smartly dressed, though not, Anne suspected, just for her benefit. She had heard that Lily carried out most of the business on the estate. There would be meetings. The deal with Slateburn had been her idea. Robert had worried that it might affect the shooting and hadn’t been too keen. He was considered a soft touch, a financial liability.
“How’s Robert?” Anne asked.
“Out on the estate. A crisis with one of the tenants. He sends his apologies. Really, he’s so sorry not to be here.”
They had coffee not in the kitchen but in a pretty little sitting room.
The sofa and the chairs were covered in a pale lemon fabric which would show every mark and Anne thought it unlikely that the children were allowed to play here. After Lily had carried in the tray there was a moment of awkward silence which she must have taken as a failure on her part, because she gave one of her smiles and said apologetically, “Crazy, isn’t it, that we’ve got so much in common and yet that we’ve hardly had a chance to meet.”
Anne didn’t reply.
“Anyway, I’m so interested in this survey of yours. How, exactly, does it work?”
“There are three of us,” Anne said. “Three women.”
“Isn’t that unusual?”
“Perhaps. I’m the botanist. Rachael Lambert’s doing the bird work and Grace is our mammal expert.”
“Grace?”
“Grace Fulwell. No relation, I presume, but quite a coincidence.”
“Oh, there are dozens of Fulwells in the Northumberland phone book.
We’re a common lot. I expect we’re all related one way or another too.
Where does she come from?”
Lily’s voice was light but she seemed genuinely interested.
“I don’t know. She’s not very communicative.” Anne realized that might sound bitchy. She didn’t want to give the impression that the project was falling apart. Not to Lily Fulwell at least. “When you live and work on top of one another like that privacy’s important.”
“Oh yes!” As if a great truth had been revealed. “I do see.”
Anne talked Lily through the process of the survey, explained the system of the poles and the quad rats Lily listened intently and encouraged Anne to expand. Anne realized how the managers of shooting syndicates, the tenants and the businessmen could be persuaded to invest in her.
And where exactly do you intend to survey?”
“I’d like to do a couple of moorland sites, the peat bogs of course and I thought one square close to the lead mine. Sometimes the spoil changes the acidity of the soil. There might be something unusual. You don’t mind?”
“God, no! Go wherever you like. Absolutely open access. I explained yesterday that I think we’re on the same side.” She paused. “I suppose it’s too early to have come up with any results yet?”
“Much too early. I haven’t started the detailed work yet.”