‘Full. Wendy will be in soon.’
‘Right. Come on, Lola, time to go.’ He stuffed his phone in a pocket and strode past Pippa, who was still trembling. Lola jumped up, sensing an adventure.
‘You must be Pippa.’ The woman was hovering just inside the room, as though she didn’t quite dare come any further. ‘I’m Elaine, Gil’s receptionist. Welcome to Hartfell.’
‘Thank you.’ Pippa let out a shaky breath, offering a smile of her own. Elaine stepped aside to let Gil through the door, and he disappeared, Lola at his heels. ‘I don’t think I’ve got off to the best start.’
‘Don’t mind Gil, he can be a bit sharp when he’s upset. Doesn’t happen often.’
‘Upset?’ Pippa was just about holding onto furious tears, and she wondered if he hadn’t washed up his mug just to annoy her. She was fighting the desire to do it herself and looked away; she’d leave it for him to deal with when he returned for his things. ‘I don’t understand why he’s so angry with me.’
‘You’re a threat to him, that’s why.’ Elaine shook her head. ‘He loves this place and he’s convinced you’ve come here just to sell it from under him.’
Pippa firmly quashed the flare of guilt. That was her plan, and she wasn’t about to share it with his receptionist. Best to say no more about estate agents for now and find out how the land lay first, as it were. Maybe she’d look further afield for an agent as well. In the next county, maybe, not someone who knew all the locals and would make her plan public before she was ready. Then she’d have them stick up aFor Saleboard and hotfoot it back home at the same time, hopefully within the week.
‘He’ll calm down, don’t worry. Why don’t you pop over to the practice for a coffee when you have a minute? I’ll fill you in on some of the history.’
‘Where is that, the practice?’ Not far enough, probably. Through the kitchen window Pippa caught sight of a Land Rover racing down the drive, a stony-faced Gil behind the wheel.
‘The main branch is in town, but the original surgery is just across the yard. I’d better run, we’ve got a locum doing consultations this morning and clients will be arriving soon. See you later, Pippa.’
‘Bye. And thank you.’ Pippa walked over to the table and sank onto one of the plastic chairs, head in her hands. This adventure, as Harriet had optimistically called it last night, had rapidly become a nightmare. Gil Haworth didn’t even know her and already he hated her. And now Harriet was sulking in her room and probably scheming to get her grandad to stage a rescue, which would put her beyond Pippa’s reach whilst she was marooned in Hartfell.
She’d left her phone upstairs so she couldn’t check if her own message to her dad had sent out. And even if it had, she didn’t expect a reply anytime soon. Given the situation, he must’ve known all about Gil and had landed her in it on purpose. Yet again, she was battling her inability to say no to her family and worse, she knew deep down that some of what Gil had said about Harriet was true. Shehadbeen worried about the Wi-Fi, because if Harriet knew it was non-existent or even unreliable, why else would she have come? Not for Pippa’s sake and a bit of mother and daughter bonding, of that, she was sure.
From experience she knew that Harriet was best left to cool down for a while. She would go in search of shopping, so she could at least feed her daughter. Perhaps when Harriet had had an hour or so to think about her predicament with the Wi-Fi, she might – and Pippa knew it was a long shot – just might come around to the idea of being on an adventure again. She desperately needed to uncover what was bothering Harriet, if her moodiness was due to more than teenage hormones.
She was hungry too and not for anything was she going to touch a single scrap of food that belonged to Gil, especially as none of it was the promised provisions he was supposed to have bought. She had no idea how the hot water system in this house worked and when she went upstairs and saw the rough contraption attached to the wall above the turquoise bath, she decided to leave having a shower for later. She sent Harriet a text to let her know she was going out in search of the shop.
She locked the back door and set off at her usual brisk pace, braced for avoiding strangers in her path. In daylight, the house wasn’t as ugly as she’d expected given the state of the inside. It was rather gorgeous, built of a stone that appeared golden, dozing in the early morning sun.
The driveway was separated from the yard by a row of overgrown hedging, curving around to the barns she’d seen from the kitchen earlier, bordered by trees, a paddock one side and a front garden on the other, wide grassy verges laden with wildflowers. The whole effect was very pretty, and her eye caught on a clump of cow parsley. She thought of sketching it, capturing those faded, flat flower heads before they fell. She shook the idea firmly away; she didn’t have time for that.
The small paddock was almost devoid of grass, a stubby little brown-and-white pony grazing between thin lines of white tape fencing off one corner, a thick tail almost reaching the ground shaking away flies. It raised a head to stare as Pippa marched past, and she smiled. Its face was half hidden by long white hair, and the pony soon returned to the more important business of snatching at grass through a muzzle attached to the headcollar.
The scent of freshly mown grass was on the air, and she breathed it in, trying to think back to the last time she’d noticed it. Not in her own garden, certainly, which was a courtyard filled with pots and plants she wasn’t always diligent about taking care of. She paused where the drive met the lane, checking for traffic, of which there was none, unless she counted a group of five middle-aged people all striding purposefully past with rucksacks and walking poles. Every one of them offered a greeting along with curious looks and she muttered a distracted hello back.
A glance to her right revealed the high square tower of a sturdy, solid church and she turned towards it, glimpsing more rooftops through the trees. The lane sloped gently down as she headed towards the village, realising that Home Farm wasn’t as far away from it as she’d imagined. She passed a primary school next to the church, the playground silent on a Saturday, unlike her phone, which had picked up some signal and was busy pinging notifications. She glanced at it, too distracted by the view right now to open the messages from the family, who probably all wanted to know about the house and why their dad had never told them about it.
Pippa slowed her pace as she crossed a neat bridge in the same golden stone as the house, matching some of the cottages she saw up ahead. Others were painted white with black windows, doors opening directly onto the cobbled lane. One or two houses were larger, smart front doors tucked behind railings and rows of low hedging. Beneath her feet, the shallow and burbling river spilled busily over rocks and she took a moment to enjoy it, feeling a little more of her tension slip away as she tilted her face to the sun. Her stomach rumbled, reminding her to continue in search of shopping, and she paused again when she reached a T-junction.
To her right sat the village green, the far side bordering the river and edged with bright planting, her eye picking out pleasing shades of lemon, cream and apricot. In the centre, a stone cross stood at the top of three wide and crumbling steps, the remains of a wooden stocks fastened between posts smudged with moss perched nearby.
On her left she spotted a pub; creamy stone walls smothered in ivy clambering above huge wooden planters on the cobbles. Each was filled with plants, and evergreen topiary had been pruned into upright columns between softer pastel hues. Opposite was a disused youth hostel, its dull rendered walls and tatty white windows making the building plain. A couple carrying cases were leaving the pub, heading for a car parked beneath the dappled shade of a horse chestnut tree.
It was all so much prettier than Pippa had expected, imagining the village to be some windswept moorland wilderness. Her visits to Yorkshire were long in the past and from what she remembered, her memories were of towns and busy streets, not this glorious cluster of buildings perched amongst a rolling green landscape dotted with farms. She took a few pictures for the family and swiftly decided not to send them yet; love them all though she did and very much, she didn’t want any of them descending on Hartfell for a nosy.
There had been just the three of them when her mum had died, not the five siblings they became after her dad eventually met someone else. Phoebe and Freddie, her youngest sister and brother, had arrived during Jonny’s most meaningful relationship after becoming a widower, with his publicist Vanessa. Even now he would still say fondly that she was very good at her job, and he’d never had publicity like it. Pippa wasn’t sure that he’d ever grasped the irony of the headlines he’d garnered by fathering two children with Vanessa, who was still very much a part of their lives and also excellent at the job she continued to do for Jonny and the band.
Another growl in her stomach reminded Pippa of Harriet, sulking back at the house. They both needed a good meal, and soon. Thinking about her daughter and lulled from her usual city senses as she went to cross the lane, she very nearly stepped straight into the path of a quad bike.
It jerked out of her way with an angry blast of the horn, and she caught the irate glare of the elderly woman driving it. A terrier was perched on her lap, a lurcher clinging on behind. A trailer was attached to the bike and Pippa did a double take, heart still fluttering, wondering if she really had just seen a sheep riding shotgun with a pair of alpacas.
Chapter Four
Outside the village shop, cunningly disguised as another white-painted cottage that Pippa missed the first time she walked past it, her phone rang. She pulled it from her bag, half hoping it might be her dad and she could vent some of her frustration. Of course it wasn’t Jonny, and she swiped to answer the call anyway, anticipation replacing some of her anxiety.
‘Hey, Cass.’
