I have come a long way.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Evan comes to find me after a few minutes.
‘What do you think?’ he asks with a smile.
‘Amazing. I can’t wait to start work.’
‘You haven’t seen the half of it yet. We should probably move the car, though. I can give you the rest of the tour tomorrow.’
‘Sure thing.’
We make our way back out through the courtyard. There are still a few visitors around, but I’m guessing they’ll soon be ushered towards the exit.
‘Who was that lady who needed your help?’ I ask of the woman who interrupted us.
‘Oh, sorry, I should have introduced you properly,’ he says as our feet crunch over the gravel at the front of the house. ‘That was Philippa Berkeley.’
‘You’re shitting me!’ I exclaim in a hushed voice. ‘Thatwas the lady of the house?’
She looked so ordinary in her dark green zip-up vest and unbrushed hair. Her accent was super posh, but I just assumed she worked here.
‘Yep.’ He sounds amused. ‘She’s a character all right.’
‘I can’t believe you call her Mrs B,’ I say as we climb into the car.
‘She loves it,’ he replies with a grin. ‘I’m the only one who dares, though.’
That’s because he’s a cheeky flirt and can get away with it.
‘Harri, Bethan and Siân call her Lady Berkeley,’ he adds as he starts the ignition.
Harri and Bethan are gardeners at my level, although they’re both a couple of years younger than I am. Siân, my new housemate, works in the kitchens.
‘What’s Peter Berkeley like?’ I ask about the viscount of the house as Evan does a U-turn.
‘Haven’t seen too much of the guy, to be honest.Lord Berkeleydoesn’t involve himself with staff,’ he adds, affecting a Queen’s English accent and grinning.
‘But Lady Berkeley does?’ I ask with amusement at his piss-taking.
She knew whoIwas.
‘She involves herself witheverything,’ he says meaningfully.
We head along another track leading off the private drive. Up ahead is a high red-brick wall – the walled garden, I suspect. Evan turns down the right-hand side of it and drives along a narrow dirt track, coming to a stop at the end. Running parallel to the rear of the wall, set well back, is a row of five tiny Victorian terraced cottages.
Yellow climbing roses crawl up the grey stone walls andeach of the front doors is painted a different colour: green, purple, pink, blue and yellow.
Evan tells me that they were built to house estate workers in the late 1800s and they’re still used for the same purpose today.
‘Owain and his wife, Gwen, live at number one – on the right,’ Evan tells me of the cottage with the yellow door. ‘Gwen heads up the kitchen.’
And Owain, of course, is our boss.
‘Harri and I live next door in number two, you and Siân are right by us in three, and those last two cottages are occupied by rangers and workshop crew. The workshop is over there, the sawmill behind it.’ He nods at the Victorian outbuildings beyond the cottages.
‘How many rangers are there?’ I ask.
