Comp, had ‘borrowed’ Annabel’s favourite string of pearls for a night out clubbing in London and failed to return them.
‘She was mugged,’ Milo told his mother solemnly.
‘The only mug around here is you,’ Annabel snapped. ‘She clearly sold them herself. Probably for drugs.’
‘Why would you say that?’ Milo looked hurt. ‘Roxie doesn’t do drugs.’
‘Of course she does drugs,’ said Annabel contemptuously. ‘All girls from her background do drugs. The only reason you don’t know that is because you’re from a different class. Not that anyone would ever know it these days.’
‘I’m glad they wouldn’t know it if it means being a crashing snob like you,’ Milo shot back. ‘You don’t know anything about Roxanne.’
‘I know she had no business wearing my jewellery. And I know she is never, ever setting foot in my house again. Do you understand?’
The ensuing row was truly awful. Eddie, as usual, had opted out, retreating to his study to ‘work’. Well, no more. Annabel had had enough. The new maid, Magda, was arriving this afternoon, thank God. Eddie had promised to come home and take Milo out of the house for a good talking-to, while Annabel showed the girl around. She was Eastern European, which boded well for hard work, if not necessarily for honesty. Still, at this point, beggars couldn’t be choosers.
Annabel exhaled deeply as the valley opened out below her and the red-tiled roof of Wraggsbottom Farm hove into view.
She’d decided to drive over to Fittlescombe herself to collect Eddie. Partly because, if he didn’t talk to Milo today, she feared she might kill one or both of them. And partly because she wanted to see for herself what Valley Farm was all about. For a ‘money man’, Eddie was certainly spending a lot of time on set.
The worst part of finding out about Eddie’s affairs was the humiliation of not knowing. All those girls. All those years. And Annabel had had no clue.
Well, it wasn’t going to happen again. From now on, she intended to know everything.
‘You idiot! You absolute, bloody idiot!’
Gabe couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Laura so angry. Macy, thankfully, had already gone home, so she wasn’t there to see the meltdown. Most of the crew had gone too, but the lighting guys were still at the farm, setting up in the pig pens; as was Eddie Wellesley, who sat perched on a stool by the Aga, making calls and tapping figures into his iPad like an extremely well-heeled accountant.
‘What if he calls the police?’ asked Laura. ‘He could have you charged with assault.’
‘No one’s going to charge anyone,’ said Gabe. ‘There wasn’t a scratch on him.’
‘We start filming in a week!’ Laura screeched.
‘I know!’ Gabe shouted back. ‘Do you think I don’t know? You’re not the only one working your arse off for this.’
Laura put her head in her hands. ‘You are the face of this show, Gabe. People have to like you. You just beat up a clergyman in broad daylight because you didn’t like the cut of his jib. How is that helpful?’
‘He accused me of flirting with Macy. As good as accused me,’ Gabe shot back.
‘Well, I expect you were,’ said Laura.
‘I was not.’
‘You’d flirt with your own shadow if you thought no one was watching,’ Laura teased him. She knew she needed to lighten the mood. That her own stress was rubbing off on Gabe, and everyone, and making everything worse. But unfortunately Gabe took her comment the wrong way.
‘Now you’re being ridiculous,’ he said crossly. Thrusting his hands deep in his pockets, he stomped off like a sulky schoolboy.
‘He’s only angry because he knows I’m right,’ Laura said to Eddie, who’d sat and watched the entire contretemps in silence. Suddenly the stress of the day got too much for her. She pinched the bridge of her nose to try to stop the tears from coming, but it was too late.
‘Oh God. Sorry,’ she sniffed. ‘I think I’m just exhausted.’
Eddie walked over and wrapped his arms around her. ‘It’s all right. Everyone’s on edge. But Gabe’s right, the vicar won’t press charges. It’ll blow over.’
‘Will it?’ sobbed Laura.
‘Of course it will. But you must try to relax, you really must. You’ll make yourself ill at this rate.’
‘I know,’ Laura nodded, burying her face in Eddie’s shirt, which smelled incongruously of wood polish. He really was a lovely man.
‘Edward!’
Releasing Laura as if he’d just discovered she was made of molten lava, Eddie turned round. Annabel stood in the kitchen doorway, a picture of rage. Gabe must have left the door to the yard open when he stormed out.
‘Darling! What a nice surprise. I wasn’t expecting you.’
‘Obviously.’
That’s all we need, thought Laura. More misunderstandings. She thought about saying something, trying to explain, but Annabel’s expression made it clear she was in no mood to hear it.
‘I need you to talk to Milo.’ Annabel was talking to Eddie, but she couldn’t bring herself to look at him. ‘Right now.’
‘Of course,’ said Eddie, chastened. There was nothing going on between him and Laura. But after everything that had happened, he could hardly blame Annabel for thinking the worst.
Laura watched from the window as Eddie scurried across the farmyard after his rigid-shouldered wife. What a bloody awful day.
Valley Farm, 1. Marital Harmony, Nil.
Magda Bartosz clutched her small suitcase tightly in her left hand as she climbed out of her decrepit Ford Fiesta. It felt wrong, parking her rust-bucket of a car outside this spectacularly beautiful house. Like littering. But she was already late, thanks to an accident on the Lewes bypass, and there was nowhere else obvious to leave it. Smoothing down her skirt, Magda hurried up the steps to the front door, then hesitated.
Perhaps one doesn’t knock at the front door of a grand house, when arriving for a trial as a live-in maid? Is there a back door? A servants’ entrance? Or does that sort of thing only exist in Downton Abbey?, she thought.
Magda had been in England for a few years now, working as a companion-cum-housekeeper for an old woman who had since died. But English customs and traditions still baffled her, especially the ones that pertained to class. Magda herself had been born into an old and distinguished but impoverished family in Warsaw. Her proud, high cheekbones, smooth forehead and regal, aquiline nose bore testament to the better life once known by her ancestors. But everything that had once been refined and beautiful and pleasant about Magda’s life had evaporated long ago. So long ago, and so totally, that she rarely even thought about it any more.
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