Wickham Hall, Part 2 Read Free Page A

looked at her watch pointedly. ‘What did you have in mind?’
    â€˜So much of what is special about Wickham Hall is down to old Hugo and Beatrice, and I think we should pay tribute to that in some way.’ Ben had looked directly at me as I looked up from my diary having just scribbled out ‘make treasure hunt clues’. ‘Any thoughts, anyone?’
    Andy, who’d been saving a seat for Ben when we arrived, had wriggled to the edge of his seat as close to Ben as he could be without actually sitting on his lap. ‘Why don’t we have a series of thirty-themed activities? Like, for instance, I could do a “gifts for under thirty pounds” range in the shop?’
    â€˜Ooh, yes!’ Samantha had waved her hand. ‘We could get people to phone in to the radio with their memories of the festival and give away thirty pairs of tickets to the best ones.’
    For the next few minutes everyone had shouted over each other with their thirty-themed suggestions: Nikki was going to create a flower bed in the shape of a three and a zero out of white geraniums and position it at the entrance to the show; Jenny would work up a special thirty-pound set menu for the outdoor restaurant that would be set up in the showground and I had come up with a series of press releases entitled ‘Thirty things . . .’ to send out to the press.
    And so here I was. Writing my first press release.
    I had to admit Ben had a point. The Fortescues were too modest to make a splash; well, Lord Fortescue was anyway. And so it was up to us to honour them. It was really sweet of Ben to suggest it and his parents would be thrilled that it was he who had come up with the idea. And also, I realized, there was something about the way he talked about Wickham Hall that hinted that he had a real love for the place. Like me.
    So there was something we could agree on. Unlike the paint-speckled wooden easel that he was in the process of unpacking and setting up under the window in our office.
    I watched him stack pots of paintbrushes onto the newly emptied shelf above the printer. Surely he wasn’t planning on painting in here? And when was he actually going to do any work? So far all I’d seen him do was exercise his delegation skills. He was very good at that.
    â€˜You’re an artist, then?’ I said, brushing away the flakes of dried paint that had fallen from the pots of paintbrushes onto my desk.
    â€˜Yes, landscapes mainly.’
    Ben uncovered a canvas and held it away from him to inspect it. He cocked his head to one side, grunted and set it against the wall. I was dying to see what it was of but the painted side was facing the wall.
    â€˜So, if you don’t mind me asking, why take Pippa’s job?’
    â€˜Mum and Dad have got a bee in their bonnets about me learning the business. You probably know they want me to take over in five years.’
    I nodded, remembering our thwarted press conference. ‘And you don’t want to?’
    He frowned and I wondered if I’d overstepped the mark. ‘I’m not ready to commit to that yet.’
    â€˜So why are you here now?’
    He grinned sheepishly as he unpacked a blank canvas and set it on the easel. ‘I forgot to renew the lease on my London studio. I’ve been evicted. I’ve got a new space sorted but it won’t be free until January. So this stint back at the old homestead has come just at the right time.’
    Ben was leaving at Christmas. I wondered what Lord and Lady Fortescue would think about that. And, more to the point, how did I feel . . .?
    â€˜Oh, good,’ I said, in lieu of something more meaningful. ‘About you getting a new studio, I mean, not that I want you to leave.’
    Oh crumbs, now he was chuckling at me again.
    â€˜Right.’ He installed himself at Pippa’s old desk for the first time that day and pulled the telephone towards him.
    I heaved a sigh of relief; finally it