‘Good idea,’ I agreed. We all pitched in, with Rory stirring the mixture for eggy bread – something he said he’d never tasted, and pronounced ‘delicious’ when he did.
‘So, young Rory, this morning we shall take Miss Star on a tour of the estate, or at least what’s left of it, and hope that Sunday lunch does not drop from the skies upon our heads,’ Orlando added.
‘What do you mean?’ I queried.
‘It’s pheasant shooting season, I’m afraid. Mouse is bringing a brace for you to perform your magic on for our lunch tomorrow.’ Orlando stood up. ‘Perhaps while we men perform our ablutions, you would write a list of everything you need to complement the birds, and I will have the local farm shop deliver it. By the way,’ he said, halting as he arrived at the kitchen door. ‘The trees in the orchard still bear fruit that goes to waste on the ground. If it’s not too much trouble, perhaps you’d like to make use of some in a pie?’
I found a piece of scrap paper and a felt tip pen in the drawer and sat down to write a list. I’d never cooked pheasant before, so I had a search around the kitchen for some recipe books, but found none and decided I would just have to invent my own.
Half an hour later we were forging across the frost-hardened drive. Orlando had planned a route that would apparently take us to the furthest reaches of the land, and then into what he called the jewel in the crown of High Weald.
‘At least it was seventy years ago, anyway,’ he added. Rory was cycling ahead of us, and as he reached the gate, Orlando shouted at him to stop because of the road, but he didn’t.
‘Good God! He can’t hear me!’ he cried as he went haring off in pursuit and I had a glimpse into the dangers Rory would face as he grew up and the constant supervision he needed now. I ran too, my heart pounding, to find Rory grinning cheekily at us as he emerged from behind a bush on the grass verge along the lane.
‘Hiding! Got you!’
‘Yes, you most certainly did, old chap,’ Orlando signed vehemently, as we tried to recover our breath and equilibrium. ‘You must never cycle on the lane. There are cars.’
‘I know. Mag told me.’
Orlando stowed Rory’s bike inside the gate. ‘Now, we shall cross the road together.’
We did so, Rory between us, holding each of our hands, and I was struck by the fact that Rory called his mother by a shortened version of her name; a truly Bohemian family, I thought, as Orlando steered us through an opening in the hedge on the other side. Endless fields bordered by hedges spread on either side of us and I watched Rory turn his head to take in the sights around him. He spied the late blackberries first, and we picked them together, most of them ending up in Rory’s mouth.
‘This is the bridle path that borders the old estate,’ Orlando said as we walked on. ‘Do you ride, Miss Star?’
‘No. I’m frightened of horses,’ I confessed, remembering my one and only riding lesson with CeCe, when I’d been too terrified to even climb on.
‘Not one for the nags myself either. Mouse rides excellently, of course, just as he does everything else. I do feel for him sometimes, mind you. I’m of the opinion that having too many gifts can be as bad as having none at all, don’t you think? Everything in moderation, that’s my motto. Or life has a way of coming back to bite you.’
As we walked on, I saw the hedges were fluttering with small birds; the air smelt fresh and clear, and I enjoyed breathing in its pureness after weeks in the smoggy city. The sun shone bronze in Rory’s hair, mirroring the trees that were holding on to their last glorious colour before winter.
‘Look!’ he shouted, spotting a red tractor in the distance. ‘Mouse!’
‘And so it is,’ said Orlando, shielding his eyes from the sun and squinting over the fields. ‘Rory, you have the eyes of a hawk.’
‘Say hello?’ Rory turned to us.
‘He doesn’t like to be disturbed when he’s tractoring,’ Orlando cautioned as a sudden blast of shotguns rang out in the distance. ‘And the shoot has begun. We should head back. The pheasants will be falling around us hard and fast, and they have a horrible habit of denting anything below them, be it animate or not.’
Orlando set off at a fast pace, retracing our footsteps towards the house.
‘So your brother is a farmer?’
‘I wouldn’t define him as such, given the other strings he has to his bow, but due to the constant staff shortage caused by the family financial crisis, he often has no choice but to be.’
‘Does he own this land?’
‘We both do, as it happens. The estate was divided in the forties between brother and sister. Our branch – that of our grandmother, Louise Forbes – got the land on this side of the lane, plus Home Farm. While our great-uncle, Teddy Vaughan, Marguerite’s grandfather, inherited the main house and gardens. And, of course, the peerage. All very feudal, but that is England for you, Miss Star.’
We crossed over the lane and walked back down the drive of High Weald. I wondered which branch of the family had drawn the short straw when the estate was divided, but I knew nothing of the price of farmland as opposed to property round here.
‘Rory!’ Again, Orlando ran to catch up with his nephew who had raced off towards the house on his bike. ‘We should show Star the gardens now.’
Rory gave a thumbs up and careered away again at pace, disappearing down a path to the side of the house.
‘Good grief, I shall be glad when this is over,’ Orlando said. ‘I’m living in fear of something happening to that precious boy on our watch. Awfully glad you’re with me, Star. I wouldn’t have been allowed here without you.’
I was surprised at his comment as I followed him along the path to the back of the house. We emerged onto a wide flagstone terrace, and I drew in my breath as I looked down into the vast walled garden.
It was as though I had landed in Sleeping Beauty’s castle grounds, and now had to fight my way through the forest of thorns and gigantic weeds that enveloped it. As we walked down the steps and along the overgrown paths that wound through the maze of what must have been spectacular shrubbery, I saw the wooden skeletons of pergolas that had once carried magnificent climbing roses. The endless borders and flower beds still held their original pattern, but could no longer contain the plants and bushes that had escaped their confines and whose dry, brown entrails covered the paths.
I stopped and looked up at an ancient and majestic yew tree that dominated the garden, its determined roots having broken through the stone paths that surrounded it. There was a wild yet desolate air of romance about it all. And, I thought, just a whisper of possibility that those specimens which – against the odds – had survived unchecked could be salvaged.
I closed my eyes and conjured up an image of the garden awash with roses, magnolias and camellias, the straight lines of clipped box hedges giving way to powdery blue ceanothus . . . every nook and cranny filled with gorgeous, lavish life . . .