The animals had a mention too: the pets, Benny, Björn and Madge, would of course move with my uncle and aunt, but I wanted to keep the Jersey cows and learn how to look after them myself. I loved them as much as Auntie Sue did and needed their milk for ice cream. And I wanted to keep the hens. A farm’s not a farm without hens, I said, echoing Harry’s words from last night.
Auntie Sue was delighted. ‘That’s a relief, lass. There’s only room for one or two chickens at that bungalow and certainly no cows.’
‘I didn’t know you wanted a bungalow?’ teased Uncle Arthur. ‘Why didn’t you say?’
She cuffed him round the ear.
‘I’m going to keep Kim but sell Kanye,’ I announced, ‘and as soon as we’ve got the all-clear from the vet, Uncle Arthur, I think we should sell the beef herd to give you a bit of a nest egg. Ooh and by the way, Harry definitely wants Dexter.’
Uncle Arthur sighed. Our eyes met and I faltered. Here I was blazing through his farm like a tornado. Was all this a step too far? He reached out and squeezed my hand. ‘Carry on, lass,’ he mumbled.
‘Talking of money, Freya?’ said Dad.
I swallowed. ‘Yep. Just coming to that.’
This was where my whole plan could come crashing down round my ears. I’d made some massive assumptions. I just hoped I’d got it right. I looked at my watch: seven twenty-nine. Harry would be here any time now.
‘Mum, Dad, how would you like to live at the farm?’ I held my breath.
‘Good gracious!’ Dad exclaimed.
The pair of them blinked like bears coming out of a cave into sunlight. Which, frankly, was better than I’d expected. These were people who’d lived a life of opulence abroad for twenty-five years. Appleby Farm was a lot of things, but none of them was associated with luxury.
At that moment the phone began to ring.
‘Damn it, just as things were getting interesting,’ Auntie Sue groaned, hobbling off on her arthritic knee to the office.
There was a knock at the door and I hurried towards it, leaving my parents to stare at each other with bewildered expressions.
I opened the door and there was Harry, a breath of fresh air, full of vitality and curiosity, in jeans and a T-shirt despite the cool autumn evening. My heart hammered as I searched his eyes for traces of our awkward encounter at Willow Farm, but there was nothing to see except warmth.
‘Not late, am I?’ he said, brushing his lips against my cheek.
‘Perfect timing, actually.’ I ushered him to the kitchen table where he shook hands with the men and kissed my mum. ‘I’ve just asked Mum and Dad if they’d consider living here.’
I looked at my parents’ faces. ‘Just for a few years – say, five. Until I can afford to buy it myself. If you bought the farmhouse and buildings and twenty acres—’
‘Only twenty?’ began my uncle, until I held up a finger to shut him up.
‘I reckon that will be plenty for my business. But this is where Harry comes in.’
Harry leaned his forearms on the table and nodded. ‘I’ve got plans for expansion and the most cost-effective way to do that is locally. Freya thought that you might be able to help me out.’
‘Do you see, Uncle Arthur?’ I said, giving his shoulders a hug. ‘You can rent the rest of the land out to Willow Farm; Harry is desperate for more acres. It keeps it in the family and gives you an income.’
‘Is that right?’ marvelled Uncle Arthur, a huge smile threatening to split his face in two.
Harry nodded. ‘I must say it does sound like a good solution. Come over to Willow Farm, Arthur, and I’ll show you my plans for biofuels.’
‘Will do, lad.’
‘Well, we were thinking of relocating to the Lakes,’ Dad said thoughtfully. ‘What do you think, Margo?’
Mum’s face was all furrowed, her eyes were shiny with tears and her bottom lip was wobbling furiously. She opened her mouth to speak and a little squeak came out. ‘It sounds wonderful to me.’
‘You seem to have thought of everything, Freya,’ said Dad, looking pink. ‘I’m impressed.’
‘Fantastic!’ I jumped up and clapped. ‘And in five years—’
‘You’ll be thirty-something,’ Dad interjected. ‘I must agree with your mother. This is a terrific undertaking for a single woman. Where’s your life in all this? What about love?’
Harry shifted in his seat and I could have died with embarrassment. I tried to come up with a witty retort but all I could conjure up was the image of Harry’s finger stroking my cheek last night and how for one moment I’d felt like my heart would burst.
Deep breaths, Freya.
Before I’d managed to reply, Auntie Sue stumbled back into the kitchen in a flap.
‘There’s a girl on the phone who says she’s a friend of Lizzie’s. She wants to come and look round our wedding venue.’ This last bit required extremely wide eye-opening on her part. ‘She says can she have her wedding photos with the cows?’
‘Yeah. Why not?’ I shrugged. ‘Gloria and Gaynor will look lovely with ribbons round their necks.’
‘I’ve heard it all now,’ chuckled Uncle Arthur, elbowing Harry in the ribs.
‘She also says she wants to see which room she and the bridesmaids will be getting ready in!’
I’d already thought of that. I got to my feet. ‘Right. When’s the wedding?’
‘Next June.’
‘Perfect,’ I said briskly. ‘The farmhouse’s new reception room and downstairs bathroom will be finished by then. OK, I’d better talk to her.’
‘Where’s that going to go?’ asked Uncle Arthur, scratching his head.
‘Your office. And the office is moving to the hayloft above the milking parlour.’
I scampered out of the room, leaving Harry shaking his head in amusement and Mum and Dad arguing over which of them I took after the most. Both of them, pleasingly, seemed keen to claim me as a chip off their old block.
A couple of hours later I jumped into bed, head whirling with all the amazing things that had happened. Julian and his intensive dairy shenanigans had been well and truly kicked into touch. My parents had agreed to buy the farm and help me get the Appleby Farm Vintage Company off the ground. Auntie Sue had persuaded Uncle Arthur to make an offer on her dream bungalow first thing in the morning, and I would offer Lizzie a job as manager of the tea rooms. My eyes closed and I burrowed further under the blankets. The only thing that was missing from my perfect evening was someone to share my happiness with. As my body started to drift off to sleep, the last face I saw was Harry’s.
Chapter 36
The next few weeks absolutely flew by and we all celebrated when the Hereford herd was officially cleared of TB. As soon as the movement ban was lifted, Eddy and Uncle Arthur took the calves off to be auctioned and Harry came along to collect Dexter, Uncle Arthur’s prize bull.
In a matter of weeks, everything on the farm seemed to have gathered pace. I spent half my time in meetings with Patience Purdue at the planning department, talking about changing the use of some of our buildings, or with my new best friend Jayne from the tourism office, who in turn had told me about funding that the farm might be eligible for, which, of course, led to more meetings. Goat joked that with the amount of work I was putting his way, he might as well put a caravan in the farmyard to save him going home. At least we hoped he was joking.
I did have a short break at the beginning of October when I took my new tea rooms manager, aka Lizzie, away to the Yorkshire Dales for the night to stay in the most beautiful shepherd’s hut on a hillside next to a stream.
Spending time in such tight proximity had made us closer and taught us things about each other. For instance, I found out that Lizzie is a bit OCD when it comes to cleaning work surfaces – useful to know and a very commendable trait in the catering profession. And she discovered that I laugh in my sleep – less useful, but at least she now knows she has a happy boss.
The following day we arrived back stuffed with English
breakfast and, more importantly, ideas for our own Appleby Farm Vintage Holidays business just in time to see Harry supervising the delivery of one of his shepherd’s huts. It was in even worse condition than ours and he and Eddy declared it a long-term project for the spring. Eddy was already getting stuck in to renovating our first hut, ready for Tilly and Aidan to stay in. It was to be vintage in style, of course, with a double bed at one end that converted into a little table and bench seats in the day, a kitchenette at the other and the world’s tiniest log burner in the centre to keep them warm on their December wedding night.
Auntie Sue and Uncle Arthur’s new bungalow was almost ready to move into and Auntie Sue was having a lovely time with the developer, picking out her tiles and colour schemes. Dad had had the farmhouse valued and between the four of them and the family solicitor they had agreed a price. I’d dreaded Julian’s reaction to missing out on the deal but Dad had shaken his head.
‘He won’t dwell on it,’ Dad had said confidently. ‘He’ll move on to something else. Projects like this fall through all the time.’
And he had been right; Julian hadn’t seemed that bothered and claimed to be too busy negotiating a deal on some land to build a wind farm along the Norfolk coast. It did cross my mind, slightly uncharitably, that Julian’s reaction was due to his assumption that one day he’d inherit the farm through Mum and Dad’s will, but I wasn’t prepared to lose sleep over that issue just yet.
By mid-October, and only a month into the job, Lizzie had managed to expand her role and assert herself in almost every area of the Appleby Farm Vintage Company.
‘I need to be able to deputize for you,’ she’d explained to me, as she packed up boxes of our new leaflets to take to a wedding fayre. ‘And I want to be part of everything, not just the tea rooms.’
Which was why we were in the new dairy at eight o’clock one morning, making ice cream – Lizzie’s first attempt. Maybe it was the white clogs or the long overalls or the white hair nets, I wasn’t sure, but I never felt I looked my best when making ice cream.
I watched Lizzie as she poured fresh Jersey milk into the pasteurizer. With her olive skin and full lips she managed to look gorgeous even with her hair scraped back under a net. I felt like an ugly duckling standing next to her.
‘I was thinking of holding a demo day,’ she said. ‘You know, invite some of the delis in Bowness and Windermere over. They can see how the ice cream is made, have a taste and then I’ll see if I can tempt any of them into stocking it for next spring. We could invite someone from Radio Lakeland, too – someone nicer than my sister, obviously.’
‘You,’ I said, jabbing her in the ribs, ‘are a genius. Fact.’
Lizzie had already suggested that we add a mezzanine level to the tea rooms, accessible via the spinning gallery, which would give us tons more space and allow us to do private parties without closing the tea rooms to the public. The barn had been crying out for the extra room and I’d already set Goat on to it; I just wished I’d thought of it myself.
I began to assemble the ingredients for today’s batch of damson (home-grown, of course) and dark chocolate ice cream, and Lizzie started cracking fresh eggs into a stainless-steel bowl.
‘Ooh, I nearly forgot. Tilly called last night. Aidan wants to know if we’ll manage to cook all that roast beef for the wedding breakfast in the farmhouse kitchen or do we want to use one of his TV catering companies. They’ve got a mobile kitchen, apparently. But there are only thirty people; we could manage. What do you think?’
‘Definitely use caterers,’ said Lizzie. ‘Not only will it give the farmyard a touch of glamour, you’ll have enough to do on the day without sticking your head in and out of the oven – no offence, Freya, but your face does go a bit scarlet when you’re stressed.’
‘Cheers,’ I said wryly, ‘I agree. I’ll book them, then. Mum said she’ll help on the day, too, and is Ross still OK to be the wine waiter?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Lizzie, tapping her nose. ‘All part of the master plan. I want him to start thinking about our wedding, pick up a few ideas. I shall be dropping some tiny subtle hints – so tiny he’ll think he thought of it himself.’
I stared at her. ‘Your wedding? You two have only been together for five minutes.’
‘Six months, actually,’ she said haughtily. She flipped up the lid of the bin with her foot and deposited a pile of egg shells into it. ‘He’ll graduate next summer and we can begin our lives together properly. He’s The One. And when you know, you know. Why wait?’
I wouldn’t know, I thought sombrely, but I did remember Tilly saying something very similar about Aidan months ago and look at them now, so I guessed it must be true. I put down the bowl of damson purée and pulled her in for a hug. ‘I’m really happy for you,’ I said, unable to keep the slight note of sadness out of my voice.
‘Right.’ Lizzie thrust her hands on her hips. ‘Operation Date My Boss begins. I can’t have you single any longer. It’s too depressing and it’s not good for business.’
I sighed and handed her a jug of cream to add to the pasteurizing machine. ‘The problem is that I can’t get Harry out of my head.’
‘Mmm.’ Lizzie frowned, handing me back the empty jug. ‘I must admit, I did think you two would have got it together by now.’
‘I don’t understand what I did wrong. It was fine until I kissed him.’
‘Wait – you kissed him?’ she said incredulously. ‘How bold!’
The worst thing about this white hair net, I now realized, was that there was nowhere to hide a blushing face. I bent down over the jug and stared into it for absolutely no reason.
‘I thought he was keen and our faces were close anyway, so I sort of met him halfway. But he changed his mind. I regret it now. All those days spent climbing trees and building dens and catapults … I don’t think he can see past that. He still sees me as a tomboy.’
Lizzie patted my arm. ‘Oh, babe – I mean, boss – don’t regret it. It sounds to me like you had masses of fun as kids. Anyway, you know what farmers are like. Not exactly in touch with their emotions, are they? Perhaps he needs some encouragement? Tell you what, Ross is home tonight, I’ll get him to invite Harry to the pub for a pint, you get all dolled up – nice outfit, a bit of lippy – and turn up so the next time he sees you there’ll be no mistaking that you’re all woman.’
I sighed. ‘I don’t know …’
‘Trust me,’ she said, tapping me on the end of my nose with the damson spoon. ‘Whoops.’
‘Lizzie! Have I got a purple nose?’ I gasped and giggled at the same time.
She scrunched up her face and gurgled with laughter. ‘A bit.’
‘Right. You asked for it.’ I scooped up a spoonful of cocoa powder and began to take aim.
At that moment there was a sharp knock from behind me on the glass panel of the dairy door. Lizzie ducked and I flipped the spoon up into the air, sending a cloud of brown powder into my own face.
I squeezed my eyes tightly shut. ‘Help, I’ve got chocolate blindness,’ I squealed.
‘Lizzie, hi,’ said a voice, sounding too similar to Harry’s not to be Harry.
Lizzie tried to reply but all I heard was a snort.
‘I was looking for Freya. Is that …?’ Yep. Definitely Harry and presumably now pointing at me.
‘Cloth please, Lizzie,’ I said curtly, holding out my hand.
A few seconds later my blindness had gone, although I suspected that the chocolate powder would look like badly applied bronzer.
‘Your uncle sent me over,’ said Harry. His voice came out all strangled and muffled, and he’d covered his face with his hand. I could still see his eyes, though – twinkling with mirth. ‘I’m taking him over to Willow Farm to show him my plans for the biofuels project. I thought – he thought – you might like to come, too.’
I blinked up at him. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Lizzie, gripping her sides, her face contorted in silent laughter. I shook my head and a shower of
cocoa powder flew off my hair net.
‘No, thanks, I’m busy.’
‘I can see that.’ Harry started to cough – at least, I think he was coughing – and slapping himself on the chest.
‘Just give her five minutes, Harry,’ said Lizzie, gulping for air. ‘She’ll be there.’
‘Great,’ said Harry breathlessly. ‘See you in the yard.’
‘Well, that was perfect,’ I muttered as we watched Harry stride back across the yard.
‘All woman. In a chocolatey, damsony way,’ she whispered.
‘I’m going to kill you,’ I muttered through gritted teeth.
Willow Farm seemed to be a hive of industry compared to Appleby Farm in farming terms. Harry had three men there today: one bedding down the cattle with a huge machine called a straw blower; one ploughing the fields ready for winter barley to be planted, and the third operating a computerized feed mixer.
Harry, generously, hadn’t mentioned my altercation with the cocoa powder to Uncle Arthur, so thankfully, apart from the odd smirk, the incident wasn’t referred to when I joined them with clean clothes and a chocolate-free face.
‘The farm’s come a long way since your dad’s day, lad,’ said Uncle Arthur, looking impressed as we stopped off to check on Dexter in his new home. ‘There’s more machinery here than I’ve ever seen in my life.’
‘I’m going for a quality product, Arthur. We don’t breed cattle here yet, we just finish beef. But now I’ve got a pedigree bull, I’ll be hiring him out for breeding straight away. And we raise Berkshire pigs, of course. I’m looking for a good profit margin in everything we do.’ Harry smiled. His voice was neutral, but his face was unmistakably brimming with pride.
I was proud of him, too, and it was all I could do not to tell him as much. I looped my arm through my uncle’s instead.
‘Can we say hello to your horse?’ I asked. ‘I didn’t see him last time.’
‘Sure. Come and meet Storm.’ Harry gestured towards the stables. ‘He’s the exception. There’s no profit in owning a horse.’
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