‘Is that the time?’ She glanced at her Patek Philippe watch, an eighteenth birthday present from her father. ‘You must excuse me. I think I’m wanted at the duck racing.’
Turning away, Tati walked towards the pond, nodding and smiling at villagers as she went till her jaw and neck both ached. There was old Frank Bannister, the church organist, and the Reverend Slaughter who’d been the vicar of St Hilda’s Church in Fittlescombe for as long as Tati could remember. There were new faces too, scores of them, whole families that Tati didn’t recognize. It was so long since she’d spent any time here, she thought, a trifle guiltily. Although really her father ought to bear some responsibility for that. In the last five years of his life, Rory had been so disapproving, so resolutely unwelcoming.
He practically drove me away. And now he wants to punish me for it from beyond the grave.
‘Tatiana!’ Harry Hotham, Tati’s old headmaster at St Hilda’s Primary School and a lifelong friend of her father’s, waved from the gate that linked Furlings’ lower meadow to the village green. It was less than two years since Tati had last seen Harry, at the same Hunt Ball where she’d infamously run off with Laura Tiverton’s boyfriend, but he’d aged two decades in that short time. Stooped and frail, leaning on a walking stick, his remaining wisps of hair now totally white and blowing in the breeze like tufts of dandelion seeds, he tottered towards her.
‘How marvellous to see you. And how divine you look, my dear. Yellow is definitely your colour. I’d heard you were back in the village. Do tell me you’re staying?’
Harry’s enthusiasm, like his smile, was utterly genuine. Tati was touched.
‘That rather depends,’ she said, kissing him warmly on both cheeks. ‘You heard about Daddy’s will?’
‘Yes.’ Harry nodded gravely. ‘Bad business, that.’
‘Well I’m not giving up,’ said Tati, jutting her chin forward defiantly. Harry Hotham remembered the look well from Tatiana’s days as his pupil, a tearaway even then but charming with it, at least in Harry’s eyes. ‘I’m contesting it.’
Harry frowned. ‘Yes. I heard that too. Are you sure that’s wise, Tatiana?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Only that, knowing your father as I did, I imagine he took very thorough legal advice. I’d hate to see you ripped off by some ghastly lawyer.’
Tati waved a hand dismissively. ‘Every lawyer has a different opinion. And I’m already being ripped off. I don’t see that it can get much worse.’
‘That’s because you’re young, my dear,’ said Harry, patting her hand affectionately. ‘It can. Believe me.’
‘Well, it’s early days yet but I need funds to pursue my case,’ Tati went on, ignoring Harry Hotham’s warnings. ‘A war chest, if you will. I wanted to talk to you about that actually.’
‘My dear Tatiana, I’d happily give you my last farthing, but I’m afraid you are looking at a very poor man,’ Harry said matter-of-factly. ‘There’s no money in teaching, you see. Not a bean.’
‘Oh, no!’ Tati laughed, embarrassed. ‘I wasn’t asking you for money. It’s a bit of an odd request, but I … I was hoping for a job.’
‘A job?’
‘Yes. Did Daddy not say anything to you before he died?’
‘Say something?’ Harry looked confused.
‘It would just be for a few months, while I sort out my legal situation,’ said Tati. She explained about her trust fund, and the codicil in Rory’s will that would release money to her but only on the condition that she move back to Fittlescombe and work as a teacher at St Hilda’s.
‘Dad always had a ridiculous fantasy about me settling down and teaching one day. Ever since I did that awful course at Oxford Brookes.’ Misinterpreting Harry Hotham’s pained face, she added, ‘Look, I know it’s madness. But you’d be doing me a huge favour. When I get my inheritance restored to me, I promise to fund a new school building and anything else you want.’
‘It’s not that my dear,’ said Harry. ‘The job would be yours if it were mine to give. But I’m afraid I retired.’
‘What?’ Tati frowned. ‘When?’
‘At Christmas. I had a fall and I … well, I realized I wasn’t up to snuff any more. Physically, I mean. I recovered and all that. But I still need this blasted thing.’ He shook his walking stick reproachfully. ‘Running a school is a younger man’s game.’
‘Oh, Harry. I’m so sorry,’ said Tati, truthfully. ‘I can’t imagine St Hilda’s without you.’