She’d do it.
If she was going to be disliked, it might as well be for a good and worthy reason. She would pat Wychwell back into shape for Lilian, whatever it took to do it. She went to her car, took out Mr Wemyss’s business card and rang him to tell him as much.
Chapter 26
Unknown to Marnie, the previous night there had been a meeting in the Lemon Villa. The whole village had been summoned – except for Marnie, but then it looked as if she wasn’t at home anyway. Her car hadn’t been there since Saturday but sadly, it appeared to Kay Sweetman that she hadn’t done a moonlight flit because she could still see her things in Little Raspberries when she peered through the window.
Titus, who had called the gathering, obviously took charge. Everyone sat around the table in his dining room; Hilary and Pammy Parselow bustled around distributing refreshments to everyone before it started. For those who had not been in the Lemon Villa before, it was quite eye-opening how opulent the interior was. Homes and Gardens magazine perfect. There were no damp patches on the walls or draughty windows for Titus and Hilary Sutton.
Titus knocked on the table with his teaspoon to stop all the twittering.
‘I thought we should have a formal meeting in the light of . . . recent events.’ He chose his words carefully. ‘I can see absolutely no reason why the new owner of Wychwell has decided to stay anonymous. Can we all swear that none of us around this table is Lilian’s chosen heir?’
‘I think that is unfair to ask,’ said Lionel, immediately bringing suspicion to his door. ‘They have no obligation to declare themselves. Whoever he or she is has done so for a reason.’
‘What possible reason can there be?’ asked Kay Sweetman.
‘There is only one reason and that is because they don’t want to. We are therefore forced to accept that. Besides, they have delegated the running of the estate to Miss Salt,’ replied Lionel. ‘It is her we will have to deal with respecting any village matters.’
‘I think it is her,’ said Ruby. ‘Then if she does something unpopular, she can just fend off any blame on “the new owner”.’ She drew two emphatic quote marks in the air.
There was a nodding of heads at that and low grumbles of agreement.
‘But who is to say that it is someone who lives in Wychwell?’ asked Herv. ‘Maybe Lilian decided to leave it to someone outside the village.’
‘Who? Margaret Kytson?’ scoffed Titus, causing Kay to humour him with a chortle.
‘Maybe Margaret had a descendant we don’t know about,’ put in Hilary. ‘Lilian was always so keen to make amends for what had happened to her at the hands of her ancestors.’
‘Go and fill up the teapots, Hilary,’ said Titus dismissively. ‘What a ridiculous imagination you have.’
Hilary coloured and Lionel, angered by Titus’s put-down of his wife was driven to defend her.
‘I don’t think it’s ridiculous at all. Lilian was fascinated by family trees. She and I worked on her own for years. She may have discovered something that hasn’t yet come to full light.’
‘Or maybe someone is about to sell our houses from under our feet,’ snapped Una.
‘They can’t sell any houses,’ countered David, who didn’t say much but when he did, he always spoke considered sense and fact. ‘The manor cannot be sold, only inherited. The houses cannot be sold, only rented out by the estate.’
‘How come you know so much about it, all of a sudden, David Parselow?’ asked Titus with narrowed eyes.
‘I thought everyone knew that. It’s not rocket science, is it?’ David answered. ‘Admit it, we’ve had it far too good for far too long. We pay stupidly cheap rents and between us all we have creamed off the estate and yet here we all are, in a “state of shock” ’ – he wiggled his fingers in the air as Ruby had done – ‘that Lilian has been subsidising us all out of her own money for years.’
‘But we didn’t know that, David,’ said Roger.
‘Oh come on, Roger, how much is the rent on the shop and your flat above it?’
Roger pursed his mouth, gravely affronted. ‘I don’t think that’s anyone’s business but—’
‘Okay, I’ll tell you what I pay on the pub. I pay twenty pounds a month. And I’ve always paid that. My father paid even less. And that covers all my heating, my water, my rates, any maintenance. And because I hardly have any customers, I also get a business stipend from the estate – a loyalty payment, as she called it. I hold my hands up’ – and he did, physically – ‘I didn’t question it. I didn’t go to Lilian and say that she should put my rent up and stop paying me a bonus. I took it because it was offered and I believed that the estate was so rich it could afford to do that.’
‘I don’t think that Marnie pays anything on Little Raspberries,’ sniffed Una. ‘From what I gather . . .’
‘I don’t think she’s the only one who doesn’t pay rent though, is she?’ asked Lionel, his voice rising, his eyes sweeping across everyone in the room. Kay Sweetman lowered her head immediately. ‘For a start, half the cottages in Wychwell are standing empty and have done for years since their residents died and so they’re bringing in no revenue whatsoever.’
‘No one who stays in Little Raspberries has ever paid rent,’ put in Alice Rootwood, who lived in Orange House and had always thought that they’d had it too good to believe.
‘Precisely,’ Lionel went on. ‘It’s a charity cottage, given to whoever needed it: Jessie Plumpton and before her my great uncle Jack. And I happen to know that it sits very heavily with Marnie that she lives there rent-free, but it was Lilian’s cottage to let it to Marnie on whatever grounds she chose. And that was their private business, not ours.’
‘How do you know all this, with respect, Mr Temple?’ asked Ruby, her veneer of politeness stretched thin over a depth of annoyance. ‘She’s only been in the village for two minutes and suddenly she’s the flavour of the month.’
Emelie made a nervous cough. ‘I think you are being unfair, Ruby,’ she said. ‘Lilian knew her very well and they were incredibly fond of each other.’
‘It’s very easy to be fond of someone when you know they own a manor and are ill,’ Ruby threw back. ‘Don’t you thi—’
‘Marnie isn’t like that at all,’ Herv cut her off, his voice hard. ‘Don’t make out that their trust in and respect for each other was fake when it wasn’t.’
Ruby, doubly wounded by Herv turning on her and defending her arch rival, shrivelled into herself.
‘Titus, you did the books for the estate. How was it that you didn’t know that Lilian was in so much financial trouble?’ asked Emelie, finding her voice now. And her courage.
Titus, annoyed beyond belief that this question could have come from Emelie Tibbs, a woman his father detested and for good reason, managed to overcome his impulse to scream back at her that she shouldn’t be here in this meeting, in this village. She shouldn’t even be sharing the same air as the rest of them considering what she was, what she came from. He switched on his best patronising smile instead. ‘My dear Emelie, what are you inferring?’