Page 3 of Wild Swimming at Croftwood Lake
‘I’ll do some research, see what I can find out.’ Seb’s excitement had sparked something in Archie and besides, he was keen to meet the woman who’d so brazenly walked across his lawn. ‘Where are you up to with the festival planning?’
Seb put his mug down and sat back in the chair, resting his ankle on his knee. ‘So, you remember last year we had the field that’s adjacent to the park for camping? Well, this year, we’d like to expand and have a stage in that field too and extend the camping into the next field along.’
‘That’s no problem.’ Archie said, happy to support the event in any way he could after the town supported the Christmas market so generously.
‘Look, I know how things are financially and your generosity is amazing, but it shouldn’t be at the expense of other things that are important. You know you can charge the festival for the use of your land?’
Archie waved a hand, hoping to put a stop to this conversation. It was one thing for Seb to know more than anyone else how tight things could be keeping the house up and running, but Archie had been brought up knowing that as well as keeping the family estate up to par, he had a responsibility to the wider community. The Croftwood Festival was a Community Interest Company, and all the profits went back into the town in one way or another, and he would never want to take away from that for his own gain. ‘I won’t accept payment, Seb. I’m happy to allow use of what I have left for the good of the town.’
After his father died, Archie had come to an arrangement with a national organisation and had given them the majority of the estate land in a trust. The trust had their own tenant farmers and paid the estate an income. It meant that Archie didn’t have to manage the whole thing himself and also wasn’t faced with selling off the land piecemeal to fund the ever-growing costs of running the house and gardens. And at least this way, it was still the Croftwood Court Estate that he had inherited, but after seeing the stress it had placed his father under, the income dwindling because they couldn’t keep pace with modern farming practices, Archie had wanted to find a different way.
As part of the arrangement with the trust, he still owned the land closest to the manor house and a couple of other parcels, which were of no value for farming. This included the land next to the park in the centre of town. He employed a small team of gardeners who were also quite happy to do some of the simpler maintenance jobs around the estate.
‘It’s very good of you, Archie,’ Seb said. ‘It goes without saying that you and your mother will be on our VIP list again this year.’
‘Thank you, although I’m not sure whether that’s a blessing or a curse. She had one too many glasses of Pimms last year and decided she wanted to sleep in a tent. It took all my powers of persuasion to get her home. And poor Ursula had a terrible job getting her up the next day.’
‘Feel free to offer Ursula and Mrs Milton tickets if they’d like to come and all the lads, of course.’
‘Thank you. I’m sure everyone will appreciate that.’
‘Oliver and I are meeting for a drink later, if you’d like to join us?’ Seb said, standing and buttoning his jacket before he left.
‘Ah, that’s very kind of you, but I won’t this time.’ Archie had never accepted Seb’s previous offers and had given up producing a reason why. Because there wasn’t one other than he’d never done that. Never been to the pub with friends, at least not since he’d been at university. Being sent away to boarding school at thirteen meant his friends weren’t local and those friends and the friends he’d made at university mostly lived in the south-east, having pursued careers in the City. Running an estate on a shoestring made it difficult for Archie to keep up with them, and he’d gradually grown apart from almost everyone. The only exception being his closest friend, James, who was in a similar position to him but in Scotland.
‘Next time,’ said Seb. Something he said every time, which Archie was always heartened to hear. Because it wasn’t that he didn’t want to go out for a drink with Seb. He enjoyed Seb’s company immensely, but he didn’t know Oliver terribly well and being out of practice, socially, it seemed a step too far.
So Archie nodded and stood to see Seb out.
‘You know, I was thinking we ought to put aside some money from the next Christmas market to bring the rest of the courtyard buildings up to scratch.’
‘Yes, I suppose we could,’ Archie said, knowing that in reality there would be more pressing things to spend the money on. Aside from the money they’d stashed away to pay for this year’s market, the profits from last Christmas had been sunk into a long overdue upgrade of the heating system in the manor house, and there hadn’t been much change from that. He’d like to offer to freshen up the apartments that Ursula, the housekeeper and unofficial companion to his mother and Mrs Milton, the cook, lived in. It was the least he could do in return for their loyalty and the pittance he paid that they happily accepted. That was more important than tarting up the old stables for no good reason.
Seb waved a hand from the window of his truck as he headed down the drive. Archie raised a hand and then turned, sighed and went into the office to tackle some paperwork. He settled at his desk, thinking that perhaps tomorrow morning he’d take a walk over to the lake again. Early. Before breakfast in the hope that the woman he’d seen was a creature of habit and might be there again.
3
THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Nora was later than usual setting off for the lake. She’d made the mistake of responding to a text message from Neil, her kiln technician at the pottery. She had left several bespoke pieces in the drying room, and last night, when he’d come to fire them, the only kiln with the capacity to take these larger items wasn’t working. There were very few kiln engineers to call on these days, but after years in the industry, Nora had contacts. She put a call in to an engineer who had recently retired and he agreed to go later that morning to take a look. She hadn’t planned to visit Stoke today, but now she’d swim and then set off so she could be there when he arrived.
It was another beautiful, crisp day and Nora could feel the anticipation of the swim start to creep through her as she made her way through the woods to the lake. Even more so now that she’d had a relatively stressful start to the day. There was a deadline associated with the pots that were waiting to be fired. They were due to be shipped to New York the following week, and a delay to the firing meant a delay to her being able to make the final touches to them without having to rush. And she hated rushing.
She climbed over the collapsed wall and headed for the dock, which had become her preferred place to enter the water. There were other, smaller wooden platforms dotted around the edge of the lake but this was the only one that extended out over the water. Already prepared with her swimsuit on underneath her clothes, she stripped off with abandon, not noticing that the man from yesterday was standing on the opposite side of the lake. The sun was behind him, so Nora wasn’t looking in his direction. The first sign to her that there was anyone else there was the dog who trotted over to her, looking at her as if asking when it would be time to get in.
‘It’s you again,’ she said to the dog, before scanning the shore for the owner. Feeling somewhat exposed, she pulled her dry robe on, wrapping it around her before she walked around the shore, heading for the man who was watching her. His dog at her heels.
‘Good morning,’ he said as she approached. He looked friendlier than she’d expected, given that she was trespassing and he was probably about to tackle her about that.
‘Morning.’ Was it better to leap in with an explanation or wait until he said something? She decided to wait and a long silence ensued while they stood facing each other, taking each other in.
Nora wondered whether he’d looked in the mirror that morning. He had curly hair which was too long and seemed to be allowed to do anything it liked. His brown corduroy trousers did something to dilute the allover tweed look he’d sported yesterday, but they were worn down to the cotton fabric at the knees and his tweed jacket was just as threadbare.
‘Have you been in today?’ he asked, nodding to the lake.
‘No.’ She’d almost said not yet, which might have sounded too presumptuous, or cocky even.
‘But you come every day?’
Nora bit her lip. Was this a trick question? Was he trying to entrap her into admitting she’d done it lots of times before yesterday?
