LITMIR.BIZ

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announced to Tish matter-of-factly, ‘Actually, I’m going to stay here forever.’

      They were up at Loxley’s Home Farm, a handsome, L-shaped house with stables and outbuildings just over the top of the fell. Bill Connelly, the gruff old Loxley-lifer who had managed the farm for almost forty years, had agreed to let Abel help him feed some of the new lambs, in anticipation of which treat the little boy had worked himself up into such a frenzy of excitement he’d refused to eat either breakfast or lunch.

      ‘Mr Connelly says I’m a excellent farmer and a excellent helper.’

      ‘Well, Mr Connelly would know,’ said Tish.

      ‘He says I can stay as long as I like.’

      Tish would have to have words with Bill. He meant well, of course, and hopefully Loxley would always be a part of Abel’s life. But they also had a life back in Romania. They’d have to go back eventually. There were other matters she needed to broach with Bill too. Like most small Derbyshire farms, Home Farm was losing money. But only in the last week had Tish discovered just how much it had been costing Loxley to keep the land going, and for how long. They were a mixed farm, which meant they had both arable and livestock, but because of their position and exposure to the elements, as well as the fragmented nature of the land (the entire estate was punctuated with pockets of ancient woodland, so none of the fields was of a decent commercial size), they had suffered more than other local concerns.

      The Connelly family had been tenants at Home Farm since before Tish was born. There could be no question of abandoning the farm, or of asking them to move on. But with the maintenance and running costs of Loxley Hall itself easily topping eight hundred thousand a year, not including big-ticket items like roof repairs or fixing the internal damage wreaked by Jago’s friends, it was hard to see just how they were going to support a failing farm as well. Tish’s father, Henry, had already remortgaged all of the smaller properties on the estate during his lifetime, including Home Farm. Short of the not-to-be-considered sale, this left Tish precious little wiggle room. At the very least she needed to sit down with Bill Connelly and go through the numbers.

      Three weeks ago, Tish had asked George Arkell, a financial advisor and family friend, to come up to Loxley and to help her devise a plan for getting the estate back on an even keel. George’s prognosis was less than heartening.

      ‘Do you want the good news or the bad news?’ he asked her.

      ‘Good news,’ said Tish.

      ‘The good news is, the National Trust will probably contribute to repairs in the public wings of the house. That could end up reducing your projected deficit for the year by as much as thirty-five per cent.’

      Tish brightened. ‘That is good news! So how much money is that, then?’

      ‘Around half a million pounds.’

      ‘George! That’s wonderful!’

      ‘Yeeess,’ said George. ‘Except that it leads us on to the bad news.’

      ‘Which is?’

      ‘You still need to find approximately nine hundred and sixty thousand pounds just to cover your current costs, interest payments on the loans, that sort of thing.’

      ‘Oh.’

      ‘Yes. Oh. And your projected income for the year, from visitors, farming and other revenue combined is …’ He paused, flipping through the notes on his lap ‘… ah, here we are. Eighty-five thousand, one hundred and twenty-eight pounds and sixty-two pence. Before tax.’

      Tish looked suitably crestfallen.

      ‘You have to raise some capital,’ George told her firmly. ‘That means you must sell some land, property, paintings, or most likely a combination of all three. Once you’ve done that, we can work on consolidating your various debts. Then, with any luck, we find some reliable tenants to pay market rates for all of the remaining properties.’

      ‘I can’t evict the Connellys,’ Tish protested.

      George ploughed on. ‘And finally, we come up with some sort of long-term strategy for the future. Something that will turn Loxley into a going concern that pays for itself.’

      ‘Such as?’

      ‘It could be tourism-based, holiday lets or what have you; it could be organic farming, conferences, shooting parties. Dirt bikes. I don’t know.’

      ‘Dirt bikes?’ said Tish. ‘Are you mad? In our peaceful little valley? The village would be up in arms, and quite rightly too.’

      ‘I understand,’ said George, who did. His own family had lost their ancestral pile fifteen years ago, casualties of the collapse of Lloyd’s of London. He knew how heartbreaking it was to be the generation who broke the chain of trust, who lost it all after hundreds of years of careful estate management. Times were changing, though. All over England, estates far grander and wealthier than Loxley were going under. ‘But I’m afraid if you don’t find large amounts of ready cash in the coming months, and come up with a radical rethink about the estate’s future, you’re going to have to sell up. You know, the National Trust are cash-rich at the moment. They’d take excellent care of the place.’

      ‘No,’ Tish shuddered. ‘Never. Loxley stays in private hands. In Crewe family hands, if I have anything to do with it. My God, if Daddy could hear this conversation he’d be spinning.’

      ‘Actually,’ said George, ‘I suspect none of this would have surprised your father in the least. Henry knew which way the cookie was crumbling. That’s why he mortgaged everything to the hilt and changed his will to cut out Jago. But he should have warned you how tough it would be.’

      Tish couldn’t bring herself to blame her father. He’d done his best. Day after day she sat slumped over his papers, praying for inspiration to strike, for some solution to present itself that did not involve turfing out her tenants or – horror of horrors – selling her soul to the National bloody Trust.

      There must be a way to make Loxley profitable. There just must be.

      Once she was dry, she pulled on the same jeans and holey red sweater she’d been wearing for the past three days, and made her way down to the kitchen. With its constantly lit log-burning stove, it was by far the warmest room in the house. As such it had become the nerve centre of Operation Find A Miracle, as Tish now called her efforts to revive Loxley’s finances, taking over from Henry’s cold, draughty office, at least until the weather warmed up.

      ‘You look terrible,’ said Mrs Drummond with motherly concern when Tish walked in. ‘You’re no good to anyone if you don’t sleep, you know. Or eat. Let me cook you a proper breakfast.’

      Tish sighed, but did not protest. Mrs D’s idea of a ‘proper’ breakfast was a fried calorie bomb so fat-drenched it could probably fatally block one’s arteries just by looking at it. But feeding people up was Mrs D’s vocation, and it applied as much to Tish as to Abel, who must have gained half his bodyweight since he came to Loxley, but whom Mrs Drummond still invariably referred to as ‘that poor little mite’ or, sometimes, ‘skin and bone’.

      ‘Not still pining over that Michael, are you?’ Mrs Drummond asked, cracking three eggs into a sizzling pan full of butter.

      ‘No,’ lied Tish.

      ‘Good. Because you know what I always say about the Frogs.’

      ‘Yes, Mrs D. I know.’

      How Tish wished she had never confided in Mrs Drummond about Michel. After a few too many glasses of red one night, it had seemed like a good idea to open her heart. But ever since then she’d been subjected to daily lectures on how one could ‘never trust a Frenchman’ because they were ‘all cowards’. The xenophobia was entirely well meant, but Tish found it draining.

      ‘Oh, no fried bread for me please,’ she protested. ‘It gives me dreadful indigestion.’

      ‘Nonsense, lovie. You’re just eating it too quickly,’

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