Shopaholic to the Stars

“You can still have a holiday!”

“I don’t know.” She looks doubtful. “You know the pressure he feels.”

I nod sympathetically. I do actually feel for old Tarkie. It’s quite a burden, inheriting a stately home, with your whole family looking on beadily to see if you manage it properly. Apparently, every Lord Cleath-Stuart has added something special to Letherby Hall, through all the generations, like an east wing, or a chapel, or a topiary garden.

In fact, that’s why we’re all here today. Tarkie’s launching his first major addition to the house. It’s called The Surge, and it’s a fountain. It’s going to be the highest fountain in the whole county and will be a big tourist attraction. Apparently he had the idea when he was ten, drew it in his Latin book, and kept it ever since. And now he’s built it!

Hundreds of people are coming to watch it being switched on, and the local TV station has interviewed him, and everyone is saying this could be the making of Letherby Hall. Suze says she hasn’t seen Tarkie this nervous since he competed in the junior national dressage when they were both children, that time when he mucked up his half pass (which is apparently bad) and his father, who lives for horses, nearly disowned him as a result. So let’s hope things go better this time.

“I’ll work on Tarkie.” Suze swings her legs off the bed. “C’mon, Bex. We’d better go.”

The only disadvantage of living in a house like this is it takes you about six hours just to get from the bedroom to the garden. We walk through the Long Gallery (lots of ancient portraits) and the East Hall (lots of ancient suits of armor) and cut across the massive Great Hall. There we pause and breathe in the musty, woody aroma. Suze can burn as many Diptyque candles as she likes, but this room will always smell of Old House.

“It was amazing, wasn’t it?” says Suze, reading my thoughts.

“Spectacular.” I sigh.

We’re talking about the birthday party that I threw for Luke, right here, what seems like no time ago. As if on cue, we both lift our eyes to the tiny first-floor balcony where Luke’s mother, Elinor, stood, hidden, watching the proceedings. Luke never knew she was there, nor that she basically funded and helped to arrange the whole thing. She’s sworn me to secrecy, which makes me want to scream with frustration. If only he knew that she paid for his party. If only he knew how much she’d done for him.

To call Luke’s relationship with his mother “love–hate” would be an understatement. It’s “adore–loathe.” It’s “worship–despise.” At the moment we’re on “despise,” and nothing I can say will shift his opinion. Whereas I’ve quite come round to her, even if she is the snootiest woman in the world.

“Have you seen her?” asks Suze.

I shake my head. “Not since then.”

Suze looks troubled as she gazes around the room. “What about if you just told him?” she says suddenly.

I know Suze hates the secrecy as much as I do, because Luke has totally got the wrong end of the stick and thinks she and Tarkie paid for the party.

“I can’t. I promised. She’s got this whole thing about not wanting to buy his love.”

“Throwing someone a party isn’t buying their love,” protests Suze. “I think she’s all wrong. I think he’d be touched. It’s so stupid!” she says with vehemence. “It’s such a waste! Think of all the time you could spend together, and with Minnie too.…”

“Minnie misses her,” I admit. “She keeps saying, ‘Where Lady?’ But if Luke even knew they’d been seeing each other, he’d flip out.”

“Families.” Suze shakes her head. “They’re just the end. Poor old Tarkie’s in a total tizz about the fountain, just because his father’s here. I said to him, ‘If your dad can’t say anything positive, he should have stayed in Scotland!’ ” She sounds so fierce, I want to laugh. “We must hurry,” she adds, glancing at her watch. “The countdown will have begun!”

Suze’s “garden” is basically an enormous great park. There are huge lawns and acres of topiary and a famous rose garden and loads of special plants that I now can’t remember. (I’m definitely going on the proper tour one day.)

We head down from the big graveled terrace to find that crowds are already gathering on the lawn and setting up deck chairs among the trees. Music is playing from loudspeakers, waitresses are circling with glasses of wine, and a massive electronic countdown board reads 16:43. There’s a rectangular lake directly in front of the house, and that’s where The Surge is. I’ve only seen an artist’s impression of it, but it’s really pretty. It shoots straight up about a zillion feet and then falls down in a graceful arc. Then it swings backward and forward, and at the end it shoots little droplets into the air. It’s so clever, and there are going to be colored lights in the evenings.