A Christmas Cracker: The only festive romance to curl up with this Christmas!. Trisha Ashley
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‘I think you’re probably more up to date than me, then,’ I said ruefully. ‘Jeremy – my ex fiancé – had an old laptop he gave me, but I notice it wasn’t packed up with the rest of my things, so he must have kept it. And my phone’s just a basic pay-as-you go one.’
‘You can use the desktop in the library – the password is stuck to a piece of paper under the mouse,’ she offered.
‘Thank you,’ I said, though I didn’t know who I might email, other than Emma, if horrible Desmond was away and not likely to be looking over her shoulder.
‘The phone signals are another thing – the hill behind the house seems to block them, so you need to walk down to the main road before it becomes really reliable. I rely on the landline, but when I go further afield there are always a million missed calls and text messages on my mobile.’
She laughed merrily. I had clearly fallen into a nest of silver surfers and techno babes.
‘I must dig out my charger, my mobile is dead as a dodo,’ I said. ‘But I can see I don’t need to rush.’
‘No, and you can make free use of the landline, dear. There,’ she added, ‘that’s the whole place, bar the orangery, which is really just a glassed conservatory, at the side here. It should be full of plants, but with my being away so much I don’t bother. When Liz brings a school friend to stay, they often go in there – like a den, I suppose. There’s an old sofa and some wicker garden furniture. But do explore the whole house at your leisure later,’ she added.
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘It is lovely – quite big, but somehow friendly and homely, too.’
‘I’m glad you feel that. Now, let’s put on our coats and go down to the factory,’ she said inexhaustibly. ‘You must meet the workforce and get a feel for the lie of the land and the business, so that when I show you my nephew’s plans after lunch, we can have a jolly good think.’
‘Wonderful,’ I said faintly.
Pye followed us into the hall, watching us put on our coats without comment or, it appeared, undue worry.
I think he was starting to forgive me for abandoning him, and also to understand that this was where we both lived now and I wasn’t suddenly going to vanish again.
Mercy handed me a piece of dry bread from the pocket of her baggy moss-green corduroy trousers.
‘For the ducks. Come along!’ she said, and trotted off, the lights in her trainer heels flickering like fireflies.
Q: What do you get if you cross Santa with a duck?
A: A Christmas quacker!
We went out by the huge front door into a perfect early spring day, though there was as yet no warmth in the bright sunshine and a chilly breeze was stirring a nearby stand of sheltering trees. My coat was a short wool one, the vivid scarlet of holly berries, and Mercy complimented me on the colour.
‘I’ve only seen you wearing black before, but that is such a nice, cheerful shade and it suits you.’
‘It was Mum’s. She liked a pop of strong colour. I do wear a lot of black, but it’s from laziness really, so I don’t have to think about what goes with what. I brighten it up with a T-shirt or scarf or something when I remember.’
As we crossed the bridge over the moat the ducks instantly appeared from underneath it and we threw them the scraps of bread before walking on down the drive.
‘This was originally a stable block, but it’s now garages, where we keep the estate car and my small hatchback,’ Mercy said as we passed some ancient brick outbuildings and a sweep of gravel. ‘Do you drive?’ she added.
‘I can, because we used to have a little car when Mum could still get in and out of it. She liked Southport, where I could park overlooking the beach, and I think I mentioned that she loved to go up to the top of Snowehill Beacon, before she became too ill.’
‘You did, and it’s such a coincidence that you should know the village.’
‘We didn’t go into the shop or pub because we always took a picnic to save money. It’s years since I’ve been there now,’ I said, and my mind went back to the chilly autumn day when I’d fulfilled Mum’s last wish, the sad grey clouds scurrying away, as if they’d wanted no part of it …
‘You must go on a pilgrimage to the top then, one fine day, and remember all the happy times,’ she suggested.
‘Actually, if you don’t mind, I thought I might do that this weekend on Mothering Sunday.’
‘Of course not – the weekends are your own to do with as you wish. Silas and I will be going to the Friends’ meeting in Great Mumming on Sunday morning, of course, and you and any of the workers who want to come with us will always be sure of a warm welcome.’
‘Do many of them go?’
‘Not regularly, but some are occasional attenders, especially Freda, Job, Joy and Bradley.’
‘I’d like to go another time, because Ceddie told me so much about the Quakers,’ I said, and she beamed at me.
‘I’m sure you’ll find it will give your thoughts a new turn,’ she said.
‘I haven’t actually driven for years, because my old car failed its MOT after I moved into Jeremy’s flat and I couldn’t afford to replace it.’
‘I’ll put you on my insurance, dear, and then when I’m not using the car, you can borrow it.’
‘That’s very kind of you, but I’m so out of practice I’d be nervous about it.’
‘It comes back to you very quickly. I never drive in Malawi and yet as soon as I get home and back behind the wheel, I’m fine,’ she assured me. ‘The drive all the way down to the road at the bottom of the hill is private, so you could take a little practice spin up and down to get used to it again.’
‘I think that’s a good idea,’ I agreed.
‘I expect I’ll be sending you on all kinds of errands, so it will be very useful. You can take either car, though of course Job considers the estate as his own and it’s his pride and joy, so while he drives Silas and me around in it quite happily, he gets terribly grumpy if I take it out myself.’
‘Right,’ I said thoughtfully, because I certainly didn’t want to get on anyone’s wrong side, especially five minutes after I’d arrived. Anyway, I’d never driven anything that big in my life.
‘Come along,’ she said, setting off again down the drive to where a second and more substantial bridge spanned the stream on sturdy stone piers. ‘Silas tells me there was originally just a ford here, then stone slabs on piers, until it was rebuilt as you see it now, in the eighteenth century, or thereabouts. Job painted the inside of the walls white, after one of my friends accidentally grazed it on their way home in the dark.’
I followed her across it but Pye, who had appeared from some shrubbery and was trailing us, didn’t. Instead, he jumped onto the low wall and watched. I felt he’d probably already marked the area on that side as his own territory and he’d never been a cat who strayed far away from home.
‘We’ll be back soon, Pye,’ I assured him.
‘Mrrow!’ he said, in a scathing tone, though I don’t know what I’d done to deserve that.
‘Now, from this side you can see the whole lay of the land,’ Mercy said, with a sweeping gesture of her arm that encompassed the mellow redbrick house we’d just left, sitting on its raised green cushion above the moat, with a backdrop of trees