Page 61 of The House of Hopes and Dreams
He grinned at me. ‘No idea – and no interest, either, Shrimp. I told you I’d given up the Daisy types, they all turn out to be candy-coated with hard centres.’
‘Yes, youtoldme, but then I distinctly remember you said something along those lines during our last year at university.’
‘Well, at the timeyousaid you weren’t going out with any more losers, you were just going to concentrate on writing your dissertation,’ he countered.
‘And that’s exactly what I did!’
‘Don’t I know it! Remember, it wasmewho drove you all over the country looking at obscure Victorian stained-glass windows. And then you met Julian the moment you graduated and vanished.’
‘Well, you couldn’t call Julian a loser! You know you liked him.’
We somehow seemed to be on the edge of an argument, but suddenly he relaxed and smiled at me. ‘Yes, I did. He almost deserved you.’
‘Don’t be daft!’ I told him.
Molly had been listening to our spat in a startled kind of way, having never heard us bicker like Grant had. Now she got up and said she had to go and I thanked her for helping me defrost and clean out the freezer, when I was sure she was really busy.
Then we helped her load the cold boxes of food into her little van and she left for home. She was going to stack it all in one of her freezers until she could deliver it to the local senior citizens, a sort of free frozen version of Meals on Wheels. And rice pudding on wheels too, since all of the tinned goods had gone with her.
I tried to remember: is tapioca the one that looks like frogspawn? And semolina the smooth paste you could fill wall cracks with?
After she’d driven off, Carey went to ring the cleaning agency, followed by a prolonged discussion with his internet provider of choice about installing it at Mossby.
After that we went out to do some food and drink shopping and have a couple of complete sets of keys to Mossby cut, as well as extra spares to the back door and Elizabethan wing, for the cleaners.
On the way back we stopped at an office supplier and bought clipboards, pads, pens, highlighters, tags … Carey meant business.
And so did I, adding a big fat notebook and a clipboard of my own, just for the workshop. I was champing at the bit to get started on it, and only Carey could have kept me away from it for even a moment.
During our engagement, I had become aware that there had been some kind of falling-out between Ralph and his friend Mr Browne, who certainly was absent from our wedding. The cause remained unclear to me and I did not like to question him or Honoria about it. Having never met Mr Browne, I did not miss his company and the Lodge remained empty.
While I threw myself into my work, Ralph was engaged in improving the design of the grounds and having a base laid in the woodland where a gazebo to Mr Browne’s design could be built. We had much to discuss every evening, companionably entering into each other’s interests.
Honoria, her position as chatelaine unassailed, and with my backing against Ralph in the matter of increasing the number of rose beds on the terraces, had unbent somewhat. In fact, she now tended to look on us both like an indulgent parent!
I felt quite settled and happy … and then one morning, about a month after our return to Mossby, Ralph came in to breakfast and informed us that Rosslyn Browne was returning next day to the Lodge.
He seemed pleased about this, so I assumed that their argument, whatever it was about, had been made up. Honoria, however, did not seem to share her brother’s delight in his friend’s return, so the impression I’d gained on my first visit that she did not like him would appear to be true.
When Ralph had gone out, I asked her what Mr Browne was like and she said that she did not care much for him and considered him a bad influence on my husband.
‘In what way?’ I asked, and I thought for a moment she wasn’t going to answer.
‘He encouraged Ralph to spend too much on the house and I expect will soon be persuading him to embellish the grounds with all kinds of expensive follies and other schemes,’ she said finally.
I’d assumed Ralph to be very wealthy, for he spent freely and insisted on the best of everything. Honoria, however, was quite thrifty in the manner of housekeeping, so perhaps she would have preferred to rein in his spending on the house somewhat?
22
Small Creatures
We knew Friday was going to be non-stop busy, because Carey’s removal firm had chosen the same day to bring up the things from his flat as my two men with a van had to fetch mine from the storage unit.
One good thing was that there was no sign of Ella, because we’d been unsure if she might not just keep turning up on Fridays from sheer force of habit, or until the end of her month’s notice had been reached.
Mrs Bartlett, one of the co-owners of the Dolly Mops agency, had come along to talk things over in person with Carey, while her team of cleaners set about their usual work. I was in the inner hall, carefully polishing the Jessie Kaye windows to a sparkle with a soft cloth when she emerged with Carey.
She was a small, cheerful, grey-haired woman of perhaps sixty, who shook my hand before popping upstairs, where we could hear her exhorting her ladies to get a shift on, because Mr Revell wanted all the spare beds made up, since he expected a constant flow of visitors helping him renovate Mossby.
