Page 49 of An Enchanted Moment on Ever After Street
We have? I’m not sure what he’s talking about, but through every moment of anxiety today, I’ve clung onto the thought ofseeing him tonight. I’ve looked forward to hearing his calm voice and spending time in his reassuring presence. ‘Always.’
No one has mentioned the hug again since the other day, and Darcy hasn’t taken his glasses off again since either.
I give Mrs Potts a stroke while she’s eating, and she growls at me for fear that I’ll steal her kitty biscuits, and I go downstairs and leave the back door open cat-width in case she wants to come out too.
The garden is looking so much better than it was – almost as good as it looked when my mum was here. Surely Mr Rowbotham can’t argue with this. The knotweed has been eradicated. The weeds are gone and no hint of the stinging nettles remain. There were flower borders once, now empty, that I’ve dug over and Darcy’s promised to get me some autumn-planting bulbs to fill them with so they’ll be full of flowers by the spring. The stone patio that was missing for years has been found again, hiding underneath the tangles of brambles, nettles, and thistles. The cracks between each slab have been meticulously cleared of dandelions, and all that’s left to do is jetwash the concrete so it shines. Although the table and chairs were too rusty to save, Darcy has lent me a couple of sets from the castle so it looks like a proper little garden. And although I know we’ve done it, I can’t help feeling like something’s missing. It looks as it should, but will it be enough for Mr Rowbotham? I have a horrible feeling that it won’t. This isn’tmygarden. My shop belongs to Mr Rowbotham, and I will always be answerable to his every whim. What if he decides he no longer wants to house a bookshop? What if he thinks something else would be more profitable in my place?
I don’t know what I’ll do without it. Even if I managed to get a job in another bookshop, it won’t be here. It won’t bethisshop. It won’t have Darcy next door to it. If the worst comes to the worst and I do have to leave A Tale As Old As Time, one of themost devastating things will be the fact that Darcy will no longer be my neighbour.
‘Sounds like you’ve had a hell of a day.’ Darcy’s voice is right there and I hear the click of his gate unlocking and he appears on the path outside, still wearing his usual disguise. ‘Can I come in? I come bearing gifts.’
‘You’re always welcome, gifts or no gifts,’ I say with a grin, although I must admit to being intrigued when he unlatches my gate and lets himself in, carrying a rose in one hand and in the other… an axe.
My fingers brush his as I take the single baby-pink rose with crimped edges and hold it to my nose to inhale the delicate scent. His roses are eternally spectacular, and he deserves more recognition for them than he currently gets.
‘Whoever wrote that article deserves dunking into a patch of stinging nettles, naked, with wasps.’
I laugh out loud at the sentiment, although he’s a lot kinder than I’m inclined to be towards the writer and their anonymous source. I’m relieved too. More than anything, I didn’t want that spiteful article to be his doing, and he wouldn’t have said that if it was, would he?
I nod to the axe in his hand. ‘And that’s your answer? Stinging nettles, wasps, and a spot of axe-murdering?’
He laughs so hard that he throws his head back. ‘Not quite. Here, this is for you.’
He whisks the rose out of my grip and replaces it with the axe, taking my hands to position them correctly on the heavy handle.
‘It’s an axe,’ I say, showcasing my talent for observation as he walks up the garden path and lays the rose by the step, ready to go inside.
‘To chop the old bench up.’ He returns to stand beside me, looking at Mum’s bench that’s still against the far wall.
‘I can’t.’ The thought sets off an instant panic and I shove the axe back at him, but he refuses to take it.
‘Marnie, that bench has three legs and a spindle for the fourth. If anyone dares to sit on it, it will no longer need chopping up and some unlucky soul will be flailing around on the ground impaled by shards of wood.’
‘That’s fine by me,’ I mutter, even though causing grievous bodily harm to my customers isn’tquiteat the top of my to-do list.
He sighs, still refusing to take the axe. ‘I know it’s difficult. I know what it’s like to lose people, but you’re trying so hard to save this shop and make use of what will now be a beautiful garden – you can’t cling onto something so old and knackered because of the person who once sat there. Come with me.’
I let the axe drop to my side and slip my other hand into his offered glove-covered palm. He tugs me gently, making me follow him onto the path outside my gate, where there’s a huge rectangular cardboard box strapped to a wheeled trolley. I crouch down to look at the tiny picture in one corner. It’s a brand-new silver ornate bench with three metalwork red roses along the back of it, swirling green scrolls in the arms, and a comfortable looking seat.
‘I found it online. I didn’t intend to be presumptuous, but it seems only right that aBeauty and the Beast-themed bookshop, with a garden the Beast would be proud of, deserved a suitably themed bench to complete it.’
‘You’re not presumptuous, you’re the most thoughtful person in the world.’
‘Hah.’ His laugh is one of scorn, and I want to take that laugh like a physical thing, screw it up between my hands and throw it at whoever has made him believe that heisn’t. Even if that person is himself.
‘At least let me pa—’
He cuts me off before I can offer to pay for it. ‘It’s a gift. If you don’t want it, I’ll put it at the castle. It won’t be out of place.’
I’m ridiculously touched by his gesture. I don’t know what a bench like this costs, but taking the time to think of it and find it is one thing, but to buy it too… That generosity again. It makes me want to hug him, although I’m not planning on doing that again in a hurry after the other day.
‘You don’t have to have it.’ He jiggles my hand gently. ‘I’m not going to use the manipulative “your mum wouldn’t want that” line, because I didn’t know your mum, butyoudid, so it’s your choice. If you want to cordon off that area of the garden and stick an “out of order” sign on the existing bench, that’s fine too.’
I think about what he said before, about the castle gardens being his father’s legacy. All right, it’s not quite on the same scale, but my mum loved our shop’s garden. If A Tale As Old As Time is going to stay on Ever After Street, then it should be a tribute to her, not a mausoleum.
‘Okay.’ I say it so quietly that he has to lean in close and ask me to repeat it, and then he cheers and punches the air with joy, and knowing he’s smiling behind the scarf makes me smile too.
I know he’s right about the bench and I feel more confident as we go back into the garden and stand in front of it. He demonstrates how to hold the axe.
