Chapter FOURTEEN
I was working at the kitchen table on Sylvia’s autumnal wedding bouquet – cream and orange roses with a trail of greenery – when I heard a commotion in the hall.
It sounded like people were arriving.
A little later, having finished the bouquet, I nipped through to the dining room to check that everything was in place for the Hallowe’en dinner later, and as I walked through the grand hall, I saw Sylvia and Mick welcoming a young couple to the gathering.
‘Celia!’
smiled Sylvia.
‘Come and meet Mick’s youngest son, James, and his wife Chantelle! They live in Scotland and they’ve travelled down today in this terrible weather. Unfortunately there was a mix-up with their hotel booking, so we’ve invited them to stay here.’
She ushered me over and James smiled warmly and shook my hand. I had to take it away again rather abruptly to turn away and cough.
‘Oh, do excuse me. A tickle in my throat. Sorry.’
‘Do I know you?’
demanded the very glamorous blonde-haired Chantelle. Her perfume had filled the hall and it was the strong scent that had made me cough. Right now, she seemed to be having a hard time focusing on my face.
‘I’m sure I know you. Were you at the party last weekend?’
What party?
‘Um, no?’
I smiled at her.
‘I don’t think we’ve met.’
‘Oh.’
Chantelle reached out to shake my hand, just as Sylvia said.
‘Celia’s doing the wedding flowers. You probably recognise her from –’
‘Oh. So you’re staff, then.’
She turned her back on me and linked her husband’s arm, cuddling up to him, and I was left with my hand suspended in mid-air.
‘I must say, this place isn’t what I thought it would be,’
she said to James, in what I assumed she thought was a whisper.
‘It’s so dark and dingy.’
She turned to Sylvia.
‘Just saying to James, the house could definitely do with a facelift. And when I say “facelift” I don’t just mean Botox. I mean full-on get the knife out, Mr Plastic Surgeon, and turn the clock back twenty years!’
She gave a shrill laugh at her own joke while everyone else stood there, looking rather bemused.
‘We think the hall has character,’
said Sylvia smoothly.
‘Don’t we, Mick?’
‘Absolutely.’
Chantelle roared with laughter.
‘That’s one way of putting it!’
‘Well, I think it’s great . . . what we’ve seen of it so far,’
said James, rather awkwardly.
‘Oh, darling! You’re such a liar. Anyone with half an eye can see that no amount of pretty flower arrangements is going to disguise the fact that this place is a dump!’
‘We stopped at a pub for lunch and ordered a bottle of wine,’
murmured James apologetically.
‘Chantelle gets a little exuberant when she’s overdone it. Don’t you, love?’
‘Well, if you’d joined me in a glass or two, I wouldn’t have had to drink it all myself,’
she said rather petulantly, as if it was all James’s fault that she was currently three sheets to the wind.
‘I could hardly do that, could I?’
James pointed out calmly.
‘I was driving.’
‘I suppose so. Anyway, is there anything to eat? I’m absolutely starving. And where are we sleeping tonight? I need to see it. I absolutely can’t sleep in a room with dark walls, can I, James?’
James, who was clearly the most tolerant person in the world, grinned and said something about nightmares. (I wasn’t quite sure if the dark walls gave Chantelle nightmares or whether he was saying she was a nightmare.)
‘We’re having afternoon tea in . . .’
– Sylvia looked at the grandfather clock in the corner of the hall .
‘half an hour. So you just have time to freshen up and see if your room’s to your liking.’
‘I’ll take you up,’
said Mick, who’d been observing Chantelle with mild amusement. Clearly, her behaviour when she’d had a drink or two wasn’t a surprise to him. But I wondered how James, who seemed so lovely and patient, could put up with being embarrassed by her like that. He must really love her.
‘Great. Let’s go. I could do with a lie-down.’
Heading for the main staircase, Chantelle turned with a wicked glint in her eye.
‘If you know what I mean, James.’
With her foot on the bottom stair, she attempted to grab the balustrade to haul herself up, but she missed and would have come a cropper in her heels if James hadn’t been there to catch her.
‘Oops,’
she giggled, as he put his arm round her and guided her slowly up the stairs.
‘Yuk, aren’t these paintings disgusting?’
She was staring at a picture on the wall as she passed it, of a nineteenth-century man sitting astride a horse. I smiled to myself, thinking I actually agreed with her. The paintings of Sarah Frobisher’s ancestors were relentlessly dark and gloomy, although of course I’d never say so out loud.
Rob was gently shushing her.
‘But why do they all look as if their pet weasel just got run over?’
Chantelle was protesting.
‘And why are they so ugly? If someone was painting me, I’d make bloody sure I was smiling and I’d had my eyebrows done. She looks like the only normal one.’
She pointed at the painting down in the hall of the tragic Lady Annabel Fortescue.
‘Sad story. Some say she haunts the place,’
said Mick cheerfully.
‘Haunted? This house is haunted?’
wailed Chantelle.
‘But I don’t do ghosts. Oh, can’t we try to find another hotel, James?’
He laughed.
‘There aren’t any ghosts. Not really. And even if there are, you’ve got me to ward them off. I’ve got a bulb of garlic in my pocket for that express purpose.’
He turned and grinned down at everyone.
Chantelle giggled at this. They reached the top of the stairs and disappeared with Mick, in search of their bedroom.
‘Interesting woman,’
murmured Maddy.
‘She’s actually quite funny when she’s sober, as opposed to being a complete motormouth when she’s had a drink or six,’
said Fen with a smile.
A little later, as I made up buttonholes for the groom and his best man – dark burgundy roses and lemon verbena foliage, with its delicious lemon sherbet scent – I could hear everyone assembling in the morning room for afternoon tea. I had a feeling Chantelle would crash out on her bed and we wouldn’t see her again until she’d slept off her lunchtime wine!
Sylvia popped her head around the door and said I was working too hard and that I should come and have some cake. But I wanted to avoid Mark and Fiona, so even the thought of indulging in a home-baked scone with butter and jam, and one of those delicious-looking cupcakes with red cats’
whiskers wasn’t enough to tempt me.
‘Did Chantelle like her room?’
I asked with a knowing smile.
‘Er, no. Dark walls, you know.’
Sylvia shook her head, looking a little flustered.
‘I mean, there’s dark walls everywhere here, so I’ve ended up giving them mine and Mick’s room which has pale green walls, which are apparently infinitely more preferable.’
She shrugged.
‘Still, at least she’s happy. For now, at any rate.’
‘I can’t believe she turfed you out of your room!’
Sylvia gave a little sigh.
‘Oh, it doesn’t matter. Not really.’
‘But it does. She’s given you extra work to do and it’s really not on.’
I was suddenly realising how exhausted Sylvia looked.
‘Are you feeling okay?’
I asked gently.
‘Just a little tired. Too much excitement I think.’
‘Why don’t you have a lie down after tea? Have a little sleep? You’ve been rushing around seeing to things and people ever since I got here first thing this morning.’
I smiled affectionately.
‘It’s your wedding day tomorrow. You don’t want to wear yourself out. We can’t have you falling asleep halfway through the tea dance.’
But she shook her head.
‘Honestly, Celia, I’m fine. I’ll take my meds in a minute. They always perk me up. But I refuse to miss even one second of this lovely day by taking a nap!’
I chuckled.
‘Okay. Fair enough. But you do look pale. Maybe you should take your medication now?’
‘Yes, Mum, I will,’
she joked, reaching to squeeze my hand.
‘Speaking of mums, I just wish yours could have been here. She’d have loved all the drama.’
She flicked her eyes to the ceiling and I knew she was thinking of Chantelle.
‘Anyway, better get in there and feed the hungry hoards.’
She gave her pale cheeks a pinch, took a deep breath, raised her eyebrows at me and whisked out again.
The mention of Mum had brought a painful lump to my throat.
Her death the previous year had been expected, of course – she’d been ill for a long time – but I missed her so much. And Sylvia was right. She’d have loved all of this. We would have had a good giggle together over the obnoxiously drunk Chantelle!
As I left the kitchen to escape upstairs, I couldn’t resist a peek into the morning room first. Fen and Katja came running down the stairs at that moment, chatting and laughing, and they joined me as I hovered outside.
‘Coming in, Celia?’
asked Fen.
She pushed the door wider and I caught a glimpse of Fiona sitting on the edge of a squashy maroon sofa, plate balanced on her knee, talking animatedly to Mick.
‘Er . . . no. Better not,’
I replied lightly.
‘Still got things to do. But maybe later.’
‘We’ll save you some cake,’
smiled Katja, and they disappeared inside.
Turning to go up to my room, I bumped into someone walking up behind me.
Mark.
‘Sorry,’
I mumbled. His hand had touched my waist only briefly to steady me, but it was enough to spark a fire inside me, and I didn’t dare look into his eyes.
‘You okay?’
he asked, a wealth of concern in his tone.
‘Yes. Yes, I’m fine. I . . . sorry for walking away before. I just . . .’
‘I know. You’re here to do a job,’
he said softly.
‘And you don’t need your time taken up by ex-boyfriends wanting to reminisce about the good old days.’
I looked up at him then, not quite sure what he was saying.
‘The good old days?’
‘Yes. When you and I were together.’
He shrugged.
‘I’m not saying I haven’t had brilliant days since then because of course I have. But sometimes, it’s impossible to forget your first love, no matter how much you might want to.’
His mouth curved into a wistful smile and the world seemed to stand still as we stood there, gazing into one another’s eyes . . .
Then a voice broke into the moment, and we both turned.
Chantelle and James were coming down the stairs, presumably heading in for afternoon tea. So she hadn’t fallen asleep, after all. I wondered how many more people she was about to offend!
‘It’s just so bloody annoying,’
she was saying in that grumpy stage whisper of hers.
‘Why didn’t you tell me that Mick’s changed his will in favour of Sylvia?’
‘I’m telling you now,’
said James in a rather tight voice.
‘And it shouldn’t matter to you anyway.’
‘Shouldn’t matter? Are you joking? We could have expected a pretty sizeable inheritance until Sylvia came on the scene. How the hell am I supposed to enjoy the wedding, knowing that now we’re going to be broke for the rest of our lives?’
Stunned by this exchange, I looked at Mark and saw that he was similarly taken aback. Chantelle was obviously still under the influence of alcohol, but even so . . .
We watched them go into the morning room.
‘Drunk and a gold-digger,’
murmured Mark, and we exchanged a look of disbelief. Then he smiled and held the door for me, expecting me to walk in with him.
I swallowed hard. His nearness was suddenly too much.
‘Sorry, I need to go. Still stuff to do,’
I muttered. Then I fled, marching across the parquet floor and running up the stairs.
What the hell was wrong with me?
Since when did cool, calm and collected Celia Dearlove – a woman in her fifties – behave like a hormonal teenager at the mercy of her very first crush?
The answer was never.
Unless she happened to find herself up close and personal with a certain Mark McKay . . .
I blundered along the corridor and into my room, and because my mind was still in a state of confusion, it was several minutes before I realised I’d actually walked into the wrong room.
‘Oh.’
Startled, I looked around me, seeing objects I didn’t recognise. Whose room was this? And how on earth had I managed to get lost?
I paused for a moment, trying to work out where I’d gone wrong, as my fingers idly traced the outline of a mermaid on a pretty heart-shaped silver box on the bedside table.
It was so gorgeous I couldn’t help picking it up and taking a closer look at it. The silver mermaid on top was so beautifully done . . .
Something clicked in my brain. Of course! I’d turned right at the top of the stairs instead of left. My emotions had been so scrambled by Mark that I’d got completely lost.
Back in my own room, I plumped the pillows and sank onto the bed, my head in a whirl.
Mark had talked abou.
‘the good old days’
and being unable to forget his first love. Had he really meant all of that?
Or was he just being sociable . . . making conversation to cover up the awkward pauses that were all down to me . . . ?