Chapter 7
SEVEN
When we got back to the house, I helped Marilise to bed, then finally headed that way myself.
Sitting on my bed in my pyjamas, I lit up my phone for the first time in hours.
Big mistake. I had forty-seven WhatsApps from Steph, showing increasingly horrible bridesmaids’ dresses and with no apology at all for having left buying them until so late.
The truth was, she had been so preoccupied with her own dress, shoes, headband, earrings, tights – well, you get the picture – that what her army of bridesmaids was going to wear had barely occurred to her, and now the choices were limited as they had to be off the peg and available in enough of a range of sizes to fit us all.
And with the wedding budget nothing but a distant memory, she was trying to do the whole thing on the cheap.
I zoomed in on one horror, which she had labelled ‘my favourite’ and tears sprang to my tired eyes.
Not only must I go through a wedding at this impossibly difficult time of year, but now she was proposing that I wore a tight, beige-pink shiny satin dress with one shoulder – in December!
– and a sort of frilly flounce of lavender tulle at the bottom.
I would look like a cheap chocolate truffle someone had sat on.
Thank goodness for Minty, who had sent a cheery text saying how glad she was to have met me and to let her know once I was settled at Lyonscroft.
Meeting her had been the one saving grace of the appalling evening I had spent at my parents’ house the night before I left to come here.
Given how tired I was, I should have known better, but I let my thoughts drift back to that night.
As I pulled up outside, I had berated myself for my poor timing: there were several cars there already, which meant that the self-named ‘Steph’s Set’, aka my sister’s seemingly innumerable bridesmaids, most of whom I barely knew, were out in full force, and the bridal crafting party I had been hoping to avoid was still going.
I had dallied with the idea of backing down the drive to make my escape, but as I threw the gear stick into reverse, the front door opened and my mother appeared.
‘Laura!’ she hallooed, waving frantically and spilling prosecco down her silk Boden tea dress. ‘We’re all still here!’
Oh good, I remember thinking, putting the car back into neutral and heaving on the handbrake with resentment. No escape, then. I climbed out of the car and plastered a smile on my face.
‘Hello, Mum, you look lovely.’
She clashed her cheek against mine and squeezed me to her with one arm, the other stretched out to try and preserve what was left of her drink.
‘All the girls are here, come and get some bubbles and join in, it’s such fun.’
‘I’ll just grab my stuff…’ I said, with the feeble hope of buying myself some time, but my mother was wise to such ruses.
‘Daddy will get that for you later. Come straight through, everyone will be thrilled to see you.’
Doubtful of that, but outmanoeuvred, I let her lead me inside and through to the dining room, where the large rosewood table was buried in pastel tissue paper, little organza bags, tiny terracotta plant pots and lengths of ivory crochet yarn.
Eight young women sat around the table chattering at the tops of their voices.
I had no idea what any of them were saying, or how any of them could know, either, but it didn’t seem to matter as the same words flew out over and over again:
Adorable!
So clever!
The prettiest!
I stood awkwardly for a moment until Mum’s piercing tones managed to override the lot of them.
‘Steph! Your sister’s arrived!’
Steph’s pretty, heart-shaped face, a little gaunt now thanks to her punishing pre-wedding diet, shot up from poring over what looked suspiciously like a cross stitch of two doves and a heart, and her baby blue eyes widened warily before she pasted on a gleaming – very expensive – smile and stood up.
‘Laura,’ she said graciously, coming over. ‘How lovely to see you.’ She drew me into her chilly embrace and hissed in my ear, ‘If you’re going to join us, no talk about your patients, okay? This is a happy occasion.’
I pulled away and gave a small smile, nodding as my face went hot.
When Paulo died, my mother and sister were scandalised – not so much by the injustice and sadness of my young husband being snatched from me so cruelly, but by the destruction of their world view that everything – but particularly love and marriage – should be nice and tidy and unsullied by ugly inconveniences such as death.
When I moved into companionship care nursing, they refused to talk about it, no matter how much I tried to explain that it didn’t necessarily mean end-of-life care, and was an immensely rewarding, fulfilling and often joyful job.
‘Why can’t you be the sort of nurse who helps doctors?’ my mother had wailed, while Steph had doubled down on her efforts to snare a husband rich enough to do away with the need for her to work at all, eventually finding him in the shape of Hugo, her sweet but spineless now-fiancé.
‘What would you like to do, Lor?’ boomed one of the women, who I recognised as Dorothea, an old schoolfriend of Steph’s, who had married Hugo’s older brother and was delighted to have someone else coming into the fold who would spend her days shopping for hats and eating vast cream teas rather than doing anything as boring and pedestrian as going to work.
‘Er, do?’ I answered, my eyes roving over the table with increasing panic.
‘Yes, do,’ replied Dorothea. ‘All the bridesmaids are making things. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?’
I had known, of course, about this event, but had been hoping to turn up too late, once everything was finished or everyone had consumed too much prosecco to cut in straight lines, whichever came first.
‘Of course it is,’ I said, forcing a smile. ‘Erm, what is there?’
‘You can crochet a flower hair clip, make confetti cones or start on the table decorations.’
I looked at her helplessly. I am deft with a syringe, handy with bandages, and my wound stitching is second to none, but present me with any sort of crafting and my fingers turn into sausages and I can only produce items that a five-year-old would be ashamed of.
‘Maybe you’d better help me put sugared almonds into the favour bags,’ piped up another woman, who was tiny, with bright blue eyes and a mass of glorious titian ringlets.
She giggled. ‘Ooh, sorry, we haven’t met!
I’m Araminta and I’m awfully tiddly after all those bubbles.
I kept dropping stitches and my crochet roses looked like the greenfly had got to them, so they put me on sugared almonds, but I keep losing count. ’
Steph and Dorothea tutted in unison.
‘Five per bag,’ said my sister, her mouth tightening. ‘And a mix of colours.’
‘Oops.’
Araminta grinned sheepishly at me as she emptied out three little bags, and it was at that moment I decided I liked her.
‘I think that job would suit me, too,’ I said, sitting down. ‘And maybe you could help me catch up on the prosecco, Dorothea?’
Huffing, she went off to the kitchen.
‘How did you dare?’ whispered Araminta, putting four pale green sugared almonds into a bag and pulling the drawstrings. ‘I’m terrified of her. More sister-in-awe than sister-in-law.’
‘Well, she is chief bridesmaid,’ I whispered back, opening the bag again, redressing the balance of colours and adding another nut. ‘So, she should expect to be kept busy.’
‘Don’t you mind that it wasn’t you who was asked to be chief bridesmaid?’ asked my new friend. ‘Being Steph’s sister?’
I shuddered.
‘Not at all. The official line is that it might be insensitive, seeing as I lost my husband, but my sister has never been sensitive about anything that didn’t suit her. I think she’s more worried that I might bring bad luck with my widowhood. I consider it good luck, in this case.’
Dorothea plonked a glass of, well, plonk down next to me on the table and returned to decorating a large blackboard with rather uneven chalk pen hearts. I took a welcome swig.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to be catty,’ I said insincerely. ‘Steph just wants everything to be perfect. How do you know her?’
‘I don’t really,’ replied Araminta, eating a sugared almond absentmindedly. ‘Hugo’s my brother – and Giles, who married Dorothea earlier this year, is my other brother, so I wasn’t given much option.’
Now, it was my turn to giggle.
‘Gosh, with these two as sisters-in-law, Christmases are going to be fun.’
‘It’s all right, I’m going to elope with someone unsuitable and hope they disown me,’ she said, grinning. ‘What about you, though?’
‘I always work over Christmas,’ I said, and explained what I did for a living. ‘In fact, I came tonight to tell them that I’ve got a new job, but I’d better pick my moment so I’m not accused of ruining things.’
‘I shouldn’t worry about that,’ said Araminta airily. ‘I’ve been blamed for that so many times that my family’s almost disappointed if I don’t play up. Where’s the job?’
‘Just up the road, a place called Lyonscroft.’
‘With the Princes?’
‘That’s right. I’ll be working with Marilise. Do you know them?’
‘You bet I do – I’ve known them my entire life. Nick’s one of my oldest friends.’
‘He’s her grandson, isn’t he? Owns the lot?’
‘That’s right. His father died young and Nick inherited, not that he’s interested in any of it. I’m not even sure if he’s in the country at the moment; he isn’t very often.’
‘What are they like?’
‘The ones you’ll be living with are great.
There’s Astrid, Nick’s stepmother, who spends most of her time up to her elbows in the garden, and her daughter India, who’s fifteen and completely crazy about horses.
Say something about fetlocks or saddle soap when you meet her, otherwise she won’t even notice you’ve arrived.
I’m not sure about her father, but she was born after Nick’s father died. ’