Chapter Thirty-Four
The morning of the Spring Fayre dawned with a brilliant blue sky, just like it did in all the picture-perfect village scenes on TV. No doubt Audrey was in charge of weather arrangements too or maybe she was friends with someone who was. Ella gave the blue postcard on the pinboard a quick smile.
‘Sorry, Tess,’ she said, giving the kitchen a quick once-over to make sure she’d left nothing out that might cause temptation.
‘I’ll come back for you later.’ With cakes on display and no doubt lots of other goodies, Tess might be – no scrub that, would be – a liability.
Better to come and retrieve her later when Ella’s stint on the tombola stall was over.
Bets was bang on time and already on the doorstep.
‘Morning. Can you believe this weather? I swear Audrey’s a witch. Now, what do you want me to carry? Has Geoffrey already been?’
‘Yes, bless him. Poor man, I think he’s been up since about six o’clock running around the village. He took all the bottles about twenty minutes ago.’
‘Thank goodness for that. I never want to see another raffle ticket or bottle of strange-coloured liqueur again in my life.’
‘Me neither, but thank you for coming to help. I don’t know what I’d have done without you.
’ The night before, after Devon had stomped off, Ella had called in the cavalry and Bets had come round immediately to help, which was just as well as she had immediately pointed out that Ella was throwing away all the winning raffle tickets.
Bets gave her a quick hug and Ella hung on for a second. If anything, this morning she felt worse than she had done last night after Devon had left.
‘You should have brained Devon with one of the bottles. Stupid bugger. Honestly, men. I still can’t believe the stupid idiot wouldn’t listen to you.’
‘Please don’t say anything to him. He was furious enough with me that I’d “interfered” – he’ll be even more cross if he thinks I’ve told you.’
‘I’m glad you did. It explains a lot.’ Bets nudged her with an elbow. ‘Don’t give up on him. He’ll come round. I thought you two . . . well,’ she shot a cheeky grin at Ella, ‘over the last few weeks the two of you seemed to get on much better.’
Ella blushed. ‘Well, we were starting to.’
Bets fixed her with a penetrating stare.
‘But not any more.’
‘Which explains why he’s been in such a foul mood this morning. Well, aside from fielding calls from Marina; she’s been on the phone every five minutes—’
‘That’s because she’s determined to get him back and it will solve a lot of his problems. Especially as he wasn’t prepared to listen to what I had to say.’
Bets’ face suddenly broke into a broad grin. ‘There’s no way he’ll go back to Marina. No matter what she’s promising. The rest of the family will never speak to him again.’
‘You didn’t hear her the other night – she really loves him and she’s making him an offer he’d be mad to refuse. It’ll solve all his money worries.’
‘Don’t be silly. Devon’s pride’s taken a battering. Marina’s taken him to the cleaners, emotionally and financially. The last thing he wants is someone else bailing him out.’
‘I think he made that quite plain. Well, he can get on with it. Stupid man.’
‘And he’s going to have to, because as I was about to say before you interrupted me . . . he told her to get knotted this morning.’ Bets folded her arms and gave Ella a triumphant look.
‘He did?’
‘He did.’
‘Oh.’
Ella turned away to look out of the kitchen window, feeling her cheeks flush.
‘Ooh, is that the cake?’ Bets’ uncharacteristic attempt at diplomatically changing the subject brought a reluctant smile to Ella’s face.
‘Let’s have a look.’ She’d been intrigued the night before by the rows of sugar paste petals drying on tea towels on the kitchen side.
So had Tess, but Ella had kept a close eye on her.
‘Yes, but whatever you do, don’t knock it.’ Ella had finished it in the early hours of the morning after Bets had left.
Bets slipped the lid from the cake tin, very, very carefully.
‘Oh, my. That’s amazing.’ She reached out a reverent finger to touch one of the sugar paste flowers.
Ella was rather pleased with it. She’d sandwiched the two slightly uneven cake layers together, and when they were covered with ready rolled icing, you couldn’t tell she’d had to slice the tops off.
She’d then spent ages topping the surface with lots of yellow and white flowers.
Just off the centre of the cake, on top of one of the flowers, was a tiny sugar-paste Cuthbert, complete with red fez, looking out over the sea of flowers for his brothers and sister.
She’d managed to bring their game of hide and seek in a flower meadow to life perfectly.
To his left, Herbert peeped up at him from where he hid under a daisy while on the other side of the cake, Bertram and Englebert giggled together from behind a yellow rose and Catherine peered out from between white petals.
‘You’re so talented. I don’t think I’ve got a creative bone in my body. I’m not terribly good at anything.’ She sighed. ‘No wonder Jack doesn’t want to visit. He’s meeting all those super clever girls at university.’
‘Don’t be silly.’ Ella put the cake down and threw her arms around Bets. ‘He’s so lucky to have you.’ She drew back, still holding on to Bets’ arms. ‘You are one of the nicest, kindest and loveliest people I’ve ever met. I can’t thank you enough for all you’ve done for me while I’ve been here.’
‘But I haven’t—’
‘Yes, you have. You made me feel welcome. You gave your friendship, unconditionally and totally without judgement. I was a stuck-up, miserable cow and it didn’t stop you.
You always look on the bright side. You help without being asked and when you are asked you never say no.
You make me smile even when I don’t want to.
Being with you is always fun. You see the good things in people and you’ve made me see them.
I’m a much nicer person for knowing you, so thank you for being my friend. ’
‘Aw.’ Bets blinked and sniffed. ‘Blimey, that’s quite a big old speech.’ She hugged Ella back. ‘It’s also one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me. I know I can be a bit annoying sometimes . . . ’
‘Shush. You need to be nicer to yourself. If Jack can’t see how wonderful you are, he doesn’t deserve you.’ Ella bent to pick up the cake tin.
Bets straightened up and Ella could see her metaphorically dust herself down.
‘You’re right.’ She linked her arm through Ella’s very gently.
‘Come on. Let’s go. Don’t want to drop the delivery.
We’d better get a wiggle on. Poor Elsie, Peter’s wife.
She was really hoping that with Magda out of the way, she might win best cake this year. I don’t think she stands a chance.’
‘Really?’ Ella hugged the tin closer. ‘I’m not sure about that. It is the first cake I’ve made since I was about ten.’
Cheerful floral bunting hung from every point of the high beamed ceiling in the village hall and the local craft group had gone yarn-bombing mad by knitting rainbow socks for the four main supporting beams. They’d also covered a bicycle, the wooden benches outside the hall and a wooden rocking chair, on which Doris sat like a queen taking the entrance money.
With her cake deposited in the marquee on the recreation ground at the back of the hall, Ella hurried to take up her post on the tombola stall.
A rather harried Audrey had given her a box of change, the float, and instructions not to hand it over to anyone but Peter who was on accounting duty for the day as well as a reminder that she would be relieved at twelve by Mrs Mason, who ran the pre-school.
Ella wondered quite how that latter piece of information would help in identifying Mrs Mason when she turned up.
Arranging the bottles took quite some doing as the table was a touch on the small side but she remembered the advice from both Audrey and Bets that it would make life a lot easier to match them up with winning tickets if they were grouped in number order.
It looked as if the whole village had turned out today and the minute the doors officially opened at ten o’clock the hall was suddenly full.
No light trickle of people. One minute it was empty, the next full.
Obviously, the folk of Wilsgrave didn’t believe in being fashionably late.
Going to any event with Britta or Patrick had invariably involved a debate as to the best time to turn up.
The official starting time never being an opener for ten.
‘Good morning, m’dear.’
‘George.’ Ella beamed. ‘How are you today?’ She’d popped in to see him every day since he’d come home.
‘Feeling better, bit stiff though.’ He winced. ‘You all right? That vet keeping an eye on you?’
Ella rolled her eyes. ‘Yes, thank you.’ George didn’t miss a thing. ‘He’s an idiot, though.’
George looked mischievous. ‘Men usually are. Good job we have women to keep us on the straight and narrow.’ He patted her hand. ‘And how has the cake turned out?’
He’d been very excited when she’d confessed she’d succumbed and baked a cake.
‘Actually, George, I’m pretty darned pleased with it.’
‘Excellent, I shall look forward to a taste. Now, I’ll have five tickets. How much are they?’
‘A pound a ticket. Are you sure you want five?’
‘Course.’
She took his money and he made a great show of delving into the barrel and counting out his tickets.
A passing family watched avidly. To George’s absolute delight – he actually did a little hop skip and a jump – he won a bottle of blue curacao.
‘Grand. That’s me and Doris sorted for cocktail night.
’ With a wave he sauntered off, clutching his booty.
The family of three stared after him.
‘Would you like a ticket?’ asked Ella. It was all for a good cause. They didn’t look as if they had much money but there was a one in five chance of winning which was pretty good odds.