Chapter 30
Unsurprisingly, it didn’t take long for Bella to sort out the boxes.
Noah had told her that he didn’t mind which bedroom she took, although she noticed a few of Noah’s possessions in the smaller single bedroom, so she decided the bedroom overlooking the front garden would be best. Jack, having lived on his own for the past twenty years since his wife had passed away, had a single bed, which was pushed up against the party wall, and there was a small, dark chest of drawers under the window.
The bed was stripped: Noah had told her there was bedlinen in the cupboard in the hallway, if she needed it, but she preferred to use her own.
The first box she opened yielded a cheerful light blue flowered duvet cover and crisp white sheets, as well as her mattress protector, so she swiftly put these onto the bed.
She was perturbed by the contrast to the more neutral colours of the room but shrugged away the feeling of being an interloper in Jack’s house.
Jack wasn’t coming back, and she was the tenant now.
It took her a couple of hours to get everything sorted out, and by the end of it, she felt slightly more as if she was permitted to stay in the house.
Although this was an ad hoc arrangement, Noah had assured her that it would be at least a few months before he and his brothers put the house on the market, so she tried to relax.
The one thing she hadn’t thought about on moving day, though, was food.
Kicking herself, she realised she didn’t even have a box of teabags or any milk.
Luckily, Saint’s Farm shop was in walking distance, so she decided to pop down there and grab a few essentials for tonight.
She and Marieke had split the cost of food, for the most part, and this was the first time she was going to be solely responsible for that in a long while.
A short time later, she was pushing open the door of the farm shop.
‘Hey, Nick,’ she called as she caught sight of Nick Saint, the co-owner, standing behind the counter.
‘All right, Bella? How’s things?’ Nick gave her a welcoming smile which, as always, reached all the way to his friendly blue eyes.
The Saints had farmed in Lower Brambleton for generations, and although this latest iteration of the family business was a long way removed from the sprawling family farm of yesteryear, it had undoubtedly been the most profitable.
Although they didn’t have as much of the land as they used to, the large market garden, populated now by polytunnels, provided much of the seasonal produce that was sold in the shop, and a good wholesaler, sold to by local suppliers, did the rest. The Saints prided themselves on selling as much local produce as they could, and what wasn’t immediately available from Somerset’s farms was ethically sourced from elsewhere.
It was a model that would have been unheard of twenty years ago but worked superbly in these times of greater awareness of food miles.
‘Good, thanks.’ Bella mooched around the shop, putting the essentials into her basket and then adding a couple of extras.
She didn’t want to overdo it: Noah hadn’t asked her to pay rent, just that she pay the cost of Monty’s food instead, but pay day for both jobs was a week away.
But not even she could resist a punnet of Saint’s own luscious strawberries, so perfectly ripe, red and round that they could have been formed in a confectioner’s mould.
They weren’t cheap, but they were worth it, especially with a tub of the local clotted cream.
‘So I hear you’ve moved into Jack Hathaway’s old place, then?’ Nick asked as she walked to the counter.
Bella laughed. ‘I forget how fast news travels in this village.’
‘Paddy was telling Thea the other lunchtime when we popped in,’ Nick elaborated. ‘I thought those grandsons of his were all up for selling the place as soon as possible – getting their hands on their full inheritance.’
‘Noah, the brother who’s been sorting out most of Jack’s estate, had a change of heart,’ Bella said. ‘So Monty and I are sitting tenants for a while.’
‘Monty?’
‘Jack’s old cat. Old being the operative word. I don’t know how long he’s got left, but Noah saw fit to put him back into the cottage to live out his days. He’s my landlord now, I suppose.’
‘Who, Monty?’
‘No, Noah!’
Nick laughed. ‘Well, hopefully Monty will continue to live a long and happy life, so you can stay put for a bit.’
‘Oh, you know me,’ Bella replied, ‘I don’t like staying anywhere for too long. I’m a wanderer, and I’m sure my next adventure’s just around the corner.’
‘The Star and Telescope’s punters will miss you if you do go off into the sunset,’ Nick said. ‘Paddy’s not one for giving compliments, but he told Thea you’re the best bartender he’s ever had. She was a bit put out at that, having done a stint behind the bar when she was in her late teens.’
‘Oops!’ Bella giggled to hide how touched she felt by the compliment. ‘I’d better start dropping a few pint jugs and pouring some long-headed lagers, then! Wouldn’t want to think Paddy had gone soft in his old age.’
Bella paid and ambled out of the shop and along the road back to the cottage.
It was true, she thought, she had stayed put in Lower Brambleton longer than she’d intended.
Partly because living with Marieke had been great, but also because she genuinely liked being here.
She always tried not to get too attached to a place, though, in case she suddenly had to move on.
Jobs that ended, tenancies that finished, changes in circumstance had all meant leaving eventually.
She’d be lying to herself if she didn’t admit that, when it came to leaving Lower Brambleton, she would miss the village and its people.
And the furry inhabitants of Purrfect Paws, of course.
On her way back to the cottage, she popped into the charity shop that helped to support the cat sanctuary. She was in no hurry to get back to the cottage today, so she thought she’d see what was on sale.
‘Morning!’ the cheery voice of Sally Sharpe, one of the local volunteers who staffed the shop, called out to her as she came through the door.
‘Morning,’ Bella called back. She began to browse the store, not quite sure what she was looking for.
There was a good range of clothing, arranged by colour, and still summery, although autumn was knocking on the door.
Finding nothing to interest her in the racks, she browsed the novels and DVDs for a few moments, but again, nothing grabbed her.
Bric-a-brac and ornaments weren’t her thing, and she had all the shoes she wanted, so she was about to wander back out of the door when she spotted something sitting on the shelf by the window display that caught her eye.
It couldn’t be.
Could it?
She was pretty sure none had been produced in this country.
Sure, there’d been plenty hanging around in Europe a few years back, especially in Sweden, but she’d never actually seen any of them on sale anywhere in the UK before.
It was both a welcome and an unpleasant surprise to see it sitting so innocently on the shelf, almost lost between many other things that someone had turned out of their house and donated.
But, Bella thought with a flash of determination, it wasn’t going to sit there any longer. With slightly shaky hands and feeling a flood of adrenaline surging through her body, she reached out and took it off the shelf.