Sunshine and Sweet Peas in Nightingale Square

by Heidi Swain

  ‘Have you told them?’ asked Tamsin, as she scooped up a protesting Dash and kissed him on the end of his little black nose.

  ‘Not yet,’ said Luke, handing out the post before stirring the large pan of soup which was warming on the stove.

  Mark and Neil weren’t with us as they had set off early for a weekend away, but Mark had dropped round a batch of crusty rolls, fresh from the bakery, before they left and I passed them around.

  He had insisted they should get away as Neil was now chained to his job for even longer hours than before, courtesy of the guilt he felt for losing his company the Prosperous Place account. I could tell, by the expression on Luke’s face that when he heard that, he felt every bit as responsible, but surely it was all for the best? Between them, they had saved Prosperous Place and I hoped that, in time, Neil would see he had done the right thing and perhaps even think about looking for a position with another, more sympathetic firm.

  ‘Told us what?’ asked Harold as he took a sneaky bite of his roll before Luke had ladled out the soup.

  I looked at him and shook my head.

  ‘What?’ He shrugged. ‘All this digging makes me hungry.’

  I raised my eyebrows.

  ‘All right,’ he acquiesced, ‘sitting in that deckchair telling you lot how to dig makes me hungry.’

  We all laughed and I began distributing the bowls Luke was filling.

  ‘So, you were saying?’ Rob asked Luke.

  ‘You mentioned a delivery,’ Graham added importantly.

  I was sure, even though we had agreed there was no hierarchy among the group, that Graham saw himself as the chief of our little tribe. I guessed that, whatever he had done for a living before he retired, a fair bit of responsibility had gone with it, and he had missed that, being stuck indoors with Carole all day.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Luke, taking his seat at the table. ‘Tamsin here,’ he said, making her blush, ‘as you all know, mentioned the possibility of keeping some chickens a couple of weeks ago.’

  ‘She did,’ said John, ‘and she’s not shut up about it at home ever since.’

  ‘Well, that’s just as well really,’ beamed Luke, ‘because we’re taking on some rescue hens in a couple of weeks’ time and I was hoping she would be in charge of looking after them.’

  ‘Really?’ Tamsin gasped, restoring Dash to his basket, which he promptly jumped out of.

  ‘Really,’ nodded Luke. ‘I’ve found an old henhouse in the trees at the bottom of the fern garden. Goodness knows why it’s there, but it just looks like it needs a good clean and a repair to the roof and it’ll be good to go.’

  ‘And we’ll need some sort of enclosure,’ Graham mused.

  ‘Definitely,’ agreed Heather. ‘I was feeding Evie early this morning and that fox was back, rootling around in our garden. We’ll have to find a way to keep that out.’

  ‘But you’re all happy with the idea?’ Luke checked. ‘Fresh eggs every day is something you like the sound of. I’ve been warned the hens will take a little while to grow all their feathers and look the part, but I’m sure they’ll be content enough to see out their time here.’

  Everyone nodded and voiced their approval and Tamsin, her moody teenage persona forgotten, looked thrilled.

  ‘And are you making progress in here?’ I asked Luke, looking around. ‘I know you’ve been with us in the garden a lot, but you haven’t said much about the house recently. Any joy on the furniture hunt?’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘afraid not. I’m giving up on that for a bit now and turning my attention to more specific family pieces.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Some jewellery, but paintings mostly,’ he explained, ‘and there’s one portrait in particular I want, although of course if I can track down more things than that, it would be wonderful.’

  I swallowed a mouthful of soup and tore at my roll, but said nothing. On more than one occasion during the last few weeks I had been going to offer to try and help him source some of the things that should never have left Prosperous Place, but I had always changed my mind at the last minute.

  I had left that part of my life behind, but it didn’t stop me feeling bad about not stepping in when I almost certainly could have helped.

  ‘What’s this?’ Lisa asked.

  ‘I’m trying to find some of the original things that Charles Wentworth and his wife would have had in the house,’ he told her. ‘Portraits and paintings, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Well,’ she said, looking pointedly at me as I felt my heart begin to race, ‘you’re talking to the right person then, aren’t you?’

  ‘Am I?’ he frowned, looking back to me because I was the only person he had been talking to.

  ‘Are you going to help him, Kate?’

  I could have throttled her.

  ‘How could Kate help?’

  ‘That’s what she used to do when she lived in London,’ said Harold, unwittingly putting his foot in it even further than Lisa. ‘When rich folk wanted something fancy for their homes, Kate here helped them track it down, didn’t you love? I’m surprised you haven’t told him that already.’

  Lisa refused to meet my eye and became preoccupied with dipping her roll in her soup. She knew full well that I hadn’t said anything, and why.

  ‘I already knew you were a history buff,’ Luke said quietly. ‘But is that really what you used to do?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Sort of.’

  ‘Then you must have loads of contacts in the trade,’ he said.

  I couldn’t bring myself to look at him.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, trying not to think of David and our many friends. ‘I suppose I must.’

  Luke didn’t say anything else and I knew he was hurt. Hurt that I had the knowledge and the wherewithal to help him in his quest and that, in spite of all the kindness that he had shown to me and my neighbours, I hadn’t seen fit to return the favour. He had already mentioned, during his bouts of digging, what a struggle it was going to be to fill the house and not once had I offered to help or even suggested that I would know how to go about it.

  I began to tear my bread into even tinier pieces, thinking that I was going to have to offer him an explanation now, whether I wanted to give one or not.

  ‘If you pop round to mine later today, Kate,’ Harold sealed my fate by saying, ‘then I could give you the photos Luke hasn’t seen yet. Between the pair of you I bet you can find some snaps of what Luke here is after. I think we both know which portrait he’s talking about, don’t we?’ he added with a wink.

  ‘No, it’s fine,’ said Luke, shaking his head. ‘I can manage. I’m sure Kate has far better things to do with her time than help me.’

  There was that hurt tone again.

  ‘No, she hasn’t,’ interrupted Lisa. ‘We were supposed to be having a girls night in, but Heather has had to cancel and I really should make a dent in the ironing pile so she’s on her lonesome tonight, aren’t you, love?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, through gritted teeth. ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘Well, if you really do have the time,’ said Luke. ‘Any ideas about how to go about re-stocking and researching would be much appreciated. Shall we say here, at seven?’

  He didn’t sound keen for us to get together at all. He was obviously only going along with the suggestion because he knew Lisa wouldn’t shut up until he caved.

  ‘No,’ I said, thinking I would be able to explain everything better on my own turf. ‘Why don’t you come to mine?’

  ‘All right,’ he shrugged. ‘I’ll come around seven and I’ll bring a takeaway. What do you fancy?’

  ‘You,’ said Lisa under her breath while I glared at her and wondered why we were friends at all.

  It was the first time I had felt really awkward in Luke’s company and I knew he felt the same way.

  ‘It’s nice to be back,’ he had said as he crossed the threshold and nodded at the fire burning merrily in the grate. ‘Although I have to say, my first visit
here feels like forever ago now.’

  ‘I suppose it does,’ I agreed. ‘But then, an awful lot has happened since you caught Carole and me trespassing.’

  ‘I thought you said you weren’t trespassing.’

  I didn’t contradict him, but couldn’t suppress the smile which was tugging at the corners of my mouth.

  ‘Anyway,’ he said, handing me a bag which was giving off yummy smells courtesy of the Chinese takeaway up the road. ‘You’re right. A lot has happened since then. I’m the cat person you said you couldn’t see me as for a start.’

  ‘So you are,’ I agreed.

  We ate the takeaway on trays on our laps and the silence became so stifling that I had to resort to flicking through the television channels until I found some brash reality show to drown it out. Once we had finished I turned it off again, cleared away the plates and lifted the box of photos from Harold’s up on to the coffee table.

  ‘You know, Kate,’ said Luke as I carefully prised off the lid, ‘I’m well aware that Lisa dropped you in it earlier and I’m sure you have a perfectly good reason for not telling me about your former job, so please don’t think I’ve come here tonight expecting an explanation. You don’t owe me anything, OK?’

  ‘I know,’ I said quietly.

  ‘We all know what a nuisance Lisa can be,’ he smiled, confirming that the only reason we were having this conversation at all was because of her, ‘but she means well.’

  It wasn’t all that long ago that everyone was saying that about my mother and look what she had done. Our phone calls were still frosty and far between and I had already told her that I wouldn’t be going back to Wynbridge for Easter. I had also reiterated that I didn’t want her and Dad to see the house until it was refurbished.

  ‘I mean,’ Luke continued when I didn’t say anything else, ‘I knew you were passionate about the past because we talked about it before, but—’

  ‘Look,’ I said, cutting him off. ‘I am going to tell you because, well, because it feels impossible not to now.’

  ‘Not impossible—’

  He might have been saying that, he might even have meant it, but I couldn’t forget the earlier look of hurt on his face and I didn’t want him to feel like that because of something I had or hadn’t said. I wanted to clear the air between us and lay my cards on the table so he knew why I had kept schtum for all these weeks, even though he had gone out of his way to help me and everyone else in the Square.

  ‘My work, as Harold suggested earlier, used to revolve around finding antiques and things for wealthy clients to fill their houses with,’ I said quickly. ‘I was good at it,’ I told him. ‘I had a knack for finding the right thing for the right person, and my husband and I built up a solid and successful business doing exactly that together.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘But when our marriage broke down last year, I left him and the business behind and it’s not what I do any more. In fact, I don’t think I’ll ever want to do it again.’

  ‘And that’s why you’ve never said anything,’ Luke quickly cottoned on, ‘because if you offered to help me it would potentially mean getting back in touch with people who knew you when you were married.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘It might even put you back in touch with your husband.’

  ‘Quite,’ I swallowed. ‘And I have no intention of ever getting back in touch with him, for any reason.’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Luke, coming to sit beside me and resting a hand on my shoulder. ‘I’m so sorry you’ve felt obliged to tell me this, Kate. It was nobody else’s business. Bloody Lisa,’ he tutted.

  ‘Oh, never mind her,’ I said, quickly laying my hand over his and absorbing its warmth. ‘She meant well.’

  We both laughed and broke apart before the hand touching led to eye contact and then on to the possibility of goodness knows where. Not that I wanted to look into Luke’s eyes again or even contemplate the destination of goodness knows where.

  ‘So,’ he said, ‘let’s forget all about it and have a look at what Harold has put in here instead.’

  I was more than happy to do that and Luke was soon as mesmerised by the photographs as I had been.

  ‘This is all amazing,’ he said, as the time ticked by and the fire sank lower in the grate; it was now little more than glowing embers. ‘These are going to help me no end.’

  We had sorted the images into piles – one each for the different rooms in the house and another for the gardens.

  ‘I know I’m not going to be able to make it look exactly the same, and I don’t want to really, but at least having access to these will keep me on the right track.’

  ‘And this,’ I said, with a flourish, ‘is the one that I think you’ll be most pleased to see.’

  It was the portrait of Edward. No one could deny Luke’s connection to the Wentworth family when they looked at Edward’s handsome face, dark curls and even darker eyes.

  ‘It’s as if someone dressed you in period costume and painted you,’ I laughed, shaking my head.

  ‘Do you really think so?’ Luke smiled, staring intently at the photo. ‘Do you really think I look like him?’

  ‘You could be him,’ I insisted. ‘It’s uncanny.’

  ‘I can sort of see it,’ he said, squinting and turning his head.

  ‘Although it’s a bit different to the kind of images of yourself you’re no doubt used to looking at.’

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘Just a bit.’

  Was it my imagination or had he turned a little flushed at the mention of his modelling days?

  ‘So,’ I swallowed, ‘how did a nice guy like you end up posing for a living?’

  I’d wanted to ask him for weeks, almost ever since Lisa had revealed his supermodel status.

  ‘I’d just been about to graduate from university,’ he told me, ‘and was visiting a friend in Brighton to celebrate handing in my thesis when I got “spotted”.’

  ‘Spotted?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he shrugged, ‘you know, by an agency scout. He was there on a shoot with some other models. It was actually one of the girls who first noticed me, then the guy gave me his card and told me to give him a call if I fancied having some test shots taken.’

  ‘And your ego got the better of you?’

  ‘Hardly,’ he laughed. ‘It was my bank balance that got the better of me.’

  ‘You were in it for the money?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ he unashamedly confessed. ‘I had thousands of pounds worth of student loans to pay off and standing in front of a camera turned out to be a pretty simple way to clear them.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘I settled my debts,’ he went on, ‘and then carried on. I got to travel the world, visit some spectacular places and then, before I started to get bored with it all, decided to call it a day. That was just before Dad died.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. I hadn’t realised he’d had a parental bereavement to cope with.

  ‘He’d been ill for a while,’ he sighed, ‘but was obsessed with tracing our family tree. There was only me and him so I promised that I’d carry on with it if . . .’

  He stopped and took a breath.

  ‘If he didn’t get a chance to,’ he finished quickly.

  ‘And that’s what led you to Prosperous Place?’ I asked quietly, ‘his quest for finding family?’

  ‘Yes,’ he nodded. ‘Dad had almost got as far as the Wentworth connection, but not quite; I put the final pieces together,’ he said, turning his attention back to the photograph of Edward’s portrait and studying his ancestor’s features intently. ‘Dad would have been stoked about all this and I want to carry the legacy on, but I’m not quite sure how to. And how on earth am I going to find this blessed painting? I don’t even know where to start.’

  I knew exactly what he should do and where he should start, but didn’t think I had it in me to tell him for fear that it would take me straight back to where I didn’t want to go.

  C
hapter 20

  It took me a few days of intense soul searching to make up my mind as to whether or not I was going to help Luke track down the portrait which he believed would be the crowning glory in the Prosperous Place collection.

  Discovering that he had made copies of Harold’s original photograph, and carried one around with him in his wallet like some sort of talisman, did nothing to strengthen my resolve not to get involved.

  ‘This is the one thing,’ he said when I found him sitting in a chair outside the bothy one sunny afternoon and staring at the picture: ‘This is the pinnacle, Kate.’

  ‘Is it?’ I asked, as I busily filled the watering can, averting my gaze as he pulled off his jumper to soak up the early spring sunshine in a clingy and well-worn T-shirt.

  The walled garden was now totally transformed and I was pleased that Rob (who still hadn’t plucked up the courage to even introduce Sarah into a conversation, let alone invite her to the garden) had had the wherewithal to photograph every stage of our progress. Each of the beds now had green shoots peeking out in regimented rows, or an array of canes and markers, complete with handwritten labels, all offering a hint of the harvest to come. Mark and Rob had gone to great lengths restoring the henhouse and even Neil, who was the least keen to get his hands dirty, had lent a hand in making sure the run was as fox-proof as possible.

  It was good to see him in the garden and I noticed he was popping back more and more often, especially at the weekends. It didn’t take a genius to work out that our green gym was giving a mental boost to everyone, as well as becoming the ideal way to burn off the lingering winter pounds.

  ‘If I don’t manage to find another single thing,’ Luke sighed wistfully as he tucked the paper carefully away again, ‘I won’t care.’

  I was sure he would.

  ‘As long as I have this,’ he said, patting his wallet with its treasured piece of paper stowed back inside, ‘I’ll feel as though I’ve made amends to the generations of my side of the family who had no idea of their connection to this place.’