‘She’s lying.’
‘Prove it!’
Mr Hobbs, who had looking on as if watching a puzzling play, said, ‘My dear sir, before making this kind of allegation, you should check your facts properly. There is indeed proof that Miss Winter is speaking the truth and I have verified it.’
I dug into my bag and produced a folded sheet of paper. ‘I think Lady Betty had already begun to suspect your motivation when she gave me the brooch, and the cook, Mrs Dukes, the necklace. She insisted on signing a statement saying what she had done and had it witnessed by the vicar, who had known her for over thirty years. So you see, you’re not going to get them back.’
His mouth opened and closed. ‘Forged,’ he said at last. ‘You’ve discovered how valuable they are and—’
He yelped as Aunt Hebe smote him across the head with her sceptre. It was only plastic, fortunately, but it still made him stagger about, clutching his ear.
‘I’ll have the police on you! Assault—theft—’
‘Actually, I am the police,’ said Mike, who must have arrived while I was distracted.
‘Then I wish to charge this woman with assault and—’ began Conor.
‘I didn’t see any assault,’ Mike said. ‘Did anyone else?’
‘No,’ we all chorused.
‘And if you attempt to charge my client with the theft of a brooch to which she has a perfect right, we will countersue for defamation of character,’ said Mr Hobbs.
Conor glared around impotently at the circle of hostile faces. ‘You ought at least to pay me the value of it. The yellow diamonds alone are worth—’
I squinted down at it. ‘Diamonds? I thought they were crystals! But whatever it is made of, it doesn’t matter. I love it because Lady Betty gave it to me, not for any other reason, and I’m still not giving it up.’
‘I am afraid you haven’t got a leg to stand on, Mr Darfield,’ Mr Hobbs told him with finality. ‘I would advise you to leave now, before charges against you are pressed.’
‘Yes, perhaps I should escort you to the gate,’ suggested Mike. ‘It’s time I was off, in any case.’
As they vanished down the drive I said, ‘Thank you, Mr Hobbs—and Aunt Hebe, you were magnificent.’
‘I know how to deal with his sort,’ she said regally. ‘Now, if you will excuse me, I want to see how my products are selling in the shop, and then change and get back to the garden.’
‘Why don’t you go and have tea with Mr Hobbs first, before the rush starts? I should think most people are still outside yet.’
‘I suppose I could,’ she agreed.
‘And I had better go and do the rounds, see how everything is going on,’ I said absently as a tall figure came into view in the distance, a giant among a family of Japanese tourists. Seth seemed to be directing them into the maze, and I just hoped he would rescue them later if they got lost, for I was sure they would not be able to see over the top of the hedges.
Mr Glover, ruffed and carrying his quill and furled parchment, scurried furtively along a distant path, shadowed at a respectful distance by several visitors. He turned his domed bald head in my direction briefly, then was gone.
When it all got too much for him, I had given him directions to hide in the fern grotto, which was out of bounds to the public. I made a mental note to have a tray of refreshments taken down there later. The poor man would have earned it.
It was late afternoon before things started to quieten down, and I managed to snatch a break, sitting on a bench on the top terrace with Ottie and Hebe (now attired in more mundane cord trousers and a padded gilet).
In fact I was feeling exhausted but very happy, when two things happened to make it rain on my parade: Jack suddenly appeared from the house, and then I spotted Mel Christopher and Seth talking together below. She looked up, then headed towards the steps, trailed by Seth.
‘Jack, dear boy!’ Aunt Hebe said. ‘We didn’t know you were coming! Didn’t you tell me you wouldn’t be able to make it?’
‘That was before I read the newspaper this morning!’ he said, and I could see he was furious. ‘Didn’t any of you think to share your fascinating little discovery with me?’
‘I didn’t know either until this morning,’ Hebe said. ‘They kept me in the dark too—but it is quite wonderful, isn’t it?’
‘You’ll certainly be raking the money in now, Sophy. And this poem, or whatever it is, will be worth a fortune!’
‘It doesn’t matter what it’s worth, we won’t be selling it,’ Ottie said. ‘But it certainly won’t do visitor numbers any harm!’
‘And don’t you think you should give me a share in all this?’ he demanded angrily.
‘Share in what?’ asked Mel from behind him. ‘Jack, I thought you might be here. I want a word with you!’
‘Not now, Mel,’ he said impatiently.
‘It’s never now—and things are getting a little urgent,’ she snapped.
‘You know, I had an interesting phone call from an old friend the other day,’ Ottie said conversationally, but in carrying tones. ‘I’d asked her to check some rumours out for me—and guess what? Jack and Melinda are married.’
‘Married?’ I gasped, turning to stare at Jack, the man who had been professing love and pressing me to marry him, all this time. ‘Are you sure? I mean—’
‘Yes, they married quietly in London, a short time before William died. Presumably they kept it quiet because he disapproved of Mel.’
Hebe paled. ‘Surely there is some error? Jack—’
But he was looking at me, blue eyes earnest. ‘We soon realised it was a mistake, Sophy! When I went down to make her an offer for the house…well, one thing led to the other. But we’re getting divorced.’
‘And you owe me, for agreeing to keep quiet about it, all this time!’ Mel snapped.
‘Oh? And does poor old Seth know anything about it—or that he’s been replaced by your rich new lover in London?’ Jack said nastily.
I was so stunned by all this that I had entirely forgotten that Seth had followed Mel, until he took two hasty strides forward and felled Jack with a single blow. Then he stood back, breathing heavily.
Jack got up slowly and warily. ‘I suppose I deserved that.’
Seth frowned and examined his skinned knuckles. ‘Actually, I’m not sure you do. Maybe you deserve an apology instead, since I’d no idea Mel was married to you when she came back here or I wouldn’t have—’
He broke off and turned on Mel. ‘You lied to me.’
‘It was always you I loved, Seth,’ she said nervously, taking a step back.
‘I can’t imagine why you and Jack got married in the first place,’ Ottie said frankly, ‘except that you are both shallow, grasping types. I suppose like called to like.’
‘Thanks, Ottie,’ Jack said, with a glimmer of humour.
‘Jack thought I was a hugely rich widow,’ Mel said sweetly, ‘but actually, Clive tied all his money up in his children, without telling me, the bastard. All he left me was that monstrosity of a house and a small annuity. But then it turned out that Jack wasn’t rich either and he didn’t even get Winter’s End. I always rather fancied living here, a Lady.’
‘You’d never be a lady, because you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear,’ Ottie said frankly. ‘So you fell out when you discovered each other’s lack of cash?’
Mel nodded sulkily. ‘Jack said if I kept quiet about the wedding, he’d pay me off when Sophy signed Winter’s End over to him and I could have money and you, Seth. I always loved you!’
Seth’s arms were folded across his broad chest, probably to stop him hitting anyone again. ‘I don’t think you know the meaning of the word.’
‘Actually, you have made a slight error of judgement, Mel, because Seth is by no means penniless and he will be very well off one day,’ Ottie said. ‘I’ve been raking in the money for my sculptures for years, plus my investments have done rather better than Hebe’s, and I’ve left everything t
o him. He’s as close to a son as I’ve got.’
‘What?’ Melinda looked from one to the other. ‘I thought you would leave everything to Sophy!’
‘I’ve given her a sculpture—if she gets desperate she can flog it. Mind you, if Seth is daft enough to marry you once you’ve divorced Jack, I might be tempted to change my will.’
‘I won’t be,’ he said. ‘Her new, rich lover in London can have her.’ And, turning on his heel, he walked away.
‘Seth!’ wailed Mel, running after him and catching at his arm, but he shook her off. She looked back at us and then trailed away.
‘So everything you said to me was just a sham, Jack?’ I said sadly. ‘I never really believed you were in love with me, but to find you’d been trying to cheat Winter’s End out of me like that…’ I shook my head, tears welling.
‘Sophy darling,’ he said, hurt, ‘of course I love you! I meant every word, and we’d have been married the minute my divorce came through. We still can be, if—’
‘Oh, shut up!’ I said shortly, the tears popping right back into my ducts. ‘You wouldn’t know the truth if it bit you on the ear.’
His smile became more genuine. ‘I do love you, Sophy—you’re so acerbic!’
‘Well, come to that, I suppose I still love you, in a way—warts and all. But like a brother.’
‘I don’t know why you keep saying that Jack has warts,’ Hebe said, rallying from her state of stunned stupor. ‘I am sure everything has been a frightful mistake and if we go back to the house and talk things over…’
‘I don’t think there’s very much left to discuss, Aunt Hebe, and I’ve got things to do—excuse me.’
Suddenly I wanted to be alone and made for the private side of the garden, where I sank down onto a rustic bench in the wilderness and burst into tears.
‘Don’t, Sophy,’ Seth said, behind me. ‘I can’t bear to see you cry.’
‘Well, go away then!’ I snapped, fishing out a tissue and blowing my nose.
Instead he came to sit next to me, looking troubled and sad. ‘Jack’s not worth crying over, you know—but I suppose there’s no point in telling you that. I’m so sorry.’
I stopped sniffling and stared at him. ‘I’m not crying over him, you idiot. It’s just, well, it’s all come as such a shock and I don’t know what’s real and what’s not any more. And I know you loved Mel, so to hear all that must have been just as bad for you. But maybe Mel does still love you, in her way, so—’
‘I don’t think she even understands what the word means. Once I realised that, I knew that a beautiful face just wasn’t enough any more.’
‘But you’ve been having an affair with her all this time, so you must care for her and—’
‘No, I haven’t! I’m ashamed to say I did succumb briefly—but that was before I met you. She never gave up trying to get me back, even though she could see I was falling for you.’
‘For me?’ I said incredulously.
‘Practically from the moment I met you. But it’s all right—I’ve always known you were in love with Jack, even if you couldn’t quite bring yourself to trust him completely,’ he said gloomily. ‘I knew he was an untrustworthy character with a dodgy set of ethics—and that he and Mel had been having an on-off relationship since she was widowed—but I couldn’t say so, could I, while you were head over heels in love with him?’
‘But I’ve never loved Jack,’ I protested.
He looked up. ‘Never?’
‘Well, admittedly, I was dazzled by him a bit at first, as you were by Mel, though it soon wore off. How could you possibly think I was in love with him?’
‘I haven’t been able to think properly at all since you arrived and started turning my life and my plans upside down,’ he said, sounding more like his old, argumentative self. ‘And I was jealous of Jack.’
I met his eyes and discovered that otherworldly glow in them—this time for me. ‘I’ve been jealous of Mel too, and I knew she was still involved with Jack to some extent because I saw them kissing in the shrubbery once. But I just didn’t want to admit to myself that I’d fallen for a big, stupid, argumentative—’
He cut my words off by grabbing me and kissing me hard. Being a perfectionist, his kiss was perfectly planted.
Someone in my head was singing ‘Sowing the Seeds of Love’.
Later, walking back to the house, his arm around me, he said, ‘Did you never notice that I made a true lover’s knot for you in the Shakespeare garden? Or that the moss rose I gave you for Christmas meant my heart was yours? Is there no romance in your soul?’
I sighed happily. ‘No—and this is never going to work, you know. We’re like chalk and cheese, we argue all the time.’
‘Yes, but I think we’ll make a good partnership now we’ve both come to realise that the house and the gardens are equal in worth—that, like the two of us, the one is nothing without the other.’
‘Perhaps you’re right, Seth. After all, if I love the house best and you love the garden, that balances perfectly. The jewel and the setting—that’s what Alys said to me once.’
‘Alys? You still think she’s talking to you?’
‘I know she is. And she’s currently saying the sixteenth-century equivalent of “What took you so long, dimwits?”’
‘It’s been a comedy of errors,’ he agreed, taking me in his arms again. Then he said, punctuating the words with kisses, ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely…’
He broke off as Lucy came through the arch near the maze. She smiled on us benignly.
‘There you are, Mum. Ottie just told me what happened with Mel and Jack, and I wondered if you were all right.’ She grinned. ‘But I see you are more than all right.’
‘Yes, but you look a bit pale, darling—are you exhausted?’
‘No, I’m angry. I just met my father for the first time, at the gate—drunk,’ she added in disgust. ‘Guy radioed me when he turned up and said who he was, but I wouldn’t have known him from that old photo you’ve got.’
‘Your father?’ Seth said.
‘Don’t worry, Mum hasn’t seen him for over twenty years,’ Lucy said to him kindly.
‘My ex,’ I explained. ‘I’m sorry you had to meet him like that, Lucy.’
‘He called me his “wee lassie” in a terribly bogus accent and tried to kiss me, but I told him I knew all about him and didn’t want anything to do with him, and that you didn’t want to see him, either. Then he got angry and said maybe the papers would want to know some of the things he could tell them.’
‘I can’t imagine what he could tell them, unless he makes something up.’
‘I told him to get lost. What a sleaze bag!’ she said disgustedly. ‘Let’s hope that’s the last time he turns up.’
I looked at my watch. ‘Come on, it’s nearly time to close up and we’ve been away for ages.’
‘Relax, Mum. Guy and I have sorted everything out and everyone’s coped really well—no crises at all, except Charlie got out of the kitchen at one point and some children fed him cake until he threw up. But he’s all right now.’
Everything, in fact, seemed to be all right now…
Chapter Thirty-six: Endpapers
This proof of what my mother said should lie hidden, for it would go ill if it were discovered, even though she believed it would one day ensure the fortunes of her descendants and their continuance at Wynter’s End. I pray it may be so, but do not see how that might ever come to pass.
Anne Wynter, 1602
One of the newspapers paid Rory money for some lurid stories about my past but, as I pointed out to them when they asked me for my version of events, I was too young when I married him to have had one. I told them all about my struggles as a suddenly single mother instead. The paper ran our two stories side by side and apparently Rory left the country soon after that.
Not surprisingly, I didn’t hear from Conor again after Hebe hit him on the head with her plastic sceptre.
Hebe grew reconciled to our marriage, and for her sake Seth and Jack declared a truce. He may be a complete rogue, but I couldn’t help but still be fond of my handsome cousin…
The Shakespeare scholars continue to argue over the evidence and don’t look like coming to a conclusion any time soon, but Seth and I kept the story going by judiciously feeding titbits to the press, through the medium of George.
By May, it was clear that Winter’s End had become a top visitor attraction, and we were accepting coach bookings months in advance. My gamble had paid off.
Foreign tourists hung around for hours, cameras at the ready, awaiting Hebe’s appearances as the Virgin Queen or to take photographs of each other arm-in-arm with the bashful Bard—if they could catch him.
But then, all the Friends, in their colourful costumes, were a big hit—especially the silent young woman with the curly dark hair who seemed to appear practically out of nowhere when visitors were admiring the paintings in the minstrels’ gallery, even though she only smiles and shakes her head when they ask her questions…
One fine Sunday, a few days before our wedding in May, Seth and I were looking down at the lower terrace, which had begun to grow together and showed promise of being the most beautiful of the three.
The house was closed, but faint shouts were borne on the breeze as Derek, Hal and Bob earned some overtime, helping to install The Spirit of the Garden among the roses.
‘I never thought everything could turn out this happily,’ I sighed, but Seth, who had that familiar faraway look in his eyes, was obviously turning over some knotty garden problem in his head and didn’t reply, except to tighten his arm around me a bit.
‘Guy and Lucy will move into the lodge together, when we’ve had it done up a bit…Mike is trying to persuade Anya to tie the knot with him, too…And it even looks as if Ottie will manage to badger Jack into repaying Hebe’s money, now he’s sold the site of Mel’s property to developers.’
And there would be no conflict in sharing Winter’s End with Seth, because the house is my passion, the garden his. We complement each other in every way…
A Winter’s Tale Page 37
