by Wendy Holden
CHAPTER 27
A shrill noise woke Dylan. He leapt out of bed instantly, his nerves juddering with panic. A fire alarm?
No, just an alarm. The face of the small plastic clock by the bedside was flashing blue. Six thirty on the first day of the rest of his life. The day he started working for Dan.
Well, the initial hurdle had been surmounted. He had woken up at least, thanks to the clock. He had bought it at the Chestlock supermarket the evening before, along with some food. Eating at the pub did not appeal, not least because it was miles away and therefore inconvenient, as well as incongruous. Now he was working for the minimum wage, taking his meals in a luxury hotel was pretty silly. And while, after the grill pan incident, he didn’t quite trust himself with the Bess’s Tower stove, Dylan felt he could manage the microwave. So he’d headed into town, found the supermarket and piled his trolley with ready meals.
Dylan shuffled down into the kitchen, where he breakfasted on a bowl of last night’s cold noodles, eaten standing by the fridge. Curiously, they tasted better than the first time round. Packing what remained of the Countess hamper for his lunch – cheese, some pork pie – Dylan left the tower and drove down the track into Pemberton park.
A milky shroud of mist had risen from the river and lay thickly over the grass. The park had an unlit, mysterious air and the great house looked dim and unsubstantial through its veil of vapour, the delicate ghost of its normal solid self.
The fog was clearing as Dylan reached Edenville; something red loomed at the side of the road. A post box. He got out and shoved in the first of the cards he had promised his parents.
He drew up at the Edenville Arms at seven thirty on the dot. The clock on the church tower was still donging as he got out of the car.
He had expected to see Dan Parker’s massive figure where he had seen it last, on the benches outside the pub. Yet, apart from a shimmering of morning dew, the benches were empty. Dylan crossed the car park, sat down and waited, surrounded by a chorus of birdsong and watching the mist continue to clear. It was going to be a beautiful day.
In the honeymoon suite, Nell heard the chimes of seven thirty. She was still in bed but she would, she told herself, get up in a minute. She had been telling herself this for the last ten minutes but was still lying there amid the soft swell of bedclothes. The four-poster was far more comfortable than it had first looked. She and Rachel had discovered on the first night that beneath the assertive black and pink surface was a duvet and pillows of a snowy whiteness.
At the foot of the bed, across the room, the diamond-pane windows were throwing shapes on the white walls. Dangling ivy, stirred by morning breeze, was dancing across the shapes. Nell watched this moving wallpaper, considering her plans for the day.
There was only one, really. She must go and see Angela, whoever she was, in the human resources office of the Pemberton estate.
She had promised Rachel. If she didn’t go, she would never hear the end of it. The Earl, too, had been courtesy itself; it would be rude to let him down.
But afterwards, she’d head straight back to the capital. Once there, she would screw her courage to the sticking place, otherwise known as Carrington’s, where she would get to the bottom of what was happening with the flat sale. Whilst avoiding any mention of Joey whatsoever.
And then she would either find somewhere temporary or persuade Rachel to let her sleep on the floor. If she turned up on her actual doorstep, Rachel could hardly refuse.
All of which meant, Nell concluded, that she needed to set up the HR meeting as soon as possible. Even though it was only twenty-five minutes to eight, she should get up and prepare herself so that she could ring Angela soon after nine. With a groan, she threw back the warm weight of duvet and swung her legs out of bed.
She walked to the window. It really was a beautiful morning. The early mist was dissolving and the Edenville cottages shone a pale gold in the sun. Light bounced off the windows, flowers glowed in the gardens and she could hear the birdsong even though the window was closed. Nell lifted the old and delicate wrought-iron latch to open it. A cool, grass-scented air drifted in, as refreshing as a perfume spritz. If you could bottle it, put a label on it saying ‘Village Morning’, you would make a fortune. She was, Nell thought wryly, already thinking in terms of Pemberton branding.
She looked down. The view from her window was of the tables outside the pub and someone was sitting there on the empty benches. A young man in jeans, with dark hair.
No. It couldn’t be.
But it was. With every fibre of her body, she knew it. She had stared at him for so long in the Apples and Pears she knew every contour, every gesture. The way his hands lay on the table, even.
A cold anger now gripped Nell. Fake OutdoorsGuy. Back again at the Edenville Arms. Whatever was going on? Was he waiting for her? Was this stalking? A joke?
Nell leaned further out of the window, too angry to worry about anyone else hearing. ‘Hey!’ she yelled. ‘You down there.’
Dylan, who had been staring into space, looked up. He blinked. It was early, and he was tired. Why was a woman shouting at him from an upstairs window?
He narrowed his eyes and realised that he recognised her. That blond hair, almost white. That pale face, those wide eyes.
‘Hello,’ he called back. He had no idea what the girl he had met in the Apples and Pears was doing there. Had she followed him to Edenville to beard him about his behaviour in the pub? It seemed unlikely, for every imaginable reason. But what wasn’t unlikely about his life at the moment?
Hello? Such a casual reply struck Nell as outrageous. ‘Are you following me or something?’ she accused.
Him following her? Dylan stared. ‘Why would I do that?’
She was still angry with him, he could see. And he had been angry with her; had blamed her for the consequences of the split with Beatrice. But now it seemed all too much to think about. He felt he wanted to apologise, draw a line under it all. Now would seem to be a good time.
‘I’m sorry,’ he called. ‘About what happened in the pub.’
Nell gripped the sill as if her fingers might drive through it. Sorry! Did he really think that was adequate? ‘You deliberately pretended to be someone else!’ she stormed. ‘You made me look like an idiot!’
From below, Dylan could now see that windows were opening. All over the front of the pub, sashes were lifting, casements were widening, heads were poking out.
‘I didn’t mean to,’ he shouted back. ‘I thought that you knew me. I didn’t realise it was a blind date.’
‘Knew you!’ shouted Nell. ‘How would I know you? I’d never seen you before in my life.’
Jason had been alarmed to hear shouting outside. Rushing to the inn’s front door and seeing Adam Greenleaf, his heart sank. The man was a perfect pest. Wherever he went, trouble followed.
Glancing up at the windows to identify Greenleaf’s interlocutor, Jason’s sunken heart now came flying up into his throat. Framed by the weathered stone mullion and irradiated by the morning sun was Nell Simpson.
His fears had been realised. The two of them had found each other and now they were going at it hammer and tongs; it was like Romeo and Juliet’s balcony scene in reverse. The whole village would be able to hear them. Not to mention the guests.
Terror gripped Jason: was anyone taking photographs on a smartphone? Posting them on social media? His establishment could be wrecked within hours. Jason shot back inside the hotel and pounded up the stairs to the honeymoon suite.
‘Well, look, I’m sorry, anyway.’ Dylan looked doubtfully up at Nell. ‘It was all a misunderstanding.’
‘Misunderstanding?!’ came Nell’s furious riposte. ‘You can say that again!’ How dare he act so casually? If it hadn’t been for him, she wouldn’t even be here.
He was wasting his time, Dylan could
see. He was stung by the dislike in her tone. Who was she to shout at him? If it hadn’t been for her he wouldn’t be standing here at all. She had ruined his life.
‘Do you live round here or something?’ she was yelling now.
‘Yes.’
This was greeted by a scream of rage. ‘I knew it! Thank God I’m leaving this place!’
‘You’re leaving?’ He felt relieved.
‘You bet I am. Today. Mostly because I never want to see you again. You ruined my life!’
Nell slammed shut the window and leapt back just at the moment that the suite’s entrance door gave way to reveal Jason, with broad-shouldered Ryan behind him, standing in the doorway.
CHAPTER 28
The silence that followed the slamming shut of Nell’s window rang in Dylan’s ears. He thrust his hands in his jeans pockets and turned his back on the heads which remained at the bedroom windows; not just in the Edenville Arms, but at several cottages nearby. Some front doors were open too but now, as Dylan met the eyes of the curious inhabitants, they started to close. ‘Show’s over,’ he wanted to shout. ‘Nothing to see.’
He knitted his brow, trying to make sense of what had just happened. That Nell was here, in the Edenville Arms, was a shock. She, on the other hand, seemed to have known he was in the vicinity. But how?
The situation reminded Dylan of the Apples and Pears meeting. There, he had known that Nell had thought he was someone else. Here, she had known that he was around. Were they doomed, Dylan wondered, to an endless series of acrimonious encounters in which one knew more than the other?
The crossed wires had got too tangled and tightly bound ever to be undone now. They would never agree. He would never persuade her, especially as she clearly felt herself the victim. What did she mean, he’d ruined her life? What about his? She had no idea what he had been through.
He wished Dan would come and take him away, so they could get on with the day’s work and he could put this awful scene behind him. Although it was just as well his new employer hadn’t turned up while Nell was shouting.
But Dan’s van was here, Dylan now saw with a start. Among the car park’s shiny vehicles was one that was red, filthy and dented.
And, very possibly, not working. Something was clearly the matter. Dylan hurried over to find the rear doors open and a pair of huge, soil-caked boots were protruding from under the vehicle. Dan’s baseball cap lay on the ground by the left back tyre.
‘What’s up?’ Dylan asked the boots.
‘It’s not starting,’ came a voice from underneath.
‘Oh dear.’
‘Yer could say that.’
‘Um, so what happens now?’
The mud-caked boots now became jeans, then a broad torso, followed by Dan’s impassive features. He sat up, replaced his cap and looked at Dylan.
Dylan blinked before the steady stare. Dan could not have failed to hear what had gone on outside the pub. Would he now ask questions which might expose Dylan as at worst a liar and at best a fudger of the truth?
‘We could use my car,’ Dylan offered hastily, before the other man could say anything. ‘Till yours gets patched up.’
Dan rose to his full six foot five in one seamless movement, and before he quite knew what was happening, Dylan was standing beside his own tiny two-door hatchback, watching Dan heap in the tools of his trade.
‘It’s fit in easy,’ he declared with satisfaction. Dylan looked doubtfully at the mass of gnarled hoes, bent spades, two-pronged forks and broken plastic boxes crowding his boot. There were spilled seeds on the car floor and a strimmer and petrol mower on the back seat. He would have to drive with a rake either side of his head.
There were several bags of chippings and even one of manure. ‘We’ll just keep the winders down,’ was Dan’s solution to the associated stench.
Dylan minded less than he might have thought. He felt grateful to Dan for being so tactfully incurious. He still felt rattled after being shouted at, and the prospect of a day with his strong, silent new employer was strangely reassuring.
If perhaps not as silent as expected. As they drove, Dan switched on the radio and found some blaring music station.
‘Down ’ere,’ he yelled suddenly over the row, jabbing his finger at an entry they had almost driven past. It was on a steep bend. Dylan twisted the steering wheel and, with screeching tyres, just passed through the gateposts.
He was proceeding down a long drive, but under instruction from Dan, now veered left up a small track. This led between rhododendron bushes to a small parking area. According to a neat wooden sign, they had reached Kenilworth Lodge.
Dylan followed Dan down a flight of stone steps to a green-painted door. Kenilworth Lodge was in effect a little fort, with castellations along the roofline, reminiscent of the houses in Edenville village. ‘Amazing place,’ he remarked brightly.
Dan did not answer. The sound of rattling keys could be heard from within, then a scrabble and clatter as they engaged the lock. The door swung open and an elderly woman in a cardigan, pearls and checked skirt appeared.
‘Mornin’, Mrs P,’ Dan said.
‘Good morning, Daniel.’ There was a cutting distaste in the woman’s plummy tones, as if it had once been a good morning but wasn’t any longer.
Dylan found himself being regarded coldly over her half-moon spectacles. ‘And you are?’
‘Me new partner, Mrs P,’ Dan put in, before Dylan could say anything.
Mrs P folded her arms. The cuffs of her white shirt gleamed below the ginger wool of her cardigan. ‘Bringing new people here, Daniel. I worry about the security aspects of it.’
Dan’s tone was steadily pleasant. ‘Oh, Adam here’s OK, Mrs P.’
‘Adam?’ The old woman looked at Dylan sceptically.
He stepped forward, smiled, held out his hand and summoned the manners that had charmed everyone from Kirsty Young on Desert Island Discs to the Queen at a literary reception. ‘How do you do. I’m Adam Greenleaf.’
‘Are you indeed.’ Mrs P, whose hands had stayed by her sides, now swept Dylan up and down with hooded eyes. ‘I am Mrs Palethorpe.’
Something shiny and black now exploded behind the woman and hurled itself, barking, at Dan. ‘Down,’ Dan muttered, as the dog, ignoring him, continued to maul his thighs.
His owner made no attempt to address Dan’s discomfort, or call the animal off. She merely handed Dan a list of jobs, which he took wordlessly. ‘And mind you get through them all today.’
They walked round. It was on the tip of Dylan’s tongue to criticise the old woman for her rudeness, but he sensed Dan would find it unwelcome. Perhaps he didn’t notice. Or mind. Perhaps his exterior impassiveness went all the way through.
The garden and the house, Dylan decided, were rather more charming than their owner. The grounds were intensely detailed. There were two big lawns, their edges planted thickly with lavender. There was a woodland area, a vegetable plot and a formal parterre with rose trees and designs in box hedging. All surrounded by lovely old walls with wisteria and pear, both in full bloom, tangled up with climbing roses near the house. Lupins were shooting out, rocket-like, from big grey lead planters, each spiked leaf a setting for a fat diamond of dew. Kenilworth Lodge stood on a hillside, and the view across country from the woodland path was sublime.
Dan was still carefully reading Mrs Palethorpe’s list. He passed the paper to Dylan.
Written in a cramped italic hand was:
Weed all flower beds
Pull all grass from lavender border
Weed all vegetable beds
Weed woodland area
Weed paths
Sweep all steps throughout garden
Clip box
‘Wow,’ said Dylan. ‘That’s quite a lot.’
‘Ay
e,’ was Dan’s stoical response. He handed over an implement with two sharp pointed ends. Dylan took it and looked at it, unsure what exactly he was supposed to do with it.
‘Weed,’ said Dan, looking amused. ‘Thought you said you done some gardening.’
Dylan reddened.
‘You’ll find a bucket down there. In’t shed.’ Dan pointed down the path.
Dylan fetched a bucket – for the weeds, presumably, although he had not dared ask – and began poking in the soil with the prong. Doing this while standing up, bum in the air, was uncomfortable. There was nothing for it but to kneel and feel the dirty earth soaking into his jeans. There was a washing machine at Bess’s Tower, but he had no idea how to operate it. It looked like he’d better find out.
After a while Dylan realised that if you inserted the tool around the stem of a dandelion it gave you traction on the very thick, long root. He had never previously realised just how powerful the root of a dandelion was, nor how far down they went.
He began to rather enjoy himself; there was satisfaction in the feeling of the root resisting, then surrendering, then sliding out. The sun beat down, the birds sang and Dylan felt the agitations of earlier fading away. A sense of peace began to steal into his troubled soul.
From time to time, he looked at the view of the lovely valley. Hills folded into each other as far as the horizon, the furthest with a purple tinge and those nearer golden with hay. He could hear the grind of a tractor as it turned in the fields.
Bees hummed about him. He was surprised to find himself humming too. Never had he imagined that clearing a patch of weeds could feel rewarding. But results were instant, which could never be said of writing. Even writing as quickly acclaimed as his own had been.
Soon he had finished and sat back on his heels, satisfied with his efforts. He looked at the next item on the list. Pull all grass from lavender border.