Spring Blossoms at Mill Grange

by Jenny Kane

  It made no difference. Shaun hadn’t arrived. As the hours ticked by, she was increasingly convinced that he wasn’t coming.

  ‘He won’t let Sam down.’ She threw some grain into the chicken run. ‘I know he told Sam and Tina he’d be here after lunch and it’s nearly five, but he’s a good man, Gertrude. His friends are important to him.’

  The hen tilted her head as if to ask, ‘Why isn’t he here then?’

  ‘Held up in traffic like Helen was, maybe. A last-minute meeting with Julian, perhaps – although I hope not.’ Thea looked over to the wedding marquee. It was deserted now after a few frantic hours of chair placement and planning where they’d put the flowers in the morning.

  She closed her eyes. ‘Minerva, am I being a fool here? Should I give up hope with Shaun?’

  The goddess of wisdom was unhelpfully quiet as she dropped some pepper slices into the coop and took her leave. She had a hen party to get ready for. Thea didn’t think she’d ever felt less like partying in her whole life.

  *

  Sam engulfed Tina in a massive hug as the friends split off into two halves. Thea watched as they said goodbye as if it would be years until they saw each other again, not just one night.

  Before leaving the manor, the last job had been to make sure Tina had left nothing she might need the following day in the downstairs bedroom, and move it to the bedroom she was using upstairs. Her dress, dutifully collected, was already awaiting her on the wardrobe door.

  As the future bride and groom said goodnight, the group peeled off, with Sam, Tom and Bert making a beeline for Moira’s finest ale in the Stag and Hound, while Tina, Thea, Helen and Mabel headed towards Sybil’s.

  Shaun’s absence had not been mentioned.

  ‘Welcome!’ Sybil threw open the door to her tearoom. ‘May the after-hours’ shenanigans begin! Bucks Fizz anyone?’

  *

  Tina was giggling uncontrollably as Sybil finished telling stories about some of the things she’d got up in her youth. ‘And there we were thinking you were such a good girl! I’m shocked!’

  Sybil winked. ‘I’m nothing compared to Mabel here! Right heartbreaker she was!’

  Mabel didn’t deny the accusation as she lifted up the jug of orange juice, ready to dilute the champagne she’d already poured into her glass.

  Helen, who’d been drinking her champagne unadulterated for the last hour, reached for the juice after Mabel. ‘I’d better go easy, or I’ll be walking backwards down the aisle.’

  Tina giggled. ‘You will be anyway.’

  ‘I will?’

  ‘I saw Tom in his wedding clobber today. You aren’t going to want to take your eyes off him, and the usher stands at the back of the marquee.’

  ‘I would be lying if I said I wasn’t looking forward to seeing him in a suit.’ Helen’s blush spread down her neck as her mind leapt to Tom’s potential reaction to her bridesmaid’s dress. ‘And Dylan of course. I bet he looks fantastic.’

  Mabel raised her glass. ‘Like a mini Tom Cruise.’

  ‘Not that mini.’ Sybil nudged Mabel’s elbow, almost sending her drink flying. ‘Tom Cruise is on the short side I believe.’

  Tina smiled as Mabel’s eyes rolled again. ‘I think you need something to soak that champagne up, Sybil, or you’ll be buttering the jam and creaming the tea pot tomorrow.’

  ‘Don’t you worry about me. Lead lined stomach.’ Sybil tapped her waist. ‘Anyway, I remember your orders. No drinking after 10 p.m., and tea and coffee on standby to round off the evening. Gone are the days of strippers and tying folk to lampposts.’

  ‘I thought it was the stag that got stripped naked and tied to a lamp post.’ Helen got up to look out of the window. ‘Nope, you’re okay Tina, not a single naked man with a ponytail in sight.’

  Tina laughed. ‘How about naked men without ponytails?’

  ‘At least three, possibly four.’

  Thea lowered the glass of orange juice she’d been sipping. ‘I haven’t seen you like this for ages, Helen. I’d forgotten about your post-alcohol silly side.’

  ‘Out of practice.’ Helen twirled a curl of hair around her fingers. ‘I don’t think I’d better have any more, though!’

  ‘It wasn’t a criticism.’ Thea felt bad for commenting. ‘I just meant that it’s lovely to see you so relaxed.’

  Mabel raised her glass which was already almost empty. ‘Love of a good man that is.’ She hiccupped, making everyone burst out laughing.

  ‘Okay!’ Sybil got to her feet, ‘if Mabel is at the hiccupping stage, we need cake!’

  ‘Scones!’ Helen and Tina chorused.

  ‘But you’ll be having scones tomorrow at the wedding.’ Sybil shook her head, ‘Surely you don’t want them now as well?’

  ‘Don’t be daft, woman.’ Mabel got up, swaying slightly as she did so. ‘I’ll give you a hand. We could eat your scones all day every day forever.’

  As they tottered towards the kitchen, Sybil chuckled. ‘I think most of you already do.’

  Watching them leave, Tina said, ‘I believe Mabel is tipsy. I never thought I’d see the day.’

  ‘She told me she can take Bucks Fizz like its lemonade when we chatted earlier.’ Thea smiled affectionately. ‘I suspect she could, once upon a time. I’m damn sure Sybil was right about her being a heartbreaker.’

  Tina tapped the side of her nose with a wink. ‘When Bert was in the hospital, he told us how he’d fallen for Mabel the second he saw her red hair. It was love at first sight.’

  ‘A red head.’ Thea looked towards the kitchen, from where the clatter of plates being none to gently stacked, could be heard. ‘That figures. Saucy lot the red heads.’ She winked at Helen, who blushed again.

  Tina drained her glass, before gesturing to Thea’s half full one. ‘Have you had anything to drink at all?’

  ‘Orange juice.’ Thea winked. ‘One of us has to make sure the bride gets home in one piece.’

  ‘That’s why we have the curfew and coffee.’ Tina held up the champagne bottle. ‘Can’t I tempt you to one?’

  ‘No thanks.’ Thea turned to see Sybil and Mabel tottering across the tearoom with a steaming pile of cheese scones. ‘And now I’m even better!’

  *

  ‘It’ll be a miracle if any of us fit into our dresses tomorrow,’ Thea muttered to herself as she hit the fresh air.

  Sybil, having run out of orange juice, and not wanting to be responsible for a bride with a hangover, despite Tina’s earlier good intentions, had asked Thea to fetch some from Moira in the pub.

  It was good to be away for a moment. Although she’d begun to relax with the arrival of the scones, and had certainly laughed alongside her friends as they’d chatted through butter heavy mouthfuls, Thea still felt as if she was experiencing life through the wrong end of a telescope.

  She checked her watch. It was already nine thirty. If Tina really did want them all to be good girls and back to Mill Grange at ten, she was going to have to confiscate the last two bottles of champagne Sybil had lined up in ice buckets.

  Despite it being packed, Thea could hear Bert laughing as she weaved her way through the pub garden. He, Sam and Tom, were sat at a patio table, swathed in coats to keep off the evening chill, with a suspiciously large number of empty glasses in front of them, and nothing more nourishing than some packets of crisps to fend off the hangovers they’d promised Tina not to have.

  Waving as she headed to the bar, Thea called to Moira, who was serving at least three people at once, with her usual good humour. ‘Sybil’s out of orange juice. Any chance?’

  ‘She warned me that might happen. I put a few cartons in the back room. Can you help yourself?’ Moira added a straw to a cola, while pulling a pint. ‘Tell Sybil we’ll sort the money out on Monday.’

  Giving the landlady a thumbs up, Thea sidled past the bar and down a narrow corridor to a room she’d been to twice before. Her palms tingled as she remembered how she’d had a meal with Shaun there, during what they’d s
ince labelled their first ‘non-date’. The second time she’d been there, she’d run away. Having been tricked into thinking she was having a meal with Shaun, she had been greeted with the prospect of dinner with her former boyfriend, John.

  ‘Well, this time, you are simply fetching orange juice, so stop panicking and get back to the girls.’

  As soon as she pushed the door open, the inevitability of it hit her. ‘Seriously!’

  Shaun jumped up from the sofa. He looked guilty. ‘Hi, Thea. Sorry for the cloak and dagger bit, but I didn’t think you’d come if I’d asked.’

  Thea’s pulse galloped as she stood in the open doorway, her arms crossed. ‘Sybil lied about the orange juice.’

  ‘Possibly. She may have run out.’

  Thea frowned. ‘Moira had some lined up anyway.’ She could see the promised cartons on the room’s dining table.

  ‘There was a genuine possibility Sybil would run out. Mabel knocks it back, according to Bert.’

  ‘That, at least, is true.’ Thea marched to the table and picked up two cartons. ‘And if I don’t get back, the mother of the bride could be nine sheets to the wind by ten.’

  ‘Stay. Please.’ Shaun pointed to the sofa.

  ‘We’re in the middle of our best friends’ hen and stag night!’ Thea’s forehead creased as she said, ‘Sam does know you’re here, doesn’t he? Tom was beginning to think he’d be stepping in for you.’

  ‘Of course he does. I’d never let him or Tina down.’

  Thea clutched the juice to her chest. ‘I’ll go and tell Tina. Unless she knows as well.’

  ‘I doubt it. I haven’t been here long.’ Shaun tried again, ‘Please Thea, we need to talk. Will you sit down?’

  ‘Give me one good reason why I should.’

  ‘Actually, I can give you three.’

  Fifty-five

  Friday May 22nd

  ‘Three reasons? I’m honoured.’ Thea leaned against the side of the table, the juice still in her hands.

  Shaun ran a hand through his hair, his eyes on the boxes of juice. ‘I listened to the recording.’

  ‘I know. I was there.’

  ‘I mean, I heard it again. All of it. Several times, especially the conversation in the hotel bar. The part you didn’t stay to rehear.’

  ‘Can you blame me?’

  ‘Not really. Although I wished you’d stayed.’

  ‘Then you should have said.’

  ‘Would you have, if I’d asked you to?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh.’ Shaun stared at the untouched pint of beer on the table next to the sofa. ‘I assumed you’d tell me to piss off. I wouldn’t have blamed you.’

  ‘Yes, you would.’ Thea sighed. ‘At the time, you would.’

  Grimacing, Shaun reluctantly admitted, ‘Maybe. I wasn’t thinking straight.’

  ‘You don’t say.’ Thea waved a carton of juice at him. ‘I really have to go.’

  ‘Sybil never runs out of anything.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She knows I’m here. I texted.’

  Thea put the cartons back on the table and took some steadying breaths. ‘Sybil?’

  ‘I didn’t want to ask any of the others to conspire with me in case you got the hump with them. There is a wedding tomorrow after all.’

  ‘So you admit to conspiring then?’ Thea shook her head. ‘And what if I fell out with Sybil?’

  ‘No chance of that. Your cheese scone source would be cut off.’

  Thea saw a smile hit his eyes. Don’t smile back. He doesn’t deserve it. ‘You said there were three reasons why I should stay.’

  ‘Yes.’ He patted the sofa again. ‘Won’t you sit down?’

  ‘Depends on the three reasons.’

  ‘Okay.’ Shaun took a swift gulp of beer and twisted around so he was looking straight at Thea. ‘The first is obvious. I love you.’

  ‘Obvious? I would say that’s some way off the mark.’ Thea pushed her hands into her pockets.

  ‘Fair enough, but I do.’

  Resisting the urge to tell him she loved him too, Thea asked, ‘Second reason?’

  ‘Because I am sure you’d like to hear what happened when I caught up with Julian after hearing the recording.’

  Thea’s eyebrows rose. ‘You met Julian again? Ajay said you’d gone straight to the television studios. I assumed it was to play the board the recording.’

  ‘I did. But not to play the recording. I didn’t want to come across as a blackmailer.’

  ‘So, what did you plan to do?’

  ‘Tell them that a rumour had reached me about Treasure Hunters changing presenter, see if they were aware of that, and ask if it had implications for us as a series moving forward.’

  ‘Sounds reasonable.’

  ‘Unfortunately, I wasn’t feeling reasonable. It’s probably a good thing I didn’t get to see the board. Not then anyway.’

  Suddenly very tired, Thea sank onto the sofa, leaving a gap between her and Shaun. ‘So you went to the television studios, but you didn’t speak to the board?’

  ‘I was in reception, queuing to see if the head guy had time to see me, when Julian came in looking flustered.’ Shaun scowled. ‘You should have seen his expression when he saw me.’

  ‘I can imagine.’ Thea gave a sad shake of her head. ‘Did he know he’d been recorded? I didn’t tell him.’

  ‘No, but he was looking spooked. I guessed he was there to talk to the board too. In his case, for damage limitation purposes. After all, you’d just accused him of sexual harassment.’

  ‘No I didn’t. I could have, but he didn’t do anything beyond making some presumptions about his own attractiveness and its power to help him get what he wants.’

  ‘You accused him of acting as if he was in the 60s or 70s. That amounts to the same thing these days.’

  ‘I suppose it does.’ She fidgeted with her fingers. ‘It was rather creepy. Julian in a bathrobe was not on my list of things to see before I die.’

  ‘Shame you didn’t video him as well as record him. More proof!’

  ‘Proof? Hardly. I don’t want to be thought of as someone who’d stoop to blackmail either. That’s Julian’s level, not ours.’

  ‘You said ours.’ Shaun looked hopeful.

  ‘Figure of speech.’ Thea kept her eyes focused on her hands. ‘Talk to me, Shaun. Just tell me everything that has been going on. Then we’ll see if there is any “ours” or not.’

  ‘You remember when I was in Cornwall and you were jealous of Sophie?’ Shaun sounded resigned as he rested back against the sofa.

  Taken by surprise by his opening, Thea sat up straighter. ‘I wasn’t jealous. I was suspicious of her and baffled that you could be so naive as to not notice she fancied you.’

  ‘Okay,’ Shaun’s shoulders sagged as he cradled his pint between his palms, ‘well, you might not have been jealous of Sophie, but I was jealous of Julian. I didn’t like him from the second I saw him, and all my instincts told me not to trust him.’

  ‘But why be jealous of him? I told you repeatedly that I didn’t like him.’

  ‘That’s where the being stupid bit came in.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘You remember the meal we had with Julian and the AA?’

  ‘Engraved on my memory.’

  ‘Looking back, that’s when I started to lose my perspective. He was laying out a future where I wasn’t part of Landscape Treasures, albeit simply because of a change in status for Treasure Hunters. I know I said to you that I was cool with moving on after the show, that I knew it couldn’t last forever. No presenting job does. But, it wasn’t you I was trying to convince. It was me.’

  Thea closed her eyes as she listened to Shaun explain how he’d been seized by panic that the career he loved was about to be taken from him, and although he did have Mill Grange to work at, and there’d be a lifetime of talks and books to write ahead of him if he wanted it, he hadn’t been ready to let go.

  Then, with Julian
giving Thea more and more screen time, combined with the fact she’d heard him talking on the phone about a change in personnel – and had kept that knowledge to herself – Shaun had become convinced that, not only was he for the chop, but that he’d be replaced by the woman he loved.

  Shaun looked at her imploringly. ‘I told myself I was paranoid. That you’d never do that to me and that Julian was just the producer. He doesn’t get to make those sorts of decisions, so it was all fine.’

  ‘But then you discovered Julian had invited me to a hotel to discuss my future on screen.’ Thea groaned. ‘I really am sorry I didn’t tell you straightaway.’

  ‘I know, and if I’d been thinking logically, I’d have accepted your reasons for not wanting to worry me or disturb our break at Mill Grange. But the insecurities about my future had taken hold, and common sense had flown out of the window. I couldn’t stop wondering what I’d be without Landscape Treasures. I didn’t want to be someone who resented my partner.’ Shaun took another mouthful of beer. ‘I can’t say I’ve liked myself very much lately.’

  Thea said nothing, afraid that if she spoke now it would break the spell and Shaun would clam up again.

  ‘Ajay and Andy have given me a hell of an ear bashing.’ He gave a puff of exasperation. She smiled, but still said nothing, hoping he’d get to the point

  ‘Anyway, then I heard the recording. I couldn’t believe it at first, and then I could. Only Julian could think such tactics were still acceptable.’

  A silence fell over the room for a moment. Thea checked her watch. ‘Are you going to tell me why you walked out on Mill Grange, what happened when you saw Julian when you got back to the Cotswolds before me, and, more to the point, what happened when you saw him at the telly studios? If not, I must get going. I promised Tina I’d have her home around ten. I’m already late.’

  Shaun sat up. ‘Sorry, yes. So, short version, I left Mill Grange in a huff because I was a stupid idiot with hurt pride and an imagined looming career crisis. When I got back to the Cotswolds prior to your arrival at the request of the Cotswold Archaeology folk – via a message from Julian, I went to consolidate the paperwork for the site in general, so it could be handed over to the locals for the remainder of the excavation.