‘I am not sure that Lilian is so well. She was fine first thing this morning but since . . . She’s having one of her spells.’
‘Oh,’ said Marnie, wondering what ‘one of her spells’ consisted of. ‘Is she sick? Should I call in and say hello or . . . go back home?’
‘No, she wants to see you, she was most specific.’ Marnie noticed that his accent was thick when his voice was quiet. ‘Bodily she’s okay, but she’s confused again. She has called me Griff three times this morning and she has never done that before. Please let me know what you think of her.’
‘Okay,’ Marnie nodded, doubt in her voice because she hardly knew Lilian really. Would she notice things out of the ordinary more than he or Cilla or anyone else who saw her more often might? ‘I’ll report back.’
She rang the bell and Cilla answered the door, her features etched with worry. Nevertheless, she smiled at Marnie and told her to go straight through to the conservatory where Lilian was waiting for her.
Lilian struggled to her feet with the aid of her beautiful greyhound stick as soon as her visitor entered.
‘Dear Marnie, how lovely of you to come. How are you settling in?’ Then she leaned in to whisper, ‘Have you started making your secret things yet?’ and she tapped the side of her nose.
‘The first batch this morning. If I’d known I was coming for lunch, I would have made an extra one.’ She sounds on the ball to me, thought Marnie.
‘What a shame,’ said Lilian, ‘next time. Come and sit down. Sheila has made us another wonderful lunch.’
‘I brought you some wine; it’s just from Plum Corner but I didn’t want to come empty-handed,’ said Marnie, thinking, who is Sheila?
‘Thank you, Marnie. That’s kind of you but you really didn’t have to. We will have it later at the party.’
Cilla walked into the room with a plate of warm pastries, still wearing that worried look on her face. Then Marnie remembered from reading the Wychwell book that Sheila had been Cilla’s mother, her previous housekeeper. Cilla looked at Marnie as she gave her head a little shake that said, she’s not right.
‘This all looks lovely, Cilla,’ said Marnie, emphasis on the name.
‘Sheila, dear. Cilla will still be at school,’ Lilian corrected her, patting the chair at the side of her. ‘Come and sit down and let’s eat. How did you sleep in Little Raspberries?’
Marnie poured out some tea from the large silver pot.
‘Very well,’ she said. ‘Like the proverbial log.’
‘It was always my favourite of all the cottages,’ said Lilian, clapping her hands. ‘I knew you’d like it.’
‘I do. It’s very cosy,’ said Marnie, but concern for Lilian was nagging at her too now.
‘Isn’t it a lovely day, Marnie. I feel very content today.’
Lilian started chewing delicately on a pastry whilst staring wistfully out of the window, not at the garden and the lake, but at somewhere far beyond them. Marnie studied her and thought her profile rather beautiful.
‘I’m so glad I found you,’ Lilian said at last and turned slowly to Marnie. ‘It is my greatest joy that you came back into my life.’ She reached over for Marnie’s hand and squeezed it hard, desperately affectionate.
Marnie smiled and wondered if she should ask what she meant. She didn’t want to upset Lilian. She looked happy in her confusion. She tried gently.
‘What do you mean, my dear friend? I haven’t been away. Are you mixing me up with someone else?’
‘From Ireland,’ Lilian said, as if it were Marnie who had forgotten. ‘I knew it was you. I told Lionel. Have you met Lionel yet?’
‘Yes, I have,’ said Marnie.
‘He never married,’ said Lilian with a laboured sigh. ‘What a waste. Some lady missed out on a wonderful husband there.’
Cilla walked into the room to check that everything was all right and if Lilian wanted anything else.
‘No, I think we are fine, Cilla,’ said Lilian and Cilla’s face relaxed into a smile. Lilian was ‘back in the room’.
‘They worry about me,’ said Lilian to Marnie when the housekeeper had gone. ‘And they also worry that when I pop my clogs they won’t be safe. But they will. Safer than ever.’
Lilian seemed fine after that, episode over, as sharp as if she’d spent all night in the knife drawer, as Mrs McMaid used to say. After a jolly lunch, she took Marnie into the very large formal drawing room to show her the treasures that were exhibited in the glass cabinets there. Marnie wasn’t a great lover of pottery but she did think Lilian’s collection rather impressive. They were all very different but what they had in common were lines of gold criss-crossing over them.
‘They were broken and then mended Japanese-style,’ Lilian explained. ‘There’s a name for it that escapes me. I’ve collected them for years. Wonderful, aren’t they?’
‘They are indeed,’ agreed Marnie. It was entirely believable that Lilian would rescue broken things.
When Marnie came to leave Cilla rushed out to speak to her.
‘You’ve brought magic with you,’ she said. ‘I haven’t seen her laugh like she has today in a long time.’
The next few weeks passed in a blur. Marnie settled into her routine of cheesecake making three days per week. Mrs Abercrombie increased her order by a third and seemed very impressed by the arrangement. Marnie had a rather cursory email from Café Caramba asking when she intended to return to work. Fortified by a glass of David Parselow’s rhubarb and ginger wine, she replied in a similar tone that she wouldn’t be back and also she wouldn’t be working her notice. She was shaking when she pressed send. She had jumped off a cliff and had to pray that the landing was softer than it looked. But what else could she do? She couldn’t go back so the only way was forward.
She had swapped power suits, high status and traffic-heavy journeys into the city for slow-paced, anonymous baking in a sleepy Dales village. She didn’t know how long this present arrangement would last because Marnie was a doer and she knew she would get very bored very quickly here in Wychwell. She enjoyed thinking up and implementing new ideas, improving the status quo, seeing results, feeling that surge of adrenaline rushing through her veins. Even so, she was enjoying the sunshine and sitting on the bench down by Blackett Stream reading books and newspapers. Film rights to the first three Country Manors books had been bought by Hollywood, according to the Skipperstone Trumpet. Marnie had been equally fascinated by the story behind the novels. The first two books had been out on shelves and the third half-finished before its touch-paper found the match. Then – boom – shops couldn’t buy the books in fast enough, with the result that the author Penelope Black had just climbed onto the ladder of Britain’s richest people – and she hadn’t entered on the bottom rung either. Or he. The identity of the author was a secret which only added to the coffers as people bought into the mystery. Marnie wondered if she should write a book now that she had all this spare time. She’d tried once but given up by page three and decided that she was destined to be a buyer and a reader rather than a seller and a writer.
Exactly a month to the day after Marnie had moved to Wychwell, Laurence sent her a personal letter, surprisingly. Not surprisingly it wasn’t very complimentary. If she’d lived at Hogwarts, it would have been a howler. Her unprofessionalism in quitting her position without the proper notice period had been recorded officially, he said, by which she read that she’d get a shit reference. She’d been too conditioned to expect the worst when it came to people.