‘I’m sorry to disturb you, Dennis, but I need to talk to you.’
Dennis felt the anxiety squeeze his chest. ‘Oh, okay,’ he mumbled. Mac sensed his uneasiness and hopped onto the workbench, where he sat, staring at Tasha with suspicious eyes.
‘It’s about Marigold,’ she began. ‘She’s forgetting everything. I’m struggling to cope.’ She shrugged. ‘I didn’t want to say anything at first, I mean, there’s nothing wrong with getting old, is there? But it’s more than that. It’s worrying. Has she been to see a doctor?’
‘Yes, she has,’ Dennis replied. ‘She had a blood test, which was normal.’
‘Well, that’s good. Did they give her an MRI?’
‘No, they didn’t.’
‘Typical. The NHS will do everything they can to wriggle out of spending money. You should make a fuss.’ But Dennis never made a fuss about anything. ‘In any case, I wonder whether she should step back a bit and allow me to run things for her. She doesn’t like to delegate.’ Tasha smiled shyly and curled a lanky tentacle of mouse-brown hair behind her ear. A small diamond stud glimmered weakly on her ear lobe. ‘You know what she’s like. She thinks she can do everything herself, but she should rely on me more.’
Dennis frowned. ‘I don’t want to be rude, Tasha, but I didn’t think she could rely on you, because you’re always taking time off.’
Tasha nodded. ‘I know, and I’m sorry about that. I didn’t think she needed me, you see. I thought she was pleased when I left her to it. Now I realize she really can’t cope on her own and it’s not fair on the customers. I could give you a long list of people who have been let down by the post office, and I’m not sure she’s up to the computer either . . .’ She took a breath. The piece of hair had come loose so she curled it around her ear again. ‘I love Marigold. I really don’t want to sneak behind her back like this, but I don’t know what else to do.’
Dennis sighed and shook his head. He didn’t know what to do either, but he knew he had to think of something. ‘I’ll talk to her, Tasha. See if I can convince her to step back a bit.’
‘I don’t think she has a clue that anyone else has noticed, but half the village is talking about it.’
Dennis’s face clouded. ‘They are?’
‘Yes, everyone’s noticed. They think . . .’ Tasha looked embarrassed.
‘What do they think?’ asked Dennis.
But whatever they really thought, Tasha was not willing to say; Dennis’s face was too agonized for her to have the heart to worry him further. ‘That she’s just getting older,’ she said.
Dennis watched her walk back to the house through the garden, where Nan was waiting for her in the kitchen to see her out. What did the village think? he asked himself. But he knew, and the word blackened his mind and lingered there like a wisp of toxic smoke.
Chapter 14
Daisy put down her pastel and looked out of the window onto another enchanted morning of sapphire-blue skies and bright sunshine. It was the perfect day to impress upon Taran the wonders of the English countryside. She had thought of nothing else but his threat to sell up since she had overheard his conversation in the garden. It had even eclipsed Luca, who had up until now enjoyed her almost undivided attention.
She would not normally have been so bold as to ask Taran to join her on a walk, but the threat of bulldozers over her parents’ garden wall was enough to force her out of her comfort zone.
So it was with an anxious niggle in her stomach that she went into the house to find the dogs. They were always with their mistress and today was no exception. Lady Sherwood was in her study, responding to the dozens of condolence letters which had been arriving since Sir Owen’s death. The three dogs were sleeping soundly at her feet. ‘I need some fresh air,’ Daisy said from the doorway, as the dogs pricked their ears and leapt onto their four paws in anticipation of being taken out.
‘It’s a lovely day,’ said Lady Sherwood, pen hovering over the paper. ‘Just the sort of day Owen relished. If he wasn’t playing golf, or in the garden, he was in the woods, coppicing. He adored those woods.’
‘I wonder whether Taran might like to come with me. He works so hard, he never gets to see how lovely it is.’
Lady Sherwood pulled a face. ‘Good luck with that, Daisy. I don’t think Taran has been for a proper walk here for over twenty years, and even then he was never very interested in the countryside.’
‘I’ll see if I can persuade him. The weather’s on my side, which is a start.’
‘He’s in Owen’s study.’
‘Thanks. I’ll go and find him.’
With the dogs at her heels, Daisy strode through the house to Sir Owen’s study. She liked the Sherwoods’ home. It was spacious with big sash windows and harmoniously proportioned rooms. Everything was decorated in soft, muted greys and greens. She liked the smell too, of age, for the house must surely be hundreds of years old, and of wood smoke from the open fires that burned throughout the winter months. When she reached Sir Owen’s study she stopped. All was quiet within. She wasn’t even sure that Taran was inside.
She knocked.
‘Come in, Daisy,’ came the reply. When she entered, Taran was sitting on the sofa with his feet up on a stool, reading a document. He looked up at her and grinned. ‘I thought it unlikely to be anyone else,’ he said.
‘Sylvia?’ Daisy suggested.
‘She doesn’t knock. Neither does Mother. You’re too polite.’
‘I’m well brought up,’ she replied.
‘Yes, you are. You can teach Mother and Sylvia some manners.’
‘Oh, I didn’t mean—’ she began.
‘I’m joking. What can I do for you?’
She looked at him, comfortable there on the sofa, and wanted to back out. But she couldn’t think of any other reason why she might have knocked on his door, and now she was here, she had to say something. With her courage flagging, she asked if he wanted to join her on a walk. ‘It’s a beautiful day and I think you work too hard,’ she said. ‘If you stay inside and work all the time you’re going to look like an amoeba.’
He gave her a quizzical look. ‘That’s an interesting one. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen an amoeba. Have you?’
‘At school, under a microscope. Transparent, whitish, ugly.’
‘Well, I certainly don’t want to look transparent, whitish and ugly.’ He put the document down and stood up and stretched. Then he clapped his hands. ‘Let’s go.’
They set off through the garden at the back of the house and out into the fields via a small gate in the post-and-rail fence. ‘I don’t suppose you’re getting much work done at the moment, Daisy,’ Taran said, closing the gate behind him. The dogs bolted into the field with the zeal of released prisoners. ‘You’ve given my mother an inch, I assume she’s taken a mile!’
Daisy laughed, noticing how very green his eyes were in the sunlight. ‘She’s very tactful and I’m happy to help her. I feel sorry for her. If it were my father who had died, my mother wouldn’t know what to do with herself. She’d be lost. I imagine your mother feels incredibly lost, and lonely, without the man she’s shared her life with for so many years. I just want to make her feel better. She’s been very generous to me, after all.’
‘Where did you draw before?’
‘In the sitting room at home.’
‘You still live with your parents?’
‘I know, tragic, isn’t it?’
‘Not at all. From what I hear, they’re rather special.’
Daisy was surprised. She didn’t think he even knew who her parents were. ‘They’re special to the people in this village,’ she replied. ‘And to me, of course.’
He looked at her and narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. ‘You’re lucky. I had a difficult relationship with my father.’
‘Were you very different?’
‘Different and with different interests.’
‘Town mouse and country mouse,’ said Daisy. ‘My father used to read that story t
o me when I was small.’
‘Did the country mouse get eaten in the town?’
‘No, the country mouse hated the noise and the town mouse thought the countryside boring.’
‘I suppose that was me and Dad. But I don’t find the countryside boring at all. Sometimes it’s nice to be in a place where nothing happens.’ Taran took a deep breath and put his hands in his pockets. ‘It’s restorative.’
They walked into the wood and followed a narrow path through the trees. The ground was blue and green with burgeoning bluebells and unfurling leaves. Birds twittered in the branches and a gentle breeze brought with it the luxuriant scent of spring.
‘I lived in Milan for six years,’ said Daisy. ‘Working in a fusty old museum in the centre of the city. Whenever we could, we’d escape to the mountains, or the lakes, or simply to the countryside. The heart needs beauty and if it doesn’t get it, it shrinks.’
Daisy thought she detected a slightly mocking twist to Taran’s smile. But she was not deterred. The image of bulldozers destroying the fields around her parents’ house propelled her on and she didn’t care how ridiculous she sounded. As long as he realized what those fields meant to her family and to the people of the village. ‘Who’s “we”?’ he asked.
‘I was in a relationship. But it’s over now.’
Her situation seemed to dawn on him. ‘Ah, so that’s why you live at home,’ he said, nodding.
‘The point is,’ she continued resolutely, ‘I need nature to survive. If I couldn’t live among the fields and woodland and had to stare out onto concrete every day, I think I’d lose the will to live.’
‘You were with him for six years?’ he asked, passing over her elegy to the countryside.
‘Yes, I was,’ she replied. She pictured Luca’s face with its wide-set eyes and dimpled chin and felt a pinch in her chest.
‘That’s like a marriage.’
‘Except that it wasn’t,’ she stated simply.
‘I’m sorry it didn’t work out. Six years is a massive chunk of your life. I hope he didn’t hurt you.’
She looked at him squarely. ‘He did.’ Then, aware of her share in the break-up, she added, ‘We hurt each other.’
‘He’s an idiot,’ he said. ‘He should have fought for you.’
‘It’s complicated.’
‘Still, it’s his loss.’
She shrugged. ‘Actually, it’s mine too.’ And she recalled Luca’s text and the fact that she hadn’t replied. She wondered whether he’d reach out to her again, or whether her silence would extinguish any desire for reconciliation.
They walked on through the wood until they came to a track that took them out into a field of yellow oilseed rape. ‘I just love this colour,’ Daisy said with a contented sigh. ‘Sometimes when I walk around these fields on my way to work, the sky is purple and the two colours together are spectacular.’
‘Yes, it’s pretty, isn’t it,’ he replied and Daisy wondered whether he’d ever really noticed it before. She thought of her father being inspired by his father, who had also been a carpenter, and accompanying him on some of his house visits and wondered whether Taran had ever accompanied Sir Owen around the farm.
‘You never felt inspired to be a farmer like your father?’ she asked.
‘No,’ he replied.
‘It’s a nice life,’ she said. ‘Waking up to this every morning.’
‘And worrying,’ he added. He looked at her askance. ‘The weather is never quite right for a farmer. It’s either too hot or too cold, too wet or too dry. When you want rain, you get drought. When you want dry, you get floods. Slugs eat crops or the rabbits do. There’s not much money in it either.’
Daisy was surprised at that. She had always assumed that Sir Owen had lots of money. ‘Do you make more money being an architect?’ she asked.
‘Yes, and I don’t worry about the weather.’
‘Sir Owen had looked like he had no worries at all. He was always very jolly.’
‘He was more philosophical than me. An accepter. He didn’t let the weather upset him. I’m a shallower man than my father, Daisy. He loved nature, like you do. He liked helping people, hence his knighthood for his charity work. He was genial and everyone loved him. The only thing was he was controlling in his enthusiasm. He wanted me to be like him and that was stifling, because I wasn’t like him at all.’
‘I suppose he wanted you to take over the farm when he was too old to run it.’
‘That was never going to happen. I studied in Canada and chose Canada as my home. For an accepter, he was pretty unaccepting about that.’
‘I think it’s important for parents to let their children be who they want to be. So many try to live vicariously through their children, or push them to succeed for their own glory. I’m lucky. My parents have never been like that. They’ve always given us the freedom to choose who we want to be.’
‘You’ve made a good choice in being an artist, Daisy. How’s that bulldog coming along?’
‘Done.’
‘So which animal is it now?’
‘Julia Cobbold’s terrier.’
‘Isn’t she the vicar’s wife?’ he asked.
‘Yes, and the village head girl.’
He smiled. ‘It’s a real community, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘It really is. You know, it’s nice being a part of it.’
‘That’s what my father thought,’ he said. ‘I’m like my mother. I prefer to keep people at arm’s-length.’
‘Your mother hasn’t kept me at arm’s-length,’ said Daisy with a grin.
‘Neither have I,’ Taran added, grinning back. ‘I’m not sure what it is, perhaps there’s just something special about you . . .’ The way he looked at her made her stomach lurch. Daisy laughed off her embarrassment. Was Taran flirting with her?
Marigold was in the shop, serving a customer, when Suze called. She didn’t recognize her voice and told her, politely, to hold for a minute while she finished putting the goods through the till. Once the customer had left, she picked up the phone. ‘Sorry to keep you waiting. How can I help you?’ she asked.
‘Mum, it’s me!’ said Suze impatiently. She thought it very odd that her own mother hadn’t recognized her voice.
‘Suze! Oh, silly me. Sorry. It’s noisy in here.’ Which wasn’t true, she just found the telephone a little confusing these days.
‘It’s fine. Don’t worry.’
‘So, what is it?’
‘I’ve got some good news!’
Marigold smiled at the quiver in her daughter’s voice. ‘What is it?’
‘The dress is ready for its first fitting.’
‘Oh, that’s very good news,’ said Marigold.
‘And I want you to be the first to see it.’
‘I wouldn’t miss it for the world.’
‘This afternoon at five? Can you make it?’
Marigold thought of driving into town and her enthusiasm deflated. She didn’t feel very confident behind the wheel anymore. ‘Of course I can,’ she said, knowing she had no choice. Knowing how much it meant to Suze.
Just as she put down the telephone Cedric Weatherby’s shiny pink face appeared in the doorway. ‘I had to come,’ he gushed, pushing the door wide.
Marigold looked at him inquisitively.
He strode up to the counter and gave Marigold a beaming smile. ‘Your daughter is a genius. Yes, she is. She’s right up there with the very best portraitists of our time.’
‘It’s finished, is it?’ she asked.
‘It’s finally back from the framer’s and looking gorgeous! She’s captured every one of my ladies. And their eyes are extraordinary. They watch you as you move about the room, just like they do in real life. Now they will be for ever immortalized in pastels. I’m so grateful to her. I gave her a small tip, because I don’t think she charges enough. She could ask for double, at least.’
‘That’s very generous of you, Cedric.’
‘Yo
u must come and view it. I’m having a little drinks tomorrow night to unveil it. I hope you can all join me. Nothing grand, just some nice wine and nibbles. I’m going home to make the nibbles now. I’m out of flour.’ He turned to Tasha, who was unpacking boxes in the aisle. ‘Be a darling and get me some plain flour, will you.’ Then to Marigold. ‘Don’t forget to write that in your book.’
He watched her take the notebook from beneath the counter and open it. ‘Tomorrow at 6 p.m.,’ he reminded her.
‘Six,’ she repeated as she wrote it down. Then, just to be sure she didn’t forget, after he had gone she wrote it in the little book she kept in her pocket. There, in two places. Foolproof!
Susan Glenn came in to post a parcel just before lunch, then Dolly came in for stamps, the Commodore’s wife Phyllida for bread and Julia Cobbold to tell Marigold that Daisy was now going to draw her terrier, Toby, and was due in this very afternoon to make friends with him. ‘She’s very good with dogs,’ said Julia. ‘Most people get barked at, especially men in those ghastly yellow jackets. You should see them, these big, burly men, being terrorized by Toby. But he doesn’t bark at Daisy.’
A couple came in just after Julia left and greeted Marigold as if they knew her, but Marigold thought they must have made a mistake, because she’d never seen them before. However, she was very polite and friendly, just in case it was her memory playing up again. Nowadays she couldn’t be sure.
Eileen appeared and leaned on the counter, in her usual place, and told Marigold that Sylvia had overheard Taran and his mother talking and it appeared that Sir Owen had left his estate to his son, rather than his wife. ‘Which is strange, considering he knew that his son wasn’t interested in running the farm. Poor Lady Sherwood! Sylvia says she’s much too upset about his death to worry about her future. Poor dear, it probably hasn’t occurred to her that he might sell it.’
‘Sell it?’ Marigold gasped. ‘I’m sure he won’t do that. I’m sure he’ll wait until his mother dies to do that. And she’s young and fit, she’ll go on for another twenty years, at least.’
‘Taran lives and works in Toronto. Lady Sherwood is Canadian so maybe she’ll go back. No point them both being on separate continents now that she’s a widow. She’ll want to be near him, won’t she? And Toronto is home for her, after all.’
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