Yours,
Daniel Thorncroft
I reached the end of the letter and let out a breath. For some reason my eyes had gone blurry and I had to blink. It’s typical, I told myself, struggling to master conflicting emotions. The man is infuriating. He saves my life, gets me feeling warm and fluffy towards him, and then buggers off to Scotland, for an unspecified number of months. Bloody Scotland! I mean, I ask you.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
I was determined to make it down to the lake on my crutches and not be wheeled down the sloping lawn in Ricky and Morris’s old bath chair, which was how they wanted me to travel.
It was Sunday March 21st – officially the first day of spring – and although there was a stiff breeze, the sun was shining.
A small crowd had gathered at the lake: Sophie, Digby and Amanda, Pat, who’d come with Ken and Sue, Elizabeth and Olly, Adam and Kate, Ricky, Morris and me – and the vicar, who’d come to give the lake a blessing. We stood on the path at the water’s edge while he made a speech about how we must not think of the lake as a sad place, but a place where we should come to remember, to celebrate the lives of our friends. To remember Luke, who had worked so hard to recreate its beauty, and Verbena, who had rested here a while.
Amanda read a poem in her beautiful voice, and then the vicar led us in a prayer. The sun was slanting through the trees and shone on the mirror of the water, barely ruffled by the breeze. We each cast a flower on the surface. And then the vicar said that we must not think of death, but of the spring, of new life, and he talked about the green plants already shooting up in the clearings Luke had made. From the corner of my eye I saw Kate smile at Adam as he put his arm around her shoulders, and I realised at last why she was looking so very beautiful just now. She was pregnant. And at that moment, two ducks flew from beyond the trees and landed on the water in a flurry of splashing and quacking and began swimming about happily. ‘Wouldn’t it be lovely if they stayed,’ Morris sighed, ‘if they made their home here on the lake.’
‘They will if you encourage ’em.’ Pat sniffed, putting away her handkerchief. ‘I’ll bring you some duck pellets.’
We turned and began to trek up the lawn towards the house where an extravagant afternoon tea was waiting in the dining room. I knew, I’d buttered the bread for all the neat little sandwiches and piped cream into the delicate golden meringues that Morris had baked in the oven.
‘Can you manage, Juno?’ Adam asked. ‘Or do you need a piggyback?’
‘I’ll be fine,’ I assured him. ‘I’ll just take it slowly. You look after your wife,’ I added, and he grinned.
The others went on ahead, Morris scuttling to get the kettle on. Digby steered Amanda up the sloping lawn, their progress not much faster than mine. Ricky strolled along at my pace, ready to lend me a hand as I began my long trek back up the lawn. I’m hoping to throw away these wretched crutches soon, before baby Alice’s christening next month. Ricky paused to light a cigarette and winked at me. He’s given up vaping as a bad job; he’s back on the fags.
Olly suddenly dropped back behind the others, turned to me and said loudly, ‘Guess what? Lizzie’s got a boyfriend.’
‘Boyfriend?’ I repeated.
Elizabeth turned around, stifling a sigh. ‘Olly, you are a wretch!’ she told him severely. ‘Just because I expressed an interest in fly-fishing …’
Fly-fishing? Elizabeth and Tom Carter? Well, well! That could work; I thought about it as I crawled along on my crutches and Elizabeth shooed a gleefully grinning Olly on ahead of her. If I was to be displaced in Tom’s affections, I couldn’t help feeling slightly jealous.
At the top of the lawn I stopped for a breather.
‘You all right, Princess?’ Ricky asked, slyly from the corner of his mouth. ‘Pity your swain couldn’t be here.’ He nudged Digby with his elbow. ‘There’s been letters flying back and forth between here and Scotland,’ he told him, ‘addressed to “Miss Browne with an ‘e’”. It’s like something out of a bleedin’ Pride and Prejudice. I keep asking Juno to read ’em out at the breakfast table, but she won’t. She’s not sporting, that girl!’
I laughed. ‘Miss Browne with an “e”.’ It used to annoy me so much. Now I liked it. Daniel had also sent me pictures on his phone, mostly of Lottie racing about in the heather, but also of some wolf cubs. He’d phoned to say that he had definitely sold his aunt’s Torquay flat. He would be flying down to Exeter in a few weeks, for a short visit, to get work started on the farmhouse. He was looking forward to seeing me, he said. And I’m looking forward to seeing him. I think. He suggested that we carry out an experiment, purely in the interests of science, to see if he could kiss me without my throwing up and I agreed that we owed it to science to find out.
‘Teatime,’ Ricky said, taking my arm. ‘Come inside. This wind’s a bit chilly.’
But I wanted to linger a moment longer. I could hear the ducks down on the lake. I looked around me at the wide blue sky, the water shining between the budding trees. It was the first long afternoon of the year. It seemed we had escaped the winter after all.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
As always my thanks go to the team at Allison & Busby and my agent, Teresa Chris, to Martin for his unfailing support and to my ‘book buddy’ Di.
Thanks also to Tim Sandles for his wonderful Legendary Dartmoor website and to Francis Pilkington’s book Ashburton the Dartmoor Town for information about Cutty Dyer.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Stephanie Austin graduated from Bristol University with a degree in English and Education and has enjoyed a varied career as an artist, astrologer, and trader in antiques and crafts. More respectable professions include teaching and working for Devon Schools Library Service. When not writing, she is involved in local amateur theatre as an actor and director. She lives on the English Riviera in Devon where she attempts to be a competent gardener and cook.
stephanieaustin.co.uk
By Stephanie Austin
Dead in Devon
Dead on Dartmoor
From Devon With Death
COPYRIGHT
Allison & Busby Limited
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London W1F 8AN
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First published in Great Britain by Allison & Busby in 2020.
This ebook edition published in Great Britain by Allison & Busby in 2020.
Copyright © 2020 by Stephanie Austin
The moral right of the author is hereby asserted
in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent buyer.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978–0–7490–2598–4
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From Devon With Death Page 26