The Mill on Magnolia Lane: A gorgeous feel-good romantic comedy

by Tilly Tennant

  Lizzie’s mum raised her eyebrows. ‘I expect they wouldn’t want to keep something with upholstery outside.’

  They went inside and began to work their way around the crowded warehouse. It was clammy, despite the warmth of the sun outside, and the unmistakable smell of ageing furniture Lizzie had detected before was present again here, only stronger. An attractive young woman was sitting at a mahogany desk in a glass-walled office tucked in the corner of the hangar. She glanced up, and Lizzie immediately recognised Harriet. Her heart sank.

  ‘Oh, here’s the chair!’ Lizzie said, hurrying over to it and trying to ignore the knot of anxiety in her stomach. Now that they were here and Harriet had seen her, she couldn’t very well leave, even though she wanted to. She looked back to see Harriet motion to her with a smile, to indicate she’d be with them in a minute. Lizzie turned her attention back to the chair. She didn’t have the will to explain to her mum right now that Jude’s perfect ex-girlfriend was about to assist their purchase. The chair was upholstered in a faded tweedy check, high-backed with elegant curved legs and scrolled arms, and wouldn’t have looked out of place in a hunting lodge somewhere in the grounds of Balmoral.

  ‘That?’ Lizzie’s mum asked with a vague note of disbelief in her voice.

  ‘Imagine it reupholstered,’ Lizzie said. ‘Don’t you think it has a lovely shape?’ She bent to inspect the base. ‘Looks solid enough too; just a bit tatty on the outside. Some new fabric and it’d be perfect.’

  ‘If you say so. I would have thought something like that would be better,’ Gwendolyn added, pointing to a chintzy three-piece suite.

  Lizzie shook her head. ‘Too twentieth century.’ She turned her attention to the chair once more and ran a hand along its back. ‘This is a lot less… generic.’

  ‘Common, is what you want to say. Lots of us do perfectly well with a sturdy sofa and matching armchairs.’

  ‘I’m sure I’ll get a sofa too,’ Lizzie said wearily.

  ‘Where’s that going then?’ her mum asked, nodding at the chair.

  ‘I don’t know yet. Maybe in the entrance hall or somewhere. Perhaps one of the bedrooms. Honestly, I love it so much that I’ll make a space for it wherever I can; I just want to get it.’

  ‘I can’t see a price tag on it. Let’s ask the girl in the office.’

  Her mum began to march across the warehouse. Lizzie might have known this would happen. At the office, she rapped on the open glass door. Harriet smoothed a fleeting look of annoyance from her expression.

  ‘Lizzie, hi! Fancy seeing you here. What can I do for you?’

  Lizzie’s mum shot a questioning look at her.

  ‘This is Jude’s friend,’ Lizzie said, wanting this to be over as quickly as possible. ‘The man I told you about.’ She turned to Harriet. ‘Could we get a price on a chair please?’ Lizzie asked. ‘It’s the high-backed one over by the teak bureau.’

  ‘The taupe one?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I think it’s two hundred, but let me check.’ Retrieving her phone from the drawer of her desk, she dialled a number. ‘Grandpappy, it’s me,’ she said after a pause. ‘The taupe wing-back, it’s two hundred – right?’ There was another pause and then she nodded. ‘I thought so but I wanted to check… Yes, we’re fine here, don’t you worry; it’s been pretty quiet… OK, see you later.’

  Ending the call, she looked up at Lizzie and her mum. ‘Yes, two hundred pounds. We can deliver too if that helps, providing it’s not too far.’

  ‘Magnolia Lane… out towards the river,’ Lizzie said. ‘I’m actually in the old mill.’

  ‘Oh, that would be no problem.’ A faint line scored Harriet’s brow as she hesitated.

  ‘Mad Lady Mill, as it’s apparently known,’ Lizzie added, slightly thrown by her hesitation. ‘Although I didn’t have a clue when I bought it or I might have thought twice about putting the offer in.’

  Harriet’s eyes widened now. ‘You’ve bought that? Jude never said!’

  At this point, Lizzie’s mum cut in. ‘I’d just like to clear up that madness doesn’t run in the family.’

  Harriet laughed. ‘I would imagine you know what you’re doing,’ she said, but her tone implied she would do nothing of the sort herself, which irritated Lizzie.

  ‘Would you be able to do a discount if we took two items today?’ Gwendolyn added, shushing immediately with a lifted finger the argument that Lizzie was about to offer. ‘We rather like that huge mirror outside in the courtyard. If we take that and the chair today, what can you do for us?’

  Lizzie stared at her mum, mortified at the request, but Gwendolyn looked the other way.

  ‘Oh…’ Harriet began, reaching for her phone again. ‘I’ll have to ask my grandfather – it’s his place; I just help out.’

  ‘That’s OK, we can wait if you want to call him,’ Lizzie’s mum replied serenely.

  ‘If you show me which mirror you’re interested in first I’ll see what he says.’

  Lizzie turned to her mum and lowered her voice to a fierce whisper as they followed her out of the office. ‘I can’t believe you just asked that!’

  ‘It’s called haggling,’ Gwendolyn whispered back.

  ‘I know what it’s called but nobody does it anymore!’

  ‘I bet you he knocks some off when his granddaughter phones. Places like this, run by the older generation, expect their customers to drive a hard bargain – they set their prices accordingly. It’s how business was always done before.’

  ‘Well, I wish you’d warned me you were planning to do it. Besides, I’m not sure both of those things are in the budget. I’m not even sure I should really be buying the chair because by rights I don’t even know what my furniture budget is while building is still ongoing.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter anyway, because you won’t be buying the chair or the mirror. I will.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Oh, shut up! You’re my daughter and if I can’t treat you every now and again then it’s a poor showing.’

  ‘Mum… I thought we’d sorted this…’

  ‘We have. I’m sorting it now and I don’t want to hear another word about it.’

  Lizzie opened her mouth, another argument on her lips, but then she relaxed into a smile.

  ‘I can’t let you buy both. One or the other.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ her mum replied briskly. ‘If he quotes a good price for the two it’d be silly not to buy them both now. No point in taking one at full price and then deciding you want the other after all and having to come back and pay full price again.’

  ‘Mum, you’re impossible!’

  ‘I’m allowed to be.’

  Lizzie frowned, but she was never going to win this argument and so it was probably easier to give up. ‘Do you work here full-time?’ she asked Harriet instead.

  ‘Most days. My grandmother used to do it, but she’s not well now and had to stop. Mum and Dad have their own business to take care of but Grandpappy needs the help and I don’t mind. It suits me to work for family rather than elsewhere.’

  ‘Here it is,’ Gwendolyn said, stopping at the mirror Lizzie had been admiring.

  ‘Oh, I like this one too,’ Harriet said. ‘If you want to give me a minute, I’ll have an answer for you quick as I can.’

  Lizzie watched as she dialled her grandfather again. She was less irritating today than she had been at the river. Maybe they’d just got off on the wrong foot? Maybe Lizzie hadn’t read Harriet right after all? She hoped so, because this was the mother of Jude’s child, and it was likely she wasn’t going to be disappearing from his life in a hurry, so it would be a lot easier if she and Lizzie could get along.

  After a brief conversation, Harriet ended the call and turned to them with a professional smile. ‘He says he can knock twenty pounds off but any more will mean he won’t be able to eat next week.’

  Gwendolyn laughed. ‘We’ll take them both then and we wouldn’t dare ask for any more discount!’

 
* * *

  ‘What a sweet girl. Very helpful,’ Lizzie’s mum said as they got back in the car.

  ‘Very helpful because she managed to get the price you wanted?’ Lizzie asked with a wry smile, her eyes on the gates ahead as they negotiated the gravelled driveway. Sweet or not, she was just glad to be leaving the yard.

  ‘And because she agreed to store it for you.’

  ‘That’s true. Though I suppose a sale’s a sale and if they’ve got the room to keep it then the money’s better in their pockets… at least from their point of view. Thank you – it was naughty of you but I’m ever so grateful.’

  ‘With a discount that good I was hardly going to walk away from it.’

  ‘I know, but it was still a lot of money and I appreciate it.’

  ‘You’re welcome, and let’s say no more about it. If any of you three need help I’ll always do my best to give it. It just so happens that the other two never call me, and I don’t get to find out they need help until they don’t need it anymore. So I get to spoil you instead.’

  Lizzie slowed for a red light. ‘I tried to call James the other day but he didn’t reply and he didn’t get back to me.’

  ‘I expect he’s busy,’ her mum said, and left any further musings on the subject hanging in the air of the car like a speech bubble from a cartoon for Lizzie to read. What was left unsaid was that it was far more likely James had spent the last two days on a floor somewhere, incapable of speech after a marathon bender. Nobody had really been able to figure out what had led him down the path he’d chosen to take for most of his adult life – aside from his parents’ divorce, at which point he’d really been too old to be affected by it to any great extent, he’d had the same happy upbringing as the rest of the Lovell children. Gwendolyn had blamed it on the wrong friends at the right time, and Lizzie had always been inclined to agree. Whatever had happened, Lizzie and James were very different people.

  ‘Come on,’ Lizzie said as the light changed to green again and she let off the brake. ‘When we get back to the caravan I’ll make you a cup of tea and we’ll score all the builders out of ten.’

  SIX

  It felt like a long time since Lizzie had eaten so well. The restaurant was bright and airy, fitted out in chrome and gunmetal grey, the kitchen open to allow customers to see their food being prepared, and beyond the wide windows was a wooden terrace dotted with tables and parasols and perfectly manicured pot plants. She was wearing her favourite Laura Ashley tea dress – nothing fancy and an old wardrobe staple, but as she’d been in grubby jeans and T-shirts almost exclusively for the previous fortnight she still felt vaguely overdressed now that she was wearing something else.

  Jude smiled across the table. They’d met a few times since that first date-that-wasn’t-really-a-date at his house, and they were getting along well. In fact, Lizzie felt already that they might be entering a more serious phase in their relationship. Though things were still relatively new and it made her a little nervous, she couldn’t help but feel excited by the prospect.

  ‘Did I say you look gorgeous?’

  Lizzie reached a hand to her hair and smoothed it down self-consciously. She hadn’t felt particularly gorgeous when she’d left the house, but the simple act of Jude saying it suddenly made her feel like a supermodel. ‘You might have done.’

  ‘I clearly haven’t said it enough. You do.’

  ‘Thank you. Although I feel weird. Like the girl from My Fair Lady when she first goes posh.’

  He grinned and drained his wine glass. ‘Do you know what else feels weird? Not having Charlie with us. I think the fact that’s even a thing is weird too. Most people don’t have their brother with them everywhere they go. But I’m so used to him being with me that I feel as if I’ve left an arm at home or something when he’s not here.’

  ‘I worry when he’s with us both that I might do or say the wrong thing. Especially when we get a little close…’

  His brow creased as he filled up their wine glasses. ‘Does it bother you that he’s always there? It’s just that, with his learning disabilities—’

  ‘God, no! I didn’t mean that at all! I just don’t want to make a situation that might be awkward for you or something you have to deal with when I’ve gone home. God, I completely understand how hard it is for you and how much you worry about keeping him safe. It’s just funny when he’s not here because I can do and say what I want, and I’m so used to that not being the case. Charlie’s a sweetheart and I really don’t mind him spending time with us.’

  ‘There aren’t many people I can trust with him, that’s for sure. There aren’t many who understand him.’

  ‘I’d be the same, I guess. It’s really nice that Harriet is happy to sit with him occasionally, though,’ Lizzie said, trying to beat down the tentacles of jealousy. The more she heard about Harriet, the more perfect the woman sounded. Jude had made it clear that what they’d once had was over, and that she was really just a part of his life because she’d become so embedded in it through Artie and, to a lesser extent, her connection to Charlie. Although Lizzie believed him, it was hard not to feel insecure about the situation.

  ‘Yes, Harriet’s amazing with him, but she’s known him for years so she gets his little quirks,’ Jude replied, completely oblivious to the way his innocent praise only turned the knife.

  ‘That’s good,’ Lizzie said stiffly.

  And then it seemed that Jude, perhaps for the first time, really saw how things were. He reached across the table for her hand and held it tight.

  ‘She’s a friend. A good friend to me but especially to Charlie. But she’s nothing more than that.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Do you?’

  Lizzie sighed. ‘If I said not really would that make me sound a bit needy?’

  ‘No, it would be nice. I don’t want you to worry about her but I can’t deny that it makes me secretly happy because it means you quite like me.’

  ‘I like you a little,’ Lizzie said, a smile creeping across her face.

  ‘Only a little?’

  ‘You’ll do for now.’

  Jude wove his fingers into Lizzie’s. ‘I like you a lot.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘You can’t tell?’

  ‘Maybe you need to make it more obvious.’

  Jude gave a soft chuckle. ‘Harriet says she can stay over with Charlie if she needs to.’

  Lizzie raised her eyebrows. ‘No curfew?’

  ‘Nope.’

  Lizzie took a slow gulp of her wine and studied the glass for a moment. This felt like a big moment. It was a big moment. She looked up at him. ‘So you could come back to mine?’ she said.

  ‘I could.’

  ‘And you could stay all night?’

  ‘If you wanted me to.’

  ‘I like the sound of that.’

  ‘I was hoping you would.’

  * * *

  Lizzie lay in Jude’s arms, head resting on his chest. The wind was up outside, howling around the caravan, and every so often a branch from a nearby tree would crack and groan. On another night, Lizzie might have been mildly alarmed by the change in weather – living alone in a little tin box sometimes made her feel more vulnerable to the whims of the elements than her old place used to – but tonight she felt safe and warm and protected. She was also more content than she could ever recall being before. She felt as if every inch of her had been kissed and stroked and teased and satisfied. Sex with Jude had been everything she’d imagined, and even as their bodies cooled passion stirred again. Let the wind do its worst – right now she had something much wilder occupying her thoughts.

  ‘That was something else,’ he said, trailing a finger down her arm.

  ‘Good, that’s exactly the right thing to say.’

  He laughed softly, and then they fell to silence again, their two bodies feeling as natural pressed together as if they were one. Jude stroked Lizzie’s hair from her face and gazed at her, the only sounds their light brea
thing and the wind snapping the tree outside, until a new noise cut through it.

  Lizzie giggled.

  Jude laughed. ‘Was that your stomach grumbling?’

  ‘It might have been. But then I’d been saving myself all day for dinner and we didn’t get the chance to have pudding.’

  ‘We could have stayed for dessert.’

  ‘We could have done, but you ruined it by mentioning sex. After that, cheesecake went out of the window.’

  ‘I didn’t actually mention sex; I simply pointed out that I didn’t have to be home tonight.’

  ‘It’s the same thing in my book.’

  He pulled her closer still and gave her a squeeze. ‘Want me to order pizza?’

  ‘No pizza delivery wants to drive here tonight in this gale.’

  ‘I could drive out and get some. Wouldn’t take me long.’

  Lizzie propped herself up and kissed him hard. ‘How about you don’t get pizza and stay in bed with me?’

  Rolling them both over, he slid on top of her with a lazy grin. ‘Don’t blame me if you die of hunger.’

  ‘At least I’ll die with a smile on my face.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ he said, dipping his mouth to hers once again. She let out a sigh, expectation tingling deliciously in her gut. She could live without food, but she was quickly beginning to realise that she couldn’t live without this. Being with Jude felt so right and natural that it scared her a little. She tried to remind herself that Jude wasn’t Evan – he was nothing like Evan – but the scars on her heart would always be there. The break-up had made her stronger, and she’d come out of the relationship far braver and more capable than she’d ever imagined she could be, but it had also made her wary.

  * * *

  The sound of engines outside woke Lizzie. She rolled over to see Jude asleep beside her and she leapt up in a panic, casting around for a pair of jeans to pull on. They’d overslept, and the last thing she needed was to be caught in a post-coital doze by a nosey builder.