Summer at the Little Cottage on the Hill_An utterly uplifting holiday romance to escape with

by Emma Davies

  ‘I think that you, Isobel Hardcastle, need to live a little, and that once you have, you will find the thing inside of you that so desperately needs to be communicated will come tumbling out so fast that you won't be able to stop it.’

  And with that he got up, replaced his mug on the table and dropped a light kiss on her forehead before walking from the room.

  Chapter 13

  Tom had put in a solid afternoon’s work following his visit with Isobel, and by the end of the day had made good progress – good enough that he felt able to return home straight after dinner rather than squeeze in a few extra hours. Since then he had changed the sheets on his bed, put on a load of washing, and given the kitchen and bathroom a thorough clean, both tasks long overdue. Now though, as he sat at the kitchen table idling with the day’s post, there was nothing much else to occupy his brain, and his head filled with the thoughts he had been trying so hard to keep at bay ever since he had held Isobel in his arms.

  Tom was torn; she was one of the most beautiful and intriguing women he had ever encountered, yet her need for him felt driven by comfort, the sort a daughter might look for from a father. He knew deep down that had he sought to offer anything else it would have been a huge mistake, and the fact that he hadn’t wanted to was a surprise, even to himself. He couldn’t remember the last time he had held a woman that close and not woken up beside her the next morning. Isobel was different, or he was different, but the realisation that all he wanted to do was make her feel better was perhaps one of the most pivotal moments of his life, so far.

  But what did he do now? Over the last few years all the women he had met had been a distraction. He wasn’t proud of it, but the lifestyle he had led had kept him from dwelling on his grief and all-consuming guilt over his brother’s death. Previously he had feared that allowing anyone to come close would mean he had to share his innermost demons, but now Isobel, with her calm and accepting manner, had drawn from him things he had never shared with anyone else. He had stared his guilt full in the face while in her presence, and all he felt now was a peaceful release. So where did that leave him? And where did it leave Isobel and her demons?

  The book Maddie had given him was still on the table where he had left it, and he pulled it towards him, opening it at a random page. He had been making corn dollies for years, although he preferred to call them ‘cornucopias’, which he reckoned had a slightly less ‘girly’ slant to it.

  When he was an apprentice thatcher it had been a way of passing the time in between jobs and most of the trainees did it, the methods and traditional designs passed down from family to family, region by region. Originally corn dollies were made to thank the gods for a successful harvest and crafted by the local village women as fertility symbols. The dollies would be kept inside until the following year and then ‘offered’ back to the field come planting time to ensure another good year. And a good harvest not only meant plentiful wheat for bread, but also plentiful straw for thatching.

  There were one or two designs that Tom favoured and, over the years, he had made so many he could practically make them with his eyes shut. He wasn’t sure exactly what Maddie would want to use in the cottage he was currently re-thatching, but he suspected it would be something which showed more skill or had a more elaborate pattern than some of the simpler designs. Leafing through the pages, he waited for something to catch his eye – what would be really good was if he could find something he could tie in with the story of Joy’s Acre.

  He peered closely at one of the pages for a moment, thinking. In a way, everyone at Joy’s Acre had their own individual stories – Trixie and Clara, Maddie and Seth, and him too – but put them all together and they made up one big story, the story of Joy’s Acre itself. And, just like a single blade of straw, on its own it made little impact, but put it together with similar pieces and you could create something much stronger, like a roof, for example. And just like Joy’s Acre, his roofs were the sum of their constituent parts and if any part of it failed over time, the rest would fail too.

  Without realising it he had come up with a perfect idea for his website. Maddie had already begun to link together the threads of other people’s stories, and he had seen how effective this was. Now his own site could help to strengthen that of Joy’s Acre as well. He got up to fetch a pad of paper and a pen from one of the kitchen drawers and quickly began to jot down his ideas. What he saw in his head might not even be possible, but Maddie would know and if she could get it to work it would look brilliant. As he finished his list he couldn't help but wonder how Isobel was getting on. Would she have found a way to tell her own story?

  Turning his attention back to the book, he flicked through a few more pages. Each section focused on a different type of corn dolly – traditional sheaves, fertility symbols, and a third showed more modern designs, which were his least favourite. The last but one section, however, focused on figures, and it was these pages that his fingers lingered over. The designs ranged from the naive to the elaborate, but it was the simple designs which held his attention, and one in particular made him draw the book closer.

  It featured a very basic doll, almost stick-like in appearance but with two twisted arms which came together to hold a bouquet in front of a ‘skirt’ made from splayed-out pieces of straw. The head was a simple oval but a plaited section had been added to give the impression of hair; hair which dangled over the shoulders into two long braids, each finished with a tiny strip meant to resemble a hairband. He looked up suddenly, staring into space.

  Earlier that afternoon, just as Isobel had been about to start playing, she had given a flick of her head which sent her ponytail flying over her shoulder. From the first time Tom had met her there had been something about the way she wore her hair which sparked a sense of déjà vu, except he hadn’t been able to work out what it was that struck him as so familiar. Today though, seeing that particular mannerism, his memories had been triggered yet again, only stronger this time. And now, as the image came back to him one more time, he suddenly remembered where he had seen it before…

  All thoughts of corn dollies were pushed aside as he rose quickly from the table and went through into the living room where he kept his computer. He sat down, tapping on the desk impatiently while he waited for it to boot up. His memory wasn't great at the best of times, and he had been a small child when he’d first seen her. No wonder he couldn't remember her name. In any case, the one thing he was certain of was that googling her current name, Isobel Hardcastle, would be unlikely to return any results.

  Isobel may have changed her name over recent years, or perhaps, as was more likely, she had simply not given her real name when she booked to stay at the Gardener’s Cottage. But the one thing she had been unable to change were her striking looks and her mannerisms. They had been bugging him ever since he met her; those small movements she made which seemed so familiar to him: the way she held her hand to her face, the way she tipped her head to one side when she was speaking, but – most familiar of all – the very effective flick of her head that threw her hair back over her shoulder and away from her violin. She had been doing it ever since she was a child.

  First of all he entered her current name into a search engine just in case he was mistaken, but, although this returned information concerning many and varied Isobel Hardcastles, none were his raven-haired musician. He settled himself back in the chair, knowing the information he sought was likely to take some while to find. But Tom was a seasoned night owl, and it mattered little. He had all night if necessary.

  His first few searches returned huge amounts of links, all of which he started to follow, clicking deeper and deeper into the well of information, and the first hour slipped by almost without him noticing. Then he tried different search words, trying to narrow the field, marvelling at the number of similar stories, but it was only when he got up to make himself a drink that something else occurred to him. He and Isobel were roughly the same age, and given that he was born in 1985, his
eighth birthday would have been in September 1993, and so, allowing for the slight difference in their ages, he needed to search in the timeframe somewhere after 1990, stopping just short of the new millennium.

  It took almost another hour before he found what he was looking for, and he read every article he could find, feeling sick to the stomach and hating himself for the invasion of Isobel's privacy. Except that he had to know. If he was to be of any help to her at all, he had to understand the journey she had taken to arrive at Joy’s Acre.

  And given what he now knew, he understood perfectly why she had changed her name. He could only hazard a guess at what she had been doing in the intervening years since the articles were published – information about her had dwindled away to nothing and, for the rest of the world, her problems had ceased to exist. He closed his eyes and thought about his own agonies over recent times, but these paled into insignificance compared with what she must have been going through. So yes, he now understood perfectly why she would not want anyone to know about her past, but what completely baffled him was why on earth she would want to put herself through all that again.

  Chapter 14

  Isobel prayed that it wouldn’t be Tom at the door when she opened it. Not that he hadn’t been helpful, or tactful, or utterly lovely yesterday, but she had still blubbered all over him like a baby. And she really had. She had clung to him like a small child and sobbed her heart out. He had handled the whole thing wonderfully, even managing to take away her embarrassment, but it had still happened, and at some point they would have to mention it again, not least because Isobel still had a massive problem on her hands. However, it was Trixie who met her smile on the doorstep and she welcomed her in, relief flooding over her.

  ‘Is now a good time?’ Trixie asked, handing her a covered basket. ‘It will keep in the fridge if not, it's only some bread, salad, and a savoury tart. I don't know about you, but I’m finding it hard to face anything heavier with all this heat.’

  Isobel lifted the linen covering and looked up at Trixie, a little disconcerted. ‘Oh. Have I got to eat all this? I feel like I'm being fattened up for Christmas… Or at the very least spoiled rotten,’ she added, realising her comment sounded a little churlish. ‘This all looks amazing, but I'm really not sure I'll be able to do it justice.’

  It was at that precise moment that her stomach gave an enormous rumble. She put her hand across it. ‘On second thoughts, perhaps I will.’ She laughed, taking hold of the basket. ‘Actually, I don't think I had any breakfast… I slept in until nearly ten o'clock this morning, which is something I never do. There must be something about this place that’s getting to me.’

  And it was true. She realised when she'd woken that it had been the first night in a very long time that she had slept peacefully.

  ‘Yeah, it'll do that all right… but perhaps you're just beginning to relax. Either that or Joy is working her magic. I'm not entirely sure that's true myself, but Maddie and Clara are convinced she's keeping an eye on us all.’

  Isobel frowned. ‘But I thought she was—’

  ‘Dead? Yep she is, as a doornail. But apparently that doesn't matter. Actually, I probably shouldn't be so cynical seeing as everything is going so well at the moment. I'd hate to put a jinx on it, and who knows, it could all be true.’

  ‘I'm trying to remember the story from the website,’ said Isobel. ‘But I think she was a painter, is that right?’

  ‘She was. It was all a bit tragic in the end, as most of her work was destroyed. There are only a handful of her paintings left in existence, and we’re lucky enough to have two of them. Seth found one shortly after they moved in here, it came up at auction, and then only recently when we were having a clear-out we found another which had fallen down the back of a dresser.’

  She smiled at Isobel. ‘It's a long story,’ she said. ‘You probably don't have time for all this now, but if you’re free one day, come over to the main house – the pictures are hanging there and I can tell you all about her… On second thoughts, there’s a book about Joy and her husband which was written by one of the villagers when they lived here. Seth won't mind if I lend it to you instead, it tells the story beautifully.’

  ‘I might just do that,’ replied Isobel, thinking back to Tom’s words of yesterday, the memory also causing her to blush inadvertently. ‘Perhaps not today though, I ought to get on really. I had somewhat of a setback yesterday, and I'm still trying to work out if I can salvage anything or whether I'm going to have to start all over again. Trouble is, if I do have to start over I'm not quite sure how I'm going to do it.’

  Trixie grinned. ‘You and me both. I'm testing recipes at the moment, and there’s one that I can't seem to get right whatever I try. I reckon I probably just need to go back to the drawing board.’ She eyed the basket still in Isobel's hands. ‘Let me know what you think about the tart, won't you? That's a new recipe too, and I'm trying to see which ones are everyone's favourites.’

  Isobel felt her heart sinking just a little as she cast about frantically for something to say.

  ‘You’re really not very good with food, are you?’ said Trixie, leaping into the gap in the conversation that Isobel had left. ‘Are you just really fussy? Or is it a weight thing?’

  She was scrutinising Isobel, but there wasn’t a trace of malice on her face. She was simply interested. It must seem such a strange thing for a cook, to find someone so completely disinterested in food.

  ‘I’m not sure it’s really either of those things, just not something I normally bother with. I mean, I eat, obviously, but I’ve never really given much thought to food before, it’s just fuel.’

  Trixie seemed satisfied with her answer, although she narrowed her eyes. ‘Hmm, well we’ll see about that. I shall have to see what I can tempt you with. A few more home-cooked meals and lot more fresh air won’t do you any harm. You’re far too pale—’ She blushed slightly, clearing her throat. ‘Oops, there’s me going off on one again. What I meant to say is that you work so hard you probably spend far too much time inside. Maybe if you get out and enjoy the sun more, you’ll find your appetite picks up.’

  Isobel smiled at her blunt, but well-meant, honesty. And she probably had a point, but she was keen to change the subject.

  ‘Have you always been a cook?’ she asked, trying to show some interest, just like her therapist told her she should. People like to be asked about themselves, it's a good way of starting a conversation. And always listen to what is being said to you, the clues are always there, and this will help you to naturally direct where the dialogue goes without it sounding stilted.

  ‘Goodness no,’ replied Trixie. ‘This is my first job as a proper cook. But I had to fend for myself from a very early age, so I didn't have a lot of choice – I either learnt how to cook or starved.’ She grinned. ‘Good job I like it though, isn’t it?’

  ‘So, you never had any formal training?’

  ‘Nope. Everything I've learned I've had to teach myself, but maybe that's the best way. You learn from your mistakes, and at least I never had to worry about poisoning anyone else.’

  ‘Until now.’

  ‘True. But so far, so good. And it’s brilliant here – like cooking for one big family – and now that the feedback from the farmers’ market has been so encouraging, we thought we’d take things a step further. So many people have asked for our recipes that it seemed silly not to give it a go and try and put them together into a proper cookbook. Who knows? It might be a complete flop, but if you don’t try you’ll never know, will you? I’d much rather try and fail than never have the guts to go for it in the first place.’

  Isobel felt something stir inside of her at Trixie’s words. How right she was, and on her good days Isobel recognised that feeling well; it was what got her out of bed in the morning. Her problem was that on quite a few mornings, actually more than just a few, the fear of failing yet again was almost overwhelming. She smiled to herself at the coincidence of having landed right in t
he middle of a place where everyone seemed to be in the throes of some creative process. Of course, it might not be a coincidence at all…

  ‘But that’s so exciting! I had no idea that’s what you were planning.’

  Trixie rolled her eyes. ‘I know, we must be mad. We’ve enough work to keep us going full pelt day and night if we wanted to, and now we’re taking on this as well.’ She shrugged. ‘It wasn’t exactly planned, but now that it seems to have fallen into our lap, how can we ignore the possibility?’

  Isobel nodded, looked at her watch and then at the basket of food. It was still relatively early and a sudden idea had come to her.

  ‘Actually Trixie, despite my rumbling stomach I think I might take you up on your offer now, if that's okay? Could I come back to the house with you and look at Joy’s work? I've had a thought about something, but I promise I won't take up too much of your time.’

  Trixie smiled. ‘No time like the present, although only on the condition that I get to pick your brains as well.’

  It was the first time that Isobel had visited the main house. She had knocked at the front door on the day she arrived at Joy’s Acre, but had been swiftly whisked away to her cottage and so didn’t get to see much beyond the first foot or so of the hallway. Now, though, she noticed the paintings the moment she stepped inside the door. There were two of them, side by side, both very clearly showing images of the gardens and their cottages, and painted in the brightest colours imaginable. There was something innocent about them, she thought. As if an exuberant child had painted them, and yet at the same time Isobel understood how much skill had gone into their execution.

  ‘This is the first,’ pointed out Trixie, looking at the slightly smaller of the two paintings. ‘See, it shows practically the whole of the garden.’

  ‘But it's hardly changed,’ replied Isobel. ‘Look, there's my cottage, and I'm sure those are hollyhocks growing in the garden.’