Heart of the Cotswolds: England

by M. L. Buchman

  The pub echoed with the silence. No rumble of traffic, like out her Charleston townhouse’s window. No one downstairs. The silence of the closed pub in the small country town was so deep that it made her ears ring.

  She could almost imagine hearing Aaron breathing.

  Did he sleep in shorts or—

  “Jane, you ignorant slut,” she whispered softly, but it didn’t stop her thinking about the “or” and how her stonemason must look sprawled on the bed wearing nothing but the night.

  She’d been a long time going to sleep.

  Now, in the morning, the sunlight shone into the pub’s eastern windows. No locals by the fire, currently swept of ashes and rebuilt with fresh logs, but not lit. Only a few denizens were up and about—they must be the other residents of the B&B part of the pub.

  A very self-absorbed French couple, elegant in form-fitting black, whispered intently together.

  A round Welshman seemed to be regaling his equally round partner with a grand story filled with embellishments and many a sly word—none of which she could understand, but his Welsh rolled merrily about the room only to be crowded aside by his great belly laugh. It took her a few moments to realize that he was indeed speaking English rather than Welsh, but by the time she unraveled one word from its thick-accented cocoon, another dozen had rolled by. He offered something that might have been a “Good morning” but also could have been “Pork chops on Thursdays.” Her tentative “Good morning” received a cheery smile, so she decided her first guess was more on point.

  Aaron sat in the sunlight sipping tea and watching the world outside go by past the multi-paned bay window. In front of him was a half-finished breakfast.

  She thought of going for a table of her own, but decided that was too chicken.

  “May I join you?”

  He startled as if she’d slapped him, almost losing his teacup. He waved a hand to the opposite seat.

  Outside the window, a small village green separated the pub from the town’s main road. There were benches that would be nice on a warm day, a few well-tamed shade trees. It was busy with people walking their dogs. Most were small, terriers and spaniels, but it had a different feel than Charleston, South Carolina. There were no tiny toy dogs. None of them had ornate leashes or little coats. These were simply village dogs out for their morning walk on canvas or leather leads.

  On the narrow main road, monstrous trucks zipped almost carelessly past each other. Watching them, she could hardly comprehend her audacity last night of getting behind the wheel on an English road. And there was the earl’s car, parked neatly in a spot that had opened close in front of the pub just as she was pulling up. Maybe she’d tell one of his people where it was and they could just come and take it away.

  Beyond the road stood a jumbled line of village buildings. Most contained shops of one type or another. A bright-windowed tea room, sporting red geraniums above, occupied the ground floor of a building sagging with age. It was literally sagging. It had tilted askew in some bygone century. The ones to either side were centuries newer and stood straight and square, except the toy store and butcher’s shop were oddly notched to accommodate the older building between them, as if holding up an old friend. An Indian restaurant occupied the next, a building so narrow it appeared to have been squeezed in between the butcher and the post office as an afterthought. The whole line was done in various ages of yellow limestone, their roofs varied between slate and tile. None had the charming thatch of her little cottage, where Aaron had been fixing her wall.

  Aaron.

  “Are you feeling better today?” How did he sense when she was thinking of him? Hopefully he hadn’t been able to sense her thoughts last night.

  “Was I feeling worse yesterday?” Yet she was feeling better.

  “Hungover, probably jetlagged as well. You look…” he trailed off and studied his teacup for a long moment. “Better,” he finally declared without looking up.

  Bridget came by the table and offered her a plastic-covered menu. By the scuffs on the tough coating, the menu hadn’t changed in a long time. She scanned it quickly.

  A glance at Aaron’s plate revealed the remains of scrambled eggs, potatoes, grilled tomatoes, sausage, bacon, and “brown” toast.

  There was no sign of coffee on the menu, which was probably just as well. Jacking her system up for whatever morning crisis awaited her was no longer necessary. She was on holiday, perhaps permanent holiday. If so she’d…worry about that later.

  “I’ll have a bowl of fruit and yogurt with my tea.”

  Bridget stood waiting, her pencil poised.

  “That will be enough, thank you.”

  Bridget’s eyes widened. “Hal won’t appreciate that. He includes a breakfast in the price because he expects folks to eat it.”

  “That’s all I want, really.” Jane could feel Aaron’s smile, then could feel herself giving in to it. “Maybe a single piece of bacon. I like bacon.”

  Bridget spoke as she wrote, “Fruit and yoh-gurt. Bacon, one slice. You sure?”

  “Tea.”

  Bridget rolled her eyes, but gave her a smile to go with it before walking away.

  “ ‘Yoh-gurt’?” Jane asked Aaron because she didn’t know if she actually had done something wrong or quite what was going on.

  “Welcome to England. Here it isn’t yogurt and café yohh-gurt and ca-fee, because we aren’t in France so we don’t go to a café. Toilet or loo, not restroom. Don’t worry, you’ll never figure it all out. And if you do, they’ll just change the rules to mess with you.”

  Jane grimaced.

  “You like following the rules, don’t you?”

  “I already got harassed for that by Bridget. You don’t need to join in.”

  “But you do like your rules,” Aaron didn’t make it a question.

  “Don’t you have a wall to build?”

  “On a Sunday? I’d be banned from decent society. Working on a Saturday was bad enough.”

  “Then why did you do it?”

  And Aaron’s eyes slid aside to watch out the window once more.

  Before she could pursue it, Bridget arrived with her pot of tea. “Now the bag’s just gone in. Let it steep some,” and she was gone again. The teacup was thin porcelain and painted with her favorite flowers.

  “Sweet peas. If England has sweet peas, I could definitely stay here.”

  “They do, though it’s not the season yet. You’re just in time for tulips and bluebells. Iris soon, too.”

  “How does a military man turned mason know about flowers?”

  Aaron shrugged. “Grew up in the country. Helped Mom in the garden. She’s partial to sweet peas as well.”

  “What’s she like?”

  Breakfast passed easily as they discussed families. She discovered that the pain of losing her mother and father had eased to merely awful. It was the first time she’d really spoken of them to anyone since the funeral and wake—an event Debbie had barely deigned to come home for.

  Jane had had to use a major chunk of her own savings to buy half of their parents’ house from her sister just so it didn’t become some long, drawn-out issue. Jane only felt a little pinch that the ultimate sale price had been well above the appraised value, making her a tidy profit on the deal. The pinch was especially small now that Debbie had married into wealth.

  Yoh-gurt and fruit had led to bacon. The yogurt was thick and Greek, the bacon was mostly meat rather than American that was mostly fat. She missed the heavy bacony flavor, but could get used to the more subtle English version. One cup of tea had led to four before the pot was drained.

  “If you don’t build walls on a Sunday, what do you do?”

  “I usually walked down to The Slaughters.”

  “You go watch them kill things?”

  “If you’re up for a walk, I’ll show you.”

  Jane was starting to understand the danger of Aaron’s smile. He often used it instead of words as if daring her to say no. Knowing what he wa
s doing didn’t make it any less effective.

  “Two minutes,” she retreated upstairs, then brushed her teeth enough to clear out the bacon while changing into walking shoes. A light jacket and she, checking her watch, was back in a minute forty-five.

  “What are you smiling at?”

  Aaron looked terribly amused. “You did warn me that your job was being efficient.”

  “I am very efficient,” it was her main claim to fame. Some project managers were all about communication, and nothing else. Her specialty had always been about discovering the most efficient and effective process for any task.

  “We’ll see,” and he led her out the door without explaining himself any further.

  Aaron was intrigued by this third version of Jane. Though he’d been watching her all through breakfast, he didn’t know quite what to make of her.

  The tipsy beauty in the stunning dress, who had fit in at the manor as if she were the heiress herself, had been magnetic. Jane’s thoughtless sophistication and poise had only made Debbie all the less so in comparison. He felt a little sympathy for Debbie, not too much, at having to grow up with such a shining example of womanhood for an older sister.

  Then there was the runner—so sleek and wired she might have been some fantasy cyborg from the latest teen science-fiction flick. Charlize Theron in Aeon Flux but shining bright rather than dangerous black.

  And now this third woman ambling beside him as he sought the footpath across the stream near Bowl Farm. Slender jeans, a blouse the same blue as her eyes that might have been silk or some other of those sleek fabrics, and a denim jacket that hadn’t come from JC Penny’s or even Macy’s. But on her feet were very practical walking shoes rather than her fancy running sneakers.

  Stylish, understated, and she made him feel like a complete slob.

  She started at a brisk pace, but he knew that wouldn’t last.

  Hoped it wouldn’t. He could keep up, that wasn’t the issue—his hip was fine now that he’d stopped fighting his body’s new tendencies—and his knee was under control, with the help of a couple of ibuprofen. But at this rate she’d cover the ground awfully fast and he’d much prefer a lazy Sunday stroll. Plus she’d miss the subtle stuff. He had to call her back to notice a small patch of early bluebells tucked beneath a hazelnut grove. They came through a small wood, crossed an arched stone footbridge (mortared rather than dry-laid), and picked up the path, which turned south along a tree-lined lane.

  That’s when she slammed to a halt.

  He did his best to hide his smile. He’d made a small bet with himself that Jane Tully was a total sucker for cute. It was nice to be proven right.

  “Oh,” she let out a happy sigh.

  “Pretty damn sweet, huh?”

  “As if you had anything to do with it.”

  Well, she certainly did a good job of keeping his ego in check. Though walking along with the prettiest woman in town wasn’t hurting any.

  The spring-green field in front of them was filled with white sheep. Big ewes, looking several times their actual size in thick fleece, were scattered all about the field. And every one was tended by one or two lambs. A newborn staggered to its feet while the mother watched closely. Another, perhaps only a day bigger, sprinted by. The newborn turned to watch it pass and fell back to the grass. A pair of lambs were locked in a fierce battle of king of the hill—their mother’s back, while she lay chewing her cud, made the unobtainable pinnacle. A small gang of older lambs tested how far they dared get from their mothers, ranging out until the most chicken blatted out a “Mo-o-om.” That call then caused the whole pack to call out and mothers to answer. Soon they were scattering back to wherever their mothers had wandered. Then, after a quick nurse, the most adventurous sallied forth again.

  The queen of efficiency stood rapt, watching them so long that Aaron almost wished he still wore a watch so that he could time her.

  “This is why they invented the word bucolic,” she finally said in an awed whisper.

  “They actually forged the word in a smithy over in Naunton, I think,” he gestured beyond the sheep pasture for effect.

  “Forged it?” She turned to face him.

  “I’m sure that’s how they make words around here. Hammer, tongs, fire.”

  “You are so male.”

  “So you keep saying. Okay, Ms. Know-it-all, if they didn’t forge the word in a Cotswold smithy, where did it come from?”

  “Clearly, Mr. Smarty-pants, bucolic comes out of the Ancient Greek…”

  Oh. She was one of those kind of people when it came to words.

  “…for utterly charming. It was invented by a shepherd on a sunny, pastoral hillside on the island of Crete while wooing a baker’s daughter who had brought him fresh-baked bread.”

  “Uh-huh.” Okay, maybe his first judgement had been too harsh.

  “You doubt me?”

  “Don’t know. Did he get the girl?”

  “Of course he did. The sweet shepherd always gets the baker’s comely daughter.”

  “I’ll have to remember that.” He hadn’t really thought about “getting the girl” until this moment. He’d simply been glad of each moment his path had crossed Jane Tully’s. What would it take to get a girl like her? What did that even mean? His relationships since high school were more easily measured in weeks than months.

  “You aren’t some sweet shepherd, Mr. Mason. So you can forget about that.” She turned and continued down the trail. Several lambs who’d been edging closer bleated in surprise and bounced away. “And no, you can’t fake it.”

  Aaron would pay decent money to know how she did that mind-reading trick of hers.

  “Uh-oh,” Jane stumbled to a halt.

  “What’s wrong?” Aaron came up beside her and began scanning the field as if it was filled with snipers and tanks and things.

  She couldn’t imagine what the world must look like through his eyes.

  After wandering through the back of a farm, in immaculate English countryside condition of course, and climbing a low ridge, they had crested the hill. A vista had opened out before them.

  The fields and pastures, built with every color green in the world, were cut into neat sections by stone walls and well-trimmed hedgerows. Some of the sections were filled with the sunshine-yellow rapeseed, others with sheep and more lambs. A small wood traced the line of a stream along the valley’s floor, leading to a small town of a few dozen limestone buildings and a stone church, all basking in the sunlight.

  “What’s wrong?” Aaron repeated, checking behind them now and up into the trees.

  “What is it like to live in a world where everything is a threat?”

  Aaron eyed her for a moment, scanned the countryside one last time, then offered one of his enigmatic shrugs. “Just like being careful,” which wasn’t an answer. “Now what is wrong?”

  “I’m having a problem with the word bucolic.”

  His eyes crossed for a moment as he tried to make the mental shift from whatever military-attack scenario had been filling his head.

  “Seriously,” she waved at the view ahead. “If our first stop was ‘bucolic,’ then what am I supposed to call this?”

  “Bloody bucolic?”

  Jane liked how smoothly Aaron adapted to a changing situation. “But there’s that B-word you were warning me about.”

  “Ruddy bucolic,” he made it a declaration.

  “Does it get nicer than this anywhere? This seems kind of pinnacle bucolic to me, but it’s my first time in England.” As if to prove her point, a trio of riders on horseback came up the trail behind them. They offered simple nods and a friendly, monotone “Morning!” before continuing ahead to become part of the landscape.

  Aaron scratched at his nose for a moment, “There’s a little town a few miles that way,” he pointed over the hills. “Notgrove is one of the prettiest places I’ve ever been. In the other direction is Greater Tew. It’s a little too perfect for my taste, but all of the houses are thatche
d or slate and the pub is a good one.”

  “So if this is ruddy bucolic, there is at least one category above that.”

  He began leading her down the trail toward the little town. “At least two.”

  “Bucolic, ruddy bucolic, bloody bucolic, and if we’re to be crassly American, effing bucolic.”

  “On the other end of the scale you could have BWR.”

  “BWR?” Jane trailed behind, appreciating the view. She remembered the bare broad shoulders of the man building her garden wall. Covering them in a plain black t-shirt only emphasized the line down to his waist. His limp worried her some, but it appeared to be less than it had been yesterday afternoon as they’d walked to the manor.

  “Bucolic with restrictions. For when there’s a cell tower or a highway in an otherwise bucolic setting. The big tower atop Icomb Hill,” he waved to the south, “makes the whole area BWR.”

  Jane tried to think of any other man who had ever played such word games with her. Against her, sure. Larry the jailbait-hunting professor had been the master of that. For him, words were weapons. For her Vermont country boy turned stonemason, they were a game.

  Forged in a smithy.

  She loved that image. It was entirely too easy to picture a shirtless Aaron as the brawny blacksmith, sweating in the heat and slamming his fisted hammer onto hard iron as he forged out steel words.

  Oh, Jane was going to have a hard time shedding that particular image.

  At the hedgerow there was a gate. They’d passed through several different types already, including a simple flat board sticking through both sides so that it was easy to step up and over the fence.

  This gate was made of two pieces. To one side, the wooden fence split into a narrow V. To the other was the gate itself, built so that it could be swung from one point of the V to the other. The trick was to enter the V one at a time, swing the gate over to the side of the V just used, and exit out the other side. Sheep couldn’t make the turn, but humans could.

  “How many kinds of gates are there?” She stepped in and swung the gate across the path to open her way out.

  “Dozens, maybe hundreds, though there are only a few main types,” Aaron rested his hand on the gate close by hers from the opposite side. “This one is called a kissing gate.”