Aunt Bessie Joins (An Isle of Man Cozy Mystery Book 10) (22 page)

Bessie laughed, but Dave was right in a
way.
 
She could understand the
crowds in the retail stores, but surely the grocery stores shouldn’t be that
much busier.
 
People had to eat all
year around, didn’t they?

Dave helped Bessie take all of her shopping
into the cottage when they arrived back.
 

“And this is for you and your lovely wife,”
she told him as she handed him the wrapped box.
 

“I told you
you
shouldn’t,”
he protested.

“I’ll take it back if you take yours back,”
she offered.

Dave chuckled.
 
“Oh, no.
 
The wife is quite pleased with herself
for finding that.
 
You’d better keep
it.”

“Then you’ll have to keep yours,” Bessie
said with a grin.

“Fair enough,” the man said.
 
He gave Bessie a quick hug.
 
“Happy Christmas, if I don’t see you
again before Friday,” he said.

“Happy Christmas,” Bessie echoed.

Bessie fixed a light lunch, promising
herself something more substantial in the evening.
 
She’d spent so much time in
Castletown
lately that she felt as if she hadn’t taken a
proper walk in months.
 
With lunch
tidied away, she headed out to walk until she was too tired to continue.

It didn’t seem to take any time at all to
get to
Thie
yn
Traie
, and from there Bessie pushed onwards, determined to
give her legs a proper workout.
 
An
hour later she’d walked much further than she usually did and her legs were
starting to complain.
 
Turning back
towards home, she slowed her steps and
focussed
on
breathing deeply.
 
She was convinced
that sea air had a great deal to do with her continued good health and she was
determined to take in as much as possible.

As she approached
Thie
yn
Traie
, she spotted
someone standing near the bottom of the steps that went up the steep cliff.

“Bessie, there you are,” Mary exclaimed as
Bessie drew closer.
 
“I was just
thinking about sending a search party.”

“I didn’t
realise
I was missing,” Bessie told her.

“I saw you walk past the other way,” Mary
explained.
 
“We were working in the
room the Pierce family called the ‘great room,’ the one with all the windows
that look over the beach.
 
Anyway, I
saw you walk by and I thought I’d just pop down and catch you on your way
back.
 
But you didn’t come back for
ages.
 
I’m just about frozen.”

“I’m so sorry,” Bessie told her.
 
“Obviously, I had no idea, or I would
have turned around sooner.
 
I was
just enjoying my first proper walk in a long time.”

Mary flushed.
 
“I don’t mean to suggest that you should
do anything to accommodate me,” she said quickly.
 
“And please don’t think that I’m going
to be spying on you every time you walk by, either.
 
I just happened to notice you and I
thought you might like to come up for a
cuppa
, that’s
all.”

“I’d love one,” Bessie said.
 
Now that she was standing still, the
cold air seemed to be going right through her.
 

“Come on up, then,” Mary invited.
 
“Natasha’s here.
 
We can show you our plans for the
house.”

Bessie followed Mary up the steps, holding
on tightly.
 
At the top she was
reminded again of the vast size of the mansion that had been built as a summer
home.
 
From the beach, only the great
room with its entire wall of windows could really be seen, but up close, the
mansion seemed to spread out in every direction with several separate wings, a
garage block and a small security booth.

“It is rather ugly, isn’t it?” Mary asked
brightly.

Bessie laughed.
 
“And you still want to buy it?”

“We are buying it,” Mary told her.
 
“The Pierces are willing to take such a low
price for it that George can’t pass it up, even if he doesn’t want to live
here.
 
Once the sale is complete and
the renovations are done, then I can start trying to persuade George to
actually sell the Douglas house and move out here.”

“I hope you can persuade him quickly,”
Bessie told her.
 
“I’d love to see
the house occupied.”

“Oh, Elizabeth, our daughter, will be moving
in soon, even if George and I don’t,” Mary told her as she led Bessie to the
side door.
 
“She can’t wait to get a
little further away from us.
 
Her
wing is the first thing we’re redecorating, in fact.”

Bessie knew that Mary had been spending a
lot of time at the house, but it still felt cold and empty when they went
inside.
 
She followed her friend
down a long corridor, past the huge great room and into a large and modern
kitchen.
 
The cabinets were dark wood;
the countertops were white, as were the tile floors.
 
Stainless steel appliances shone all
around the space, which Bessie thought was probably the same size as her entire
cottage.

“Sit down, I’ll put the kettle on,” Mary
told her.

Bessie perched on a stool that was in front
of the long island that almost dominated the room.
 
“Marble?” she asked as she touched the
cold white surface in front of her.

“Yes, it wouldn’t be my first choice, but
George won’t hear of replacing it.
 
He thinks it’s gorgeous.”

“It is lovely,” Bessie said.
 
“But very cold.”

“The entire house is cold,”
Mary
replied
 
“I’m hoping we can warm things up a little bit, but it isn’t going to be
easy or inexpensive.
 
George doesn’t
care about kitchens, as he expects that we’ll have staff to work in them, but
I’d love to get rid of most of the staff and do at least some of the cooking
myself.
 
That means I really want to
redo this kitchen to make it warm and inviting.”

Bessie glanced around.
 
“I’m not sure where you’d even start,”
she confessed.

“I think I’d start by cutting it in half,”
Mary told her.
 
“It’s far too large
to feel
cosy
, but I suppose it works well if you have
half a dozen people working in it.”

“We don’t want to add any walls,” a voice
said sternly from one of the doorways.
 
“We can make the room feel much warmer with small changes,” Natasha
added as she walked in.
 

“Natasha and I haven’t quite reached an
agreement on what we want to do with this room,” Mary told Bessie,
smiling.
 

“Walls disrupt flow,” Natasha said.
 
“We need to change the floors; that will
make a huge difference.
 
And if we
cover the windows with curtains in place of the cold metal blinds, that will
help, as well.”
 

She stopped and shook her head.
 
“You didn’t come to listen to us argue,”
she said to Bessie.
 
“It’s so nice
to see you somewhere other than Castle
Rushen
.”

Bessie laughed.
 
“I only live a short distance down the
beach from here.
 
It’s funny that we
only ever see each other when we’re both in the south of the island.”

“We should see more of each other after the
holidays,” Natasha told her.
 
“Assuming that Mary and George approve my plans, I’ll be moving in to
oversee the remodel.
 
No doubt we’ll
see each other on the beach.
 
I like
to jog a few miles every morning.”

“You know I love your plans,” Mary
said.
 
“Except the ones for the
kitchen, but we can talk about those after Elizabeth’s wing and the master
bedroom are finished.
 
It’s George
you have to convince.”

“And he isn’t even going to listen to me
until after the first of January,” Natasha said with a sigh.

“George is quite excited about Christmas
this year,” Mary explained to Bessie.
 
“He’s decided to make up for all the years when he was too busy with
work to pay any attention to the holiday.
 
He has the entire house in Douglas covered in a thin layer of
decorations, and he’s bought presents for everyone from the children and
grandchildren to the entire staff and dozens of people he’s only met once or
twice.”
 
She shook her head.
 
“When the children were small, I used to
ask him every year to get involved, but he was always busy.
 
Now I’m sorry, because he’s taken over
every job and left me with nothing to do but work on the
remodelling
here.”

“You’ve been busy with ‘Christmas at the
Castle,’” Bessie pointed out.

“Yes, and I am grateful that he’s done as
much as he has, really.
 
But it’s
hard to feel in the Christmas spirit when you’ve not done any shopping or
decorating,” Mary said.

“I finally did my shopping today,” Bessie
told her.
 
“And it has put me more
in the spirit of things, although I do find ‘Christmas at the Castle’ makes me
feel quite festive.”

“It’s lovely,” Mary agreed.

“I’ve enjoyed being a part of it,” Natasha
told them both.
 
“And it should look
good on my CV as well.”

“I was just talking to some friends about
the television
programme
that Christopher Hart was
meant to be making,” Bessie said, hoping she wasn’t changing the subject too
obviously.
 
“We were wondering what
the people in charge
will
do now that he’s no longer
available.”

“I’ve heard a
rumour
that they’ve asked Jason King to take over,” Natasha told her.
 
“It’s only a
rumour
,
but my source is pretty reliable.”

“Should I know who Jason King is?” Bessie
asked.

Mary laughed.
 
“You don’t watch television, do
you?
 
He was on a home improvement
show for a few years, but then he had a fight with the producer about something
or other and he left.
 
Every time a
new show like this is mentioned, his name comes up, but I don’t know if he’s
ever been seriously considered for anything.
 
He behaved quite badly, if the stories
are to be believed.”

“Oh, they should be,”
Natasha
said.
 
“I was a production assistant
on that show, and the man was terrible to work with.
 
He was late nearly every day and he
always tried to blame other people when he didn’t turn up on time.
 
He was never happy with his dressing
room, the food, the rooms he had to decorate, the quality of the materials he
had to work with.”
 
She waved a
hand.
 
“I could go on, but I
won’t.
 
I just hope he’s learned
something in his years away from the spotlight.”

“I couldn’t possibly ever be on
telly
.
 
But you
seem like you’d be a natural,” Bessie told Natasha.
 
“Is that a goal of yours?”

Natasha shrugged.
 
“I just want to keep working,” she
said.
 
“I’m passionate about
designing.
 
If someone offered me a
show like the one Christopher was going to do, I’d do it, but for the
publicity, not just to be on
telly
.
 
What I really want is to be in demand so
much that I can set my own prices and work only when I want to work.
 
I want a flat in London and one in Paris
and I want…” she trailed off.
 
After
a moment, she laughed.
 
“Listen to
me, babbling the dreams of my overactive imagination at you.
 
Now you must share your crazy dreams
with me, so I don’t feel so bad.”

Bessie smiled.
 
“You mustn’t feel bad,” she said
firmly.
 
“You’re still young, and
it’s only natural that you’re ambitious.
 
You’re also very talented, so I hope you manage to achieve something
like the success you’re hoping for.”

“I’ll tell you what I dream of,” Mary
said.
 
“I dream of owning a little
cottage on the beach where I can live all by myself.
 
The children can visit, of course, and
George, too.
 
I love him dearly, but
sometimes living with him is hard work.”