Chocolate Shoes and Wedding Blues (17 page)

‘It was really kind of Ruby to let me start with such a small order – and some on sale or return too! But I won’t have a big range of genuine vintage shoes, because you can’t buy many in good condition, or large enough sizes.’

‘But you’ve got enough to make a fun display here and on the website, when I’ve got it properly up and running,’ Bella said. ‘It’s something different, good for publicity. And you’ve got adverts going in the county magazines, haven’t you?’

‘Yes, and all the local newspapers. Oh, and
Lively Lancashire
magazine emailed earlier to say they were going to cover the opening on Saturday and run an article with pictures – in the May or June edition, if they could shoehorn it in – because Cinderella’s Slippers sounded different and I had the additional angle of being an author.’

‘It’s not just going to be different, but
unique
,’ Bella said loyally. ‘And with all the publicity, brides will come for miles to visit the shop, plus you’ll have the casual tourist trade for the jewellery and stuff. Really, I don’t see how you can fail.’

‘Justin doesn’t seem to share your opinion. I actually opened the email he sent me yesterday, and he said he didn’t think such a specialist shop could ever work in a village location, but if it folded to remember he would always be there for me.’

‘That was really big of him,’ Bella said drily. ‘He doesn’t give up, does he?’

‘No, but I wish he would, because it just upsets me all over again to be reminded of him. But I’ve made my decision,’ I said resolutely. ‘No second thoughts.’

I finished the curtains by working on late into the evening, haunted by the dreary music from Ivo’s cottage. It was odd to think of him in his living room next door and I wondered what he was doing – if anything. But I supposed he loved his wife deeply and so was simply wallowing in grief and melancholy, which would account for his look of exhausted strain.

At least things were quieter on my side of the wall by then, so he wouldn’t be so disturbed … apart from Flash’s occasional barking fits when he spotted Toby the cat, and Cedric’s dawn chorus. There wasn’t a lot I could do about either of those.

I draped the curtains over a chair-back when I’d finished. I’d already made a fat, gold-tasselled cushion in the same velvet to put on the gold tilting stand in the centre of the window, where I would display one wonderful shoe each week. The very first would be the ‘glass’ pantomime slipper that Timmy had given me, with some of the silver shoe-shaped confetti sparkling around it …

And by now we’d swapped the old amber plastic window blind for a cream cotton roller one. I would have liked to have replaced the old patched green canvas pull-down awning outside, too, but that would have to wait.

Next day I left Bella putting the curtains up and listening out for the first shoe delivery, while I popped out. I’d remembered seeing a print of old shoes in one of the boxes outside Marked Pages on the High Street and thought if it was still there it would make a nice decorative touch to the shop.

Marked Pages was usually one of my haunts anyway, since I loved old detective novels – Sayers, Christie and Ngaio Marsh especially. I’d been a bit too occupied to visit it lately, so when I’d found the print of Victorian shoes and went in to pay for it and the new doorbell blasted the Beatles tune ‘Paperback Writer’ loudly in my ear, it was a bit of a surprise, to say the least.

I knew the owner, Felix Hemming, and his wife, Poppy, who ran the riding stables just out of town, in a casual sort of way, as you do know many people in a village this size, but today I seemed to have walked in on some kind of marital argument.

‘I’m not ill, so I really don’t see why I shouldn’t carry on riding till the last minute. And Honeybun is
totally
safe,’ Poppy was stating with great determination. I hadn’t seen her for a while and there was no mistaking the pregnant bump, even with a long quilted gilet over her jodhpurs.

‘But he could be startled by something, and throw you,’ Felix pointed out reasonably. ‘Come on, darling, it’s only a couple more months and it isn’t like I’m asking you never to ride again, is it?’

‘No, but –’ Poppy began crossly, then broke off when she noticed me standing, rather embarrassed, in the doorway.

‘Sorry,’ I said awkwardly.

‘It’s OK, I’m just on my way out,’ Poppy said.

‘But, Poppy –’ Felix said urgently.

‘Oh, all right, Felix, I won’t ride – don’t fuss!’ Poppy snapped, then brushed past me and went out. I closed the door behind her, silencing the music.

Felix gave me a wry smile. ‘The confines of late pregnancy don’t exactly suit Poppy’s chosen lifestyle,’ he said. ‘She’s never usually cross.’

‘I suppose it must hamper you a bit,’ I agreed, feeling distinctly jealous. I showed him the Victorian print. ‘I thought this would be nice in my new shop.’

Of course he knew all about Cinderella’s Slippers – who in the village didn’t? – and immediately went and found me a hand-tinted bookplate of Prince Charming actually fitting the glass shoe onto Cinderella’s foot, which couldn’t have been more perfect. So I bought that too, and left them with him to be framed.

‘Cream mounts and gold frames,’ he noted, when I described the shop’s colour scheme. ‘No problem, and I’ll drop them in later. I keep stock-sized mounts and frames in, and I’m sure I’ve got something suitable.’

‘By the way, I adore your new doorbell,’ I told him. ‘I’d love one that played something just right for
my
shop – something bridal.’

‘That’s easy enough because I got it from a friend of mine, Neil Seddon, who’s just set up a company making them to order. I’ll give you his card and you can ring him and tell him what you want.’

‘Would it take him long?’

‘I expect he’d do it as a rush order. In fact, I could ring him for you now, if you know exactly what you’d like it to play?’

‘That “Here Comes the Bride” music – you know what I mean?’

‘Yes, it’s “The Bridal Chorus” from
Lohengrin
, by Wagner,’ he said knowledgeably. ‘We had it at our wedding.’ Then he called his friend and explained exactly what I wanted.

When he passed the phone to me, Neil said it was no problem and if I gave him my address, he’d be round to fit the bell on Friday afternoon.

In fact, he was so eager I had the feeling I might be his first paying customer.

On the way home I glanced at the card Felix had given me, and discovered that Neil had called his company Bell de Jour, Pour la Door.

Back at the shop, stock had been arriving thick and fast, including the first exciting consignment of RubyTrueShuze, which Bella had waited to unpack with me.

We’d decided on a system of writing all the shoe stock down in a book to keep by the till, so we could tick off each pair sold: that way we’d see what was selling best and what needed reordering.

The boxes and tissue paper were silver and purple, and the shoes inside mouthwateringly gorgeous, ranging from classic satin with crystal studding, to forties- and fifties- inspired strappy leather. There were a few in mouthwateringly bright jewel colours, but most were white, ivory or soft sugared-almond shades, and with medium-to-high heels, though there was a small range of flat sandals and sparkly ballerina shoes, too. What with Aunt Nan’s stock of classic satin bridal pumps, my vintage collection and a small range of Goth-style black, purple and deep red shoes I’d ordered from another supplier, there should be something at Cinderella’s Slippers to suit every bride.

I was hugely grateful to Ruby for letting me have some of this first consignment sale or return – so long as they remained in pristine condition, of course!

‘These are all going on the higher display shelves in the back room, where we can keep an eye on them,’ I told Bella, ‘and no children are allowed to touch them!’

‘It might be an idea not to let children into the shop at all,’ she suggested. ‘I’m sure wedding dress shops wouldn’t let them in, because they could wreak havoc with all the delicate, white fabric!’

I shuddered at the thought of grubby fingers on the expensive satin shoes. So much of what had been my rainy-day nest egg was tied up in the contents of so few silvery boxes.

‘Or perhaps we could just let child bridesmaids in, by appointment?’ I said thoughtfully. I’d already stated in the advertisements that I would open out of shop hours by arrangement. ‘But we can be flexible if brides just turn up with young bridesmaids, and they seem well-behaved.’

By now, Bella was trying on a pair of vintage-style ivory satin shoes. ‘I want these
so
much,’ she sighed, ‘and I’ve almost got enough money saved up …’

‘But that’s your deposit for a place of your own,’ I pointed out.

‘Yes, I know – and Tia and I can’t live in a pair of shoes, like the Slipper Monkeys do, can we?’

When Aunt Nancy died I’d spoken on the phone to Lars, my last-but-one stepfather, and then once or twice since, when he’d assumed I was still up here sorting things out.

I still hadn’t told him that I’d left Justin and moved here permanently, because it was more than a little difficult, what with his younger daughter being the cause of our break-up, not to mention my fiancé suddenly turning out to be the father of Lars’ adored grandson, Charlie! Not that I’d any intention of telling him
that
, of course, but I wasn’t sure if I could come up with any convincing lies if he asked me outright why I’d broken off our engagement.

However, I got a chance to find out that very evening when he called me from New York.

‘Tansy? I tried to get you at the flat, thinking you’d be back there by now, but Justin told me you’d had a bit of an argument and were staying up in Lancashire for the time being.’

‘For ever,’ I amended.

‘That must have been quite some argument, honey.’

‘It certainly was, but things weren’t working out, anyway,’ I told him cautiously. ‘It wasn’t heading anywhere.’

‘Justin seemed very cut up. He told me it was his fault. He’d made a serious error of judgement, which he deeply regretted.’

‘He certainly did that, all right!’ I said unguardedly.

‘He hopes you’ll forgive him when you’ve had time to cool down.’

‘I might forgive him eventually, but I won’t be going back. In fact, it’s just as well he kept stalling about setting a date for the wedding, because it made it much easier to split.’

‘Has he been messing around with other women?’ Lars guessed shrewdly.

‘One, at least, and there was a bit more to it than that … But there’s no point in raking it all up again, Lars. It’s over, and I’m staying here and turning Nan’s shop into a bridal shoe emporium!’

I told him all about it and, being a canny businessman, he asked lots of interested questions and made useful suggestions.

‘We’ve organised lots of publicity and we’re going to have the grand opening on Saturday.’

‘Sounds like a great idea to me,’ he said, ‘though it may take time to get the business off the ground and you’ll maybe have to plough most of the profits back in for a while.’

‘I know. Just as well I’ve got my books to fall back on!’

‘It’s a big undertaking on your own.’

‘Bella’s helping me. You remember, my friend who came to stay with me at your house in London once?’

‘Oh, yeah, nice girl. Is she living back in the old village too, then?’

‘Yes, her partner died and it turned out that he ran up a lot of gambling debts. He’d never divorced his wife, so she got the house. Bella and her little girl have had to move back in with her parents.’

‘That’s a shame,’ Lars said. ‘Well, if you need a loan, honey, you only have to ask, you know that. I always think of you as one of my own.’

‘I know you do. It’s really kind of you and I promise if I get into difficulty I’ll ask you for your advice and help.’

I’d never wanted to take Lars’ money, just because my mother was married to him for a few years – especially after she’d moved on to the next husband.

‘You be sure and do that. And I’ll come and see you and this shop of yours next visit. Now I’m taking more of a back seat in the business I don’t get over as often as I’d like and it’s way too long since I saw Rae and little Charlie. Marcia’s living quite near you, isn’t she?’ he added.

‘Yes, over in Middlemoss, but I don’t suppose our paths will ever cross.’

He sighed. ‘I sure wish you girls all got on together better!’

‘I expect we met at an awkward age and it went downhill from there,’ I said, ‘and we’ve never had much in common.’

‘I’d have liked to have seen all three of you happily married and settled long ago, but things don’t seem to work that way any more. Rae divorced, then got pregnant and wouldn’t say who Charlie’s father was, and Marcia’s never even made it to the altar. When
you
got engaged, I thought you’d be married and starting a family in no time at all, and buck the trend.’

‘Yes, so did I.’

‘You’ll find someone else, once you’re over Justin. He can’t have been the right man for you.’

‘I’m over Justin now, but the only really nice men around here are not only married, but completely out of my league even if they weren’t.’

I thought of our gorgeous vicar and the equally attractive but somewhat scary head gardener up at the hall, Seth Greenwood …

‘No one is out of your league, honey,’ Lars said kindly.

‘Aunt Nan used to say that, too,’ I said wryly. ‘But it’s OK, I’ve given up on the idea of finding my Prince Charming, what with Justin turning into a toad before my very eyes.’

He laughed. ‘Never say never. But if you’re happy, that’s good enough for me.’

‘Oh, yes,’ I assured him.

I mean, doomed to spinsterhood, with only a neurotic dog and a few scraggy hens for company, and a gloomy actor drowning in the sweet syrup of melancholy next door, who wouldn’t be happy?

Chapter 15: Luscious

Next time Violet came home on leave, she was full of herself, and I think wanted to show off her fancy engagement ring and wedding band, not to mention her new clothes and boast about all her smart new friends. In fact, even though her husband was about to be posted abroad, she seemed more concerned with finding decent clothes on the ration books – or off them, for she loved pretty things and I’m sure wouldn’t balk at black-market goods.