Chocolate Shoes and Wedding Blues (38 page)

‘Right …’ he said thoughtfully.

‘Robert was a really laid-back type so I think he just didn’t get round to it, and then he died suddenly and it was then Bella found he’d run up huge gambling debts she’d no idea about. And then, to cap it all, his wife got whatever was left, because he’d never divorced or changed his will.’

‘But surely Tia was entitled to something?’

‘Possibly, but by the time the debts were paid off, there wasn’t much to fight over. Bella lost everything and that’s when she had to move back in with her parents, so it’s hit her hard and made it difficult for her to trust anyone again. She certainly wasn’t looking for another relationship when she met you.’

‘I did get that message loud and clear, but I was taking it slowly and I thought she was getting a little bit fond of me.’

‘Yes, I’m sure she is and you were doing fine until you suggested she move into your house. She wouldn’t want any chance of the whole cycle happening again.’

‘Well, it wouldn’t. I’m no gambler, for a start! How can I persuade her I’m different from this Robert? I do love her,’ he confessed, going slightly pink as if it was some shameful secret.

‘You haven’t got a wife secreted away anywhere, have you? Only if not, and you do love Bella, I wondered why you didn’t ask her to marry you – only to move in – and you weren’t too specific about the terms, either!’

He looked surprised. ‘I didn’t think she felt like that about me, but I hoped if she moved in she’d get fonder of me and things would go from there. I’ve been trying to sneak up on her.’

‘Then if you’re serious, why don’t you just tell her you love her and suggest you have a proper, old-fashioned courtship, the sort where you have a long engagement getting to know each other properly before you set a wedding date? It’s a lot more romantic and likely to succeed than saying, “How about moving in with me, love?”’

‘I’ve been an idiot, haven’t I?’ he said sheepishly.

‘Just a bit,’ I agreed. ‘One more thing – she told me that you had an old pigsty at the bottom of your garden and a small field and wood beyond it?’

‘Yes, it’s one of those odd parcels of land that come with old cottages sometimes.’

‘Bella has a thing about pigs.’

‘
Pigs?
’

‘Loves them,’ I told him. ‘I’m surprised you haven’t noticed. She collects ornamental ones like I collect shoes, and she’s always longed to keep real ones. That’s not something you can do in a granny flat!’

His eyes lit up. ‘I wished she’d mentioned it before, because I really fancy keeping pigs, only I didn’t think I’d be able to give them enough time while I was getting the business going.’

‘I think you may find a porky way to her heart,’ I suggested, and he went off looking as if he’d had a major light bulb moment – or even the full neon tube.

I may end up going down the aisle yet, I decided, even if only as a bridesmaid!

Neil clearly hadn’t wasted a moment, but had gone straight from my cottage to Bella’s flat and insisted she go out to the pub with him so they could have a serious talk.

‘Luckily Mum was in and said she didn’t mind keeping an eye on Tia – she seems to like Neil – so I did,’ she said, and I guessed what was coming, from her glowing eyes and cheeks.

‘Tansy, he wants to marry me! But he said since he could see I’d been hurt in the past he didn’t want to rush me into anything and then he suggested we have the sort of proper, old-fashioned engagement and courtship that they had in your aunt Nan’s day – it’s so romantic!’

‘Walking out, getting engaged, and setting a wedding day and all the rest of it? Sounds lovely to me!’ I said innocently.

‘Yes. No pressure to move in with him or anything, until we’re married.’

‘So what did you say?’ I asked, though I’d already guessed the answer.

‘Yes! And since we’ve done a lot of walking out already, we’re going to go and look at engagement rings this afternoon!’

‘So, you love him, then?’

She nodded, the smooth wings of her ash-blond hair swinging. ‘I wasn’t admitting it to myself – but yes, I do!’ She giggled suddenly. ‘I knew he was the one when he shared a bag of Percy Pigs with me and said he longed to see some piglets in that sty in his back garden. I hadn’t realised he was so keen on them before!’

‘Oh, is he?’ I said innocently. ‘What a coincidence!’

Her eyes were shining and I thought perhaps things might not stay quite so proper and old-fashioned for very long!

I told Ivo about it that evening and he said I was positively Machiavellian, but he hoped they would be very happy.

‘She deserves a second chance at love,’ I said, ‘and I really like Neil.’

‘Are you going to give Justin a second chance too?’ he asked, looking at me directly and seriously with those large, translucent grey eyes, just as if the answer was really important to him.

I shook my head. ‘No way. I keep telling you, he’s done the unforgivable.’

I wanted to ask if he could ever have forgiven Kate if he’d known about the affairs, but I was afraid the answer would be yes. Would he be suffering so much if he didn’t still love her?

But Ivo was coming out of himself more lately and had been to have his dark chestnut hair cut, so that it lay close and satin-smooth to his head, emphasising the lovely bone structure of his face. I could only too easily imagine him wearing a princely coronet in some Shakespeare play …

It was no wonder I had my Cinderella dream again that night, though this time Justin suddenly appeared and snatched the slipper off my foot at the last moment, just when it was all going so well …

Lars arrived in London on the Thursday morning and by Friday had not only sorted everything out but had had himself driven up to have lunch with me.

Bella, who was wearing a modest antique sapphire band on her left hand, had her lunch early while I covered for her, and then said she would buzz for me if she got really busy while Lars was there.

Lars, who is tall and white-haired, with eyes of a much brighter blue than either of his daughters, is kind and good-natured, but with a core of steel. I remained fond of him despite his ghastly daughters and he always seemed to consider me an errant child, wilfully refusing most of his help. But just because he was married to Immy for a few years, I didn’t see why he should have to subsidise her daughter by another man.

Flash liked him too, which I’d come to think was a very good sign.

He gave me a hug and kissed my cheek, then held me away from him and apologised sincerely for the way Rae had behaved, even though it was hardly his fault!

‘I’m so sorry, honey,
and
ashamed of her, now I’ve managed to find out the whole truth! I’ve seen Justin and that god-awful ma of his, too – and Marcia.’

‘You know … everything?’ I asked cautiously.

‘I know Rae was taking money from both Justin and his mother, and I’ve paid them back every penny. Rae’s behaved very badly, but she really did think Justin was Charlie’s father.’

‘Of course she did,’ I agreed, though I was sure of no such thing!

‘She wouldn’t tell me who else Charlie’s father could be, but Marcia was there and she said she thought it was some actor called Ritch Rainford.’

‘Oh, yes, she told me Rae had been seeing him around the time she got pregnant.’

‘Well, Rae didn’t deny it, but she didn’t want to tell him either, so we will leave that one there at the moment. It doesn’t mitigate the fact that she had an affair, however brief, with your fiancé and then told Justin’s mother she’d met him before you got engaged to him and he dumped her for you, which I know very well wasn’t the case at all.’

His jaw set and you could see the ruthless businessman in him. ‘I didn’t believe any daughter of mine could tell such a pack of lies
or
behave like that with her sister’s fiancé!’

Stepsister, I thought – not that it made it any better.

‘Justin behaved just as badly.’

‘That’s what I told him, and that he didn’t deserve you. He said he hoped you’d forgive him eventually – and he was taking a post at a hospital up here?’ he added, with an enquiring glance at me.

‘I told him not to, because there is absolutely no chance of us getting back together again, but he simply won’t listen to me!’

He looked dubious. ‘Marcia thinks you’ll get back together eventually too. I didn’t think you would, after what you said, and it would sure make things awkward in the family if you married him now, but if you still love him …’

‘I don’t,’ I said firmly, ‘and I can’t imagine why no one believes me, because not only did he kill my love stone dead in one fell swoop, but now I’m out of the relationship I can see just how much he undermined my self-confidence over the last couple of years, too!’

‘Marcia must be wrong then,’ Lars said, then added, ‘she’s upset because she says you’d had an argument about something she did years ago, and she was trying to bring you and Justin back together to make up for it, though I told her she’d be better off not meddling.’

‘Yes, I wish you’d tell her not to keep sticking her oar in! I’m sure Justin would have given up on me by now if she hadn’t kept feeding him lies about my missing him.’

‘Justin’s mother sure still seems against the idea, even though she knows the truth now. She was dead set on getting the money back she gave Rae, too. What a harridan!’

‘She’d certainly have been the mother-in-law from hell,’ I agreed. ‘I think Justin had forgotten what life was like before I moved into the flat, when she could demand even more of his attention and use the flat as if it was hers.’

‘You could be right there, and it might be part of the reason why he’s so keen to move far away.’

‘Perhaps. So let’s hope that once he has, he’ll fall for someone else in Manchester.’

I’d made us a lovely lunch of soup, quiche and salad, followed by apple pie and ice cream, which I knew to be Lars’ favourite dessert. Over it he made it clear that he’d paid off Justin and his mother and cleared off a whole load of Rae’s debts, only on the strict understanding that she and Charlie moved back to the States to make their home with him.

‘I can make sure Charlie’s brought up right, then, seeing he’s the only grandchild I’m likely to have.’

‘Will she do that?’

‘She has to. That was the price of sorting this mess out.’

She had bamboozled him only a very little, then, and she was certainly going to have to watch her step from now on! But he’d been right about the whole thing being just as much Justin’s fault as Rae’s in the first place.

‘I’m thinking about selling the London house, now I haven’t so many business interests over here,’ Lars told me. ‘It was just Rae and Charlie living there that was stopping me before.’

‘Won’t you need a base in London, for when you come over to see Marcia, at least?’

‘There’re hotels, or maybe I’ll get a small flat – and it would be nice if my two girls over here could make up, so we could all have dinner together when I do come over?’ he suggested hopefully.

I gave in. ‘If Marcia stops winding Justin up so that he thinks there is the slightest possibility that I’ll take him back, then I will.’

‘I’ll tell her, and maybe she’ll drop by so that you can make it up,’ he said. ‘She seems to be keen on the actor in the cottage next door to you, the widower of her friend. She says he’s still very down and she’s trying to cheer him up, but I can read between the lines.’

‘Mmm …’ I said noncommittally. Then I showed him the shop – he was pleased to see Bella again – and he listened carefully while I told him about our marketing strategy and the rapidly increasing sales, asking the sort of sharp, businesslike questions that had got him his empire. He made one or two good suggestions too, like taking a stand at wedding fairs.

‘They’re big business; it could really increase your turnover.’

‘I see what you mean, and it’s so obvious I should have thought of it myself,’ I agreed. ‘I suppose I’ve just been too busy getting the shop off the ground to see beyond the end of my nose.’

‘I’m thinking more of the future, Tansy: it’s something you could plan for next year, once Cinderella’s Slippers is well established. You’ll need to find a way of making yourself stand out against your competitors, though.’

‘A display of genuine vintage shoes might do the trick,’ I said thoughtfully. ‘Thanks, Lars, that’s a great idea!’

All too soon it was time for Lars’ car to collect him. ‘I’m having flights back arranged for Rae and Charlie on the same plane and I left her packing,’ he said. ‘I’m not going back without them, or I might have trouble getting her home again.’

He did seem to have more of her measure than he used to!

I walked down the garden to the car with him and he admired my knot garden. And then, since I could see Ivo staking his tomatoes, I called him over and introduced them.

They shook hands and appraised each other frankly, then briefly chatted, seeming to get on.

Then, before he got into the back of his waiting car, Lars told me he was glad that someone sensible was living nearby to keep an eye on me! Little did he know that Ivo would have dwindled to a sad wraith of his former self if I hadn’t been feeding him up for weeks!

Chapter 35: Shared

Yes, now the family has just dwindled to me and Tansy – and soon it’ll be just Tansy. I don’t count Immy, for all I’ve encouraged Tansy to keep in touch with her mother, because she’s never really felt like part of the family, despite everything …

So there you are, lovey – a quiet life, with not a lot happening. I’ve done my duty and my best, and I hope my Maker will understand when I go to meet Him.

Middlemoss Living Archive
Recordings: Nancy Bright.

Lars must have told Marcia I’d forgiven her (sort of) because she kept trying to ring me all day Saturday from London. But of course we’re frantically busy now on Saturdays, so I hadn’t even checked for messages until after we closed, when I was bone-weary.