Chocolate Wishes (19 page)

I stared at him. ‘
I
certainly won’t be going if he does!
What were you thinking of? It’s always been just the three of us!’

‘There’s no reason why it can’t sometimes now be four, is there? I didn’t think you’d mind. You said you would have to get used to seeing him about.’

‘Yes, but seeing him walking about in the village is one thing,’ I said (I turned tail and fled whenever I glimpsed him in the distance), ‘but having him sitting opposite me in the snug at the Star is another!’

Felix was looking at me with unwonted criticism. ‘Raffy said you might still feel like that, and he wouldn’t come unless you said you didn’t mind.’

‘Well, I do mind having my personal space and my social life – what there is of it – invaded! My forgiveness doesn’t stretch that far yet.’

‘Aren’t you being a bit petty?’

‘I don’t think so – and I thought you understood how I felt,’ I said, and after that we came as close to an argument as we’d ever got in our whole lives.

That
was all Raffy’s fault, too.

When I went to collect Grumps’ chapter on Saturday morning (all days of the week being equal, as far as Grumps and I were concerned) Zillah, who was sitting at the kitchen table shuffling the Tarot with practised skill, told me he had gone out.

‘
Out?
But he hardly ever goes out in the mornings!’

‘Another change. That Hebe Winter came to see him yesterday – you could have knocked me down with a feather when I found her on the doorstep, looking down her long nose at me. And then there’s a phone call and off he goes up to Winter’s End right after breakfast. Drove himself too, and he doesn’t often do that, either.’

‘His sciatica wasn’t bothering him any more, then?’

‘Cleared up completely.’

Grumps’ visiting seemed very odd, but I supposed they were discussing ways of defeating the encroachments of Digby Mann-Drake, for which an alliance of sorts evidently needed to be forged. He hadn’t looked as if he could do anything more exciting than pull a rabbit out of a hat, but appearances can be deceptive.

Zillah, pushing aside the remains of her breakfast, had begun to lay out the cards into a familiar pattern, but she looked up and added, ‘He said the latest chapter was on his desk.’

I was sure this book was twice as long as any of his others. And was it my imagination, or had his writing taken a darker turn? I only hoped his hero was up to the challenge!

Grumps returned in an expansive mood and when I took his printed chapter back he informed me that Hebe Winter had invited him to attend an emergency meeting of the Parish Council on Tuesday, in an advisory capacity.

‘But they had a meeting only on Thursday!’

‘Events regarding Mann-Drake have taken yet another turn since then, and there is no time to be lost, Chloe. I knew of his plan to close down the tennis club and some picnic field or other, but now he is trying to levy a charge on the householders living along the edge of the Green, simply for driving across a strip of grass to their property.’

‘How on earth can he do that?’

‘He is trying to resurrect some obsolete ancient right conferred with the Lord of the Manor title. Six houses are affected, and each has received solicitor’s letters demanding either a one-off payment of fifteen per cent of the house’s value, or a very steep annual rental fee. It is, as they say, money for old rope.’

‘I’ve never heard of such a thing, but I would have thought they needed a good lawyer, rather than a warlock,’ I suggested, and he gave me a stern look.

‘Fortunately, the vicar is more far-sighted than you, for it was he who suggested consulting me about Mann-Drake. I find myself quite liking him.’

‘
I
wouldn’t go that far, but I absolve him from everything in the past except stupidity and self-centredness. I hear your sciatica has magically disappeared, by the way, Grumps?’

‘Quite vanished,’ he agreed. ‘A momentary twinge…or three.’

Felix said he couldn’t meet us in the Falling Star that evening, because he was going to play darts with Raffy and the gardeners from Winter’s End in the Green Man instead. He did do this sometimes, only not on a night when he usually met us, so I supposed he was still sulking over our spat.

But at least it meant that Poppy and I could have a good girls-together session, when she told me all over again about the things she was looking for in a man. It was a fairly modest list really, and all the qualities and assets were possessed by Felix, such as not living with his mother (he rarely even
sees
Mags and has never lived with her) and having his own hair and teeth.

‘I’m even starting to feel desperate enough to try the lonely hearts columns one more time,’ she confessed, so it was a pity Felix wasn’t there, so I could have tipped the love potion straight into his drink – and probably hers too, for good measure – then maybe banged their heads together. It was so blindingly obvious to me now that they were made for each other, that I didn’t see why
they
hadn’t realised it.

‘Don’t do anything hasty,’ I counselled.

‘But the time is slipping by faster and faster and I would really love to have children,’ she said sadly. ‘I can’t leave it too late and right now I’m starting to think I’d settle for a Mr OK, never mind Mr Right!’

‘Give it just a little more time,’ I suggested. ‘Remember what the cards said about patience paying off in the long run?’

‘Yes, only I’m running out of patience. But what about you?’ she asked, then said Jake had confided in her the other night that he was afraid I was falling for David all over again.

‘I suppose he could be
your
Mr OK, if you wanted to settle down,’ she said doubtfully. ‘But you keep saying you don’t want to get married or have children.’

‘No, I don’t. David may have some thought of us getting back together – I’m not sure – but he’s forever talking about a woman called Mel Christopher, so on the whole, I think not. Do you know her?’

‘Yes, she rides a grey horse and she has the worst seat in the county. She was widowed a couple of years ago and then married Hebe Winter’s great-nephew, Jack Lewis, but it was a brief mistake and they’re getting divorced. Or perhaps they are divorced by now? I don’t know. She’s beautiful, though, with blonde hair and brown eyes.’

‘That rings a bell. I think I may have seen her about.’

‘I wouldn’t have thought she’d want to marry again so quickly, so perhaps it
is
you that David’s interested in. Aren’t you seeing him again tomorrow?’

I nodded. ‘We’re going to look at a couple of properties a bit further towards Appleby Bridge. But it isn’t like a date or anything. I’ve made it plain I’m happy on my own, I only want friendship.’

‘Well, you know how stupid men are at picking up signals, Chloe. You practically have to hammer bulletins into their heads to get the message through.’

Raffy must have managed to pick some of my messages
up, though, because now he seemed to be doing his best to stay out of my way.

Whenever I caught sight of him in the distance, I only had to blink and he’d vanished again: now you see him, now you don’t.

On Raffy’s first Sunday the church was packed to the rafters at both services. Most of the villagers turned out, right down to the Catholics and Methodists, while the curious from further afield crowded into the aisles, so that according to Poppy they were packed in like sardines and if anyone had fainted from the massed body heat they would still have stayed upright.

Felix was there, Janey went with Mags, and had my own mother been around, I expect she would have gone too, brazen sinner or not. Even Jake went, with Kat – he’d flirted with the Church briefly at junior school and got himself baptised, so he didn’t see why he shouldn’t.

Mr Lees played them all in with a favourite fugue, though to everyone’s astonishment at the end he broke into a lively rendition of ‘I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside’. Something must have come over him, probably Raffy.

After the Sunday morning service Jake and Kat lingered behind to look round the church, which may have seemed odd of them, but they
are
both keen on history and it
is
very old. Apparently there’s an almost unique very early sixteenth-century Heaven and Hell window and lots of interesting monuments.

Raffy came back in and chatted to them, then invited them over to the vicarage for coffee while he waited for Maria Minchin to finish burning his lunch. He showed them round the house too, and I’m ashamed to say that I pumped Jake for all the details he could remember.

‘Well, it’s not as huge as I thought it would be from the front, because it’s long rather than deep,’ he said. ‘There’s an enormous drawing room and a dining room at the back with a door onto the terrace, which he’s going to make into a sort of den, I think. He’s turned part of the cloakroom into a mini-kitchen, so he can make a drink or snack without disturbing the Minchins.’

‘That might be vital, if Maria Minchin’s cooking is as bad as they say. Go on, what else is there?’

‘Only a library in that turrety thing at the end, plus four or five bedrooms upstairs. The workmen have just about finished and the decorators moved in, so his furniture is all piled in the middle of the floors, covered in dustsheets, but he says he hasn’t got enough yet, most of the stuff from his flat in Notting Hill wouldn’t have looked right.’

‘So he’s still living in what was the servants’ hall?’

‘Yes, but he’ll be able to move into part of the main house by next week and then the Minchins can spread themselves out a bit more. He says their flat is quite cramped. That’s about it, he hadn’t got time to show us the garden, though he talked about it quite a bit.’

He evidently intended doing most of the gardening himself once the jungle had been tamed, even growing his own fruit and vegetables, which wasn’t quite the rock-and-roll lifestyle Jake had envisaged, though he was still enthusiastic about Raffy Sinclair.

Everyone
was, except me.

‘I told him I knew he’d been out with you when you were young,’ Jake confessed. ‘But of course, since it was forever ago, I knew you must have practically forgotten about each other until you met again.’

‘Yes, our romance had completely faded into the realms of ancient history,’ I agreed.

‘That’s pretty much what Raffy said. Me and Kat are joining the tennis club when it starts up in spring, by the way. The vicarage court should be ready by then.’

‘You don’t play tennis!’

‘I play squash and there’s no reason why I can’t play tennis too, is there? Kat plays tennis.’

I supposed there were a lot worse things he could be doing.

By this time we were late for Sunday lunch, which we have with Grumps and Zillah, but luckily she was running late with the roast duck,
petits pois
and crunchy roast potatoes.

There was lemon syllabub afterwards, possibly my most favourite pudding, so I was so stuffed that I could barely drag myself out of the house and into David’s car to go house-hunting afterwards, and certainly couldn’t eat a thing when we stopped for tea.

It was odd how I never used to notice how much he talked about himself, but now I could see that we didn’t have conversations, it was all monologues! And I didn’t know if he was sizing me up for a possible resumption of our engagement or not, but I took Poppy’s advice when the current monologue veered round to which houses were suitable for raising families in, and reminded him that
I
had decided never to marry or have children, because I was perfectly happy with my lifestyle.

He laughed at that as though I’d made a joke, and for one moment I thought he was going to pat me on the head and tell me
he
knew what I needed better than
I
did, in which case I would probably have bitten his hand.

I was starting to realise what a very narrow escape I had
had six years ago – what
had
I been thinking? I would probably have been arrested for murder by now, had the marriage gone ahead.

Apart from the night following my revelatory conversation with Raffy, when sheer emotional exhaustion overcame me, I had not been sleeping well. Whenever I closed my eyes the past came back to haunt me in inglorious Technicolor. The only good parts were when I imagined what I would do to Rachel if I could lay my hands on her, scenarios generally involving boiling oil and thumbscrews.

Instead of sleeping I’d spent large portions of the night hours making Chocolate Wishes in the workshop, with the radio on for company. The quiet sound of the melted chocolate being churned about in the Bath was quite soothing, as was the rich scent that filled the air. I’d been making and eating an awful lot of truffles too – my bill for cream was
astronomical
.

I’d printed out the updated version of the chocolate charm that Grumps gave me, and could now say the whole of it over the chocolate while I was tempering it. Not that I thought it would have any effect, but I invoked it more from gratitude for the kind thought and sheer force of habit, than anything.

Jake kept wandering downstairs in the middle of the night to check on me: I was sure he was worried, but he didn’t say anything.

Meanwhile, I was stockpiling an awful lot of Wishes!

I hadn’t called at Felix’s shop on my way back from the post office since our little spat, but then on Monday he came to the cottage to see me and tendered a very handsome apology
for his lack of understanding, which I accepted, though it was subsequently slightly soured by discovering that I owed it to Raffy. He’d told Felix that he quite understood if I couldn’t yet bear to see him among my friends, but hoped that one day I would change my mind.

Magnanimous of him. And it had the effect of making
me
look like the petulant child and
him
the grown-up!

Hebe Winter collected Grumps in her white Mini car and took him to the emergency Parish Council meeting. Afterwards Poppy brought him back and dropped him off at the house, before coming through the museum to the cottage. I was just clearing up after a chocolate-making session and had to stop her absently eating the couverture chocolate drops from the open sack, like sweets.

‘How did it go?’ I asked, firmly closing the sack up again and putting it away.

‘Oh, fine, though Miss Winter, Effie and Laurence were in Elizabethan dress ready for the Re-enactment Society later, and what with that and your grandfather’s strange outfit, it all seemed a bit surreal somehow.’

‘You should try living with him and Zillah: my whole life seems surreal. Was the emergency about this right-of-way thing?’

‘Yes, though I can’t see why it couldn’t wait until the ordinary meeting on Thursday, because there isn’t a lot we can do about it yet. Miss Winter seems to be calling extra
meetings whenever she wants to get something off her chest, lately! But Laurence has found some similar cases on the internet and Miss Winter’s solicitor is going to look into it and report back. And we are awaiting a reply to the letter she sent to Mann-Drake about the lido and tennis courts, but he’s still in London.’

‘Mann-Drake has really stirred up a wasps’ nest in Stickle-pond with all his money-making plans,’ I said. ‘The latest move may only affect half a dozen houses, but everyone is wondering what he will do next, and there’s a lot of anger.’

‘Yes, Hebe Winter not only looked like Elizabeth the First today, but I thought she was also going to launch into the “I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king” speech and then lead us out to battle! She asked your grandfather to give us his opinion of Mann-Drake and it was pretty much the same as Raffy’s, apart from more of an emphasis on his magic powers and how Mann-Drake only wanted to buy a house in the village because of its powerful position on the ley lines.’

‘Well, that’s probably true – combined with the chance to make a quick buck or two.’

‘Raffy said there were always people attracted to the occult, though magic’s only real power lay in suggestion and superstition,’ Poppy said, ‘and Mann-Drake’s “supernatural powers” were nothing more than a mixture of personal magnetism, drugs, alcohol and fear.’

‘That probably went down well with Grumps and Hebe Winter!’

‘Miss Winter always
says
she’s a herbalist,’ Poppy said doubtfully. ‘Mr Lyon said that at least we could all now see that
he
was no threat to the community in comparison to Mann-Drake.’

‘No, I’m sure he’s not.’

She frowned in an effort of recollection. ‘He said something else, about how later religious practices were like lichen growing on an old tree, feeding off the vital sap and obscuring the essential truth, though not completely hiding its shape…or something.’

‘That sounds like Grumps,’ I agreed. ‘I think it’s just his twisty way of saying live and let live.’

‘Yes, he did say that in some cases the two could become interdependent, so he meant well. Raffy told him he couldn’t agree with that viewpoint, but he looked forward to discussing it at more length some time.’

‘What did Grumps say to that?’

‘Only that he looked forward to that too.’

‘Oh? He must have been in a surprisingly mellow and amenable frame of mind!’

‘He advised us all to buy witch charms from Mrs Snowball and put them over our doors, just like yours,’ she told me. ‘Do you think that’s a good idea?’

‘It certainly can’t hurt. Was that the end of the meeting?’

Poppy gave one of her infectious giggles. ‘Yes, except that Mr Lyon suddenly said that he had been considering something the vicar had said to him about joining in with village life and had decided to join the Elizabethan Re-enactment Society! He’s going to become John Dee to Miss Winter’s Virgin Queen.’

‘Good heavens – did he? How did they take that?’

‘They were initially stunned.’

‘So am I!’

‘Yes, but once that wore off, I think Miss Winter was quite pleased, really.’

Our usual threesome met at the Falling Star a couple of days later, all sulks forgotten, and Mrs Snowball, who was minding the bar in the snug until Molly arrived, told us that she’d done such a roaring trade in her witch bottles since the last Parish Council meeting, that she’d had to order a fresh consignment of empty ones.

‘Though they’re not the same as the old. It takes some of the mystery out of it when the glass is thin enough to guess what’s in there, though they’ll work just as well. But the old Bellarmine pottery ones were the best.’

‘Yes, Grumps has got one of those in the museum. I remember it in the catalogue.’

We’d tried to get in our drinks order quickly, before she had a chance to switch the coffee machine on, but she insisted on giving us cappuccinos on the house, ‘seeing as I’m raking in the money for me charms!’ And she cackled like an old hen.

‘You can rake in some more, because I need two extra bottles,’ Poppy told her.

‘Ah, but I’ve put me prices up!’ she said cunningly.

‘Couldn’t I have a discount for bulk?’ wheedled Poppy. ‘These will make five I’ve had.’

‘I suppose I
could
let you have them at the old price, seeing as you’re a good customer at the Star.’

‘Thanks, Mrs S! I need to protect the stable yard next, you see: I can’t have the horses exposed to anything nasty going around, can I?’

‘You make Mann-Drake sound like a contagion,’ Felix said.

When Molly came in Mrs Snowball disappeared, only to return a little while later bearing two of the original thick, greenish bottles, which she handed to Poppy after wiping the dust off with a corner of her flowered pinny.

‘Here you are, from the last of the old stock I laid in years ago. I found a box right at the back of the cellar that got overlooked behind a pile of broken crates.’

Poppy paid for them, then immediately gave one of the bottles to Felix. ‘This is a gift, but you have to promise me to put it over your shop door. In fact, I’ll come back with you and make sure you do!’

‘Poppy, you shouldn’t waste your money like that,’ he protested. ‘Mann-Drake’s already been in my shop and of course nothing dire happened, so I really think it’s—’

‘Oh, stop being so macho,’ she said. ‘Better to be safe than sorry, don’t you think, Chloe?’

‘If Grumps says it’s a good idea, then it probably is,’ I agreed. ‘You don’t lose anything by having one, do you, Felix?’

‘Except for a possible new customer,’ he grumbled. ‘But, OK, since you both seem determined on it, I’ll move some of the books from the shelf over the door and put it there.’

‘You’d better attach the bottle to the shelf too,’ I suggested, ‘or some over-curious customer might try and lift it down, or knock it off.’

‘Good idea,’ Poppy agreed.

In Mrs Snowball’s absence Molly had let us have beer and then later, when Felix went back to the bar to fetch crisps and Poppy was in the loo, I seized the moment and quickly whipped out the little bottle of love potion. I managed to get a drop or two in each glass before they came back, though the creamy tops acquired a faintly oily iridescence. It seemed a harsh way to treat best bitter, but it must have tasted all right because they drank it down without a murmur (or any noticeable effects whatsoever).

Then we all went back to Marked Pages and Felix cleared
a space on the shelf over the door. Despite his protests, I firmly removed the toolbox from his grip and, standing on a chair, screwed an eyelet into the back of the shelf, wired round the bottle and attached it.

‘There! It won’t fall down, no one can pick it up, and the light-fingered will need a screwdriver or wire cutters if they want to nick it.’

‘They’d probably be cursed if they did,’ Poppy said with a giggle. ‘Well, I’d better get off home now, because Mum’s gone to Hot Rocks on the pull with Mags, and I don’t like leaving the horses unchecked for too long.’

‘Yes, I’d better go too, though Jake doesn’t exactly need my company these days, now he’s got Kat!’

‘They
are
sweet together,’ Poppy said soppily.

‘You incurable romantic!’ Felix smiled at her and their gazes seemed to meet and lock for a long moment…But then they both blinked dazedly and looked away and the moment – if there was one – was broken.

Maybe I imagined it?

The following Tuesday Grumps went to his first Re-enactment Society meeting and Jake and Kat offered to drop him at the village hall on their way to have dinner with her parents. Having initially been alarmed by the first sight of Jake (not to mention his relationship to Grumps, when they got to know about it) they had now done a complete about-face and seemed to be trying to adopt him. Any mother of a teenage son would understand exactly how I felt about having someone else shoulder part of my food bills –
deeply
grateful.

‘OK, and I’ll come and fetch you later, Grumps, if you ring me,’ I told him.

Luckily his eccentric taste in clothes meant he hadn’t had
far to look among his collection of garments to find something suitable for the role of John Dee – an embroidered, tasselled cap and a long, velvet robe fitted the bill quite nicely. He was a natural for the role.

Before they left I checked him over, a bit like an anxious parent whose child is off on a first date, making sure he had my phone number and a little money. ‘You may have to use the public phone at the back of the village hall and also there’s probably a kitty for refreshments,’ I explained.

‘Dear me, yes,’ he said, ‘I seem to have got out of the habit of social engagements, but I am sure it will do me good to get out into the world occasionally.’

I’m not sure the Sticklepond Re-enactment Society counts as the world, but it’s a start.

It was Laurence Yatton who called me later to tell me Grumps was ready to be picked up and, when I collected him, he seemed to have had a good time.

‘There were six kinds of biscuits, two of them home-made,’ he said approvingly, the cookie connoisseur. ‘Hebe Winter said that when she told her niece, Sophy, that I was to assume the role of John Dee, she suggested that I might occasionally go to Winter’s End dressed in character, when it is open to the public. They would rope off a special area where I could work and everyone would think I was drawing up a birth chart for the Queen, or some such thing. Just for an hour or two, as a special treat for visitors. They already have a Shakespeare, who makes an occasional appearance, as does Hebe in her role as Elizabeth the First.’

‘Would you do that?’ My reclusive old Grumps was constantly surprising me lately!

‘I don’t see why not. Many of the society are also Friends
of Winter’s End and work there in full costume as volunteers throughout the open season, but I would not, of course, have time for that, for I will be fully occupied with my own work and with the museum.’

I could tell he was now quite fancying himself in the role!

I still felt furious that Raffy should have burst back into my life just as it had begun to settle down into a pleasant pattern, and that feeling didn’t seem to be wearing off at all. In fact, every time I caught sight of him my heart gave a sudden jolt and then started thumping away at twice its normal rate, which couldn’t be good for me.

It must have puzzled Poppy and Felix (and presumably Raffy too), that a boy-and-girl affair that ended so long ago should still make me act this way, but I couldn’t explain it to them. And while I could force myself to
say
I forgave Raffy, that wasn’t going to extinguish the bitter, lonely flame that was burning in my heart for what was lost, was it?

I was sure Raffy was trying to keep out of my way, just as I was trying to keep out of his, but of course that was impossible in a small place like Sticklepond. He buzzed around in his little un-rock-god Mercedes hatchback, presumably going to church-related meetings and making calls. He buried, christened and said prayers but so far, hadn’t married (no takers till spring had sprung), and he walked his little dog past my cottage very early every morning, without fail. I knew this, because I watched him from behind the shop window curtain. It still seemed strange to me to see the white gleam of the clerical collar at his throat, even if it was just printed
onto a black T-shirt: it was a symbol of what he had now become, however improbable…

According to Poppy, Raffy was still determinedly carrying on with his scheme of visiting all the houses in the parish, which could prove to be his life’s work once he reached the scattered outskirts and set out into the countryside.

He and Felix really had struck up an unlikely friendship, too. I’d found Raffy in Marked Pages more than once myself, although he’d always hurried out as I went in.

He was paying contractors to clear the worst jungly bits of the vicarage gardens, I’d also seen him out there, hacking down overgrown shrubs side by side with them.

Anyway, he was suddenly ubiquitous…or do I mean omnipresent? No, I suppose that’s God. Anyway, Raffy was
everywhere
and a huge, huge success – with the female parishioners in particular. They may have been dubious initially, but they couldn’t resist that smile, it had been the downfall of many and
I
should know.

And evidently it was a well-known fact that a single vicar, in possession of a modest fortune, must be in need of a wife.

‘Raffy visited Grumps again the other day,’ I told Poppy, though I didn’t mention that he’d looked my way as he passed the shop window while I was working, and this time given me a tentative wave. ‘They seem to enjoy the verbal sparring, and even Zillah’s warmed to him, since the cards told her he’s got a vital role to play in what is to come.’

‘He’s bound to play a part in everything, now he’s the vicar, isn’t he?’ she pointed out.

‘She just meant the Mann-Drake situation, I think, though she might have interpreted the meaning wrongly.’
I heaved a sigh. ‘Even simply knowing Raffy was in the area would have been difficult enough, without
seeing
him all over the place. I suppose I ought to have started to get used to it by now, but I haven’t.’