She Shoots to Conquer (41 page)

“At least some of those we’ve met would seem to have a good chance of happiness.”

“Yes, but there are Judy and Alice and Molly!”

“Don’t you worry,” answered Mrs. Malloy with her old confidence. “Things will work out perfect for them, along with everyone else. Celia Belfrey will do a bunk, Lord and Lady will go to live at Witch Haven, but they’ll keep Mucklesfeld as a refuge for the homeless old and young. Sad the way some can’t manage to put roofs over their children’s heads. Molly will stay on to teach dancing; Alice handwork; and Judy will turn part of the grounds into a paying proposition as a market garden. She’ll have plenty of help. And because it will all be a great big success, Georges LeBois will make a documentary about it that will help pour in money for a staff of health professionals under the direction of Dr. Belfrey.
Livonia will help out as much as poss, but she’ll have two cats and a new son named Thomas after his dad and . . .”

I didn’t interrupt. Fiction makes such a wonderful change from reality. Or—maybe not. Amazingly, everything turned out much as she predicted, except that Livonia also had a little girl named Eleanor . . . Ellie, for short. Alice married the detective involved in the case, who proved to be a great help with the sometimes troubled youth. And Molly gained fame from choreographing a ballet titled
The Cobweb Fairy
, but refused to give up teaching her Mucklesfeld pupils.

But all that was for the future, and I was entirely in the present. I had fallen in love during that week, passionately, irrevocably in love. When I confided this to Ben, he had not shown the smallest jealousy. It was he who managed it all . . . the talk with Tommy and Livonia, who talked to Mrs. Spuds, who talked to Mrs. Spendlow, who talked to her husband . . . who better than the rector to lift the burden of guilt over an ill-made promise from Mrs. Dawkins’s shoulders?

She was waiting at the gate with Thumper when we pulled up outside the house. He had on a new collar and a bright red lead.

“Just look at his lordship,” said Mrs. Malloy, sticking her head out the car window. “Now don’t go thinking you’ll be keeping him all to yourself, Mrs. H. I’ll be the one fixing up his dinner a treat and making sure he gets enough walkies. Like I’ve always said, who needs a man when you can have a dog?”

To my knowledge she’d never said anything of the sort. But perhaps neither reality nor fiction can ever be quite sufficient on its own . . . and life at its richest must be a perfect blending of the two.

Table of Contents

Cover

Title

Copyright

Dedication

Contents

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

Epilogue