What Would Jane Austen Do?, page 18
Maddy returned the smile. ‘A perfect summer’s day.’
She had never met them before and wondered if they were locals. Everyone round here seemed so friendly and always had time to stop and exchange a few words. Maddy couldn’t help but contrast the scene to her former daily commute on the London underground: noisy, congested, and everyone in such a hurry to get somewhere. Life here seemed like a different world away.
‘There’s already too many people in there, I’ll just wait out here,’ said Luke.
‘Fine. I won’t be long.’
The flower section was near the front of the store where several buckets stood in a row holding multi-coloured ready-wrapped bouquets. What would Joyce like? Maddy discounted the elegant but rather plain arrangements of white flowers with sprays of grey and green foliage, and the large bunches of star-gazer lilies that dropped carpet-staining orange pollen everywhere. She thought back to Nigel’s funeral and Joyce’s colourful outfit, and selected a mixed bouquet of butter-yellow chrysanthemums, single-stem dark pink roses, orange gerberas and something tall with delicate purple flowers that she couldn’t identify.
The flowers were dripping water on her feet as she waited to pay for her purchase and as she stood in the queue she became aware of a small stone or piece of grit that was now spiking the sole of her foot. She would deal with that when she got back outside. Thankfully, the cashier had some paper to wrap around the flowers and when Maddy mentioned that they were for Joyce, she insisted on adding a pink ribbon too.
‘And she asked us to send on her best wishes,’ said Maddy as she stood outside the shop trying to twist her shoe off. ‘Joyce clearly knows a lot of people round here.’
‘Or possibly everyone knows Joyce,’ replied Luke. ‘Are you doing some sort of solo dance by the way?’
‘Yes, it’s called the I’ve-got-a-stone-in-my-shoe dance,’ quipped Maddy. ‘Oh, stupid thing,’ she muttered as she squatted down, balanced the flowers across her knees and used her finger to lever off her heel so she could locate the offending piece of grit.
‘Don’t worry about trying to help,’ she muttered under her breath as she finally managed to prise the small stone out.
Luke grinned. ‘Fine by me.’
Behind her, someone was clapping. She stood up and whirled around to see the elderly couple observing them. They weren’t the only spectators either – a young woman in a shapeless grey hoodie was loitering with interest.
‘What did he say?’ the lady in the wheelchair asked her companion.
‘He said “fine by me”. Maybe that’s what modern folk say these days.’ He stepped forward with a broad smile and reached out to Maddy. ‘Well done.’
She wondered what on earth he was talking about but out of politeness took his outstretched hand. His skin felt dry and wrinkly, but he had a firm handshake.
The man turned to Luke. ‘And congratulations to you too; you’re a lucky man.’
‘What on earth do you mean?’ Luke’s hands remained firmly affixed to his side as his features rapidly formed a scowl.
In a sudden flash of clarity, Maddy burst out laughing. ‘Oh goodness no, I wasn’t proposing! I just had a stone in my shoe and was trying not to drop my flowers.’
‘My apologies,’ said the elderly man, looking rather discomfited. ‘We both thought …well erm…’ He cleared his throat. ‘We’ll leave you to enjoy your day.’ With a polite nod, he turned back to his companion and hurried along the high street as fast as he could push the chair. The hooded teenager stood smirking and prodding at her phone. Maddy hoped she wasn’t going to appear on TikTok later in the day. She could see how the scene had been misinterpreted though, and it was rather amusing to think some random stranger thought she was going down on one knee to propose to a man who thought romance was a waste of effort. Elizabeth Bennet would certainly have been exceedingly diverted.
‘I bet you enjoyed that, didn’t you?’ growled Luke.
‘You have to admit it was rather funny.’
‘Not in the slightest.’
‘Well, if you’d offered to hold the flowers for me while I was wrestling with my shoe, it might not have looked quite so proposal-y.’
‘Why on earth would anyone with any sense want to propose to someone in the middle of the street anyway? It’s a bloody ridiculous idea and it encourages people to jump to the wrong conclusions.’
‘Well, let them! It wasn’t as if I was actually propositioning you!’
‘I’m relieved to hear it,’ Luke shot back. ‘I’m glad you’ve had your fun.’ He turned and marched back along the street.
‘Where are you going? Hey, it was just a misunderstanding!’ Maddy shouted after him. Luke continued walking. Maddy cupped her hands round her mouth as she added, ‘And for avoidance of doubt, I had not known you a day before I felt that you were the last man in the world I would ever propose to, if that makes you feel any better!’
What the hell was wrong with him? It was rather an over-reaction to what was actually a harmless and amusing misunderstanding. At least Joyce might be entertained, even if Mr Grumpy was not.
Joyce lived on the outskirts of Cotlington in one of the bungalows built in the seventies as part of the village expansion. Unlike the row of terraced cottages where Sally lived, which had colourful individually painted exteriors, the row of bungalows in Heather Lane were all built in the same sandy brick colour with white window frames and topped with grey roof tiles. The main distinguishing feature of each was the small patch of garden at the front.
Joyce’s front garden was a patch of grass and clover, with a small stone flower fairy in one corner and a painted gnome in a red hat and blue coat standing guard at the front door. Maddy pressed the doorbell and heard a jaunty synthesised version of ‘Für Elise’ playing inside. The door was opened by a woman who Maddy judged to be in her mid-sixties. She peered at Maddy from behind a pair of blue framed spectacles.
‘Hello.’ Maddy smiled brightly. ‘I heard Joyce was unwell so I thought I’d pop over to see how she was. And to bring some flowers.’
A voice wafted along the hallway: ‘Who is it, Kath?’
‘It’s Maddy!’ Maddy called out. ‘Bringing succour to the weary and all that.’
If Maddy had been asked what she thought Joyce’s home was like, she’d have guessed it would be decorated in bright colours and full of knick-knacks and ornaments. To her surprise, the décor was plain, the walls painted in complementing muted colours. A couple of framed prints hung on the wall and a display cabinet in the corner held a selection of ornamental plates, a china dog, and a Lladró figurine of an angel.
On the mantelpiece there was a framed wedding photograph of a couple standing outside a church, laughing as petals of confetti fluttered around them. The attire was definitely of an earlier decade, but it was clearly a happy picture.
Joyce was sitting in a burgundy upholstered armchair with her foot up on a small, cushioned stool in a matching colour. Her face broke into a broad smile as her guest approached.
Maddy gestured to her foot. ‘You look like you’ve been in the wars.’
‘Trying to do too much as usual,’ grumbled Kath.
‘Maddy, this is my younger sister,’ said Joyce, pointing at the grumbler. ‘She thinks I overdo things. Kath would prefer it if I sat in my chair and watched telly all day, wouldn’t you?’
‘So how did you injure yourself?’ asked Maddy. ‘Did you fall over something?’
‘Off something might be more accurate,’ said Kath tartly, but with a caring smile.
‘I was using the stepstool to look in a cupboard for the bunting I made last year for the literary festival. Nigel commented on it at the time; he thought it was ever so good.’ Her voice faltered for a moment and not for the first time, Maddy realised how fond everyone had been of Nigel and how much they all missed him.
‘I was reaching up to get to one of the boxes on top of the wardrobe and the next minute I was on the floor. It’s a right nuisance as I’d been planning to go to a funeral later that afternoon.’
Maddy murmured the usual expressions of sympathy. She guessed that at Joyce’s age it was rather inevitable that one would end up going to more funerals than weddings, but to her knowledge she’d already been to three in the last four months.
While Kath made everyone a cup of tea, Maddy filled a vase with water and arranged the flowers for Joyce.
‘They’re from me and Luke,’ she said, positioning them on the small table to the side of Joyce’s armchair, even though Luke didn’t really deserve the accreditation after his earlier behaviour.
‘And how is our writer in residence?’ asked Joyce with a cheeky wink.
Maddy huffed out a sigh. ‘You may well ask. He was planning on coming with me actually’—Joyce didn’t need to know he’d lost a bet—‘but he had an artistic meltdown outside the general store.’ Maddy gave Joyce a quick recap of the hilarious not-a-proposal and how Luke had reacted.
‘Anyone would think I’d personally insulted him the way he responded,’ she said, her voice brimming with indignation. She’d had time to think as she’d walked the final two hundred metres to Joyce’s house, and while it was amusing that people thought she was actually proposing, surely Luke shouldn’t have been quite so offended? She was prepared to acknowledge that he was a good-looking man as well as an internationally bestselling author so he could clearly take his pick of eligible females, but it still hurt to realise that as far as he was concerned, she was totally unsuitable.
Joyce took a sip of her tea. ‘Did you know he’d been engaged to someone in the past?’
‘Yes, someone did mention it in passing, but I don’t know any of the details.’
‘Well,’ said Joyce, clearly delighted to be able to share some news, ‘according to my friend Daphne, it was a right row and a half when they broke up.’
Having received a few broadsides from Luke in the past, Maddy had no difficulty in imagining that.
‘Well now, Daphne’s daughter used to have a few cleaning jobs in the area, and one of them was for our writer in residence, and it was quite a job. He wasn’t living in Cotlington in those days and his house was a total mess—and as for that kitchen! It took her ages to tidy everything away. Coffee cups everywhere, half eaten packets of biscuits—’
‘So did the fiancée live there too?’ Maddy asked, hoping to steer Joyce back onto the more interesting elements of the tale.
Joyce shook her head. ‘Not that Daphne heard. It was him that broke it off though by all accounts. They hadn’t been engaged long either. Just a matter of days. The poor girl was distraught. Not long afterwards she turned up and just stood on the doorstep and there was a real shouting match. Daphne said her daughter could hear it all over the house. Goodness knows what the neighbours thought.’
Maddy suppressed a wry smile at hearing one of her mum’s favourite expressions. So Randall was speaking the truth then about Luke’s broken engagement. She had half assumed that he’d just put his own spin on some old news, but apparently not. Was this why the Cameron Massey façade was always one of a grumpy, irascible writer?
‘And did Daphne say how long her daughter continued working there?’
Joyce shifted in her chair and winced as her foot moved slightly. ‘I don’t remember, love. Daphne passed away—it was a stroke, her daughter said—but it all seems a long time ago now,’ she added wistfully. ‘Of course there was a time when Reg and I knew everything that was going on in the village. Folk liked to chat when they popped into the post office. They didn’t want to be rushed along like shopping on a supermarket conveyor belt. Nowadays there’s hardly time for a good morning.’
Coming from her London life, Maddy had been used to rushing into and out of shops, hurrying to catch a bus or the next tube train, and couldn’t recall ever stopping to talk to anyone unless she bumped into someone she knew. If anyone had started up a natter with the sales assistant there’d have been tuts, and shouts of ‘get a move on!’ from the people behind. She wondered how many Joyces there were in the world who were a bit lonely and just wanted a few minutes of people’s time now and then.
‘And now everyone seems to talk on the interweb thingy,’ Joyce continued. She rummaged in the sturdy leather handbag propped against her chair and pulled out a phone. ‘Can you show me how to do Twitter?’
Maddy was momentarily taken aback. It wasn’t every day that your local septuagenarian decided to launch themselves online, but surely that was just a prejudiced presumption? She smiled as she pulled out her own phone. ‘I’d be delighted to be your first follower.’
It took only a few minutes to get an account set up for Joyce, and after a disappointing search through her contacts – who clearly didn’t feel the need to be on Twitter – only yielded one niece, they started widening the net. It wasn’t long before Joyce was following everyone in the current series of Love Island, the cast of Made in Chelsea, and Richard Osman – very good at quizzes, that man. She was busily searching for Prue Leith as Maddy’s phone started ringing.
‘Don’t mind me, you answer the phone; it might be important,’ Joyce said with a wave of her hand.
Maddy stood up and moved towards the door. ‘Hello?’
An urgent and familiar voice barked, ‘Maddy, it’s Luke. Buster’s gone.’
Chapter Twenty-Three
Sometimes one is guided by what they say of themselves, and very frequently by what other people say of them, without giving oneself time to deliberate and judge.
Elinor Dashwood, Sense and Sensibility
* * *
A jolt of alarm shot through Maddy. ‘Oh no! What do you mean gone? Isn’t he in the garden somewhere? I thought Jem was keeping an eye on him?’
‘He was. At least he said he was. Apparently someone called Sally popped over to deliver something—’
‘And he took his eye off the dog,’ finished Maddy. ‘Could Buster have tried to go back to your house? I know it’s a building site but…’
An exasperated sound ricocheted off her ear drum. ‘That was the first place I checked after finding he wasn’t at Meadowside. Jem’s been out to the fields behind the house. I’m going to take the car and drive around a bit. Can you keep your eyes open on the way back?’
‘Of course. I’ll come and give you a hand.’
‘Is it bad news?’ asked Joyce as Maddy tucked her phone back into her bag.
‘Luke’s dog’s run off. He’s a bit of a professional escape artist and he probably didn’t like being left behind. He gets a bit anxious. The dog I mean, not Luke.’ She squeezed Joyce’s hand gently. ‘Sorry, I’d better go and help with the search. Thanks for the tea, and I’ll say goodbye to Kath on the way out. And I’m sorry you weren’t able to go to the funeral this afternoon.’
‘Don’t fret about that. There’ll be other occasions, I’m sure.’
If Maddy had had more time to think, she might have found that an odd thing to say, but her thoughts were now focused on Buster. Over the last few months, she had grown increasingly fond of the loveable rogue and she knew that despite Luke’s indifferent attitude to many of his fellow humans, he was extremely attached to his dog. Since the ghost hunting evening it was clear that Buster slept with Luke every night and perhaps they provided each other with a feeling of mutual security. She didn’t want to think about what might happen if Buster didn’t come back. Or worse, if they discovered the unthinkable had happened.
As she marched briskly along the High Street, she kept glancing left and right, down every alleyway and round every corner, but there was no sign of him. How far could he have gone? Would he stay around the house or had he gone off looking for his master? As she reached the junction with Springfield Lane she spotted Luke’s Astra heading in her direction and she waved. Luke slowed down and Maddy hurried to the passenger window. ‘Do you want me to go back and cover the fields again, or is there something more useful I can do?’
Luke leaned over and opened the door. ‘I was planning to drive around a bit as I can’t see him in the village. Do you mind being the lookout? I prefer to watch the road when I’m driving. Sorry about the state of the car.’
Maddy jumped in, ignoring the dog hair and pawprints everywhere, and they headed out of Cotlington in the direction of Haxford, the nearest major town. For five minutes neither of them spoke. Maddy swivelled in her seat to make it easier to look down side roads and across fields. Her eyes strained as she tried to identify anything that might look like a white and tan dog with large floppy brown ears and a white waggy tail, but all she saw were fields of sheep, three ponies, a party of ramblers and something that could have been a llama.
After reaching the outskirts of Haxford, they turned back towards Cotlington via a different and more circuitous route. The vinyl seatbelt scraped uncomfortably against her neck but Maddy maintained her constant vigil. As they turned into Springfield Lane, Luke slowed down and then stopped. ‘There are fewer trees at this end of the lane. We might see better from here.’
The hedgerows were still going to obstruct their view but now wasn’t the time to point that out. The truth was they could be searching in completely the wrong area but neither wanted to be first to suggest going home.
Maddy got out and cupped her hands around her mouth. ‘BUSTER!’ she yelled at the top of her voice.
‘HERE, BOY! BISCUITS!’ shouted Luke, followed by every other food word in Buster’s vocabulary. ‘Where could he have got to?’ said Luke running his hand through his hair, his voice thick with desperation. ‘The hedgerows are too high here to see over.’
Maddy jumped in the air to see if it improved her line of sight.
‘Try standing up there,’ said Luke, pointing.
Maddy frowned. ‘That’s your car.’
‘Yes, well spotted, Sherlock. But you’ll be able to see better from up there.’
‘And possibly dent the car.’
