‘I told Louise most of it,’ said Vanessa. ‘Your mother’s so kind, isn’t she? Runs in the family! The wedding just became too much for me. And the parents are so absolutely livid with me. I can never go home again.’ She was smiling, as if making a joke, but Meg could tell she genuinely believed this.
‘But what about Simon? Don’t you love him any more?’ This seemed very unlikely, somehow.
Vanessa shook her head. ‘I don’t know how I feel about him. I try to imagine hearing that he’s ill or something and I can’t feel anything. That’s terrible of me, isn’t it? But I seem to have lost the ability to feel anything except miserable.’ She smiled to imply she was joking, but she obviously wasn’t.
‘How did he take the news that you’d called off the wedding?’ asked Meg. ‘Was he devastated?’
Vanessa gave a dramatic shrug. ‘I don’t know. I just wrote him a letter and haven’t heard from him since.’
Meg didn’t know what to make of this, so changed the subject. ‘You do know your mother is coming here for the play? Now it’s been rescheduled, Russell made a point of getting her to come.’
Vanessa nodded. ‘I’ll find somewhere to hide while she’s here.’ Then she frowned a little. ‘You know, it’s really quite freeing to think I might never have to put up with my grumpy father or snobbish, bossy mother ever again.’
Meg didn’t think she should openly agree with Vanessa’s summing up of her parents, although she did, completely. ‘Come on, let me give you a peek at where Dame Miriam will be staying, unless she changes her mind and wants to come back into the house. I think the rain has nearly stopped. Shall we go out and see?’
The cottage was a short walk away through the stable yard. It was one of the largest of the staff cottages and at one time would have housed the head groom and two under grooms.
‘What do you think?’ asked Meg, having unlocked the back door and led Vanessa through to the main room.
‘Oh my goodness!’ Vanessa clapped her hands. ‘It’s wonderful!’
Meg was pleased. ‘Mum worked very hard on it, getting the right textiles, so it looks in keeping but is cosy and comfortable.’
‘What about the bathroom?’
‘There were three quite large rooms upstairs, so Bob – you remember, Susan’s husband – has stolen a little bit from two of them to make space for a bathroom. It’s small but should be OK.’
‘Let’s go and see.’
Vanessa looked round the bedroom. There was a large, comfortable-looking bed, a small wardrobe and a little dressing table with an antique dressing-table set consisting of little trays, candlesticks and small bowls. On the wide windowsill was a matching ewer and washing bowl. The bedspread was faded cotton and bits of the same fabric edged the new curtains and cushions.
‘This is all so pretty!’
‘When the play was going to be on earlier, and before she fell over and broke her hip, Ambrosine found some bedspreads in a chest in the nursery. This is the best one. It’s very faded, of course, and fragile, but still pretty. The dressing-table set and jug and bowl had all been shoved in an attic. But of course Ambrosine knew where it all was.’
‘I think Dame Miriam is going to absolutely love it.’
Meg smiled and shrugged. ‘I’d prefer Dame Miriam to love being in the main house where it will be so much easier to get meals to her, but she must have what she wants.’
‘What will she do about meals?’
‘Someone will bring round baskets with food in them, like Little Red Riding Hood.’
Vanessa laughed. ‘This is so adorable. Old-fashioned but perfect.’
‘Ambrosine is going to fill the jug with flowers if she’s up to it. In fact, I’ll take the jug to her room so she can do it sitting down if she wants to. Dame Miriam could arrive at any moment! But hang on, let’snip into the bathroom, then I can say I’ve checked it, if Russell asks me.’
The bath was small and there was a footstool leading up to it. ‘This is really sweet too,’ said Vanessa.
‘The bathrooms in the house are better but Bob was very clever squeezing in a bathroom here at all. I’m not quite sure where the grooms who used to live here washed. In basins with jugs of water, I expect. There’s a privy in the garden.’
‘Are all the cottages as good as this?’
‘Not quite. This was Mum’s special project. She’d have made the others as lovely if she’d had time.’
Vanessa looked a little awkward. ‘Your mother told me she and Andrew are getting married. How do you feel about that? Is it a bit weird?’
‘I’m quite used to the idea,’ said Meg. ‘And I’m delighted. I’ve never seen Mum so keen on anyone before. I think marriage is the right thing for her.’ Meg thought about their lives before her mother had come to Nightingale Woods. ‘I’ve always felt obliged to look after her – not in a day-to-day way – but I’ve always wanted her to have a home that’s hers, and not attached to a job.’
