After the excitement of the lunch, Nightingale Woods settled down to its usual quiet self. With some of the staff back, Meg found she could easily manage doing the cooking and the guests they did have were extremely happy with the standard of food and level of service. To Louise’s huge relief, Susan, who had been the most senior member of staff and in charge of them all, decided it would be better if her daughter Cherry came in daily to help clear up after breakfast and clean the rooms, and do anything else that was required. Susan’s son also agreed to come in the evenings if a male presence was required – although everyone, including Susan, felt that they could manage perfectly well without a male presence for most of the time.
Louise and Meg did the rest, which included delivering the early-morning tea to the guests’ bedrooms.
Everyone also agreed that the kitchen garden should be resurrected and money was set aside to pay for Susan’s husband and her other son to do this.
‘I’ll tell you this, Louise, Bob’s been that niggled, seeing all his good work disappear under the weedshe’d soon as do it for nothing.’ Susan paused. ‘Not that I’ll be allowing that sort of nonsense.’
‘Of course not, Susan!’ said Louise, suitably horrified. ‘We couldn’t let him do it for nothing. Even if he begged to be allowed to.’
Susan laughed, as she was supposed to.
A few days later, Louise and Meg were in the office discussing whether they should do some advertising, even just locally, when the telephone rang. Meg answered it and then gave a small scream: it was Alexandra.
‘Alexandra!’ Meg couldn’t contain her delight in hearing her friend’s voice. ‘How lovely that it’s you!’
Alexandra was one of the two girls Meg had lived with in London. She was now living in a chateau in France, with her dashing French husband, who was, Meg felt, one of the kindest as well as one of the most attractive men she had ever met. She went on, ‘If you’ve got my number, you must have got the postcard I sent you!’
‘No, I didn’t actually, but you’d told me the name of the hotel you were going to and I looked it up. I’m in London! I’m with David. There’s a problem with the London house and we came over to sort it out. Well, I came to sort it out, he came to do an antiques market. His French stuff sells extremely well over here.’
‘Just David? No Maxime?’ Maxime was David’s companion in France.
‘No, he has to work,’ said Alexandra. ‘But he said that David and I should come on our own and get up to mischief.’
‘It’s so lovely to hear you! I really hope you don’t have to go back to France just yet?’ Although she hadn’t intended to, Meg realised she sounded a little bit pathetic.
‘No! Antoine is home and everything is fine at the chateau. We thought we’d come and visit you and Lizzie. Not at the same time, obviously. David will stay in a bed and breakfast when we see Lizzie, but we hoped you might have two rooms you could put us in.’
‘We’ve got rather more than that,’ said Meg. ‘And we’d absolutely love to have you! As our guests, of course.’ A second after she’d said this she realised it wasn’t in her gift, really.
‘Nonsense!’ Alexandra said immediately. ‘You know perfectly well I am not short of a bean or two and I’ve bought rather a dashing car so we’ll swoop down in that. We’ll visit Lizzie and Hugo first, as they’re sort of on the way, and then we’ll come on to see you!’
Lizzie was the other girl they’d lived with, who now lived in a little house in the woods with her husband and small daughter.
‘Do you think Lizzie and Hugo could come for lunch or something? Or would it be too far?’
‘I think it might be a bit far for that, but we’ll work out something,’ said Alexandra. ‘And it would be nice if Vanessa could come too. She’s living with her parents at the moment, who are driving her mad. Now that Hugo isn’t there any more to dilute them, she says they’re impossible.’
‘Of course she can come,’ said Meg, delighted to think the hotel would soon be filled with old friends.
‘She told me she’s at rather a loose end, waiting until she and Simon can get married.’
‘Simon was Hugo’s best man, wasn’t he?’ So much had happened since Lizzie’s wedding, Meg took a moment to catch up. ‘Remind me why they’ve been engaged so long?’
‘It’s not that long,’ said Alexandra. ‘Unlike with me and Antoine, they didn’t get engaged immediately. Simon’s brother is in Switzerland doing something important but is coming home for good in September, which is why they’re waiting until then to have the wedding. Although preparations have begun, I gather.’
‘Oh, OK. Well, when can you and David come to stay down here? Please make it soon!’
They made their arrangements and ended the call.
‘That was Alexandra,’ said Meg to Louise.
‘I gathered that, darling. And she’s coming to stay?’
Meg nodded. ‘With David. Do you remember David?’
‘Of course I remember David. He was so kind and helpful with our little dog. Do you want to finish telling me while I check the guest rooms that are booked for tonight?’
A few minutes later, Louise, deftly flicking a bedspread into place having inspected what was underneath, said, ‘I don’t think I met Alexandra, but you did tell me all about her wedding. She sounds wonderful.’
