The morning of the Spring Fayre dawned with a brilliant blue sky, just like it did in all the picture-perfect village scenes on TV. No doubt Audrey was in charge of weather arrangements too or maybe she was friends with someone who was. Ella gave the blue postcard on the pinboard a quick smile.
‘Sorry, Tess,’ she said, giving the kitchen a quick once-over to make sure she’d left nothing out that might cause temptation. ‘I’ll come back for you later.’ With cakes on display and no doubt lots of other goodies, Tess might be – no scrub that,wouldbe – a liability. Better to come and retrieve her later when Ella’s stint on the tombola stall was over.
Bets was bang on time and already on the doorstep.
‘Morning. Can you believe this weather? I swear Audrey’s a witch. Now, what do you want me to carry? Has Geoffrey already been?’
‘Yes, bless him. Poor man, I think he’s been up since about six o’clock running around the village. He took all the bottles about twenty minutes ago.’
‘Thank goodness for that. I never want to see another raffle ticket or bottle of strange-coloured liqueur again in my life.’
‘Me neither, but thank you for coming to help. I don’t know what I’d have done without you.’ The night before, after Devon had stomped off, Ella had called in the cavalry and Bets had come round immediately to help, which was just as well as she had immediately pointed out that Ella was throwing away all the winning raffle tickets.
Bets gave her a quick hug and Ella hung on for a second. If anything, this morning she felt worse than she had done last night after Devon had left.
‘You should have brained Devon with one of the bottles. Stupid bugger. Honestly, men. I still can’t believe the stupid idiot wouldn’t listen to you.’
‘Please don’t say anything to him. He was furious enough with me that I’d “interfered” – he’ll be even more cross if he thinks I’ve told you.’
‘I’m glad you did. It explains a lot.’ Bets nudged her with an elbow. ‘Don’t give up on him. He’ll come round. I thought you two . . . well,’ she shot a cheeky grin at Ella, ‘over the last few weeks the two of you seemed to get on much better.’
Ella blushed. ‘Well, we were starting to.’
Bets fixed her with a penetrating stare.
‘But not any more.’
‘Which explains why he’s been in such a foul mood this morning. Well, aside from fielding calls from Marina; she’s been on the phone every five minutes—’
‘That’s because she’s determined to get him back and it will solve a lot of his problems. Especially as he wasn’t prepared to listen to what I had to say.’
Bets’ face suddenly broke into a broad grin. ‘There’s no way he’ll go back to Marina. No matter what she’s promising. The rest of the family will never speak to him again.’
‘You didn’t hear her the other night – she really loves him and she’s making him an offer he’d be mad to refuse. It’ll solve all his money worries.’
‘Don’t be silly. Devon’s pride’s taken a battering. Marina’s taken him to the cleaners, emotionally and financially. The last thing he wants is someone else bailing him out.’
‘I think he made that quite plain. Well, he can get on with it. Stupid man.’
‘And he’s going to have to, because as I was about to say before you interrupted me . . . he told her to get knotted this morning.’ Bets folded her arms and gave Ella a triumphant look.
‘He did?’
‘He did.’
‘Oh.’
Ella turned away to look out of the kitchen window, feeling her cheeks flush.
‘Ooh, is that the cake?’ Bets’ uncharacteristic attempt at diplomatically changing the subject brought a reluctant smile to Ella’s face. ‘Let’s have a look.’ She’d been intrigued the night before by the rows of sugar paste petals drying on tea towels on the kitchen side. So had Tess, but Ella had kept a close eye on her.
‘Yes, but whatever you do, don’t knock it.’ Ella had finished it in the early hours of the morning after Bets had left.
Bets slipped the lid from the cake tin, very, very carefully.
‘Oh, my. That’s amazing.’ She reached out a reverent finger to touch one of the sugar paste flowers.
Ella was rather pleased with it. She’d sandwiched the two slightly uneven cake layers together, and when they were covered with ready rolled icing, you couldn’t tell she’d had to slice the tops off. She’d then spent ages topping the surface with lots of yellow and white flowers. Just off the centre of the cake, on top of one of the flowers, was a tiny sugar-paste Cuthbert, complete with red fez, looking out over the sea of flowers for his brothers and sister. She’d managed to bring their game of hide and seek in a flower meadow to life perfectly. To his left, Herbert peeped up at him from where he hid under a daisy while on the other side of the cake, Bertram and Englebert giggled together from behind a yellow rose and Catherine peered out from between white petals.
