‘Then you’ll be disappointed.’
He raised one eyebrow and she couldn’t decide whether to be grateful or irritated as he took a measured, assessing look at her drawings.
‘These are really good.’ He sounded genuinely impressed but then most people thought a picture was good if things were in perspective. He continued to study the pictures with a thoroughness that Ella hadn’t expected. ‘I feel as if I could touch them and they’d spring to life.’ He smiled, a half-hearted thing of a smile, as if surprised by his own fancifulness. ‘In fact I expect them to move at any second. It must take real skill to draw like this.’
Seeing the pictures with new eyes, she gave a hesitant answering nod. Gentle pride bubbling up for the first time in a very long time. ‘Thank you.’
‘Now I understand the music.’ He pointed to the female mouse in her red flamenco dress. ‘Cute.’
He turned another page and burst out laughing, a wholehearted uninhibited gale of laughter she hadn’t thoughthim capable of. He shook his head in amusement. ‘Priceless.’ With a broad gin, he pointed to the picture of Englebert clutching his Spanish guitar, an expression of extreme seriousness on his whiskered face. ‘Do I recognise him?’
Ella’s eyes widened and she put a hand over her mouth. ‘Oh Lord, do you?’
With dancing eyes, Devon nodded. ‘Yes, I think I do. If I’m not mistaken, he bears a decided likeness to our esteemed vicar.’ Devon flicked through a few more of the pages lying on the table, his lips pinched together, cheeks dimpling as if trying to hold back his amusement.
Ella ran over and put a hand on the pages. ‘Damn. I thought no one else would notice. Is it really that obvious?’
‘Probably not. It’s only because I saw the sketch you did in the pub.’
‘Do you think it’s . . . too much? I’m going to have to change him. Shame, Englebert, that’s the character’s name, has only just come into his own.’
Devon shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t worry. I doubt anyone else would pick it up. Besides, Richard would probably think it’s quite flattering. It’s not as if it’s a malicious or unkind representation.’
‘Yes, but people might laugh at him.’
‘I think to be a vicar these days you have to be fairly thick-skinned and I’m sure Richard would see the funny side of it.’
‘All the same.’
‘People will laughwithhim, not at him and if they’re laughing at him, that says more about them.’
‘What do you mean?’ Ella couldn’t comprehend his view. Being laughed at was horrible. When he’d said laughing was his way of coping with things at work, it was different. They were situations that were beyond his control. She lived in dread of people laughing at her work. Ridiculing the things that she’d puther heart and soul into. Perhaps that’s why in recent years, she’d held back. Fear had a great way of stifling things.
‘Don’t you think that if someone laughs unkindly, it means they’re mean-spirited? It’s deliberate. Small-minded.’
‘I guess. I’d never thought of it like that.’
It came to her with a sudden rush of freedom, like a lance bursting a boil, releasing the poison. No wonder she hadn’t been able to do anything truly creative, she’d been bound by fear of what others would think.
Chapter Nineteen
‘Oh God, you weren’t kidding. This is truly awful.’ Ella stared at the horrible colour on Bets’ kitchen walls. ‘I’m not sure I can even describe this colour. What were you thinking?’ The awful walls notwithstanding, Bets’ living space was wonderful. ‘Thank God you didn’t paint the lounge.’ It would have taken for ever to redo, with those high walls reaching up to the wooden rafters.
Bets’ home was part of a series of converted barns which had been split into several properties. Hers was the smallest of five.
‘The kitchen aside, this place is lovely. I had no idea from the outside.’
‘Thanks.’ Bets giggled. ‘The paint looked different in the shop, it was only when I started, I realised how awful it was and then it was too late to stop. I figured if I kept going it might not be quite so bad when it dried. I was wrong.’
‘Good job you’ve got me then. Look, I even brought you your own painting overalls.’ Ella had found two pairs when she was sorting through Magda’s shed and was already wearing a set.
Bets’ idea of a paintbrush was a semi-bald, sad-looking thing which Ella immediately vetoed in horror. ‘You can’t use that thing! What have you been doing with it?’
Bets looked innocent. ‘I might have used it to clean out a leaky gutter.’
Ella didn’t bother responding to that. ‘And you need proper masking tape, not Sellotape.’ She put her hands on her hips and gave Bets a mock glare. ‘You’re hopeless.’
‘Can’t we just paint carefully around the edges?’
