Wedding Tiers. Trisha Ashley

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       Chapter Eight Snap Happy

       Round here, on Guy Fawkes Night, we still tend to carve turnip heads to put our candles in, rather than pumpkins. The smell of hot turnip, the exciting tang of gunpowder in the air and the taste of hard, home-made, splintery treacle toffee—those are the things I associate with 5^th November.

       Sometimes we go over to the bonfire at Middlemoss, a few miles away, where they have the strange tradition of burning an effigy of Oliver Cromwell instead of Guy Fawkes…

      ‘Cakes and Ale’

      Libby finally left for her shopping trip to London early next day, which, considering her wedding day was now less than three weeks away, was pushing it a bit. I was not even going to think about what monstrous bridesmaid’s creation she might bring back for me…

      Later that morning I was standing at the sink washing up the equipment I’d just used to make parsnip wine, when I glanced out at the tranquil Green and spotted Aggie, the escapologist hen, wandering up the road. Without stopping to take off my red rubber gloves, I shot out of the front door.

      A large, maroon car was sweeping up towards me and the unaware hen, who was ambling along in its path in an aimless, hesitating sort of way.

      ‘Aggie!’ I yelled, and, without thinking, leaped forward into the road to make a grab for her. Behind me, the car slammed on its brakes with a squeal, but Aggie, squawking loudly, shot off across the grass, with me in hot pursuit.

      Luckily, all the titbits I’d given her made her too fat to keep up any kind of pace, so I soon scooped her up and tucked her under my arm. She gave in instantly, and made amiable clucking noises.

      The driver of the old Jaguar that had so narrowly missed us was now standing next to it: a tall, slender man with short, ruffled black hair and an olive complexion that contrasted startlingly with his light grey eyes. As we approached, he had the cheek to whip a camera up and click away with it!

      I was already cross and this didn’t improve my temper, so I marched up to him and let rip: ‘Are you mad, driving so fast in a village? You could have killed Aggie—in fact, you could have killed both of us!’

      ‘Ooo-er!’ agreed Aggie, softly.

      ‘I wasn’t actually driving fast,’ he said, with a hint of amusement in those grey eyes that made me feel even crosser. ‘In fact, I was crawling—and I’d seen the hen. I just wasn’t expecting a madwoman in red rubber gloves to hurtle out right after her.’

      Aggie made another throaty crooning noise and he lifted his camera—an old-fashioned one, I noticed, not a new digital job—and clicked the shutter.

      ‘What on earth do you think you’re doing?’

      ‘Sorry—habit. Do you mind?’ He had a very charming, apologetic smile that tilted upwards at one corner, but I wasn’t at all beguiled.

      ‘Yes, I do mind!’

      ‘Once a photographer…’ he drawled, looking at me assessingly with half-closed eyes. ‘And you do make rather a unique picture, standing holding that hen.’

      I became conscious that my hair was blowing out in the wind like a banner, my feet were bare and frozen, and my red rubber gloves did little to add to an ensemble that consisted of a rather pulled green fleece over torn dungarees. ‘Maybe, but you should ask permission first!’

      ‘Sorry, it really was just impulse. Actually, I’m looking for a house called Blessings, if I have the name right. It sounds a bit unlikely.’

      ‘Blessings?’

      ‘Yes. You’ve heard of it?’

      ‘You’re practically next to it. It’s that Elizabethan pile over there. Are you…I mean, do you know Tim Rowland-Knowles?’

      He looked that type—sort of minor public school, comfortably off and assured.

      ‘Not yet. But an old friend, Libby Cazzini, says she’s going to marry him, so, since I was passing nearby, I thought I’d pop in on my way back to London.’

      ‘You’re СКАЧАТЬ