Page 28 of The Twilight Garden

They’d used the tearoom as the location for their first meet-up, but as they were leaving, Ashley had offered to help in the search for clues to the farm’s heritage, also suggesting that they next meet in Ashley’s house. More comfortable and a darned sight cheaper, was how she put it. So, just before half past one, Gemma had hobbled over to the farm track and waited in the freezing wind for Ashley to collect her.

Once Gemma was settled in the car, Ashley had looked towards the derelict farmhouse and shivered. ‘Rather you than me,’ she said. ‘I like the idea of renovation in principle, but I don’t think I could ever tackle such a big project. Where would you even start?’

Gemma was puzzled for a moment until she realised what Ashley was getting at. ‘Oh… no one’s renovating it,’ she said. ‘It’s just being used for storage at the moment, but I think the idea will be to take it down eventually.’

‘So where does everyone live then?’ Ashley peered through the window. ‘There’s nothing else here.’

Gemma smiled. ‘That’s because the house is camouflaged. Willow and Rowan have built a place in among the trees, over the back there.’ She pointed. ‘It’s hard to explain, but it’s kind of modular. They have a friend whose company makes them. They’re very eco-friendly, apparently.’ She lowered her voice as if somehow she was doing Willow and Rowan a disservice. And Leo, too, but she wasn’t going to think about that. ‘I don’t really understand the technicalities,’ she added. ‘Actually, I don’t understand them at all, but it’s very nice.’

Ashley nodded and pointed at the farmhouse. ‘But this is the place you’re researching? It doesn’t look very big.’

‘No, it isn’t. It’s what might have been here before it that interests us.’

‘Ah, gotcha. Well, I’ve made some scones to keep us going, so let’s go and see what we can find out. It’s quite exciting, isn’t it?’

That was twenty minutes ago, and now both of them were sitting at Ashley’s enormous kitchen table, with a laptop each and the prospect of several hours’ work ahead of them. But at least the scones were a help.

‘I never know,’ said Gemma, ‘is it jam first, or cream?’

‘Well, that depends on whether you hail from Devon or Cornwall.’

‘And what if you don’t come from either?’ Gemma was holding a knife, on the end of which was an enormous blob of clotted cream.

‘Then you just slather them both on in any order and don’t worry about it,’ replied Ashley. ‘Although strictly speaking, as we’re in Cornwall it’s definitely jam first.’

Gemma looked at her knife again. ‘Oh dear…’ But then she slathered on the cream, loaded jam on the top and took a huge bite, sighing with pleasure. ‘These are very good,’ she mumbled through a mouthful of crumbs.

‘I’m not an expert, but I think if you make them two inches thick you can’t go far wrong. That, and they don’t keep very well, so eat them all on the day you make them.’

Gemma eyed the plate where another ten fat scones were heaped. ‘I’ll do my best,’ she said, grinning.

They had agreed to split the information that Gemma had already started searching through into sections, so that each of them was assigned a number of individual years and would look at all of the documents the archive held relating to them. Gemma suspected it was rather much easier for Ashley because she knew the local place names, whereas Gemma had to look them up each time to see how close they were. For almost an hour, neither of them spoke, and the only sound was either the munching of a scone or the swallowing of tea.

It was Ashley who broke the relative silence first. ‘There’s some really interesting stuff on here,’ she said. ‘Look at this.’ She swivelled her laptop around so that Gemma could see it. ‘It’s the household accounts for a large house from 1785. Proper Downton Abbey stuff – footmen, scullery maids, coachman, second under-gardener. It’s fascinating. There are photos, too.’ She clicked on another document reference. ‘A dour-looking lot, aren’t they?’

Gemma surveyed the photos. ‘They probably didn’t have a great deal to smile about,’ she said. ‘I imagine being a scullery maid back then wasn’t a huge amount of fun.’

‘No, I don’t suppose it was. Interesting, though – the information, not the job.’ She rolled her eyes.

‘What’s the name of the house?’ asked Gemma.

‘Um… Brenant? Never heard of it. There’s a list of provisions I’ve seen on another page which mentions game from the estate and fish, too.’

‘That would make sense,’ said Gemma. ‘A very different kind of life, that’s for sure. Are you a Downton Abbey fan?’

‘It used to be my guilty pleasure,’ replied Ashley. ‘Every Sunday night come hell or high water. And now that it’s on Netflix, I can binge-watch a whole series in a day. I must have seen it several times through.’

‘Me too. I used to watch it with my mum.’ She leaned back from the screen. ‘Happy times,’ she said without elaborating.

They continued looking for another hour or so until Gemma came to with a start, suddenly realising that she’d hardly moved in all that time. Her foot had gone to sleep and there was a crick in her neck which could readily turn into a headache if she wasn’t careful. It was also gone four o’clock.

‘I probably ought to be getting back,’ she said, arching her back to stretch out the kink in it. ‘If you’re okay to drop me home? I can’t do much at the moment with this blessed ankle, but I promised Rowan I’d give him a hand with dinner. Peel the veg, at any rate.’ She pointed to the scones. ‘Thanks for those, they were gorgeous.’

‘My pleasure.’ Ashley got to her feet and spirited the leftovers away to the other side of the kitchen. ‘Plus, you saved me from eating them all myself. Thanks so much for coming over, Gemma.’

‘It’s me who should be thanking you. We’ve covered a lot of ground today. Maybe not the right ground, but it would have taken me so much longer without your help.’

‘I’m happy to.’ Ashley paused, clearly weighing something up. She cleared her throat. ‘What my nan said the other day, back in the tearoom – about me not having any friends…’ She gave a sad smile. ‘Hard not to hear her really… Anyway, it’s true. I’ve still got family in the village, but I moved away when I was younger and my husband and I only moved back a few years ago. I don’t find it all that easy joining in with things, so it means a lot you coming over. It’s been really nice.’