AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘That’s what I wanted to tell you. Toby was so furious after your resignation that he made sure George Harlow was in no doubt whatsoever that the Baker-Colt Trust was your deal and there had been no input, even supervisory, from Edward. He warned Edward that if he persisted in taking credit where none was due, he would expose all his previous transgressions where the accounts were concerned.’
Rosie smiled as she conjured up a picture of Toby in full flow, squaring up to Edward, taking him to task for his misdemeanours. She knew Edward didn’t frighten him. In his frequently expressed opinion, managers of meagre talents tended to belittle and denigrate others they recognised possessed superior ability. Toby saw Edward as a typical NYC shark, almost a cliché, and he’d no need, nor desire, to impress him. However, out of respect for Rosie, he had recently chosen to maintain his counsel on the subject of their boss. Like any close-knit family, her work colleagues knew when their support was required, when to steer a wide berth, and when to turn up armed with a vanilla-spiced latte.
And Toby often offered her advice on the issue of love. ‘Don’t worry, Rosie. Logic dictates you’ve got to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince. Sadly, your particular frog is of the Poison Dart variety, and I can assure you it will not have a happy outcome.’
Well, he had been right there, hadn’t he?
Whilst Rosie was grateful to Lauren and Toby for sticking up for her professional abilities, she was horrified at the extent of Edward’s contempt for her. Edward Phillips, someone she thought respected her professionally, had even been prepared to trample all over her dreams of promotion to line his own coffers. Not only did he hold her in such low esteem in their personal relationship but, it seemed, in their professional one too.
Clarity hit her like a sledgehammer.
She had done the right thing. Now all she had to figure out was what to do next.
Chapter Ten
After her call from Lauren, Rosie decided to keep herself busy by checking out the cottage. She dropped her teacup in the Belfast sink and leaned forward to whip back the yellow gingham curtains so she could open the window, allowing rays of fragmented sunlight to filter into the room, along with a waft of fresh air.
The view into the garden was impressive, but Rosie was alarmed at the state of its neglect. Her aunt was usually to be found on her knees, her derriere high in the air, tending her precious herb garden located to the left of the kitchen window. An essential component had been erased from the intricate green canvas, and the plants clearly bemoaned her absence.
However, despite the horticultural chaos, there, at the bottom of the garden by the drystone wall marking the lodge’s boundary with Somersby Manor, rose the cherry tree in full candy-pink blossom. As the end of April approached, its burst of botanical joy seemed at odds with the dilapidation of the rest of the garden which was a veritable tangle of weeds – evidence, if Rosie should need it, that after death life continued to bloom and good things could still happen.
She fought down a rising lump in her throat as she recalled the evening when, after a few glasses of the local cider, she and Bernice had danced under the confetti-like rain of the tree’s velvety pink petals. Again, the scene lacked its central character: her aunt resting in her slightly frayed deckchair, her artist’ssketch pad in hand, picking out the stamen of a tulip with her pencil. Bernice had continued to pursue her love of illustration after her formal retirement as a children’s book illustrator and had graduated to the depiction of the herbs, flowers, and plants growing in her Cotswolds garden which she occasionally opened to the public.
No technique was spared as Bernice had tutored Rosie in a less-defined depiction of the sumptuous garden and its myriad gems in watercolours or pastels. Those afternoons spent together in companionable artistic silence had been some of the best of Rosie’s life and once again, as she filled the kettle and set it to boil, she was wrapped in a wave of melancholy at the apparent neglect of not only her aunt’s beloved garden and cottage but also of her aunt herself.
Those careless words uttered by her aunt’s solicitor floated back to her. Her aunt had died alone. Rosie knew her aunt had been discovered by Susan Moorfield, her best friend and the owner of the village shop and adjacent tearoom she had passed earlier.
Had her aunt known that she was ill? That she had only a short time left? If so, why hadn’t she said anything?
As the kettle clicked off, there was a knock on the front door. Perfect timing – Rosie knew immediately who her first visitor would be. Her spirits leapt and a smile stretched her lips as she grabbed her mane of golden hair and slung it over her shoulder – no requirement for its obsessive taming here in Somersby.
‘Hi, Rosie. I’m so sorry to hear about your Aunt Bernice.’ Emily dragged Rosie into a hug. ‘God, you are skinny! I can feel your bones. Is this Manhattan chic or lack of time to eat? Just as well I stopped by at Susan’s on the way over.’ Her visitor raised a white paper bag and a pint of milk in a glass bottle and made herself busy at the kettle.
‘It’s great to see you too, Emily. And thanks for the insight into my weight issues!’ Rosie smiled wryly. Despite the occasional offence caused, she loved Emily’s brand of delivering the truth as she saw it. ‘How are the boys?’
‘Nick’s away at some electronics conference in France, lucky guy. What I wouldn’t give for a trip to Paris, but all I’ve heard from him are moans and complaints.’ Emily’s chestnut bob swung across her cheeks as she brewed their tea in Bernice’s huge brown teapot and sliced the freshly baked scones, whilst turning her face over her shoulder to where Rosie had slumped at the kitchen table engulfed by a sudden wave of exhaustion.
Rosie had managed to grab only a couple of hours’ sleep on her overnight flight to Heathrow. She had never got the hang of sleeping on a plane, nor had she dared to nap on the train from Paddington to Gloucester – fearful of missing her stop. So, all in all, she had every right to feel jaded, physically and emotionally.
‘Ethan’s taken up tennis at the village club. Five years old but apparently that’s quite late! And Lorcan has just hit the terrible twos.’
Rosie smiled at her friend whose father had died around the same time as her mother, a devastating fact that had served to reignite their childhood friendship when she had stayed with Bernice last summer. Their mutual amity had endured despite their physical distance with the assistance of regular communications of email, video call, and Facebook posts. Some weeks Rosie enjoyed more social contact with Emily than she did with Lauren!
Their wavelengths were attuned on so many levels, except the reality of caring for two young boys. They also compared notes on the tribulations of growing up with a much younger sister. In Emily’s case, her half-sister, Juliette, who had been born when Emily’s mother had married her stepfather, Roger,whose dreams of having his daughter follow in his footsteps and become a dentist like himself had been dashed that summer. Roger was horrified and more than a little puzzled at Juliette’s persistence in her obsession for all things green and muddy, not to mention the pursuit of her dream to become a viticulturist.
‘Juliette has been accepted on a horticultural course in Cheltenham and has even found a placement for the summer holidays at Somersby Meadows Garden Centre. I think this is what finally got the message through to Roger that his little girl cannot be swayed into rummaging around in a procession of random strangers’ ulcerated mouths for the rest of her life.’
Emily planted a huge mug of thick, dark tea, liberally doused with sugar, and a freshly baked scone, piled with clotted cream and strawberry jam in front of Rosie, a challenge fixed firmly in her mahogany eyes.
‘What is it with the English?’ Rosie sighed. ‘Tea to soothe the soul!’ But she had to admit its medicinal properties had had the desired effect last time and it was one habit she’d stuck with after her visit to the UK, and one which Lauren had bought into, too.
‘I know I don’t have to remind you, but not only were you born here, you lived here until you were ten years old, so in my book, that makes you English, too. Shall we take these out to the garden?’
Rosie smiled. ‘Yes, let’s!’
Emily wrapped her scarlet pashmina around her neck and slotted the ends into the loop. She sauntered out of the kitchen’s stable door onto the silver-bleached decking which overlooked the tragic scene of the once-manicured herb garden now presenting a bouquet of gnarled stems and crumpled leaves.
They draped tea towels over the ancient patio chairs and hugged their steaming mugs into their palms. Their eyes metand the compassion Rosie saw in Emily’s eyes caused her to crumble into hot tears as the one and only question that had been playing on her mind burst from her lips.
