The Grange restoration work had, so far, been only to the ballroom. There had been a week’s deadline for that leading up to the St Valentine’s Day Ball. Now Amanda had a new date for which to prepare.
The gracious dancing space had ivory-painted walls that were divided by beading into large panels. Each framed a sizeable mirror — mostly flyblown, rusted and partly cracked — or a large painting. Amanda had repaired the frames and replaced the glass in two of them, smartened up the parquet, repaired the rat hole in the wainscot, and cleaned whatever she could.
However, there were more panels and frames to make good and mirrors to replace, and her last stint had been rather a rush job. Now she had more breathing space to make further improvements for the Spring Equinox Ball.
The ladies of the house had agreed on a plan of action. For two blissful days, Amanda began establishing a routine. And then on the morning of the third day …
She heard the news, inevitably, in The Corner Shop.
It only happened because Amanda had run out of cream. She didn’t use it. Dairy was off-limits as it was no friend to her asthma. But that day, while withdrawing a packet of Danish bacon from the fridge, she observed Tempest was staring at the shelves pointedly. After a brief search, in vain, she caved in.
‘Fine. We’ll stop off on the way for a pot of Cornish clotted.’
True, thought Tempest, also anticipating a tribute from Mrs Sharma, with whom he had an excellent, if mysterious, understanding. The Sharmas were co-proprietors of The Corner Shop, the chemist, and various other properties, including the premises at the end of the High Street. This was currently being rented by the florists, Youfloric.
‘A quick stop!’ Amanda insisted to her familiar. ‘I’d like to be on time for a 9 o’clock start.’ She checked her watch. ‘OK, a 9.30 start.’
She could have turned up at lunchtime and received the same appreciative welcome from the Grange ladies, but it was her nature to be punctual. Amanda felt that she had dawdled long enough in recovery from recent events and was eager to get back to some semblance of normality with a work routine.
Her British racing green Vauxhall Astra, with gold lettering down the sides declaring Cadabra Restoration and Repairs, was well known in Sunken Madley and its environs. Perran had bequeathed it, along with the business and house, to his granddaughter. By the time he joined Senara on whatever plane of existence they enjoyed, most of the day-to-day running of the family firm had been handed onto Amanda anyway.
Interested parties saw the vehicle draw up and park, and their local restorer and that alarming cat of hers alight. Amanda opened the door of The Corner Shop with a ding, and Tempest haughtily preceded her into its hallowed precincts. It both fascinated and appalled him how humans were drawn into shared spaces. An assembly of cats was his worst feline nightmare. However, The Corner Shop itself did offer certain attractions.
Amanda’s attention was drawn at once to the septuagenarian, dapper figure of Mr Dennis Hanley-Page, who was standing with a misty smile and glazed eyes.
‘Mr Hanley-Page! Are you all right?’ she enquired solicitously.
‘He’s in love,’ explained Mrs Sharma.
‘Hello, Aunty. Really?’
‘You weren’t there,’ Dennis murmured distractedly. ‘If you’d seen her …’
‘Her?’ she enquired.
‘Magnolia …’ he trailed off into rapt reverie.
‘Erm … is that her name?’ asked Amanda, somewhat at sea.
‘Trim.’
‘Is she?
Amanda looked at Mrs Sharma for enlightenment on whom this paragon might be who had so affected their neighbour.
Ding!
Joan the postlady — a lively, attractive, curvaceous blonde of middle years, — entered, passing a taming hand over her short wind-blown curls.
‘Morning, Nalini, Dennis, Amanda.’
‘Good morning, Joan.’
She took one look at Dennis and remarked,
‘I think I can guess what’s happened here. He’s seen —’
‘You couldn’t miss her,’ he uttered.
Ding!
In came Sylvia, the lollipop lady, she of the round stop sign on a pole. It was designed to halt traffic in favour of school children safely crossing the road, twice a day. She exchanged greetings with the three ladies and swept a canny eye of some eighty summers’ experience over Dennis.
‘Seen the vision ‘as ‘e? And I don’t mean ‘er as thinks she is, dearie,’ she added as an aside to Amanda, who remained in the dark as to whom she might be referring.
Ding!
‘Churchill! Heel!’ Dennis’s spell was cracked, if not broken, by the entrance of the village’s oldest and most venerable resident.
‘Hello, Miss de Havillande,’ they chorused.
‘Cynthia,’ Dennis managed.
‘Morning All!’ she uttered robustly, manoeuvring her tall frame into the crowded shop, as the others made room for her. ‘What’s the matter with … ha! Seen it then, I gather.’
‘It?’ asked Amanda in confusion. Dennis responded at once,
‘N-not it ... sh-she! Every inch a lady …’
‘Some car or other he’s nutty for,’ explained Joan prosaically.
‘Not some,’ he insisted, and turned to Amanda. ‘A 1973 Jaguar Xj. One of the finest cars Britain has ever produced. With a w-walnut dash and magnolia trim. In almost mint condition.’ Dennis’s eyes were becoming moist with emotion.
‘Ah, I see,’ Amanda replied readily. It all made sense now. As the owner of Vintage Vehicles, cars were his passion. Mr Hanley-Page’s proposals to her Aunt Amelia and Mrs Irma Uberhausfest were sufficient testimony to his ardour for automobiles. They both declined with good humour, knowing that it was their respective cars with which he desired to be more closely united. For Amelia was the possessor of a vintage Bentley and Irma was owner not only of Finely Aged Festivities – party planning for the over 70s — but of a reconditioned VW Beetle former police vehicle, with a Porsche engine, in metallic purple.
‘I shouldn’t think he can drive it any more sensibly that any of his own charabancs,’ commented Cynthia, provokingly.
