bad weather. For the moment the sky was clear, but she knew that could change in the space of a few minutes. That morning, driving down from London, she had gone through torrential rain all the way to Exeter. Since then, the sky had cleared, but the temperature had started to drop like a stone. Mind you, she thought to herself, it was December sixteenth after all. The shortest day would be upon them soon.
Inside the house it was definitely feeling warmer. She had managed to get the central heating to work, after a struggle. She felt fairly sure that if she hadn’t had an interest in mechanical things, she would never have managed. As it was, the boiler was noisy and a bit smelly, but at least it was working, and all the radiators were now hot. She closed the door behind her and filled the kettle. It was just starting to boil when she heard a ring at the door. She went across and opened it. It was the old lady she had seen five minutes before in the shop.
‘Holly? Holly Brice?’
‘Yes, I’m Holly.’
‘I’m Diana Edworthy. I live in the cottage with the willow tree, just along the road. I wanted to talk to you about George… your father.’ She was bracing herself against the door frame and Holly could see that she wasn’t too steady on her feet.
Holly remembered the wording of her father’s will. ‘You’re the lady who looked after my father?’ The old lady nodded and Holly moved backwards. ‘Would you like to come in and sit down?’ She glanced back into the kitchen. ‘I’m just making tea, if you’d like a cup.’
‘That would be lovely, my dear. Very kind.’ Mrs Edworthy hobbled into the kitchen and made for a fine carver chair with strong arms. Leaning heavily on them, she lowered herself down and gave a sigh of relief. ‘That’s better. They’re supposed to be giving me a new hip, but goodness only knows when that’ll be.’
Holly dropped a couple of teabags into the pot and poured in the hot water. Then she turned back to Mrs Edworthy, glad of the opportunity to talk to her. ‘I’m so pleased to meet you. The solicitor told me you looked after my father in his last few months.’ She saw a slight nod from the old lady. ‘I can’t thank you enough for doing that. It was really good of you.’
‘It was the very least I could do. He was always so very good to me.’ She raised her eyes. ‘My Wilfred was George’s cousin, and after he died, your dad helped me a lot.’ She shuffled uncomfortably in her seat. ‘And then he went and left me all that money. He didn’t need to do that.’
Holly reached out and touched the old lady’s hand on the table top. ‘He must have been very fond of you. And thank you again. You know the family history, I’m sure. I’ve only just found out about his death so I couldn’t be with him at the end, but it’s comforting for me to know that he was well looked after.’ She poured two mugs of tea. ‘Do you take sugar? I expect there’s some in here somewhere.’
‘Two spoons please, and the sugar’s in the coronation tin.’ Sure enough, Holly found the battered blue and gold tin to be half full. She took two spoonfuls and stirred the mug before passing it across. ‘You must know this place better than me.’
Mrs Edworthy nodded. ‘I certainly know where most things are.’ She picked up her tea and sipped it, even though it was boiling hot. ‘So, Holly, tell me all about you. I was trying to work it out. You must be in your thirties now?’
Holly nodded. ‘Yes, I’m thirty-three.’
‘Thirty-three, right. So, where do you live, what do you do? George and I often wondered that.’
They chatted for half an hour before Mrs Edworthy looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. ‘I must go off home now. Stirling’ll be wondering where I’ve got to. Now, are you quite sure you’ll be able to take him? You see, I’m off tomorrow to my boy’s for Christmas. I would have taken Stirling with me otherwise. He’s such a dear, but Stephen’s house isn’t very big and they’ve got the cat, you see. When Donny told me you’d arrived, I thought that’s perfect.’
Holly was a bit bewildered. She helped Mrs Edworthy to her feet and ensured that her wheelie bag was to hand. ‘Erm, Mrs Edworthy, who’s Stirling?’
The old lady looked up in surprise. ‘Why, he’s your dad’s dog, that’s who he is.’
Stirling the dog was a large, very friendly, black Labrador. As soon as Mrs Edworthy opened the door, he came bouncing out, almost knocking the old lady over in his eagerness to greet them.
‘No, Stirling. Down boy.’ Mrs Edworthy steadied herself against the wall and turned to Holly. ‘He’s ever so friendly, but he’s a youngster, you see. Your dad only got him a year back. He’s little more than a puppy really and he’s got so much energy. I can’t take him for much in the way of walks these days, so it’s just lovely that you’ve come when you did.’ She lowered her voice uncomfortably. ‘And I can’t bend down any more to pick up his… you know, offerings.’ Holly grinned in spite of herself. ‘But you’re young and you’ll be able to take him out all right. There are lots of lovely walks around the village and for a young girl like you, you can be up on the moor in half an hour. Now, let me collect his things for you.’
As the old lady pottered about, fetching the dog’s bed, his food bowl, which inspired considerable interest on the part of the dog, and all the other bits and pieces, Holly’s mind was racing. She knew nothing at all about dogs. The only pet she had had while growing up was a fat old tabby cat, and her only contacts with dogs had been at a few friends’ houses. And she had absolutely no experience of such a big dog. True, he really did look friendly, but what, she wondered, would he be like if he decided he didn’t want to be friendly? There were a lot of teeth in that mouth.
‘Why don’t you take his bed and his bag of food over to your house now, and then you can come back for him in a minute?’ Mrs Edworthy was still producing rubber toys, tennis balls and other bits of canine bric a brac.
Holly did as instructed, all the while wondering just how on earth she was going to cope with looking after a huge great animal like Stirling. She did, however, concede that Stirling was a rather fine name, particularly for somebody like herself with an interest in classic sports cars. She dumped the stuff in the kitchen and returned for the dog. Mrs Edworthy was just dropping the last toy into a big bag. When Stirling spotted Holly, he insisted on standing up on his hind legs and making a fuss of her. As he did so, his claws scratched some serious marks across her very expensive Marc Jacobs belt, but she gritted her teeth and smiled at him. ‘Good dog, Stirling.’
Mrs Edworthy looked up with a smile. ‘You’ll love him. I’ll be sorry to lose him, to tell the truth, but it’s so much better for him to be with somebody younger and more active.’ Holly didn’t have the heart to tell her that there was no way she would be able to look after a big dog in her London flat – apart from the fact that she was at work nine or ten hours a day most days. Anyway, for the moment she just had to grin and bear it.
Before leaving with her unwanted house guest, she managed to find out how often the dog needed to eat, how much and what his meals consisted of, as well as how often he needed to do what Mrs Edworthy euphemistically described as ‘his business’. At last she ran out of questions so she headed for the door. She hesitated, her hand on the door handle.
‘What about a lead? Do I need to put him on a lead?’
‘Oh, dearie me, his lead. I’d clean forgotten. Here it is.’ Mrs Edworthy unhooked a piece of rope from the back of the door and handed it to Holly. The effect upon the dog was electric. He gave a strangled whine of delight and jumped up against Holly, sending her crashing backwards into the door. Mrs Edworthy looked on sympathetically. ‘He gets very excited when he knows he’s going for a walk. Now, you only need to put him on the lead when you’re on the road. Otherwise, just let him run around. Your dad trained him well and he’ll always come back to you. And, best of all, he doesn’t chase sheep.’
Whether or not the dog chased sheep was the least of Holly’s problems at the moment. First, she had to work out the basics of cohabitation with him. She reflected that Stirling would be the very first male with whom