an ancient generator in the garage. I don’t know if it works, but if not I can amuse myself by taking it to bits and then putting it back together again.’
‘Yes, minus several parts,’ agreed Sara with a grin, remembering the variety of dismembered radios and televisions that had filled their garage at home when they were children. Invariably Sam would be left with several ‘parts’ over, and yet, incredibly, he had nearly always managed to make the things work.
‘I know this has come as a shock to you,’ he said quietly, covering one of her hands with his own, ‘but I feel in my bones that I’m making the right decision, Sara. I want you to come with us, you know that … but if you feel you can’t, then Carly and I will still go.’
‘I’m coming with you.’ She forced herself to sound light-hearted and cheerful as she added, ‘When do we actually get to move in?’
‘Not for a couple of months yet. I’ve put Phil in charge of organising the essential work that needs to be done. The property actually becomes ours at the end of the month, and Phil reckons it’ll be another couple of months after that before we can move in. Décor and furnishing I’m leaving up to you. Phil is going to come round later in the week with the plans of how it’s going to look, and that should give you an idea of what we’re going to need.’
‘Can’t I go down and see it before then?’
Sam shook his head.
‘I’d rather you didn’t,’ he told her with a faint grin. ‘It looks so ramshackle that if you saw it in its present state you’d probably refuse point blank to move.’
‘But what about these animals?’
‘All being taken care of until we actually move in. The two cats are apparently half wild; the dog’s boarded out and the donkey is being fed twice daily by a neighbour.’
All in all, she had had an extremly eventful homecoming, Sara thought later as she curled up under her quilt.
Carly was asleep in the bedroom next door, while she, Sara, slept in what had once been the spare bedroom. No one slept across the landing in the bedroom that had been Sam’s and Holly’s; Sam slept downstairs in what had been the dining-room, in a specially adapted bed. Although he could do most things for himself, his legs were too weak to allow him to climb the stairs. The accident had not caused any paralysis, but the many operations involved in the rebuilding of his legs had meant that Sam would always have a degree of disability, although in time he should be able to walk, even if he had to resort to his wheelchair occasionally.
As she sank slowly into sleep, picture-book images retained from her childhood mingled with her dreams. A Tudor cottage in the depths of the country. What could be more in keeping with the secret adolescent dreams she had once woven for herself? Dreams that had been upstaged by Rick’s emergence into her life, but which were now resurfacing, offering her comfort and something to cling to.
But what about their neighbour-to-be? The local would-be ‘squire’ whom the old lady had specifically refused to allow to buy her home and land?
Every paradise had to have its serpent, Sara reminded herself drowsily, mentally picturing a heavy, brash male with a ruddy complexion and a manner very like Wayne Houseley’s. Did he bully his wife the way Wayne Houseley had bullied his? Probably, she thought bitterly. Men of that stamp liked bullying women.
Before Sara finally let sleep claim her, she summoned up Rick’s beloved image, a ritual she had performed every night since he had been killed. As always, she felt the enormity of what she had lost consume her, her dry eyes burning more painfully than if she had shed tears.
If only she and Rick had been given more time … if only she had his child to comfort her as Sam had Carly. If only … The saddest words in any language, surely?
‘WOW! It’s terrific, isn’t it, Aunt Sara? Just like that jigsaw Gran sent me for Christmas?’ Carly demanded enthusiastically as Sara emerged from the driver’s seat of the car to stand alongside her. The rutted track which had led from the main road to the front of the house had jolted Sara’s small car roughly from side to side, and she grimaced slightly, wondering how long her ancient Mini’s suspension would last if it was constantly exposed to the rigours of the cart track. Little wonder that Sam had not seen fit to mention it during his eulogy on the delights of their new home!
Carly was quite right, though: the white plaster-work and black beams of the cottage, and the lavish display of cottage garden flowers in the beds bordering the road, made an ideal picture-postcard scene. A narrow brick path led towards the open front door, the bright May sunshine bouncing off the diamond-paned windows.
Sam had travelled down to their new home the previous day with Phil, leaving Sara and Carly behind to finish cleaning up the house and to check that the furniture removers did their job properly.
The furniture van had not yet arrived, and Sara suspected that its driver would be none too pleased with their cart track of a road. Still, she certainly could not carp at the setting: lush fields, broken up by green clumps of woodland spread all around out on three sides of the cottage. On the fourth was what Sara guessed must be the paddock, complete with the donkey, which had just caught Carly’s eye. On the far side of the paddock was a high brick wall, presumably the boundary of their land and the beginning of that belonging to their one neighbour.
Sara had driven through the village before turning off for the cottage. It was only a mile or so away, but it seemed a pity that the nearest neighbour had to be such an unpleasant sort of person. Mentally shrugging the thought aside, she pushed open the small gate and ushered Carly up the brick path ahead of her.
Sam was waiting to welcome them inside, and he was actually standing free of his wheelchair, Sara noticed with delight, and beaming at both of them as he stood back to let them get past him and into the small square hall.
The soft cream walls and exposed beams made Sara cry out with pleasure. The stone floor underfoot was worn and polished by time. As yet the hall was unfurnished, but in her mind’s eye Sara saw the floor covered by the Persian rug Holly had bought the first Christmas she and Sam were married.
A narrow staircase twisted upwards, light pouring into the hall from a casement window with a seat just big enough for Carly to perch on.
‘Come into the sitting-room. Luckily everything’s been finished on schedule. Phil told me the builders were working late every night last week to get it all done. I must say they’ve done a superb job. Just wait until you see the kitchen—complete with Aga, I might add.’
When consulted about what she would like in the kitchen, Sara had opted for the traditional fuel-burning cooker, knowing that it could be relied upon to provide both heat and somewhere to cook food should there ever be any problems with their electricity supply. The cottage was too remote to have been supplied with gas, and despite Sam’s claim that he could get the generator working, Sara felt that she would prefer not to have to depend on it. Dorset was notorious for its heavy snow-falls, and the last thing she wanted was to be snowed up in a remote cottage without any form of warmth or means to cook by.
‘When the builders started work, they discovered this fireplace,’ said Sam. ‘It was bricked up and hidden behind some plasterboard.’
He stood to one side so that Sara could admire the large traditional fireplace that had been uncovered. As with the hall, the walls in this room had been painted a soft cream, the starkness offset by the dark beams.
The sitting-room was suprisingly large, with windows at either end. The rear windows overlooked the gardens, and Sara wandered over to look out, catching her breath in a gasp of pleasure as she did so.
Beyond the overgrown brick-paved patio area stretched an emerald-green lawn bordered by a wilderness of traditional cottage garden plants. A lattice trellis, broken in places and smothered in roses and clematis, separated the lawn from what Sam told her was the vegetable