A Summer Promise (37 page)

BOOK: A Summer Promise

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Maddy suddenly clapped her hands. ‘That explains why the Deed had to be kept here and not at the solicitors,’ she said joyfully. ‘Mr Tebbit didn’t draw up the document, he just had it copied, so of course it wouldn’t be kept in his files. And his clerk didn’t spot the mistake because he didn’t know what it
should
say. It’s a perfectly legal document as it is – or it would be if Declan O’Halloran had ever owned Larkspur Farm!’

There was a long frowning pause before Mr O’Halloran rounded on his wife, his face sharp with annoyance and disappointment. ‘That ignorant little . . . just wait till I get me hands on him,’ he said wrathfully. ‘It’s all his fault. And if you, Mrs Hebdyke, weren’t old enough to be me own sainted mammy . . . Well, you won’t be seein’ us again, so I wonder how long you and your precious granddaughter will be able to stay in the house you’ve stolen from us. Come on, Eileen – we’re away from here.’

The Hebditches and Tom left the bank and went straight to the Splendid Café, ordered coffee and cakes and sat at a small window table to celebrate. ‘I feel ten years younger, and not at all sorry for all those horrible O’Hallorans,’ Gran said smugly. ‘And don’t you, Madeleine Hebditch, because they’d have done you out of your inheritance without a second thought. It ain’t as if we haven’t paid them, because they’ve not only had my pension but also a weekly wage, and when I’ve had my coffee and cake I mean to celebrate by having a nice long look at the shops.’ She grinned at Tom. ‘You can push my bath chair. How about seeing a fillum later, and then getting ourselves a bite before we go home? Oh, I’m that excited! Do you know, I’ve blamed myself, but of course I always knew that that their Deed wouldn’t hold water.’

Maddy was about to say, severely, that they had come mighty close to losing everything when she reminded herself that Gran could never bear to be in the wrong, so she let the comment pass. Instead, she agreed with all Gran’s suggestions as to how they should celebrate their lucky escape, for she believed Gran had a very good reason for not wanting to return to Larkspur at once. She would want to give her one-time employees plenty of time to pack up and go.

When Gran pushed open the kitchen door she was not surprised to find the room stripped bare of anything portable. She took a seat by the empty grate, and, looking across the room at the open door which led to the pantry, saw that not so much as a crust of bread remained on the shelves. When Maddy came downstairs from her exploration of the bedrooms, she merely nodded grimly at the news that all the wardrobes had been stripped of their contents, and the little box in which Gran kept her small treasures was empty.

‘They only took what they felt was owed,’ she pointed out rather guiltily. ‘I don’t grudge ’em any of it so long as it means they’ll never come back. Oh, I know you had a soft spot for Declan, Maddy my girl, and I had many a laugh with Eileen when I was teaching her to cook, but that’s all in the past, and best forgotten as soon as possible.’ She stared hard at Tom. ‘I take it you’re going to make an honest woman of my granddaughter? Of course folk will say you only took up with her once you were sure she would inherit Larkspur one of these fine days.’

‘Gran, what a thing to say!’ Maddy interjected, turning pink. ‘It’s going to be many a long day before Larkspur is its old self again.’

‘I’ll speak to the vicar in the morning,’ Tom said, grinning. ‘No point in waiting, because you know what villagers are like; if I moved into Larkspur without marrying you first, locals would say we were living “ower t’brush”. We’ll get him to read the banns next Sunday for the first time, and then we’ll be able to marry two weeks later. In the meantime I’ll see if I can move into our old flat at the Hall. It’ll be weeks before Alice and her aunt get Windhover put to rights, so they’ll be glad enough if I do some of it for them.’

When Gran finally took herself off to bed after what she called their ‘council of war’, Maddy and Tom laid their plans for the next few weeks. ‘We’ll buy geese, for a start,’ Maddy said decidedly. ‘The O’Hallorans were frightened of them, which I think is why they got rid of them, because they must have known that goose eggs bring in a tidy sum.’

Tom had been scribbling busily on the back of an envelope and now he raised his eyebrows. ‘I thought we’d decided to start clearing up at Larkspur before buying stock.’

Maddy shook her head. ‘We need the geese to keep strangers at bay,’ she said. ‘Tomorrow’s market day, and there’s no point in waiting. I think we ought to have at least one milch cow too, but apart from that I agree with you completely; tomorrow we must start clearing up. Now, it’s getting late, so I’ll walk back to the Hall with you. I could do with the exercise.’ She opened the back door and gazed up at the great silver moon which illumined the scene. ‘Oh, Tom, what a night. By the way, can you still ride a bike?’

‘Of course I can; it isn’t as if I’d lost my whole leg, only from below the knee down, and my peg is pretty efficient,’ Tom told her rather indignantly. ‘Why? Don’t tell me that it’s still around?’

‘It is. When the military took over the Hall I was still working at the factory, and Mr Thwaite gave me your bike to look after. We kept it round the back, in one of the sheds; the O’Hallorans can’t have known it was there,’ Maddy said. ‘Tell you what, if it still is there you can give me a seater as far as your old flat, and then I can ride home. Oh, Tom, I’m so happy I don’t care how long we have to wait, as long as we’re together.’

The bike was still there and their plan was carried out, but when they reached the part of the track which ran alongside the beck Tom stopped his smooth pedalling and lifted Maddy from her perch. ‘Let’s have a look at the bottomless pool,’ he murmured. ‘When we were fighting in the desert I used to dream of it; in my mind’s eye I saw it as it will be tonight, with the reeds silvered by moonlight and the water deep and cool and full of magic. Can you spare five minutes to walk down there so I can relive my dreams?’ He leaned the bicycle against a willow’s bole as he spoke, then put his arm round Maddy and led her to where the bottomless pool gleamed in the moonlight. They settled themselves in the very spot where Maddy used to sit so long ago, and watched the reflection of the great silver moon in the dark waters.

Tom sighed. ‘We never found Charles Kingsley’s Vendale,’ he said regretfully. ‘I suppose we’re going to be far too busy putting Larkspur to rights to go searching for it again, though.’

‘Oh well, it’ll be something for our children to do,’ Maddy said dreamily. ‘But on a magic night like this, anything could happen.’

They sat on for another ten minutes and then a fish jumped and they saw the silver rings spread outwards and heard the gurgle of the beck as it gradually calmed once more. Tom stood up and gestured to Maddy to do the same. ‘We’d best be off before we get moon madness,’ he said softly. ‘No need for you to come further. If we turn round at this point it’s all easy cycling back to Larkspur.’ He gave her a hug and then helped her on to the saddle. ‘Good night, sweetheart; see you in the morning,’ he said. ‘I’ll be with you bright and early, probably before you’ve had your breakfast. Sleep well, my darling.’

Tom watched Maddy until she was out of sight but even then he lingered, sure that he could hear the rattling progress of the old bicycle as Maddy navigated her way through the gate and across the Larkspur farmyard. Faint and far distant, he fancied he heard the back door open and close, and only then did he turn his footsteps towards the Hall and the flat above the stables. As he walked he remembered the ripples spreading across the entire surface of the bottomless pool in that magical moonlight. Could it be, he wondered, that the bottomless pool itself was Vendale? And if so, had it been a fish jumping, or . . . but of course it must have been a fish.

Maddy rode the bicycle sedately along the rough and rutted lane, then dismounted to open the mossy five-bar gate. Tomorrow she would ask Tom whether he thought it
was
a fish they had seen leaping from the bottomless pool tonight.

But tomorrow there would be no magical moonlight, and their work would keep them far from the bottomless pool. She had been right when she said that they should leave the search for Vendale and its occupants to their children. After all, the really big adventure would be the one which she and Tom were going to embark on in less than three weeks’ time.

Maddy let herself into the farmhouse and crept slowly up the stairs. Despite all her worries, everything had turned out right. She and Tom loved one another and were going to get married. She would leave the mysteries and the magic for their children to discover.

Silent as a mouse, she checked that her grandmother slept, then went to her own room. Tomorrow, she told herself, tomorrow would come soon enough.

Presently, Maddy smiled as she slept.

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