What Would Jane Austen Do?, page 7
‘Yes, thanks,’ Maddy said brightly. ‘We’ve agreed on five hundred and fifty a month to include the library. And I’ll throw in some doggy daycare too.’
‘Excellent. I have to dash; my son’s returned from holiday and missed the coach, so I’m picking him up from the station.’
Maddy waited for Myra to walk ahead before she murmured to Luke, ‘If it makes you feel better, I’m doing this for Buster and not because of your charming wit and manners.’
Luke spun around. ‘What are you on about? I don’t have any charming wit and manners.’
‘Precisely.’
Chapter Nine
1ST APRIL
I have no idea of being so easily persuaded. When I have made up my mind, I have made it.
Louisa Musgrove, Persuasion
* * *
Over the course of the following two days, Luke moved across his computer equipment, books and notebooks, various writing essentials, Buster’s dog bed, food and toys, and a selection of clothes. After inspecting the meagre contents of Maddy’s kitchen cupboards he also retrieved his coffee machine and several packets of Hobnobs, which he maintained were essential items.
Clearly being a bestselling author wasn’t as money-making as Maddy had assumed, judging by the state of the scruffy-looking Vauxhall Astra that was now parked outside. Just to be on the safe side, she had re-read all the legal papers Mr Chapman had left with her and nowhere did it mention anything about taking in lodgers with pets. Today was the 1st April—the official moving-in day—and she’d received April’s payment in advance which made the whole arrangement far more agreeable from her point of view. She had already decided that having Buster around would be fun although she hoped he wouldn’t be too unsettled by the change of scenery.
Like her, Luke had avoided choosing Nigel’s old bedroom, and instead opted for one of the bedrooms at the other end of the landing. Although smaller, it had clearly been designed as a guest room and had a small ceramic wash basin and shaving mirror in the corner of the room.
‘Right then, Buster, now you’ve sniffed round the entire house, who’s up for a nice walk this morning?’
Luke looked at her warily. ‘Are you sure about this?’
Maddy drew herself upright and pulled her shoulders back. ‘Absolutely. I enjoy a good walk and as I said, I’m happy to keep Buster entertained.’ She didn’t add that it also helped fill up her rather empty day. ‘Go and write your book and we’ll see you later, won’t we, Buster?’
They had barely taken two steps outside before she heard a strange, low-level rumbling noise, and it was several seconds before she realised the sound was emanating from Buster. ‘What is it, boy? What’s the matter?’
As they crossed the terrace, she spotted what Buster had clearly already heard: a man in a khaki gilet and a black beanie hat was digging a hole in the flowerbed at the far side of the lawn. With an alarming burst of energy, Buster raced forward, straining at the lead, and Maddy struggled to hold on to him as he bolted across the lawn. She hadn’t even completed one morning of doggy daycare and now her charge was possibly seconds away from trying to rip someone to shreds. And what was this person doing in her garden anyway? She tried to dig the heels of her trainers into the grass but the ground was damp and had little purchase. Her shoulder strained as she was dragged across the lawn like an inexperienced water-skier, ploughing a furrow as she went.
‘Stop! Buster, wait!’
Suddenly there was a bump, an awkward fall followed by a jolt of pain and then the lead slipped out of her hands. Despite the shock of the fall and the indignity of pitching headfirst onto the wet grass, her first thought was one of relief that Luke wasn’t around to witness it.
After a manic charge across the lawn followed by judicious sniffing, Buster was clearly now content that the man was no threat to Meadowside’s security, and lay panting on the grass. ‘You silly dog!’ Maddy shouted tearfully. ‘What did you do that for!’ Buster’s ears drooped and his tail stopped mid-wag.
‘You’ve got a good guard dog there. Thought I’d have to leg it.’
‘He’s not mine, he belongs to the lodger. And he’s in disgrace.’
The man’s face was a picture of apology. ‘Sorry to give you a fright, I’ve been away for a week so I’m trying to catch up.’ He held out a work-roughened hand and helped her up. ‘I’m Jem. Nice to see you again.’
Maddy attempted to brush the mud and grass stains from her clothes. The flood of adrenaline had left her feeling shaky, but even so her rescuer, whose straw-coloured hair poked out in random clumps from under his beanie, looked familiar.
‘You sat behind us at the funeral, didn’t you? Are you Myra’s son?’
Jem nodded. ‘Yes. Can’t afford my own place so I’m still living with the parents.’ He upturned the bucket he was filling with weeds and brushed the top with his hand. ‘Here, park yourself on this for a minute.’
Maddy smiled thinly and gently lowered her bottom. The bucket was hard and unyielding but it gave her a minute to catch her breath. Her hand was grazed from her fall and her trainers were a greener shade of white.
‘Look, I’m sorry if this sounds blunt, but why are you here?’
Jem’s eyebrows furrowed together. ‘I don’t follow you. I do the gardens here. Have done for years. Three times a week—Monday, Wednesday and Friday. One of my best jobs. Didn’t Mum mention it?’
‘Right. No. Well, the thing is…’ Maddy scrabbled around to find a polite way of saying what she needed to. ‘The thing is, I can’t afford a gardener. There’s only a small housekeeping budget you see, most of which is likely to go on utility bills. Much as I’d like the gardens to look pretty, I’m sorry but I don’t have enough money to pay you, or anyone else.’
Jem chuckled. ‘Ah, I get where you’re coming from now. That’s all taken care of. Mum says Nigel left money in his will to pay for the gardening for as long as you’re here.’
Yet again Maddy felt wrong-footed, and she was beginning to feel that Mr Chapman’s notes contained some serious omissions.
‘Oh, I nearly forgot.’ Jem pulled off soil-stained leather gardening gloves and upzipped a pocket in his gilet, from which he tugged a folded and slightly crumpled piece of A4 paper. ‘Mum asked me to give you the agenda for the next meeting of the literary committee. Sally said you were okay with all the arrangements.’
That was a major understatement. She tucked the piece of paper into the pocket of her jeans. She would read that away from nosey villagers.
‘So how is your first day of doggy day care going?’ asked Luke as he wandered into the kitchen to make himself a cup of coffee later that afternoon.
Maddy gave Luke her best confident smile. He might not be overly enamoured with his choice of landlady but Maddy could see how attached he was to Buster. ‘It was great, wasn’t it, Buster?’ She certainly wasn’t going to mention the bruised hip and muscle sprain in her shoulder. ‘We’ve done a great walk, explored a bit of the field behind the house, and the final score of the chase-the-ball challenge was Buster sixteen, Maddy nil. How is your writing day going?’
‘Fine.’
Maddy waited two seconds in case there was any other information forthcoming. ‘A win-win solution then.’
Luke’s eyebrows gave an ironic twitch. ‘You like finding solutions to things, don’t you?’
‘What’s wrong with that?’
‘Must be your agony aunt genes.’
‘I’m not an agony aunt anymore.’ Why had she just blurted that out? Of all the people to confess to, she had to pick the county’s most unsympathetic person to reveal what was still a very painful admission.
His eyebrows rose a millimetre. ‘So Jane Austen finally reached her sell-by date?’
‘No,’ replied Maddy taking a defensive tone. ‘If you must know, I did. I got sacked via email on the day of that interview.’
Luke didn’t reply instantly, nor did he break eye contact. It was unnerving but Maddy wasn’t in the mood to back down now. ‘I’m really sorry to hear that. You enjoyed your work.’
‘And how would you know?’ demanded Maddy.
‘Because you were so passionate about it. Too many people have lukewarm opinions on things and just say what they think other people want them to say. You stuck to your guns, despite coming under fire. I admire that quality.’
For some strange reason, despite the rather backhanded compliment, Maddy felt a tiny flicker of appreciation and couldn’t help but smile. Maybe there were other facets to her argumentative lodger as yet undiscovered.
Now they were having a conversation rather than a debate, Maddy was curious to find out more about her lodger. ‘You said you had builders at your house—so what are they building?’
‘Once the destruction is completed, it’s going to be an extension, plus some internal re-modelling of the original house but there’s been endless problems already.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Maddy sympathetically.
‘And it’s very noisy. It felt like they were pulling the existing house down around my ears—the clatter and commotion was non-stop. After a few days, Buster started whining from the minute they showed up in the morning. Then it progressed to attempted escapology, as you discovered a couple of weeks ago.’
‘I think he’s turned pro,’ Maddy said, giving Buster a fond glance.
For a few moments the conversation lulled. It was a slightly uncomfortable pause since the lodger/landlady relationship was not at the point yet where there might otherwise have been a companionable silence. Maddy decided now would be a good opportunity to elicit his opinion on something.
‘Changing the subject, can I ask what you know about the Cotlington Literary Festival?’
Luke’s gaze slid sideways in a distinctly shifty manner. ‘Some local get-together for amateur wannabe writers.’
‘Would you ever consider taking part?’
Luke almost choked on a mouthful of coffee. ‘Hell, no!’
‘There’s no need to look so scandalised. Anyone would think I’d just asked if you’d like to take part in a public orgy. You know, they’d probably really appreciate the help of a world-class author.’
‘It seemed to run perfectly well without my involvement, thank you. Although as the house is now under new ownership’—he gestured at Maddy—‘we’ve probably seen the last of it, thank goodness.’
‘Oh come on, it can’t be that bad! I think you’re being a bit harsh.’
‘I don’t believe in fudging it, and it’s not as if it’s my responsibility, is it?’
‘But if it were, what would you do?’
‘Well, for a start I’d line up a high-profile keynote speaker. Someone who will attract paying punters as well as other authors. Then cut the deadwood. Advertise on social media. Obtain sponsorship.’ He gave her a penetrating stare that generated a response somewhere between a flutter of excitement and shiver of anticipation. ‘Why are you so interested in all this anyway?’
Clearly Luke was not an avid reader of Cotlington Chat, for which Maddy heaved a private sigh of relief. However, she ought to own up, oughtn’t she? At some point it would become patently obvious that she was not only hosting it but supposedly running it.
‘Well, I—’
Her planned confession was halted by a strident ringtone. She had never been so pleased to hear a phone interruption, and was even more delighted that it was his. Luke pulled his phone from his pocket and looked at the screen.
‘Builders again,’ he muttered.
‘Hello,’ he barked into the phone. ‘What now? Can’t it wait until tomorrow?… Yes… No, I don’t…. What the hell d’you mean, you’ve found bodies?’
Chapter Ten
I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine
Elizabeth Bennet, Pride and Prejudice
* * *
‘Surely you’re not that gullible?’ said Maddy, trying hard to smother a snort of laughter.
In the short time she’d been acquainted with Luke Hamilton and his alter ego Cameron Massey, she had quickly found out that he detested being teased, but this had to be a prank. She had a sudden mental image of a group of muscled workmen, sitting round a concrete mixer, mugs of tea in hand, having a good chortle at their employer’s expense.
A small snigger escaped her lips. ‘Just look at the date on your phone.’
After years of working in various offices, Maddy had seen dozens of April fool’s jokes–some better than others. Years ago, she’d worked as an office junior in the city where the culture of long hours meant that the kitchen area often doubled as a breakfast bar. One day a new toaster appeared with a laminated card on which was printed the words Voice Activated, together with a series of numbers indicating the degrees of toastiness. Those sitting near the kitchen were entertained for the entire morning by people shouting numbers at the toaster, then swearing at the chargrilled offering that popped out, having failed to notice that the toasting dial was already set to maximum.
‘I thought April fool’s jokes were meant to expire at midday.’
Maddy shrugged. ‘Maybe they didn’t twig that bit.’
Luke put his empty coffee cup in the sink. ‘I’d better go. I won’t be impressed if this is a joke.’
‘You won’t be impressed if it isn’t, either.’
After Luke had left, Maddy removed today’s page from the countdown calendar, now hanging up on a nail in the kitchen. It was a picture of her and Alice laughing and pointing at Maddy’s burned banana cake disaster. Only 347 leaky roof days to go.
It was over an hour later before Luke returned. As soon as he heard his master’s footsteps, Buster barged past Maddy and bounded into the hall with the energy of a squirrel on steroids, and threw himself at Luke.
‘Hello, boy!’ After a fast and furious bout of tail wagging, Buster promptly rolled over onto his back, waving his paws in the air.
Maddy laughed as Luke crouched down to scratch his tummy. ‘I think everyone needs a Buster in their life.’ She looked enquiringly at Luke as he continued fussing Buster.
‘Come on then, what was the joke? Was it the remains of someone’s dinner or did they go the whole hog and acquire a medical skeleton?’
Luke stood up and his mouth tightened. ‘Neither. They’ve unearthed actual human remains.’
Maddy’s smile froze. ‘What? You mean like … someone’s died in your garden?’
‘Yes, although clearly not recently. The builders have had to cease work until it’s been investigated. Now they’re calling in a team of archaeologists to dig up the rest of the garden. The person was buried with a silver artefact—’
‘Really!’
‘—and there’s more than a possibility that there could be more burials. It’s an utter nightmare; the whole timetable has been set back weeks, possibly months.’
‘Oh.’
‘Indeed. Even you might have a tough time finding a solution to that lot.’
Maddy agreed. She had no intention of getting involved in Luke’s building difficulties, having plenty of her own matters to worry about. The fact that the next meeting of the Cotlington Literary Festival Committee was imminent had sharpened her focus somewhat, and she fully intended to raise the subject with Luke again.
Over the course of the following week, both Maddy and Luke established mutually compatible morning routines. Although Maddy had first turn in the bathroom, they were nearly always down for breakfast at the same time. Maddy usually just made do with some toast but Luke preferred to create his own muesli and already had half a dozen boxes in the cupboard containing all sorts of nuts, seeds and dried fruits. Once breakfast was over, Maddy took Buster out for his first walk of the day, and Luke did stuff on his phone before heading off to write in the library.
Maddy had quickly noticed that unlike their Valentine’s Day interview where Luke had been wearing what she thought of as photoshoot attire, at Meadowside he seemed to prefer jeans and a sweater, which made him appear more approachable. This morning she was about to put that to the test.
‘Luke, before you head off to the library, I need to confess something.’
‘Oh, this will be interesting!’ Luke put down his phone into which he had been busily tapping messages. ‘Let me guess, you’ve never actually read any Jane Austen books.’
‘What? That’s scandalous; of course I have!’
Almost instantly, Maddy castigated herself for rising to the bait. She was already aware that he enjoyed provoking a reaction from her. She resolved to keep her face completely neutral.
‘Okay then…’ Luke made a pretence of trying to think hard. ‘You once did a runner in a restaurant to avoid paying the bill.’
‘No!’
Luke shook his head. ‘It’s just too easy with you. Go on then, what’s the big surprise?’
‘It’s not a confession of past wrongdoings, it’s just that…’ She took a deep breath before continuing. ‘When I asked you about the literary festival, I had a reason for needing your opinion.’
‘And that is?’
Maddy readjusted the scrunchie in her hair as she decided how to phrase this. ‘You know how I inherited the house? Well, I seem to have also inherited the position of chair of the literary festival.’
Whatever reaction Maddy might have expected, it was not one of raucous laughter.
‘And you think I’m gullible! I hope you turned the offer down.’
‘Um…’
Luke’s mouth twitched. ‘You didn’t, did you?’ He shook his head. ‘Good luck with that one. From what I’ve heard it’s absolutely dreadful.’
‘Yesterday you said you didn’t know anything about it,’ said Maddy in an accusing tone.
‘I don’t, not really. It’s just hearsay, but it doesn’t get any write-ups online. Or mentions in any magazines. Still, it’s your funeral.’
