Jake
Jake looked around the room to see if anyone else thought the idea was impossible but he must have missed Crispin talking about hiring snow machines because everyone was looking delighted by the prospect.
Oh well, let them all volunteer to be part of the ‘clearing-up-the-reindeer-droppings committee’, if they wanted.
Although maybe he should ask someone for all the proper details so that he could at least mention it to the family. Mostly his brothers and sisters all lived as far away from Whispers Wood as they could. But sleigh-rides around the village green were bound to be something the nieces and nephews would want in on.
He glanced down at Emma and pictured her sitting in a sleigh, tucked cosily under a fleece blanket, her button nose tinged pink with cold, her sparkling eyes connecting with…
Not his, obviously.
Jeez.
As soon as Crispin stopped speaking and everyone stood up to chat, he’d make his excuses and go.
His mind drifted to coming up with excuses that didn’t sound lame, when Emma suddenly let out a delighted gasp.
Between the swoon, the sudden clasping hold of his arm, and her gaze darting from his to Crispin’s, Jake finally cottoned onto the fact that Crispin was looking at him as if waiting for him to react to what he’d just announced.
‘Sorry, Crispin, could you repeat that last part?’
‘I was talking about the exciting news,’ Crispin elaborated.
‘News?’ His heart started beating heavily against his chest wall. Surely Crispin wasn’t asking for a full run-down on when Jake intended to open the gardens?
‘Crispin wants to present you with a shiny blue plaque,’ Kate whispered, helpfully.
‘Blue plaque?’ he asked, none the wiser, but definitely getting more uncomfortable each second from all the attention.
Sure he’d won some awards for his garden designs. Some of them had even been prestigious. For professional purposes he listed them on his website, but he actually kept them in the cloakroom. And not even the downstairs one, so that people could see. He wanted his work to speak for itself, not a bunch of awards.
To his knowledge there weren’t any outstanding awards he needed to be presented with, so what the hell was Crispin going on about?
‘I was actually going to pop over tomorrow to talk to you about this, Jake,’ Crispin said. ‘I didn’t expect to see you here tonight because—’ Crispin had the grace to stop himself before going any further but Jake still felt a dull blush form across his cheeks and remembered his beard had been handy for something, after all. ‘Well, anyway, you’re here so I thought, what better time to announce it,’ Crispin explained. ‘Especially as, in the long run, we’ll all benefit.’
‘From what, Crispin?’ Jake asked, his voice low and gruff as impatience, embarrassment and foreboding all vied for the chance to be seen and heard.
‘As I just said, it transpires that Jane Austen herself may have stayed at Knightley Hall.’
Beside him, Emma was squirming like an over-excited puppy and Jake tried to focus on the backdrop of animated murmurs from everyone in the room and not on the warmth shooting up his arm from where she still clutched it.
Then the words truly sank in.
Jane Austen had once stayed at Knightley Hall?
Oh, no way, no how.
‘Bollocks,’ Jake said, clearly.
‘No. Not,’ Crispin grimaced with distaste, ‘what you said, Jake. But actually extremely likely from my source.’
As the ramifications presented themselves Jake could feel knots of tension forming at regular intervals up the length of his spine. ‘Is your source a direct descendant of the Austens?’ he asked.
‘Well, no, but—’
‘Is your source a direct descendant of the Knightleys?’ he asked, fairly sure they couldn’t possibly be, because if there had been the slightest possible chance that the family could have cashed in on a fame connection to raise money for their home, they would have done so, in triplicate.
‘Well, again, no, but—’
‘No buts, Crispin,’ Jake said knowing he had to nip this in the bud. ‘I’m sorry but this is all reindeer manure.’
‘Now Jake, I am assured of written proof. My friend of a friend was very serious.’
‘Oh, well if it’s a friend of a friend…’ he said, his tone as dry as a bone while he looked around the room, wondering why the hell everyone was looking excitedly like they were all one step away from opening up Austen Land and retiring off the profits.
‘Obviously as soon as I receive the proof, you’ll be the first to know, and then we’ll have to get the Jane Austen Society to substantiate it,’ Crispin said.
Jake allowed himself to relax slightly. If Crispin’s friend of a friend really did have some sort of documentation, it would take months to corroborate. Surely there’d have to be some sort of analysis? If it wasn’t laughed out of the society first, that was.
‘But if it’s legitimate,’ Crispin was saying, his voice growing louder with excitement, ‘then we need to jump all over it. A blue plaque. A statement on your website. Think of how good it will be for Knightley Hall. Think of the visitors to Whispers Wood. The tourism possibilities.’
Jake snorted. ‘Tourists which will end up staying in the hotel in Whispers Ford, so I don’t think you’ve quite thought this through.’
‘You might want to think about how you could provide parking for coaches,’ Crispin continued, ‘because once the heritage sites know …’
Any sense of relaxing and not taking this seriously immediately vanished and he knew he had to shut the absurd notion down.
Because, actually, if any of this turned out to be true it was going to be a bloody nightmare.
No way was he about to find himself in a situation where he could start advertising Jane Austen’s favourite Knightley Hall walk, or how visitors to Knightley Hall could buy Jane Austen’s favourite rose. What was the betting that if Jane Austen really had stayed at the Hall, it had been in the dead of winter and she hadn’t stepped foot in the gardens once. All the focus would be on the house.
He didn’t have the money to sink into opening up the house so that excitable women could traipse through, gush about how they could ‘practically sense her presence’ like something out of Ghost Hunters, before then whipping out their phones and iPads to film the whole experience.
They probably wouldn’t even have time to wander around the gardens before being herded back onto the coach for the next haunt. Probably a footbridge across a boggy field, cunningly disguised as a moor that Charlotte Brontë had once wandered across!
‘Perhaps you should spend some time having a look through your family records, Jake,’ Crispin helpfully suggested.
‘Oh, absolutely,’ Jake nodded. ‘I’ll be sure to “jump” right on that.’
As if he didn’t have a million other things he needed to take care of before he dumped a bag in the Land Rover and sped out of here as fast as the accelerator could take him.
And yet, as his jaw locked together, he knew that if he wanted to get ahead of this then he was going to have to search through the family journals. Every single one of them.
‘Good, good,’ Crispin said and then picked up his glasses to peer through to his notes. ‘Now, one last thing I’ve been asked to mention to everyone. If anyone wants to dress up for the Carols on the Green service before the tree-lighting ceremony, Trudie only has seven Victorian costumes left and they’re all size small. Unless you’re desperate to spend the next three weeks on the 5:2 diet, or the 4:3 version, or some sort of kale and vinegar affair, just turn up in warm clothes.’
It was all anyone wanted to bloody well talk about, wasn’t it?
Not the tree-lighting ceremony.
Of course not that.
Why would you want to talk about Christmas festivities, when you could be talking about who in your family would know if Jane Austen had ever stayed at Knightley Hall.
The one time Jake would gladly talk all things Christmas and no one wanted to.
On his third cup of coffee now, he was feeling distinctly jittery.
And trapped.
Somehow he’d ended up in one corner of the room with Ted and his wife. An innocent bystander in their argument as to whether Ted’s ancient Aunt Meryl was a Jane Austen super-fan or an Agatha Christie super-fan.
Thank God for Kate wending her way over to them. ‘Hey guys, sorry to interrupt, have you seen Daniel, only I wanted to remind him he can go and re-set the clock to the proper time now that the meeting’s over.’
Jake took the lifeline and gazing over the tops of everyone’s head located Daniel and pointed to where he was standing talking to Gloria.
Kate followed his gaze and with a downturn of her smile, muttered, ‘Now why would he allow himself to get stuck talking with her?’
Jake watched as Gloria leaned closer to speak and Daniel suddenly choked on his tea.
‘What is that about?’ Kate asked.
Jake remained schtum, but thought he had a pretty good idea that Gloria had just asked Daniel to pose in her charity calendar. No doubt she’d pitched it to him as posing with a laptop strategically placed.
‘Hey, we should ask Old Man Isaac,’ Ted said, and for a moment Jake thought he was talking about Gloria’s charity calendar and really didn’t need the picture now in his head of Old Man Isaac posing with one of his carriage clocks, but then he realised what Ted meant.
‘Yes,’ he said, immediately scanning the crowd again. If anyone would know if Jane Austen had visited Knightley Hall it would be Whispers Wood’s oldest resident. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go and find him.’
It figured he’d find him with Emma. The two were talking animatedly, having nabbed two chairs near the front of the stage area.
‘Isaac,’ Jake greeted, walking up to them.
‘Jake,’ Isaac offered him a warm smile and immediately started rising out of his chair until Jake gestured for him to sit back down.
‘Quite a shock you must have received tonight, eh, Jake?’ Isaac chuckled.
Jake couldn’t help the answering warm smile. Everyone had time for Old Man Isaac. Depending on your age, he was either every man’s Yoda, or, every man’s Dumbledore. A retired clock-maker, from a family of clock-makers, he’d owned The Clock House until it had got too much for him and he’d moved into Rosehip Cottage on the green and put it up for sale, right for Kate and Daniel to come along and breathe new life into it.
‘You of all people, Isaac, must know it can’t possibly be true,’ Jake said, dragging one of the empty chairs around so that they sat in a group.
‘I must?’
Jake caught the twinkle in his eye and felt hopeful. ‘Our families have been close for generations. I’m sure had anyone in my family any evidence at all she’d stayed at the hall, they would have told their dearest friends.’
‘Your family’s been in Whispers Wood for as long as Jake’s has?’ Emma asked Old Man Isaac, with an expression of awe on her face.
‘No,’ Isaac said with a chuckle. ‘Not quite as long, but we have been friendly ever since—’ he stopped and pointed upwards, and as Jake looked up at the chandelier, it felt entirely probable his evening was about to slide from bad into worse.
Emma followed Isaac’s finger. ‘The chandelier? Ever since the chandelier went up?’ she asked, glancing back at the old man for confirmation.
Jake could see questions all shaped like little ducks lining up in a neat little row behind Emma’s eyes.
He absolutely did not want to talk about the chandelier. In desperation he stood up and caught the attention of the nearest person. ‘Trudie,’ he said with relief, ‘have you been introduced to Emma, yet?’
‘Hi sweetie,’ Trudie sing-songed. ‘I was just coming over.’ She held out her hand and Emma stood up to shake it.
As Jake’s heart-rate settled back down, he ignored the knowing look in Old Man Isaac’s eyes and enthusiastically told Emma, ‘Trudie runs the Whispers Wood amateur dramatic society. Trudie, I’m sure you heard Crispin introduce Emma earlier. The two of you must have lots in common.’
Trudie gave Emma a huge, welcoming grin. ‘I’m sure we’ll discover all our little secrets during rehearsals in the coming weeks. But right now, I only need to check your availability.’
‘Availability?’ Emma’s smile shrunk a tiny bit as her unsure gaze included Isaac and Jake for an explanation.
‘For the Christmas show, of course,’ Trudie explained with another chuckle. ‘I know you’ll be busy with opening up here—’
Jake watched as Emma nodded vigorously.
‘Yes,’ she confirmed. ‘Super-busy.’
‘But obviously you’ll want to be involved,’ Jake said helpfully.
‘No.’ Emma brought a hand up to her neck and Jake noticed the blotchy rash creeping over her collar-bone. ‘I really don’t think that would be fair.’
‘Fair?’ Jake asked before Trudie could do it.
‘What I mean is,’ Emma told Trudie while shooting him daggers, ‘I could obviously help out— will,’ she corrected as Trudie’s expression changed from welcoming to merely pleasant in the blink of an eye, ‘obviously help out with setting up the room. Kate said you’d be using the room for rehearsal and the show itself, so we’ve booked all those days and evenings out in The Clock House diary, but other than that, I really won’t have time to be, well, in the show.’
‘Nonsense, I simply won’t take no for an answer,’ Trudie said, brushing right on over Emma’s speech. ‘It would be a sin not to have someone with your talents involved.’
Jake looked at Emma and was surprised to see her knuckles had gone white as her hand clenched nervously at the top of the cornflower blue cashmere jumper she was wearing.
She really didn’t look impressed.
Probably thought she was way too good for a provincial am-dram group.
‘Usually we alternate between Dickens and a pantomime,’ Trudie continued, ‘but not knowing how much space I’d have once you opened, I decided this year to go ahead with a show.’
‘Show?’ Emma asked, her voice low and husky.
‘Mmmn. Christmas-inspired ensemble pieces. Whatever you want – within reason,’ Trudie leant forward to confide, ‘I had to take a hard pass on Betty Blunkett’s burlesque routine to Jingle Bells.’
‘Betty Blunkett from T’ai Chi?’ Old Man Isaac asked, looking intrigued as hell.
Trudie nodded. ‘Let’s just say that her arthritic hip doesn’t seem to hold her back. Anyway,’ she said, turning to Emma, ‘you have a good think about what you’d like to do and then let me know. I’m sure it’ll be fine but I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t take a look at it first.’
‘You want me to audition for your Christmas show?’ Emma asked, if possible her voice even smaller.
‘Mustn’t show favouritism. And you, you delicious man,’ Trudie said, suddenly turning all her attention on Jake. ‘I don’t see your name on the sign-up sheet.’
‘Me? Why on earth would I—’
‘Now, Jake, you shouldn’t hide a voice like that. So, shall I put you down for a song? Perhaps some Bing?’
‘Bing?’ Jake was mystified.
‘As in Crosby,’ Trudie said. ‘Ooh, I can see it now, sitting on a stool, one single spotlight,’ and then she was gazing off into the distance, hands flinging around dramatically as she painted her scene, ‘maybe a fireplace in the background. We’ll have to see if we can get someone from scenery—’
‘I’d be happy to be part of the scenery – I mean, I’d be happy to be part of stage crew,’ Emma interrupted.
‘Nonsense,’ Trudie told her. ‘You can’t possibly be expected to open this place and be in the show and part of the backstage crew. Now, Jake, do you know the words to White Christmas? I know you own a tux from the bachelor audition that was organised in the summer.’
Emma, he noticed, had gone from looking sick to looking fascinated, while Jake was fairly certain he’d switched from fascinated to looking sick. Just the thought of wearing a tux while crooning the Bublé out of Christmas … And then he remembered and his shoulders relaxed. ‘Trudie, I won’t be able to be in your Christmas show—’
‘Nonsense,’ Trudie began.
‘On account of me not actually being in Whispers Wood over Christmas,’ he finished succinctly.
He’d expected an ‘ah’ and a sympathetic yet dramatic hand on his arm at his news. He was even prepared to be half-smothered in one of her comforting hugs.
He wasn’t prepared for the gush of laughter at his news.
‘Oh, sweetie,’ Trudie said, gasping for breath, this time putting a hand on his arm but more to support her shaking-with-laughter frame. ‘You’re not going anywhere this Christmas.’ And with that statement she pointed up to the sky. ‘There’s a chandelier hanging in The Clock House over Christmas again.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Emma said.
‘Well, the last time this chandelier was hanging up here at Christmas, Whispers Wood had the biggest snowstorm on record,’ Trudie said.
Jake shook his head at the absurdity.
‘Now, Jake,’ Isaac said, catching the expression on his face. ‘Don’t be too quick to pooh-pooh local myth.’
‘Right. I’ll leave the reindeer to do that when they take a turn around the green,’ he said.
‘Oh, so you’ve already heard?’ said a voice, joining in on the conversation. ‘Hi, I’m Felix,’ he told Emma. ‘Local dairy farmer on the other side of Knightley Hall.’
‘Heard about what?’ Jake asked.
‘About the snow,’ Felix replied with a quick glance up at the chandelier.
‘Please tell me you’re not talking about the ridiculous urban myth surrounding the chandelier at The Clock House?’ Jake asked.
‘Which one, the one about the snow or the one about the—’
‘The one about the snow,’ Jake smoothly inserted. There was absolutely no need to talk about the other one.
‘Nah. I assumed you were talking about the long-range weather forecast I watched before coming out.’
‘We’re going to have snow? Really?’ Emma said, her voice breathless, her eyes already glowing with excitement. ‘It never snows in LA.’
‘Don’t go busting out the moves yet, Hollywood. This is the south east of England, not Scotland. If we get any snow at all, it’ll be a tiny smattering at the most.’
‘No. Honestly,’ Felix replied, ‘they were predicting heavy snowfall in the next couple of weeks.’
Every part of Jake wanted to throw back his head and shout, ‘bollocks’ at the top of his lungs because there was just no way he could deal with the possibility of being stuck in Whispers Wood over Christmas.
‘Snow at Christmas, followed by a wonderful romance,’ Trudie beamed. ‘That’s what the legend says.’
‘Legend? Romance?’ Emma asked.
Jake refrained from throwing his toys out the pram but it was the absolute last straw when someone tapped him on the shoulder and he turned to find himself staring at a very determined-looking Gloria.
‘Tsk, tsk,’ she said. ‘I thought we agreed you wouldn’t get your hair cut until after the photo-shoot?’
Jake managed to spare them all the head-throwing-back-swearing-at-the-top-of-his-lungs moment, and instead found another way to flout every ounce of good manners bred into him by simply turning on his heel and leaving.