Down the Garden Path (40 page)

“He loves you and knows you love him; don’t worry— he will do just great. Would you tell me something? Why doesn’t he call you Mother or Mum?”

“Haven’t really thought ... but I suppose I felt I didn’t deserve the name.”

“And I thought you so sensible. No one deserves the name more than the woman who adopts a child.”

Maude stood up and came around the table. “Thank you, Tessa. And now may I ask you a personal question? When are you going to marry that young man who was so busy watching to see if you had recovered from your close call with Mr. Deasley that he gave me a cup of tea with ten lumps of sugar?”

“Harry? But he deceived me, and Fergy says ...” I told her what Fergy said about broken cups.

“Tessa, I hate to disagree with such a worthy woman, but I think this time Fergy is wrong. Picking up the pieces and sticking them back together is what any worthwhile relationship is all about. It’s what life is all about. Men are only human, and when it comes to reality rather than fiction, perfection can be very boring.”

“I will not go crawling to ...”

A firm but gentle shove towards the door. “You won’t have to crawl. You are a very creative girl. And, Tessa—”

“Yes?”

“A child can have only one mother and, although I wish I could have been, I am not yours. But a mother can have more than one child. I do love you. I have always loved you. Now do as you are told and get out of here.”

When I passed Tessa’s portrait she was definitely beaming.

Harry wasn’t in the sitting room and when, ignoring the sudden hush in conversation, I looked out the French windows, Highflyer was no longer rambling around on his rope nuzzling grass.

“Tessa, you look horridly peaked,” Hyacinth informed my rigid back. “An evening walk would do you a world of good.”

“Indeed yes,” piped in Primrose. “Harry just left, but you may be able to catch up with him, because he took his horse around the side of the house to give it a drink from the rain barrel. Do hurry, and apologize for our forgetting to ask him if he will come for afternoon tea tomorrow.”

Chantal came up behind me. “I love him enough to let him go. You had better love him enough not to let him go.”

I went out, down the verandah steps and across the lawn, but I didn’t go round to the rain barrel. The noble Highflyer was entitled to drink in peace. Instead I went through the Ruins. How serene and empty they were this evening. It was Abbots Walk I feared to enter. Would Angus’s ghost have joined Tessail’s? At the first step beneath the boughs, however, I realized that the horror of the place was gone. The only ghosts were those of a twentieth-century highwayman and a damsel in distress.

Shadows filtered through the leaves, turning the ground to a mosaic of grey and brown. Somewhere in the darkening sky a bird chanted its eternal song. Though the memory of Angus would always be with me, his shade would not haunt this walk, yet surely a monk or even the abbot himself might still pass this way, his tonsured head bent low, fingers tolling the beads with the patient ease of daily ritual. But, hark! Those sounds approaching were not the footfall of a ghostly monk, but of hoofbeats pounding ever closer.

Horses are not a great love of mine, but I think I prefer them to bicycles. And yes, new-born golden foals are rather sweet. Bending, I picked up a tree branch and began idly flicking off leaves. The amber light at the end of the verdant tunnel clouded and as the great black horse and rider came cantering into the walk I stood in their path, pointing my wooden pistol.

“Stand and deliver!”

A terrible way for a girl of twenty-one to meet her end—to be mown down by a mane-tossing steed. But with scarcely a pause, Harry bent down, lifted me up into the saddle, kissed me with wicked abandon, and galloped off into the sunset.

Dorothy Cannell was born in Nottingham, England, and came to U.S. in 1963. She married Julian Cannell, and lived in Peoria, Illinois, from 1965 to 2004. While taking English 110 at Illinois Central College, she was encouraged to write for publication by the class teacher. Seven years later, she sold her first short story.

Author of more than a dozen mystery novels, Dorothy is a member of Mystery Writers of America, American Crime Writers, and Sisters in Crime. Her mystery The Widows Club was nominated for both Anthony and Agatha awards.

Dorothy now lives in Maine with her husband, their dog Teddy and their cat named Killer. She has four children and ten grandchildren.

Copyright © 1985 by Dorothy Cannell

Originally published by St. Martin's Press (ISBN 0312218699)

Electronically published in 2012 by Belgrave House

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

No portion of this book may be reprinted in whole or in part, by printing, faxing, E-mail, copying electronically or by any other means without permission of the publisher. For more information, contact Belgrave House, 190 Belgrave Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94117-4228

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This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.