Restoring Grace (36 page)

Ellie took a breath, about to tell Grace the
truth; that she would never know enough to start on the paintings, and that she
planned for Ran to do it. But she didn't. Grace didn't need the extra anxiety,
not now. She'd tell her tomorrow, when the evening had been a fantastic success
and Grace would be feeling mellow and relaxed. 'Hmm, tomorrow, probably.'

‘It's just we do need to get this dry rot
sorted. I rang another company about it and they would have charged more. So we
need to sell the pictures.'

‘
Do you
still think Allegra and your brother might want
a cut of whatever you
get for them, too?'

‘
As long as
I get enough to put the dry rot right, I don't
care. They can have
everything that's left over.'

‘I don't want to be rude about Allegra – I
mean, she's your sister and everything, but . .

‘
Go on, don't
bother to spare me. Tell me what's on
your mind.'

‘
Will she be
happy to let you take out the dry-rot money
first? Won't she say that
the paintings belonged to her and your brother?'

‘
How can
she? They are definitely fixtures and fittings!
They're on the
shutters.'

‘Well, I know, but you'll have to take them off
to sell them and—'

‘You think she'll say if they're removable,
they're hers and Nick's?'

‘Well, what do you think?’

Grace considered for a
few moments, suddenly looking
rather pale.
'The trouble is that, although she's my sister, I
don't really feel I know her very well. I mean, I don't know
if she wants me to sell the house because she wants money,
or because she doesn't think I should have this house. If it's money,
she might try and say they're hers, but if she
just feels this house is too grand for her little sister to
live in all on her own – I suppose she still might. Because
if I've
got money I can fix the house and keep it.' Grace
sighed deeply. 'I don't know why she's being like this, really.
She's
very well off herself. Her husband's loaded.'

‘I once heard someone say that being rich
didn't stop people being greedy. Have you got any more tea towels?
I'll help you dry up,' Ellie went on, to disguise
the fact
that she'd been quite so frank about Grace's siblings.

‘Oh no, don't bother!' said Grace, glad to be
distracted from her larger problems. 'They can drain.'

‘
It's just I
need the space,' said Ellie. 'I've got my tartlets
to sort out.'

‘So, what are we having? I can remember the
wines because I chose them, but I've forgotten about the food.'

‘Roasted tomato tartlets, gravadlax – makes a
change
from smoked salmon. And I've got some
lovely mush
room pate. The souffles, salad, breast of guinea fowl—'

‘
Ellie, you
never managed to buy all that expensive
stuff with the money I gave you?’

Ellie had actually subsidised Grace a bit, but
didn't want to say so.

‘I'm a very good manager! We're finishing up
with the most delicious chocolate mousse in the world, but you'll have to tell
me what order you want the other dishes served in.'

‘Sounds fab.'

‘I would have done a chocolate tart but we've
already got pastry.'

‘
Let me know
how much I owe you,' said Grace,
regarding Ellie very firmly.

‘
OK,' said
Ellie, aware that she'd been caught out.
When I dig out the receipts.’

*

At five
minutes to eight, the two women hovered in the
drawing room, now converted into a dining room,
^t
weaking
cutlery, realigning napkins and checking that the candles were all burning
safely and evenly.

‘
It does look lovely,' said Ellie from the doorway, ready
to run to the kitchen the moment the doorbell rang.

The room did. They had
lit the fire and about fifty candles
so it was
pleasantly warm. Tea lights occupied every space
where
there wasn't room for a candle in a bottle.

‘
Bottles
are fine,' Ellie had insisted. 'It's a wine evening,
it's only proper
that the candles reflect that. And it's not as if the candles in bottles are on
the table. People won't get confused and take a swig out of a candle.'

‘Ellie! They're all going to behave very well,
and in a dignified way.'

‘
Sounds dead boring. No, only joking! It's all
lovely!’

A huge bunch of bare
branches were apparently
growing from the
old chimney pot, and Ellie had
entwined them with fairy lights.
Grace had agonised for a few moments about this touch, wondering if Edward
would think it terribly naff, but then rapidly consoled herself with the
thought that a) Edward wasn't going to
see
the fairy lights, and b) she didn't care what he thought
any more. She
was not entirely convinced this was true,
but
as the fairy lights looked extremely pretty, she decided
to work on it.

The table was enormous, but by the time each
place was set with several sets (although not quite enough) of
cutlery, and six glasses at each place, it did not
look empty.
Grace had discouraged
Ellie from doing individual flower
arrangements by each place.

‘
They'll get
knocked over. When people are writing
things
down, and using lots of glasses, they'll be a
nuisance. And you have got
your viburnum.’

Ellie's favourite bit of
decoration was practically a tree.
It was a huge
branch of
Viburnum x bodnantense
which
Grace had almost encouraged Ellie to hack down. Its pale
pink
blooms looked like blossom and the fragrance was
enchanting. Grace was a little concerned that the perfume
might interfere with the wine tasting, but
decided that only
purists would object and that it was unlikely there
were any of those coming tonight.

‘
It is
amazing what you can do with enough space and
enough candles,' said
Ellie now, extremely satisfied with the result. 'The trouble is, my mother
says, that most people have far too much clutter to really make their houses
beautiful.'

‘
Well, there
I am in with a head start,' said Grace wryly.
'No furniture cuts down on
clutter really well.'

‘
Not many
people would be prepared to make the sacri
fice for beauty, but you, Grace, are braver than most. You
look wonderful, by the way,' said Ellie. 'Is that
designer?’

Grace looked down at herself and picked at a
bit of fluff. 'Yes. Armani. Edward bought it for me. He likes clothes.'

‘
Was – is he a dandy, then?'

‘
No! Well, yes, I
suppose he is. But he liked buying me clothes, too. And jewellery.' Grace's
eyes widened. 'It's in
the bank. I
have no idea how much it's worth, but it might
be quite a lot! I could
sell it!'

‘
Fantastic,'
said Ellie, thinking a little bitterly how much
time and effort she and Grace had put into getting money
for the
dry rot only to have Grace remember there was a fortune's worth of diamonds in
some bank vault.

‘On the other hand,' said Grace, deflating
slightly, 'it might not be worth all that much. It's mostly modern silver. I
just put it in the bank when Edward left so I wouldn't . . . Actually, so I
wouldn't be reminded of him by it. How sad is that?’

For Ellie, who'd had her
hopes raised and then dashed,
it was very sad indeed.

They had just managed to
convince each other that no
one was going to come, and they
could relax, clear away the table, drink all the wine and have a private party
of their own, which would be so much less stressful and a
million times more enjoyable, when the doorbell
jangled.

They both jumped and Ellie looked at the door
like a
captured animal, desperate to escape
to the safety of the
kitchen.

‘I hope it's that young couple who came the
first time. The Cavendishes. They were great,' said Grace.

‘Well, answer it then. You can't sell evenings
of food and wine to people if you don't let them in. Just let me get away
first.’

Grace sighed. 'I'm not
really cut out for this, you know.'
Then she went to the door.

It wasn't the young couple, it was Flynn. He
came in and hugged Grace roughly. An odd combination of relief
and excitement rushed through her. 'I'm so sorry I
haven't
been in touch. Family crisis. Can I still come?’

Grace thought of the ten
individual tarts that Ellie was
probably putting in the oven now,
the ten individual soufflé dishes, greased and collared, waiting for their
mixture, the ten perfectly arranged plates of
salad which
would shame most artwork with their mastery.

‘I'll have to ask Ellie. And I'd need to set
you a place.'
Resentment and nerves at her
first reaction tugged at her,
making her ungenerous.

‘I'll ask Ellie,' said Flynn and strode off to
the kitchen.

Ellie, Grace knew, would
say it was fine and that it was
no trouble to make another tartlet,
or rustle up another
soufflé, cooking it in
one of the less precious, more robust,
teacups.
As she went into the drawing room, now
converted to a banqueting hall,
to check on the candles, she was aware that somehow the evening loomed less
heavily over her now that Flynn was here. She smiled.

Ellie came into the
drawing room, bearing plates, their
oldest and most bent cutlery and
some glasses. 'It's nice that Flynn could come, isn't it? I'll put him in here.
We did have far too many women.'

‘
I'm sure there's some superstition about not
having eleven people at the table,' said Grace.

‘
That's thirteen, and stop being ungracious.'
Grace
laughed.

*

To Ellie's extreme
frustration, Ran was the last to arrive.
Everyone
else had been seated round the table for some
time,
exclaiming, for the most part, at the attractiveness
of the room. Only
the double-barrelled couple who had come to Grace's first wine tasting didn't
appear to be enjoying themselves, and were making snippy remarks
about candles in bottles and the vulgarity of
fairy lights.
Ellie had asked Grace
why, if they'd been so snooty before,
she'd allowed them to come again.
'First of all, I forgot who they were when they rang up to book, and then I
thought: What the hell, I'll show them.'

‘Good for you,' said Ellie. 'Now, are you sure
you can carry three plates at a time? You've never been a waitress, have you?’

Maybe not, but I can still manage these.' Grace
hesitated. 'I am sorry about Ran not turning up.’

At that moment, the
doorbell rang. 'You go,' said Grace,
'I'll take these in.’

Grace paused before she
entered the drawing room and
saw Ran's
expression when Ellie opened the door.
Surprise,
admiration and shock pretty much summed it
up.
Grace hoped that Ellie found his reaction satisfactory
- she would have
done.'. .

‘. . . now, if you've all finished marking, I'm
going to ask you to pass round the next bottle quite quickly as the
next course is a cheese soufflé and we'll want to
get stuck
in as soon as it arrives.’

She happened to catch Flynn's eye and his smile
was
a mixture of approval and
congratulation. She permitted
herself to smile back. The evening was
going well. Ran was proving a success with the female members of the party: he
didn't say much, but he did look stunning in his dinner jacket. Grace made a
note to tell Ellie that although the women flirted with Ran, he parried it well
but didn't reciprocate. He could possibly be
seduced by
a younger woman yet.