Page 29 of Secrets and Seashells at Rainbow Bay
‘Gah, he’s still not answering,’ I say to Charlie as we stand in the kitchen preparing our evening meal.
We’ve been living on bits and pieces that I’ve managed to scrounge from Dorothy’s kitchen and the village shop for the last few days. Even though Dorothy has offered on numerous occasions to cook for us, I want to hold on to some independence, and not be ‘waited on by staff’.
But I managed to spend half an hour early this morning doing an internet grocery order on Charlie’s laptop from the nearest large supermarket, and it arrived, to my delight but Arthur’s horror, about an hour ago.
‘That can’t come in here,’ Arthur said when I asked Joey to open the gate for the delivery vehicle. ‘It’s not right.’
‘I think it’s a bit unfair to ask the driver to carry the baskets from the car park, Arthur. It’s bad enough he’s got to carry them up my spiral stairs when he does get in here.’
To give the driver his credit, he carried everything upstairs – and without grumbling, too. So I gave him a small tip before he left, which he was very grateful for.
‘We don’t see many of them these days,’ he said, popping the note in his top pocket. ‘I can tell you’re gentry, ma’am.’
I was about to explain that I wasn’t anything of the sort when I decided it was just easier to let it go this time. So I bade him farewell and notched up yet another first for the castle – this time in the form of online grocery shopping.
‘Maybe Benji is on holiday?’ Charlie says, putting our cutlery on a tray ready to carry upstairs.
‘Without his phone?’
‘Why not?’
‘I guess it might be possible.’ But Benji didn’t strike me as the sort of person who would go anywhere without his phone. So I decide not to leave yet another message – I’d left three already asking him to call me back.
Besides, Tom was getting on quite well right now; it had only been a few days, but I thought so far he had coped admirably with everything that had been thrown at him.
Perhaps I might be able to persuade Arthur to let him have a go at some proper restoration soon. He’d made an incredible job of the Great Hall. The armour and weaponry now gleamed like it was about to go into battle for the very first time. Even Arthur had been impressed, if saying it wasn’t ‘a bad job’ was praise. Tom and I both chose to see it that way, and when Arthur left the hall, we had a congratulatory high-five between us and a rather nice hug, which I thought had gone on for a little bit longer than was strictly necessary.
‘So have you had a nice day today?’ I ask Charlie as we sit down to eat our food by the window. I’d chosen to place the table there when we’d been rearranging some of our inherited furniture yesterday, so now we could enjoy a gorgeous view from all the windows – whether we were eating, just lounging on one of the sofas or sitting at the old antique desk we’d discovered hidden under a felt cloth when we’d been unpacking.
‘It’s been mega,’ Charlie says, ladling beans on toast into his mouth.
I felt a bit guilty giving him this when I knew Dorothy was serving up homemade chicken pie, roast potatoes and green veg down in the kitchen tonight.
But Charlie (and me, too, for that matter!) really enjoys beans on toast, so the guilt didn’t linger too long.
‘And you were happy enough being with Arthur?’
Charlie thinks about this for a moment.
‘Arthur is great – he knows so much about the castle and its history, and he says we can look for that sword tomorrow to go with the shield he found for me. Joey is going to help us, too. We think it’s packed away in one of the unused rooms upstairs in the main building.’
‘That’s nice.’ I make a mental note to speak with Arthur about this.
‘But when I’m with Arthur, Ruby doesn’t appear.’
Oh no, here we go again. I thought he’d forgotten about Ruby.
‘Maybe that’s a good thing?’
Charlie looks crossly at me. ‘How can it be a good thing? Ruby’s my friend. I think she’s scared of Arthur; everyone else is.’
‘They’re not really scared, they’re just . . . ’ I search for the right word. ‘In awe of him. He’s quite formidable.’
‘What does fomimible mean?’
‘Formidable,’ I correct him. ‘It means someone who isn’t to be messed with; they might come across as a little bit scary but their bark is worse than their bite – a bit like Chester.’
‘I love Chester; he’s great too.’
