Page 87 of The Little Flower Shop By the Sea
‘Are you feeling better since you returned? After what happened, it was understandable that you’d stay away. But I didn’t think it would be for so long. I don’t think any of us did.’
‘Yes… well…’ I mumble, ‘it was difficult to come back… after Will.’
‘Fine young man, he was. Honourable, trustworthy, fine-looking fella, too. The good always die young.’
I swallow hard.
‘I heard about Bertie,’ I say, deliberately changing the subject. ‘Such a shame. But Babs is doing well. I saw her the other day.’
Stan’s cheery demeanour immediately changes and his face fills with sorrow as he remembers. ‘They were good helpers to me. I never meant for them to lose their jobs when I left the estate. The woman she said she’d keep them on. She gave me her word.’
I knew Stan wouldn’t have left Babs and Bertie in the lurch.
‘Which woman, Stan?’ I ask. ‘Who said she’d keep Babs and Bertie on?’
Stan furrows his brow. ‘I’m trying to recall her name. Bossy woman, loud voice – shrill, you know?’
Oh, I knew all right.
‘Was her name Caroline, by any chance, Stan? Caroline Harrington-Smythe?’
‘Yes, that’s her. She said she’d guarantee them their jobs if I left the Parish Council in charge of Trecarlan.’
Caroline strikes again.
‘But whydidyou leave the castle, Stan?’ I hesitate before continuing: ‘Did you lose all your money in a card game?’
Stan’s head drops, and he looks down into his lap.
‘The truth please, Stan,’ I ask him gently. ‘I need to know.’
‘The truth is I was broke, Poppy,’ Stan says, lifting his head, sadness etched all over his face. ‘I no longer had the funds to run Trecarlan. It costs a lot of money to run an estate like that.’
‘I’m not surprised you were broke if you were gambling all your money away. Babs told me about your parties.’
‘Ah, dear old Babs, she always did like to gossip. Yes there were parties, parties that I hosted at Trecarlan. There was a lot of money won and lost in that house during that time. But I wasn’t the one gambling, I was merely allowing others to do so on my premises. It wasn’t legal, I know, but it was lucrative for me and for Trecarlan. It allowed me to keep hold of my beloved home for a while longer.’
Stan looks wistful as he thinks about his former home.
‘The castle was badly in need of repair; there were cracks in places there shouldn’t be. Big cracks that, left untreated, were making the whole building unstable. I had two choices: sit by and watch the place fall down around me, or take a chance on something illegal and allow those parties to go ahead.’
‘So what happened?’ I prompt, feeling sorry for him but at the same time wanting to know the truth.
‘There was a police raid one night – tip-off, apparently. Luckily I got off with a fine; the judge was lenient with me because of my age and my reputation as… how can I put it? A tad mad!’ he winks. ‘But the fine was bad enough. It meant I had no money left for the estate, no way of making any more money, so I had no choice but to leave and come here to Camberley to live. Luckily, I had a few things from the castle I could sell to fund my fees for a few years, but it won’t last for ever.’
Stan looks at me with a mixture of fear and dread in his eyes. ‘When that money runs out, Poppy, I’ll have to leave my friends here, and…’ Stan swallows hard. ‘To tell you the truth, I’m not sure what will become of me,’ he says, his voice trailing away. He pats his weak legs. ‘These things don’t work properly any more. I’m hardly in a position to look after myself.’
‘Oh, Stan,’ I say, leaning forward to take his hand. ‘It won’t come to that. I won’t let it.’
Stan grips my hand. ‘Poppy, it’s lovely to see you again. Really, I can’t tell you what it means to me. But I’m not your concern. You have a life of your own. Responsibilities.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong, Stan,’ I tell him, looking straight into his kind old eyes. ‘You looked after Will and me when we were young, and it’s time for me to return the favour. You, Stan, are now my responsibility, and I won’t hear otherwise!’
Thirty
Orange – Generosity
‘We have to get ready to leave,’ I tell Ash as he tries to prevent me climbing out of bed. It’s 6.30 p.m. on a Wednesday evening, and Ash was only supposed to be ‘popping round for a bite to eat’, before we headed out to the Merry Mermaid for a meeting about the Trecarlan wedding. But as so often happens when he ‘pops round’, we’d ended up in bed, and now I’m running extremely late.
