Page 18 of Autumn at the Willow River Guesthouse
He opened the door and stepped out on to a patio surrounded by roses, his slippers padding on the paving stones. A cool breeze drifted in, bringing the scent of rain and wet flowers.
‘It’s down there,’ Uncle Gus said, pointing down the Willow River valley. The cycle path quickly disappeared out of sight into the trees, with the river itself only occasionally visible where it widened briefly when the fields flattened a little. Perhaps two miles distant, the valley curved out of sight, taking the railway line and Willow River away towards Brentwell and then on to Exeter.
And there, just before the final curve, the roof of a building poked out of the trees.
‘You don’t mean—’
‘On your bike,’ Aunt Gert said.
‘The old station building at Moor Cross,’ Uncle Gus said. ‘It had been derelict since the seventies, when that station officially closed. The council put it up for sale and we snapped it up.’ He clicked meaty fingers together. ‘It’s now officially the Willow River Guesthouse Annexe. We put in six rooms, but Victoria Borton pays for the lot, so it’s just her in there.’
‘Not quite two hundred grand a year, but it’s still a decent earner,’ Aunt Gert said, giving Lily a wink.
‘Which means we want to keep hold of her,’ Uncle Gus said. ‘And the first thing to do is make sure her breakfast isn’t late.’ He turned and nodded at a cuckoo clock on the conservatory wall. ‘That old thing’s five minutes fast, thank God, but you’ve only got ten minutes before she starts shouting. On your bike. Gert will bring out the hamper.’
‘Literally on your bike,’ Aunt Gert said. ‘It’s outside, by the back wall.’
‘My shoes—’
‘Better go and get them on.’
Lily dashed back through the guesthouse to the entrance, grabbed her shoes out of the rack and went out. It took a minute to get back around to the conservatory door due to a series of awkward flowerbeds, but by the time Lily had given up negotiating what she felt sure was Uncle Gus’s attempt at a garden maze and vaulted over the last one, Aunt Gert was standing by the back door, a hamper sitting on an outside bench seat nearby, tapping her bare wrist.
‘This is the real test of what you’re made of,’ she said. ‘You’ve got nine minutes to get down that path and get that hamper to the door of Room Three. Can you make it? This is real pressure, Lily. None of your boardroom charades.’
Aunt Gert gave a little titter of a laugh which betrayed her own nervousness. Lily picked up the hamper and secured it to a rack over the bike’s back wheel with a couple of hanging elastic fasteners.
‘Go, Lily,’ Aunt Gert said. ‘And don’t look back.’
Lily, who hadn’t ridden a bike for more than ten years, felt gangly and awkward as she pushed the old grandma bike forward and climbed on to a seat that was too low for her. As her knees pumped nearly to her chin, she realised it had been set up for Aunt Gert’s diminutive figure, but it was too late now. Steadying it as she took a bumpy paved path that led down to a gate opening out of the guesthouse’s sloping gardens onto the cycle path, she stood up in the seat to make pedaling easier, picking her route over the larger of the stones.
At the gate she had to get off just long enough to open it, closing it again behind her as Aunt Gert called, ‘Don’t forget to close it! Sometimes that cheeky sod Donbury uses that path to move his cattle!’
Then she was moving along the smooth tarmac of the cycle path, aware, however, that the old station at Moor Cross was still some distance off.
Pressure was something Lily had come to take for granted working for Davidson’s. The knowledge that as little as a smile in the wrong place or the stress placed on the wrong part of a sentence could cause the collapse of a multi-million pound deal had made her cool in difficult situations, but perhaps what Jonas Davidson had said was right: you couldn’t take the countryside out of the bumpkin.
Time-keeping had never been her strong point, and even now, aware she had mere minutes to meet the nine-thirty deadline, she found herself slowing, wanting to take in the gorgeous river views, appreciate the freshness of the air, savour the seasonal turn as summer gave way to autumn. With the wind rustling the hanging willow branches as they trailed in the water, she felt like she was missing out by going too fast. Time seemed to slow, and by the time the old Moor Cross station building came into sight, now transformed into a pretty cottage, she was at least five minutes late.
Parking her bike, removing the straps from the hamper and carrying them up the steps and along the old platform—now dotted with flower boxes—to the entrance added another couple of minutes. By the time she was inside and had found her way to the door of Room Three—unhelpfully on the end of the upper floor past both Rooms Five and Six—she was at least ten minutes late.
The door flew open just as she was setting the hamper down.
‘I’m sorry I’m late … I—’
The woman was huge and billowing, like a storm cloud dressed in a nightgown. Wild, grey-white hair cascaded over wide shoulders, and deep blue eyes glowered at Lily through nineteen-fifties horn-rims.
‘Do you know the time?’
Lily grimaced. ‘I’m sorry, I saw some swans—’
The woman frowned. ‘Gertrude? Did you uncover a time machine? Or is it a new moisteriser? I must say, I saw one in a catalogue the other day and it was practically calling your name.’
‘I’m Lily,’ Lily said. ‘I’m Angus and Gertrude’s niece.’
‘Oh. Getting a few hours in to pay for your studies?’
‘I’m twenty-six.’
