The Chocolate Collection

‘Perhaps not, but I could blame him for dumping me without a second thought!’

‘But you spent only one term at university, so it was hardly a long relationship, was it?’

‘And you were both terribly young, so it probably wouldn’t have lasted anyway,’ Poppy suggested gently.

‘I wouldn’t worry about your grandfather doing anything to him, either,’ Felix said with his sudden attractively lopsided grin, ‘because if he tried to put some kind of curse on all your old suitors, he’d have no time to do anything else.’

Poppy giggled. ‘That’s an exaggeration, Felix! Chloe’s only been out with a handful of men and no one at all for ages and ages.’

‘I wouldn’t mind if he put a curse on David Billinge,’ Felix said. ‘I’m sure he’s trying to get back with you, Chloe. And you seem to have managed to forgive him, even though he jilted you on the eve of your wedding, haven’t you?’

‘That was because he did me a favour. I realised almost immediately that marrying him would have been a big mistake. Now he just wants to be friends, which is fine by me. He’s picking me up on Wednesday afternoon and we’re going to look around a few country cottages. It’ll be fun – I love looking at other people’s homes.’

Felix looked unconvinced, and I’m pretty sure Poppy wasn’t listening at all, because she suddenly said, ‘You needn’t see much of the vicar, Chloe, so it may not be such a problem as you think. I mean, it’s not like you go to church, is it? Your paths will hardly cross.’

‘They crossed this morning, practically on my doorstep.’

‘I expect he was taking his dog for a walk round the block, because the rear drive to the vicarage is just up Angel Lane, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, so it is. Well, I’ll just have to try and keep out of his way. And I expect that even if Grumps does find out and tries to do something horrible to Raffy, it won’t work. Besides, he has other things to worry about at the moment.’ I told them about the parcel Grumps had received from Digby Mann-Drake. ‘He said it was a warning and it must have been something really nasty, because he burned it.’

‘Actually, I forgot to tell you that Mr Mann-Drake came into my shop the other day and he seemed very inoffensive and pleasant,’ Felix said. ‘I didn’t even realise who he was until we were chatting and he said he’d bought Badger’s Bolt as a weekend cottage, but found the ambience so restful that he intended spending a lot of time there. That doesn’t sound very dangerous, does it?’

‘But Jake looked him up on the internet and he’s really not a very nice person – and Grumps said he could easily deceive people,’ I warned him.

‘Yes, I think he sounds horrid and Miss Winter should be glad that your grandfather bought the Old Smithy and not him, or we would have him right in the middle of the village,’ Poppy agreed. ‘But I’ve just had a thought: Miss Winter is bound to make the new vicar go and visit your grandfather, isn’t she?’

‘Serves him right,’ I said callously, then changed the subject and told them about my conversation with Chas.

‘He took it a lot better than I expected. He’s such a nice man that I really want him to be my father!’

‘There’s still a good chance he is,’ Poppy said optimistically. ‘And at least you’ll soon know one way or the other, won’t you?’

‘If it’s not him, what will you do then?’ Felix asked. ‘Go after that actor, whatever he was called?’

‘Carr Blackstock – and he didn’t sound particularly friendly. I’ll think about that, if it comes to it. One step at a time.’

‘Gosh, everything seems to be happening to you at once,’ Poppy said.

‘Yes, it needs only Mum to turn up on the doorstep to make my happiness complete,’ I replied slightly sourly, because it was starting to feel as if my six-year sea of relative tranquillity had been maliciously stirred with a big stick and a whole lot of murky stuff was rising from the bottom.

Chapter Eighteen: Charm (#)

I saw the notorious Mr Mann-Drake for myself the very next day and, like Felix, I found it hard to square his appearance with his reputation…though, admittedly, his appearance was very odd.

He was going into Marked Pages as I was coming out, after my usual cup of coffee on the way back from the post office with the Chocolate Wishes orders. When he made a strange sort of half-bow and doffed his wide-brimmed felt hat, wishing me good morning, I guessed who he was even though he looked nothing like the photograph of him I’d seen.

It must have been taken while he was standing on a box, for instead of being tall and cadaverous, he was more like a skull on a short stick, wrapped in a Victorian-style evening cloak. His hair was dyed even blacker than Jake’s and plastered flatly to his head and though his skin appeared slightly mummified, his eyes were as dark, bright and alert as a lizard’s.

In fact, he looked like an old-fashioned music-hall magician, except that there was something slightly reptilian about him that gave me the creeps, even though his voice fell like drops of liquid honey into the air. Grumps was right about that.

Poppy rang later that day from her mobile and she must have been up in one of the paddocks, out of earshot of her mother, because I could hear sheep bleating in the background and a blowing noise, which she said was Honeybun being friendly and wanting to say hello. I was only surprised that for once her phone was in working order.

‘Did you call so Honeybun could communicate with me?’ I asked. ‘Only I’m melting couverture and I’ll have to turn the temperature down and tip a bit more in, shortly.’

The chocolate spends over an hour being heated and stirred before the next stage, when you put more of the couverture chocolate drops into the Bath to cool it down, and once started on the process I don’t stop, short of a power cut.

‘No, of course not, it was because Raffy Sinclair’s just been here and I thought you’d like to know.’

‘What, he’s been to Stirrups?’

‘Yes, he caught us just as we were having our elevenses. He said he intended visiting every house in the parish over the next few weeks to introduce himself, starting with Mr Lees and the members of the Parish Council. He’d seen Effie Yatton already and after us it would be Felix.’

‘That seems pretty keen – he’s only just arrived.’

‘He certainly is keen. He’s already had a meeting with the Parochial Church Council and he’s started saying morning and evening prayers in the church every day too, which is more than poor old Mr Harris managed. He said anyone who wanted to join him would be welcome.’

‘But doesn’t Mr Lees practise the organ in the afternoons?’

‘Yes, but he’s usually finished and gone for his tea by then, though he sometimes plays it late at night when he calls in to lock up the church on his way home from the pub. People complain about it, but being blind he says day and night are all one to him, and takes no notice.’

‘Yes, I’ve heard him playing once or twice faintly, when the wind has been in the right direction and my bedroom window open. But I thought he was deaf and dumb as well as blind, the Pinball Wizard of the mighty Wurlitzer?’

‘Oh, no, he can hear perfectly well, and talk if he wants to – he just doesn’t usually want to. He must have talked to Raffy, though, because they’re going to the Falling Star for a drink together tonight.’

‘What? Raffy can’t invade our pub!’ I protested indignantly.

‘They’ll go in the back bar and I don’t suppose he’ll make a habit of it, he’s just being friendly.’ She paused, then added, apologetically, ‘He is warm and friendly, you know, Chloe, though I found it a bit hard talking to him, knowing he treated you so badly. I think he noticed there was something wrong.’

I could imagine: Poppy’s thoughts and feelings scud across her expressive face like clouds across the sky.

‘As soon as Mum went to make him some fresh tea, he told me he’d bumped into someone he knew at university the previous day, Chloe Lyon, and Mr Merryman had told him you were a friend of mine! He said it had been quite a surprise to find you were living in Sticklepond.’

‘I bet it was!’

‘That’s what I said, and then I think he realised you’d told me all about him, because he said it seemed to have given you a bit of a shock when you ran into him in the High Street, but he assumed that you’d long ago forgiven and forgotten and moved on with your life, just as he had.’

‘What does he mean, just as he had?’ I demanded indignantly. ‘I was the wronged one – and I was doing just fine with the moving-on bit until he chose to turn up on my doorstep.’

‘Yes, but of course at that point he was assuming you were married, because he’d seen you that morning with Jake and thought he was your son.’

‘But why on earth should he—’ I began, then remembered. ‘Oh, yes, I think Jake did call me Mum when he was leaving, the way he does when he’s trying to wind me up.’

‘I told him you weren’t married and that Jake was your half-brother, and you’d practically brought him up singlehanded. He looked really surprised.’

‘There, that just goes to prove he never even looked at the letter I sent him after I got back from university, or he would have known all about Jake! And now I suppose he thinks I’ve been pining for him all this time and that’s why I’ve never married.’

‘Oh, no, I’m sure he doesn’t, Chloe! I explained that you’d spent the last few years building up a really successful chocolate business and he’d actually eaten one of your Wishes at his welcome party.’