Downshire is a relatively small English county but like a pocket
battleship it packs a lot in, a short but beautiful coastline, a channel port,
the Ancient forests of Dancingdean and Pepperstock, the craggy ridges and
manmade lakes of the Pepperstock Hills National Park, the rolling hills of the
Downshire Downs, the beautiful Finchbottom Vale and farm land as far as the eye
can see from the Trotwood’s and the Grace’s in the south to the home of the
Downshire Light infantry, Nettlefield, and their affluent neighbour’s,
Roespring and Tipton in the north but our story begins slightly further south equidistant between Nettlefield and the Oxley’s, in
the beautiful village of Heathervale.
It was the second day
of Shrovetide, known as Quinquagesima Sunday, which in the Christian church calendar
marked the fiftieth day before Easter.
But for Grace Woods it
marked a 50 of a very different kind, her 50th birthday.
Most people thought it
was a special birthday, but it was of little significance to her as she had no
one special in her life to mark it with.
When her husband was
still alive he always made a great fuss of her.
But there had already
been five birthdays in his absence before that year’s landmark and she hadn’t
enjoyed a birthday since his untimely demise.
And to add insult to
injury her milestone birthday fell on a Sunday, which was their favourite day
of the week, the early service at St Giles, followed by a lazy morning reading
the newspapers and a roast dinner.
As she lived alone, in
the same huge house that backed onto the common, she didn’t bother with Sunday
lunch, not because she couldn’t cook, she was a very good cook, she just didn’t
bother for herself.
In fact, she had only
done Sunday lunch a handful of times since graham had died.
She still went to St
Giles every Sunday, but she was in no hurry to return home afterwards, so she
would stay for coffee in the church café and invariably there would be an
invitation to lunch from some other lonely soul.
It was just after the Sunday morning service had ended at St Giles’s
when Mike Kemp spotted Grace and thought, not
for the first time, that for a woman of her age she had a particularly nice
figure.
He remembers vividly the first time he saw her, she had just come down
the church steps and had stopped briefly to converse with friends.
He was a Christian but was not himself a regular at St Giles’s because
his work for Transglobal Oil kept him away from Heathervale for several weeks
at a time but when he was home he never missed a service or an opportunity to
see Grace.
When he did attend he was normally sat at the back and was then able to
get a seat at one of the tables in the Café when the church emptied.
He knew her slightly, through her late husband as they were both members
of the same Golf club, but he wanted to get to know her better and he had
almost asked her out for lunch a couple of times but he either lost his nerve
or was beaten to it by someone else.
He was reluctant in part because he was concerned that she might not
think him a suitable luncheon companion, although they were equals in most
things, she was a very wealthy woman by all accounts, and he was a millionaire,
in fact they both came from “old money”.
Which was self-evident by the way they both dressed, everything Grace
wore was real quality and she was always immaculately turned out, though her
financial status was of no interest to him, in fact nothing concerned him when
he looked at her other than the fact that he was eight years younger.
Unfortunately, on that Sunday he got cornered by an old school friend
and was trapped while Grace was standing chatting with friends in the middle of
the Café and while his boorish friend wittered on endlessly he was reduced to
admiring Grace from afar,
the neat figure, the shape of her legs and the exquisitely tailored
clothes, she looked so lovely to him that he struggled to take her eyes off her
while trying to give the impression to his old friend that he was paying as
much attention to him.
When the congregants began to disperse, he knew it was now or never,
because as the crowd dispersed there was a real danger that Grace would go with
them, so it was at that point he decided to give his friend the slip and chance
his arm, as her conversation appeared to be over, he got up and went over and
intercepted her before she reached the door.
“Hello Grace” he said
“Oh hello” she replied, “its Mike isn’t it?”
“Yes” he said “it’s so nice to see you again”
“Yes” she agreed “it’s been awhile”
Once he had her attention they chatted for a while, small talk mainly.
“I hear that it’s your birthday today” Mike said, “Many happy returns,
how are you enjoying it so far?”
“Yes, thank you” she responded “So far it’s just like any other Sunday”
“Really? How disappointing”
“I know but I don’t feel any different today that I did when I was 49”
she said
“You are never 50” he whispered “That’s not possible”
“Oh, dear me” she said all flustered “I don’t know about that”
And having duly flattered her to the point of blushing he said
“I suppose you have big plans for today”
“No nothing actually, my daughter Jane is still at MIT, so she couldn’t
get back” she said sadly, but added more positively “we will do something when
she comes home on spring break”
“Well that won’t do” he said “Allow me to treat you to a birthday lunch
at the Holly Tree”
He wasn’t confident that she would agree, and he held his breath while
she considered his offer.
She was very flattered of course, a woman of her age would be when a
younger man asked her to lunch, especially one 8 years younger than her, and
even more so when that young man had been flirting with her.
But she thought it would be imprudent to lunch with him, so no one was
more surprised than she was when she graciously accepted.
They enjoyed a very pleasant lunch, which consisted of three courses, a bottle
of wine and an abundance of flirting, at the Holly Tree Inn and after several
coffees he drove her home.
“It was a very nice lunch Mike” she said as he pulled up on the drive
outside her very large house. “Thank you”
“It was my pleasure” he said “perhaps we could have dinner one evening
at somewhere a little more salubrious”
“I would love to” she replied
“Great” he retorted trying to conceal his pleasure and failing “Would
tomorrow be too soon?”
“No not at all” she lied, concerned that she wouldn’t be able to get an
appointment at Mazzone’s at such short notice, but then she smiled because the
fact that she cared about making the best of herself for him was significant, and
it dawned on her that she wasn’t going for dinner with a friend, it was a date,
and that realization made her smile.
“I will look forward to it”
“Excellent I’ll pick you up at 7.30” he said “see you tomorrow then”
By the time Grace’s daughter came home for spring break they had been on
countless dates and were very much a couple and Jane couldn’t have been
happier.
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