Wednesday, 10 September 2025

In the Village of Pepperstock Green – Chapter (067) – Interviewees

March

 

Charlie and Toddy Phelps were delighted to have secured the services of the Robert’s sisters to work as therapists up at the St Adelaide’s Reflection and Healing Retreat, but they weren’t the only interviewees that March, nor were they the only successful applicants, one of whom was Emily Hemmings.

Emily was a native of Pepperstock Green, she was 29 years of age and was a pretty girl, with fine corn coloured hair and was only a tiny little thing, four foot eleven if she had her hair up.
Emily was the only child of a local couple, who were both surgeons who lived in a huge house poshest part of the village.
When she finished her very expensive private education she had no interest in following in her parents footsteps in the world of medicine, as her passion was horses so she got a job working in a small riding school at Carpenters Farm on the outskirts of village and her parents were outraged when she chose to be a stable girl, rather than go to university, her father offered to buy the riding school and let her run it, but she forbade him from doing any such thing and threatened never to speak to either of them again if he did.
She just wanted to work with horses and when she wasn’t working she could be seen sat astride a great Chestnut coloured colt called Hector.
But the most remarkable thing about Emily was that in spite of her parent’s wealth and snobbery she had no airs and graces whatsoever.

She worked at Carpenters Farm for five years before Mrs. Carpenter died and the Riding School closed.

Her father again suggested he buy the Riding School but again she declined and instead chose to cast her net further afield and got a job in the Dulcets, a collection of villages and hamlets comprising of Dulcet Meadow, Dulcet-on-Willow, Dulcet St Mary and Dulcet-on-Brooke, to name but a few, and of course Dulcet Green which was where Scott’s Farm was located and that was where she learned everything she knows about Equine Therapy.

It was her skill as an Equine Therapist that interested Charlie and Toddy but there were two things that interested Emily, firstly setting up a Riding School from scratch and secondly returning to Carpenters Farm which was now part of St Adelaide’s.

 

Another notable interviewee attended Beechwood, Justyna Krajewska a tall willowy forty-year-old woman, with shoulder length brunette hair, intelligent green laughing eyes, a broad toothy smile and a warm open manner and altogether a very pleasant demeanour and Toddy took to her immediately, and she and Charlie thought she would be perfect as the spiritual head of the Retreat.

“So, you are locum at St Clara’s on Beaumont Island” Toddy said, “So when does that end?”

“The end of June” Justyna replied “But they may offer me the curacy after that.”

“And how do you feel about that?” Charley asked.

“I’m not sure” she replied, “It difficult settling down to parochial matters after St Giles retreat.”

“You were at St Giles?” Toddy asked as she studied her CV “I didn’t see that in here.”

“I didn’t work there” she said and then went onto explain that she had spent a prolonged period at the retreat following a long battle with cancer.

“Then its sounds to me that you are the perfect person for St Adelaide’s” Toddy said.

“We’ve been telling everyone else that the start date would be June the 1st but as we won’t be opening the doors until a month later, we can extend it for you until July 1st although we don’t expect to be fully up and running until the beginning of August.”

“Does that work for you?” Charlie asked.

“Yes, I rather think it does” Justyna said and smiled.

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