a moment, during which time they wished me happiness, though not as if they were optimistic about that outcome, and said they were sorry they would have to leave early to catch their train home.
I had a sudden unexpected urge to ask them about Mike’s first wife and especially what she’d died of, but before the question could leave my lips, Mike hurried back and bundled them off into a taxi.
Treena cornered me a little later and asked me what was the matter. ‘And you can’t fool me, I know something’s up.’
‘Oh … it’s nothing really. I just took something Mike said in church the wrong way, but I’m sure he meant it as a joke.’
She insisted I told her what he said and then frowned over it. ‘That was a stupid and cruel thing to say. Why on earth should you dress as if you were the same age as him?’
‘Well, I did think the child bride bit was silly, considering I’m a lot nearer to thirty than twenty. That’s why I thought he must have been joking.’
‘Huh!’ she said disbelievingly. ‘I just heard him telling Mum that he hoped you’d be starting a family very soon and giving up your job. Mum was surprised.’
‘So am I!’ I stared at her. ‘He knows I want to wait a couple more years before I take maternity leave. I’ve already given up the chance of promotion with that job near Hexham, but there should be an opening where I am in the next year or two, if I hang on in there.’
‘I suspect he might not have quite grasped that,’ Treena said drily.
I looked at her uncertainly and then said after a minute, ‘I wish the family wasn’t moving abroad. Thank goodness you’re still going to be around!’
‘Yes, I’m definitely accepting that partnership in the Great Mumming veterinary practice, so even after I move, I’ll only be about twenty miles away,’ she agreed.
‘Will you have to move? It would be nice having you in Merchester.’
‘I know, but I’d find the commute a bit of a pain down all those small country roads and, anyway, I’d like to settle there, near Happy Pets. I’ll move Zeph to a livery stables nearby, too.’
Zephyr was a dappled silver and lilac-grey mare that reminded me of an old-fashioned rocking horse and Treena adored her.
‘If you’re going to move, then I ought to clear my stuff out,’ I said. Not only were a lot of my belongings still at the cottage, but some of the things that had been Mum’s were stored there. There wasn’t room in Mike’s small and minimalist flat in a former mill building, though we planned to buy a house together.
‘I suppose I’ll have to put a lot of things into storage until we move to somewhere bigger.’
‘There’s no rush. I can just take it with me when I move, so you can sort it out later, if you like,’ she said. ‘By the way, you do realize Great Mumming isn’t far from that village where your mum came from – Jericho’s End?’
I looked at her in surprise. I was so used to thinking of Jericho’s End as some fabled, forbidden Shangri-La, that I’d almost forgotten it was a real place.
‘I suppose it is,’ I agreed.
‘When I’ve moved, we could go and have a look at it,’ she suggested. ‘Aren’t you curious?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said honestly. ‘I loved hearing Mum’s stories about it when I was little – it seemed such a magical, wonderful place – but then, she made me promise never to go there. She said … it would be dangerous.’
Treena’s blue eyes widened. ‘You never told me that! What kind of dangerous?’
‘I don’t know. Perhaps it was something to do with her family. Remember I told you her parents belonged to some small, strict, religious sect I’d never heard of, who sounded as if they came straight out of the Dark Ages by way of Cold Comfort Farm? They disowned her after she got pregnant with me, so perhaps she just meant they’d make me unwelcome, or put a curse on me, or something.’
‘Yeah, right,’ said Treena.
I recalled the urgency with which Mum had made me promise not to visit Jericho’s End, which seemed a bit over the top … but then, so had her upbringing. ‘I’d hate to bump into any of my Vane relatives,’ I said.
‘It wouldn’t matter if you did, because you’re an Ellwood now, and anyway, you don’t look anything like your mother so