The Courting Campaign

‘Not at all. Thank you for your custom.’ She shook the hand briefly, then preceded him out into the shop. ‘Are you taking the mirror now, or shall we deliver it with the desk?’

‘Now, please.’ He complimented Sheila on her artistic skill, then took the large, beribboned box and with a smile of farewell at Hester went out into the sunlit square, where the bright afternoon light glinted on strands of silver in his thatch of blond hair.

‘Very nice,’ said Sheila softly, and Hester grinned.

‘He spent a nice lot of money, too. Where’s Mark?’

‘It’s his afternoon off, remember? Playing cricket.’

‘Oh, bother, so he is.’

‘Can I do something?’ asked Sheila.

‘No, thanks. I’ll wait until David gets back. If you’ll take over for a bit with Iris I’ll shut myself up in the office with a sandwich and a cup of coffee.’

Hester often brought a packed lunch on summer Saturdays. Sometimes she went for a walk down to the river and ate it there. At other times, like today, half an hour with a novel was more to her taste. But the encounter with the intriguing Mr Hazard had left her feeling curious, and instead of reading she couldn’t help wondering why he needed a desk so urgently—and if there was a Mrs Hazard helping him with the move. Perhaps the need for the desk was due to the lady’s sovereignty over her kitchen table.

Hester turned back to her book. Her interest in Patrick Hazard was due solely to the possibility that he might be lacking other furniture that Conway’s could provide. Otherwise, whether he had a wife or not was really none of her business.

When David got back Hester asked him if he could possibly deliver a desk out to Avecote that evening. He looked at her in utter dismay.

‘Tonight? I’ve planned an intimate dinner for two, remember? Which I am cooking with my own fair hands. And I rather wanted my evening uninterrupted by thoughts of business, or anything else—other than of bed at the end of it!’

Hester flushed, and gave him an unladylike shove. ‘All right, all right, you get on with your cooking and I’ll deliver the desk.’

‘It is one of my efforts, I hope?’

‘It certainly is. And I sold that Venetian mirror old Mrs Lawson passed on to us. She’ll be thrilled.’

‘You have been busy. Who bought my desk?’

‘A man by the name of Hazard—he bought the mirror, too.’

‘Can’t Mark deliver them?’

Hester shook her head. ‘Cricket match. But don’t worry; if you can heave the desk in the car this end, I imagine Mr Hazard can help heave it out at Avecote. He’s in a hurry for it, apparently.’

‘You’re an angel. Thanks, love.’ David stooped to kiss her cheek, then went off, whistling, to his workshop, leaving Hester and her attendants with the slowing-off business of Saturday afternoon.

Later, after David and Peter had loaded the muslinswathed desk into her estate car, Hester drove home and spent some time in the shower. Afterwards, comfortable in old jeans and a white cotton shirt, her newly washed hair gleaming loose on her shoulders, she set off for Avecote, not at all averse to driving through the sunlit summer evening along winding minor roads to avoid the holiday traffic.

Avecote was a typical Cotswold village, nestling in a hollow, with steep-pitched roofs pointing through trees fluttering with the tender green leaves of early summer. She drove slowly along the road which skirted the village, then stopped in a layby a mile or so beyond and consulted a large-scale local map to track down the narrow road Patrick Hazard had mentioned.

Eventually, after careful progress between high hedges along a road with only occasional passing places, she spotted a rutted, unadopted lane which finally led her to the home of Patrick Hazard. Halfhidden at the end of a long drive edged with limes, the familiar Cotswold limestone of the walls glowed like honey in the evening light. The house was typical of the region, with prominent gables, moulded dripcourses round the tops of the window and a beautiful roof of Cotswold stone tiles with the familiar, purpose-built dip to prevent the tiles from shifting.

Long Wivutts was certainly beautiful, but it was also in the middle of nowhere. Hester couldn’t help wondering what had attracted Patrick Hazard to such isolation. The garden was wildly overgrown and the house looked strangely somnolent, as though it had been sleeping, undisturbed by tenants, for centuries.

She brought the car to a halt on the gravel in front of the aged oak front door set in an arched stone frame, and almost at once Patrick Hazard emerged, hair wet from a recent shower, his eyebrows raised in astonishment as he saw Hester.

‘Mrs Conway! If I’d realised I was putting you to such trouble the desk could have waited until Monday—or later.’

Hester shook her head, smiling as she got out. ‘It’s only a few miles, and a beautiful evening. It was no trouble at all, other than a bit in finding you. Oddly enough I’ve never been anywhere near your home patch before, Mr Hazard.’

‘My lack of neighbours was the big selling point, other than something which drew me to Long Wivutts the moment I laid eyes on it.’

‘I can understand that. It’s a beautiful house.’ Hester smiled at him apologetically. ‘But the main drawback to making the delivery alone is that you’re obliged to give me a hand to get the desk inside.’

Patrick Hazard, who was dressed in much the same way as herself, eyed Hester doubtfully. ‘Are you sure you can manage that, Mrs Conway? Forgive me for mentioning it, but you’re not very big.’

‘But well used to heaving furniture around,’ she assured him briskly. ‘The desk is wrapped in muslin to avoid any knocks, and if we remove the drawers out here it won’t be much of a problem—unless your study’s in the attic, of course.’

‘No, just inside the front door.’ He ushered her inside. ‘If you take a look, perhaps we can plan a campaign to do the least damage to you or the desk. Or perhaps we could just leave it in the hall and I’ll get Wilf Robbins to give me a hand on Monday.’ He looked at her face, then said smoothly, ‘But that, of course, would cancel your good deed in getting the desk to me tonight.’

The shadowy panelled hall was square, with several wide oak doors opening off it. The first opened into the study, which contained two comfortable chairs flanking a stone fireplace, a couple of small tables, a television, a fax machine and a pile of cardboard boxes.

‘Do you want your desk under the window?’ asked Hester, sizing up the room.

He sighed. ‘Alas, no. If I do I’ll keep looking out on the garden and never get down to any work. I thought of putting it on the blank wall over there behind the door.’

‘It shouldn’t be a problem,’ she said briskly. ‘These old doors are wide, which is a help. The desk should come in easily enough.’

And, despite Patrick Hazard’s doubts about her physical capabilities, fifteen minutes later the beautiful desk was installed, unharmed, against the panelling on the inner wall, with enough space alongside it for one of the tables.

‘Which I shall need for my computer,’ he said, breathing hard. ‘It’s a crime to pile a stack of soulless technology on a work of art like your husband’s desk.’

Hester, also breathing hard, looked at him sharply. ‘This isn’t one of my husband’s pieces, Mr Hazard. I hope you didn’t buy it under that impression. The provenance states very clearly that it’s a David Conway original.’

Narrowed green eyes met hers. ‘I’m sorry—wires crossed somewhere,’ he said, after a pause. ‘You’re not David Conway’s wife?’

‘No. I was married to his elder brother.’

‘Divorced?’

‘No. I’m a widow.’

There was embarrassment, coupled with something less identifiable, in the rueful look he gave her. ‘I’m sorry. You were pointed out as the Conways last night—as a couple. I took it for granted you were married. To each other.’

Hester shook her head. ‘David’s wife has been away visiting her parents this week. Tally’s due back about now, which is why David didn’t deliver the desk himself. And Mark, who works for us and would have been happy to help normally, is playing cricket. So I volunteered.’

‘It’s extraordinarily noble of you on a Saturday night.’

‘Not at all. I wasn’t doing anything.’

‘Which is hard to believe,’ he said swiftly, then bit his lip. ‘I’m sorry. That was probably tactless. How recently were you widowed?’

‘Several years ago, Mr Hazard.’ She smiled a little.

‘And I do have a reasonably busy social life. I just don’t happen to have anything planned for tonight.’