A Summer Wedding At Willowmere. Abigail Gordon

      Willowmere in summer was a bright haven of colour. The new life that had come bursting through in fields and gardens in the spring was now established in abundant growth. Trees along the riverside, some of them hundreds of years old, were in full leaf, providing a background of fresh greenery against the flimsy craft of the canoe club as they sailed along on practice days, and bird life of every kind imaginable was to be found in cottage gardens and in the park that ran parallel with the river.

      The charm of the village attracted walkers and visitors from miles around and as the days passed Laurel was aware that the Hollyhocks Tea Rooms were busy all the time with those seeking appetising meals to complement a summer day, and The Pheasant, its only pub, did much trade with others who had less discerning tastes but could guarantee a thirst.

      Often it wasn’t until late in the evening that the quiet that she’d been so dubious about descended. It was on one of those occasions that she went for a stroll in the gathering dusk beside the lake that was visible when she looked through her bedroom window.

      Elaine had gone to bed and she’d been about to do the same when the urge to go out into the gloaming had overtaken her. The sunset had been magnificent and now it was still and sultry with a yellow moon above.

      She’d been wearing a sundress in the house and instead of changing into something less revealing threw a light cardigan across her bare shoulders and sallied forth, minus the gloves.

      There were still a few people about loath to be inside on such a night, but they thinned out as she drew nearer to the lake, and by the time she was only a field away she was alone, and looming up in front of her in the moonlight were the ruins of a big stone house. Could this be the place that David Trelawney had mentioned? she wondered. If so, what a mess it was in, yet what a position, just a hundred feet or so from Willow Lake, and on the other side of the house, not far away, the place where the two rivers that flowed through the village met. There was a tattered sign on the fencing that separated the field from the road and as she peered at it she saw that it said appropriately ‘Water Meetings House.’ She shook her head in disbelief. Was the man insane? It would take forever to restore this place.

      ‘Hello, there,’ a voice said from behind her.

      She turned slowly and he was there, the village doctor who was considering rebuilding the shell of what must have once been a gracious home.

      ‘Hi,’ she said lightly, pulling the cardigan tightly around her shoulders. ‘I came out for a stroll and stumbled upon this derelict house. It’s the one that you mentioned the other day, isn’t it?’

      He was smiling. She could see his teeth gleaming whitely in the moon’s light. ‘Yes, it is. I expect you think I’m crazy to be considering restoring it.’

      ‘Yes, I do as a matter of fact,’ was the reply. ‘Yet I can see why. It’s in a fantastic position and so aptly named.’

      She was a dedicated city dweller, but there was something about the moment with the two of them wrapped around by the silent night and the remains of the limestone house shining palely in the moonlight that was firing her imagination, and she thought whimsically that it was as if there were forces abroad that were out to entrance her, when she didn’t want to be entranced.

      As he observed her bemused expression David was thinking along similar lines. It was weird that Laurel of all people should be so much on his wavelength about this place and the ruins of his mother’s old home. Meeting up with her out there in the moonlight was just as odd as on the other times they’d met.

      It had come at the end of a very strange day. In the early afternoon he’d had a phone call from one of the Texan wives who’d been in Caroline’s group when he’d first met her in London.

      He’d been surprised to hear from her and even more so when he’d heard what she had to say. She’d rung to tell him that Caroline had married the senator that she’d been seeing at the time they’d ended their relationship.

      ‘My Jerome said we should let you know,’ she’d said gently in a soft Texan drawl, ‘so that if you hear it from someone else it won’t be such a shock.’

      He’d thanked her and after chatting briefly had finished the call with no feelings of regret. There’d been just the relief of knowing that the big mistake he’d almost made had reached its final conclusion, and it would be a long time before he made such an error of judgement again.

      He’d picked up the phone again and rung his father, and when he’d told him about the call from America and that it was definitely over with his ex-fiancée Jonas had exclaimed, ‘Praise be! But I thought it already was?’

      ‘Yes, it was, but now there is closure, Dad,’ he said calmly.

      ‘And are you sure you’re all right with that?’

      ‘Spot on,’ he replied. ‘It would never have worked. We had a different set of values.’

      ‘One day you’ll meet the right woman and when it happens you will know beyond any doubt,’ Jonas said. ‘When I met your mother I knew she was the only one for me, and it will be the same for you.’

      ‘If you say so,’ he agreed dubiously, with the old proverb about once bitten, twice shy in mind.

      With the feeling of contentment still there he went to the local estate agent’s while out on his calls and ended his uncertainties about the house by the lake by making an offer for it and the land it stood on.

      In the summer twilight he’d gone to gaze upon what he hoped would soon be his and found that the strange day was not yet over. He’d found Laurel Maddox there, standing silent and alone in front of what had been his mother’s childhood home.