Christmas at Hope Cottage: A Magical Feel-Good Romance Novel(14)

‘I never said anything. Didn’t want to be “that guy”.’

They both laughed.

‘You could never be “that guy”. Still, trust me, you’re better off – that book, the whole “Halloway legacy” it’s made things harder than they had to be.’

Maggie nodded. ‘Yeah, I’m sure.’ Between them Jack Allen’s presence was thick, though unspoken.

After Maggie left, she couldn’t help thinking of the past, when she’d first come to Hope Cottage, when everything changed for evermore.





Chapter Five





Hope Cottage, 1995





* * *



Evie Halloway’s life changed for ever the day the eight magpies flew over the village, making their strange cries. There were few who didn’t stop to cross themselves and rattle off the old rhyme, wondering what it had brought that day.

One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl,

four for a boy, five for silver, six for gold,

Seven for a secret never to be told.



Eight though. What could it mean? Old Ann Brimble, who ran the Whistle-In Store with her husband, said it meant change and that it had something to do with the Halloways. She could tell by the lingering scent in the air of burnt vanilla and new beginnings, the way some people know a storm is brewing from the ache in their knees.

Had Mrs Brimble peered inside Hope Cottage, her suspicions may well have been confirmed. It was the first time in fifty years that the old range had been cold to the touch, and the first time the old door, aged the colour of a duck’s egg, had failed to open at the first, desperate, knock from those anxious enough to seek hope from a Halloway edible prescription.

As all villagers knew, food made in the kitchen at Hope Cottage, using the same tempestuous range that all the Halloway women had used since Grace Halloway’s day, appeared to change lives, though no one really knew why.

It was said that when a Halloway woman kneaded dough, long-held quarrels ironed themselves out, and when she sieved flour, things fell smoothly back into place.

Need is what shaped the relationships of most of the villagers with the women of Hope Cottage. Few lifted that old brass knocker, shaped like a curmudgeon of a cat, when they wanted a simple Christmas cake or to learn how to perfect their Yorkshire puddings; people generally knocked only when they were at their wits’ end, when they were prepared to pay the price, though it wasn’t one that was metered by coin.

Evie Halloway, however, could hardly be blamed for not opening the door that particular day. News of the accident reached most people’s ears via the six o’ clock news on The Whistle Blower, the local radio station, but for Evie it had arrived much earlier, shortly after dawn, with the discovery of the tiny egg the colour of an old bruise nestling among the six brown, speckled shells she’d collected from beneath the hens. A shiver ran down her spine, as if someone had whispered something in her ear. The phone began to ring as she crossed over the threshold, and it was with a leaden heart that she lifted the receiver.

‘Mrs Halloway?’ enquired a prim-sounding voice.

‘Just Evie – no missus,’ corrected Evie, automatically, in her distinct Yorkshire brogue.

‘Oh,’ said the voice, with a polite hesitation. ‘I-I’m afraid I have some rather bad news. I’m dreadfully sorry to have to tell you this over the phone, but it appears your daughter…’ the voice faltered for a second, ‘…and your son-in-law have been in a car accident. I’m afraid… they didn’t make it.’

There was a pause, long enough for Evie to feel her heart crack in two.

The voice continued, as if from a great distance, while Evie slumped against the kitchen wall, forgetting to breathe. One word, however, brought the voice back into sharp relief.

‘I beg your pardon?’ asked Evie.

‘Your granddaughter? Thankfully, she’s fine – a few bruises and scratches. Physically, she’ll be okay, I mean emotionally, well, there are already a few effects as you can imagine – she hasn’t said a word since the accident—’

‘My g-granddaughter?’ stammered Evie, blinking against the hazy fog of tears. Trying and failing to comprehend.

‘Emma is fine,’ reassured the voice. ‘We’ll be sending her on to you as soon as possible, as you are the only next of kin, we believe, for both of the deceased… it falls to you, unfortunately, to make the necessary arrangements.’

Necessary arrangements? The air left her lungs when she realised that the woman was referring to the funeral arrangements.

When the phone clicked in her ear, Evie’s eye fell on The Book, open on the scrubbed wooden table, the same large tome that Halloway women had swollen with recipes over the past two hundred years – the same book that her daughter had attempted to burn before she slammed the door on Hope Cottage forever.

‘Oh Margaret,’ she whispered. ‘How can I find out I’ve got a granddaughter on the same day I lose you?’



* * *



It was the shortest day of the year, and the longest night, when Emma, at the age of six, saw Hope Cottage for the first time.

It was a day when the cold wind skipped along the cobblestones, trailing stiff fingers along the walls of thousand-year-old stone cottages, whispering inside the drainpipes and making that low whistle that some said had given the town its name.