Christmas at Hope Cottage: A Magical Feel-Good Romance Novel(29)

Evie frowned. She was the type of person who believed that those who didn’t use bookmarks should sleep outside with the rest of the swine.

The book’s cover had a photograph of a woman with wind blowing through her hair, wearing an old-fashioned gown that was a bit loose at the front so she was having to hold it up, while behind her a muscular blond, who looked like he bathed in olive oil, was looking at her suggestively.

The book came from Dot’s secret library, which she kept locked in the pantry on a shelf sandwiched between rows of detergent and mothballs. They were lent out to a very select group of people (Aggie and Evie and Ann Brimble mostly), which had at one point included Emma, to her shame; she’d devoured them all when she was about fifteen, and still had a covert fondness for slightly steamy historical tales. She blamed Dot’s library for some of her unrealistic notions about men.

But right then she was shaking her head at her aunts and Evie, ‘You can’t be serious, Mary Galway didn’t do any of that because of a chicken casserole.’

‘How else can you explain it?’ asked Aggie.

‘Perhaps she just had enough of Steve – I mean he’d always been a bully, perhaps enough was enough.’

Aggie looked at her. ‘If only that were true. I’ve often found that courage tends to wane the less you use it.’

‘Maybe hers had been storing up.’

‘I told her it would make her strong,’ said Evie.

‘And she believed you?’

‘You’d be surprised at what a little belief can do.’

‘Maybe,’ admitted Emma.

‘Well, either way, Mary Galway has finally found the courage she’s been looking for for half her life. She stood up to her husband, and fought for her son. Told Steve that she was filing for divorce,’ said Dot.

Aggie looked at Emma, her eyes wide. ‘I don’t know, love, sounds a bit like magic to me.’

Emma rolled her eyes.



* * *



Later that evening, her phoned pinged with an email from her editor, a response to the column she’d sent. She handed the phone to Evie to read aloud, biting her lip. ‘What does it say?’

Evie’s eyes scanned the contents, and then she gave a little snort.

‘They love it. Apparently, the copy-editor, Abby Fairbrother, sent a note along with it as well.’

Inwardly, Emma cringed, wishing she’d got Evie to have a look at it before she’d asked Sandro to send it on. Abby was a bit of a pedant.

‘Abby says Yorkshire must agree with you – it’s one of her favourite columns so far, and the grammar, for once, was exceptional, hardly any corrections.’

Evie’s lips twitched.

‘Oh, shut up,’ said Emma, stifling a giggle herself.



* * *



After Evie went to bed Emma sat at the kitchen table, next to Pennywort, who watched her with his solemn brown eyes. In front of her was the box of Christmas decorations that Evie had taken out of the attic. Idly, she rifled through it. Many of the decorations she, Evie, Dot and Aggie had hand-made over the years, a tradition of Hope Cottage. There were baubles dipped in gold. Delicate willow-wreath animals including a bunny, and a bear and a little mouse. She touched them and smiled, remembering the day she and Aggie had sat making that. Her eye fell on The Book, open to the recipe Evie and her sisters had just started to make and which would take nearly six weeks. The day before, Evie and her aunts had put the first cake layer in to bake, and it had now been soaked in port; it would rest for a week before they added the next layer of hope. It was the Good Cheer Christmas Cake recipe Emma had scoffed at in her mind when Evie had taken down the green cake tins from their home atop the dresser, though she hadn’t had the heart to say anything aloud. Perhaps a part of her couldn’t for other reasons too; perhaps on some level it was because the recipe was a cornerstone of the history of the cottage, and whatever she felt about The Book, the intention behind the recipe had always been kind. It was the only recipe that they made every year for the entire village, regardless of feuds or disagreements or differences, and she couldn’t help remembering the first time she’d helped to make it too, on her first Christmas at Hope Cottage. With snow beginning to fall outside the window, and the radio playing soft Christmas jazz, it didn’t seem all that long ago now.





Chapter Ten





December 1996





* * *



It was the week before Emma’s first Christmas at Hope Cottage. Bing Crosby was singing ‘Winter Wonderland’ on the old wireless. Snow fell on the cobble path outside, covering the rolling green hills in a blanket of white and topping the roofs of the cottages. There were Christmas wreaths on the pastel-coloured doors that lined the high street and twinkling lights on all the garden walls and streetlights.

Inside the cottage, Evie was dusting flour like fairy dust onto the large wooden table, and Emma was separating eggs into a bowl.

In the corner, by the hearth, was the enormous tree Harrison Brimble had brought them the week before, and Ada Stone had made the willow wreath that twinkled with fairy lights and cranberries on the outside of their front door; it had been hung just beneath the cat-shaped knocker.

That’s how it worked during Christmas at Hope Cottage, Emma was finding; people showed their appreciation for what the Halloways did throughout the year, with small gifts and tokens – though sometimes, as in the case of their enormous tree, not so small.