Second Chance at the Belfast Guesthouse. Anne Doughty

helpfully.

      ‘Good idea. But give me ten minutes’ start to get the lodgement sorted. Will you go on the bike or will you take your Da’s car?’

      ‘I’ll use the bike, if it’s all right with you. Car looks quicker, but it’s sometimes hard to get parked anywhere handy on a Friday morning.’

      ‘Bike’s fine by me. I was only going to remind you that if you use the family car you’re to make a note in the Petty Cash book for mileage. Only fair. Your petrol costs money.’

      ‘Fresh scone and butter?’ Helen asked, raising her eyebrows.

      ‘Yes, please. Breakfast feels as if it was a week ago,’ she replied, as she drew a lodgement slip from one of the pigeon holes in her desk and turned the cash box upside down in front of her.

      As Clare stood on the steps saying a few friendly words to the delivery man who had brought a case of wine from Robert Lafarge and had carried it cheerfully all the way down to the basement, she saw Helen come round the side of the house and cycle off down the drive.

      She smiled as Helen disappeared from view, remembering the outcome of just such a similar journey to the Ulster Bank made by Ginny while she was staying with them. She hurried back into Headquarters, took up the gold envelope, opened it carefully, took out the oblong of stiff card and beamed.

       Mr and Mrs Moore of Sea View, Rostrevor request the pleasure of the company of Mr and Mrs Andrew Richardson at the marriage of their daughter, Virginia, to David Midhurst.

      The story of how Ginny met her husband-to-be was one of her happiest memories of the time Ginny had worked with them at Drumsollen. It was the first Friday morning in 1961 when there was enough money in the cash box to merit a journey to the bank. On her return, Ginny had burst into Headquarters, radiant with excitement.

      ‘Clare, Clare, you’ll never guess what’s happened,’ she gasped, pushing wide the half-open door so fiercely that some small receipts on the desk fluttered to the floor in the breeze she’d created. ‘I’m going riding this afternoon . . . if you can spare me, that is,’ she added hastily.

      ‘But of course I can spare you, after all the work you’ve been doing,’ Clare expostulated. ‘That’s wonderful. How did this happen?’

      ‘Well, I was turning out of the gate and I heard hooves,’ Ginny began quickly. ‘I didn’t believe it at first. Then I looked over my shoulder and there was this lovely chestnut, just like Conker, my beloved Conker. You remember Conker, don’t you?’ she demanded, as if she had totally forgotten that it was on Conker she had taught Clare to ride. ‘I thought I was hallucinating. But I wasn’t. I rode on very slowly wondering what on earth I was going to do. I knew I just had to do something before the Mill Row and the Asylum Hill,’ she went on, collapsing breathless into one of the fireside chairs.

      Clare abandoned her desk and came and sat down opposite her.

      ‘Well, finally, just before the end of the trees, I just stopped and put my bicycle against the hedge bank and waited,’ she went on. ‘And then as they came up to me I said quite politely: Do you think I could possibly say good morning to your horse.’

      ‘So there was a rider on the horse?’

      ‘Well, yes, of course there was, silly. She was being road trained. But he didn’t seem to mind stopping too much and I stood and talked to her and stroked her nose. Oh Clare, she is lovely, just lovely, and she seemed perfectly happy with me. He actually said: She seems to like you, so I thought I’d better explain that I’d had a chestnut very like her and at times I felt heartbroken at having had to part with her and he said he was sure it must have been difficult but why did I have to do that.’

      ‘And you told him?’

      ‘Well, yes, I did, sort of. And then I asked him if he was a Cope or a Cowdy and he laughed and said, How did I know that? and I said they were the only horsey people around these parts except for some farmers who kept horses for competing in ploughing matches. He said, Yes, my mother is a cousin of one of the Cowdys. I’ve forgotten which one. He’s over from England.’

      ‘And did this gentleman give you a name?’

      ‘Oh yes, he did,’ she said beaming happily. ‘She’s Princess Tara of Ardrea by Prince Connor out of Lady Grannia, but his cousin calls her Blaze. She has the loveliest little white bit on her nose. He said his cousin thought it looked like that mark on Superman’s vest.’

      In the remaining two weeks of his visit to Loughgall, Ginny did manage to register David Midhurst’s name. In fact, as she transferred her attention from Princess Tara to her rider, she rather made up for her initial indifference by deciding she was in love with him.

      ‘Yes, Clare, I admit it, you’re right,’ she agreed, as the final days of his stay slipped away. ‘He’s the man for me, but I’m not going to marry him. At least not yet,’ she added, hesitating. ‘I made such a nonsense last time.’

      ‘Has he asked you to marry him?’ Clare asked, somewhat surprised at the speed with which events had moved.

      ‘Oh yes, he asked me last week and I said no. So he said that was fine, he’d ask me every week on Fridays until I said yes.’

      Clare propped the wedding invitation on her desk and turned gratefully to the tray Helen had brought. She poured her coffee and munched her scone enthusiastically.

      Some months after David went back to the Cotswold village where he was setting up a riding school, specializing in cross country trekking, Ginny admitted sheepishly she was pining for him even more than for Princess Tara. Would they mind if she went off to join him? She’d asked Ginny then when she had actually said yes to David, but Ginny couldn’t remember. She was already absorbed in the details of cross-country trekking and the prospect of a whole new life in England.

      After the excitements and activity of the morning, the afternoon hours remained quiet and uninterrupted. Apart from Andrew ringing to tell her he’d be back by six, the phone was blissfully silent. At lunchtime she asked Helen to deal with any guests who might turn up in the course of the afternoon. It wasn’t very likely anyone would appear until much later on such a splendid day, but having alerted Helen meant she could shut her door and make a start on the end-of-year figures.

      The thirtieth of June still felt the most unlikely of times to have a financial end of year, but the reason was simple. July the first, 1960, was the day she and Andrew had set up Drumsollen House as a limited company. Even though she was still in Paris, by doing so, Andrew could get his hands on the money he so badly needed for the most urgent repairs. Now, there were only nine days till the end of the month and the end of their third year of trading. Today’s crop of bills had been deducted in her ledger, the cheques already in their envelopes for the post. There was a predictable amount coming in from next week’s bookings, but even if the amount she’d pencilled in proved to be an overestimate, a few pounds either way wasn’t going to make any difference to what she had in mind.

      The afternoon grew steadily hotter as she entered up the monthly figures and collated them with the Ulster Bank lodgement book. As she worked away steadily, she thought of the last time she’d met their accountant. He’d told her his senior clerks were experimenting with automated calculating machines. The sooner the better, Clare thought, as she totted up a huge column of figures. She looked at the result, then did the sum all over again, because the figure was so encouraging she had to be sure she’d not made a mistake.

      She paused, got up and stuck her head out of the window. The sun had moved round, so the side of the house was now in shadow, but there was no coolness anywhere. Her face prickled with heat and she could feel her thin, cotton print blouse sticking between her shoulder blades.

      She took a deep breath and went through the figures yet once more, sure there must be something she had missed, even though she knew her records were right up to date. She checked the Pass books again. It all tallied exactly. All the loan repayments had been made for the year and there was no bill