A Bitter Feast(3)

The invitation for Gemma and her family, and their friend Doug Cullen, to spend the weekend at Melody’s parents’ country house had come as a surprise. “Mum’s putting on this big harvest festival do,” Melody had said. “She wants to meet you and Duncan. And Doug, too, God knows why. Do come. Seriously.” Moved by an unexpected vulnerability in Melody’s expression, Gemma had impulsively agreed.

Now she wondered what on earth she’d been thinking.

They’d had to split up; Gemma and their almost four-year-old, Charlotte, traveling with Melody, while Duncan was coming on his own in the family car later that night. Their boys, Toby, seven, and Kit, fifteen, would come on the train tomorrow with Doug. Duncan and Doug, who worked on the same team at Holborn CID in central London, had been finishing up a case that afternoon, while Toby had not wanted to miss his Saturday-morning ballet class.

“Mummy,” Charlotte said sleepily from the backseat, “are we there yet?”

“Almost, lovey,” Gemma answered, although she had no idea. It had gone six, and they’d bypassed Oxford more than an hour ago and were now well into the Cotswold Hills. “Did you have a good sleep?” she asked, reaching back to give Charlotte a pat.

“I want my tea,” Charlotte said plaintively.

“Soon, darling,” Melody assured her. “And it will be a lovely tea, too. We really are almost there. You’re going to love it.”

Charlotte might, but Gemma was not at all certain about this country-house lark. She was a townie through and through. The city fit her like an old shoe, made her feel safe and comfortable. Outside of its confines she wasn’t quite sure what to do with herself.

But she had to admit, as she watched the evening light fall across the rolling hills and sheep-strewn fields of Gloucestershire, that it was beautiful. They passed the turning for Bourton-on-the-Water, and a few minutes later Melody took a sharp left into a lane signposted THE SLAUGHTERS.

“Slaughters?” said Gemma, frowning. “You’re taking the piss.”

Melody grinned. “It doesn’t mean what you think. It’s a modernization of an Old English word for slough, or boggy place. At least that’s one interpretation. There’s Lower Slaughter and Upper Slaughter, and we are somewhere in between.”

The lane was narrow, banked by hedges, and as the incline gently dropped it was increasingly covered by overarching trees. Gemma began to see long, low limestone cottages on either side of the lane, then a large manor house set back from the lane on the right. “Is that—”

Melody was already shaking her head. “Oh, no. That’s the manor house. Seventeenth century. Much too grand for us. It’s quite a posh hotel now.”

They came into the village proper. Gemma saw a venerable church, and across from it, a long, low pub, its windows beginning to glow with lamplight. A glimpse of the hanging wooden sign showed a lamb on a green field. To their left, a pretty river ran under an arched bridge. “There’s the other hotel, there, the inn,” said Melody, pointing to a building covered with bright creeper on the far side of the bridge. “But the pub is definitely the place to eat for casual fare.”

Their road crossed the bridge and followed alongside the river. All the buildings were the same honey-colored stone, except for a redbrick mill on the river’s bend.

“What’s that, Mummy?” asked Charlotte, pointing. “The round thing.”

“It’s a water wheel, sweetie. Is it still in use?” Gemma added to Melody.

“It’s a museum. With a tea shop. Maybe we can go tomorrow.” Melody glanced in her rearview mirror. “Would you like that, Char?”

“Yeah.” Charlotte nodded, her halo of caramel ringlets bouncing.

They had left the village and were climbing now, the river lost to sight beyond green fields. The evening sun lay gold and flat across the hills rising away to either side.

As the road climbed, the hedges drew in until they were running through a tunnel of trees. At its end, Melody slowed and turned into a narrow drive. Before them, open parkland sloped down towards the river, but an avenue of trees lined the winding drive and shielded the distant view.

Gemma noticed Melody’s hands tighten on the wheel as they entered a deeper wood. “The Woodland,” said Melody. “Then the Wild Garden and the house. All very Arts and Crafts.”

“Are we there? Are we there?” Charlotte jiggled in her car seat with excitement. Gemma found she was holding her breath.

The trees thinned, the drive dipped, and as they came out into the sunlight, Gemma gasped at the riot of color before her. Oranges, yellows, and purples filled the garden that rose in gentle terraces towards the house.

And the house! Built of the same pale Cotswold stone she’d seen in the village, it glowed in the late-evening light. There was a central gabled porch that rose to the height of the second-story slate-tiled roof, with wings either side. Leaded glass winked from the windows and a lazy spiral of wood smoke drifted from the central chimney. Blowsy pink roses climbed up either side of the porch.

“Oh, it’s gorgeous,” whispered Gemma. “Not at all the grand mansion I was picturing.”

“Thank you. I think,” Melody added, a wry twist to her lips. The drive swooped left round the garden, then the tires crunched as Melody pulled up the Renault on the graveled forecourt.