The next few days were very busy. Dad was working from home and Mum was working full-time at her new dental practice because one of the other dentists was off sick. Bella was spending most of her time with Sam.
He’d been sleeping in the cottage for the past few days, ever since the weather had worsened. It had basically been raining non-stop, and as he hadn’t had any luck finding a job he was feeling pretty miserable.
‘Couldn’t he sell his motorbike if he needs money?’ I suggested to Bella.
‘Of course not. He’d be stranded without it. Besides, he loves that bike.’
‘But he hasn’t even got money to buy petrol,’ I pointed out.
‘I found some more money for him. It’s enough for fuel and food for a while. And he should be safe enough in the cottage, especially with the neighbours away.’
‘Where did you get the extra money?’ I asked, puzzled.
At first I thought she wasn’t going to tell me, then she shrugged as if she didn’t see the point in hiding it.
‘You know Aunt Thecla has that tin on the shelf in her kitchen? Well, the other day when we went round to get the hairspray I had a look inside. It’s stuffed with money – I counted almost a hundred pounds. I took some of that.’
‘Bella, that’s stealing!’ I was horrified.
‘It’s borrowing. I’ll put it back at some point. In any case, Aunt Thecla doesn’t need it – she has loads of money. She probably won’t even notice it’s gone.’
I frowned, struggling to feel comfortable with this. ‘I guess I could try and think of it like Robin Hood,’ I murmured, ‘stealing from the rich to give to the poor …’
‘I don’t care how you think of it,’ said Bella with a dismissive shrug. ‘Just don’t tell Sam where the money came from. He’s feeling guilty enough about still owing his uncle loads of money for his bike.’
I sighed. ‘Taking money from Aunt Thecla just feels really wrong, that’s all.’
‘Yeah, well, blame Dad, not me.’
‘Huh?’
‘He’s the one who’s backed me into this corner. If he wasn’t so mean about Sam, we could just ask him for help.’
I pulled a face, which I guess must have expressed how I felt about her logic.
She instantly glared at me and went all defensive. ‘It’s true,’ she snapped.
I didn’t respond. I actually thought that blaming Dad for what she’d done was a huge cop-out, not to mention totally ludicrous, but needless to say I wasn’t brave enough to tell her that.
The next day as she was leaving for work Mum said, ‘I’ve got Tansy Godwin coming for an appointment this afternoon. You three haven’t had check-ups in a while, so you may as well come in today too.’
‘Do we have to, Mum?’ Bella complained. I knew she’d been planning on meeting up with Sam that afternoon.
‘Yes. I’ve got some free time after Tansy. You can all come down to the surgery at four o’clock. It shouldn’t take long.’
‘How do you know it won’t take long?’ Bella grunted huffily. ‘We might need loads of fillings.’
‘You’d better not,’ Mum said. ‘And you’d better all be on your best behaviour in that waiting room today, or else!’ She glared at Bella and me. ‘That means no chatting about long needles and loud drills and dentists pulling out teeth with pliers!’
Bella and I started laughing, remembering the visit she was talking about when we’d got a bit bored waiting for her.
‘It’s not funny!’ Mum snapped. ‘Two of my clients complained, and there was a little boy who was so scared he wouldn’t open his mouth when his mother brought him in. I didn’t dare tell her you were anything to do with me.’
‘Mum, we’re never going to do that again,’ I said, pulling myself together when I saw how cross she was.
‘I’m very glad to hear it!’ she said, not seeming very glad at all as she slammed the front door behind her.
‘Oh dear,’ I murmured guiltily.
But Bella just sounded impatient as she said dismissively, ‘Honestly, it was more than a year ago! You’d really think she’d be over that by now!’
Bella and I went to collect Grace from Aunt Thecla’s house that afternoon before our dental appointment. She’d told us to come early because she had a surprise for us.
‘I bet it’s another painting,’ Bella said as we set off. ‘It’ll be something even more hideous this time – you’ll see!’
Aunt Thecla had been spending a lot more time with Grace ever since she’d decided that Grace showed ‘artistic potential’. I have to confess I was a little hurt by her newfound favouritism. Previously I had always been the one she paid most attention to, mainly because she thought I was the clever one. (I’ve always had better marks than Bella in all my exams, though I think that’s probably because she never does any work, whereas I always study really hard.)
‘Grace is in the kitchen having a little snack before she goes,’ our aunt told us when we arrived. ‘I know one normally doesn’t eat before a visit to the dentist, but as it’s only your mother …’ She trailed off as if it went without question that Mum wouldn’t mind.
I was about to point out that if the snack was anything Mum might have to pick out of Grace’s teeth before she could examine them properly, then she probably would mind, but before I could speak, Aunt Thecla was ushering us into the kitchen.
On the table lay four different photographs of bluebells and four matching pastel pictures.
‘Guess which is mine,’ Grace challenged us through a mouthful of cheese sandwich.
Now you’d think it would be obvious which picture had been drawn by a six-year-old, but it actually wasn’t. The pictures were all much better than anything I could have done. In the end Grace couldn’t contain herself any longer. ‘They’re all mine!’ she squealed.
‘No way! That’s brilliant, Grace!’ I exclaimed.
She giggled in delight while our aunt smiled proudly at her.
‘Bluebells were Aunt Thecla’s favourite flower when she was a little girl,’ Grace said, like she was announcing a very important historical fact.
I made the connection then. ‘Wait, is that why Tansy’s dad called you Bluebell?’
My aunt looked flummoxed for several seconds. ‘And how would you know about that?’ she finally asked in a very guarded sort of voice.
‘Tansy told me,’ I replied, not seeing why she should be ashamed of it.
Aunt Thecla was glaring at me. ‘What else did she tell you?’
I blushed. ‘Nothing really. I mean, I only know that you and Tansy’s dad were engaged when you were young.’
‘We were very young,’ Aunt Thecla added, in a tone suggesting that in her opinion ‘very young’ and ‘very foolish’ went hand in hand. ‘And, yes, the boys called me Bluebell – not that it matters any more.’ Her tone became softer. ‘Now … while I have the three of you here, I have something to give you all.’ She headed for the living room, clearly expecting us to follow.
‘Here we go,’ Bella muttered under her breath, but as we entered the room Aunt Thecla gestured towards the coffee table, where we saw three sparkling brooches.
‘They’re diamond brooches that belonged to my mother,’ she explained. ‘After your grandfather died I found them in his safe. There was a note with them, asking me to give one each to you three girls.’
‘I want this one!’ Grace burst out excitedly, rushing to grab one, while Bella and I just stood back in silent awe.
‘I thought you’d like that greyhound brooch, Grace,’ our aunt said. ‘It’s set with diamonds but it has a ruby eye and ruby collar … and I thought the bird of paradise would be perfect for you, Bella. Quite beautiful and exotic, don’t you think?’
She handed it to Bella, who gently ran her fingers over the diamond-studded body and the ruby and emerald detail in the tail. I could tell that she loved it.
‘Libby, I thought you would like the bumblebee. Very quirky and unusual, don’t you agree?’ She handed the last brooch to me. Its body was set with diamonds but unlike the other two it was finished with dainty black enamel stripes.
‘It’s beautiful, Aunt Thecla. Thank you,’ I said as Grace made her doggy brooch leap about on the coffee table.
‘I’ve had them valued and each brooch is worth around five thousand pounds,’ she told us matter-of-factly.
‘Five thousand?’ I thought she must be joking at first. Come to think of it, even if she’d said five hundred pounds I’d have thought she was joking.
‘Yes. The bee one is possibly a bit less valuable but it’s always been my favourite. We kept bees for a while when I was a child, you know. Once, when your dad was about ten or eleven, he decided to try and steal some of their honey. He covered up well and used gloves but he didn’t think about his face. The bees got in plenty of stings, I’m afraid.’
‘Poor Dad,’ I said sympathetically.
‘Yes. And after our father got through with him I don’t know what stung more – his face or his bottom,’ she added drily.
‘That is so mean!’ I burst out.
‘Well, it was almost forty years ago and your grandfather had quite old-fashioned ideas about raising children even then.’
‘Dad says Grandpa was a horrible father,’ I said.
She let out a sad sigh. ‘I think if our mother had been able to support him more – rather than being sick and needing his help a lot of the time – then things might have been different. But, yes, your dad didn’t have an easy time growing up. Our father was harder on him than on me, I think mainly because he was a boy.’
‘Come on, Libby!’ Bella said impatiently. She’s never as interested in hearing about the past as I am. ‘We have to leave now.’
I ignored her, longing to hear more about Dad as a boy and to find out what Mrs Mayhew had meant when she’d called him a rebel.
But Aunt Thecla seemed to pull herself back to the present as she said, ‘Yes, we’d better get you to the dentist. Just because it’s only your mother it doesn’t mean we should be late.’