Well, they have to meet, don’t they – it was practically decreed in Chapter One. And, though we realize there is an aged army of Jocelyn’s compatriots standing in the wings to assist, how are William and Chloë ultimately to come together? Will they even like each other? And will she stay? Oh, the disappointment of it if they don’t and she doesn’t. Chloë’s year, however, has been more than just a journey leading to this lovely man; it’s been a quest for home, a search for strength and for herself. It won’t be wasted time if she doesn’t find William.
But wouldn’t it be good if she did. …
‘Ho! Our piskie sends missive!’
‘About time, I’ll say.’
Peregrine peered at the letter through Jasper’s spectacles held at arm’s length. They went through to the drawing-room and Jasper silenced Gardeners’ Question Time because not even clematis chrysocoma took precedence over Chloë Cadwallader. Peregrine found his own spectacles under the Radio Times and returned Jasper’s, placing them daintily on the tip of his beau’s nose. He settled himself into the old armchair and rested his slippered feet on the pouffe for which Jocelyn had exchanged a jar of Branston Pickle on a trip to Algiers in the 1960s.
‘Now, let’s see,’ he muttered, scanning the letter while a be-thimbled Jasper darned socks patiently, observing him over his spectacles every now and then. ‘Oh!’ Peregrine exclaimed, pushing the letter on to his lap, tutting and grimacing, and then picking it up and reading on. ‘Dear!’ he continued, pulling his lips into a pained contortion. ‘Buggery buggerdome!’ he fulminated quietly, rubbing his eyebrows and shaking his head. Jasper remained silent but for a momentary wince when the needle went wayward. Peregrine held the letter aloft, cleared his throat and read, with no need for a warning against bla bla-ing.
‘She says she had an enjoyable week’s holiday, has spent an interesting month waitressing and living in pleasant digs, but can’t see the point of staying on so please could she come back to stay with us until she decides what to do and where.’
‘Just like that?’ gasped Jasper, pricking himself again. ‘No punctuation?’
‘Not in the opening line,’ affirmed Peregrine, remarking that the rest of the letter appeared to be punctuated appropriately. ‘She says here, I can’t see why Jocelyn sent me here – apart from it being one more place I previously did not know. I do like it here, quite a lot actually, but as I can find no link here with Jocelyn, there seems little true purpose to my staying. I worry that just liking the place isn’t reason enough – Jocelyn must have had something up her sleeve, but I can find no indication of what it is.’
Jasper finished the socks, held them to the light, rolled them into correct pairs and threw them at Peregrine. ‘Continue!’ he implored, turning his attention to a tapestry cushion he had started the week before.
Peregrine gathered the socks and lodged them between the small of his back and the chair.
‘She goes on to say, I know I’m not what you’d call a socialite, but I’m getting a little bored of my own company. Why does she use “getting” when she could very well say “I have become” or “I am now”?’
‘She’s lonesome,’ said Jasper, ‘leave her be!’
‘She says she is not lonely, that she does not mind being on her own,’ clarified Peregrine.
‘Ah,’ responded Jasper, ‘but does she say she is happy to be so?’
Peregrine conceded that he could not find mention of the word in the letter, but then nor does he see ‘unhappy’. ‘She says she misses Wales: But in a wistful way; neither Scrabble nor Monopoly are possible by oneself and reminiscing requires a minimum of two participants. I had my solitude in Ireland but, in retrospect, though I was often lonelier there than here, it was a good time, good for me – and ultimately for Gus too, I think. Here, though people are friendly, no one knows Jocelyn so I question why I am here. I miss my Fraser and he misses me too, but we do not long for each other and I know I could not really live with him permanently. Anyway, he wrote to say how Braer has thrived in its first month as a guest house and I know he does not now need me. I couldn’t go back anyway, not so soon. It would be going backwards.
‘I’m sure I gave as much in the other countries visited as I received. Was I not a great help to Gin? Ultimately, so much more than just an administrator to Gus? Wasn’t it I who enabled Fraser to find the direction and confidence previously eluding him? So what’s my function here? I miss all three countries in some way or other; each gave me something precious and unique. But such gifts I was able to take away with me. I have them with me here – but I’m just not sure Cornwall is where I should set up a mantelpiece on which to put them. I’m having fun as a waitress, I’ve met a really nice girl there much my own age, but I can’t be doing this for the rest of my life. Only what else could I do? And down here? I think I should come back for a while, don’t you? Would you mind? Perhaps we could look at the map together.’
Peregrine and Jasper looked over to a photograph of Jocelyn and raised their eyebrows in unison.
‘Chloë’s almost there,’ Peregrine considered, ‘at least she likes the place and has gone ahead and organized herself.’
‘Perhaps she just needs that little prod now – as we all prophesied she might,’ said Jasper after a while.
‘Time for the phone call?’
‘I think so.’
Mac walked slowly around the ground floor of his cottage muttering, ‘Good Lord! Good Lord!’ to himself, to his plants and to a confederation of pixies gathered on yesterday’s newspaper spread over the kitchen table. Later, William asked him what it was that the Lord had done to warrant such repeated praise. Mac said ‘Oh, nothing! Nothing!’ in an exceptionally breezy way. Puzzled but not overly curious, William left him preaching to the pixies and spent the afternoon glazing jugs instead.