I heard a man laughing inside the church porch and turned around, my heart suddenly skipping merrily along, the horror of everything else that had happened that morning paling almost, but not quite, into insignificance.

‘Is that Beamish?’

‘Yes,’ said Dolly, straightening back up again. ‘He’s been helping the vicar with some staging for the concert tomorrow. He’s going to run me home.’

‘Hattie!’ he shouted as he stepped outside.

Dolly and I exchanged a look and I wondered if she was thinking the same as me; that it was probably no bad thing that Jonathan had dropped me and run.

‘Hey,’ I called back.

‘Well you weren’t gone long.’ His giant strides had closed the gap between us in seconds. ‘We weren’t expecting you back until tomorrow, were we, Dolly?’

‘No,’ said Dolly. ‘We weren’t.’

‘I take it you didn’t find the local landscape all that captivating then?’

‘The what?’

‘The flat Fens, the big skies?’ he questioned. ‘Oh, never mind,’ he carried on, picking up my bag and Dolly’s wooden flower trug. ‘But you missed a great night in The Mermaid, and the auction was a record-breaker. I thought you were looking forward to it all.’

‘I’m truly sorry I missed it now,’ I said, thinking that a boozy night in the pub would have been far more fun than a night of five-star luxury with Jonathan.

‘So why did you go?’ he laughed. ‘And yesterday of all days!’

I looked at his broad smile and kind eyes before he turned towards the gate and offered his arm to Dolly to keep her safe along the slippery path.

‘I have absolutely no idea,’ I sighed.

‘Well, at least we can still go to the Wonderland this afternoon. If you fancy it?’

‘Do you mind if we don’t,’ I said quietly. ‘I didn’t sleep well last night and I could do with a rest today.’

‘Oh, all right,’ he shrugged, ‘no worries.’

Beamish didn’t come in when we got back to the cottage. He said he was off to The Mermaid, but would see us at school tomorrow. I was suddenly very aware that I had been far more excited to see him emerging from the church porch than I had been to find Jonathan standing on the cottage doorstep.

‘So,’ said Dolly, once we had cobbled together a scratch lunch and made a pot of tea, ‘how was your brief time with your beau? It was a bit of a surprise him just turning up out of the blue like that, wasn’t it?’

‘Just a bit,’ I smiled.

‘And I take it my assumption as to why he turned up,’ she said, looking with emphasis at my bare ring finger, ‘was a little wide of the mark?’

‘Yes,’ I said, thinking back to the bitter words Jonathan had thrown at me about ruining his big surprise. ‘I think it might have been on the cards, but . . .’