“Blimey, never use this old goat as a barometer for ambition and drive. Of all the bars mine’s the lowest. It’s very nearly on the ground.”
“But think of how happy you’ll be,” she said. “Once you finish writing and release Gladys Deacon out into the universe.”
“Will I be, though? It’s funny … I … I…” He stuttered. “I’ve been chasing this dream for so long, I don’t know what I’ll do if I ever actually catch it.”
For the better part of twenty years, Win believed everything would be different once he wrote the book, just as Pru said. But would anything truly change? What was a book but a person’s words, read by a few more persons? Once Win accomplished that, would it put his family’s misgivings to bed, to speak nothing of the misgivings he had about himself?
“What do you mean ‘if’?” Pru asked. “You will catch it. And when you do, you’ll hang on and ride that accomplishment as far as it can take you. I’ll be the very first person in line to buy the book, and all the books that follow. I’ll brag that I knew you when.”
“Yes, but what if it turns out…”
He stared up at Gladys Deacon, who appeared skeptical amid the feathers and pink. You people are lost causes, aren’t you? she seemed to say. The saddest crew I ever saw.
“What if this thing,” Win said, “this thing that I’ve wanted since eternity, what if I don’t want it in the end?”
“Well, then you try to discover what it is you’re really after.”
Win turned and locked eyes with her. Pru felt herself warm under his gaze.
“Actually, I have a better idea,” he said. “How ’bout this? How ’bout we hang around here until Mrs. Spencer passes? Then we’ll continue on after she’s bought the farm. The dogs will keep breeding into perpetuity, no doubt. Someone should look after them. I can write from anywhere.”
“Seton, you’re bonkers! Mrs. Spencer isn’t going to let us stay at the Grange without her. She barely tolerates us now!”
“But she’ll never know!” Win said. “A benefit of being dead. Unless she haunts us, that is.”
“Which she undoubtedly would.”
“Listen, it’ll work like this,” Win said. “After she’s gone, we’ll just very quietly … not leave. If anyone shows up we’ll claim squatters’ rights. Who’d want this old flea motel anyway? We’ll while out our days bobbling about with no concrete plans of any kind. Just how it suits us.”
Pru smiled.
“That doesn’t sound half bad,” she said.
“It doesn’t sound even a little bad.”
Win stood. His knees crackled on the way up.
“Although,” he said, walking toward the door. He stopped, then looked again at Pru. “I guess we need to take heed, be careful what we wish for and all that.”
“What’s wrong with a little wishing?”
“Miss Valentine, don’t you see? Wishing is probably what landed us both in these messes to start.”
Forty-seven
THE GRANGE
CHACOMBE-AT-BANBURY, OXFORDSHIRE, ENGLAND
JANUARY 1973
“Miss Valentine!”
A vigorous rapping erupted on the other side of the door. It was Win, of course. Mrs. Spencer never knocked.
“Miss Valentine! Are you in there? Let me in!”
Pru took her time to respond. She was comfortable right then, lounging beside a fire, wrapped up with a blanket and a book. This time it was P. G. Wodehouse’s Love Among the Chickens. Pru hadn’t read Wodehouse before. His works were humorous, lighthearted, not appropriate for a Very Serious literature major. What a bore she’d once been.
“Miss Valentine?”
“Yes,” she responded, somewhat reluctantly. “I’m here. I guess.”
She’d hardly gotten the words out when Win exploded into the room.
“You have to come with me!” he said, hopping toward her, his hair flapping like the ears of an excitable spaniel. “Now! It’s urgent! I need to show you something!”
“Win…” Pru said with a groan. “It’s late. I’m comfortable and I don’t want to get up.”
“Don’t be a loaf-about,” he said. “And it’s not that late. Also, a fire? It’s hardly cold at all.”
“It’s January! And this house is draftier than Santa’s sleigh.”
Plus everyone knew the best place to read was beside a snapping blaze, especially if you were thousands of miles from home. Or if you didn’t have a home.
“I’m in the middle of a book,” she said.
Win eyed the cover.
“Love Among the Chickens,” he said. “Well, I prefer his Blandings Castle series but to each her own. Anyhow, Wodehouse can wait. Trust me. You’ll want to see this.”
Win reached for her hand. Pru took it with another groan. He lifted her to standing.
“I’ve a decade and a half on you,” he said. “And you’re the one bellyaching like an old maid.”
“I’m not old. Just comfortable. Preferring to be unpestered.”
“Well, you are in the exact wrong residence for that.”
He led her down the hall.