Spring Blossoms at Mill Grange

servant quarters she was in now, with soft, blue carpet, which meant you could cross the room without getting cold feet or being in danger of slipping unless you donned rubber soled slippers.
Helen sat up, running a hand over the wooden bed head she’d been resting against. It was hard and unforgiving without pillows to cushion it. At home she had a pine bedstead, which wasn’t much more comfortable, now she thought about it. That bed was a double though. A fact she often considered ironic, as no one had ever shared it with her. But after squeezing her curves into a narrow single bed for weeks, she had to concede it would feel like bliss to have space to rollover in the night.
Or will it?
The dinosaur roaring had stopped next door. Helen wondered if Dylan was asleep, or if he and Tom were lying in their separate beds reading their own books. She hadn’t heard the door open, so she knew Tom was still there.
Trying not to picture Tom in her double bed in Bath, Helen suddenly sat upright.
In Bath.
‘I thought, in Bath, not at home.’ She shut her eyes again and forced herself to move her mind from room to room of her home in the beautiful Georgian city.
The kitchen was a muddle, but a muddle she liked. Messy but hygienic. Small, with only three cupboards and a larder, it had a scrubbed oak table in one corner. A poor cousin to the one in Mill Grange’s kitchen, but every bit as loved. Helen wasn’t sure how much paperwork, books, bills, unopened letters and academic papers she’d left strewn on it when, on September 8th last year, she’d simply got up and decided that she wasn’t going to work that day, instead heading for the wilds of Exmoor to visit her former colleague and good friend, Thea Thomas, and the fortlet she thought she’d found.
Apart from quick trip to grab a rucksack of clothes and to throw away the milk in the fridge, she hadn’t been back since.
Her mind drifted on, seeing the hundreds of books that lined the library-like shelves in her living room, and on to the landslide of DVD’s on the floor by the out-of-date television and the forever dusty CD player. The squashed leather sofa and the wing backed armchair that had once belonged to her grandfather.
Do I miss any of that?
She looked at the pile of novels sat on the chair that doubled as her bedside table. Taken from the rows of bookshelves that lined the corridors of Mill Grange’s second floor, she was never without reading material, and although there was a television room, Helen hadn’t watched it since the last episode of Landscape Treasures had aired at Christmas.
The notion that perhaps Bath wouldn’t feel like home when she returned gnawed at her.
If I go back, will I have time to write the book?
How much will have changed at the Baths?
Will whoever’s been doing my job, want me back? Will they resent me sweeping back in and taking over?
Helen knew there was an email in her inbox from the museum board; she suspected it was intended to bring her up to date on developments there. Although it was the weekend, and she wasn’t technically at work, it was unusual for her not to respond to an email straight away. She knew the board would have noticed that too.
Her stomach rumbled. Not in the mood to be sociable when she’d got home from her walk, Helen had snuck up to her room, and not ventured down for dinner. But it was now eight o’clock, and she knew if she didn’t get some food, she wouldn’t sleep properly.
Glad to be distracted, albeit only briefly, from her struggle to decide whether to stay at Mill Grange or not, Helen was just admitting to herself that she did miss takeaways, when there was a knock at her door.
Startled by the sound after the silence of her thoughts, she called, ‘It’s open.’
‘Can I come in?’
Helen hadn’t realised she’d been holding her breath until Tom’s head peeped around the door.
‘Is Dylan asleep?’
‘Sound. Lots of fresh air and too many scones.’
Not wanting to dwell on her absence from the scone consumption, Helen asked, ‘Did you go for a walk?’
‘The Tarr Steps. It’s fast becoming one of Dylan’s favourite places.’
Having convinced herself that it was perfectly reasonable for Tom to spend time with Sue and Dylan, she hadn’t expected to feel so winded when he told her that he’d taken his ex to the very place they’d become a couple. Her lips opened to say something about Dylan having fun on the bridge, but all that came out was a quiet, ‘Oh.’
‘Yes.’ Tom frowned. ‘I’d thought we might find you there. When we got back to the house after being at Sybil’s, Mabel said she’d seen you head off with your walking rucksack.’
‘I went to Landacre Bridge.’
‘Right.’ Tom shut the door behind him, and hesitated, not sure if he should cross the room to sit next to Helen or not. ‘Nice spot.’
She picked up her notebook and waved it in his direction. ‘I was planning for the book.’
‘Good idea. How’s it going?’ Tom rested his back against the closed door, the three strides between them feeling miles wide.
‘I’m getting there. The chapter headings are sorted and I’ve sketched a few rough plans of the site to develop on the computer for their graphics team to adapt.’
‘You’re going to write it then?’
‘Yes.’ Helen found she meant it as she held the book to her chest. ‘That’s the one decision I have managed today.’
‘And what’s the other you should have made?’ Tom felt uneasy as he wondered what else Helen had been planning.
‘Oh, nothing really.’ Cursing herself for her slip of the tongue, Helen asked, ‘Did Sue like the Tarr Steps?’
‘Sue?’ Tom looked puzzled. ‘I wouldn’t take Sue there. That’s our place. I told you, I thought Dylan and I might find you there.’
‘Just you two?’ Helen’s face flushed. ‘I assumed…’
Crossing the