Hidden Treasures
You will love this best-selling novel by Sunday Times best-selling author Fern Britton. The perfect escape to Cornwall, for fans of Katie Fforde and Celia Imrie.Helen Merrifield decides to start afresh and put her old life behind her in the picture-postcard Cornish village of Pendruggan. Throwing herself into the local scene, Helen finds herself at the mercy of the rather desperate Vicar, but she is secretly drawn to the brooding local historian, Piran.Meanwhile, Helen’s best friend, Penny, decides that the village is the perfect setting for her new TV series. When the cast and crew descend, the village is thrown into a tizzy, but Helen has her hands full fending off her philandering ex-husband, who seems determined to charm his way back into her bed.Should Helen hold on to the past? Or will Cornwall give her something new to treasure?Pendruggan: A Cornish village with secrets at its heart
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FERN BRITTON
Hidden Treasures
Copyright
HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2012
Copyright © Fern Britton 2012
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2011 Cover illustration © Robyn Neild Lettering © Ruth Rowland
Fern Britton asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.
All rights reserved under International Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780007362714
Ebook Edition © March 2012 ISBN: 9780007419418 Version: 2017-12-21
To my Cornish friends who have welcomed us so generously.
Contents
Prologue
Violet Wingham straightened up and allowed herself the pleasure of feeling the warm evening air on her face. This would be her last night at Gull’s Cry. During the seventy-seven years she’d lived in Pendruggan, tending her garden and her cottage, she had always prided herself on being no bother to anyone. Determined that wasn’t about to change now, at the age of ninety-six, Violet had made up her mind to place herself in a nursing home until God took her back to her family.
Brushing the damp earth from her fingers, she took one last look at the freshly dug soil. ‘Goodbye, my darling. For now,’ she said softly, then returned the spade to the old privy which doubled as her garden shed and walked back into her house for the last time.
1
The sound of a tractor bumping over the cattle grid of the farm across the lane rudely awoke Helen. Yesterday it was the cockerel at the village farm. She wasn’t used to hearing such rural sounds. Not yet, anyway.
Lying in bed with her eyes still shut, savouring the warmth of her duvet and the soft cashmere blanket on top (a house-warming present from Gray, her ex), Helen felt more comfortable than she had in years. Nothing to get up for, nobody to deal with and the whole day to herself. She felt her body start to get lighter and was ready to drift off again when the phone rang.
‘Who the f … ?’ she scrabbled for the receiver. ‘Hello.’
‘Mum, it’s me.’ It was Chloe, her daughter. ‘So how’s the new cottage and Cornish life? Got all the yokel men beating a path to your door yet?’
‘Darling, I’ve only just woken up. What time is it?’
‘Nine forty-five.’
‘Well, that’s virtually the middle of the night as far as I’m concerned.’
‘Sorry, Mum, it’s just that I’ve been thinking about you so much. Are you OK?’
‘Yes, fine.’ Helen sat up and plumped the pillows behind her. ‘But I’m desperate for you to come and have a look at the cottage. It’s so pretty.’
‘I can’t wait.’
‘Well, come and see me. How about this weekend?’ pressed Helen.
‘Maybe. Sorry, Mum, got to go, a customer’s just walked in. Speak later. Love you.’
The lovely Chloe, thought Helen. Wasting her first-class Cambridge degree in Classics by working in a charity shop in Bristol. Her social conscience and a passion to save the world from environmental collapse meant that she recycled everything – even earbuds, if she could. Perhaps she did? Chloe was only twenty-two but seemed so old for her years. A single-minded single woman. By the time Helen was Chloe’s age she’d been married a year and had just become a mother to Sean. Chloe came along three years later.
And now they were all grown-up. Sean was something big in advertising and, despite the economic mess, he could apparently afford a Porsche Boxster. Should she worry about her children a bit more, she wondered.
‘No,’ she said out loud. ‘They can worry about me for a change.’
Helen climbed out of bed, and was thrilled once again by the cream deep-pile carpet that her feet sank into. As her mother used to say, ‘It’s never your extravagances you regret, only your economies.’
