Beckanwood Fights Back: Beckanwood Trilogy, #2

By Helen Baxter

Welcome back to Beckanwood where you've learnt that people's behaviour doesn't always match the idyllic place in which they live but where others are loveable and you want to find out more.

 

In Beckanwood Fights Back, the second book in the trilogy,  a woman returns to the village intent on creating havoc. At primary school she was alienated from her peers by three popular girls and still nurses a grudge. Initially unsure as to how to exact revenge, quite by chance an opportunity presents itself which she knows will cause untold misery for her enemies.

 

The Embroiders once more create a united front in an attempt to avert this seemingly insurmountable problem? In the past they have overcome various trials and tribulations and bound by loyalty have managed to succeed.

 

However are they strong enough to deal with this situation which threatens to put an end to their idyllic lives? What insidious presence lurks behind the scene? Do they succeed in overcoming the problem? Is their spirit to conquer all as strong as ever? Or will this be a step too far?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Helen Baxter
• Release date: Sep 27, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393673125

Helen Baxter

Helen is married and lives with her husband in Renfrewshire, Scotland. She has two children, one granddaughter and three grandsons. Although born in Glasgow, Helen was the product of Yorkshire parents and brought up in the suburbs between Leeds and Harrogate. Being inspired by Rebecca Shaw’s village series, Helen decided to have a go herself, using the fictitious Beckanwood, a Yorkshire village. When she is not writing she enjoys reading, gardening, baking, online jigsaws and watching TV, especially serials and historical documentaries. So far she has written two books, Voices Of Beckanwood and Beckanwood Fights Back. She is currently writing her third to complete the trilogy.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

SHE SNIGGERED AT THE drawings in front of her.

This would show them...that stupid lot in Beckanwood. She’d waited years for revenge and at long last the opportunity had presented itself. She was going to get her own back once and for all. Those three would rue the day they’d dared to interfere with her arrangements at primary school. She’d had a good racket going, a scheme that suited all. Protection money given to her in return for standing up for the more vulnerable of her peers. The money had been a godsend providing her with sweets and fags. Until those three had put a stop to it. Accusing her of bullying. Threatening to go to the headmistress or to rough her up after school if she didn’t comply.

Thought they were now so high and mighty. Thought she had forgotten. Well, she hadn’t and she intended to target the daughters of two of her old enemies and  deal with Louise Teesdale directly through her husband.

She used a long, pink gelled nail to follow the outline of the words of her latest proposal, knowing the council wouldn’t be able to resist granting planning permission. It was an inspired idea and would give her enemies something substantial to worry about.

‘And as for your opinions Beckanwood,’ she muttered, ‘they will be of little consequence in the grand scheme of things.’

She licked her lips in anticipation.

Let the battle begin!

CHAPTER ONE

BEA PRATCHETT, GRANDDAUGHTER of Molly Pratchett former owner of the Emporium, gazed at the exterior of the quaint, bow windowed building with its dark green paint and italic, gold lettering. She owned the place outright since her grandmother had retired. At the age of seventy-four, that sprightly lady now lived in France with her young lover of fifty-eight.

The Emporium had always been Bea’s favourite place. She’d grown up with the enticing smells of freshly baked hams and the tastes of different cheeses that her grandmother had encouraged her to try. She remembered, as a young child, fingering the knobbly bits on the old-fashioned biscuit tins and gazing at the varied array of teas, coffees and fruit cakes. But most of all she’d loved the bustle of a continually busy store.

Her grandmother’s female relatives owned and ran their Emporia all over the world. So it was with great pride that Bea had been for the last three years, the proprietor of the Emporium in Beckanwood.

When Bea had been a teenager her mother Rae had been given an opportunity to live in Australia. Bea had flatly refused to go and had ended up living with her grandmother. Of course, as soon as she’d been old enough, Bea had served in the shop and become an integral part of the running of the establishment, so she was more than qualified now to manage it on her own.

To be able to stamp her own personality on it had been the epitome of her new responsibility. Sourcing unusual items requested by her customers and selling villagers’ own home grown produce at a price beneficial to both parties, made the Emporium a popular place to shop.

Every morning before opening she would take a few minutes to savour her surroundings and thank her grandmother’s foresight in making the Emporium a place to be proud of.

‘Good morning Bea,’ said the vicar shutting the door as the musical chime clanged behind him.

‘Good morning to you Reverend and what can I get you this fine morning?’

He stooped to retrieve his favourite daily paper from the bottom of the pile, ‘A dozen rolls please Bea, a packet of back bacon and half a dozen free range eggs, thank you.’

He watched as the slim, young woman put his requests into the Hessian bag that he’d bought on a previous visit which displayed the shop’s logo. He liked Bea, a lively girl with tightly cropped brown hair and twinkling, blue-green eyes. She was always cheerful. At the age of eighteen she’d taken over the Emporium single handed, employed her own staff and had incorporated quite a few enterprising ideas of her own which were proving to be a huge success.

As she handed over his shopping and took his money, he asked, ‘How’s your grandmother these days Bea?’

‘Very well thank you,’ she said smiling mischievously. ‘She seems to have a new lease of life since Philippe de Brie came into it. They roam the country together with a stall and his cheeses and they set up wherever there’s a market. So she’s seeing quite a lot of the French countryside and she says her grasp of the language is improving daily.’

‘I’d have thought at her age,’ chuckled the vicar, ‘she would’ve been looking for a bit of peace and quiet, somewhere to put her feet up?’

‘Not her. I hope I’ve as much energy when I’m her age. Anyhow, how are your family?’ she asked moving round the counter with a nod of acknowledgement to other customers and to her shop assistants to take over.

‘Everyone’s fine, thank you Bea. Dorothy’s busy, as you know, with the WI, Daniel’s studying for his exams and looking at prospectuses for university and the other two are always occupied in whatever boys of sixteen get up to.

‘You’ll have heard about the proposed new plant nursery for the council gardens being centred at Elliot Manor?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well Lady Maude has suggested that Ozzy be put in charge along with Frank Cooke, the present head gardener. You know Ozzy’s come on such a lot in the last three years and he seems to have a knack with flowers. It’s something that he’s proved to be really good at.

‘Of course, there’ll always need to be someone to oversee his general progress, given his special needs; you know somebody sensitive who’d be able to communicate effectively with the public and different authorities. And that somebody seems to be Frank and they get on really well. But Dorothy and I are delighted that he seems to have found his niche in life.’

‘So he’s totally overcome his fetish has he? No more forays into the vicarage to look for items of comfort?’

‘No, thankfully,’ answered the vicar with a pained expression. ‘The psychologists at the rehab centre seemed to cure him of that and once they identified a niche for him with gardening all his old habits seemed to disappear.’

‘I’m so pleased,’ said Bea. ‘He’s the one I suggested fill the tubs outside the Emporium last summer and they really brightened the place up. He seems to have a real flare for colour and design.’

Glancing at the clock on the wall, the vicar said, ‘Oh dear, Bea, I’ll need to go. Dorothy’ll think I’ve run off with the breakfast things and she does love bacon and eggs on a Saturday morning.’

He took his leave, turning to wave to the young shop owner who stood at the open door.

Turning back into the shop she smiled  as she thought about the vicar and his wife. Two complete opposites in appearance; he tall, slim and quite stunning to look at with his greying hair and fine features whilst she was plump and short with a pleasant face. Homely was, perhaps, the best description. But none of that mattered really as they were two of the best people in the village.

THE REVEREND RALPH Cambridge sauntered home appreciating the oldie worldie village in which he had the privilege to live.

Beckanwood, named because of its situation between Pendlehurst Beck and Pauper’s Wood was a Yorkshire village that was keen to hold onto its quaint character.  Slate roofed cottages made of pale stone were scattered around the village in streets such as Waif Lane, Vagabond Way, Pauper’s Place, Church Wynding and Scoundrel’s Alley to name but a few. There was a large village green on which several fete days were celebrated throughout the year and there was even a baronial hall owned by Sir Horace and Lady Maude Pendlehurst. In the centre of the green was a large pond on which ducks were encouraged. In fact, there was a notice at either end of the village warning drivers to give way to ducks.

The new housing estate built of modern Georgian style houses were acceptable - just. But lately one or two of the newer inhabitants, having discovered that Beckanwood was not as yet a ‘Conservation Village,’ had much to the disgust of original residents, renewed their roofs with garish red tiled ones which contrasted starkly with the original grey slate. And as for satellite dishes, well that was a step too far and everyone had been requested to install these out of sight at the back of their properties. The installation of stronger street lights, in line with Health and Safety had caused a real furore among disgruntled villagers who didn’t take kindly to change. On the whole though it was a friendly village with community groups bringing inhabitants together.

Owing to the television programme about the village three years previously, the place had become a focal point for tourists. Sales had soared of the CD, ‘Voices of Beckanwood,’ highlighting the singing of the primary school children, the W I and a variety of other performers.

Revenue from this and from a variety of fund-raising activities carried out throughout the village had helped to pay for the repairs to the Church Hall roof. An ancient oak tree had fallen onto and badly damaged the roof in a violent storm during the funeral tea being held for an old eccentric, Bertie Bennet.

In memory of his father, Bertie’s son Richard had donated money to meet the expense of recovering new kneelers in the church. Thanks to the Embroiders’ Club started in Beckanwood by Suzette Hathaway (previously Whyte), St Bartholomew’s the twelfth century church, was now the proud owner of modern, hand embroidered kneelers to use during prayers. 

He sighed as he ruminated. Life was good in Beckanwood. He fervently hoped that nothing would happen to destroy the harmony and general contentment that pervaded the village.

CHAPTER TWO

WHEN HE AND LOUISE his wife, had worked as a team Pete Teesdale had been quite contented. They’d bought the Gibbet & Stocks pub in Beckanwood and converted it from a run-down eatery to a high class restaurant and hostelry. But as soon as it was successful, Pete became bored and he’d sought a new challenge. It had been decided that he would move to Pendlehurst Burton to oversee the new establishment whilst Louise stayed behind to supervise their protégé, Kelly Scott who now ran the Gibbet & Stocks in Beckanwood.

Pete now happily spent most of his time in his new place, the Hunter’s Arms in Pendlehurst Burton whilst Louise was free to spend time with her friends in Beckanwood. Occasionally she and Pete got together for meetings to check on the progress of both places but apart from these times Louise rarely visited the Hunter’s Arms.

As such left to his own devices, Pete had now developed a roving eye. The Hunter’s Arms had become another success, run nowadays by a manager installed by Pete as overseer. So Pete was once more without a challenge.

A young lady of indeterminate age became a regular visitor to the restaurant. She had an easy, chatty personality and was not adverse to encouraging Pete as landlord to joining her at her table.

Curved expressive auburn eyebrows lifted as she talked; green eyes highlighted with too much mascara and eye shadow twinkled as she laughed; shiny Titian hair swept into a chignon caught in a pearl and silver clasp framed her lovely face, touched with blusher. As she laughed Pete was fascinated by such white teeth and full lips painted in bright red. He was enchanted.

She had elegance, not slim but knew how to make the best of herself. Today’s ensemble included rusty red, wool trousers tucked into soft leather brown boots. A beige silk shirt with small, glass buttons tucked into the trousers showed off a spectacular figure. A chiffon scarf casually hanging loosely round her neck in the same shade as the boots finished the look.

Pete was fascinated and flattered. This woman seemed genuinely interested in him; a short, fat and bald, middle aged man. He thought of his wife; plump and homely, with a tendency to slop around in baggy track suits which did nothing for her. She wasn’t smart like this lady. He and Louise had slumped into a rut, neither feeling the need to make a special effort with each other. But Georgina Mitchell was different. He felt himself attracted to her magnetic personality He could definitely be persuaded to betray his marriage vows.

Had he bothered to keep up with the gossip in Beckanwood, he would be only too aware of this lady’s penchant for seducing men who she considered could turn out to be profitable to herself.  But his dealings with that village had become rare now and, therefore, he was not privy to this rumour.

CHAPTER THREE

WELL SHOD SHOES CLATTERED along the stone patio, hesitating in their slow progress as they negotiated at a slower pace, steep steps leading to the grassy reaches below. These well loved solid golf shoes appreciated by sore feet and arthritic, tottery limbs continued their way towards the oak tree aerating the muddy grass underfoot.  .  Spying his wife sitting on the seat surround under her favourite oak tree, Sir Horace Pendlehurst made his way painfully towards her. She smiled as she saw him and patted the seat at her side.

‘Come take the weight off your legs darling,’ she said as she gazed with love at this wonderful man who had made her his wife all those years ago.

Pulling up his trousers slightly at the knees, he eased himself down beside his wife with a groan. Opening the three buttons on his tweed jacket and loosening the cashmere muffler round his neck he removed his deerstalker and lifted his head to the sun allowing the spring rays to warm his face and bald patches.

He sighed, pointing to the new buds of coming daffodils at their feet. ‘Hope we get as good a show as last year.’

‘Yes they were magnificent weren’t they?’ agreed Lady Maude. ‘But I liked the terracotta rudbeckias and their contrasting black centres in the autumn when we were helping gather the quinces? I hope they’ll be planted again this year.’

‘Well that’s Ozzy’s department now so we’ll have to wait and see,’ said her husband.

The two of them sat hands clasped in companionable silence appreciating the many shades of the evergreens and the contrasting brown branches of the deciduous trees.

‘I still remember, you know,’ he said to her with a twinkle in his eye. ‘I still remember that stubborn young girl who wouldn’t speak to me.’ He chuckled. ‘And look what you’ve created now,’ he continued waving his hand at the surrounding arboretum.

‘I was a very spoilt girl. I don’t know how you put up with me,’ answered Maude with a tinkling laugh. ‘I was so angry when I returned from visiting my mother in France after finding that she had yet another lover. And then I came home to Elliot Manor, hoping for some relaxation only to be greeted by an anxious father with money problems and something called land management well under-way, where all my secret places seemed to have been desecrated. I can still see my favourite horseshoe glade reduced to tree stumps with charred grass and smoking piles of timber. My secret place no more. How I hated you, this landowner who seemed to think he had the right to cut down all my favourite trees and for a golf course of all things.’

‘And now my love? What do you think now?’ he teased.

‘I think,’ she said leaning into him, ‘I‘m the luckiest girl in the world. But I was too selfish and short sighted to understand your foresight then.’

Chuckling he continued, ‘I still remember when your father introduced us telling you that I was a knight of the realm gained through my services to agriculture and country re-development. Before you could control yourself you criticised my rural accent and claimed that your father must be wrong. You used such a superior accent that it was funny.’

He looked into the fresh complexioned face of his wife of many years, admiring the iron grey hair fashioned into a chignon and her sparkling blue eyes. Smiling he noticed that today they wore the same matching tweed. ‘I think that was when I fell in love with you,’ he added wistfully.

Still tending to embarrassment when Horace got sentimental she said laughingly, ‘Enough, Horace Pendlehurst.’ Jumping to her feet, she held out her hand to him, ‘Let’s go and see what ‘The Herbery’ is cooking up today.’

And this time two pairs of golf shoes clattered slowly back up the steps making their way towards the cookery school.

LAVENDER CLOUGH AT ‘The Herbery’ Cookery School was making up her schedules and writing orders for the proposed opening of the new term due to start in a couple of week’s time. She subconsciously fingered the top button of her white overall before pushing back wisps of shoulder length brown hair back behind her ears and into diamante clasps.

Her sister Sorrel was nearby poring over books of herb handicrafts. As usual she was dressed in black from head to toe which did nothing for her whatsoever. She seemed to have a perpetual frown, which emphasised her thick black eyebrows and frizzy black hair. However, once in the classroom she showed amazing enthusiasm for her different crafts. She’d decided to set up a class teaching how to make herb pillows, fragrant posies, sweet smelling hangers and pot pourri. She had refurbished the Tudor stillroom, established in King Henry V111’s time to preserve herbs and had gathered armfuls of them in the summer of the previous year.

‘So what are your plans this year?’ she asked Lavender who was concentrating on totting up some ingredient or other with her tongue stuck out of the corner of her mouth.

Writing down a number before answering, Lavender turned to her sister and replied, ‘The herbal oils and vinegars went down really well last year so I thought we’d start with that again and there are some already made up which the students can use straight away.’

‘Mmm, I love that consignment of bottles that we received from that new wholesaler in Leeds. If we ever decide to pursue the shop idea, I think they would be

popular.’

‘Hello,’ cooed Lady Maude, ‘hope we’re not interrupting anything, only we were drawn by the enticing smells.’

‘Come in, come in,’ said Lavender, ‘Ooo do shut that door, it’s fair parky outside.’

There was never any bowing and scraping with these two. By mutual agreement it was understood that the girls would address the pair by their titles but beyond that it was mutual respect not to stand on ceremony.

Sir Horace shut the door tightly to keep the cold air out before removing his jacket in the warmth of the room.

‘Just the people we want to see,’ said Lavender. ‘Put the kettle on Sorrel.’

‘Is that the mixed fruit jelly I can smell?’ asked Sir Horace, appreciatively sniffing the air.

‘Yes, the last lot of fruit that we froze at the end of last year – the ones you helped to pick last October.’

‘That was fun,’ said Sir Horace who remembered the glut of fruit everybody had been encouraged to help gather in.

In her no-nonsense manner, Lavender launched right in, ‘We were just talking about your suggestion, Lady Maude, about setting up a specialist shop. But we were saying that at the moment Sorrel and I are far too busy at this time of the year, Mum and the kitchen girls are full-time with the restaurant and basically there’s nobody left to organise and manage a shop. And yet, we had a glut of produce last year which would be very appropriate for such a venture. Can you think of anybody who would be suitable to help out?’

Lady Maude looked pensive, resting her chin in her hand, ‘I hear what you girls are saying and we’ll give it serious thought and get back to you because right at this moment in time, I can’t think of anybody. Can you dear?’ she said speaking to Horace.

Horace smoothed his hand backwards and forwards over his chin whilst looking thoughtful. ‘Give us some time girls. It’s a very sound idea. We’ll get back to you.

‘So Sorrel girl where’s that tea?’

The girls smiled. Sir Horace was always one for his creature comforts and they knew that any forthcoming ideas would come from the more enterprising Lady Maude and not from her husband. But they understood that Lady Maude always gave her husband his place.

CHAPTER FOUR

HUDDLED INTO A DUVET coat of sludge green that skimmed the tops of matching boots,

Clarissa Fox Pitt, Sir Horace and Lady Maude’s daughter, dragged her feet on the frosted dirt track alongside Pendlehurst Beck. A nature lover, she would normally have appreciated the individual blades of grass encrusted with frost, the crunch of her footfalls and the sparkling branches of the weeping willows that dipped their extremities into the water. But today, she noticed nothing of her surroundings. Filled with anguish, hands sunk deep into her pockets, her covered head bowed low, she was trying unsuccessfully to clear her muddled mind in the sharp frosty air.

Was Preston having an affair? She’d no actual proof, but he was so dismissive of her, that she felt this had to be the explanation. She didn’t want to give voice to her misgivings. She still had some vestiges of pride but what other explanation could there possibly be? Had she made a big mistake in her choice of husband as her father had intimated before she’d dashed headlong into a rather shabby marriage at Gretna Green, disappointing all in Beckanwood.

Her parents had never liked Preston. They’d considered him to be a fraud and totally unsuitable, going so far, as to get a background check.

She remembered so clearly when they’d first met and he’d sold her that first car. In typical salesman manner, he’d flirted and flattered and she’d loved it.

His suave manner had knocked her out. She’d fallen in love there and then. He made her laugh by cracking jokes. When she’d asked him where he came from, his flippancy about being an orphan conceived during a quickie in the toilets at Preston Station hence his name, made her like him all the more.

She was to learn the unpalatable truth later from her father’s private investigator.  His mother, Rosie Fox lived in a terrace house in the worst part of Manchester. Following a one night stand with Sammy Pitt, a travelling salesman and finding herself to be pregnant, she had re-invented herself as Rosemary Fox-Pitt in an attempt at respectability. But regardless, Rosie had a reputation for taking up with disreputable types.

Furious that Preston had lied to her she listened with increasing sadness to the true story that being sickened with the continual parade of ‘uncles’ living with his mother, he’d left home as soon as he could to make his own way in the world. Clarissa at that point, had decided to defy her parents and marry the man anyway.

Now for the first time she was regretting acting against her parents’ wishes, seriously questioning whether they’d been right all along. Had she been foolish to alienate them?

It must have been obvious to him how unwell she’d been feeling lately. Just the other day, in the kitchen, she’d had to sit down rapidly on a stool as she’d felt so dizzy and nauseous and he’d made light