Not Your Cinderella

Chapter 4 - Part 1: The Cottage

Dad started humming to himself as they drove through Cranbourne and out onto Salisbury Street. That meant he was happy. But Jess had felt the warm glow of anticipation build as soon as they'd passed through Shaftesbury.

It was an unfamiliar feeling of late. It had none of the fear of travelling alone across the world to work in an aid camp and none of the anxiety that surrounded her imminent move to Bath. It was almost like the feeling she'd had as a child on Christmas morning, seeing her stocking lying at the end of her bed and imagining all the delights of the day to come. It may her skin tingle. Looking across at her Dad, and hearing him hum she wondered if they were both feeling that rare emotion–joy.

Her dad must have sensed her Gaze on him because the humming stopped and a slow smile crept onto his face. He turned to her briefly and lifted his eyebrows.

"Looking forward to seeing Lucy and Jim, Jess?" he asked as he turned his eyes back to the road.

Jess couldn't help laughing at herself. "I'm actually excited. Does that make me weird?"

His only answer was a huffing laugh. He was a man of few words, Jess thought. But then, they both were quiet these days. She felt the car slow and looked out of the windscreen at the familiar gap in the hedge where the lane that led to the farmyard and the tied cottage her aunt and uncle lived in. 


"We're here," he said, as if Jess had never been before. And they turned onto the dirt track and Jess felt the metallic judder as they crossed the cattle grid.

As soon as they were over Jess braced herself. As expected the shrill barking started as soon as the car started on down the track. And Jess wound down her window to call out to Meg and her daughter Moss as they ran down the field next to the track keeping pace with the car and barking the whole way. She shouted her hellos to them through the window as they ran but knew they wouldn't stop until they were in the yard.

September had been dry and even though her Dad had taken care coming down the track, a cloud of dust ballooned around them as they stopped in the yard outside the cottage. Through it, Aunt Lucy walked to the gate, mock-coughing and wafting a tea towel in front of her face.

"You always did know how to make an entrance, Tom." And Lucy coughed again to make her point. But she winked at her brother as she put her arms out to Jess who'd burst from the car as soon as they'd stopped.

They weren't big on physical contact as a family but a hug from Aunt Lucy on arrival was a habit that clung to them since Jess's childhood.

"I'd hate you to think I was sneaking up on you," Tom shouted over the din of the dogs as he got out of the car. But he put his hand on his sister's shoulder as she hugged her niece.

The dogs jumped up at them, sensing their happiness and Jess bent down to fuss them. Their combined weight soon had her on her side, squirming in the dust of the yard, and laughing amidst their shimmying bodies and wet noses. These two were what she loved most about coming to Lucy and Jim's house. Jess loved dogs and she guessed Meg and Moss felt the same because they slept on her bed each time she stayed. She wouldn't have thought this was such a big deal if she hadn't been told they normally weren't allowed upstairs.

Jess got to her feet and stumbled into the front garden, the dogs still winding their silky bodies around her legs and frantically pawing at her. She subsided onto her back on the front lawn and gave in to their demands for attention.

"Leave her there, Tom. You know they'll keep her there as long as they can. Come on in. I've got the kettle on. Have a cuppa with me and then you can take a flash up to Jim. He's up Topps' field, drilling."

"You been baking, Luce?" Tom asked hopefully. And, as Jess heard their voices recede into the cottage, she thought her father's voice had become lighter suddenly, almost boyish.

Laying on her back, each arm full of one dog or the other, furry faces nuzzling her and licking her cheeks, Jess gazed upwards. Her work at the coffee shop was over, at least until the Christmas holidays, and for this moment she didn't need to do anything or go anywhere. Thoughts of Felix, the ball, university and her studies started to buzz at the edges of her brain but she battled them away. She was determined to enjoy this moment. She was determined not to think.

The sky was the washed-out blue of late summer and the sun gently prickled her skin. She let her body melt into the grass and tuned into the sounds of King's Manor Farm. Today that sound was the panting of two border collies, the vague murmuring from inside the cottage and the distance hum of an aeroplane piercing the sky far above her.