The Cornish Key to Happiness

The Cornish Key to Happiness

By Laura Briggs

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2020 Laura Briggs

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Cover Image: Searching for the Key to Happiness. Original art, Country House. Drawn, exterior., by Marrishuanna, and Fashionable young girls by Filitova, and Luxury old fashioned houses buildings by Christos Georghiou. Used with permission. http://www.dreamstime.com/

Dear Readers,

Every story has its ending. Happy, sad, or somewhere in between, they all come down to that one defining moment...and for Maisie Clark, aspiring novelist and unlikely heroine, that moment is about to arrive.

The cliffhanger scenario that left her stranded on Sidney’s doorstep one dark and semi-stormy night picks up again with her quest for an explanation. But Sidney is nowhere to be found and the village is alive with gossip about the groundskeeper’s supposedly scandalous past. As always, Maisie, continues to trust him somehow, even as she struggles to make sense of his recent actions. Especially when it comes to his connection with the beautiful, sad stranger whose presence in the town clearly provided an unpleasant reminder of his past.

This is the point where all will finally be revealed. The secrets which have thus far eluded Maisie’s grasp since she came to Cornwall—including that of the elusive novelist Alastair Davies’ actual true identity—will come to light in the pages before you. And even Maisie won’t quite be able to believe all the secrets revealed as the truth falls into place.

It’s never easy saying goodbye to a story and characters that you love. As a writer, I’ve enjoyed so much about Maisie’s oh-so-glamorous, nearly impossible, yet always romantic adventures. I sincerely hope that you’ve had as much fun reading about it as I’ve had writing it. And I hope too that you’ll find her story’s conclusion to be every bit as heartfelt and magical as it’s intended to be (with a gasp or two of surprise along the way, of course). As to the possibility of returning to this world in the future for all the stories that didn’t quite resolve themselves … well, never say never. Anything is possible. But for now at least, it’s time to say a bittersweet farewell to Maisie, Sidney, and all their friends at the quirky and elegant seaside hotel Penmarrow.

Thank you all so much for being a part of the series. I wish you happy reading as you embark with Maisie on the most surprising adventure yet, for this final chapter of A LITTLE HOTEL IN CORNWALL.

Prologue:

Too many times in the past, I've made impulsive decisions that switched my life's track without warning. I leap with the quickest of looks, to use another metaphor, simply making sure the odds are in my favor that I'll land safely.

I did it for my dream of becoming a novelist in the beginning. And after one of those crazy impulses in pursuit of success landed me on two feet in Cornwall, I leaped again — this time, on the heels of a person I thought was my favorite author and hero. That one landed me back in Cornwall after I came to my senses and to the truth.

But the leap that grips me still is the one I took for love. It was an utterly blind, breath held, head-first plunge after the boy who stole my heart so artlessly that it might as well have never been mine in the first place.

I had been warned it was going to hurt. I just didn't imagine how deeply I would feel it when it came. That's only because I hadn't realized how much loving him had changed me.

The Cornish Key to Happiness

by

Laura Briggs

I knocked on Sidney's shed door three times before giving up. The curtains on the other side were still closed, though it was well past eleven in the morning. The foreboding in my heart deepened, as if testing my resolve. Day two of knocking on this door, preparing to face whatever form Sidney's pain and guilt had taken after his much-avoided past arrived gift wrapped, the manner in which I unwittingly delivered it two nights ago.

Day two of knocking, day two of receiving no answer.

At my feet, Kip wagged his tail anxiously, as if waiting for Sidney, too. He isn't hiding from us, is he? I asked. The lightness of my tone belied what I was really feeling. Kip whined softly, then scratched an itchy ear vigorously, then continued to train his stare patiently on the door again.

The rest of the mongrel pack was still here also, so Sidney hadn't taken any of them with him for company if he went out. But if he was hiding in there, this situation had passed from natural to ludicrous. I didn't believe that in the least, so he must have slipped out earlier, possibly to Dean's, or to take his motorbike up the coast. The shed was closed up, so I couldn't see if his bike was missing as well.

I passed through the hedge gap and into the vicarage's back garden. Mrs. Graves, housekeeper to Sidney's sort-of boss, a vicar who didn't mind having a groundskeeper who made many a mistake in his maintenance work — she would surely know where he was.

He's gone, she said. Gone Heaven knows where. He left a note on the door for me the day before yesterday — shocking early, it must have been. He must've taken the first train available. She lifted a tin of mini cakes from the oven.

But why? I said. Where? It was tone more than her words that expressed the finality of this decision.

Haven't the faintest, dearie. He didn't say. Only that he was sorry to leave the vicar in a bind, and to say that poor young man down the lane would look after the dogs. He didn't say anything at all about coming back. What on earth I shall do with his things if he doesn't, I haven't the faintest notion, either. She looked puzzled by this dilemma. I suppose I will have to find a corner in which to keep them until he sends for them.

I was speechless in the face of this. But he can't have left like this, I said. He wouldn't. Not Sidney, who was generally considerate, if sometimes a bit tardy.

He's left the church extension’s roof unpatched, that's quite certain, she answered. He's a good lad at heart, you know, but I always did say he'd simply be gone one of these days. I suppose it was hardly sensible to expect him to stay forever, was it? She sighed, and I could hear her regret in it. The vicar’s housekeeper had been fond of him, even if he was sometimes a trial to her.

No, I answered, tasting the bitterness of this agreement. But Sidney wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye. He wouldn’t leave us wondering what happened to him. He had done just that, however, so why was a part of me resisting this fact?

With a brief shake of her head, Mrs. Graves finished turning out her cakes on a cooling rack. I suppose that’s simply how things are, she said.

Sidney's dogs were gathered outside when I came out the kitchen door. They looked hopeful, as if he might be coming just behind, with Ewan McGregor and Bugsy looking especially eager. Maybe my disappointment's crushing weight was detected by them, because Ewan the dachsie-shnauzer mix slumped back down almost immediately. I almost expected a chorus of mournful howls, as if the dogs now knew what I did, that Sidney was nowhere to be found.

My shock reached to the marrow of my bones, where it shook like an earthquake. Didn't matter that I knew this might come, that I had been warned by the past. Nothing mattered except that he was gone.

At the hotel, I opened the guest register while I was supposed to be serving coffee in the dining room for the lunch crowd. Guiltily, I glanced around once more to be sure Brigette the desk manager and current head of housekeeping was elsewhere while I snooped. I searched for the name of the beautiful guest who had given me the box that had thrown Sidney back into his past.

Davison, Adele. She was listed as having checked out the day before. So close to the time that Sidney had vanished that my mind leaped to that miserable conclusion before I could stop it.

I felt sick in the core of my stomach. I pictured the older woman with the hollow gaze, and the look of pain and surprise in Sidney's eyes when he saw her necklace in the box. Had it been a gift? A favorite piece worn on a memorable occasion? It had the look of a vintage costume piece that could readily be one of Sidney's bargain finds, or even a prop piece from his theater days at university. Had she been part of that crowd, a patron of the glittering, wild atmosphere of his dramatist period?

The wife of one?

It grew worse, the more I thought about it.

What are you doing? Brigette had reappeared with an armful of charts, having finished her lunch in record time. I nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard her voice.

I was just ... looking for Norman's forwarding address. I thought I would drop him a postcard sometime to wish him well. The hotel's former curmudgeonly gardener had recently been exposed as a world-famous romance novelist — as much as a stretch as it was to fully believe, this was the sort of thing I imagined Brigette would expect of me, a gesture from one writer to another.

He didn't leave one, she said. I expect Norman doesn't care if he ever hears from any of us. She set her cup of tea out of sight beneath the desk, and lovingly organized her highlight markers by color before selecting one.

The guest Mrs. Davison who checked out, I said. Did she leave alone? I picked at the corner of the guest registry book, open on the desk.

Hmm? Who? Oh, yes — Riley's 'mysterious widow,' said Brigette, with a ladylike sniff. She left the morning after the comet's appearance. Gomez drove her to the station. She looked up from her first chart. Why do you ask?

No reason, I said, quietly.

Molly entered, humming under her breath as she dusted the stair rails. If circumstances were normal, I would be wondering about her kiss with George, and whether the little star hairclip she was wearing today was a gift from said young astronomer. Such curiosity was impaired by developments in my own life.

To think that my head had been filled with happy thoughts just forty-eight hours ago. Thoughts of my book on the cusp of being published, with Arnold the boy agent assuring me that it was all but definite after he negotiated the contract. I hadn't told anybody, because I intended to tell Sidney as soon as possible, before it flew out of my head in one instant on his doorstep when he chose to wrestle his ghosts alone.

Molly, will you go into the village and collect the new office supplies? Brigette asked. The new ink stamp pad and the printer paper have arrived at the shop.

I can go as soon as I make up the bed in the Amaryllis Room. There's a guest booked for early arrival, and Katy won't be here because her toothache flared again.

More likely it was the leftover champagne from the happy occasion, remarked Gomez, using his pretend Portuguese accent. Mr. Trelawney the manager had allowed staff to open three of the best bottles the night of the comet, to celebrate his purchase of the hotel at long last.

That's quite enough of that, said Brigette, primly. Maisie, would you be good enough to do it?

Sure, I said. If the porter was right, then Katy would probably be out until sometime tomorrow, so the hotel would be shorthanded if I didn't step in.

Some fresh air would do me good, I told myself, and it would be good to escape the cheery atmosphere of the Penmarrow, which did not match my mood at all. But the bright and sunny atmosphere in the village was no better, really. And news travels fast in small villages.

I heard the vicar's groundskeeper has gone at last. Run off without so much as a day's notice.

This reached my ears as I passed by the greengrocer's, where the owner was arranging bright pink apples and greenish-yellow pears in his window display.

I always said he was a ne'er do well. All sorts of stories about his scoundrel ways.

I tried to shut my ears. That wasn't the only whisper on the subject, however, for the same was in progress at the shop where I collected Brigette's package.

... and he's left poor Myra with a houseful of dogs to look after...

... he's run off to who knows where, so he'll probably never come back...

"... it was probably because of some woman. I heard that's how he came here to begin with ..."

No escaping it, no matter where I turned. Everyone in the village had already heard that he was gone, and had already come up with the same old gossip, the kind I had once ignored, then defied in my faith that it was nothing like the man I knew.

I still believed it. Didn't I? He hadn't been lying to me then about his real self or the fact he had a past, and whatever reasons he had for doing this were ... but that's where my imagination flickered and failed.

First time ever. That's what heartache and confusion does to the human brain's wiring.

I was still struggling not to listen to that conversation, or look at the eager-face, shrewish gossips who were probably the same ones who had always said terrible things about him. As the shopkeeper handed over my package, I went out with a look of complete normalcy, even though those gossips probably recognized me already as the girl who spent so much time with Sidney. The poor American girl deluded by his charms.

Anger — that's what I was feeling. Was it for him