Aunt Bessie Remembers by Diana Xarissa

Author:Diana Xarissa
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Published: 2018-07-18T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

Sighing deeply, Bessie put the book down and headed for the door. “This better be important,” she muttered to herself as she crossed the kitchen floor.

“Good afternoon,” Jonathan Hooper said, smiling at Bessie from the doorstep.

“Jack, what a lovely surprise,” Bessie replied. “Do come in.”

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything important,” the man said. “I wanted to come after lunch and before dinner. I probably should have rung first.”

“You’re fine,” Bessie told him. “I haven’t actually had lunch yet, because I was reading a very exciting book, but I’m delighted you’re here.”

“Did you finish the book?”

“No, not quite yet, but I’ve only a chapter or two to go.”

Jack smiled at her. “You sit down and finish your book and I’ll make you some lunch,” he said.

“Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly.”

“Of course you can. Remember how many afternoons I turned up on your doorstep with a badly skinned knee, desperately in need of a plaster and a biscuit? I’m sure I interrupted you in the middle of a good book nearly every day for years. Go and finish while I make you a sandwich or something.”

Bessie wanted to argue further, but she was rather desperate to find out who had just been shot. “Maybe just a page or two more,” she said.

“Or finish the book,” Jack laughed.

It only took Bessie ten minutes to read the final pages of the novel. She put it down and stomped into the kitchen a moment later.

“Oh, dear, from the look on your face, I take it you didn’t like the ending,” Jack said, looking up from the hob.

“No, I most certainly did not,” Bessie said stoutly. “If you’re going to hint at someone being the killer for the entire book and only reveal that he’s really a secret government agent on the last page, the least you can do is have the unlikeable character be the killer.”

“And he or she wasn’t?”

“No, she had the protagonist’s best friend be the killer, and it was all wrong and deeply unsatisfying. I won’t be buying any more books in that series, that’s for sure. I may not buy anything else by her in any series, now that I think about it.”

“I made you a ham and cheese toasty with soup,” Jack said. “Sit down.”

Bessie sat down at the kitchen table and shook her head. “I’m sorry. It isn’t your fault that I didn’t like the ending. And you’ve gone to all this trouble for me, as well.”

“It wasn’t any trouble at all,” he told her. “My butler training included a course in making quick and easy meals for emergency situations, but beyond that, my mother made sure I could heat soup and make toasties. She considers basic cooking an essential life skill.”

“She’s right about that, and this is delicious,” Bessie said after a few bites.

“The soup came out of a can in your cupboards. I can’t take any credit for doing anything more than heating things up.”

“But what brings you here?” Bessie asked after several more bites. Now that she’d finished the book, she was absolutely starving.

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