Читать книгу One Summer at Deer’s Leap - Elizabeth Elgin - Страница 12

Mum and Dad arrived ten minutes early, which meant I hadn’t opened the white gate, nor shoved Hector in the outhouse.

‘They’re here!’ Jeannie called, but it was too late to stop the angry dog rushing out and snarling and snapping from the other side of the gate.

‘Behave yourself, dog!’ I yelled. ‘Just a minute – I’ll lock him up!’

‘No! Leave him be,’ Dad said quietly. ‘He’s got to learn a few manners! Open the gate, lass.’

‘Be careful, Dad …’ I was reluctant to let go of Hector’s collar.

‘I’ve never yet met the dog that got the better of me,’ he said, standing feet apart, arms folded. ‘Now then, my lad. Stop your noise!’

Man and dog glared at each other. Neither gave way. Dad dipped into his pocket and took out a cream biscuit, tossing it from hand to hand so Hector got the scent of it. Then he dropped it at his feet, standing very still.

Hector’s nose twitched; the barking stopped. Then he sidled on his belly to snatch the biscuit, retreating behind me to crunch it. Dad went down on his haunches, then offered his hand. Hector gazed back with suspicion, then with longing at the second biscuit on Dad’s palm.

‘Come on then, lad. Either you want it, or you don’t,’ he said reasonably.

Hector wanted it. Avoiding Dad’s eyes, he took it warily, then slunk away round the side of the house to reappear later, I shouldn’t wonder, in a more friendly frame of mind. And hopefully to be given another biscuit.

‘Mum! Dad!’ I hugged them both. ‘Sorry about the reception committee – and this is Jeannie, my editor from Harriers. My mother and father, Jeannie …’

‘Lovely of you to come,’ Jeannie beamed. ‘You’ve brought good weather with you. Did you enjoy the drive?’

‘Aye. Once we got off the motorway, it was real bonny,’ Dad said. ‘Not a great deal different to Yorkshire.’

‘Only the other side of the Pennines,’ I said. ‘But wait till you see the view from the terrace. I’ve got the kettle on. Can we give you a hand with the things?’

When the chicken and vegetables my parents had brought were stowed away, I said, ‘You didn’t forget the parkin?’

‘Of course not. I brought one for Jeannie, too, to take back to London.’

‘Mrs Johns! You are an angel!’ Jeannie opened the tin, sniffing rapturously. ‘Can I have just a little piece now?’

‘No, you can’t!’ Mum said. ‘It’ll spoil your dinner!’

We all laughed. Dad and Hector were friends; Mum had charmed Jeannie. The sun shone benignly. It would be a perfect day.

When the vegetables were cooking, the dining-room table laid and a bottle of white wine placed on the dairy floor to chill, I left Dad and Jeannie together, and showed Mum the house.

‘I noticed when we got here,’ she said, ‘that this place is over four hundred years old. What tales it could tell!’

‘Mm. Even going back to the war, there’s a story. I could write a series of books with Deer’s Leap as the focal point, sort of, starting when it was built until the present day. It was here when the Pendle Witches were tried and hanged, and I don’t know whose side it would be on in the Civil War; probably they’d be King’s men. I could get half a dozen books out of it if I set my mind to it.’

We walked round, up and down the many steps, Mum marvelling at the solidity of the house and its cosiness.

Then: ‘Cassie?’ She hesitated in a bedroom doorway. ‘Now you know I’m not one to pry, but has anything – well – happened since you came here?’

‘N-no. What makes you think it has?’

‘I can’t put a finger on it. It’s just that you seem different, somehow.’

‘We-e-11, Jeannie did say she liked the first ten chapters of the book and that I’m writing with more authority, though what she means I don’t quite know.’

‘Not the writing,’ Mum said, very positively. ‘It’s this place. There are no ghosts here but not far away is witch country, you said. Did a witch ever live here?’

‘I’m almost certain not or there’d be some record of it. Anyway, why are you worrying? You don’t believe in witches!’ I teased, because for the life of me I couldn’t tell her about the airman.

‘There’s something different about you, Cassie, for all that,’ she persisted.

‘Then blame it on Deer’s Leap. I’ve fallen in love with the old house! But we’d better be getting downstairs or Dad is going to think we’ve fallen into a priest’s hole!’

‘Oooh! There isn’t a priest hole too?’ Suddenly Mum forgot witches.

‘Not that I know of, but the house is the right age, and it’s very higgledy-piggledy, isn’t it? I’ll bet you anything you like that if someone tried hard enough, and went round measuring and knocking on walls, they’d find one. Around these parts is priest-hole country. A lot of northern people refused to acknowledge the Church of England and they mostly got away with it because this was such wild country. Catholic priests came and went almost as they wished.’

‘It still is wild country,’ Mum sighed as we walked through the kitchen. ‘I can understand why it’s got you bewitched. I wouldn’t mind living here myself.’

‘If you did, we’d be able to look for priest holes to our hearts’ content, wouldn’t we?’

We broke into giggles, which made Dad ask us what was so funny and we said, ‘Priest holes!’ at one and the same time, then refused to say another word on the matter.

After our lovely Sunday, and when I had taken Jeannie to the station next day, the house seemed empty and quiet. I went to sit in the kitchen armchair and Tommy jumped on my lap, purring loudly to be stroked; Hector settled himself at my feet and fell into a snuffling sleep.

Yet I couldn’t feel lonely; Deer’s Leap was a safe, snug house. And I wasn’t entirely alone; not if you counted the airman who was never very far away – of that I was sure.

Yet Mum was right. This house had no ghosts, which made me certain that Jack Hunter could not have met Susan’s parents before he was killed. I’d have felt his presence here if he had. Were they ever lovers, even though in those days girls were expected to keep their virginity for their wedding night? I wished fiercely that they had been.

I tutted impatiently. This place had got me hog tied, and the ghost of an airman and an airfield that had long ago disappeared were a part of it. And could a witch have lived at Deer’s Leap? Had Mary Doe practised the old religion and never been found out? Did she escape the hangman on Lancaster Common?

All at once I knew I had to read everything I could find about the Pendle Witches and about these wide, wild acres of Lancashire too. There were books in my head and this house had put them there; books spanning the centuries and ending with two star-crossed lovers. I had two weeks left in which to do it, yet Firedance must be finished on time, as my contract with Harrier Books demanded. Somehow I had to close my mind to all else but that; only then could I, as Deer’s Leap demanded of me, write its story.

And by then it would belong to someone else. It would be too late.

I wrote steadily for two days, not needing to leave the house because I was able to exist on chicken and salad, thick slices of sticky parkin and left-over apple pie.

The words flowed. By Wednesday evening I had completed a chapter and roughed out another. I rotated my head. I had been sitting far too long. There was a tenseness in my neck and shoulders and my eyes felt gritty. The chicken was all gone; only the carcass left for soup, and I’d had my fill of saladings.

A beef sandwich and a glass of bitter beckoned from the direction of the Red Rose. I switched on the kettle to boil and took a bright red mug from the dresser, all the time looking at the world outside.

The sun was still high; it wasn’t six o’clock yet, and it wouldn’t be dark until almost ten. I could cycle to Acton Carey and if I left early enough, could manage to get back without lights. Though we had tried, neither Jeannie nor I could find any lamps, though it hadn’t worried us too much. The road between Deer’s Leap and the village wasn’t what you could call busy; we had decided we could manage without them.

Mind made up, I fed the animals then changed into slacks and a sweater. With luck, Bill Jarvis would be at the Rose and might, perhaps, tell me how I could get a look at the parish records. I was hopeful he would know everything I needed so desperately to know, if only he could be steered away from the Italian campaign.

Would Jack Hunter appear tonight? Perhaps, I thought light-headedly, he didn’t thumb lifts from cyclists. And why hadn’t he reacted to the red Mini, asked why it wasn’t camouflaged in khaki and green and black? Even I knew that much about World War Two motors; surely he couldn’t miss something so startlingly red?

Or did he only react to the sound of a car engine? Could ghosts see colours or was everything in black and white? Did Jack Hunter see only what he wanted to see – a car in which he might get a lift to Deer’s Leap? I found myself wishing him, willing him to be there, but I reached the Red Rose without seeing him.

I wondered what would happen if I asked him if he knew he were dead; if I told him the war had been over for more than fifty years, showed him today’s newspaper to prove it! Would he, shocked, begin to age before my eyes? Would he become an elderly, grey-haired man, then disintegrate as I watched?

‘Eejit!’ I made for the back door of the Rose. I was hungry, and brain-damaged into the bargain from a surfeit of words! I needed the earthy presence of Bill Jarvis to bring me down from the giddy highs of my imagining.

It was a relief to see him sitting there, and the smile that crinkled his face when I said, ‘Hullo, Bill! What are you drinking?’

And when he chuckled and said, ‘Nowt at the moment. I was just off home, though I dare say I could sup another!’ I knew that for the duration of a couple of pints, the world would be back to normal again.

‘It’s quiet in here tonight. No darts?’ I asked, when we had eaten a plate of sandwiches between us.

‘No. Folks is spent up till payday and, any road, they’re busy with the last of the harvest; be at it till dark. That storm at the weekend flattened some of the standing wheat, though we needed the rain, mind.’

‘I haven’t found time to see the church yet,’ I said when I had replenished our glasses. ‘Is there anything of interest there – like old tombs?’

Or the baptismal register!

‘Not that I know of. St James’s isn’t all that old. Were a cotton man from Manchester as built most of it. Name of Ackroyd. Bought the Hall in my great-grandfather’s time. Brass, but no breeding.’

‘Oh dear. It looks quite ancient.’ I was quite put out by the intrusion of brass into Acton Carey. ‘I really thought the church was as old as this pub.’

‘He didn’t make a bad job of it, I’ll say that for him. Added it on to the little church as was already there – or so I believe.’

‘But where is the Hall? Is it old?’

‘It was. Got pulled down in the thirties and the stone bought up by a mason. Weren’t no money in cotton no more, with all them fancy fabrics getting invented. The heir couldn’t sell the place so he upped and left it. All he hung on to was the land, and a few houses in the village.’

‘They wouldn’t be allowed to demolish an old house now-a-days, Bill. It would be a listed building. Elizabeth Tudor might even have slept there.’

It was a feeble joke which rebounded on me.

‘No. Seems she never got this far north; folk in these parts was a law unto themselves in those days and her kept well away. But talk has it that King James stayed there on his way from Scotland to London. Well, that’s what my dad once told me.’

‘And we’ll never know now, will we?’ I felt quite peeved that an old house could have been demolished, with people gathering like vultures to cart away timbers and fireplaces and almost certainly the staircase.

‘No. But like I said, them at the Hall wasn’t real gentry and they weren’t locals neither.’

‘Foreigners from Manchester, Bill!’

‘Aye. But if you want to see inside the church, there’ll be someone there on Friday mornings as can talk to you. They alus gives the place a sweep and a bit of a dust ready for Sunday. My sister, Hilda, goes; collects all the news. A right gossip shop, it is!’

‘Your sister still lives here, then – the one who knew Susan from Deer’s Leap, I mean. The one you said wasn’t allowed to go to the RAF dances?’

‘She does. Married an airman at the end of the war and he settled here when he got his demob. Got work with a plumber in Clitheroe.’

‘But how did they manage to meet if the girls round here weren’t allowed to fraternize?’

‘Like courting couples alus did – on the quiet, of course! All the lasses round these parts were at it. Creepin’ out. Our Hilda used to say she was going to her friend’s house.’

‘And her friend said the same?’ I laughed. ‘I suppose it added spice. I should think Susan Smith had a boyfriend too – on the quiet.’

‘You seem a mite interested in the Smith lass.’

‘N-no. Not really. Only because I’m staying at Deer’s Leap. I mean, her living all that way from the village.’ I took a drink from my glass, nonchalantly, I hoped. ‘Things were different then, weren’t they? Young women didn’t have the freedoms I take for granted.’

‘They didn’t and that’s a fact!’

He tilted his glass, draining it to the last drop and I felt irritated that I would have to go for a refill just when the talk was getting interesting.

‘But girls still got married, in spite of the way it was.’ I put the glasses down and beer slopped onto the tabletop. ‘In the end, they all made it to the altar.’

‘Aye, and some of them in a bit of a hurry, an’ all,’ he chuckled. ‘But as long as they got wed, they was forgiven.’

‘So some of them got pregnant beforehand, in spite of everything?’

‘Oh, aye. It’s the nature of things.’ He tapped his nose with a forefinger. ‘Alus was; alus will be.’

‘Your sister would have known Susan Smith,’ I said, trying to keep my voice level.

‘They went to the same school, if that’s what you mean, though they were in different classes. But those Smiths kept themselves to themselves. Didn’t even go to the church here. Was Chapel, see. Got the pony and trap out and went over Leagram way, Sundays. Edwin Smith had no option, come to think of it. His missus was very devout. Eleanor Smith did a lot for the chapel.’

I sucked in my breath, marvelling how easy it had been – how I’d hoped to find some way of seeing the parish records, yet Bill had dropped two names right into my lap. Smiths can be hard to trace, there being quite a few of them, yet now at least I knew I was looking for Edwin and Eleanor Smith. I was on my way. Small beginnings, but I had avoided the disappointment of finding no record of Susan’s christening in St James’s registers. In a chapel over Leagram way, it would have been.

I felt so lucky I said, ‘Let me top you up before I go, Bill. I’ll have to be off – don’t have any lights on the bike, I’m afraid.’

I bought a half at the counter and placed it more carefully beside him.

‘You’ll be going, then?’

His face showed disappointment that we hadn’t even touched on the fighting in Italy.

‘’Fraid so. But Jeannie will be here again on Friday – we’ll be down at the weekend, I shouldn’t wonder.’ I drained my glass and got to my feet. ‘Night, Bill. See you.’

‘You be careful, lass, riding without lights. If you hear a car coming, you’ll have to jump off, though it isn’t likely you’ll meet anything on that road.’

‘No. It’s very quiet, but I’ll be careful. Bye, then …’

I smiled at the landlord as I left; a satisfied smile really, because deep down I was hoping I would meet something, someone, on that road.

The village lights were well behind me, and the narrow road ahead was unlit. I blinked my eyes rapidly, making out the dark shapes of trees and hedgerows and, dimly on my right, dry-stone walls. The only sounds were of my own breathing and the soft crunch of the tyres on the gravel at the roadside.

This, I thought, was what it must have been like when a complete blackout covered the entire country, but even as I tried to imagine it, I could see an orange glow in the sky ahead that was probably Preston. Yet during Jack Hunter’s war there would be no shine of lights below him as he flew; only, sometimes, the moon which could be his enemy as well as his friend.

I was passing the clump of oak trees, now, and began to look around me. The familiar little pulse behind my nose began its fluttering, and I wondered if it was because he was around and his vibes – his radar – were trying to beam in on me. Or was it myself sending out the signals, calling him to me? And why did I shake with dry-mouthed excitement? Why wasn’t I afraid?

Afraid of a ghost I could easily fall in love with? Afraid of a wraith that had no substance; who, if I tried to take his hand, would vanish into the air maybe never to return? Could you, should you, try to touch a ghost?

Something crossed my path just inches ahead of my wheel. It slid, soundless as a shadow and was quickly gone. A stoat, was it, or a rat? I began to shake. I was afraid of rats. Ghosts I could stomach, but not rats!

I attempted a smile. It was all right! Whatever the creature was, it was surely more afraid than I! Concentration broken, my front wheel began to wobble and I swerved across the road, hitting the grass verge on my right.

Fool, Cassie! I pushed both feet down hard and picked up speed, admitting for the first time that it was stupid of me to ride home in near-darkness. Suppose someone had seen me leave the Rose and was following me? It happened all the time. Women were attacked in broad daylight, even, yet here was I, asking for trouble! I was in the middle of nowhere, hoping to meet a ghost! It was completely ludicrous, and if Mum could see me now she would blow her top!

I pedalled harder, wanting suddenly to be safely back, with Tommy rubbing against my leg and Hector welcoming me home; Hector, who didn’t like strange men!

As I turned at the crossroads, I realized I had put Jack Hunter out of my mind, so sudden was my imagined danger. I jumped off the bike, walking carefully, feeling my way cautiously because the last thing I wanted was to trip and fall in the rutted dirt road.

Then I let go my breath, just to see the white gate ahead. It was all right. I was back. In just a few seconds Hector would begin his barking and things would be sane and safe again.

It was then that I heard the laugh; a man’s laugh, low and indulgent. My mouth filled with spittle and I closed my eyes and stood there, unable to move. He had followed me; allowed me to reach safety, almost, and now he was laughing.

I straddled my feet either side of the pedals then reached for the gate, wrapping my arms around it as if it could protect me, then waited, breath indrawn. I was rigid with terror. Times like this you were supposed to run, kick out, shout and scream, but I could do nothing.

I heard the laugh again, then a voice said, ‘Suzie …’

Suzie? My God, it was him; Jack Hunter at the kissing gate! I swallowed hard on the sob of relief that choked in my throat.

‘It’s Cassie,’ I gasped.

‘Suzie darling, don’t worry. It’s going to come right for us. I’ll make it come right …’

I listened, relaxing my hold on the gate, though my heart still pounded.

‘Sweetheart, we will be married. They can’t stop us …’ Him, talking again. ‘Don’t get upset. Tomorrow morning we’ll tell them. I do so love you …’

Jack, talking to Suzie, only Suzie wasn’t there! Jack, reliving one of their snatched meetings at the kissing gate! I felt like a Peeping Tom, spying on lovers, listening. Yet only he was there; I heard only one voice.

The shaking inside me had stopped, my fear gone. No one had followed me home.

‘Jack …?’ I said, more clearly.

The kissing gate creaked, then silence. I propped up the bike and walked towards the gate, pushing it gently. It swung without effort or noise. He had gone.

‘Jack Hunter!’ I yelled, but my voice was lost in the night.

It took me several seconds to unlock the back door. For one thing, it was dark and I had no torch; for another my hand wasn’t as steady as it might have been. But Hector was behind it, barking, jumping against it.

It was all right. I could have been followed home by a man, had heard a ghost, but it was all right! Just how mad can you get?

I slammed the door, pushing home the bolts. Then I bent down to stroke Hector, felt the comforting roughness of his tongue as he licked my face.

I reached for the light switch and Tommy blinked, stretched, then jumped from the armchair to purr against my leg.

I was home, with the safeness of Deer’s Leap around me. I would never do anything so foolish again!

‘Let that be a warning to you, Cassandra Johns,’ I said sternly, loudly, as I drew the curtains, then took down a mug; a sane, safe, familiar red mug.

The heavy old-fashioned key was still in my pocket. I shoved it into the lock, turned it, then hung it on the brass hook at the side of the door.

‘Ooooosh!’ I let go a deep, calming breath. The airman was still around. I had always thought the kissing gate was their meeting place and he’d been there, talking to Suzie.

‘Susan Smith, where are you?’ I demanded of the kettle. ‘He was waiting for you tonight and you didn’t show! I need to find you!’

When I collected the milk next morning, there was a letter in the lidded box from Piers, redirected from Greenleas, and a holiday postcard addressed to Cassie, Aunt Jeannie, Hector, Tommy and Lotus. It wished we were all there and was signed, Elspeth and Hamish.

I read it again, and propped it on the mantelpiece, then reluctantly opened the envelope bearing a London postmark.

There was only a single sheet, which pleased me – until I read what he had written.

Cassandra love,

I shall be taking the remainder of my holidays starting Monday next. What a pity you’ll be wherever it is and I shall be at Rowbeck, bored out of my mind – unless you relent, that is, give me a quick bell and tell me where I can find you. Why is your address such a closely guarded secret? What are you up to?

I will call at Greenleas whilst I am there – and meantime take care and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!

Yours,

P.

Feel free, Piers! Try to wangle it out of Mum if that’s the way you want it, but she won’t tell you!

‘And I’m not up to anything!’ I said out loud, pushing the letter in my pocket. You’d think I was having an affair in deepest Lancashire, I thought indignantly.

And aren’t you, Cassie? Aren’t you just a little in love with Jack Hunter and aren’t you enjoying it because you know you can never have him? Isn’t he the excuse you want to break up with Piers?

‘Don’t be so stupid, girl! How can you be in love with a ghost? And there was never anything between me and Piers, anyway. Just sex. Not love. Not like the way it was between Suzie and Jack.’

And I was talking to myself now! Roll on tomorrow night when I went to pick up Jeannie!

Jeannie! The cupboard was bare! I would have to go to the village for food, though it might be politic to go tomorrow when the ladies cleaned the church, find Bill’s sister, talk to her about Deer’s Leap and maybe, with luck, about Susan. A bit underhand maybe, but reporters do it all the time and, besides, I owed it to Jack Hunter. About time someone gave him a bit of help instead of pretending he wasn’t around.

I sliced bread, filled the kettle, took a red mug from its hook, because I had long ago learned that flights of fancy – of fiction – are all very well, but they must be turned off, shut down and pigeonholed. Otherwise, people who write for a living wouldn’t know what they were about!

At home, at Greenleas, I kept my fictional world in its place simply by pulling the curtain across my writing alcove, knowing it would be waiting there next morning. But here at Deer’s Leap, when I turned off Firedance, Jack Hunter and Susan Smith were there to bother me, and an old house that had charmed me from the minute I set eyes on it. Now I was obsessed with a house that could never be mine, a creaking kissing gate, and not a little attracted to a man who had been too young for the responsibilities forced upon him.

Imagine being in command of a bomber; of sitting on your parachute because it was too cumbersome to wear in flight, and hoping you could get the thing on if ever you had to jump for it. Imagine wings filled with aviation fuel that allowed the crew just seven more seconds of life if pierced by a shell from a night fighter, and of being responsible for the lives of six other men when all you wanted was to steer clear of fighters, stay airborne and make a safe landing at Acton Carey airfield – aerodrome.

The toast popped up with a startling noise and I looked at it almost in disbelief because it was so ordinary compared to a Lancaster bomber on a mission, and seven young fliers trying to stay alive. And they hadn’t flown missions. They had gone on ops – operations – in those days! I knew it just as surely as I had heard the roar of four great aero-engines, smelled fear, known the draining relief of getting back to mugs of tea laced with rum, trying all the while to concentrate on the persistent probing of the debriefing officer when all you wanted was sleep. Then to meet your girl, secretly, at a creaking kissing gate. Dry-mouthed, I pulled out a chair to sit, chin on hand, at the table.

I was shaking at the reality of it; of being there in the absolute darkness, flying every mile of the way to the target and back with an airman I loved to desperation. I was becoming a part of a war most people were too young to remember; was living it through the heart and mind of a girl who once lay awake, blessing her lover on his way then willing him back to her. How else could I know such things?

The kettle boiled, bubbled fiercely, then switched off. I spooned coffee into the mug and granules spilled over the tabletop because my hand was shaking so.

I closed my eyes then said out loud, ‘Cassie! That war is history! Count to ten, then open your eyes to the real world!’

This was indeed 1998 and somewhere was an elderly lady who was once called Susan Smith. She was still alive, I knew it, because I had just homed in on her vibrations, felt her long-ago fear. And if I didn’t stop myself I would know, too, her desperate heartbreak, feel her tearing despair as she came to realize that the bomber that crashed on a June day had been Jack Hunter’s!

Then all at once I heard Aunt Jane’s voice inside my head; heard it as surely as if she were here in this room.

‘Cassie, girl! It’ll be all right! Finish your saucy novel then give yourself to Deer’s Leap. Write those books, starting with Margaret Dacre in 1592.’

Aunt Jane? I sent out a desperate plea from my heart, my head, but her voice was gone beyond recalling. I took a gulp of coffee, swallowing it noisily. Aunt Jane was right. I must finish Firedance, and only then concentrate on the Deer’s Leap novels and the women who lived here through the ages, starting with Margaret Dacre. M.D.! Not Mary Doe, Jeannie! Now I knew the name of the woman who lit the first fire in this kitchen and hung her cooking pot above it! Aunt Jane had told me!

I smiled, all at once warm with tenderness, because now I had established a rapport with the woman who must have loved this house as much as I did, had likely walked these hills with her man until they found exactly the right spot on which to build; where there was water for the farm animals and a place to sink a well. They would have studied closely the lay of the land and from which direction the wind blew in winter and where to build for shelter from it. But on a distant spring morning, when the trees were green and the hills so beautiful they took your breath away, Margaret Dacre would have opened her arms in an expansive sweep and said, ‘This is where it shall be, husband, where the window of my summer parlour must face!’

‘So you may sit and look at yon view, Meg, and neglect your chores?’

Meg, he would call her, and as their family grew they would build on more rooms: a snug winter parlour, maybe, and another bedroom. Or did they call them bedchambers when Elizabeth Tudor was queen? And I must try to discover how many babies they had and if they were taken to the tiny church in Acton Carey for christening, before the cotton merchant from Manchester made it bigger and grander.

My heart thudded with pleasure. The Deer’s Leap books would be a joy to write. I had been meant to come here – if, sadly, too late. Come another summer, some other woman would be in this kitchen, though she would not hang her cooking pot over the fire, nor salt sides of bacon in the dairy as Margaret Dacre had done.

So I must enjoy the last of my summer days here, then return at Christmas to wish it goodbye and hope that if I was meant to, I would come back to Deer’s Leap one day.

The phone on the dresser began to ring and I gasped with annoyance because it was Piers, I knew it, homing in on my dreams, mocking them, damn him; Piers reminding me he was on holiday, and could he come up and visit?

I drew in my breath then said ‘Hullo?’ very evenly and normally, though only half of me was yet in the real world.

‘Cassie! It’s Beth! How are you?’

‘How lovely of you to ring!’ My relief was enormous.

‘Thought I’d better make sure you’re all right and not too lonely …’

‘Not a bit. Jeannie’s coming tomorrow.’

‘Animals OK?’

‘They are, Beth. Lotus leads her own life – I only see her when she’s hungry – but Tommy and Hector are never far away. By the way, my parents came to visit last Sunday – hope it was all right?’

‘Of course it was!’

‘Dad loved the garden and Mum thought the house was just beautiful. How are the children?’

‘Brown as berries and never far from the water.’

‘We had a storm last weekend, but we’re keeping on top of the grass cutting between us, tell Danny.’

‘And you’re sure you’re all right, Cassie?’

‘Loving every minute of it!’

‘Oh dear. The card’s running out. Love to Jeannie when she comes, and take care of –’

The call ended with a click and I smiled at the receiver by way of a goodbye, then plugged in my machine and screen. I would work until I felt hungry; no stopping for coffee breaks.

I had just decided to write one more page and then I could stop for a sandwich, when Hector growled from the back door, all at once alert.

‘What is it?’ I frowned, but he was gone, barking angrily.

I got up and went to the door. From the direction of the front gate came a furious clamour. A walker, was it, needing to ask directions?

I made for the front gate calling, ‘Stop it, Hector!’ then gasped, ‘Oh, flaming Norah!’

Beside the gate was a red BMW; a few feet back from it stood an angry-faced Piers. On the other side of it, Hector was at his magnificent best when confronting a strange male.

I grabbed hold of his collar then said, ‘Piers! What are you doing here? How did you know …?’

‘Look – just lock that animal up, will you? The blasted thing went for me as I tried to open the gate!’

‘He doesn’t like strange men!’

‘Ha! You could’ve fooled me! It nearly had my hand off!’

‘Don’t be silly!’ Hector continued to snarl, despite my hold on him. Hector, when angry, took a bit of controlling and I decided to put him in the outhouse. ‘Wait there,’ I said snappily, still shocked and not a little dismayed Piers had found me.

‘Why have you come?’ I demanded as I filled the kettle. ‘I mean, I made it pretty clear I didn’t want anyone here. I came to work and anyway, this isn’t my house. I can’t go treating it like it’s a hotel. It wouldn’t be right.’

‘Your father and mother visited – why not me?’

‘Mum and Dad are different.’

I could feel the tension round my mouth and it wasn’t entirely because I was angry. Piers had been determined to find me, probably annoyed because I wasn’t as biddable as I used to be, and wanting to know why.

‘And I’m not? I thought we had something going, Cassandra. It was good between us till you got this writing bug.’ He was doing it again: trying to belittle what I had achieved. ‘Coffee, please. Black, no sugar.’

‘I know!’ I said snappily, turning my back on him because I couldn’t bear to look at the did-you-think-I-wouldn’t-find-you smirk on his face. ‘Who gave you this address?’ I handed him a mug. ‘Did you wheedle it out of Mum?’

‘Not exactly …’

‘Then how?’ I glared, sitting down opposite.

‘I went to Greenleas. There was a postcard of Acton Carey on the mantelpiece.’

‘Oh, clever stuff, Piers! So who gave you directions?’

‘The postman. I asked him where I could find Deer’s Leap. And your mother didn’t tell me. She let it slip, accidentally. “Deer’s Leap is such a lovely house,” she said. “Very old and quaint. Cassie loves it there.” I don’t think she saw me pick up the postcard, by the way.’

‘You’re a sneaky sod!’

I went over to the dresser to sweeten my drink and he was on his feet in a flash, arms round my waist, pulling me close.

‘Stop it, unless you want coffee all over you! This is neither the time nor the place, so don’t get any ideas! You just can’t come barging in, upsetting things,’ I flung when I had the distance of the tabletop between us again. ‘You can’t take no for an answer; always want your own way in everything!’

‘Answer, Cassandra? I don’t recall asking any relevant question.’

‘Not questions,’ I was forced to admit, ‘but you did take it for granted I’d go to London, didn’t you? And you’ve no right to come here, stopping me writing. You know I can’t write if I get upset!’

‘Ah, yes. You’re a creative type. I forgot you must have your own space!’

I almost lost my temper, then; yelled at him to get out. But I took a deep breath and wondered if I should open the outhouse door, let Hector sort him out.

Instead, I said, ‘You can’t stay the night, Piers. It’s not on – not in Beth’s house!’

All at once I disliked him a lot, resented the way he could sit there unruffled and make me want to lose my temper. And I resented the underhand way he’d found me.

‘I mean it!’ I said as evenly as I could. ‘If I’d wanted you here, Piers, I’d have asked you. I came to look after the animals and the house for Jeannie’s sister, and to write.’

‘And I don’t merit just one day of your time, Cassandra?’

His expression hadn’t changed, his hands lay unmoving on the tabletop. All at once I wished him in a bomber, hands tense, his eyes and ears straining, wanting desperately to live the night through. And he’d soon be told to get his hair cut! He never had a hair out of place; Jack Hunter’s fell over one eye and he pushed it aside with his left hand; didn’t know he was doing it.

‘Come and see the garden, or better still walk with me to the top of the paddock, Piers?’

‘Why?’

‘I want to talk to you.’

‘Can’t we talk here?’

‘I’d rather walk.’ I wanted him out of the house.

‘OK. If that’s what it takes.’

He got carefully to his feet, shrugging his jacket straight, indicating the door with an exaggerated, after-you gesture and I thought yet again he should have been an actor. I locked the back door behind me and slipped the key into my pocket. ‘This way,’ I murmured, deliberately walking past the outhouse.

Hector snarled as we passed, and threw himself at the door, and I knew Piers had got the message.

‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ I waved an arm at the distant hills.

‘Very pretty, Cassandra.’ He was leaning, arms folded, against the dry-stone wall now, his boredom turning down the corners of his mouth. ‘So what have you to say to me?’

He didn’t yawn. I expected him to, but he spared me that and I was glad, because I think I’d have hit him if he had.

I drew in a breath, then said, ‘You and I have come to the end of the road, Piers. We aren’t right together. I don’t want to see you any more. It’s over.’

‘What’s over, Cassandra?’

‘Us. You and me. We couldn’t make a go of it.’

‘But I never thought we could! Your heart was never in it, even when we were in bed. To you it was just something else to put in a book – how it’s done, I mean.’

‘And you, Piers, made love to me simply because I was there and available. Another virginal scalp to hang on your belt, was I?’

‘I thought you’d enjoyed it …’

‘I did – at the time.’ I had to be fair. ‘It was afterwards, though, that I didn’t like.’

‘What do you mean – afterwards?’ He was actually scowling.

‘When it was over, Piers. I looked at you and found I didn’t like you. Oh, it was good at the time, but I think that when two people have made love they shouldn’t feel as I did – afterwards.’

‘Cassandra! You’re making it into a big deal! It was an act of sex, for Pete’s sake! You were willing enough. Curious, were you?’

‘Yes, I’ll admit I was and I was quite relieved it went so well. I was afraid I’d make a mess of it. I’d wondered a lot what it would be like, first time. But I think it isn’t any use being in love with a man if you don’t love him too.’

‘There’s a difference?’ He was looking piqued.

‘For me there is. Look, Piers – you and I grew up together. All the girls in the village fancied you. Then you went away to university and when you came back to Rowbeck you singled me out. I was flattered.’

‘I didn’t have a lot of choice. Rowbeck wasn’t exactly heaving with talent!’

‘Point taken!’ Piers was himself again! ‘But I always thought that the first time I slept with a man, he’d be the one, you see. And it seems you aren’t.’

‘Why aren’t I?’

‘I don’t know.’

Oh, but I did. He wasn’t young and vulnerable and fair. And his hair wasn’t always getting in his eyes – he wouldn’t let it! And he wasn’t desperately in love with me either, and sick with fear that each time we parted would be the last.

‘Piers!’ I gasped, because he was staring ahead and not seeing one bit of the beautiful view. ‘I just want us to be friends like when we were kids.’

‘But we aren’t kids. You aren’t all teeth and freckles, Cassandra, and mad at being called Carrots. You’ve grown up quite beautifully, as a matter of fact.’

‘Thanks,’ I said primly. ‘Flattery will get you everywhere – but not today. Sorry, but that’s the way it is. I really must work.’

‘Work? You don’t know the meaning of the word.’

He said it like a grown-up indulging a child and I knew I had made my point at last. I held out my hand.

‘Friends, then?’

‘OK.’ He smiled his rueful smile, then kissed my cheek. ‘My, but you’ve changed, Cassie Johns. Is there another bloke, by the way?’

‘No.’ I shook my head firmly. ‘And you’d best not tell Mum you’ve been. She’d be upset if she thought she’d given my whereabouts away.’

‘So you said she mustn’t let me have your address?’

‘Yes. I didn’t want any interruptions.’

‘I see. Would you mind, Cassandra, if I gave you a word of advice? Don’t take this writing business too seriously?’

‘I won’t,’ I said evenly, amazed he seemed no longer able to annoy me. ‘You’ll want to be on your way, Piers …?’

‘Mm. Thought I might take a look at Lancaster, get a spot of lunch.’

‘I believe it’s a nice place,’ I said as we climbed the stile in the wall. ‘They used to hang witches there.’

‘You haven’t seen it? Come with me – just for old times’ sake – a fond farewell?’

‘Thanks, but no.’ Deliberately I took the path that led to the kissing gate. ‘And thanks for being so understanding – about us, I mean, and me breaking it off.’

He got into his car, then let down the window.

‘There was never anything to break off, Cassandra. Like you said, another scalp …’

I stood for what seemed like a long time after he had driven down the dirt road in a cloud of dust thinking that, as always, he’d had the last word. But I could get along without him. I shrugged, closing the kissing gate behind me.

I let go a small sigh, straightened my shoulders then walked, nose in air, to let Hector out.

All at once, I was desperate for a cheese and pickle sandwich.