I found Will in the kitchens eating cake. Just the sight of him made my eyes fill up. Before I could stop myself, I threw my arms right round him and blubbed into his shoulder.
‘Thank God you’re all right!’
‘Watch out for old waterworks!’ he laughed.
Yet his arms went round me too, and we stayed like that for a long moment, with my face nestled into his shirt front. Then he tipped his head slightly, smoothing back my hair so I felt his mouth warm against my ear.
‘Clever you,’ he said in a voice so low that only I could hear it.
I shivered with happiness.
‘I couldn’t have done it without your help,’ I said.
He squeezed me tight. It made my insides go fluttery and strange. I pulled back, sharpish. What the heck was the matter with me?
Fumbling about for a chair, I saw the smirk on Cook’s face. I sat down with a bump.
‘So,’ I said, trying to act normal, ‘is your leg better, Will?’
It was hard to look at him. Each time I did, the fluttery feeling came back. I’d never noticed that his eyes were so dark, nor how his face went all soft when he smiled. He was fine-looking, all right. No wonder he was always so pleased with himself.
‘Didn’t know you cared,’ he said.
Cook laughed. ‘’Course she does, you daft thing! Anyone with half a brain can see that.’
I did my best to ignore her and said to Will briskly, ‘You up to walking home, then? Only I want to go today.’
‘I could give it a go,’ he said.
He pulled up his trouser leg, wincing. The bite was bandaged up so there wasn’t much to see, but his leg looked stiff and swollen.
My spirits sank. ‘You can’t walk on that.’
‘Try getting a ride with Mrs Jessop, then,’ said Cook. ‘Go to the front of the house and you’ll catch her. They’re loading her things onto the coach.’
I felt a sudden pang in my chest. ‘Is she leaving right now?’
‘She is. Going to the coast to take the air. Long time coming, if you ask me.’
I raced out the back door and round to the front steps. Mrs Jessop was stood amongst a pile of cases, wearing a brown coat and smart straw hat. She shielded her eyes from the sun as she saw me coming.
‘Hullo,’ she said, as I skidded to a halt in front of her. ‘Seems we’re both leaving today.’
Before long, the coach set off up the driveway. Will and me had squeezed ourselves into one seat with Mrs Jessop facing us on the other. Except she didn’t look our way, not once. She gazed out the window the whole time. I bet she was thinking of Ada.
The main Frostcombe road was all potholes and slush, throwing Will against me with every lurch. We laughed a bit and he excused himself. But as the road evened out, I noticed how his arm stayed touching mine.
Just before the village, we stopped at Will’s house to let him out. Then it was my turn, though our lane was too narrow for a carriage.
‘This’ll do me,’ I said, jumping down.
‘Just a moment.’
Mrs Jessop climbed out after me, telling the driver to wait. My eyes prickled; I prayed she didn’t have notions of walking me right to my front door.
‘Let me show you something, Tilly.’
She opened a bag and pulled out a parcel wrapped in brown paper. My heart lurched. It was the same flat package Lady Barrington had taken from the drawer at the séance. Kit’s final present to Ada.
I dithered uneasily, not sure I wanted to look at such a personal gift. But the packaging itself had already come loose, so I guessed I wasn’t the first to have a peek inside.
‘Go on, open it,’ Mrs Jessop said, nudging it into my hands. ‘Her Ladyship kept it all this time, and today she gave it to me.’
With shaking fingers, I pulled back the wrapping. What I saw was beautiful, so beautiful it made my chest hurt. For here was a pencil drawing of the most lovely angel I had ever seen, lovelier than the statue at Kit’s graveside, lovelier even than the drawings in his sketchbook. There was no fancy writing, no gushing ‘to my dearest . . .’s. What he’d chosen instead was simple. At the bottom of the picture in a copperplate hand were the sweetest words: ‘To Ada.’
His gift was perfect.
Yet Ada never lived to see it.
‘It’s so lovely,’ I said finally, and handed it back to Mrs Jessop. ‘Maybe Kit was Ada’s special angel. He certainly was mine.’
She put the package back in her bag, then took my hand. ‘I often wondered why you didn’t drown that day. There’s something about you, Tilly. Something quite remarkable.’
I knew if I looked at her, I’d cry.
‘Go home now.’ Letting me go, she climbed back into the carriage.
I cried out, ‘Mrs Jessop, wait!’
She pulled down the window.
‘I must ask, do you think I look like Ada?’
She smiled sadly. ‘At first I thought so, yes. It quite unsettled me. But I don’t think you look like her any more.’
‘What’s changed?’
‘You. Me. Everything,’ she said. ‘And I hope we’ll be better people for it.’
I didn’t stay to watch the carriage go. I ran straight to our house and lifted the latch. Ma leapt up so fast, her mending work fell in a heap on the floor.
‘What’s happened? What you gone and done?’ she cried.
‘Nothing, Ma,’ I said, though it wasn’t exactly true. ‘But you’d better sit down again.’
As simply as I could, I told her. She half-laughed, half-gasped, and by the time I’d finished her eyes were bright with tears. We fell quiet, like two people unsure what to do next.
Then she held out her arms to me. ‘Come here, child.’
So I did.