On Friday morning I drove into Acton Carey, a last, sentimental journey. I would take a look at the church, then buy Bill a pint, if he was around. Say goodbye. Because since this morning I had a feeling that I would never come back, never see Deer’s Leap again. And maybe it was better that way; better to forget Jack Hunter and that war, and anyway, I decided mutinously as I drove past the clump of oaks, why should I bother my head about a ghost who didn’t have the decency to turn up when he must surely have known I would soon be leaving here. For ever!
I still felt piqued as I parked the car, then made for the war memorial, to stand there, staring fixedly at the name J. J. Hunter, asking silently why he hadn’t been there this morning, wishing I had brought flowers as a kind of goodbye. Flowers from Deer’s Leap garden; a bunch of the red roses that grew up the wall and peeped in at the kitchen window! It was a very old plant with a thick, gnarled stem that could even have been there when Susan slept in the room above the kitchen! Why hadn’t I thought?
‘I’m going home on Sunday,’ I whispered in my mind to the name chiselled there. ‘I’m sorry about what happened to you and Susan and I’m sorry I wasn’t able to help you. But I won’t forget either of you. One day, somehow, I’ll find how it was for you both …’
I blew my nose sniffily, then walked to the grandiose church, built to the memory of a cotton broker from Manchester whom almost everyone had forgotten, blinking my eyes to accustom them to the gloom, inhaling the churchy smell of dampness and musty books and dusty hassocks.
‘Hullo, love! Over here!’
I turned in the direction of the voice.
‘You came then!’ Hilda stood beside the lectern, waving and smiling.
‘I said I would.’
‘Happen you did, but you went off at a right old lick; didn’t give me time to tell you that –’
‘Your bus was coming.’ So too had been Jeannie! ‘I hope you didn’t think me rude.’
‘Nay. All I’d been going to tell you was that Lizzie Frobisher lives in Acton Carey.’
‘She lives where?’
‘At the vicarage. We don’t have a parish priest in the village any longer – all a question of money. Any road, there was a vicarage standing empty, so the Diocese made it into four flats for retired clergy. It was nice that Lizzie was able to come back to the village to live out her time. She’s over yonder, in the green cardigan.’
Here! Dusting pews no more than ten feet away!
‘Susan Smith’s friend?’ I whispered. ‘The one she went to school with?’
‘That’s the lady you should be talking to. Away over, and have a word with her. She’s Lizzie Taylor now.’
‘Did you tell her I was asking?’
‘No. But there’s none better to tell you about Susan.’
‘You don’t mind? I really came to look at the church …’
‘Then ask Lizzie to show it to you!’
Glory be! With only two days to go, I’d found Susan’s long-ago friend!
‘Mrs Taylor?’ I coughed loudly and she spun round, looking at me over the top of her glasses.
‘It is. And who might you be?’
‘I’m Cassandra Johns. I’m staying at Deer’s Leap.’
‘Ah, yes – you’ll want to talk about Susan?’ she said matter-of-factly.
‘I do, actually. But how did you guess?’
‘Ha! The whole village knows. Tell Bill Jarvis and you might as well tell the town crier!’ She pulled down the corners of her mouth and I took in her hand-knitted cardigan, the skirt gone baggy round the hips, the thin hair, permed into corkscrew curls. ‘Why are you interested in Susan Smith?’
‘I – I’m not especially. It’s Deer’s Leap really. I’m a novelist, you see, and I’m interested in anything to do with the place.’
And may you be forgiven, Cassandra Johns, for lying through your teeth in church!
‘Ah. An historical novelist! Then you can’t do better than write about Margaret and Walter Dacre – if you dare! Local folklore has always had it, you see, that those two were the worst of the bunch – the Pendle Witches, I’m talking about – but were never found out!’
‘Margaret Dacre?’ Oh, lordy! Aunt Jane had got it right! ‘The 1592 one?’
‘That’s her! Legend has it she worked spells and heaven knows what else. She got away with it too! I suppose people hereabouts were too afraid to shop her to the witch-hunters.’
‘But how do you know all this? I’ve never come across any reference either to her or to Deer’s Leap.’
‘You wouldn’t. Nothing was put on record; just handed down through the generations, sort of. But Mistress Dacre got her comeuppance, for all that. Seems she wanted to found a dynasty; pass that fine house on to her son, but she never conceived. The Lord’s punishment on her, if you ask me! But what’s got into you? You look quite odd, Miss Johns. Stupid of me talking about witchcraft, and you alone in that house. Let’s go outside for a breath of air? I’ve had enough dusting for one day. Feel like a cigarette?’
‘I – I don’t smoke.’ I followed her in a half-daze.
‘Afraid I do! A habit I picked up in the war, and never managed to kick!’ She settled herself on a bench beside the church porch and dug into her cardigan pocket. ‘But we can’t all be perfect, can we? Sure you don’t want one?’
‘Quite sure, thanks. But I really can’t imagine a witch ever having lived at Deer’s Leap. To me, it’s a beautiful old place. I’ve been alone there for days on end and never picked up one bad vibe – er – funny feeling.’
‘It’s all right.’ She inhaled deeply, eyes closed. ‘Vicars’ wives know what vibes are! Mind, there was often an atmosphere at Deer’s Leap – Mrs Smith’s fault, I reckon.’
‘Why? Wasn’t she happy there? Was it too isolated for her?’
‘I don’t think so. She just kept herself to herself. Not like in the village. No one locked their doors in those days. People just walked in without waiting to be asked. Mind, Susan’s father was a decent chap, though they weren’t much missed when they left.’
‘Then can you tell me,’ I whispered, ‘where they went when the Air Ministry took the house off them?’ My mouth was suddenly dry and my tongue made little clicking sounds as I spoke. ‘You and Susan would keep in touch?’
‘Well, that’s just it! It was as if they’d done a moonlight! One day they were there; the next day not a sign of them, and the place deserted. I know because I had arranged to meet Susan and she didn’t turn up. I went to Deer’s Leap looking for her because it was – well – rather urgent.’
‘And they’d vanished? All the livestock gone?’
‘Everything! I was hurt when Susan never wrote; not one line to tell me her new address, and she and I so close! I wonder to this day why she never got in touch. It was the talk of the village at the time; a nine-day wonder. No end of speculation, but no one ever found out. Susan never came back after the war. I’d have thought she’d have brought flowers or a poppy wreath to the memorial. It was as if Jack Hunter had never existed for her.’
‘Jack was her boyfriend,’ I said softly.
‘He was her whole life! They were so in love; right from the night they met. Mind, it wasn’t easy for them to meet, the way things were. It wasn’t on, going out with an airman, so I did all I could – gave Susan an alibi, sometimes …’
‘And the other times?’
‘She’d slip out of the house. When it was winter and dark before teatime, it was easier for her. He’d walk all that way, just to have a few minutes with her at the gate, then afterwards, in the barn.’
‘Was the aerodrome far away?’
‘About two miles from here. It was nearer to Deer’s Leap, actually, than to the village. That’s why the RAF took Mr Smith’s fields when they wanted to extend.’
I looked at the ash on her cigarette end. It clung there, more than an inch long and I waited, fascinated, for it to drop, thinking how steady her hand must be.
‘My mother said that in those days, girls didn’t have the freedom my generation has. I can’t understand it.’
‘I can! A girl obeyed her parents until she was twenty-one. That was when young people came of age in my day. Do you know, there were boys of twenty flying those huge planes. Old enough to drop a bomb-load on Germany and kill God knows how many, but not old enough to marry without permission! It was mad!’
‘What would have happened if Susan’s mother had found she was meeting an airman?’
‘She did know eventually. There was ructions!’
‘But couldn’t they have met sometimes when Susan left work? Didn’t she ever think to say she was working over-time?’
‘She never had a job; leastways only at home. She helped in the house and on the farm. Farming was work of national importance; so important it kept you out of the Armed Forces! Susan would have liked to join up, but it wouldn’t have been any use her trying. I felt sorry for her. It must have been awful, once she left school, with no one her own age to talk to for days on end.’
‘I’m surprised she ever got to meet her young man!’
‘She wouldn’t have, in the normal course of events, but there was something on in the village, I remember, to do with the church, and she stayed the night at our house. My mother had to practically beg permission. Susan’s mother said she couldn’t go, them not being Church of England, but Mr Smith said she could. He was a quiet man really, and hadn’t a lot to say for himself, but if ever he put his foot down, his wife didn’t argue! You’d have thought it was a bacchanalian romp, and it was only a beetle drive in the parish hall in aid of the church choir!’
‘They met at a beetle drive?’
‘No. They bumped into each other – literally – in the village in the blackout. People bumped into just about everything, come to think of it. Lampposts especially were the very devil. You could get a nasty bang from one of those, apart from breaking your glasses, if you wore them!
‘Anyway, this airman was full of apologies and insisted on walking us to the transport. The transport, I ask you! He thought we were going to the sergeants’ mess dance at the aerodrome! The RAF had a dance there every week, and they always sent a lorry round the villages, collecting girls. Lady partners were a bit thin on the ground, you see. Folk around these parts called it the love bus.
‘Of course, respectable girls weren’t allowed to go. No knowing the trouble they might get themselves into! Chance would’ve been a fine thing! I don’t know what got into the pair of us that night because we followed the airman and he helped us onto the transport. We were the only two from Acton Carey!’
‘And that’s where it all started – at a forbidden dance?’
‘That’s where. In a Nissen hut, actually. Not in the least romantic, but it was love at first sight for those two. I suppose you’d call it physical attraction nowadays!’
‘That was very daring of you,’ I teased. ‘I suppose you let him walk you both home!’
‘You bet we did! The blackout did have its uses, you know, and we both reckoned we might as well be hanged for sheep. I lived in one of the lodges at the Hall then, so it was a fair walk. We didn’t wait for the love bus because we had to be back before the beetle drive finished. Jack’s tail-end Charlie escorted me. Mick, his name was. Lovely dancer …’
‘Tail-end what?’
‘Charlie. There were two gunners to each bomber: one amidships, sort of, and another in the tail. Susan and I got to know them all. Mick and I started seeing each other, but we were more dancing partners than anything else. Not like Jack and Susan. Those two were smitten right from the start. He was gorgeous. Tall, fair-haired. Susan was fair too. A golden couple. I’d look at them together and think it was too good to last, and I was right!
‘But here’s me rabbiting on, and you wanting to look at the church!’ She ground her cigarette end into the grass, then brushed a hand across her skirt. ‘I’ll show you round if you’d like. We’d better get a move on. They’ll be finishing soon, and the church has to be locked. When I was young, churches were never locked and the altar silver out for all to see. Thieves left churches alone in those days …’
‘If there isn’t a lot of time left, then I’d rather see the original part of the building.’ I felt less breathless now. ‘It’s ages old, I believe.’
‘Built in the thirteenth century, when few could read or write but who believed implicitly in heaven and hell and eternal damnation! It’s the Lady Chapel now and so simple it’s beautiful. When it was built, so small a church wouldn’t have had pews and the faithful would have stood right through the service – all except the Lord of the Manor and his family, who’d have had special chairs. But let me show you …’
I didn’t go to the Red Rose when I left the church. My head was too full of Susan and Jack, and besides, Beth and Danny would be home the following day and I wanted to clean the house before I went to meet Jeannie’s train.
My word processor was already packed in its carrying box; no more Firedance until Monday; no more working at the kitchen table with Hector beside me and Tommy curled up in the armchair! Sadness took me just to think of leaving, so I thought instead of Mum and Dad and how pleased they would be to have me home again.
But it was difficult not to think of Susan and Jack and how glad I was to have found a lead in the very nick of time. I’d tried not to appear too interested for fear of arousing suspicion, because far too many people think that anything said to a novelist would appear, completely unashamed and unabridged, in her next book! I’d felt just a little guilty, especially when Mrs Taylor said, on parting, that I had only to write to her or phone if there was anything I wanted to know about the history of the area or about the war. I had her address and phone number in my purse, though at the back of my mind I knew it would be a long time before I would be in touch. Firedance must first be completed, and a lot could happen in the space of three and a bit novels – even supposing Harrier Books gave me that contract!
I was snipping red roses when the phone rang, and I ran to answer it.
‘Cassie! I’m at King’s Cross. Is the minicab available – same time?’
‘It is.’
‘Beth rang. Said they were taking it easy and would be home late on Saturday night about eight – give or take the odd traffic jam!’
‘She rang me too!’
‘Fine! See you, then!’
‘That was Jeannie,’ I said to Hector, who always came to investigate when the phone rang – just in case, I supposed, there was a man on the other end of it! ‘I’m going home soon. Are you going to miss me?’
He whined softly and looked at the biscuit tin, which was his way of telling me he would, and the custard creams too, and I felt a sudden ache inside me to think that soon he too would be leaving Deer’s Leap. Poor Hector, poor Cassie, poor Jack and Suzie!
‘Life’s a bitch,’ I said out loud. ‘And then you die!’
Even when you were hardly into manhood, I thought soberly, and you didn’t want to die and your girl didn’t want you to either!
Then I thought about Piers, whom I hadn’t really loved at all, and promptly burst into tears at the unfairness of it.
On the way back from Preston station, I slowed automatically as we neared the clump of oak trees and Jeannie slid me a warning glance
‘You’re at it again, Cassie! You’re still on the lookout for him! I thought you’d decided to let it drop.’
‘Yes, I had.’ I put my foot down, because there wasn’t a single vibe to be felt. ‘And I really meant it at the time, but something happened this morning.’
I told her about going to the church – hand-on-heart only to look at it! – and how I’d met Mrs Taylor who once was Susan’s closest friend, and there in Acton Carey all the time!
‘What do you mean – living in the village all along? Then why didn’t Bill Jarvis mention it? He knew we – you – were interested.’
‘Maybe it slipped his memory. It all happened a long time ago, and he was older than Susan, didn’t he say, and away in the army for a lot of the war. That could be why he wouldn’t know about the Smiths’ mysterious departure – without a goodbye to anyone. It was a shock to Lizzie. Even she hadn’t known when they were going.’
I told her all I’d learned, and said surely Bill would have told us about something that caused such a stir at the time, if he’d known about it.
‘Maybe he did. Maybe,’ she said over her shoulder as she got out of the car to open the white gate, ‘he was rationing his knowledge – with the beer in mind!’
She brought the matter up again, which surprised me, as soon as we were sitting at the kitchen table, a pot of coffee between us.
‘Why, all of a sudden, are you interested in Susan Smith, and the pilot?’ I asked her. ‘It’s not all that long ago you warned me off, Jeannie.’
‘We-e-ll, things have changed a bit since then. I mentioned the Deer’s Leap books at work. They showed quite an interest. Maybe they’ll ask you to come to London to talk about them when Firedance is finished. How’s it going, by the way?’
‘Fine. I’ll meet the deadline with no problem. And there’s something I forgot. Local folklore has it that Walter and Margaret Dacre were up to their necks in witchcraft!’
‘You mean W. D. & M. D. – the couple who built the house?’
‘You got it in one! There’s no record of it – and there wouldn’t be since they were never accused and tried – but Mrs Taylor said M. D. was a witch! Mind, things get added to and embroidered in the telling, but I always thought of Margaret Dacre as a happy contented wife with a lot of children. I even imagined them adding rooms as their family grew, but I was wrong. According to Mrs Taylor, the Dacres never had children. That can of maggots you warned me about might go a long way back!’
‘Cassie! It gets better and better!’
‘Yes, and it’s only just hit me! What if Margaret Dacre put a curse on Deer’s Leap?’
‘But why on earth should she?’
‘Well, for one thing she could well have been a witch, so ill-wishing would be second nature to her; and never to have given her husband an heir must have upset her a lot. Imagine building that lovely house for future generations to live in, and no son to inherit it! Maybe the curse was eternal and still applies – if there was a curse, I mean. Susan and Jack didn’t have children, that much we do know.’
‘Susan and Jack didn’t get as far as the altar, but what a theme to run through the books! Every couple who lived at Deer’s Leap to be childless! Mind, you’d have to lift the curse eventually – maybe in the final book, Cassie. Y’know, I really do believe we’re on to something!’
She was pink-cheeked with excitement which made me feel a bit of a meanie when I reminded her that Susan Smith was the daughter of the house, and Danny and Beth had two children.
‘Yes, but they were born in Edinburgh. They came here when they were toddlers! You’ll have to think of something for your novels, though, Cas. Can you?’
‘You know I can!’ Now I was excited too. ‘I’d have to do a fair bit of historical research, though. And had you thought – even World War Two is history now.’
‘I’ll grant you that, but Mrs Taylor is still around and didn’t she say you could get in touch with her?’
‘Oh, Jeannie. If only I could find Susan! She’s around too, I’m as certain as I can be.’
‘What you want, I think –’ Jeannie was an editor again, all else forgotten – ‘is a situation in the last of the books whereby the curse is lifted.’
‘Easy! My star-crossed lovers will have a happy-ever-after ending and live at Deer’s Leap, and have children too.’
‘Only the house won’t be called Deer’s Leap …’
‘Think I’m stupid? Of course it won’t.’ It would mean spending time around Acton Carey and maybe calling back the ghost of a pilot, but what the heck! ‘This morning I’d accepted I would never return to Deer’s Leap; never see it again after Sunday. I even went to the war memorial to say goodbye to Jack Hunter! Then in the next breath, almost, I meet Lizzie Taylor. Seems Deer’s Leap isn’t going to let me go, Jeannie!’
‘And will that worry you?’
‘Of course not.’ Bet your life it wouldn’t, because hadn’t that old house just handed me the plots of at least four novels; handed them on a plate because it was determined to keep its hold over me! ‘In fact, the only awful thing about it is that I’ll have all sorts of excuses for coming back here, and it mightn’t go down too well. Because by the time I’m ready to start writing those books, Jeannie, someone else will be living in Deer’s Leap, and I won’t like that one bit!’
Come to think of it, Margaret Dacre mightn’t like it either!
The lucky Cornish pixie Elspeth and Hamish hung in the rear window of my car swung from side to side as I reversed out of the white gate and onto the dust road. Beth and Danny stood waving, Tommy beside them, and Hector gazed at me mournfully.
‘I have never,’ I said to Jeannie, ‘seen a dog who could look so sad, yet wag his tail at the same time, the old fraud!’
‘You’re going to miss him, aren’t you?’
‘I am.’ And the snooty Lotus, who hadn’t condescended to see me off, and the view from the kitchen window and, oh just everything! I felt very choked up still at having to hand over Deer’s Leap, and I told Beth and Danny as we hugged a goodbye that I wasn’t turning to look back – not even for one last glance – because it’s unlucky and there’s a limit to what I can bear without bursting into tears.
So instead I wound down the window, and stuck out my arm in one last wave. Goodbye, Deer’s Leap and the animals and the garden and the kissing gate. And especially goodbye to Jack Hunter, who would still be waiting there for his Suzie for all time.
‘So!’ I let out my breath in a noisy huff. ‘That’s it!’
‘You sound quite full up, Cassie.’
‘I am.’ So full up that I wished I had never accepted an invitation to that fancy dress party, nor ever seen Deer’s Leap nor got myself involved with long-ago lovers. ‘Never mind. I’ll just chalk it up to experience, Jeannie; grist to the mill.’
‘You won’t, you know! I mean, how do you know that Margaret Dacre hasn’t put her mark on you? Hadn’t you thought she might really want a child to be born in that house!’
‘But children will have been born there! Dammit, it’s against the law of averages for a house to stand more than four hundred years and never have a baby born in it!’
‘How do you know, Cassie? Didn’t we agree that’s how the plots of the Deer’s Leap books will be: a house cursed never to know children!’
‘But that’s fiction we’re talking about! And anyway, we don’t know that Margaret Dacre was a witch. It’s only local tittle-tattle!’
‘Interesting, for all that and Cassie!’ She grabbed the wheel. ‘For God’s sake, watch it!’
‘Look!’ I slammed into reverse gear, bumping over the grassy edges of the road. ‘He’s there! Look! Behind you!’
The car went into a skid and I pulled hard out of it, all the time watching the man who stood at the side of the road, willing him, imploring him not to go!
I turned the car, throwing up gravel and dust. Out of the corner of my eye I’d seen him on the other side of the road as I drove past. He was still there, looking straight ahead, not one bit bothered by screeching brakes and a car almost out of control.
‘Look at him, Jeannie! Now tell me he isn’t real!’ I inched forward, my heart thudding in my ears. ‘And don’t say a word! Leave it to me!’ I stopped the car, my eyes not leaving him for a second. What could I say to him? ‘Hullo and goodbye’?
Jeannie had her hands over her eyes as if my performance had unnerved her. Or was it because she didn’t want to look at the airman?
‘Jeannie – please?’ Slowly, carefully I opened the door, got out, then quietly closed it. Jeannie took her hands from her face and stared at me, bewildered.
‘There’s no one here, Cas, but you and me …’ Her face was very white and she ran her tongue round her lips, turning slowly in her seat to look behind her. ‘No one at all!’
‘Jack,’ I said softly, so he would look at me. ‘Want a lift? Deer’s Leap, is it?’
‘Cassie!’ The horn sounded, loudly, insistently. Jeannie was in the driving seat, making the most awful noise. Her eyes were wild and frightened-looking. I thought she was going to start the car!
‘Don’t!’ I turned to wrench open the door, snatching the keys from the ignition. ‘He’s there!’ I pointed to where he stood. ‘Oh, no!’ I’d taken my eyes off him for a second! ‘Oh God! He’s gone. Why did you do that, Jeannie? Why?’
‘Get in,’ she said softly, her eyes locking on to mine. She pointed to the passenger seat. ‘Get in, and I’ll drive.’
‘No! I – I’m fine. Just fine!’
‘Are you coming with me to the station, or aren’t you?’ Her face was still pale, but her voice was steely calm and very, very soft.
‘He was there. He was …’ I sat down beside her, fighting tears.
‘Give me the keys, please.’
‘OK.’ I dropped them into her outstretched hand. ‘But I’m all right. I can drive.’
‘Sure. But not just yet. Just calm down …’
‘Why didn’t you see him?’ I blew my nose noisily, breathing deeply, trying to get a hold of myself.
‘Because you can see ghosts and it’s obvious I can’t! It’s as simple as that!’
She turned the key in the ignition, glancing in the rear-view mirror. I followed her gaze as she turned the car without effort in the narrow lane. There was no one in front of us and no one behind us. All I could see was a country road with grassy verges and a lucky Cornish pixie, swinging from side to side in the window behind me with annoying nonchalance.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
‘And so am I – that I didn’t get to see him, I mean.’
‘But you believe me, Jeannie? You believe that I did?’
‘I believe you. And I’m sorry I pressed the horn.’
‘You startled him. Maybe he isn’t used to noises like that.’
‘Oh, you’re so right, Cassie! I bet he hasn’t heard anything as frightening as the horn of a Mini!’ She looked at me, the corners of her mouth pulled down and I knew the drama was over – until, of course, either of us cared to speak about it again.
‘I said I was sorry,’ I said shakily.
We were driving through Acton Carey now, past the post office and the Red Rose; past the church and the war memorial.
‘I’ll pull in at the lay-by – OK?’
‘Fine.’
‘You’re sure you want to drive? No more emergency stops? If you see him, you’ll put your foot down?’
‘We won’t see him now. We’re too far from Deer’s Leap. But I did see him,’ I insisted as she flashed left, then pulled in.
She turned to look behind her before opening the door, which was her way, I suppose, of giving me the last word without actually agreeing with me.
‘You’ve got exactly thirty minutes!’ she said, fastening her seat belt, ‘and if I miss that train you’re in trouble, Cassandra Johns. So get weaving!’
‘Did you know,’ I smiled, all at once calm again, ‘that get weaving was a World War Two expression?’
‘Yes. It meant Get Your Foot Down. It still does!’
We made the station just as the train drew smoothly, snakily, into the platform. I gave Jeannie a hug and said, ‘See you, old love.’
‘You’re sure you’re all right?’
‘Absolutely.’ I really was. ‘Will you be at Beth’s place at the weekend?’
‘No. There’s a book fair I want to take in, so I’ll be there instead.’
‘And I’ll be at Greenleas …’
It was as if we were closing the door on Deer’s Leap, then locking it. I wondered if we would agree to throw away the key.
Doors opened. I picked up Jeannie’s case and handed it to her when she had found her seat. Neither of us spoke. There just didn’t seem to be anything to say. Soon she would be on her way to London and I would be turning left at the lights and onto the A59.
‘Don’t wait. Off you go.’ Jeannie didn’t like being waved out of sight.
‘Safe journey, then …’
‘You too, Cassie. I’ll ring you in the morning.’
I walked away. In little more than an hour I would be home, and a big red sun would be sinking behind Beacon Fell. I felt so flat, I wanted to weep.
‘It’ll be September before we know it!’ Mum put a match to the sitting-room fire. ‘Would anybody like a cup of tea before I get myself comfortable?’
Dad and I said we wouldn’t, thanks.
‘Right, then!’ Mum picked up her knitting. ‘It’s about time we got the business over and done with!’
‘What business?’ I frowned.
‘About your Aunt Jane,’ Dad said. ‘It’s about time we –’
‘It isn’t as if we’re doing it in indecent haste. She’s been gone more than two years; time we had a chat about what’s to be done,’ Mum said firmly, ‘about her cottage.’
‘What about it?’ I demanded. ‘She left it to you, Dad. Why the urgency? No one’s been there for ages.’
‘I’ve been there all the time, opening windows,’ Mum defended, ‘and I’ve made up my mind to talk to you about it, Cassie. After all, the furniture in it is yours.’
‘And you want it cleared out?’ I felt vaguely sad.
‘Not necessarily, only several folk in the village have asked what we intend doing with it.’
‘It’s none of their business!’
‘Everything in Rowbeck is Rowbeck’s business. Worrying about other folk’s business is all they have to do, most times! Anyway, Cassie love, we want you to know what Dad and me have decided – well, almost decided. We’d like your opinion.’
‘You’re not going to sell it!’ Not to some townee who would rip out the lovely iron firegrates, and put in double glazing and a functional kitchen, then only use it at weekends! ‘I don’t think Aunt Jane would like that!’
‘Sell it!’ Dad looked most put out. ‘Oh, no! I was born in that cottage and your grandpa left it to Jane for her lifetime, and then to me. As a matter of fact, Mam and me have made up our minds to live there when we retire.’
‘But you aren’t thinking of giving up work yet, Dad?’
‘Not for ten years, if I have any say in the matter! But the place can’t stand idle and unlived in, so we thought we’d give it a spring clean, do a bit of decorating, then offer it as a holiday let. We’ll have to get central heating put in before the cold weather is on us again, so we won’t make a fortune. But as long as it is lived in and kept warm and aired until we want it, then I think it’s a good idea.’
‘And you’d use the furniture?’
‘Of course – provided you don’t mind. People seem to expect old-fashioned stuff these days in country cottages.’
‘I wouldn’t mind at all.’ I felt relieved in fact. ‘Mind, there are one or two things we’ll have to move – her personal things, and family photographs. And I’d like her sewing machine.’
She had bought it, she told me, long before the war, which made it almost an antique. But it wasn’t for its value I wanted it, but because I’d watched, fascinated, as she sewed dolls’ clothes on it when I was little and because I’d liked the chuckling sound it made when she turned the handle quickly.
‘Take out what you want – it’s all yours, Cassie.’
‘Then until I need it myself, I think everything should be left the way it’s always been.’
‘Need it?’ Mum’s face registered a mixing of dismay and hope.
‘Well, I suppose I will – one day. One day I might think of buying a little place of my own if everything goes well. But not for a long time,’ I soothed.
‘Good! Well, that’s settled, then. I’ll go and make a pot of tea! Sure you don’t want a cup, Cassie?’
‘Only if there’s a slice of parkin to go with it!’
‘And did you ever know the day,’ Mum clucked, ‘when there wasn’t parkin in the cake tin?’
I smiled. I really was home again, Deer’s Leap was a long way away and I had given it back to Beth. Yet for just the speeding of a second I was standing at the white gate, gazing up the path, and there were lights in all the windows.
And then, as I stood unseen, the kissing gate creaked, and I knew the airman was there again, waiting for Suzie to creep out to him in the darkness so they could whisper together, and kiss. And then he would tell her he couldn’t stay long, because he was on standby …
‘A penny for them?’ Mum put the teapot on the hearth, then covered it with a cosy.
‘O-oh – anything and nothing …’
‘Nothing, was it? Then all I can say is that you had a very creamy smile on your face! Have you got a new boyfriend?’
‘No, I haven’t,’ I grinned. ‘I haven’t time for boyfriends at the moment. I’ve got a book to finish first – or had you both forgotten?’
Finish Firedance, then start researching the Deer’s Leap books. I would love it and loathe it, because by the time I had an excuse to go back there the house would stand alone and empty, a detestable For Sale notice at the white gate. And a stranger would buy it and everything would change, except the stone above the front door with W.D. & M.D. 1592 on it.
Were you really a witch, Margaret Dacre?
‘Coffee time already, is it?’ Frowning, Mum switched off the vacuum.
‘No, but I’ll make a cup, if you want one. I can’t seem to settle down to work,’ I shrugged. ‘Maybe it’s the changeover. I’ll get over it.’
‘No coffee for me just yet. I’ll wait till ten, when your dad has his. If you’re a bit restless, though, why don’t you pop in on Aunt Jane – she can do with a few flowers.’
It surprised me I hadn’t thought of it myself. I needed to get a few things straight in my mind, and when Aunt Jane and I swap thoughts, things always seem clearer.
I waved to Dad, who was packing cucumbers, then took a sharp knife from the potting shed. I felt disorientated, here amongst straight rows and straight paths and not a hill in sight. I let my thoughts go free and I was back in the lane, near the clump of oak trees, sliding my eyes left and right; glancing in the rear-view mirror in case he was behind me. He. J. J. Hunter. Was he there now at the roadside, arm extended, thumb jutting?
I cut ten stems of apricot spray chrysanthemums, then made for the village. The lane between Greenleas and Rowbeck reminded me again of Deer’s Leap lane, only there were no oak trees and it was nowhere near so long. I hoped I wouldn’t meet anyone I knew, because I wasn’t in the mood to answer questions about where I had been and how the book was coming along and wasn’t it a pity I’d been away when Piers was home?
I reached the church gates unchallenged, all the time trying to be glad I was home again, wondering why I felt so restless. Was it because I had seen a ghost and talked to a ghost, or was I feeling this way because with the exception of Lizzie Taylor, I had come up against a brick wall every time I’d tried to get a lead on Susan Smith? And Mrs Taylor hadn’t exactly been a mine of information, come to think of it. All I could be sure of was that Jack and Susan met at a dance and that for a long time, her parents didn’t know about those secret meetings.
‘Hullo, Aunt Jane,’ I said – with my thoughts, of course. ‘Missed me?’
I filled the stone vase on her grave with water, then snapped the ends off the flower stems.
‘No.’
Of course she hadn’t. She was always as near as she wanted to be; only ever a thought away really.
‘The book’s coming along fine. I wrote well at Deer’s Leap. It’s a love of a house; the kind you never forget. It’ll go on the market soon, and I can’t have it.’
I stuck a stem in each hole at the top of the vase.
‘You’ll have it if it’s meant to be. All in the goodness of time!’
‘I want to find a lady called Susan Smith, but all I know is that she was in love with a pilot fifty years ago and that she vanished without a word to anyone.’
‘She’ll take some finding. There are a lot of Smiths about.’
‘It’ll be just my luck for her to be in New Zealand. I’ve got it in my mind, you see, that she’s just about as far away as she can be.’
‘You’re determined to make it difficult for yourself, aren’t you? Before you start bothering about New Zealand, why don’t you look a little nearer to home? Often what we’re looking for is right under our noses. You’ve established, of course, that she’s still around?’
‘No, but I’m as sure as I can be that she is.’
‘Then follow your instincts, girl.’
‘I met a ghost at the side of the lane near Deer’s Leap.’ Best I should tell her. ‘I suppose you don’t believe me, Aunt Jane?’
‘Why shouldn’t I?’
‘Because people don’t usually believe in ghosts.’
‘Then get yourself off home and write some more of that naughty book!’
‘He’s called Jack, and he’s tall and fair and – and –’
‘Handsome, eh, but this Susan person got there first? Find a man of your own, Cassie Johns!’
‘I half thought I had, but Piers and me are all washed up …’
‘Good! He was never any use to you. I never liked him. He was a spoiled brat. Thank you for the flowers, by the way …’
‘Aunt Jane!’ I hissed out loud, forgetting what Mum had said about being seen talking to headstones. ‘There’s so much to tell you!’
But she’d switched off without so much as a chuckle. Pity, when I’d wanted to tell her about the war memorial and how Jack Hunter had been killed almost at the end of the war and that I was sure there’d be no peace for him until he found his Suzie.
But I would come here another time. Maybe, I thought, ghosts had to get their auras working – charge themselves up before they could make contact. And then I supposed, they disappeared when they were run down; like a battery, maybe.
‘Bye, love,’ I whispered. ‘See you.’