While I Was Waiting

GEORGIA HILL

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HarperCollinsPublishers

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First published in Great Britain by HarperImpulse 2015

Copyright © Georgia Hill 2015

Cover images © iStock (soldier); Shutterstock.com

Cover layout design © HarperColl‌insPublishers Ltd 2015

Cover design by HarperColl‌insPublishers Ltd

Georgia Hill asserts the moral right

to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is

available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction.

The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are

the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to

actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is

entirely coincidental.

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and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

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Ebook Edition © June 2015 ISBN: 9780008123253

Version 2015-07-02

For Geoff. I’m so glad I waited.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Georgia Hill

About HarperImpulse

About the Publisher

Prologue

June 1963, Clematis Cottage, Stoke St Mary, Herefordshire

I am really not sure why I am writing this. A foolish whim by a foolish old lady and it will probably sit in a box unread and decay much like its writer when Death makes his careless decision. But perhaps someone will find it. Someone will care enough to read it and somehow I know this is what will happen.

Hetty snorted and slammed down her fountain pen. Pompous stuff! She could hear Richard saying the very same thing. He had always hated any whiff of pretension. She smiled. Richard and Edward. The aunts. Papa. Dear Peter. She hadn’t allowed herself to think of them all for such a long time – had been too busy tagging on to other people’s lives. She sat back to ease her stiff shoulders. Gazing at the view from the window in the sitting room, where she had placed her desk, she realised she had always been squeezed into other people’s lives.

‘A veritable cuckoo,’ she said out loud to the emptiness. ‘I’ve never, until now, had the luxury of being myself, of having my own life, as I want it.’ She glanced around the sitting room of her little cottage. ‘And I’ve never had a home of my own until I moved here.’

It was all the fault of that pesky young curate at the village church. He was the one who had suggested that she write up her life. He seemed to think she’d had an eventful one – she’d certainly lived through a time of great change, of great tragedy.

She picked up the pen again.

I was a young girl when I went to the big house…

Chapter 1

April 2000, Clematis Cottage, Stoke St Mary, Herefordshire

She was mad, they’d said. Utterly mad.

Rachel stood with her hands on her hips and surveyed her new home. Buying this little house was the only truly impulsive thing she had ever done. She swallowed; there was no going back. It was all hers now. Clematis Cottage belonged to her.

The house in question was tiny: little more than a two-up, two-down but pleasingly symmetrical, with windows flanking a satisfyingly solid red front door. A straight path led up through what must have once been an old-fashioned garden.

That was the good news.

It had been six months since Rachel had seen it last. She’d forgotten the ivy growing up the walls and across the windows – choking the brickwork and stealing the light. She’d forgotten the crazily dangling guttering. She’d forgotten the five-foot-high weeds obliterating the front garden.

She was mad, they’d said. Perhaps she was.

Rachel turned her back on the house and faced its view instead. This was what had sold it. The cottage stood on rising land, some way from the rest of the village of Stoke St Mary and could be reached only by a rutted track. The farmland behind sloped gently upwards, but in front of the house there was nothing but glorious open countryside.

The estate agent had said that spring was when Herefordshire was at its finest. Mr Foster had been a nice old boy, very different from the gelled-up-haired and shiny-suited types in London and she’d dismissed him as eccentric. She’d been wrong. She’d first seen the cottage in October and thought the landscape beautiful then, clothed in crimson and brown. But now, in early April, it was magnificent.

To her right she could see the baldy-smooth Brecon Beacons and beyond the jagged mountains of Wales loomed. Her eyes followed a sweep of hill to where the river valley sank and then rose again towards the east. Isolated houses were dotted about burnt-sienna fields, vast patches of a yellow so vivid it hurt her eyes interspersed ploughed fields and the apple orchards yet to blaze with blossom.

The furniture removers had finally gone. They’d backed the van, in a haze of dust and diesel fumes, down the track that led to the village and the outside world. Rachel felt her shoulders drop and exhaustion creep in. She turned back to scrutinise her new home once again. Behind it, the curving slopes of farmland seduced. Each field, green or red, was shining with fertile promise. Rachel tried not to look at the roof of the cottage; the choking moss and missing tiles were a symphony of neglect and future expense.

Was she mad? Her friends might yet be right. When she’d announced her decision to leave London and set up home in this tiny village in an isolated part of an isolated county they had forecast doom, gloom and a hasty retreat back to ‘civilisation’. No matter how much she tried to persuade them, they all thought it was a mistake.

A cottage?

In where?

On your own?

But Rachel was to be thirty soon. That’s when people made changes, she’d told them, made big, life-changing decisions. That her parents had announced their imminent departure to spend their retirement in the Algarve and had given her a lump sum in advance of her inheritance, had seemed like fate dealing her a hand. It had been the catalyst for change. She’d grown weary of London, anyway, and of the men who just wanted to play games and hurt her in the process. She wanted a simpler life; somewhere she could work uninterrupted. And maybe, just maybe, she would get the chance to become a new person – reinvent herself.

‘But won’t you miss all this?’ Best friend, Jyoti, gestured to the packed cocktail bar they were in. Rachel scanned the crowd. To her it looked full of men on the pull for another empty conquest. It made her queasy. She’d met Charles in a bar like this – and he’d screwed with her head and then cheated on her. If he was typical of London men, she was in no hurry to meet another.

She smiled at Jyoti over her margarita and thought hard before answering. When she’d moved to London as a student, she’d seen every play and gone to every exhibition and museum she could afford. Now she lived in a flat in the dusty suburbs of south-east London and rarely went to the West End. This was the first trip for ages. She simply didn’t feel the need any more.

‘I won’t be that far from Birmingham and I think there’s an arts centre in Ludlow – that’s only half an hour away and Malvern has some good pre-West End things on.’

‘But won’t you be lonely, sweet-pea? You’ll not even be in the actual village itself, will you?’ Kind-eyed Tim was concerned. Secretly so was Rachel, but with her small circle of friends coupling, moving abroad, having babies, Rachel was lonely now and too proud to admit it. She thought she might as well be lonely somewhere beautiful.

So she had sold her little London flat and bought Clematis Cottage. She had been shocked by what little her money would buy, even when it had been swollen by her parents’ gift. She was self-employed too, meaning that a bigger mortgage was difficult. Last year, she had been bumped up the steep track by a Mr Foster of Grant, Foster and Fitch Estate Agents to be shown Clematis Cottage. And she had fallen instantly, irrevocably in love. It had been the biggest decision she had ever made and it might be the biggest mistake. But she was determined to prove everyone wrong, including herself. With hands back on hips in a defiant gesture, she abandoned thinking and looked to the view that had been the deal-maker. She would make a success of this – she knew she would.

She thought back to kindly old Mr Foster’s words. When it had become apparent that she was seriously intent on buying the cottage, the comfortably rotund estate agent had seemed worried.

‘It’s an awful lot of work to be taking on, dear girl.’ He looked doubtfully at her high-heeled suede boots and thin jacket. ‘And with you being on your own. You’ll have a survey done, I expect?’

‘Erm, I don’t know,’ Rachel had said, feeling foolish, ‘It might put me off.’

Mr Foster gave her a steely look and sighed. ‘Here,’ he scribbled something on the back of his business card. ‘It’s the number of Mike Llewellyn. He’s a builder, but he’ll turn his hand to most things. He lives in the village and he knows the house. He’s not the cheapest, but he’s reliable and he does a good job.’

Rachel had thanked him and stored the card away in her bag. In the months since she’d last seen it, the cottage had taken on an unrealistically romantic air in her mind and she had forgotten just how much work it needed. She was glad she’d kept the number.

Brought back to the present by some crows flying overhead, cawing as they went, she closed her eyes and listened for a moment. Those who claimed that the countryside was silent were lying, but it was certainly peaceful. The air was full of sound. She could hear birds; she recognised a blackbird’s melodious tune, somewhere in the distance there was a tractor gearing up and nearer, the noisy lowing of cows. The wind got up and she could hear it making the trees on the hill behind the cottage shiver. It made a change from emergency sirens and the incessantly thumping bass from her London neighbour. The breeze lifted her hair and cooled her neck. She was glad; it had been a warm day to be moving house. All in all it had gone smoothly. True, she hadn’t got her washing machine plumbed in, she was without a landline and couldn’t coax the boiler into life, but the removal men had been hard-working, cheerful and nothing had been broken.

That she knew of.

They had been surprisingly good company, but she had wanted them gone long before the day was out. She flexed her tense shoulders, glad to be, at last, completely on her own.

Rachel tore herself away from the view and turned to explore her new home. As she did, she caught sight of a man striding up the rough track. To her intense irritation he stopped when he got to her and joined in her examination of the cottage.

‘You do need me. Mr Foster was right.’

Rachel stared at him. Her first impression was of gold and brown. He had longish hair, burnished treacle by the sun and tied back in an untidy ponytail. He was tall and lean with smoothly tanned skin and looked to be in his early twenties.

The man smiled and showed even white teeth. ‘Always said this place had the best view in the village. You could put up with a lot for that.’ He held out a long-fingered, capable-looking hand. ‘I’m Gabe Llewellyn. Mr Foster said you might be needing my services.’ His voice was deep and humorous and only slightly softened by a rural accent.

Rachel shook his hand warily. She was surprised to find it cool and dry and very firm. It was at odds with his grubby and sweaty-looking orange t-shirt. The name Llewellyn was familiar, though. ‘If I was expecting anyone, it would be a Mike Llewellyn.’ She was tired and it was an effort to speak. Wincing, she realised how rude she sounded.

Her tone didn’t seem to faze him. ‘That’s my Dad. He’s just finishing a job over Hereford way. Thought I’d come and take a quick look round, see what needs doing. Easier to see before you unpack your stuff.’ To her surprise, he seemed to pick up on her mood. ‘Sorry. Were you looking for a bit of peace and quiet? Long day when you’re moving, I reckon.’

Even though he was being surprisingly sensitive, Rachel couldn’t shift into politeness. ‘Yes it has been,’ she said stiffly. ‘What did you say your name was?’

‘Gabe.’ He suddenly looked defensive. ‘Short for Gabriel.’ When Rachel looked blank he explained further. ‘Mum had a bit of a Thomas Hardy thing going on, when she was pregnant. Just as well I was a boy. Would get a bit of stick down The Plough if I was called Bathsheba!’

Ridiculously, his knowledge of one of England’s greatest writers had the effect of reassuring Rachel. She relented – he probably wouldn’t take long after all. ‘I suppose you can come in,’ she said, aware that she still sounded churlish. Gabe looked at her hopefully. After a day spent with the removal men she knew the ropes. ‘I’ll put the kettle on, shall I?’

His grin widened and his brown eyes crinkled attractively. ‘Sweet. If I don’t have a look now, don’t know when I’ll get round to it. Busy time. Been working all day.’ He gestured to the sky. ‘Been making the most of the weather.’

It explained his scruffy appearance. And the faint whiff of masculine sweat.

‘I’ll just get the truck; I left it at the bottom of the track out of the way of Dave Firmin’s blokes. Dave’s been known to run into things.’ Gabe laughed. ‘I’ll have a look at that old boiler first. Been empty a while, this place. Pressure will have gone, I bet. You’ll need to get some oil delivered as well. Got some in the truck, though, which might see you through for the time being.’

Oh God, another thing to think about, but if he got the boiler working she could have a hot bath tonight. The idea of a long bubble bath made Rachel smile with relief. Gabe grinned again. He held her eyes for a moment and then swung round and, with an easy stride, loped back down the track to get his truck.

Gabe proved to be both thorough and relentless in his inspection of the cottage; another surprise, she had expected him to be neither. Two hours later he had got the boiler going and had disappeared into the attic to have a look at the inside of the roof.

Rachel made them both yet more tea and then, leaving him to it, unearthed a sweater and took her drink to sit out on the front step. She seemed to have been drinking tea all day and was sick of it, but it was a comfort of a sort.

Gabe eventually joined her. She’d left him investigating some possible damp. He sat beside her companionably and began totting up the estimate of work on the back of a tatty envelope. ‘I’ll get Dad to give you a proper costing in a few days, but this’ll give you an idea.’ When he handed it over she blanched.

‘Tell you what,’ Gabe said, when he saw her expression, ‘Some things don’t need doing straight away.’

Again, he seemed to have a knack of tapping into what she was thinking. It made her curious about him and she wondered what had caused him to be so sensitive to people’s moods.

‘The roof’ll need fixing, though,’ he went on, ‘that corner’s been letting in water for a good while, I reckon. But you don’t need to do everything at once and it’ll give you a chance to pay for things gradually too.’ He shrugged. ‘Dad and I can’t do most of the work immediately anyway, we’re booked up, so it’ll give you a chance to think it over. Oh,’ he said, as an afterthought, ‘I found this.’ He reached around behind him and handed her a large tin. ‘Found it in the attic, tucked behind the water tank and covered with a wasps’ nest.’

Rachel took the box from him. Once upon a time it must have held biscuits; she could just make out the name Huntley and Palmer underneath the rust. ‘What is it?’

‘I didn’t look inside.’ He drained his mug and began to gather his pen, tape measure and tools together.

It was getting late and Rachel shivered. The evening spring light had fooled her into thinking it was much earlier. Perversely, now Gabe was about to go, she wanted him to stay around. Stranger that he was, she was afraid of having to face up to her responsibilities alone. Wrestling her thoughts away from an expensive new roof, she turned all her attention to the tin in her lap. She smoothed a hand over its side – it felt cool and rough and snagged at her soft fingertips. With a struggle, she wrenched the lid off, cutting her thumb on a sharp edge in the process. ‘Damn,’ she cursed. She always took special care of her hands; they were her precious commodity.

To her surprise, Gabe took her hand in his and examined the wound. ‘You want to clean that up. You can get some nasty infections from rusty old metal, take it from me.’

He bent over her thumb. ‘Doesn’t look too bad, but make sure you treat it as soon as you can.’

She could feel his breath warm on her wrist. He was very near and an urge to run her fingers through his silky hair overcame her. Disconcerted, she snatched her hand out of his and then regretted it. Blaming it on tiredness, she pulled herself together and moved fractionally away from him.

‘So, is there anything in the tin?’ he asked cheerfully, shoving his stuff into his work belt. ‘Jewellery? Gold? Or just spiders?’ He laughed.

Rachel shuddered. ‘Don’t joke, I’ve got a thing about spiders.’

‘Would you like me to have a look first? I don’t mind them.’

‘Thank you,’ she smiled, ‘that’s really kind of you but it’s okay.’ She peered inside, almost afraid of what she might find. Taking a deep breath and sucking her injured thumb, she gingerly lifted out a package. It was heavy and wrapped in some dull, greasy material. She unpeeled a corner and something fell out. A postcard. ‘I think it’s a book and papers of some sort, postcards and things. Old, though. This one’s dated 1965.’ She held it to the light and read out the message: ‘Weather delightful, food excellent. Hotel pictured on front. All my love, P.’ Rachel flipped the postcard over and laughed. ‘Oh, it’s Brighton sea front. It hasn’t changed much.’

‘Wouldn’t know, never been,’ Gabe said absently, but his interest had obviously been sparked. He peered over her shoulder. ‘Who’s it to?’

‘Mrs H. Lewis, Clematis Cottage.’ Rachel looked at Gabe. ‘Oh it’s to here! To someone who lived here!’

Gabe smiled at her delight. ‘Yes, suppose it would be. There was a woman who lived here once. Think she was called Mrs Lewis. Lived here for years.’ He smoothed a lock of hair behind his ears. ‘Looks like you’ve found some of her stuff.’ He peered over her shoulder. ‘It’s fascinating, isn’t it? What else is in there?’

Rachel removed the rest of the fabric, the old smell making her nose prickle. She wasn’t sure she wanted to touch it but she wanted to get at what it was protecting.

‘It is a book,’ she cried and laid it in her lap. Opening the first few pages she saw it was a collection of writings, a few photographs, drawings, a few of which had been carefully stuck into the pages of the book. Rachel turned to the front page:

‘Henrietta Trenchard-Lewis, Her Life.’

she read off the frontispiece.

She looked thoughtfully at the postcard. ‘I ought to give it all back to her.’

‘Can’t, lovely, she died a few years back. She lived to a ripe old age, though.’

‘Oh, that’s sad.’

‘Sad? Oh I don’t know. I think she had a pretty long and full life. She was a right character, by all accounts. Used to give them what for at the home she ended up in. Had two husbands, bit of an old dragon I’ve been told. Terrorised the neighbourhood.’

Rachel looked at him curiously. ‘Did you know her?’

‘I vaguely remember a really old woman on a bicycle – that must have been her. Always wore black. I kept well clear of her.’ He grinned, boyishly. ‘I was scared of her, to be honest.’

‘Were there any children? Perhaps they’d like to have it. I know I would if it were my mother’s.’ Rachel began to leaf through the papers again. It seemed to be a barely begun scrapbook of sorts, with a mixture of an odd assortment of documents: pages cut from an exercise book, some closely covered with tiny handwriting, more postcards, a few faded sepia-tinted photographs. Then she found, slipped to the bottom of the tin, a bundle of letters tied with a faded velvet ribbon.

‘Don’t know. Mr Foster’ll know about that, probably. Who did you buy the place off, then?’ He rubbed a hand over his face in a weary gesture and stifled a yawn. ‘Sorry, it’s been a long day.’

‘A firm of solicitors. Brigsty and Smith.’

‘I know them. In Ludlow?’ He raised his brow at Rachel in enquiry and she nodded. ‘Well, they’ll know what you do with it.’ He glanced at his watch – an expensive one, glistening on a very suntanned arm. As he raised his hand the golden hairs on his sinewy forearm caught the light from the late-evening sun. ‘Better be off. Way past opening time and the first pint isn’t gonna touch the sides. I’ll be round next week with the job spec and I’ll fix up a date to see to the roof.’ He rose to his feet to go, but hesitated and looked down at her. Perhaps he sensed her loneliness. ‘Do you, erm, do you want to come down the pub? It’s a nice friendly crowd. Meet some of your new neighbours.’

Rachel shook her head. ‘No, too tired. Off to have a long soak in some very hot water, thanks to you. Thank you so much for all you’ve done, Gabe.’ She smiled up at him with genuine gratitude for the first time. Their eyes met and a frisson of something, some expectation, passed between them.

He gave her an odd look. ‘No probs. Are you going to be, you know, alright on your own?’

She nodded. ‘I’ll be fine. Thank you.’

‘See you, then. Oh, and don’t forget to see to that cut.’ With that, he swung himself into his pick-up, this year’s registration, she noticed. He and his father must be doing well. And with a wave and a cloud of dust he skidded down the track.

Rachel stared after the Toyota for some time. An intriguing man. And kind. Even though he’d had a long day and was obviously tired, he’d gone out of his way to help. Unsophisticated, yes, but incredibly sensitive and thoughtful. Honest too. No game-playing there. She’d never met anyone quite like him before.

She blew out a long breath. At last she was on her own. But, somehow, now she had what she thought she wanted, the weight of her alone-ness was oppressive. Rising stiffly, she turned her back on the promise of a glorious sunset to go into the house.

‘You’ll be happy here. I was.’

The voice had her whirling around again, heart thumping. No one there. Standing frozen, Rachel listened. Nothing. She shook her head. Must have been the wind in the trees. On edge and blaming tiredness, she went into the house.

She put the tin in the kitchen. She didn’t want to look through the contents tonight. It didn’t feel right somehow, not when it might belong to someone else. And besides, she had other more pressing things to do.

Chapter 2

In the village’s only pub, The Plough, Gabe’s late arrival was met with raucous cheers. The gang had been there for well over an hour and were onto their fourth round. Gabe’s first two pints of Stella were downed in swift succession, until he felt he was beginning to catch up.

‘So where’ve you been, then, our Gabriel?’ Kevin, his best mate since school, put an arm around Gabe’s shoulders and peered into his empty pint pot. ‘Oi, Paul,’ he yelled at the man, standing at the bar, trying to chat up Dawn the barmaid. ‘Stop pissin’ about and get us another round in. Boy’s dyin’ of thirst over yere.’

Paul gestured what he thought of Kevin and returned to Dawn.

‘Wanker,’ Kevin said affectionately. ‘He’s got no chance there. She fancies you, though.’

‘Shut up, Kev.’ Gabe shrugged off Kevin’s arm and tore open a bag of crisps with his teeth. It had been a long day and he was starving.

‘No, it’s the truth. Her sister told me. Dawn fancies the pants off yer.’ Kevin grinned myopically. He never wore his glasses for a Friday-night drinking session on account of the times he’d fallen over on the way home from the pub and smashed them. ‘Mind, never met a bird with a heartbeat who didn’t fancy you.’ Kevin’s good mood left him abruptly. ‘Could do with spreading some of that Llewellyn charm around boy, to those of us who ain’t got none.’

Gabe shrank from his mate’s beer breath. God, he hated it when Kev got maudlin like this – a sure sign of too much beer drunk too quickly. He wished, not for the first time, that Kevin would learn to pace himself. For some time he’d felt he was outgrowing his old school friend. They had little in common nowadays. Gabe wanted more than just a pint on a Friday in the local. He wanted some of the big wide world that had blown in with Rachel. He loved his family and the village, but it was beginning to stifle him. If he stayed working for his father much longer, he’d end up stuck here. He frowned. Not much chance of chasing his dreams at the moment, though.

‘So where’ve you been, then?’ Kevin persisted. ‘I rang your old woman and she said you was up at that empty cottage on the ridge.’

‘Yeah, I was.’

‘Doing what, then?’

‘Getting a job costed.’ Gabe wished Paul would hurry up with the drinks. Another pint would keep Kev quiet for the next ten minutes and he was seriously getting on Gabe’s nerves. For some reason he wasn’t ready to talk about Rachel to him. To anyone. Not just yet.

‘I heard as some woman’s moved in. Some toffee-nosed tart from London. Bloody incomers.’

Gabe nodded in agreement. This was an old hobby horse of Kevin’s and the easiest thing to do with him in this mood was to go along with it. ‘Might be a bit of work coming your way though, mate. The place is in hell of a state.’ Kev’s prejudices didn’t extend to him turning down casual labouring when offered.

‘What’s she like, then?’

‘Who?’

Kevin gave a melodramatic sigh. ‘The woman what’s moved in, that’s who.’

Gabe thought back to his first sight of Rachel. He could see her so clearly that, for one mad moment, he thought she’d taken up his invitation after all and joined them in the pub. He remembered how her hair swung over her face and hid those extraordinary grey eyes, the way she hardly ever smiled, but when she did it was worth waiting for, her height and slenderness, her elegance even in dusty jeans and a baggy sweater. She’d felt exotic. There was no one around here quite like her.

She was like a long, cool glass of water, he decided, or more like an icy one, for she hadn’t been that friendly. Far too self-contained. Shame. Still, he could work on that. Kevin had been right about the Llewellyn charm. Girls liked something about him and, although he’d never fathomed out quite what, it had never failed him yet. He gave Kevin a quick glance. ‘Oh she was alright. Bit toffee-nosed, like.’

‘Bet she fancied you.’

‘Oh, shut up, Kev.’

Chapter 3

The following Monday morning, Rachel rang Mr Foster, who explained that Mrs Trenchard-Lewis had died several years ago in a local nursing home and that Rachel would need to contact the solicitors about her find. He also said that the house had been cleared and, as it was unlikely the tin contained anything valuable, she could probably keep it.

‘The house was sold complete with chattels, wasn’t it?’ He didn’t sound as interested as she thought he might be, but she could hear voices in the background and several phones ringing, so maybe he was having a busy day. She thought back to the worm-infested kitchen table and the two bookshelves that constituted ‘the chattels’. ‘Erm, yes.’

‘Well, especially as there seem to be no descendants to make a claim, I would have thought the box is rightfully yours. Do let me know if there’s anything of interest in there, I’m quite keen on local history. I do apologise, Miss Makepeace, but I must go, the office is getting rather hectic.’

Rachel thanked him and a further call to the solicitors confirmed that the tin was, indeed, her legal possession.

Over the next few days it lay on the kitchen table, hidden by the mess that had accompanied the house move. Stuff that, try hard as she might, she couldn’t find a home for. The tin and its intriguing contents remained undisturbed; she had other things to do. Rachel was desperate to get organised. She liked order and she liked everything in its place. No, she admitted to herself with a smile, she craved order and until she had everything sorted there was no hope of doing any work. And if she didn’t work, she may as well give up on the idea of living in the cottage completely; she’d never make the mortgage.

So for the next three days she toiled long hours into the night to replace the chaos and unpacked boxes with calm and organisation. On the third attempt to scrub the sitting-room floor, the first two efforts being not to her satisfaction, she sat back and grinned. She remembered, long ago, Tim claiming she was getting far too much like her mother. That her perfectionism would risk her ending up alone, with only cats for company. She didn’t need a psychoanalyst to tell her it was an attempt to live up to her mother’s intolerance to mess or dirt of any kind. Paula Makepeace was fanatical. She’d gone through dozens of cleaners, as none of them did the job to her exacting standards. No one came up to Paula’s standards – in any way – and that included Rachel. She didn’t know how her father coped.

She gave a shrug, pausing only long enough to turn up the radio, and scrubbed even harder.

Thanks to Gabe, the boiler continued to produce copious amounts of scalding hot water and, after a day’s cleaning and sorting, Rachel was only too glad of a long soak in the bath. As she lay there, listening to Radio Three and the sounds of the cottage settling quietly for the night, she mulled over what she was going to do with her new home.

The kitchen she was going to leave more or less as it was, once she’d brightened it with paint. She liked its old-fashioned, unfitted quality and the quarry tiles and wooden plate rack, which she suspected were original. She would get the old table mended; she guessed it was oak and too good to simply throw out. Her own electric cooker looked out of place, but the long-desired Aga would have to wait.

She looked around the bathroom as she idly blew soap bubbles. The tiles were pale green – not very exciting, but liveable with. The suite was old-fashioned but thankfully white and the bath was deep, with enormous taps. She lacked the power shower that had got her through so many sticky days in the city but, again, that would have to wait.

The rest of the house was, thanks to her hard work, becoming grime-free and small though the rooms might be, some good-looking floorboards had been revealed. A sander would do the trick, she thought dreamily, and then it would be the home of her dreams.

Eventually.

She put Gabe Llewellyn and his long list of expensive repairs firmly to the back of her mind and blew another bubble.

Below her, the old house shifted in agreement.

Chapter 4

In the end, it was almost two weeks later when the Toyota came revving up the track. It was another yellow spring day full of the unadulterated light that Rachel was slowly getting used to. She’d been working in the sitting room, which had a commanding view from the front of the cottage. It received good, useful light for most of the day.

She watched as Gabe and another man got out of the truck and held an animated conversation. There was much pointing at the roof, which Rachel felt was ominous. With a frown, she left her drawing board and went to greet her visitors. She opened the front door just as Gabe went to lift the rusty old knocker.

For a second his hand hung comically in mid air, then he grinned. ‘Hi. Erm, this is my dad. Dad, this is Rachel.’

The older man nodded his head in a quick greeting. ‘Mike Llewellyn. Pleased to meet you.’ They shook hands briefly. He looked from Rachel to his son and then back again. He smiled, making his eyes crinkle like his son’s. ‘Gabe said there was quite a lot of work to be done on the old place, so I’ve come to have a look myself.’

He was a shorter, wirier version of Gabe, but lacked his son’s laid-back charm.

‘Sorry we couldn’t get to you earlier,’ with this he gave Gabe a meaningful look. ‘Another job went on a bit, like.’

Ever since moving in, Rachel had done little else but clean, scrub, unpack and sort her belongings, not to mention wait around for the phone to be connected, the oil delivery to be made and for the sander she’d hired to be delivered. This was the very first morning she had felt able to sit down and do some work, real paying work, not the sketching and watercolours she found herself lured into doing by the seductive view. The last thing she wanted to do today was play host to builders. The roof would probably be fine. It hadn’t leaked once since she’d moved in, conveniently forgetting it hadn’t rained either. Rachel looked at their expectant faces, so alike in expression, and sighed inwardly. They were here now and her concentration was already interrupted. If they were quick, she could get back to her work by lunchtime. ‘You’d better come in, then, I suppose,’ she said and led them into the cottage’s sitting room.

‘This has changed a bit!’ Gabe looked around, admiringly. ‘You’ve been busy.’

Rachel followed his gaze around the room. She had worked her hardest in here, keen to get her working area organised. A rug lay over the newly scrubbed and sanded floorboards. She’d even got around to painting them – a pale yellowy cream. She’d set up her bookshelves in the alcoves on either side of the fireplace and they were overflowing with her beloved art books. She’d even had time to hang her favourite prints. A Georgia O’ Keeffe still life looked down from over the mantelpiece – the best sort of company. The room was restful, colourful – just how she liked it.

Gabe walked to her drawing board, positioned neatly in front of the uncurtained sash window and fingered her pencils. ‘What do you do?’

Rachel hurried over and nudged him out of the way. She shut her sketchbook and flipped the cloth over her drawing board. She hated people seeing her work until she felt it was finished, perfect. Or as perfect as she could make it.

‘I’m an illustrator. Freelance. I do drawings for magazines, books. That sort of thing.’ In a nervous gesture she put her pencils back into their size order and turned her back on the window, her hands resting defensively on the now safely covered drawing board.

Gabe looked at her intently. ‘Never would have guessed.’

‘What?’

‘That you were the creative sort.’

Not many people did, thought Rachel. She often wondered what it was about her that made them think she wasn’t artistic.

‘So where would I see your work?’

Rachel was beginning to feel hounded. Christ, would he let go? To fend him off she resorted to the truth. ‘Well,’ she admitted through clenched teeth, ‘Most of my bread-and- butter work is greetings cards.’

‘Is that so?’ Mike came to join them and picked up a pile of drawings due to be sent off for approval. ‘These are nice. Your mum would like these,’ he said to Gabe as he studied the watercolours of poppies and irises. ‘You’re good.’

Gabe peered at the drawings. He took one from Mike and examined it. ‘You’re really good. These are fantastic. Realistic, but you’ve made the flowers look almost like people reaching up to the sun. Yearning for it. For its life force.’

Mike harrumphed, obviously embarrassed. ‘Don’t take any notice of Gabriel, Rachel. He talks like this on occasion.’

Rachel was taken aback at Gabe’s perceptiveness. He was right; that was exactly the effect she’d been after. Another side to this intriguing man. However, she now felt thoroughly invaded. ‘Thank you,’ she managed as she snatched them back. ‘Come into the kitchen and I’ll put the kettle on. I was just about to make myself some tea.’

‘Well, if it’s all the same with you, me and Gabe’s got to get over to Ludlow later on today so we’d like a look round now. The tea can wait, lovely.’ Mike grinned his son’s smile.

She felt a knot of panic form and frowned. ‘But Gabe’s already done a quote.’

Mike held up his hand. ‘I know, but we were thinking. Place has been empty for a good few years now. Good chance the wiring’ll need doing and you might want central heating put in.’

‘I thought I’d just make do with a real fire in here.’ She looked to where her saggy old sofa, with its deep-red throws, was placed optimistically in front of the open fireplace.

Mike snorted. ‘Might change your mind come winter. Windy old spot up on the ridge, this is.’ Then he saw her anxious expression and relented. ‘Well, if you want a fire best to get that chimney swept and get that done in the summer.’

‘Oh.’ Yet another job to add to her list. It was all too much. Rachel felt her knees weaken and she sat down on the arm of a chair. It groaned in sympathy.

Gabe tugged at a long lock of hair that had escaped his ponytail. ‘Don’t scare her, Dad. Look, Rachel, as I said the other day, you can get things done in stages. Don’t have to do it all at once. I brought Dad up so as he could sort a timetable for you. He’s better at that than me.’

‘What, working to a deadline? Never been your strong point, has it Gabriel?’ Mike laughed.

Rachel saw Gabe blow out a breath. He looked tense. She wondered if father and son had problems working together. She suddenly felt sorry for him. He’d had his bubbly and genuine enthusiasm quashed and he looked defeated. Rachel knew about lack of confidence – she knew all about how hard it was to try to be the son or daughter your parent really wanted. It was something she’d spent most of her life attempting – and at which she had spectacularly failed. In their brief acquaintance, Gabe had been nothing but kindness itself and, although she suspected that the kindness was going to cost her a fortune, she found she wanted to reciprocate. ‘You’d better follow me, then,’ she said, resigned to her fate and rose to lead them upstairs.

Two hours later they were sitting at the kitchen table, drinking the inevitable tea. Rachel had never felt so stripped or so exposed. It was one thing to have Gabe look over her house when there were only packing cases in it; it was another when most of her belongings were out on show.

The two men had inspected every inch of the house. They had spent twenty minutes inspecting the wall in the back bedroom, with much tutting and discussion, and had proclaimed damp. To her dismay, they had even poked about in the bathroom, as Gabe had thought he’d seen a silverfish invasion. She bit her lip. From the way they were talking, she would have their company for some considerable time. She wondered if she was being taken for a ride but had no prior experience to go on. Her London flat had never needed any work so she hadn’t a clue if the men were talking sense or inventing jobs for themselves.

Uncannily, Gabe again seemed to sense her mood. He turned from his father and said, ‘You can ask around, for references and the like. The Garths up at the farm had us in to do a fair bit of work last year; they’ll tell you if we’re ripping you off.’

Rachel smiled at him, embarrassed at being so transparent but grateful. ‘I – ’ she began.

Mike had been poring over scribbles in a notebook and interrupted, ‘’Bout four months’ work here, more if you wants heating put in.’

‘Four months!’ Rachel sat back in disbelief. She saw her independent and solitary life leaking away.

‘Well, might take less if we do it all at once, but you say you don’t want that?’

Rachel shook her head at Mike. ‘No, and to be honest, I can’t afford to have it all done at once.’

Mike smiled. ‘Well, we don’t expect payment straight away. Trust works both ways in this game. You trust us to do a good job and we have to trust you to pay us eventually, like. We’ll better get off then, our Gabe.’ He stood and then looked down at her. ‘We’ll leave you to think it over.’

Rachel nodded. ‘I’ll get back to you. I’ll need to get a few more quotes, you know.’ God, this was so embarrassing, but this is what you did, wasn’t it? You didn’t just take on a firm of builders without checking out the competition?

Mike looked from his son to Rachel and gave a cryptic smile. He nodded.

Gabe spoke. ‘Yes, well of course you need to do that. Ask the Garths as well, number’s in the book. Get back to us when you can.’

‘By the end of next week would be better,’ Mike interjected. ‘Otherwise we might not be able to fit her in along with the Halliday job.’

Rachel had had enough. She rose decisively. ‘I’ll ring you on Friday, then. And now I think we’ve all got things to do?’

She saw them out and, before the Toyota could be heard grinding down the track, was hunting through Yellow Pages.

Later that week Rachel took a pot of mint tea into the sitting room and collapsed on the sofa in front of the fireplace. The weather had turned cloudy and it was a clammy but chilly sort of an evening. If she could trust the chimney, she’d risk lighting a fire, but remembered Mike Llewellyn’s words that it would need sweeping first. She made do with her little electric radiator and wrinkled her nose against the dusty smell as it heated up.

The cottage had a strange atmosphere this evening and she needed comfort. Last night, her heart thumping, she’d woken up to sounds outside – some kind of screeching. Common sense told her it was probably an owl or something, but it had sounded disconcertingly like a person in pain. It had taken hours to get back to sleep and she’d become very aware of being alone in a remote place. Today she had wanted to continually look over her shoulder, certain someone was there. She wasn’t entirely sure she believed in ghosts, but there was definitely a weird atmosphere in the cottage sometimes. Putting it down to tiredness, she tried to shrug off her mood and took a sip of tea. She shivered. Perhaps it would be nice to have central heating after all.

After thinking through what Mike and Gabe had said, she was resigned to the inevitable; that the house needed work. A lot of work. So she had applied herself in her usual methodical and thorough way and had tried to get some comparable quotations for the job. But her search for other builders had proved fruitless. Two firms were unable to visit for another month; another local one had managed to come and had then quoted a price far higher than the Llewellyns’; one said they were fully booked for the next three months and yet another hadn’t even bothered to reply to the messages she’d left on their answering service.‘Looks like it’ll be the Llewellyn boys, then,’ she said to no one in particular and tried to warm her hands around her mug. ‘It shouldn’t be too bad,’ she went on, forcing herself to be optimistic, ‘as long as I can find a way of working around them.’

She already had some work overdue, inevitably delayed by moving house. She was also getting far too distracted by the sumptuous countryside around the cottage. ‘I wonder if I could combine the two,’ she murmured. ‘Who would like some stunning landscapes?’

Rachel shook her head and laughed. It felt like madness talking to an empty room but, in some peculiar way, it really felt as though there was someone listening. Someone not completely unfriendly, more curious.

Her mother had always poured scorn on the thought of ghostly presences. ‘I leave the arty-farty nonsense to you, darling,’ she’d giggled, already on her second gin and tonic. ‘After all, you’re the one who claims to be artistic. That’s just the sort of rubbish you lot believe in, isn’t it?’

Rachel knew it had been the gin talking. When sober, her mother excelled in the odd, sly, caustic comment. She declared wide-eyed innocence if anyone took offence. She only really loosened up with alcohol. Rachel hated seeing her mother so out of control. She almost preferred the closed-up, sarcastic version.

She shook herself, trying to instil some sense into her head. It helped make up her mind; she’d ring Mike first thing in the morning. She lay back on the cushions, more relaxed now that she’d come to a decision, albeit an expensive one, and her eye was caught by the Huntley and Palmer biscuit tin. She’d shoved it out of the way when clearing the kitchen to paint and it was wedged between Sister Wendy Beckett and a book on Kandinsky. She’d forgotten all about it. Putting her mug down carefully, not wanting to stain the floor, she took the tin down and settled back on the sofa.

‘So, little tin, what secrets are you hiding?’ Part of her was aware of the air shifting around her as she unwrapped the book. There were the eclectic mixture of papers again, a few neatly stuck in. Some looked as if they had been cut from a diary and were covered in densely written handwriting. The photographs caught her eye. One, a wedding photograph, featured a tall man in uniform with a vibrant-looking woman at his side. They were both holding themselves very erect, looking tense. Another was of a very dashing dark-haired man on horseback, a whip in his hand and a grin splitting his face. Both photographs looked old; they were sepia-tinted and spotted with age.

As she sifted through the loose pages, Rachel noticed that each was neatly numbered at the top right-hand side.

‘Someone after my own heart,’ she said with a smile.

She flipped back to the very beginning until she found the frontispiece again. ‘Henrietta Trenchard-Lewis,’ it proclaimed in an elegant and imperious hand. ‘Her Life.’

Henrietta? Lewis? Rachel found the postcard from Brighton and again looked at the address. Mrs H. Lewis. There was no doubt about it; it must be the same Mrs Lewis who had lived in the cottage.

At the bottom of the tin lay the letters, tenderly tied with their faded-pink velvet ribbon. Rachel laid them to one side; it felt far too much of an intrusion to read them now. She checked the tin for any more loose pages and, satisfied that there were none, pulled the throw around her, snuggled into the sofa and started to read.

Chapter 5

June 1963, Clematis Cottage

I began to be who I am when I went to the big house for the very first time. This is my story.

Hetty readied herself. She re-filled her pen with indigo ink, took a sip of tea and grimaced. It had cooled since she’d sat down at the little table in the window and had become distracted by the view, as always. She gave herself a mental shake and began. If she didn’t start this now, in her seventieth year, it would be too late. She forced herself back into the past, the distant past, and began to write.

I was a young girl when I went to Delamere House. Now, I am an old lady seeing in a year I may not see out and surrounded by the detritus of a long life lived in many parts. I live in this cottage, with a blue clematis growing around the front door and am bothered by few. It is how I like it. For too long I have been at the mercy of others. I now intend to see out my days in a pure and blissful selfishness. The big house has long since been sold. The family has not, after all, managed to keep it. Perhaps if I’d had children? But I digress. I jump forward when really I should start at the beginning. The beginning of my life. I began to be who I am when I went to the big house for the first time.

It’s been over sixty years. Hard to believe that all those years have passed, but I can remember it better than yesterday. It was a fine spring day in 1903.

Papa delivered me, thrust a package at me and then, almost immediately, went away again. As a small child I never did hold the same fascination as his spiders and insects.

I was to stay with my very distant relatives Aunts Hester and Leonora whilst he travelled on an expedition with the then Royal National Geographic and Scientific Institute. I loved Aunt Hester from the very beginning. She was all lavender scent and soft skirts. I detested Aunt Leonora almost as quickly. And I believe the feeling was entirely mutual. She never failed to point out my lack of manners and decorum. I asked for cake before sandwiches once and it was never forgotten or forgiven.

There were two boys in their charge, motherless as was I. Edward tall and slightly pompous, but kind also, and Richard. Ah, Richard! As handsome as the day, with the cheek of the devil. He got me into many a scrape as a child. And I was only too willing to follow his mischievous lead. Wicked, charming, irresistible Richard.

On that first day, I failed to notice the decrepit nature of the house, the gentility that papered over the lack of income.

As Richard often teased me, the hope of all was for me to marry Edward and therefore save the great house with my money. It did not quite work out that way.

Rachel woke with a start to find herself still on the sofa. She looked down at the biscuit tin in her lap and smiled. She could still hear the woman’s voice in her head. Slightly priggish and as imperious as her handwriting. She must have been a handful when she was a little girl. Rachel caught sight of the clock and groaned. Two o’clock in the morning and she had to go to London tomorrow.

‘No, Henrietta, no matter how fascinating you are, I have to go to bed.’ With a yawn, Rachel tucked the pages into their tin, replaced it on the shelf and went upstairs, smiling as she did so, her head still full of an Edwardian childhood.

Chapter 6

June 1963, Clematis Cottage

Hetty sat in her usual place by the window in the sitting room and looked out at the view. An unseasonal rain fell and, with it, she sank into a gloom. Old age loomed on the horizon; she even had to push her bicycle up the track to the cottage nowadays.

She laid her elbows on the small table she used as a desk – it had been Hester’s from her dressing room at Delamere – and cupped her chin in her hand. She thought back to the tea parties, the dances – before it all changed so horribly, horrifically, and not just for those at the Front. Hetty frowned. Could she do justice to this task? There were too many gaps, too many lost memories. Too many regrets. She watched, amused, as a blackbird flew down into the garden and began to groom his damp feathers. Straightening her shoulders, she reminded herself that she had never undertaken a challenge without facing it square-on. After all she had lived through this really ought to be easy. She picked up her pen, dipped it into the ink and with it dipped into the past.

The bond between Richard and I was quick to form, thrown as we were into each other’s company. We had few other companions to dilute our friendship. I quickly regarded him as my best friend, although he irritated me more like a teasing brother.

It was a glorious summer afternoon in July 1907. I had been at Delamere for nearly four years and considered it my home. Richard was on holiday from school and had been taunting me from the door of the schoolroom while I did my lessons. In exasperation, Miss Taylor dismissed me. We found ourselves in the summer house again. It had quickly become our sanctuary, the place we came to when we wanted to escape the adults. Not that the aunts paid us a great deal of attention. As long as we did not cause any obvious mischief, they left us alone.

But we were no longer small children. We were growing up. A strange tension sprang up between us, making us unsure as to how to behave with each other. It was all terribly confusing.

Richard was in a strange mood that day. He often was. His mood would change in mercurial fashion from petulance to wild enthusiasm to an almost cruel delight in practical jokes. He had so much energy. He was easily bored and his mind danced like quicksilver onto the next enthusiasm before I had barely begun to grasp what it was. It was as if Delamere was too constricting, too limiting for him and he was bursting for more than anyone could offer. Today, he was almost febrile.

He sat me down on the flaking wooden seat and then looked about him furtively. There was no need. I’d spied the gardener over in the kitchen garden picking peas. I hoped they would appear at supper and my stomach rumbled in anticipation. Food, however, was all forgotten, when I saw what Richard drew from his pocket.

‘Look what I have!’ His eyes were enormous. ‘Isn’t it spiffing?’

‘A knife! Richard, wherever did you get it?’

I regarded it, in its leather scabbard, with fascination. We were barred from the kitchens, so my experience of such items was limited. Richard held it out to me and allowed me to take it. My hands shook with excitement. I repeated, ‘Where did it come from?’

Richard merely shook his head. ‘It doesn’t matter.’ He took it from me and slid the blade out of the scabbard. He held it up to the light and we watched in awe as it caught the hot sun and cascaded light around the shabby summer house. It made the place magical.

‘I have an idea,’ he said. ‘Would you like to be bound to Delamere and Edward and me forever?’

I nodded. Of course I would. After a dull childhood spent in a small villa in Kent, the Trenchard-Lewises seemed impossibly glamorous.

Richard’s eyes shone. ‘Then we can be bound together.’

‘How?’

He slid closer. ‘We can be blood brothers!’

I laughed. ‘But I am a girl, Richard! How can I be your brother?’

He looked affronted at my pedantry. ‘Blood brother and sister, then.’ He held up the knife again. The light caught the edge of the blade and it looked brutal.

I gasped. ‘Do you mean to cut me?’

Richard nodded. ‘It won’t hurt, Hetty, the knife is sharp. It will go through your skin like butter.’

‘No!’ I shrank back. ‘I do not like it.’

‘Are you scared?’

I nodded.

‘Feel the tip, Hetty. It’s sharp.’

I was terribly afraid, but Richard, even then, had a way of making me do things. He made me feel so dull, so unadventurous when I demurred. I reached out a shaking finger to the blade and tapped it, ever so slightly, on the tip. ‘Ow!’ I snatched my hand back.

He grinned. ‘Shall I go first?’

I watched, with a morbid fascination, as he pulled back his sleeve and pressed the blade to the white skin on his wrist. At the last moment, he stopped. Looking at me, with a mischievous glint in his blue eyes, he said, ‘You have to promise to do it too, otherwise I will bleed and it will go nowhere.’

‘Stop!’ An idea had occurred to me. ‘If you bloody your suit there will be an awfully nasty row. The aunts would not like it.

Richard shrugged.

‘They will not let you in here again,’ I warned. ‘You will have to do extra school work, even if you are on vac.’

He put the knife down and looked so disconsolate, I wracked my brain for an alternative plan. ‘What if we only prick our finger?’ I suggested.

‘Like the princess?’ he said, scornfully.

I grinned. ‘A finger will not bleed as much as a wrist. No one will know if we have cut our finger tip.’

Richard looked somewhat mollified. ‘Only if you do it too.’

I took in a great breath. ‘Very well,’ and then, with a quick look at the knife, I added, ‘you first.’

Richard nodded, held up his forefinger on his left hand and stabbed. Blood welled immediately. I could not tell if he was in pain as he grabbed hold of my hand and did the same before I had second thoughts.

‘Ow!’ It was done.

The knife clattered to the floor as Richard pressed our fingers together. Perhaps he had pricked my finger harder because a thin trickle of blood ran down my hand and dripped onto my pinafore. It made a tiny but unmistakable stain, just below the ruffle on my shoulder. I had to lie to Nanny afterwards and claim a nosebleed.

Richard’s eyes gleamed. ‘It’s done. Now we are bound together, you and me, Hetty, forever.’ He tugged out his handkerchief to dry our wounds. It was so filthy already that no one would notice one more brown blot.

I sucked my finger. It throbbed. I could not quite believe what he had made me do. He had half-charmed, half-dared me and I could never resist him. He could be quite cruel sometimes, I thought – nothing like Edward.

‘Now we must dance in a circle and recite the Lord’s Prayer backwards.’ Richard put the knife back into its scabbard and stood up.

This was one step too far, even for me. ‘Oh no, Richard,’ I said, firmly. ‘That will send us to Hell. I know that for a fact.’ The other fact being, if Aunt Leonora heard of this, we would be thoroughly thrashed.

‘A game of tag and then I must lie down before tea. All this blood is making me quite faint. Remember, I am only a girl.’

Before he could disagree, I’d run out of the summer house. Sometimes, being a mere girl had its advantages!

Christmas of that year brought great excitement to the occupants of Delamere House. My father had, at long last, returned from his travels, albeit temporarily.

He had come to stay at the big house, our more modest house being shut up whilst he had been away. He entertained us all with his stories of exotic people and places and only Aunt Leonora tired of hearing him speak.

One evening, we gathered, very unusually, in the drawing room after dinner. The room had been opened up just for Father’s visit. By now, I knew enough of the workings of this enormous house to understand that only a few rooms ever had a fire. I never had one lit in my bedroom. We existed in a scant few rooms and shivered even in those. Money was scarce but no one would ever admit as much.

Richard and I had been allowed to stay up late, as a special treat.

‘Oh I wish I could go back with you. To see those things – the mangrove swamps and the waterfalls!’ Richard, now a lanky, restless boy of fourteen, was hanging upon Father’s every word, egging him on, continually asking questions. ‘The tribes and the animals! Did you really see elephants? And lions? And zebras? And crocodiles?’ Richard babbled on, ‘if only Ed were here!’

‘Richard, do calm yourself. You have been allowed to sit up to talk to your Uncle Henry, but do let him get a word in edgeways!’ Aunt Hester, as always, was laughing indulgently at Richard’s enthusiasm. Aunt Leonora simply tutted her disgust and turned away to her sewing. Not for the first time did I wonder at how two sisters could be so different.

Father, too, laughed at his newest admirer. Here was a boy after his own heart. Nothing like the untidy, lumpish daughter he had sired. I was finding it rather more difficult to engage in the conversation. Four years had passed and Father, I could no longer give him the more familiar moniker of Papa, was a stranger to me. I had, long ago, lost my fascination with his travels and only wanted to talk to him about the information Richard had intimated at when I first came to Delamere. Father had resolutely ignored the questions with which I filled my letters. Did I really have money? If so, where was it? Why could I not have it? Was I really to marry Edward, currently at university and expected to enter the army?

I was fourteen, too, and nearly at my next birthday. Strange things had been happening to me over the last few months; things I could not bring myself to broach with a father now unknown and distant to me. Nanny knew, but even telling her had been painfully embarrassing. She had explained that I was a woman now and could no longer, at certain times of the month, play as I was used to with Richard. Gone were the games of chase around the gardens, the meetings in the summer house to pore over a battered atlas, the endless adventure stories made up by us both and continued week after week. I no longer slept in the night nursery and had my own room.

Part of me felt important at entering this new stage in my life, but a greater part felt desolate at leaving my childhood behind. I did not feel ready to face the adult world, particularly if it involved marrying Edward, more or less as much a stranger to me as Father, having been away for most of my time here. Now Richard had followed his brother to school and I did not even have his enlivening presence at our lessons with Miss Taylor to look forward to.

If this was adulthood, I thought it very dull.

My one consolation was retrieving the journal Papa had given me on my very first day at Delamere. ‘We live through great times,’ he had said then. ‘You must chronicle them, child. One day you may be great too. You must get into the habit of writing everything down.’

To my shame, I had hardly written anything at all. I had been too busy running around the grounds with Richard – and getting into trouble with Aunt Leonora. Now, with the boys away, I fell on my own company a great deal more. I am sure Papa had in mind my recording scientific fact. With these strange new happenings in my body, I was far more interested in exploring my emotions. I had taken to recording my thoughts and feelings as much as I had time for.

I looked at Richard, still deep in conversation with Father. He was as tall as me now, still energetic, still getting into scrapes. Only this term the aunts had received a written warning from his school. According to the letter, Richard had sneaked out of his dormitory one night and tried to buy beer at the local public house.

He was home for the holidays and had been refused permission to visit our neighbours, the Parkers, whose horses always proved irresistible to him, as a punishment.

School had changed him, had made him scornful of the limitations put on him by the aunts. They, in turn, having only had to deal with placid Edward in the past, struggled with this new, wayward Richard.

He had chafed at his imprisonment and had taken it out on me. Puzzled by my reluctance to engage in our childish games he had taken to spying on me, pulling my hair or my pinafore tails. Once he had put a worm in the neck of my blouse and watched with glee as I danced and shrieked and scrabbled to get it out. Vile boy. As bored as I, his natural sense of fun and mischief found expression in vindictiveness and spite. Our love-hate relationship was even stronger.

Only once had I glimpsed an even stranger Richard. We had gone exploring, as we used to and strictly against the dictates of the aunts. We had found our way up into the old attics. I did not like the attics; they were gloomy and the dust made me sneeze. As usual, Richard goaded me, claiming I was unadventurous and dull and, as usual, I responded by being even bolder than he.

In one of the rooms were stored some old tailors’ dummies, from goodness knows where and when. I hated them with a passion. They stood, headless but watching, silent in a corner. One or two were cloaked with dustsheets and that made them even more terrifying.

I ran ahead, wanting to put them behind me and furious that Richard had called me chicken for being scared. In the furthest-most attic, the roof had partially fallen in and pigeons were nesting and cooing on the rotten beams. It was lighter and colder here, the winter air whistling through the gaps. As I ran in, the pigeons took flight and disappeared, leaving a choking mess of feathers and swirling up the dust and their droppings. Shaking it out of my hair, I turned to where I thought Richard was behind me. And screamed.

I thought one of the Trenchard-Lewis ancestors had come to haunt me – a white-robed figure danced in front of me. I put my hand to my heart; it was beating so. I feared I should drop down dead. About to scream for help from Richard the ‘ghost’ let out a familiar giggle and dropped down to reveal the boy behind the dust-sheeted dummy.

‘Richard, you perfect beast!’

‘Jolly good wheeze, Freckle-Face.’

Looking about me, I spied a piece of rafter. Grabbing it, I attacked Richard. I was furious. But, even then, Richard was stronger than me. Easily overpowering me, he held me fast, managing to wrap the filthy dustsheet around me, trapping my arms against my body.

He held me to him, his blue eyes vivid and a little wild. ‘A kiss as a forfeit for your release.’

Struggling and calling ‘pax’ I began to giggle. ‘Richard, you are a shocking boy. How can I kiss you when I cannot move my head.’ He loosened his hold a little and I took advantage. Stamping on his toe with as much force as I could muster, I ran off as he let go. Shrieking, as he chased me, I ran.

Now, in a clean dress, I watched as Father and Richard began to trace Father’s most recent journey through West Africa in the atlas. My thoughts turned to Edward. He was a mysterious figure, only at home for holidays and currently in his second year at Cambridge. He was due home soon. Edward had inherited the family tendency to be tall; he was well over six feet now. Thankfully, to his relief, his hair had darkened to a quite nice dark brown, with reddish glints, rather like Aunt Hester’s. His eyes, not as vivid as Richard’s, were a gentle shade of grey. We had never really grown to know one another and he still treated me in a stiff and formal manner, as if I were a creature as exotic as one from my father’s collection. Was it still expected that I should marry him? Richard always averred that it was so. How did I feel about marrying Edward? What did I know of men and marriage? What did I know of anything? I sighed.

Richard, hearing me, looked up from the atlas. ‘I say, old thing, come and have a look at this. It’s where your father was last month and it’s the most spiffing-looking place. Look at the river, it goes the whole length of the country. Can you imagine?’

Aunt Leonora’s mouth thinned at Richard’s use of boarding-school slang.

I smiled at him. His enthusiasm was, as always, appealing. Perhaps he wasn’t being so awful after all. I joined them at the table and sensed Father’s warmth at my interest.

Chapter 7

Edward arrived the next day, just in time for afternoon tea. Tall and adult, with stubble on his cheek and smelling of the outside world. Beside him Richard looked like the little boy he was desperate to grow out of being. Tea in the drawing room reminded me of the tea parties when I first arrived. We hadn’t had many recently; little point with the boys away most of the time. Much was the same, except that it was even shabbier and the fire a paltry affair. He and Father were getting on famously, another reason to put Richard’s nose out of joint and the aunts beamed with pride at the splendid young man they had raised. Aunt Leonora was especially ecstatic at his return, for he was always her favourite. He didn’t cause the trouble that Richard and I did. He was holding court, with Richard on one side of the couch and Father on the other. The admiring females, including Nanny, gazed on.

‘So, Edward, tell me what you are reading and what is your college again?’ said Father, beaming at a fellow scholar.

‘Natural Sciences, sir, at Trinity.’ replied Edward, with his usual politeness.

My father’s eyes lit up. ‘Splendid, oh how splendid! I must tell you of the moth I have discovered – as big as a saucer and twice as ugly. You must see it. Come, I have brought it with me. Come,’ he said more impatiently, ‘let us find it. I have it in my room.’

The two men left in a flurry of scientific excitement and I felt a sneaking sympathy for Richard, who was left out. He huffed and threw himself back on the couch.

‘Sit up, Richard,’ murmured Aunt Leonora automatically.

‘But I’m bored. Can I have another piece of seed cake?’ Richard’s lower lip jutted in a sulk.

‘It is “may I” and no, you mayn’t, you have had two pieces already,’ responded Leonora, frowning and about to launch into one of her tirades.

‘Why don’t you take Hetty to the library, Richard?’ As ever, Aunt Hester stepped in as peacemaker. ‘We have it open for your Uncle Henry and Edward. Take her to look at the history books. I don’t believe she has seen them.’

This was not strictly true. One of the things Richard and I had always enjoyed was exploring the house, delighting in the many closed-up rooms, playing hide and seek amongst the dust sheets. The library had been a regular haunt and we had discovered many hidden gems: maps of Asia, stories of far-off and long-ago Greece.

I looked across at him; he was sitting up, his blue eyes gleaming. I knew that look. It meant trouble was afoot.

‘What a super idea Aunt Hester, please may we be excused?’ That settled it, such elaborate politeness from Richard could mean only one thing; he was up to something.

The door to the library opened with difficulty, stiff with lack of use. I loved this room; it was one of my favourites. Bookcases lined the walls, double height so that library steps were needed to reach the more remote volumes. Chairs and a chaise longue crowded around the space but were arranged in a careless manner, hinting at the room’s long abandonment. Today, however, the dustsheets were gone. Dorcas, who glorified in the title of housekeeper, when really she was the solitary upstairs maid, had obviously been busy polishing the mahogany bookcases. The woodwork gleamed and the aroma of lavender hung in the air, testament to her hard work. Richard, with an enigmatic look at me, pushed the library steps over to the furthest-most bookcase, climbed up and fiddled with the lock on the top glass door.

‘Richard, you mustn’t. We’re not supposed to look at those books. It is forbidden.’ But I said it half-heartedly and followed him, avidly curious as to what lay behind the protective glass. I stood at the bottom of the steps, looking up. He opened the door and, looking behind us to check for adults, passed down to me a large leather-bound volume. I struggled over to the table with it.

Richard hopped down and pushed in front of me. Saying nothing, he proceeded to open the book at pages obviously well known to him. I stared over his shoulder until I saw what he was laughing at. Then I caught my breath.

The images seemed to me, at that time, grotesque. They were engravings of human forms entwined in unspeakable acts. The men and women seemed intent on doing violence to one another. The men, with bared teeth, fastened on throats thrown back. Hands were clutching parts of the anatomy I did not – had not – known exist.

Richard saw my reaction of horrified fascination and sniggered. ‘This one is the best.’ He pointed to a picture of a man mounting a woman in the way I had seen the bull do to a cow at the Parkers’ farm, until Nanny had pulled me away. She had responded to questions with tight-lipped silence.

‘What do you think?’ Richard asked, watching my face intently. ‘If you marry Ed, that is what he will do to you on your wedding night.’

I backed away, shaking my head violently, clutching my heaving stomach. No man was ever to do to me what I had seen in those disgusting pictures. But even then, part of me was acknowledging the truth of what was being shown to me. Forgotten images were remembered: Elsie the kitchen maid and Robert the under-gardener looking red-faced and untidy when I walked in on them in the empty stables, Edward being teased over Flora Parker until he blushed crimson and hurried from the room, Nanny hushing my questions about the bull.

Information was sliding greasily into place and locking together to make a truth.

‘No …’ I looked at Richard.

He grinned back, ‘Oh, yes. And then your stomach will grow and grow and one day a baby will come out. The chaps at school told me.’ He spoke conversationally and completely without malice.

My eyes filled with tears and I felt sandwiches and cake threatening to return.

‘I say, Hetty, old girl. I didn’t mean to upset you.’ He made a move towards me, concern on his face.

I turned and ran from the library, the scent of lavender polish sticking in my throat.

‘Wait Hetty! Hetty I’m sorry! I just thought it would be a wheeze.’

I found myself in the summer house, the old refuge. It was intensely cold and I could see my breath making clouds in the frigid air. I wrapped my arms around myself and began to rock to and fro.

What was the connection between what had been happening to me and those pictures? At some deep level the links were forcing themselves to be made; there had to be a connection. Was that what it meant to be a woman? If so, I wanted no more of this adulthood. I yearned to be a child. I yearned for my long-lost mother. Tears began to drip down my face and I hid it in my pinafore.

After a time, and when my tears had dried, I heard a sound outside. The sound of footsteps. I froze, willing them to go away.

‘Henrietta – Hetty – are you in there?’

It was Edward. Of all people, I could face him the least.

I stayed still, my face hidden in my skirts, like an animal gone to ground.

‘Hetty, there you are! Richard said you had been taken ill.’ A relieved-sounding Edward came into the summer house. ‘We’ve all been looking for you. Come back to the house, you’ll catch your death of cold out here.’ He sat down on the crumbling bench beside me. ‘Hetty, are you unwell?’

I remained silent, but my shoulders began to heave again. I felt a tentative hand on my arm and shrank away.

I heard Edward sigh. ‘Look, if you won’t come back into the house, shall I fetch the aunts, or your father? Only,’ he paused and then went miserably on, ‘Richard said something about a book? Some pictures? He said they frightened you? If it is what I think it is, I think it better the aunts don’t know.’

I heard no little anger in his voice and raised my wretchedly tear-stained face to look at him for the first time. ‘I saw –’ and then had to stop.

Edward’s face tightened with anger and he nodded. ‘I thought as much. When I get my hands on that little so-and-so I’ll thrash him until he can’t sit down. The little –’ he bit off what he was about to say with another look at me.

I found my voice at last. ‘Richard didn’t mean to upset me. He thought it was a joke.’ I wiped my damp face with my pinafore and shivered.

‘When will that boy ever learn to think before he acts?’ Edward said it softly. He shrugged off his jacket and laid it gently over my shoulders. It was heavy and made of rough tweed, but warm from his body. He cleared his throat. ‘Erm, so, what do you know?’

I looked at him in panic. He blushed and became very busy lighting a cigarette.

‘You know, it really ought to be your father or Nanny or Aunt Hester talking to you.’

I shook my head and hid it back in my skirts.

Edward sighed again, even more loudly. ‘But, as it seems to be me in the wrong place at the wrong time, perhaps I ought to tell you.’

I sneaked a look at him. He was concentrating fiercely on his cigarette. His nose turning pink with cold.

‘I should quite like it to be you.’ I said in a tiny voice, hardly believing my own daring.

He coughed slightly and put a hand through his hair, making it stand up in comic fashion. ‘Oh Lord,’ he groaned.

‘Please tell me Edward,’ I said, ‘I think it might be better to know it all than some of it. It might make it seem less frightening.’

Edward shook his head.

‘Father always says if one wants to know something one should ask questions.’ I straightened my back and took comfort that Edward’s discomfort seemed even greater than mine.

He gave a little nod, as if a decision had been made and smiled at me through the blue tobacco smoke. ‘And your father is a great scientist, a very learned man. Well, shall we be scientists? Shall you begin with a question, little Hetty?’

And so I did. And Edward, in halting fashion and with many blushes, told me of what to expect on my wedding night. He told me the simple biological facts at first, but then, as he elaborated, I became more and more fascinated, my natural curiosity taking over.

‘But it looked so, so violent in those pictures. As if they were killing one another, not loving one another!’ I thought back to the images with this new information whirling around my brain. It was at once repellent and fascinating.

Edward shifted on the bench and there was a long pause. ‘Well, I understand it can take one like that.’ He looked at the gathering darkness outside. ‘But remember, Hetty, it is for people who love one another very much. And sometimes love takes many forms, sometimes it is passionate. And that passion can seem like violence.’

I looked at him, sitting in the cold, shivering openly and being so brave for my sake. I wondered, perhaps, if he were thinking of the beautiful Flora Parker. ‘Have you, have you ever –’ I began.

‘Good Lord, Hetty, the questions you do ask.’ He lit another cigarette with trembling fingers and made much of flicking away the match. I had my answer. It satisfied me.

‘Richard says I am to marry you and you will take my money to rebuild the house.’

Edward turned, a startled look on his homely face. ‘Richard is a –.’ Here he said a filthy word and the oath came out violently. He sucked deeply on his cigarette and there was a long pause. ‘Sorry, Hetty. Forgot myself. You know our family has little money.’ He gazed around at the shabby summer house, full of hints of lost glory. ‘And it would take a great fortune to restore Delamere. More than you have, I am sure.’ He smiled. ‘If you would like to marry me, then so be it. But that is for many years from now. And we have all the time in the world to decide. Come along, we must go back to the house, they will be wondering where we are and it is bitter in here!’

He held out his hand to me and I stared up at his face in a daze. I had hardly known Edward before today. This strange little interlude in the summer house had convinced me of one thing: he might not be as much devilish fun as Richard, but he was an infinitely kinder person.

I took his hand, not sure if I had just received my very first proposal – and even less sure how I felt about it.

Chapter 8

April 2000, Clematis Cottage, Stoke St Mary, Herefordshire

It was the first day the Llewellyns were expected to start work and Rachel sat at her drawing board, too wound up to do anything other than stare at the view.

She felt half resentful, half relieved. Although pleased that work was to begin on the house, she was reluctant to give up sole possession of it. Knowing it was pointless to paint or do any more work until Mike and Gabe had finished, she had limited her refurbishment to the sitting room.

Reluctantly.

The room had become ever more her refuge. She’d had to grit her teeth not to put the rest of the house in the same order. However, bringing a temporary halt to any DIY had freed up time for her to sit at the window, gaze enraptured at the view and begin, at last, some serious drawing work.

Until this morning.

She expected her builders any minute and it made her too on edge to even pick up a pencil. She was worried about so many things: how she was to get any work done with muddy-shod builders stomping through the house, the noise, the mess, most of all the disorder. Not to mention the expense.

She’d got used to the tranquillity in the house. She liked the solitude, the freedom to talk to the walls if she chose, and to ignore anybody she didn’t wish to talk to. She’d even cut back on phone calls to Tim and Jyoti. Tim was too loud, too demanding, somehow, for her current mood and Jyoti had seemed preoccupied and uncommunicative.

Looking at the clock for the fifteenth time that morning Rachel began to draw randomly. Sometimes the very act of having a pencil in her hand, making marks, could calm her, lead her into doing something more useful or productive.

She braced herself, pencil poised in mid-air. She could hear a vehicle advancing up the track. She watched as Gabe and his father unpacked an alarming amount of tools and materials. Her knuckles clenched to white on the drawing board. It felt like another Llewellyn invasion. Behind her, the room seemed to prickle and a wave of apprehension rippled around her. The house seemed to disapprove of the interruption too. Rachel liked a place for everything and everything in its place. Several builders roaming around – and their accompanying mess; it would be enough to drive her insane. God, she was turning into her mother.

Gabe spotted her at the window, said something to Mike and came along the path to the house. He rapped on the front door.

Rachel, taking a deep breath, and with a feeling that life was never going to be quite the same again, rose to open it.

‘Hi Rachel,’ Gabe said cheerfully. ‘We’re just unloading the stuff. Dad’s got to go on to the Halliday job, so I’ll wait here to supervise the scaffolding lads. There might be a bit of noise, bit of to-ing and fro-ing today, but after that we shouldn’t have to disturb you too much until the radiators arrive. You won’t know I’m here, I reckon.’

‘Oh,’ said Rachel, taken aback at how easy he made it sound. ‘Fine. Shall I, erm, put the kettle on?’

Gabe shrugged. ‘I’ve got a flask with me, so don’t worry.’

‘Right,’ said Rachel, now thoroughly deflated but feeling some of her tension easing. ‘I’ll just go back to – I’ll get on with some work, then.’ She was disappointed she wouldn’t be seeing more of him.

‘You do that. I’ll knock if I need anything, but apart from that, you won’t see me.’

After that anti-climactic start, it was exactly as Gabe said. The scaffolders were a noisy, cheerfully coarse bunch, who swore freely but who were only there for a couple of hours on the first day. Rachel guessed they’d been chivvied along by Gabe and her gratitude and liking for the man increased. After the scaffolders disappeared, apart from the odd thump and the sense that there was someone else around, it was relatively quiet, even peaceful.

The days settled into a rhythm. Gabe arrived early in the morning, sometimes with Mike but more often on his own and, without ceremony, got on with the job. After waving to Rachel as she sat at her desk in the window, he disappeared around the back of the house. Unless she made an effort to do so, Rachel hardly saw him.

On lunchtime of the third day, Rachel’s curiosity got the better of her and she went to find Gabe to ask about progress.

Her beautiful red-brick cottage had been encased, almost in its entirety, in ugly scaffolding. She found Gabe perched halfway up the back of the house re-pointing the wall. She peered up, shielding her eyes from the glare of the sun. He was dressed in his customary jeans and scruffy t-shirt. From her position on the ground, she couldn’t help but admire the view of his beautifully shaped rear and long, well-muscled thighs.

‘Hi,’ he said, without turning from his work. ‘Surprised the damp hasn’t penetrated that back wall more. This mortar’s shot to bits.’

‘Would you – would you like a tea, or coffee or something?’ Rachel said hesitantly. ‘I was just going to make myself one.’

At this, Gabe did turn round. He looked down at her and blew his hair out of his eyes. ‘That would be great. Could do with a break. This job gets really tedious after a while.’

‘I’ll be on the front step, then.’

‘Sweet. I’ll be there in five.’ He gave her a charming grin, which made Rachel’s heart skip to a girlish beat.

And so, a pattern for the days was set. Most lunchtimes Rachel and Gabe met on the front step of the old house, just as they had on that first evening, and sat, drinking tea. Rachel began making sandwiches too, which Gabe ate like a man starving. She thought it might be awkward, but strangely it wasn’t. It was companionable, even. He was the exact opposite of someone she expected to get along with, but even when they had nothing to say to one another, the silence was comfortable. It was all very odd.

Once or twice she’d shared an ongoing piece of art and, again, he’d shown that surprising sensitivity.

‘The views from here must be inspiring. Maybe you could do something based on a landscape,’ he suggested. It echoed an earlier idea she’d had.

‘The views are stunning and they are inspiring,’ she admitted. Then she’d turned to him and laughed. ‘They’re also really, really distracting. I had no idea watching a flock of sheep chase a farmer on his quad bike could be quite so fascinating.’

Gabe had grinned and told her it was Terry Garth. He’d shaken his head. ‘He’s completely addicted to his new toy, but claims it speeds up feeding time.’

‘When are you coming down The Plough?’ he asked one day, having demolished the doorstop cheese sandwiches Rachel had provided. ‘There’s a good crowd on a Friday night.’ He turned his face up to the sun with evident pleasure. ‘Oh boy, we’re lucky with this weather. Makes the job so much easier. We can get on far more quickly.’

Rachel could feel the heat radiate from Gabe. Could smell him; soap and something expensive. His smooth skin seemed even browner today. She looked away, anxious not to be caught staring. He disconcerted her. Something about his animal presence attracted her deeply. But it was that very quality which disturbed her too. None of the men she’d known had that almost primeval, base quality that emanated from Gabe. And her first impression had been right. He was resolutely straightforward and honest. It was very refreshing.

With difficulty, she focused on his question. Part of her knew she ought to try out the local pub; it would be a good way to get to know some of her new neighbours. ‘Oh, maybe sometime,’ she said, deliberately vague. ‘Thank you for the invitation, though.’

Gabe was not to be deterred. ‘I’m usually in there. I’ll introduce you to one or two people, if you like. Kev can be a pain, but Paul and Dawn are okay and Stan Penry’s started to come in again now. He’s a character, lovely bloke, though.’ He twisted around and pulled a newspaper out of his back pocket.

She put him off, saying she’d think about it. It wasn’t that she wanted to seem aloof, but she didn’t think she felt quite ready to go into the village local on her own, however friendly the crowd and with the promise of Gabe’s presence. Or maybe it was the possibility of Gabe’s presence that made her so wary.

Rachel risked a glance at him, as he bent over the battered copy of his tabloid. He was a revelation. His sensitivity was all-encompassing. If he sensed she was working, he left her completely alone. It still surprised her how easy it was to have him around. The solitude she usually craved when working didn’t seem as important now. In fact, she was getting more done by having him there. She found having Gabe in the background easy company and relaxing. In one way. In another, she found him very disturbing indeed. The thought made her smile.

Gabe snorted at something he was reading, threw down the paper and picked up Rachel’s copy of the Hereford Times. Turning to the back, he was instantly engrossed in the sports pages.

Without really knowing why, Rachel found herself wanting to make contact with him. Wanted him to talk to her.

‘I’ve been reading through some of the contents of that tin you found,’ she said, ‘you know, the one in the attic? Hetty, Mrs Lewis, that is, once lived in a big house in Upper Tadshell. It was called Delamere House. That’s not far from here is it?’

Gabe glanced up.

‘And she had two relatives. Well, very distant relatives. And two aunts, one called Hester and –’

‘What?’ Gabe looked at her, patently not having heard a word. ‘Sorry, just checking on how Hereford got on.’

‘Hereford?’ asked Rachel blankly.

‘United. They were away on Saturday. Won, though, three nil.’

‘Oh football.’ Football had never featured in Rachel’s world. Before now.

Gabe misunderstood her tone, thinking she was being dismissive. ‘Yes, football,’ he said, amused. Some of us lesser mortals like to watch it.’

Rachel had the feeling she was being teased.

‘Aren’t you interested? In Mrs Lewis I mean. I thought you might be, seeing as you were the one who found the tin.’ Having read the next few pages of Hetty’s journal on her long train journey to London, Rachel was bursting to discuss it with someone. Jyoti was again being peculiarly distant and Tim was in the middle of another break-up with boyfriend Justin. That only left Gabe.

‘Sorry. Just had to check up on how the boys were doing.’ Gabe folded the newspaper away, leaned back against the front door and looked at Rachel from underneath long, dark lashes. ‘I’m all yours now.’

‘Erm, I, erm –.’ There was suddenly something about him that made her lose all interest in Hetty. Her throat constricted and Rachel couldn’t have spoken had her life depended on it.

A silence built between them, unusual in that it was awkward.

‘Could look at this all day and still see something different,’ Gabe said. Then, finally taking pity on her, he looked away. He smiled and nodded at the prospect before them. ‘This view, I mean.’

‘I know, I still think it’s gorgeous. It’s why I bought the cottage,’ Rachel said in a rush, feeling heat flush her cheeks. For a minute, she wasn’t sure just what Gabe was referring to.

He laughed. ‘Would you have changed your mind if you’d known how much work there was to do?’

She gave him a quick sideways glance. ‘You know, I’m not sure I would.’

‘So, you’re settling in? No regrets, then?’

Rachel thought about what she had left. Rows of once-proud houses converted into flats, their front gardens concreted over, on which to shove cars, no sense of community, alarms sounding out in the night, the scream of sirens wailing past. The shallow men she’d always seemed to attract. ‘Not one,’ she said firmly and meant it. And then pulled a face. ‘Although it’s a shock having to go and get your papers from the shop. There’s something so nice about having them put through the letter box on a Sunday morning.’

‘I know, Dad’s always moaning on about it. Lucky we’ve still got a shop, though, the one in Stoke Bliss closed down. Reckon ours will at some point, when Rita retires.’

‘Stoke Bliss,’ murmured Rachel. Upper Tadshell, Nether Tedbury, Stoke St Mary.’ She rolled the words around her tongue, enjoying the sounds. She loved the place names in the area. ‘Why doesn’t she do a delivery service?’

Gabe shrugged. ‘Says it’s too scattered a population to do it. Would cost her too much. You can see her point, though. It’d take ages. Mind, I reckon it’s because she can’t get any paper boys. No one’ll work for her.’ He pulled a face. ‘Not the easiest woman in the world.’

Rachel laughed. Having come across Rita, who ran the shop and post office, she knew exactly what Gabe meant. She lifted her hair from her neck in an effort to cool down, her face still felt hot. ‘In London, I used to pick up the early editions on a Saturday night on the way home from a night out. Then they’d be there, ready to read on Sunday morning. With good coffee and a pastry making crumbs in the bed.’ Still holding her hair aloft she nodded her head from side to side to ease out the kinks from a morning at the drawing board.

As an unconscious gesture, it gave off a wholly and peculiarly erotic charge.

Gabe couldn’t look away. Didn’t want to. A picture was forming in his head. Rachel: her long, dark hair tousled, wearing a silk robe – no, better still, a silk negligée, Sunday papers scattered as they abandoned them. He shut his mind off and concentrated on the view, watching as a tractor on the Garths’ farm ploughed an immaculate furrow. Did she have a clue about what she was doing to him? To distract himself he asked: ‘So what’s this about Hetty, then?’

‘You were listening!’ Rachel, delighted that she had an audience, gave Gabe a beatific smile. She began to tell him all about Hetty’s traumatic experience at Christmas. ‘So, I can only assume Richard showed Hetty some kind of Victorian –’. She stopped, embarrassed.

‘Porn?’ Gabe questioned and guffawed. ‘Now that’d be worth looking at. Don’t suppose there’s any in that tin of yours?’

‘No laughing matter,’ Rachel said, trying not to sound like her mother, ‘it must have come as a hell of a shock to poor Hetty. She wouldn’t have known anything.’

‘What, nothing at all?’ Gabe was scandalised.

‘Nothing. I remember my grandmother telling me she knew absolutely nothing until the wedding night. And that was only fifty or so years ago.’ Rachel felt the treacherous heat rise in her face again. She wasn’t sure it was quite the thing to talk about sex with Gabe.

‘Jeez,’ Gabe said. ‘Makes you wonder how folks managed. It’s hard enough the first time when you know what you’re supposed to do!’

Rachel studied him. Despite what he’d said, she imagined Gabe having no problems in that department. He seemed very at home in his skin. ‘Erm, yes. Edward must have been an unusual man to have that conversation with her. I just can’t picture a repressed Edwardian telling a young girl the facts of life like that.’

Gabe scratched his head with the pencil that seemed to be permanently stored behind his ear. ‘Don’t know how repressed they were. You say this Edward was some sort of scientist?’

Rachel nodded. ‘He went off to university, apparently.’

‘Well, maybe he took a scientific approach. Just told her the bare facts, like. Probably the best way. Better than being all coy.’

Rachel nodded. ‘Possibly.’

‘Kind thing to do, though. Think I like Edward. So, do you reckon she’d been hauled in to marry him, then?’

‘Well, Hetty certainly had that impression. It sounded as if they needed her money to keep the house going. It had fallen on hard times.’ Rachel paused. ‘She sounds torn, though, between the two brothers. As you say, Edward is kind, but Richard sounds far more fun.’ She turned to Gabe. ‘Do you know anything about the old house?’

Gabe shifted, as if uncomfortable on the step. ‘What, this Delamere House?’ Gabe shoved the pencil back behind his ear and shrugged. ‘Don’t know, I’ve never heard of it. Likely it’s been pulled down. Especially if you said it was in a pretty poor state.’

‘It was, at least Hetty gives that impression. What a shame. I was hoping I could go and see it.’

Gabe couldn’t bear the disappointment evident in her expression, so he added, ‘Tell you what, I’ll ask Mum. She’s lived round here all her life and she’s interested in old houses. She might know something.’

‘Oh, thanks Gabe, that would be wonderful. And thanks for all you’re doing, by the way. I really appreciate it.’ He always went that one step further, like today; she was sure he wasn’t supposed to be clearing gutters as well as re-pointing.

‘Not getting in your way too much, then?’

Rachel shook her head. ‘Not one bit. In fact, I really like having you around. I hadn’t predicted how isolated I’d feel up here sometimes. It’s lovely knowing you’re here.’

Gabe coughed to hide his pleasure. Rachel hadn’t said anything as nice to him before. Most of their conversations centred around jobs in the house or this Hetty woman. He smiled. ‘What you going to do about the garden?’

Rachel looked about her. If anything, the neglected weeds had grown even higher since she’d moved in. She’d been concentrating on getting the house sorted. Thank goodness it had been dry; a damp spell would have made the garden even more rampant. The back of the house was better, it was shadier there, in the lee of the hill, but out here she had to concede that it really did look a mess.

‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘I’ve just been commissioned a job, quite a big one. That’s why I had to go to London.’

Gabe nodded. Ridiculously, he’d missed her. It had meant he got on with the guttering twice as fast, but he’d missed her presence. He gave himself a mental shake. He was getting in way too deep here. ‘What’s the job?’

‘A series of flower drawings for a nature magazine. They want some seasonal paintings, twelve in all, to go with an article about identifying wild flowers.’ Rachel bit her lip. ‘It’s a huge job, the biggest I’ve been offered in ages, but it’s not going to leave much time for gardening. Such a shame,’ she added, almost to herself, ‘I’d seen myself sitting out here enjoying the garden, a glass of wine in my hand. Oh well, maybe next year.’

Gabe could see her sitting there too, in a big hat and flowery dress. He’d like to sit beside her. He sat up, as a thought occurred. ‘I might know someone who could help!’

‘Oh Gabe, you are kind.’ Impulsively, Rachel put her hand on his arm. ‘But I can hardly afford to pay you and your dad, let alone hire a gardener.’

Gabe couldn’t tear his eyes away, dazzled by the warmth in her voice. He could feel his skin humming at her touch. ‘I don’t think there’d be any money involved,’ he began at last. ‘There’s a friend of mum’s. Stan Penry. I mentioned him before. He’s not long lost his wife and he’s looking for something to do. He likes his gardening. I could get him to come up and see you if you want.’

He coughed again, to cover his pleasure at being touched. If he reacted like this to one innocent touch on the arm, what the hell would it be like to kiss her? Or do more? He cleared his throat again and shifted away.

‘Well, maybe that would be an idea,’ Rachel said, not entirely enthusiastic to have yet more people disrupting her life. She looked at Gabe in concern. ‘Are you all right? You’re not getting a cold or anything?’

It was too much. Not only had she been nice to him, she was now worrying over his health. ‘Fine, I’m fine.’ He stood up quickly. ‘Better get on. Want an early finish today. I’ll get Stan to give you a ring.’

He began to walk away, but then changed his mind. ‘You know,’ he said, slowly, as he turned back to her. ‘You could write this up, couldn’t you? Hetty’s story, I mean.’

‘I’m an illustrator, not a writer.’ Rachel shook her head. ‘Never written a thing in my life. It’s not a skill I possess.’

‘But the writing’s been done, hasn’t it?’ Gabe added, thinking through the idea as he spoke. ‘All you’ve got to do is add the pictures. The illustrations.’ He spread a hand to the view. ‘And you’ve got most of the material here.’

Rachel stared at him, mouth open. ‘What you mean? Like a sort of –’ she wracked her brain to remember the name of the book that had taken the publishing world by storm, years before.

‘The Diary of an Edwardian Country Lady!’ Gabe supplied triumphantly, slapping his thigh and making brick dust fly. ‘It could be something like that. Mum loved that book. It’s still on the shelf in the kitchen somewhere. She’d buy another like it.’

Rachel felt excitement rising. Could she produce the drawings and paintings that would fit with the strange mix of writings Hetty had left? It might just be something she could do. And it would sell. She knew enough of the market to know that. It would be a charming book if she edited out some of the more personal stuff; she didn’t think she could allow Hetty’s intimate details to be known. Then her cautious nature kicked in. ‘It’s a bit early to be thinking of things like that, though, isn’t it? I’ve only read a few pages.’

He gave her a long, measuring look. ‘You underestimate yourself a lot, don’t you? Of course you could do it. Have confidence in what you do! From what I’ve seen of your work, you’d have no problems.’ The easy smile appeared and she realised how much she looked forward to seeing it every day. ‘I really think there’s mileage in it. Never say never, Rachel. I bet Hetty never did.’

And with that, he strode away, leaving Rachel staring, unseeing at the view.

Chapter 9

On the following Thursday, Rachel went into nearby Fordham. It was a little market town, full of traditional half-timbered, black-and-white houses, with a library and a reasonable range of shops. Most importantly, for Rachel, it had a main branch post office manned by the inquisitive and bad-tempered Rita. The place was heaving with what seemed the entire county’s over-sixties. She assumed it was pension day. Joining the queue and enjoying ear-wigging the cheerful conversations they were all having, she finally managed to send off some examples of her work to a prospective client.

It was a soft sort of a day and Rachel was reluctant to return home immediately. Strolling along the town’s main street, she found herself outside the windows of Grant, Foster and Fitch, the estate agents. Out of habit, she glanced at the houses for sale. There was a chocolate-box thatched cottage not far from Stoke St Mary on offer. In the usual estate agents’ parlance, it claimed it was immaculately presented and deceptively spacious. ’No work required, move in condition,’ Rachel read. She couldn’t help a sigh escape and then gave a twisted grin as she saw the asking price. Far more than she’d paid for Clematis Cottage and far more than she could ever hope to afford. It looked as though Clematis Cottage and she were destined to have a scruffy and dusty relationship for a bit longer.

She was just turning away, intent on investigating the irresistible smell of freshly baked bread wafting from the baker’s next door, when she saw Mr Foster smiling and waving at her through the window.

He came out into the sunshine. ‘Miss Makepeace. How lovely to see you! Come on in, have a coffee with us. Do.’

Rachel hesitated.

‘I’ve got raisin croissants, they’re my weakness, I’m afraid.’ Mr Foster patted his impressive stomach ruefully. ‘Shouldn’t eat them at all and if Mrs F finds out, she’ll have my considerable guts for garters. Come and eat the third one I shouldn’t have bought.’ He made a face. ‘Save me!’

Rachel grinned and nodded. She followed him into the office, familiar from her weekend property-hunting trips, and which now seemed to belong to another lifetime and lifestyle. As her eyes adjusted to the comparative gloom she saw another man rise from behind a desk.

‘How nice to meet you at last,’ he said and held out a hand.

He was startlingly good-looking. So much so that Rachel took his hand in silence and only mustered up a smile as a first response.

‘Miss Makepeace,’ said Mr Foster, ‘allow me to introduce you to my partner, Neil Fitch.’

‘Hello.’ She took in the man’s height, blue-black hair and vivid, blue eyes. ‘It’s Rachel,’ she said, a little shy, and then pulled herself together. ‘If I’m about to share your food, perhaps we ought to be on first names at least.’

‘Delighted to be so,’ said Neil Fitch formally and gave a dazzling smile.

‘Splendid, how simply splendid,’ said Mr Foster. ‘And I’d better be Roger, then. I’ll just see to the coffee. How do you like it, Rachel?’

‘Just milk, please.’ She tried to say his name, but just couldn’t call him Roger, somehow. It didn’t seem right. She looked to where he had disappeared through a door at the back of the office. To the kitchen, she presumed.

‘Where are my manners? Neil leaped into action. ‘Please take a seat.’ He dragged out an office chair and gestured for her to sit down. Resuming his position at his desk, he leaned back, idly twirling a fountain pen between long fingers. ‘And, how are you getting on with Clematis Cottage? Such a beautiful location but a lot of work I imagine?’

Rachel nodded. ‘I do love it, but you’re right, it is a lot of work.’ She’d never met such a stunning-looking man. He quite took her breath away.

‘You’ve got the Llewellyns working on it, I believe?’

Rachel forced herself to concentrate. ‘Yes, although they haven’t done all that much yet. The roof is in need of serious repair and I’m having them install central heating, too.’ She pulled a face. ‘I think the wiring may need re-doing, as well.’

Neil nodded. ‘Only to be expected, with an old house like that. But Mike Llewellyn’s a hard worker and reliable. He’ll do a good job.’ He treated Rachel to another attractive smile. ‘And some heating is an excellent idea. It can only add value to the property, should you wish to sell, that is. Yes, Mike’s a good worker. It’s just such a shame about his wife.’

He was interrupted by Roger bringing through a tray loaded with a cafetière, cups and saucers and a plate piled high with pastries.

‘It really is a scandal having an office so close to Mervyn’s bakery,’ he said, as he put down his load on Neil’s desk and began to arrange cups, saucers and plates.

Rachel smiled. ‘I was just on my way to it. I simply couldn’t resist the smell.’

Roger tutted and raised his eyes to the ceiling in comic fashion. ‘It’s death to the diet, I’m afraid.’ He pouted. ‘On a daily basis. Not that my young friend here has to worry about these things.’

Neil laughed and reached for the plate of cakes. ‘I’m one of those insufferable people who never puts on any weight, I’m afraid.’ He offered Rachel first choice and, after deliberating, she took the smallest.

‘It’s all the running he does,’ Roger’s tone was gloomy. ‘Can’t join him, not at my age and with my knees.’ He began to pour coffee. ‘Neil has run three marathons,’ he added, with pride.

‘Roger!’ Neil began to protest.

‘Nonsense, my boy, if you’ve got the energy to run twenty-six-odd miles you should make more of it. I’d have a job to walk that far!’

Rachel took the cup of coffee Roger offered, sipped and relaxed. It was pleasant to witness the men’s banter. They were obviously great friends as well as work colleagues. Working from home as she did, she’d never had the chance to develop office friendships.

Roger, after fussing with the crockery and making sure everyone had everything, sank down onto a chair. He took an enormous bite of croissant and closed his eyes in bliss. ‘Perfection. But the last one I’ll ever have,’ he said, still with his eyes shut.

‘He says that every Thursday,’ Neil said and winked at Rachel. ‘Thursday is a croissant day. On Mondays he has a doughnut, Tuesdays a Danish, Wednesday’s a Belgian bun day and on Friday Roger treats himself to a fresh fruit tart. You must try one of those, they are really delicious.’

She laughed and, at the sound, Roger opened his eyes. ‘It’s the tiny pleasures in life that makes it more bearable, I’ve often found.’ He sat up. ‘Now Rachel, tell me how you are getting on with old Mrs Lewis’s cottage.’

Rachel hesitated. She thought of the Huntley and Palmer’s biscuit tin still containing the secrets of Hetty’s life. That the memoir had been so candid had surprised and shocked her. She had expected something duller; a dry account of an Edwardian miss, perhaps.

After the initial excitement, she’d avoided reading any of it recently, having become uneasy at delving so deeply into the woman’s life. When she was on her own in the evenings and it was quiet, it was all too easy to imagine the tangible presence of Henrietta Trenchard-Lewis in her home. Sometimes there was an echo of the woman so strong that Rachel could almost conjure up her image. She thought of Friday night when she’d suddenly become very aware of the dense blackness of the country night beyond her sitting-room window and how she’d jumped when a plump moth had beaten against the glass. Although she didn’t feel scared exactly, she still didn’t know how she felt about sharing her new home with what might possibly be Hetty’s ghost. She shuddered slightly. ‘Mr Foster, I mean Roger, she didn’t die there, did she?’

‘Oh no, my dear. She became very frail at the end. She was extremely old, you know, when she died. She had to be taken into a care home, when it became obvious she wasn’t coping on her own any more. That’s why the cottage was sold, to pay the fees. It’s why it got into a bit of a state too.’ He shook his head, making his jowls wobble. ‘Poor woman, after all those years on the planet and she died all alone. No relatives at all, as far as we know. Now, why should you ask about where the dear lady died?’ He took a sip of coffee. ‘Not worried about the place being haunted, are you?’

‘No,’ Rachel answered, taken aback at his casual assumption. She repeated it a little more firmly. ‘No. I don’t feel it’s haunted exactly, but there’s a very strong…’ she stopped, too embarrassed to continue.

‘Well, she was a very characterful woman, in many senses of the word. So I believe, I never had the pleasure of meeting her, to my regret. Those who did say she grasped any opportunity that came her way, even when she was very old. Such a vibrant woman, by all accounts. So eager to taste all that life offered. Such a positive attitude. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if a little something of her lingered, shall we say? An essence, perhaps?’

‘You don't think I’m completely mad, then?’

Roger patted her hand in avuncular fashion and then rose to pour more coffee. ‘Not at all, dear girl. And I’m sure, if it is her, she means you no harm. I don’t think she was like that in life, so there’s no reason to assume she would be vindictive in death.’ He turned to Neil. ‘We’ve heard of much stranger things happening in houses, haven’t we?’

‘Indeed we have.’ Neil smiled at Rachel. ‘I hear you found something in the house? Some papers or letters? No wonder you have the lady on your mind.’ He held out his cup for a refill.

Rachel looked at the two men. They were being so kind, so understanding.

‘Oh yes,’ Roger rubbed his hands together in glee and sat back down. ‘Do tell. I was so sorry I couldn’t give you more time when you rang up the other day. We had a rush on. Most unlike us.’ With this he gestured to the empty office. ‘Have you managed to read much of the contents?’

Rachel gave a brief version of what she’d read so far. They were a good audience and hung on every word with apparent fascination. She warmed to her theme. ‘So it’s the story of her life, as far as I can tell. There are bits of her diary, letters and postcards and, most exciting of all, what looks to be an attempt at a memoir.’

Neil leaned forward, his blue eyes aglow. ‘What a thing to find. If it was me, I wouldn’t be able to resist reading the whole thing through in one fell swoop!’

Rachel gave him a rueful look. ‘If I had the time, I don’t suppose I’d be able to either, but there have been other things for me to do at Clematis Cottage. And I have to work too.’

‘Well, of course. Silly of me to suggest otherwise. But it’s a discovery and a half, isn’t it? That’s for sure. What are you going to do with it?’

‘Yes, my dear,’ Roger echoed. ‘What are planning on doing with it? It must have some wonderful stuff in it. Think of what she lived through. She was over a hundred when she died, you know. She lived through two world wars, the invention of the motor car and the aeroplane, the atom bomb and the computer.’

‘Oh no, you’ve got him started now,’ Neil said but fondly.

Roger chuckled. He seemed a chuckling sort of a man. ‘Be a shame to let it go unrecorded somehow. Now, what could you do with it, I wonder?’

‘Aren’t you some sort of writer?’ Neil interrupted the older man.

‘No, illustrator.’ Rachel shook her head.

‘Shame.’

‘There is an idea…’ she began, as if to voice it aloud would make her do it. ‘Someone suggested I try to put something together of Hetty’s writing and illustrate it.’ There, it was out in the open now. She might well have to give it serious thought. And Gabe was right, Hetty would have jumped at the chance.

‘Oh, I say!’ Roger said. ‘Sounds marvellous.’

‘Sounds eminently workable.’ Neil said. ‘Might well be mileage in it.’

She looked at them in gratitude and gave up a little prayer for Gabe’s suggestion.

‘And, if you want any help putting it together, then I’d be only too happy to oblige,’ Neil added.

‘That’s really kind of you.’ Rachel said, unwilling to be rushed. ‘I’ll need to think it through a bit first, though. Oh, look at the time!’ She glanced at the office clock and drained her cup. ‘I must go, I’ve someone coming to see me at two.’

Thanking them for their hospitality, she promised she’d visit again soon. She half ran to where she’d parked her car, her mind on fire with possibilities. The idea of the book could work … it just could.

‘You never know, Hetty,’ she said, as she turned the key in the ignition, ‘we could be on to something with this. Here’s to a long, and hopefully, fruitful relationship!’

Chapter 10

Rachel willed her groaning car up the steep track to the cottage and parked it in a swirl of dust. Her visitor was already there, waiting.

Stan Penry was leaning against the horse chestnut tree, which dominated the parking space in front of Clematis Cottage. He was enjoying some shade and a cigarette.

Rachel stared at him for a moment, preparing what she wanted to say to him. She’d found it surprisingly easy having Gabe around, which was just as well as he often was. To have yet another stranger invading her privacy might be a step too far. She wanted to be alone, so she could be the person she really wanted to be, not beholden to whatever others forced her into being.

On the other hand, she thought, ruefully, looking at the overgrown front garden, she could really do with the help.

She pondered on what Gabe had told her about the old man. Stan was seventy-three and recently widowed. He lived with his son and daughter-in-law in one of the new ‘executive’ houses, which flanked the church, in the village proper. Ripped away from his beloved ramshackle cottage and smallholding by well-meaning relatives, who worried he wouldn’t cope on his own, he’d been given a home in their magnolia-painted modern house. Stan hated it, according to Gabe, and was keen to find somewhere he could grow his fruit and vegetables while he waited for an allotment to become available. In return, Gabe had assured Rachel, Stan would be happy to do some general gardening for her.

Rachel looked at the man, drawing him with her eye. He had on a pair of those trousers of indeterminate colour and shiny fabric that elderly men adopt and a short-sleeved white shirt. He was very thin with a slight stoop and a sour expression on his face, made more so as he sucked on a roll-up.

She got out of the car and made her way over to him. ‘Hello,’ she said, cautiously, ‘you must be Mr Penry.’

Stan came away from the tree almost grudgingly. ‘Miss Makepeace?’

Rachel held out her hand and found it enveloped in a calloused and nicotine-stained grip. ‘Rachel, please.’

‘Ar. That’d be Stan, then. You got a bit o’ work for me then, like?’

‘A bit of work?’ Rachel smiled at the understatement. ‘Well, yes. If you’re interested, that is.’ Rachel pointed to the front garden, knowing perfectly well that Stan had given the place the once-over before she’d arrived. She half-hoped he’d say it was too much for him and leave her in peace. After her conversation with Roger and Neil she couldn’t wait to get back to Hetty’s story again.

‘You know what you want doing with it?’ Stan squished his cigarette between finger and thumb, fished out an old tobacco tin from his trouser pocket, placed the butt inside and immediately began to roll another.

‘Erm, no, not really,’ Rachel said, a little helplessly. This hadn’t begun well. She couldn’t ever see herself warming to this man and certainly didn’t want him prowling around her garden.

‘Mrs Lewis used to have a fine old clematis growin’ up that wall.’ Stan gestured to the side of the front door. And she had hollyhocks and suchlike growing up in front. It were a rare old sight. She liked her gardening, did old Hetty.’

Rachel stared at him in astonishment. ‘You knew her?’

Stan met her look. His eyes were full of a wicked humour. It was in direct contrast to his pinched and thin mouth.

‘Knew her a bit, like. When I was living in the village afore. Before I got married to my Eunice, that is. Never had much to do with Hetty. Bit of a loner, bit scary, like.’ Stan leaned over to Rachel and winked. ‘But me and Eunice, we used to come up here to do a bit o’ courting. We’d have a good old look at the garden before she’d come out and shoo us off. Reckon she had a fancy man up here, I do. Made Eunice giggle, it did.’

For a second, Stan’s face clouded.

‘I’m sorry for your …’ God, how was one supposed to say these things and why was it so hard? ‘I’m sorry to hear about your wife.’

Stan took a deep pull on his cigarette and looked away. He cleared his throat. ‘Ar. Never enough time with the ones you love, is there?’

Thinking back later, Rachel realised it was that moment which made her decide to take Stan on. That he’d known Hetty, even at a distance, was a draw, of course, but it was that statement which did it. Unsentimentally said, but with such feeling. Such love. She was getting quite good at making snap decisions!

Instinct told her Stan would be unwilling to accept any gesture that smacked of charity. She adopted a bracing tone. ‘So, it’s a lot of work. The garden, that is. Have you – have you got any ideas about what I could do with it?’

‘Might have.’

He was obviously a man of few words. ‘Look, Stan, why don’t you come in and have a cup of tea?’ She smiled at him.

‘Don’t mind if I do. Coffee, though.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Don’t drink tea. I likes me a coffee. Milky, three sugars.’

‘Coffee, then,’ Rachel said slowly and wondered if he was making this deliberately difficult. Then she saw the expression in his strange yellowy-green eyes. He was teasing her. Well, in that case, she could get her own back. ‘Oh but –’ she stared pointedly at the cigarette.

Stan scowled at her. ‘You another one o’ them anti smokers? Just like my Sharon. Me daughter-in-law. She can’t abide it neither.’

‘Well, if you wouldn’t mind not smoking in the house, I’d be grateful. Come on, let’s get the kettle on and we can get going with some plans for the garden.’

And so it had been decided. Quite easily in the end. Stan would begin by clearing part of the garden for his vegetable beds; he’d share some of the produce with Rachel. In return, he was willing to get the rest of the garden into shape.

‘Might take a deal o’ time, though,’ he warned her.

Rachel didn’t mind and assured him so. It occurred to her that she was adapting to the slow pace of the way things happened around here. And what’s more, was happy about it.

‘Thank you, Gabe,’ she whispered, as she lay in bed that night. It was one more favour to chalk up to him. ‘And thank you, Hetty,’ she tried out, tentatively. There was no answer, but Rachel heard what might have been a giggle. Content that, if Hetty’s ghost was haunting the cottage, she meant no harm, she turned over to face the sigh of breeze that floated in through the open window. She heard the house settle around her and fell asleep, feeling blessed.

Chapter 11

It was one of those gifts of a summer morning, when it was a privilege to be awake with the dawn chorus.

Rachel had been woken at five by Indignant the Sparrow. The bird had got into the habit of sitting on the roof above her bedroom, cheeping loudly and, well, indignantly, until the moment she leaned out of her window and he took fright.

As she did so this morning, the view took her breath away and stole time. After heavy rainfall in the night, the sun shone, jewelling the landscape. It was a morning washed clean. After two months of living in the cottage, the trees had greened up even more, making the bucolic scene teem with life. The sky was still pale and cold, but even Rachel, with her rudimentary knowledge of weather, could tell it was going to be a wonderful day. It was shaping up to be a fantastic summer.

She pulled on her newly purchased Wellingtons and her fleece and slipped out into the magic. Making her way down the track from the cottage, she turned right down the narrow lane that led away from the rest of the village. She was surrounded by apple orchards, which enveloped her in a scent so sweet it nearly made her weep. Stopping for a moment to enjoy the sweet melancholy she leaned on a gate and stared into the field. The blossom fuzzed around the branches like so much pinky-white candy-floss. In contrast, in the next field, there was a decrepit building housing a tractor. The unploughed field was furrowed deep in red clay mud and, above, the sky had deepened to an azure blue, warm with promise. Beauty and dereliction side by side. Swallows dive-bombed flies and then swooped under the beams of the building, popping neatly into their mud nests. It was as far removed from city life as could be imagined.

Rachel heard a light and fast tapping on the tarmac behind her and turned, expecting to see a small dog. Instead of which, she came face to face with a hare. It had an alert, inquiring expression. She and the hare stared at one another for some moments, its large, pale eyes contemplating her without fear. Then it trotted off, squeezed under the hedge on the opposite side of the road and disappeared. Rachel released the breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding.

She walked on, further down the lane, past a field of sheep. She paused again to enjoy the sight. The lambs were beyond the tiny cute stage but were still suckling, every now and again, in between grazing. Rachel could hear their teeth tearing the grass and watched as a mother bucked off a lamb attempting a cheeky suckle.

In the opposite field were some enormous cows, even Rachel recognised them as the distinctive breed that had marked Herefordshire on the world agricultural map. Big and lumbering, with red flanks that echoed the colour of the soil, their cream faces bore a sweetly vacant expression. To Rachel’s delight, they had calves with them. They trembled on unsteady legs, far too insubstantial to bear their weight. She leaned on the gate, entranced. Some of the cows spotted her and plodded over, their offspring doing a wobbling dance behind. One cow mooed ominously. Rachel backed away, suddenly very aware of their size and protective mothering instinct.

She moved on, wondering if Hetty had enjoyed walking the same lanes. It was no wonder the woman was lingering in such a beautiful place, even after death. Rachel felt even more sure Roger Foster’s words held true. It just didn’t feel right that Hetty would wish her harm. The vibes she got from the atmosphere that occasionally sprang up in the cottage were girlish, mischievous even. If Hetty wanted to stay in her old home, she supposed it was fine with her. As long as the ghost or spirit or essence, or whatever it was, didn’t mind sharing with a load of builders too.

The lane wound round in a long, slow loop and Rachel found herself back on the edge of the village coming up behind a rambling house, bearing a sign proclaiming ‘Michael Llewellyn and Son, Builders.’ She checked her watch; she’d been out longer than she thought and it was getting on for nine. Gabe had offered an open invitation to visit whenever she had time. Country people got up early, didn’t they? Perhaps it was time to test the theory.

It was a large and solid-looking house, painted white, with small-paned windows set at odd intervals across the walls. It looked as if bits had been added on over the years and wasn’t the smart, done-up building she had expected. From what Gabe had told her, the family never used the front door, so Rachel ignored it and made her way down a narrow, rutted drive to the side of the house. She squeezed past Gabe’s Toyota and a hatchback, feeling like an interloper. As she did so, a door in the house flew open and a middle-aged woman sprang out, a large bundle of letters pressed against her. She stopped and appraised Rachel, with a broad smile.

‘You must be Rachel, from old Hetty’s cottage. How do you do?’ The older woman held out her free hand and smiled. ‘Gabe and Mike have told me so much about you. It’s good to meet you at last.’

Rachel went shy. ‘Hello,’ she managed. She wondered exactly what had been said and how she had been recognised so immediately.

‘Sheila Llewellyn,’ the woman explained, although it was hardly necessary; the resemblance to her son was unmistakable. The same golden-brown hair, the same sherry- coloured eyes. ‘Now, I’m so sorry to dash off, but I must get these to the post and, if I don’t go now, I’ll miss it. Be back in a mo’, though, and I’ll get the kettle on. Mike’s out, but Gabriel’s in his shed if you want to go on through.’ Sheila nodded her head to the back of the house, raised her hand as a goodbye and hurried off.

Rachel stared after her for a second and then made her way further along the drive to the back of the house, following the sounds of a tool being applied to wood. Some pale- brown chickens scattered before her, scolding her for the intrusion. The outbuildings rambled on in an untidy way, but the door to the one nearest the house was open. She stepped over a ginger-and-white cat lazing fatly in the doorway and stopped short as she caught sight of Gabe.

He had paused in whatever he’d been doing and was instead staring intently at a large piece of wood held in a clamp. He had his back to her, so she couldn’t see his expression, but she had a feeling an important decision was being made.

He was dressed casually, as usual, in disreputable jeans and a ragged green t-shirt, with a logo now so faded it was indecipherable. Rachel enjoyed the view for a moment. Gabe’s back was strong and well muscled, but in the way created by physical labour rather than hours put in at a gym. He had long muscles, well defined but not huge and bunchy in an off-puttingly he-man way.

Her eyes were drawn to his arms. She always liked looking at them. Sinewy and tough, the bulge of his triceps was revealed under the fraying sleeve of his t-shirt. She longed to draw him like this.

Gabe picked up a chisel and lightly tapped it on the wood. There was some pop music playing on an old Bakelite radio wedged on a dusty shelf. Dust motes spun in the sunlit air and the place hummed with the smell of sawdust.

It was wonderful.

Gabe, still unaware of his audience, tucked a length of hair behind his ear and reached sideways, bending over as he did so. He ran a long, brown thumb along the length of the wood, feeling the grain. It was a tender caress, as if he was touching a woman in that first questioning contact before making love. It made Rachel go liquid inside. She wanted to call out but couldn’t speak. She refused to break the mood. And then, just as she was beginning to feel like a voyeur, the cat got up and, after stretching, wove its way between Gabe’s legs, making him jump.

‘Christ, Ned, you nearly gave me a heart attack.’ Gabe picked up the cat and turned to the door, scratching it under its ears. Then he saw Rachel.

‘Fuck!’

At the oath, the cat protested loudly and jumped out of Gabe’s arms, sliding past Rachel and making good its escape. Rachel wished she could follow.

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you. Your mum said –’

Gabe crossed his arms, defensively. ‘It’s okay. You just gave me a bit of a fright. Didn’t hear you come in.’

‘No, the, erm, the music.’ Rachel gestured to the radio, from which still blared pop.

Gabe rubbed a hand over his face, leaving a sawdust trail. ‘No, it’s tiredness really. Been up most of the night on a job, trying to get it finished. Dad’s just gone over now to fit the last bit.’ He crossed the workshop to the radio and turned it off.

‘A job?’

‘Oh a kitchen. On the house we’ve been working on. Owner changed her mind at the last minute and then wanted it done by yesterday.’ Gabe shrugged and Rachel could see how weary the gesture was.

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean –’ Now she really felt like an intruder.

‘No worries, it’s okay.’ Gabe appeared to be recovering himself. His shoulders relaxed. ‘I was just having a look at this.’ He ran a hand lightly over the piece of wood. ‘Can’t beat a bit of English oak and this is a beaut. Was just having a look to see what to do with it.’

Rachel’s curiosity piqued. ‘What do you mean? For part of a kitchen?’

Gabe grinned broadly, his eyes shining through his tiredness. ‘Wouldn’t waste it on something practical, not this.’ He leaned against the workbench, obviously amused. ‘Don’t you ever get that feeling with a blank piece of paper? When it speaks to you. Wants you to do something really special with it?’

Rachel did. Often. She was amazed that Gabe felt the same about a piece of timber. She nodded.

‘Well, it’s exactly the same here. Only better, because with wood there’s already something there. Pattern, grain, shape, colour. A suggestion of something inside waiting for you to release it.’

Rachel couldn’t speak. A whole new Gabriel was opening out to her.

‘Sometimes I look at wood and see a piece of furniture, you know a chair, table. Sometimes, though, it wants me to make something more, something less useful, more…’ he shrugged as he struggled for the right word.

‘More purely aesthetic?’ Rachel whispered.

Gabe grimaced. ‘If you say so. I have to stop and take a good look. See what I can make of it. See what it promises, what it’s asking of me.’ He stopped, embarrassed. ‘God, that’s the sleepless night talking, I reckon. I’m bloody knackered.’ He grinned again, this time sheepishly and ran a hand through his hair, making it untidier than ever. ‘Good to have someone to rabbit on about these things to, though. No one else round here really gets it. But I knew you would. Thank you for listening.’

There was a beat. A complete understanding between them. A connection.

‘I do. I absolutely get it.’ Rachel said, eventually. A thought occurred and she stopped, embarrassed, not knowing how to phrase it. ‘But I thought you were just a –’

Gabe raised his eyebrows and let her suffer for a minute. ‘You thought I was just what?’

‘Erm …’ How could she tell him she’d had no idea he was this much of a craftsman, that he was so passionate about it. That she was so turned-on by the sight of the muscles in his back working that she felt faint? No, she couldn’t tell him that. She couldn’t even go there.

‘I thought you were just –’

‘A labourer?’ Gabe laughed. ‘Bit more to it all than that. Learned most of it on the job, and from Dad. I’ve qualifications too. But I’d love to do more of this sculptural sort of stuff,’ he gestured to the block of oak in the clamp, ‘but there’s never enough time. Too much paying work going on.’

‘Do you exhibit anywhere?’ Rachel’s heart was pounding. It was almost as if Gabe’s potential had yet to be unlocked, like his sculptures from the oak.

Gabe pursed his lips. ‘Just not the right time at the moment. I can’t dedicate enough hours to get the pieces together.’ He looked down and scuffed his already disreputable trainers. ‘Besides, Dad doesn’t think much of it all and while I’m living under his roof, it’s all a bit awkward.’

Rachel wondered why he didn’t follow his dream. It was a crime for him not to. What was stopping him? Fear? Idleness? She didn’t know how to respond, so remained silent, her mind racing in its search for some way to help.

He took pity on her and grinned, the smile chasing its way up to his eyes. ‘Come on, enough arty stuff. Mum’s promised coffee and bacon sandwiches when she gets back.’

Rachel followed his lead into the house, her perception of Gabe sliding all over the place, as were her feelings for him.

In contrast to the heady atmosphere that had built up in Gabe’s workshop, the kitchen was warm, light and full of Radio Two. Sheila stood at the Aga frying bacon and the smell reminded Rachel how long she’d been awake. Her mouth watered.

‘Go and get washed. Gabriel and I’ll get these on the table.’ Sheila turned and smiled at Rachel and pointed to a chair pulled up to the kitchen table. ‘Just move some of that junk aside and make room. If I’ve told Mike once about doing his paperwork in the kitchen, I’ve told him a million times.’

Rachel sat down and moved a pile of papers to one side. She could see the appeal of working here. She would want to as well; it was an inviting space. It was a big room, with a sofa covered in faded chintz at one end. Ned, the ginger cat, was now washing his paws and sitting in state on it.

The table dominated the space and was cluttered with the detritus of family life: envelopes, a letter with the local hospital’s logo on it, coffee cups, a plate with toast crumbs, car keys. It was very different to her parents’ stainless-steel and manicured beech kitchen. Rachel loved it – and itched to tidy it in equal measure.

‘I hope you don’t think I’m –’ she began to say to Sheila.

‘’Course not, lovely. It’s really nice to meet you. I told Mike and Gabriel to ask you down one day. You’re welcome any time. We don’t stand on ceremony, here. Didn’t like to think of you all on your own up there, either.’

And you were dying of curiosity to meet me, thought Rachel and, as the older woman looked at her, she had the strangest feeling Sheila knew exactly what she was thinking.

Gabe swept back into the room. He had brushed his hair and tied it back more neatly and had washed his face free of the sawdust. He went up behind his mother and put his arms around her waist. ‘God, I’m starving, Mum. Where’s my food?’

Sheila laughed. ‘If you’ll leave me be, Gabriel, it’ll be on the table. Sit down and stop making a fool of yourself.’

Gabe kissed his mother’s cheek, making exaggerated smacking noises and then pulled up a chair opposite Rachel. ‘Mum makes the best bacon sandwiches in the world.’ He picked up the letter with the hospital heading on it, frowned and tucked it under the pile of envelopes.

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