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‘She was impressed, for all that. She knows that most first novels don’t do as well as yours. She told me about her very first effort; said it came back so quickly from every publisher she sent it to that she was sure they hadn’t even bothered to read it. “Of course,” she said, “I know now that it just wasn’t good enough.” So there’s a compliment, Cas. You should give yourself a bit more credit for what you’ve done. Now, what say we take the dog for a walk?’
So we pulled on wellies and walked way beyond the top of the paddock and up the steep slope behind it so we could look down on Deer’s Leap and the space beyond, and I stored a picture of it in my mind in case I never stood there again.
‘I rather wish I’d been with you today, Jeannie.’ I pulled a stem of long grass, then nibbled the soft white end of it. ‘Just talking about it makes me realize there’s more to a novel than sitting at home writing it.’
‘Couldn’t agree more. What it boils down to, though, is selling books. Readers like meeting authors and Susanna seemed to enjoy herself today. I wish you could have seen her house, Cassie. Just to think of what royalties can buy would make you want to work like a dog.’
‘I’m looking forward to reading her book. I’m curious about the storyline.’
‘Then take my advice and do no such thing! Don’t get another author’s book into your head whilst you’re writing one of your own! Put it in a drawer, then read it when you’ve finished Firedance. Susanna told us she allowed herself little treats for working extra hard. She said she once gobbled five After Eights, one after the other, as a reward for finishing a chapter that had taken ages to get right. It made her seem very ordinary and human.’
‘She’s made an impression on you, hasn’t she, Jeannie?’
‘Mm. Pity I can’t write. I wouldn’t mind ending up like her.’
‘Filthy rich?’
‘Y-yes. But more the way she looks and is. She’s obviously getting on, but it doesn’t show somehow.’
We had reached the top of the rise now, and stood without speaking, to stare. The sun was beginning to go down and there was a hint of chill in the air. It made me remember that in a week it would be September, with autumn not so far away.
‘Have you taken in all you want of the view?’ Jeannie teased. ‘Because I think we should start back. It’s turned quite cold.’
‘Yes, but I’ll come here again with a camera.’
Not that I would need reminding of that one summer at Deer’s Leap. I would always remember it, and wonder who was living there, and worry too about Jack Hunter and that I hadn’t been able to help him find Suzie. How long would he wait at that gate for her? Into forever? It made me swallow hard on the sentimental tears in my throat.
‘Hey! You there!’ I heard the snapping of Jeannie’s fingers under my nose and shook my head clear of the pilot. ‘You were miles away!’
‘Years away, if you must know. Do you realize I’ve got little more than a week to find where the Smiths went when they left Deer’s Leap?’
‘So you were thinking about the pilot again?’
‘Suppose so. It looks as if I’m not going to be able to help him, for all that.’
‘You mean you’ve been serious all along about finding Susan Smith?’
‘I – I’ve wondered about it quite a bit …’
‘Then I don’t understand you, Cassie Johns! I can’t even think you’d waste good writing time chasing after a woman who probably won’t remember Jack Hunter – even if she’s still alive!’
‘She is alive, I know it! And she won’t have forgotten him.’
‘But she could have married someone else, for Pete’s sake! And if she hasn’t, what are you going to say to her, “Excuse me, Miss Smith, but there’s a ghost looking for you!”?’
‘OK, Jeannie! I agree with everything you say and it will be difficult.’
‘But if you find this Susan Smith are all your troubles over? The heck they are! Have you just once stopped to think you can’t take up residence at the kissing gate with an elderly lady, waiting for a ghost to turn up?’
‘We-e-ll, I suppose –’
‘No supposing, Cassie! Jack Hunter is none of your business and neither is Susan Smith! You can’t go poking and prying into things that don’t concern you. Leave it! Take the lid off that one and you don’t know what you’ll find. Nasty wriggling maggots, I shouldn’t wonder!’
‘You’re right, I’ve got to admit it, yet –’
‘Too right I’m right! Say you’ll forget it?’
‘OK! I’ll forget it!’
‘And you really promise, Cassie? You’ll let well alone?’
‘I just said so!’
I stuck my hands in my pockets and whistled to Hector, and it was only when we were manoeuvring ourselves through a kissing gate that didn’t squeak and wasn’t in need of a coat of paint that I knew I had no intention of keeping my promise, even though I might well be taking the lid off a tin of maggots.
Sorry, Jeannie!
We drove to the village next morning and the familiar feeling took me as we neared the straight stretch of road and the clump of oaks. But the airman didn’t show and I was reluctantly glad, because I didn’t want Jeannie messing up our encounter, and she would have.
I parked behind the Red Rose and left her to do the shopping, making for the phone box. Mum seemed pleased to hear from me and straightway asked if Piers had phoned lately.
‘Phoned! He turned up on Thursday, bold as brass!’ I told her what had happened. ‘He left in a huff,’ I finished. ‘I was so mad, the way he got my address!’
‘Mm. Sneaky. Mind, he was always a spoiled child. Maybe you’re well rid of him after all! You’ll be home, next week?’
‘Yes, but I’m not sure when. Is Dad about?’
‘He’s at the bottom of the garden, pricking out lettuces. Take too long to fetch him. I’ll give him your love.’
‘Do that, Mum. Anyway, the card has almost run out! I’ll ring on Wednesday.’
‘Don’t bother. I’ll ring you. Save you going out. Now don’t forget to check the doors and windows at night, and don’t answer the door after dark!’
I put the phone down just as Bill Jarvis walked past to stand at the bus stop, and I smiled at the lady by his side.
‘Now then, Cassie!’ he grinned. ‘How have you been lately? This is our Hilda.’
Hilda held out a hand and said she was pleased to meet me. ‘You’re interested in the Smith lass?’ she said without preamble.
‘Yes, but not in a nosy way,’ I said earnestly. ‘More how it was for people like her in the war. It couldn’t have been very nice, getting thrown out of your home.’
‘A lot about that war wasn’t very nice. Mind, I’ve got to be fair. I found a husband and I wouldn’t have done in the normal course of events. Young men were a bit thin on the ground in Acton Carey before the Air Force came. What do you want to know about Susan Smith?’
‘Nothing in particular – just anything you can tell me, Hilda. What did the RAF do with Deer’s Leap once they’d taken it over? I just can’t believe some man from the Ministry could knock on a door and say the occupants had to get out! There’d be an outcry if it happened now, and protesters everywhere!’
‘Happen so, lass, but when there’s a war on things are a mite different. Weren’t considered patriotic to protest in those days. But it isn’t me you should be talking to about Susan Smith. There were two years’ difference in our ages and that’s a lot when you’re young. Lizzie Frobisher as was would know more about her than me. Those two were close; both of ’em went to Clitheroe Grammar on the school bus every day. They’d be about fourteen when the war started. Lizzie’s dad worked for Mr Ackroyd at the Hall. She married a curate when the war was over.’
‘I see.’ The one person who could tell me about Susan could be anywhere now. ‘Do you know where she went?’
‘Aye. Somerset.’
‘Pity. I’d have liked to talk to her. I still want to see the church, though. Will it be all right if I pop in next Friday?’
‘Feel free. But about Lizzie. Her name’s Taylor now, and –’
‘Look! There’s your bus!’ I cut her short, which was very rude of me but I didn’t have a lot of choice. Jeannie was making towards us and we’d agreed that the Deer’s Leap affair was taboo. Saved by the Skipton bus!
‘What was all that about?’ Jeannie frowned. ‘Been asking questions, have we?’
‘Yes. About the church.’ My gaze didn’t waver. ‘I’m going to look at it on Friday morning – that’s when the ladies clean it.’
‘And why are you interested in the church?’
‘Because anything about Acton Carey interests me.’ I didn’t blush nor feel one bit ashamed. ‘You’re in a very suspicious mood, if you don’t mind me saying so.’
‘No, I don’t.’ She looked up at the church clock. ‘It’s a bit early for a drink. Would you like to hang around and eat at the Rose when it opens? We could have a look at the church while we’re waiting.’
‘No thanks. Best get back.’ I was almost sure she was calling my bluff. ‘We said we’d cut the grass today as soon as it was dry enough, don’t forget.’
‘So we did. I feel like a bit of exercise. We can see this off,’ she held up a bottle of wine, ‘when we’ve finished. As a reward,’ she added solemnly.
Chapter Nine (#ulink_bab4f5d4-9fe1-5490-8835-dc40e0e9d7d4)
On Friday morning I drove into Acton Carey, a last, sentimental journey. I would take a look at the church, then buy Bill a pint, if he was around. Say goodbye. Because since this morning I had a feeling that I would never come back, never see Deer’s Leap again. And maybe it was better that way; better to forget Jack Hunter and that war, and anyway, I decided mutinously as I drove past the clump of oaks, why should I bother my head about a ghost who didn’t have the decency to turn up when he must surely have known I would soon be leaving here. For ever!
I still felt piqued as I parked the car, then made for the war memorial, to stand there, staring fixedly at the name J. J. Hunter, asking silently why he hadn’t been there this morning, wishing I had brought flowers as a kind of goodbye. Flowers from Deer’s Leap garden; a bunch of the red roses that grew up the wall and peeped in at the kitchen window! It was a very old plant with a thick, gnarled stem that could even have been there when Susan slept in the room above the kitchen! Why hadn’t I thought?
‘I’m going home on Sunday,’ I whispered in my mind to the name chiselled there. ‘I’m sorry about what happened to you and Susan and I’m sorry I wasn’t able to help you. But I won’t forget either of you. One day, somehow, I’ll find how it was for you both …’
I blew my nose sniffily, then walked to the grandiose church, built to the memory of a cotton broker from Manchester whom almost everyone had forgotten, blinking my eyes to accustom them to the gloom, inhaling the churchy smell of dampness and musty books and dusty hassocks.
‘Hullo, love! Over here!’
I turned in the direction of the voice.
‘You came then!’ Hilda stood beside the lectern, waving and smiling.
‘I said I would.’
‘Happen you did, but you went off at a right old lick; didn’t give me time to tell you that –’
‘Your bus was coming.’ So too had been Jeannie! ‘I hope you didn’t think me rude.’
‘Nay. All I’d been going to tell you was that Lizzie Frobisher lives in Acton Carey.’
‘She lives where?’
‘At the vicarage. We don’t have a parish priest in the village any longer – all a question of money. Any road, there was a vicarage standing empty, so the Diocese made it into four flats for retired clergy. It was nice that Lizzie was able to come back to the village to live out her time. She’s over yonder, in the green cardigan.’
Here! Dusting pews no more than ten feet away!
‘Susan Smith’s friend?’ I whispered. ‘The one she went to school with?’
‘That’s the lady you should be talking to. Away over, and have a word with her. She’s Lizzie Taylor now.’
‘Did you tell her I was asking?’
‘No. But there’s none better to tell you about Susan.’
‘You don’t mind? I really came to look at the church …’
‘Then ask Lizzie to show it to you!’
Glory be! With only two days to go, I’d found Susan’s long-ago friend!
‘Mrs Taylor?’ I coughed loudly and she spun round, looking at me over the top of her glasses.
‘It is. And who might you be?’
‘I’m Cassandra Johns. I’m staying at Deer’s Leap.’
‘Ah, yes – you’ll want to talk about Susan?’ she said matter-of-factly.
‘I do, actually. But how did you guess?’
‘Ha! The whole village knows. Tell Bill Jarvis and you might as well tell the town crier!’ She pulled down the corners of her mouth and I took in her hand-knitted cardigan, the skirt gone baggy round the hips, the thin hair, permed into corkscrew curls. ‘Why are you interested in Susan Smith?’
‘I – I’m not especially. It’s Deer’s Leap really. I’m a novelist, you see, and I’m interested in anything to do with the place.’
And may you be forgiven, Cassandra Johns, for lying through your teeth in church!
‘Ah. An historical novelist! Then you can’t do better than write about Margaret and Walter Dacre – if you dare! Local folklore has always had it, you see, that those two were the worst of the bunch – the Pendle Witches, I’m talking about – but were never found out!’
‘Margaret Dacre?’ Oh, lordy! Aunt Jane had got it right! ‘The 1592 one?’
‘That’s her! Legend has it she worked spells and heaven knows what else. She got away with it too! I suppose people hereabouts were too afraid to shop her to the witch-hunters.’
‘But how do you know all this? I’ve never come across any reference either to her or to Deer’s Leap.’
‘You wouldn’t. Nothing was put on record; just handed down through the generations, sort of. But Mistress Dacre got her comeuppance, for all that. Seems she wanted to found a dynasty; pass that fine house on to her son, but she never conceived. The Lord’s punishment on her, if you ask me! But what’s got into you? You look quite odd, Miss Johns. Stupid of me talking about witchcraft, and you alone in that house. Let’s go outside for a breath of air? I’ve had enough dusting for one day. Feel like a cigarette?’
‘I – I don’t smoke.’ I followed her in a half-daze.
‘Afraid I do! A habit I picked up in the war, and never managed to kick!’ She settled herself on a bench beside the church porch and dug into her cardigan pocket. ‘But we can’t all be perfect, can we? Sure you don’t want one?’
‘Quite sure, thanks. But I really can’t imagine a witch ever having lived at Deer’s Leap. To me, it’s a beautiful old place. I’ve been alone there for days on end and never picked up one bad vibe – er – funny feeling.’
‘It’s all right.’ She inhaled deeply, eyes closed. ‘Vicars’ wives know what vibes are! Mind, there was often an atmosphere at Deer’s Leap – Mrs Smith’s fault, I reckon.’
