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‘Why? Wasn’t she happy there? Was it too isolated for her?’
‘I don’t think so. She just kept herself to herself. Not like in the village. No one locked their doors in those days. People just walked in without waiting to be asked. Mind, Susan’s father was a decent chap, though they weren’t much missed when they left.’
‘Then can you tell me,’ I whispered, ‘where they went when the Air Ministry took the house off them?’ My mouth was suddenly dry and my tongue made little clicking sounds as I spoke. ‘You and Susan would keep in touch?’
‘Well, that’s just it! It was as if they’d done a moonlight! One day they were there; the next day not a sign of them, and the place deserted. I know because I had arranged to meet Susan and she didn’t turn up. I went to Deer’s Leap looking for her because it was – well – rather urgent.’
‘And they’d vanished? All the livestock gone?’
‘Everything! I was hurt when Susan never wrote; not one line to tell me her new address, and she and I so close! I wonder to this day why she never got in touch. It was the talk of the village at the time; a nine-day wonder. No end of speculation, but no one ever found out. Susan never came back after the war. I’d have thought she’d have brought flowers or a poppy wreath to the memorial. It was as if Jack Hunter had never existed for her.’
‘Jack was her boyfriend,’ I said softly.
‘He was her whole life! They were so in love; right from the night they met. Mind, it wasn’t easy for them to meet, the way things were. It wasn’t on, going out with an airman, so I did all I could – gave Susan an alibi, sometimes …’
‘And the other times?’
‘She’d slip out of the house. When it was winter and dark before teatime, it was easier for her. He’d walk all that way, just to have a few minutes with her at the gate, then afterwards, in the barn.’
‘Was the aerodrome far away?’
‘About two miles from here. It was nearer to Deer’s Leap, actually, than to the village. That’s why the RAF took Mr Smith’s fields when they wanted to extend.’
I looked at the ash on her cigarette end. It clung there, more than an inch long and I waited, fascinated, for it to drop, thinking how steady her hand must be.
‘My mother said that in those days, girls didn’t have the freedom my generation has. I can’t understand it.’
‘I can! A girl obeyed her parents until she was twenty-one. That was when young people came of age in my day. Do you know, there were boys of twenty flying those huge planes. Old enough to drop a bomb-load on Germany and kill God knows how many, but not old enough to marry without permission! It was mad!’
‘What would have happened if Susan’s mother had found she was meeting an airman?’
‘She did know eventually. There was ructions!’
‘But couldn’t they have met sometimes when Susan left work? Didn’t she ever think to say she was working over-time?’
‘She never had a job; leastways only at home. She helped in the house and on the farm. Farming was work of national importance; so important it kept you out of the Armed Forces! Susan would have liked to join up, but it wouldn’t have been any use her trying. I felt sorry for her. It must have been awful, once she left school, with no one her own age to talk to for days on end.’
‘I’m surprised she ever got to meet her young man!’
‘She wouldn’t have, in the normal course of events, but there was something on in the village, I remember, to do with the church, and she stayed the night at our house. My mother had to practically beg permission. Susan’s mother said she couldn’t go, them not being Church of England, but Mr Smith said she could. He was a quiet man really, and hadn’t a lot to say for himself, but if ever he put his foot down, his wife didn’t argue! You’d have thought it was a bacchanalian romp, and it was only a beetle drive in the parish hall in aid of the church choir!’
‘They met at a beetle drive?’
‘No. They bumped into each other – literally – in the village in the blackout. People bumped into just about everything, come to think of it. Lampposts especially were the very devil. You could get a nasty bang from one of those, apart from breaking your glasses, if you wore them!
‘Anyway, this airman was full of apologies and insisted on walking us to the transport. The transport, I ask you! He thought we were going to the sergeants’ mess dance at the aerodrome! The RAF had a dance there every week, and they always sent a lorry round the villages, collecting girls. Lady partners were a bit thin on the ground, you see. Folk around these parts called it the love bus.
‘Of course, respectable girls weren’t allowed to go. No knowing the trouble they might get themselves into! Chance would’ve been a fine thing! I don’t know what got into the pair of us that night because we followed the airman and he helped us onto the transport. We were the only two from Acton Carey!’
‘And that’s where it all started – at a forbidden dance?’
‘That’s where. In a Nissen hut, actually. Not in the least romantic, but it was love at first sight for those two. I suppose you’d call it physical attraction nowadays!’
‘That was very daring of you,’ I teased. ‘I suppose you let him walk you both home!’
‘You bet we did! The blackout did have its uses, you know, and we both reckoned we might as well be hanged for sheep. I lived in one of the lodges at the Hall then, so it was a fair walk. We didn’t wait for the love bus because we had to be back before the beetle drive finished. Jack’s tail-end Charlie escorted me. Mick, his name was. Lovely dancer …’
‘Tail-end what?’
‘Charlie. There were two gunners to each bomber: one amidships, sort of, and another in the tail. Susan and I got to know them all. Mick and I started seeing each other, but we were more dancing partners than anything else. Not like Jack and Susan. Those two were smitten right from the start. He was gorgeous. Tall, fair-haired. Susan was fair too. A golden couple. I’d look at them together and think it was too good to last, and I was right!
‘But here’s me rabbiting on, and you wanting to look at the church!’ She ground her cigarette end into the grass, then brushed a hand across her skirt. ‘I’ll show you round if you’d like. We’d better get a move on. They’ll be finishing soon, and the church has to be locked. When I was young, churches were never locked and the altar silver out for all to see. Thieves left churches alone in those days …’
‘If there isn’t a lot of time left, then I’d rather see the original part of the building.’ I felt less breathless now. ‘It’s ages old, I believe.’
‘Built in the thirteenth century, when few could read or write but who believed implicitly in heaven and hell and eternal damnation! It’s the Lady Chapel now and so simple it’s beautiful. When it was built, so small a church wouldn’t have had pews and the faithful would have stood right through the service – all except the Lord of the Manor and his family, who’d have had special chairs. But let me show you …’
I didn’t go to the Red Rose when I left the church. My head was too full of Susan and Jack, and besides, Beth and Danny would be home the following day and I wanted to clean the house before I went to meet Jeannie’s train.
My word processor was already packed in its carrying box; no more Firedance until Monday; no more working at the kitchen table with Hector beside me and Tommy curled up in the armchair! Sadness took me just to think of leaving, so I thought instead of Mum and Dad and how pleased they would be to have me home again.
But it was difficult not to think of Susan and Jack and how glad I was to have found a lead in the very nick of time. I’d tried not to appear too interested for fear of arousing suspicion, because far too many people think that anything said to a novelist would appear, completely unashamed and unabridged, in her next book! I’d felt just a little guilty, especially when Mrs Taylor said, on parting, that I had only to write to her or phone if there was anything I wanted to know about the history of the area or about the war. I had her address and phone number in my purse, though at the back of my mind I knew it would be a long time before I would be in touch. Firedance must first be completed, and a lot could happen in the space of three and a bit novels – even supposing Harrier Books gave me that contract!
I was snipping red roses when the phone rang, and I ran to answer it.
‘Cassie! I’m at King’s Cross. Is the minicab available – same time?’
‘It is.’
‘Beth rang. Said they were taking it easy and would be home late on Saturday night about eight – give or take the odd traffic jam!’
‘She rang me too!’
‘Fine! See you, then!’
‘That was Jeannie,’ I said to Hector, who always came to investigate when the phone rang – just in case, I supposed, there was a man on the other end of it! ‘I’m going home soon. Are you going to miss me?’
He whined softly and looked at the biscuit tin, which was his way of telling me he would, and the custard creams too, and I felt a sudden ache inside me to think that soon he too would be leaving Deer’s Leap. Poor Hector, poor Cassie, poor Jack and Suzie!
‘Life’s a bitch,’ I said out loud. ‘And then you die!’
Even when you were hardly into manhood, I thought soberly, and you didn’t want to die and your girl didn’t want you to either!
Then I thought about Piers, whom I hadn’t really loved at all, and promptly burst into tears at the unfairness of it.
On the way back from Preston station, I slowed automatically as we neared the clump of oak trees and Jeannie slid me a warning glance
‘You’re at it again, Cassie! You’re still on the lookout for him! I thought you’d decided to let it drop.’
‘Yes, I had.’ I put my foot down, because there wasn’t a single vibe to be felt. ‘And I really meant it at the time, but something happened this morning.’
I told her about going to the church – hand-on-heart only to look at it! – and how I’d met Mrs Taylor who once was Susan’s closest friend, and there in Acton Carey all the time!
‘What do you mean – living in the village all along? Then why didn’t Bill Jarvis mention it? He knew we – you – were interested.’
‘Maybe it slipped his memory. It all happened a long time ago, and he was older than Susan, didn’t he say, and away in the army for a lot of the war. That could be why he wouldn’t know about the Smiths’ mysterious departure – without a goodbye to anyone. It was a shock to Lizzie. Even she hadn’t known when they were going.’
I told her all I’d learned, and said surely Bill would have told us about something that caused such a stir at the time, if he’d known about it.
‘Maybe he did. Maybe,’ she said over her shoulder as she got out of the car to open the white gate, ‘he was rationing his knowledge – with the beer in mind!’
She brought the matter up again, which surprised me, as soon as we were sitting at the kitchen table, a pot of coffee between us.
‘Why, all of a sudden, are you interested in Susan Smith, and the pilot?’ I asked her. ‘It’s not all that long ago you warned me off, Jeannie.’
‘We-e-ll, things have changed a bit since then. I mentioned the Deer’s Leap books at work. They showed quite an interest. Maybe they’ll ask you to come to London to talk about them when Firedance is finished. How’s it going, by the way?’
‘Fine. I’ll meet the deadline with no problem. And there’s something I forgot. Local folklore has it that Walter and Margaret Dacre were up to their necks in witchcraft!’
‘You mean W. D. & M. D. – the couple who built the house?’
‘You got it in one! There’s no record of it – and there wouldn’t be since they were never accused and tried – but Mrs Taylor said M. D. was a witch! Mind, things get added to and embroidered in the telling, but I always thought of Margaret Dacre as a happy contented wife with a lot of children. I even imagined them adding rooms as their family grew, but I was wrong. According to Mrs Taylor, the Dacres never had children. That can of maggots you warned me about might go a long way back!’
‘Cassie! It gets better and better!’
‘Yes, and it’s only just hit me! What if Margaret Dacre put a curse on Deer’s Leap?’
‘But why on earth should she?’
‘Well, for one thing she could well have been a witch, so ill-wishing would be second nature to her; and never to have given her husband an heir must have upset her a lot. Imagine building that lovely house for future generations to live in, and no son to inherit it! Maybe the curse was eternal and still applies – if there was a curse, I mean. Susan and Jack didn’t have children, that much we do know.’
‘Susan and Jack didn’t get as far as the altar, but what a theme to run through the books! Every couple who lived at Deer’s Leap to be childless! Mind, you’d have to lift the curse eventually – maybe in the final book, Cassie. Y’know, I really do believe we’re on to something!’
She was pink-cheeked with excitement which made me feel a bit of a meanie when I reminded her that Susan Smith was the daughter of the house, and Danny and Beth had two children.
‘Yes, but they were born in Edinburgh. They came here when they were toddlers! You’ll have to think of something for your novels, though, Cas. Can you?’
‘You know I can!’ Now I was excited too. ‘I’d have to do a fair bit of historical research, though. And had you thought – even World War Two is history now.’
‘I’ll grant you that, but Mrs Taylor is still around and didn’t she say you could get in touch with her?’
‘Oh, Jeannie. If only I could find Susan! She’s around too, I’m as certain as I can be.’
‘What you want, I think –’ Jeannie was an editor again, all else forgotten – ‘is a situation in the last of the books whereby the curse is lifted.’
‘Easy! My star-crossed lovers will have a happy-ever-after ending and live at Deer’s Leap, and have children too.’
‘Only the house won’t be called Deer’s Leap …’
‘Think I’m stupid? Of course it won’t.’ It would mean spending time around Acton Carey and maybe calling back the ghost of a pilot, but what the heck! ‘This morning I’d accepted I would never return to Deer’s Leap; never see it again after Sunday. I even went to the war memorial to say goodbye to Jack Hunter! Then in the next breath, almost, I meet Lizzie Taylor. Seems Deer’s Leap isn’t going to let me go, Jeannie!’
‘And will that worry you?’
‘Of course not.’ Bet your life it wouldn’t, because hadn’t that old house just handed me the plots of at least four novels; handed them on a plate because it was determined to keep its hold over me! ‘In fact, the only awful thing about it is that I’ll have all sorts of excuses for coming back here, and it mightn’t go down too well. Because by the time I’m ready to start writing those books, Jeannie, someone else will be living in Deer’s Leap, and I won’t like that one bit!’
Come to think of it, Margaret Dacre mightn’t like it either!
The lucky Cornish pixie Elspeth and Hamish hung in the rear window of my car swung from side to side as I reversed out of the white gate and onto the dust road. Beth and Danny stood waving, Tommy beside them, and Hector gazed at me mournfully.
‘I have never,’ I said to Jeannie, ‘seen a dog who could look so sad, yet wag his tail at the same time, the old fraud!’
‘You’re going to miss him, aren’t you?’
‘I am.’ And the snooty Lotus, who hadn’t condescended to see me off, and the view from the kitchen window and, oh just everything! I felt very choked up still at having to hand over Deer’s Leap, and I told Beth and Danny as we hugged a goodbye that I wasn’t turning to look back – not even for one last glance – because it’s unlucky and there’s a limit to what I can bear without bursting into tears.
So instead I wound down the window, and stuck out my arm in one last wave. Goodbye, Deer’s Leap and the animals and the garden and the kissing gate. And especially goodbye to Jack Hunter, who would still be waiting there for his Suzie for all time.
‘So!’ I let out my breath in a noisy huff. ‘That’s it!’
‘You sound quite full up, Cassie.’
‘I am.’ So full up that I wished I had never accepted an invitation to that fancy dress party, nor ever seen Deer’s Leap nor got myself involved with long-ago lovers. ‘Never mind. I’ll just chalk it up to experience, Jeannie; grist to the mill.’
‘You won’t, you know! I mean, how do you know that Margaret Dacre hasn’t put her mark on you? Hadn’t you thought she might really want a child to be born in that house!’
‘But children will have been born there! Dammit, it’s against the law of averages for a house to stand more than four hundred years and never have a baby born in it!’
‘How do you know, Cassie? Didn’t we agree that’s how the plots of the Deer’s Leap books will be: a house cursed never to know children!’
‘But that’s fiction we’re talking about! And anyway, we don’t know that Margaret Dacre was a witch. It’s only local tittle-tattle!’
‘Interesting, for all that and Cassie!’ She grabbed the wheel. ‘For God’s sake, watch it!’
‘Look!’ I slammed into reverse gear, bumping over the grassy edges of the road. ‘He’s there! Look! Behind you!’
The car went into a skid and I pulled hard out of it, all the time watching the man who stood at the side of the road, willing him, imploring him not to go!
I turned the car, throwing up gravel and dust. Out of the corner of my eye I’d seen him on the other side of the road as I drove past. He was still there, looking straight ahead, not one bit bothered by screeching brakes and a car almost out of control.
‘Look at him, Jeannie! Now tell me he isn’t real!’ I inched forward, my heart thudding in my ears. ‘And don’t say a word! Leave it to me!’ I stopped the car, my eyes not leaving him for a second. What could I say to him? ‘Hullo and goodbye’?
Jeannie had her hands over her eyes as if my performance had unnerved her. Or was it because she didn’t want to look at the airman?
‘Jeannie – please?’ Slowly, carefully I opened the door, got out, then quietly closed it. Jeannie took her hands from her face and stared at me, bewildered.
‘There’s no one here, Cas, but you and me …’ Her face was very white and she ran her tongue round her lips, turning slowly in her seat to look behind her. ‘No one at all!’
‘Jack,’ I said softly, so he would look at me. ‘Want a lift? Deer’s Leap, is it?’
