Chapter 10 #2
‘He sets a good pace,’ Jenna said. She smiled as the spaniel picked up a tennis ball from the grass, ran back, and dropped it at her feet with an imploring look.
‘Go on, then,’ she said.
She picked up the ball and threw it for Titus, who gave a little squeak of excitement and raced off after it.
‘Nice technique,’ Owen approved.
‘I was in my college cricket team once upon a time,’ Jenna said. ‘Good hand-to-eye co-ordination.’
‘Well, you’ve got a job for life now,’ Owen said as the spaniel retrieved the ball and dropped it back at Jenna’s feet.
‘Titus has an outrageous amount of energy and he never gets bored. He belongs to Hugh and Rachel,’ he added, ‘but they’re away overnight visiting friends who don’t like dogs, so I said I’d have him.
Now I’m living closer to them, I suspect I’ll be doing more dog-sitting.
My grandparents aren’t active enough to take on a dog that needs a lot of walking, though they do have a very adorable elderly dachshund. ’
‘I was just thinking how nice it would be to have a dog,’ Jenna admitted. ‘The countryside around here is fabulous for walking. But I work long hours and my flat’s pretty small, so it wouldn’t be fair. One day, maybe.’
‘I feel the same,’ Owen said. ‘With all the travelling I do, it wouldn’t be practical, but now I’m settled here it’s something to think about for the future.’
‘Are you staying, then?’ Jenna was surprised, remembering him telling Rachel that it was only for a few months.
‘I like it very much here,’ Owen said simply. ‘It’s a great antidote to all the travelling I do so I’ll see how it goes.’
It felt as though he was talking about more than simply the house, and Jenna found herself smiling as they crossed the narrow lane by Dragon Hill and took the steep chalk path up towards the fort. ‘This place has worked its magic on you already, then,’ she said. ‘Whereabouts are you living?’
‘Down in Woolstone village.’ Owen gestured down towards the Vale. ‘It’s ridiculously pretty and has a great pub. My house is a new build but on the footprint of an old farm and incorporating some of the original stonework. I have to say, it’s a spectacular place.’
‘It sounds idyllic,’ Jenna said.
‘It already feels more like home than Winterhill Hall ever did,’ Owen admitted. ‘I hated the way we all rattled around in that place. It was lonely and it never felt like a cosy family home.’
It had done once, Jenna thought, a little wistfully. But those days were long gone.
‘The hall was in your family for a long time, wasn’t it?’ she asked. ‘Was it a wrench for your grandparents to leave? It must have felt like the end of an era.’
Owen shot her a quick glance. She thought he was smiling but it was hard to tell when they were both wrapped up in so many layers of windproof clothing.
‘That’s a very thoughtful question,’ he said. ‘I think they were both sad and relieved to go. It was untenable to carry on running Winterhill as a private house, and at least handing it over to the charity means there’s continuity, albeit in a different way.’
‘A good compromise,’ Jenna agreed. She should get off the topic of Winterhill, she thought.
It was tempting to talk about a place that she knew so well with someone who also knew something of its history but at the same time, it was the most dangerous thing she could do.
Fortunately, they had now reached the bank and ditch of the vast hillfort rearing up ahead of them out of the mist. Titus was deliriously chasing up and down the bank as they scrambled to the top.
Suddenly they were above the mist and the sky was clear, pale and the dark blue of twilight.
The first stars were starting to show. The view opened up directly below them with the pudding basin top of Dragon Hill and the shadowed curve of The Manger falling away beneath their feet with the mist swirling and cutting off the rest of the Vale below.
‘Wow,’ Owen said. He sounded genuinely impressed. ‘Does this happen often?’
‘Cloud inversion,’ Jenna said. ‘Sometimes, when the weather conditions are right. I’ve seen the hill in all kinds of moods and it’s awe-inspiring.’
‘It is,’ Owen agreed. ‘I’m just starting to realise how amazing this place is.’
Jenna found herself drawing in a deep breath as she always did in that spot. ‘It feels as though you’re on the edge of the world,’ she said. ‘I often come up here for a walk after work. It’s a great place to come to clear your head at the end of a long week – or before the new one.’
‘Has work been busy?’ Owen asked. ‘The shop was packed when I came in. You seem very popular.’
‘Yes, it’s been a hectic week,’ Jenna said.
‘Lots of people support the shop, which is brilliant. And this coming week will be busy too. We’ve got some author talks coming up soon and a planning meeting for the Summer Arts Festival, and—’ She fell silent, shivering, remembering that she also had a grave-robbing excursion planned.
Don’t think about it, she told herself, channelling Bree. Soon it will be over and no one will be the wiser…
Owen gave her a curious glance but said nothing. He whistled for Titus and the dog popped up on the edge of the hillside. ‘Come on, bud,’ Owen called to him, ‘time to go back. I think we’ll leave the White Horse for another day – if you don’t mind?’ He turned to Jenna.
Jenna shook her head, teeth chattering. ‘Lead me to a pub with a warm fire,’ she said, following Titus down the path.
It was only a minute before they plunged into the mist again. A couple of walkers loomed out of the greyness, nodded to them and passed by. Silence fell again. It was uncanny.
‘This is so spooky.’ Jenna gave a little shiver as another swirl of mist wrapped about them like a veil. ‘You could easily imagine we’d slipped back several hundred years without knowing or noticing.’
On the way back down the hill, they chatted about random things – their favourite brand of hiking gear, the relative merits of spaniels and Labrador retrievers (Titus looked suitably unimpressed) and the best local wild swimming spots. Owen was easy to talk to, relaxed, comfortable.
‘We used to swim in the River Lynch when we were children,’ Jenna said.
‘It’s a “winterbourne”, a seasonal river that flows for most of the year but runs dry sometimes in the summer.
That happens rather more often than not, these days.
Plus no one would want to swim in it now – it’s full of rubbish. ’
Her memory fled back for a dangerous moment to the river 500 years before. In those days it had been deeper, fuller, overgrown with beauty. Marris and Will had met there once… She suddenly felt fiery hot.
Luckily Owen appeared not to have noticed. He was holding open the gate that led to the field by the car park. Titus scampered ahead of them, sniffing out where the other dogs had been.
‘I remember you saying you grew up on the wrong side of town, if Winterhill could be said to have such a thing,’ Owen was saying. ‘Was that the estate at Downton Lees?’
‘That’s right,’ Jenna admitted. ‘It was a bit rough. We had an end of terrace house in a cul-de-sac. It was pretty cramped with five of us – I’ve got two sisters – and I’d have given a lot for some more space.
There was never anywhere quiet to go to read.
Not that reading was encouraged; it was a soft thing to do and Dad didn’t approve of softness. ’
She shrank a little deeper within her coat. Sometimes it was hard to break away and follow your own path.
‘Where are your parents now?’ Owen asked.
‘Living the high life in Spain on the proceeds of crime,’ Jenna said lightly, then, seeing his raised eyebrows: ‘My dad owned a chain of dodgy garages that seemed to make him a lot of money. I don’t exactly know how and I don’t want to know.
We’re not close at all. But they have a very comfortable expat lifestyle.
’ She laughed. ‘Sorry, Owen, I really meant it when I said I was from the wrong side of the tracks.’
Owen glanced over at her. ‘That’s really not important to me,’ he said softly. ‘You own a bookshop – that in itself makes you the hottest woman I know.’
Jenna looked away hastily before she tripped over her own feet.
Owen called Titus over and put him on his lead as they reached the car park. ‘I’ve booked a table at the White Horse Inn,’ he said. ‘We’re early but we can have a drink first.’
‘That sounds great,’ Jenna said. She pointed to the sole car left in the car park. ‘That’s mine, as you’ve probably guessed. I’m happy to give you both a lift down the hill.’ She looked them over. ‘You should just about fit inside and neither of you are too muddy.’
Owen grinned. ‘Thanks.’ He tucked Titus under his arm and slid into the passenger seat, putting the spaniel down in the footwell.
Jenna started the car and they headed down the hill.
It was fully dark now, the headlights cutting through the mist, the spiky skeletons of the thorn bushes lining the road.
‘It’s weird to think the Swans originally came from over this way before they moved to Winterhill Hall,’ Owen said thoughtfully.
‘I didn’t know that when I chose my new place.
I just thought the name Swan Court was a coincidence.
But Rachel told me last week she’d found some stuff out about the early family history.
Working on the priory project seems to have inspired her. ’
Jenna had a sense, one that was becoming all too familiar lately, that matters were moving under their own volition.
And there was no point in lying about what she knew about Winterhill Hall and its history, even if she was omitting some of the most important aspects of what she knew and how she knew it.
Lying seldom turned out well and she was in enough of a mess as it was.