Chapter 30 Elise
Elise
The picture of Harry with the bird came to life in Elise’s mind as she slept.
She saw the bird take off into the sky from Harry’s head.
David’s hands reaching up as if to stop it.
Lilias waving to it and blowing it a kiss.
A silent dreamworld, black and white like the photograph, apart from the blush on Lilias’s face when she laughed at something Harry said to her.
Lilias was in love with Harry, and he disappeared.
As soon as she woke, Elise remembered Ruth’s words. What had happened to Harry? Had Lilias ever found out, or had she faced the firing squad still not knowing? How sad that would have been. How lonely.
And David. The boy in the photograph. Elise had cried once she’d returned to Marsh House after visiting Ruth.
Poor David, killed by a bomb when he ought to have been safe.
The photograph of him had drawn her here to Marsh House, searching for .
. . what? She still wasn’t sure. And now, knowing how David had died, it somehow made even less sense.
And yet for some reason it still felt right for her to be here.
For whatever reason, she felt connected to the history of this place.
She wanted to help Ruth somehow, to help make her final months more peaceful.
For Ruth must be around the same age as Nonna.
Perhaps a little younger, but not much, and she hadn’t looked well.
Her phoned bleeped on the bedside table. A message from Sam.
Fancy something to eat at the Poacher tonight? Good band on. No worries if you don’t feel like it.
Elise stared down at the message, hesitating before replying. The thought of an evening at the pub with Sam was appealing. But what about what Rachel had said about his unfaithfulness? Was that Rachel just being mean, or was it true? And was it any of Elise’s business, anyway?
It shouldn’t be, not if they were just colleagues.
But they weren’t, were they? They were friends too.
She’d trusted him. Did trust him. Robbie had turned out to be a total shit, but that shouldn’t mean she had to stop trusting her instincts.
And her instincts told her Sam was a good person. A person she could trust.
Friends. No, that wasn’t right either. The truth was, she’d been attracted to Sam from the moment they’d met, even before she’d known about Robbie and Kate. And, if Jasmine was right about the way Sam looked at her, then quite possibly the feeling was mutual.
It probably wasn’t a good idea; she was just out of a long-term relationship, she and Sam needed to work together, her mind was all over the place. And yet . . .
Not giving herself time to overthink it, Elise sent Sam a message accepting his invitation.
He texted straight back. Great. See you later.
When they met later, Sam apologised again. “I’ve been meaning to apologise properly for what happened with Jasmine the other day. I really am sorry you had to deal with all that.”
They were at a table in the bar beyond the one where the band was playing, partly because that bar was packed, but also because the music was so loud they wouldn’t be able to hear each other speak in there.
“It’s okay, Sam, honestly.”
“No, it’s really not. Rachel should never have left Jasmine with you like that.”
“It’s not your fault, though, is it?”
He sighed, shaking his head. “Rachel and I ought never to have got together in the first place. We were so young when we met. Too young to know what we wanted. We’d never have got together if we’d been older.”
Elise thought of the day she’d met Robbie—he’d been so handsome, so charming.
And she’d been so young and inexperienced.
“It’s easy to realise these things with hindsight, isn’t it?
And when you’re that age, you don’t feel young.
You think you know best about everything.
Or at least, I did. My gran tried to persuade me to have a long engagement, but I wasn’t having any of it.
” She thought back, remembering a fraught conversation.
Of accusing her gran of being a wet blanket, or a killjoy.
She couldn’t remember exactly what word she’d used, but she did remember the hurt on her gran’s face.
And yet, bless her, she’d never said I told you so since Elise had told her the news about her and Robbie breaking up.
“I probably overreacted the other day with Jasmine,” she said. “I wasn’t in the best of moods to be honest.”
“That’s hardly surprising, is it? With what you’d just found out.”
“True. Look, let’s not talk about either of them anymore tonight.”
He smiled at her. “Deal.”
The band started up again after their break. Through the crowd, Elise saw a couple get up to dance.
“Is that Esther?”
Sam took a look. “I think it is. That must be Ivo, her husband.”
“They look as if they’re having fun.”
“They do, but I won’t ask you to dance, if you don’t mind. I can’t think of anything very much worse than making an idiot of myself with my substandard dance moves in front of a room full of people.”
Elise laughed. “Me neither.”
“Rachel made me go to classes for four months so our first dance at our wedding would be perfect.”
“And was it?”
“Well, my feet did what they’d been trained to do, but I was frowning so hard trying to remember the steps I didn’t look as if I was enjoying myself in the photos.”
He mimed his intense concentrating face, and Elise laughed again.
“You do look a bit like someone about to have root-canal treatment.”
“Give me the dentist over being in the spotlight on the dance floor any day.”
“Robbie’s family has Scots heritage. My wedding dress had a tartan sash and train, and there was Highland dancing at our reception.”
“Your choice?”
She shook her head. “Oh, no. I pretty much let my mother-in-law take over all the arrangements, I’m ashamed to say. Robbie thought my face was as red as his kilt tartan because I’d drunk lots of champagne, but really it was just wave after wave of humiliation.”
Sam pulled a face. “Rachel was pregnant when we got married. My brother pulled me to one side before the wedding to ask whether I really loved her. He said, ‘Because you don’t have to do this, you know. You don’t have to marry Rachel to be a part of your baby’s life.
’ I didn’t listen to him, of course. Then, a few weeks later, we lost the baby. ”
Elise put out a hand to touch his arm. “I’m so sorry.”
“It wasn’t the best start to a marriage.” He looked at her. Frowned. “I’m sorry, I . . .”
“No, it’s okay. Honestly. But you had Jasmine a few years after that?”
“Yes. It was what Rachel wanted, another child. Only I don’t think motherhood was what she expected it to be. She found it hard. And boring.”
Elise looked into her drink, staying silent. She’d met other women with the same view of parenthood and had never been able to understand it herself. To her, being a mother had been a privilege and a delight.
“Sorry,” Sam said. “Let’s talk about something else. Tell me about your visit to see the lady who used to live at Marsh House. Ruth, is it?”
“That’s right. It was really interesting, actually. I liked her a lot.”
She told him what Ruth had shared with her. “I got a real sense of Lilias as Ruth was speaking.”
“She sounds like an amazing woman.”
“Yes. It sounds silly, but when I got back after speaking to her, I felt Lilias in the house. I spoke to her.”
He didn’t look at her as if she was an idiot the way Robbie would have done. “What did you say to her?”
“I said I thought she was incredibly brave. That I wished we’d been able to meet.”
“She was unimaginably brave.”
“She really was. Especially as she must have been so worried about what had happened to Harry.”
“David’s father?”
She nodded. “Yes. I think they were lovers. I can tell Ruth still frets about it. And . . .”
“What?”
“I don’t know, it’s just a feeling I got when I was with Ruth. I think there’s something else she wants to talk about. Something painful, perhaps.”
“You’ll go to see her again?”
“Definitely, if she’ll let me.”
“Perhaps she’ll tell you whatever it is then.”
“Perhaps.”
Her phone began to ring. “Sorry, I’ll have to take this, it’s my gran.
Gran? Hang on a sec, I’m in a pub. I’ll just take you outside.
” She smiled at Sam and made her way through the groups of people standing with their drinks to reach the exit.
“Right, that’s better, I can hear you now. There’s a local band playing.”
“Well, I won’t keep you long, darling, I just wanted to sound you out about something.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
“Well, it’s Nonna. I happened to mention where you were working, and honestly, it was as if she’d been struck by lightning.
Apparently she knows the place. And as soon as she knew you were there, she decided she wanted to cancel her party and come to visit you instead.
” Gran sighed. “She won’t stop talking about it.
Could you cope with us visiting, d’you think? We’d stay in a hotel, obviously.”
“I can cope if you can, Gran. It’s a long journey for you, though. And I know Nonna’s not a good traveller.”
“I’ve already said all that to her, but she says she’ll get there even if it kills her. Says she needs to come, whatever that means.”
“Just as long as she’s not expecting you to bring a basket of doves with you for a dove release.”
Gran laughed. “She hasn’t mentioned that. Not yet, anyway. There’s still time, I suppose.”
When Elise went back into the pub, having promised to book a hotel as soon as her gran let her have the dates of their visit, she found Esther and her husband sitting at the table with Sam.
“Elise! Hi. I was just saying to Sam, if I can get my computer-geek husband to dance, there’s no excuse for two creatives like you.”
Esther’s husband smiled wryly and stuck his hand out. “Ivo. Nice to meet you, Elise. And, actually, just so you know, when Esther insists on me dancing, I take myself off into a computer-game world in my head. Works wonders, it does.”
Esther gave him an affectionate shove. “You love dancing with me. Don’t deny it.”
“I love that when I agree to it, the nagging stops,” Ivo said with a grin.
“Oh, you,” Esther said, administering another shove, getting to her feet. “Come on, we’ve got to dance to this one. And that means you two, as well.”
Elise and Sam exchanged glances. Laughed. And somehow, before they knew it, they were in the other bar, dancing next to Esther and Ivo.
“How is this happening?” Sam asked, his mouth close to her ear so she could hear him above the music.
“I have no idea,” she shouted back, enjoying the moment, trying and failing to remember the last time she’d danced.
It was late when Sam dropped her back to Marsh House.
“Thanks for coming tonight,” he said.
“Thanks for asking me.”
They looked at each other, and when they both laughed, Elise wasn’t really sure why they were laughing. She just knew it felt good. That for once she didn’t feel guilty to be alive.
They got out of his van, but before Elise could open the garden gate, a bird screeched loudly somewhere nearby, making her jump.
Sam laughed, reaching out to steady her.
“It’s a barn owl in that fir tree over there.”
“That was an owl?”
“It was. Not all owls make a cute twit twoo sound.”
“I didn’t know that.”
He hadn’t let go of her arms. Their faces were close. Suddenly she wanted him to kiss her so badly she was certain it must show on her face.
“Is this okay?” he asked, lips millimetres from hers.
“Yes.”
The owl squawked again as he kissed her, but Elise didn’t pay any attention to it. When Sam finally drew back to look down at her, she was breathless.
“I’ve been wanting to do that for the longest time,” he said, hands cupping her face, thumbs caressing her cheekbones.
She reached up to cover his hands with hers. “And I’ve wanted you to. So has the house—or Lilias. It or she has been signalling their approval of us getting together, I’m sure of it.”
He smiled. “Our ghost is a matchmaker?”
“I think so, yes.”
“I like that.” He studied her face for a while. “And yet . . . I sense you have some questions. Something Rachel said to you, maybe?”
She sighed. “It’s really none of my business.”
“What if I want it to be your business? Ask me anything you like, Elise.”
“Okay. Well, Rachel said . . . she said you were unfaithful to her during your marriage.”
Sam sighed. “I had a friendship with a woman—someone I’d known for years. Lisa. Rachel was never happy with it, but when Lisa had some stuff going on in her life and I started spending more time with her, Rachel got paranoid about it.”
“That’s it?”
“I swear. It’s never been like that between me and Lisa. I’m ashamed that I let Rachel’s reaction make me see her less. Lisa didn’t deserve that.”
“If she knew Rachel, she probably understood.”
“Maybe. But she was probably still disappointed in me. I’d make it up to her, but she’s moved away now.”
Elise pressed her face against his chest. “I’m sorry I spoiled the mood.”
He kissed the top of her head. “There’s plenty of time for magic. I’m not going anywhere.”
She would be, though—back to London once this job was finished. Although she supposed now she didn’t have to if she didn’t want to.
“How about we take things one step at a time. See where we get to?”
“Okay.”
“Right. Come on, I’ll walk you to the door.”
He kissed her again at the doorstep, then smiled down at her. “Can you tell whether Lilias still approves?”
“Not yet. But I’m sure she will.”
“Good. Night, Elise. Sleep well.”
“Good night, Sam.”
She watched him make his way back along the overgrown path to the gate. Lifted a hand to wave at him, then went inside.
“Well?” she said to the house after Lulu had greeted her rapturously. “Am I right? Was that what you wanted?”
But the only sound was the owl, still screeching for its mate from the top of the fir tree.