Chapter 11
I’d just come out of the museum and was about to make my way back to The Quicken Tree, wondering how I was going to confess to Melissa that I’d had no success whatsoever. It was a pleasant surprise to see Mia, even though it did make my legs go all shaky and my heart flutter a bit.
‘Been shopping?’ she asked, nodding at the bag I was carrying with the Curiosity Shop logo on it. ‘Did you find anything interesting?’
‘I did, thank you.’ Though not as interesting as I’d hoped, or that Melissa was counting on.
She frowned suddenly. ‘Funny. I thought the Curiosity Shop closed on Wednesday afternoons out of season.’
‘It’s half-term, isn’t it?’ I reminded her.
‘I know it is. That’s why they only close on Wednesday afternoons and Sundays this week. Out of season, a lot of the shops only open at weekends, unless they serve the locals like the bakery and the butcher’s.’ She shrugged. ‘Anyway, are you done sightseeing?’
‘Yes. I was about to go back to the pub,’ I admitted, then wished I hadn’t. Maybe she’d have offered to show me around.
‘How did you find Rowan Vale?’
My throat felt suddenly very tight, and though I tried to answer her I found that my tongue was, for some inexplicable reason, sticking to the roof of my mouth.
‘I – er – I just walked out of the door and there it was,’ I managed in the end, and she laughed while I stood, horrified by my feeble wit and wondering how she hadn’t hurried away from me there and then.
‘I’ve just been in Blighty’s Bakery,’ she told me, referring to the bakery that stood next door but one to the mill, with Mrs Herron’s Teashop sandwiched between them.
‘I’ve bought some of Lawrie’s favourite bread for tea.
I try not to be offended that he prefers the cottage loaves from here to the ones I make.
Oh, sorry, Lawrie is Sir Lawrence Davenport, the previous owner of the Harling Estate, if you didn’t know. ’
‘And he still lives at Harling Hall?’
‘Yes. He’s Brodie’s grandfather, you see. It’s one big happy family up there.’ She smiled and I managed to successfully smile back, even though my legs were trembling and my mind was racing, trying to come up with clever and interesting things I could possibly talk to her about.
‘I’ll walk back with you if you like,’ she said.
‘That – I mean, great.’
What, I wondered, was wrong with me? I’d never had this reaction to anyone before – male or female. She would think I was an idiot. Worse. If she realised the effect she was having on me, she might be horrified and get as far away from me as possible.
‘Thank you again,’ I said. ‘For getting us such a great discount on the cottage, I mean.’
‘No worries.’ She hitched her bag strap higher on her shoulder. ‘Is it okay? Everything to your satisfaction?’
I gave a fleeting look at her red woollen jacket, worn over a short black skirt and thick black tights with black ankle boots and quickly turned away. ‘Absolutely,’ was the best I could manage.
‘Does Honey like it? I know the garden’s not very big but there are dog walks in the grounds of the inn and, of course, there’s plenty of countryside to explore round here.’
‘We’ve just taken her on a walk,’ I said, without thinking. ‘We went as far as Woodstone Manor.’
I felt, rather than saw, her discomfort at that news.
‘You went to the Manor?’
‘Not to it,’ I said quickly, hating myself for lying. ‘Just near it. It seems a shame that no one lives there. It’s quite lovely from what I saw – from a distance.’
‘I suppose,’ she said, ‘that it was an expensive folly. No one’s going to spend money repairing it now.’ She smiled. ‘The bats love it, though.’
We walked steadily along the lane that led from the mill complex to the village green. Mia pointed out the vintage cinema that was down a little cul-de-sac opposite the bakery. It was apparently called The Magic Lantern and showed films from the 1930s to the late 1960s.
‘Do they ever show films starring Harmony Hill?’ I asked, thinking I still hadn’t spotted the Hollywood actress or any other ghost yet, and Melissa would be furious when I got back.
‘Harmony Hill?’ Mia frowned. ‘I’m not sure. Why, are you a fan of hers?’
‘Oh! Well, er, yes. I mean, isn’t everyone?’
She stared at me and I said uncomfortably, ‘Plus I googled her and it says she drowned here, so I thought maybe they showed her films more often as a tribute to her.’
Mia looked surprisingly downcast. ‘She did drown here, yes. In the late 1940s, I believe. Tragic. But no, I don’t think they’d show her films any more than they’d show other actors’.’
‘It must have been a big deal for Rowan Vale at the time, though,’ I persisted.
I didn’t like pumping Mia for information, but I needed something to take back to Melissa.
Besides, it meant I finally had something to talk to Mia about.
If not for that, I’d have been walking in silence, too overawed by her to say a word.
‘A Hollywood star dying here. I expect there was a lot of publicity back in the day.’
‘I expect there was.’
‘I should think that, in a village as old as this one, there have been so many deaths over the centuries. It makes you think, doesn’t it?’
‘Makes you think what?’ she asked.
‘Well… I don’t know really. About life and death, I suppose.
We all move on in the end, don’t we, and our places are taken by other people.
I mean,’ I added as we reached the green and I glanced over at the smiling couple coming out of Jasper Edgecumbe’s studio, ‘all these people going about their business. Yet a hundred years ago it would have been a different bunch of people here, browsing in the shops that were here then, walking by the river, playing games on the green.’
Mia was quiet as we walked and I shut up, thinking I must be boring her to tears. Then, to my horror, she turned to me just as we reached one of the little stone bridges that crossed the water and said, ‘You know, if you want information, you could just ask.’
My eyes widened. ‘I’m sorry?’
‘We understand the game,’ she said with a shrug. ‘Me, Callie, Brodie… We know that Madam Mariska is a fraud and you’re scouting for information to feed to her.’
I was completely taken aback by her statement, but I rallied enough to ask, ‘What makes you think she’s a fraud?’
She was quiet for a moment, then she tossed her hair back from her shoulders and said, ‘Oh, come on! Ghosts! How could she be anything else? And isn’t that why she sent you into the kitchen when you visited the Hall? So you could get the gossip from me? Which you tried to, though not very subtly.’
I gave her an indignant look. ‘I’m sorry?’
‘It’s business, I get it.’ She shook her head slightly.
‘I might not approve of it, but I do understand. You have a living to make, like everyone else. But don’t take us for fools.
Asking me if there were any rumours of ghosts at the Hall, and had anyone ever seen ghosts in the village, and wanting to know about the barrow.
No one’s going to give Mariska that kind of information, but if she sends her little helper out to gather intel… ’
‘I’m not Mariska’s scout!’ I said, embarrassment and shame making my tone harsher than I’d intended.
‘Okay, fair enough. If you say I’m wrong, I’ll believe you.
’ She smiled again, as if trying to defuse the situation.
‘Look, whatever’s going on with you and Madam Mariska – or whatever her real name is – I can see that you’re in a difficult position, what with her being your sister.
Maybe I shouldn’t be doing this, but so long as you don’t say it came from me, I may as well tell you.
There are rumours of another ghost in this village – apart from the Roman soldier I told you about. ’
‘Go on,’ I said dully. I didn’t really want to know but at least I’d have something to tell Melissa. And maybe I’d be able to get a clue as to where I should be looking for these ghosts, because they’d certainly been hiding from me if they did exist in Rowan Vale.
She glanced around, as if checking she couldn’t be overheard.
‘I’ve heard it said,’ she said quietly, ‘that there’s a ghost up at the farm.
Back in the nineteenth century, a labourer called Jacob apparently lost his arm in an accident and bled to death before anyone found him.
They say he wanders the hills and fields, looking for help, blood pouring from his shoulder where his arm used to be. ’
She gulped, as if the whole thing was too dreadful to contemplate.
I couldn’t help but agree that it sounded terrible.
It also sounded highly unlikely. In my experience, spirits looked perfectly well and healthy – ironically – after they’d passed.
I had never seen any traumatic injuries or missing limbs or hideous rashes.
Death, in a peculiar way, seemed to heal them, so I found her story hard to believe.
‘Oh, right,’ I said, trying to sound a bit more appreciative.
‘I don’t really believe in such things myself, but I thought you might be interested in Rowan Vale ghost lore. Something to tell Madam Mariska, anyway, isn’t it?’
She gave me a meaningful look and I turned away, gazing at the bridge. ‘I’d better be getting back,’ I said, nodding towards the inn. ‘Honey will be ready for her tea.’
Mia nodded. ‘Of course. I’d like to meet her some time.’
‘Mm. Well, thanks, Mia. I’ll see you around.’
I didn’t wait for her reply but headed quickly over the bridge towards The Quicken Tree Inn. My eyes stung with tears, and I could feel my face burning with embarrassment.
Mia had been making fun of me. There was no doubt in my mind that she’d made that story up. I’d never heard anything so ludicrous in my life. Was that what she thought I was, then? A joke that she could make fun of?
I’d really liked her, and all the time she was laughing at me. Well, at least I knew where I stood now. My stupid fantasies could be put away once and for all. I should have known better.