Chapter Eleven
When Eloise rolled over and looked at the luminous green face of the little travel clock, she huffed with exasperation: The time was one-twenty-four, and she knew with dismay that she wouldn’t be going back to sleep anytime soon, because her mind was whirling with thoughts of Bart.
When she’d gazed into his eyes, the notes fading, she’d thought—
Gah! Coming to Honeycombe had been a mistake.
That’s what comes of being spontaneous, she thought as she shuffled into the bathroom. She’d become far too attracted to a man who not only lived some considerable distance from her, but who still grieved for his wife.
How could she have been so foolish?
Maybe she should seriously consider returning home?
However, making a decision in the middle of the night was never wise. She’d try to go back to sleep and see how she felt in the morning.
It was while Eloise was rinsing her hands in the bathroom that she realised something wasn’t quite right.
Unlike busy Northampton, where streetlights abounded and the noise of traffic never completely went away, the nights at Sea View Guest House were dark and quiet. But the night beyond the frosted bathroom window was lighter than it should be, with a pale-yellow tinge to it.
Padding to the bedroom window, she twitched aside one of the drapes.
It was snowing!
The solitary streetlamp beyond the guest house’s driveway wore a golden halo of falling snow, and a blanket of white covered the ground.
Fat flakes spiralled gently down out of a laden sky, settling silently on their fluffy brethren, and the scene stole her breath.
For one magical, memory-defying moment she was a child again, four, maybe five years old, hoisted on her mother’s hip, safe and warm in her arms as she watched snowflakes falling in the darkness.
The memory was fleeting, sinking into the depths of her mind before she could properly grasp it.
Eloise let the curtain fall and crept back to bed, snuggling under the warm covers, her heart heavy with the weight of a childhood long gone and barely remembered. It was the other half of her childhood—the after, not the before—that dominated her memories and was considerably less pleasant.
Although fearing she was too awake and would spend the rest of the night tossing and turning, she must have drifted off, because sometime later she stirred, rising from the depths of sleep to the fluctuating wail of a siren and flashing blue lights.
Grumbling incoherently, she turned over and burrowed deeper under the duvet, wondering which of her elderly neighbours the ambulance might be for; then jerked awake with a start.
This wasn’t her bed, nor was it her house.
She wasn’t in bustling Northampton, and the ambulance was on the road right outside the guest house.
Throwing the duvet aside, Eloise scrambled out of bed, hurried to the window and let out a cry of shock. The ambulance wasn’t an ambulance—it was a fire engine. There were two of them in fact, and through the still-falling snow she could see more headlights and shadowy figures.
The siren cut out abruptly, but the blue lights continued to flash, bathing the scene in a surreal glow.
Eloise dithered. It felt ghoulish to watch, yet what could she do? Should she offer to help? But what help could she possibly give? Tea. She could make tea. Even as she thought it, she realised how silly it was. Those firefighters had more urgent things on their minds than drinking tea.
Was Bart awake? Was Mitch?
She couldn’t just stand here, rubbernecking; there must be something she could do.
Eloise glanced at the clock. Four-forty.
There was no chance of going back to sleep, even if this—whatever it was—ended now.
Anxious and agitated, she closed the curtains and switched on one of the bedside lamps.
She’d get dressed, then see what was going on.
And if she could do anything to help, she would.
But before that, she needed to wake Bart.
“Bart?” The voice was distant, ethereal, invading his dream. Not yet awake, he shrugged it off.
“Bart!”
It came again, a woman’s voice, insistent.
“Bart! Wake up!”
“Eloise?” He came awake with the sudden certainty that something was very wrong.
Blinking, he fumbled for the light switch, knocking the lamp over in his confusion. Why would Eloise be yelling for him in the middle of the night?
He righted it, turned on the light, then almost fell out of bed as he reached for his dressing gown. Shrugging it on, he shoved his feet into his slippers and opened the bedroom door. The stairs light was on, and Eloise was standing at the bottom of them, fully dressed.
“Thank goodness you’re awake,” she called.
“Are you ill?” he asked, peering down at her.
“There are two fire engines outside.”
He staggered down the stairs, holding on to the handrail. “Fire engines?”
She said, “I’m sorry to wake you, but I thought you’d want to know that one of your neighbours might be in trouble.”
“Yes, thanks.” He nodded. “Let me put my coat on and some shoes. I can’t go out in my slippers.” He noticed she already had her boots on and a coat over her arm. “How bad is it, do you know?” he asked as he put on his shoes, the leather cold against his sockless feet.
“I’ve no idea, but it must be bad for there to be two of them.”
Bart pressed his lips together. “It doesn’t sound good,” he agreed grimly.
Mitch appeared on the stairs, rubbing his eyes. He was bare-chested, wearing only a pair of boxer shorts. “What’s going on?”
“There are fire engines on the road,” Bart told him.
“Seriously? Shit, I hope nobody’s hurt.”
“So do we.” That was from Eloise. She was shrugging on her coat impatiently.
“I’m coming with you.” Mitch turned around and headed back up the stairs, taking them two at a time.
“We’ll go on ahead,” Bart called, unlocking the front door. When he stepped outside, his feet sank into a couple of inches of pristine snow. “It’s the Pattersons’ house,” he said, taking everything in with a glance, his heart in his mouth.
“The Pattersons?” Eloise was right behind him.
“They retired a while back. I think they’re travelling the world in a camper van.” He was searching the onlookers, trying to sift out the uniformed ones from the road’s residents.
“Do they have a daughter?” Eloise grabbed hold of his arm.
“Who? The Pattersons? No, they don’t have any children.
Why?” He still couldn’t see them, but that didn’t signify anything.
They may well not have returned from their travels yet, or if they had, someone might have taken them in.
That there wasn’t an ambulance on the scene was a good sign, he thought.
Eloise said, “I’ve seen a young woman and her little boy going into the house.”
Bart glanced at her. “Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“The Pattersons must have rented it out,” he mused. “They may even have sold it.” It dismayed him to realise how out of touch with his neighbours he’d become.
Mitch appeared at his side, and the three of them ventured onto the road.
They were quickly spotted. “Stay back,” a firefighter instructed, hastening towards them.
“Is anyone hurt?” Bart asked as the man spread out his arms, corralling them.
“Not as far as we know. We believe everyone is out of the building, and we’ve evacuated the one next door to be on the safe side. But there’s no danger to your property.”
“That’s a relief.” Bart looked past the man, noting the hoses, the firefighters, the windows of the house blackened by smoke, the open front door, and people in nightclothes with coats over the top.
He couldn’t make out Audrey, who lived next door to the damaged house and who would also have been evacuated; but then again, it was dark, despite the flashing lights and torch beams. And the snow continued to fall.
“Do you know how it started?” Mitch asked.
“Not at this stage. I suggest you go back inside.” The man turned away, and Bart hesitated.
He said to Eloise, “You’d better go, before you catch your death.” Droplets of melted snow glistened in her hair and on the shoulders of her coat. His feet were already numb with cold, although the rest of him wasn’t too bad.
Eloise remained where she was. Her gaze was locked onto the Pattersons’ house. “I can’t see her.” She was on tiptoe, craning her neck. “Oh, wait, there she is.” She moved closer to Bart, and her shoulder pressed against his as she pointed. “Thank goodness she’s okay, and the little one too.”
The young woman didn’t look okay to Bart, and neither did the child in her arms. The boy’s eyes were huge and the woman’s face was paler than the snow beneath her feet. Bart guessed she must be in shock. But he knew what Eloise meant. They were uninjured, and that was the main thing.
The firefighters were wrapping up, climbing into one of the machines, and it slowly drove off, leaving the other behind to mop up.
The onlookers began to disperse. Now that the drama was over, the cold was starting to get to everyone, and Bart saw Eloise shiver.
“I think a nice cup of tea is called for,” he said, placing a hand on her back to steer her inside. Unsure whether she’d fully recovered from her cold, he didn’t want to risk her having a relapse.
Eloise stiffened at his touch, and he feared she was going to protest, but she nodded. “Coming, Mitch?”
“I’ll be there in a minute,” Mitch said. His attention was on the young woman. She was hugging the child to her and sobbing.
Bart hesitated. Should he get involved? Ask whether she was all right? It would be a stupid question, when she so obviously wasn’t, but he felt he should do something, even if it was only to offer some words of sympathy.
As he wavered, he heard Audrey say, “It’s a very comfy sofa and I’m sure I can make a nest for the little one on the floor. I’ve got some spare cushions.”
Bart’s mouth fell open as the realisation hit, and he and Mitch exchanged glances. Mitch nodded; he clearly felt the same way.
“What’s going on?” Bart asked, walking towards Audrey.