“A little remains,” she replied, “But I’ve run out of that watery pap you call ‘milk’, so you shall need to provide another vessel of the stuff –although it looks and tastes like no milk that I recall. …Oh, and I wouldn’t suppose you have any more of those tiny marshmallows? I ate the last of mine yesterday. I rather like the pink ones,” She paused. Again there was the hint of a smile tugging at her full lips... “I fear I may be developing something of a sweet tooth.” Then, with a note of ire in her lovely voice … “But don’t mention coffee to me. Ever!” she said emphatically. “...I detest the stuff -I’ve had more than enough of it, of late, to last me an aeon.” She had banished the Coffea plants to the farthest edge of the woods, not willing to bring herself to kill them, but not unhappy that they languished in the cold.
He had no idea what she was on about but he smiled at her passionate expression over something as banal as a cup of coffee, “I have run out of marshmallows as well ...but I expect we’ll manage. As an alternative for your sweet tooth, I still have one packet of mint chocolate biscuits in the pantry that you may like to try instead.”
“Hmmpf,” she sounded a little sheepish. “Don’t be so sure.” ...from behind her back she produced the aforementioned biscuits, handing them back to Hamish. Laughing openly now, he accepted the packet, retrieved the drink mix from the shelf in her bower then held the door open for her to leave and followed after. He put out a hand to steady her on the steps, but she shrugged off his assistance, gracefully descending the steep steps. They walked to the house, scrunching along the gravelled pathway in silence, not particularly companionably, but at least, he thought, together. As they walked side by side between the clipped hedges Hamish noted that she seemed taller than he remembered from their last meeting , …but then, he had only seen her so far collapsed in his arms or prone, in bed.
Once inside, he put a match to the sitting room fire, glad that he’d set it before venturing outside, and went into the kitchen to make their drinks, throwing milk into the microwave to get it to heat as quickly as possible, concerned that she might change her mind again and disappear, literally –How had she done that?, before his return. He set the drinks and biscuits on a tray, along with a bunch of bright jonquils and snowdrops that she must have left behind when she had taken the biscuits, and returned to the sitting room. As he came through the door he let out a sigh of relief ...she was still there ...so far, so good.
He put the tray down on the small table between them, handed her a steaming mug full of the rich velvety hot chocolate and sat down opposite her. He had grated white chocolate on the surface of the drinks in lieu of the marshmallows but she appeared to not notice. She sat there, both hands around the warm mug, with her feet curled up under her body, staring fixedly down at the patterned rug that lay between the sofas. Even as he observed her, she gave the impression that she was shrinking away from him and withdrawing further into herself and he sensed he would have to say something soon that would draw her out, or he would risk losing her again. That was all very well, he thought, but it suddenly seemed much harder to say out loud what he had rehearsed in his mind on the walk back from the dovecote. As he had earlier, he decided, sticking to the truth seemed best. Whatever he said was fraught with the risk that she might take it badly and vanish again ...this time for good. He knew that he didn’t want that to happen.
Before he had a chance to overthink things he jumped in feet first, blurting, “I found some old diaries hidden in a compartment in the bed upstairs.” That certainly got her attention. Her head came up and she regarded him guardedly, remaining silent. He continued, “…They appear to have been written by Karl Van Eeden, Jean-Marc de Joux, Nicholas Scott and Jeremy Shaw. I read Shaw’s, ...I realise now that I was probably prying into things that were no business of mine, but I had an idea about who you might be and it seemed an ideal way to find out if my theory was truth or fiction.”
“And what decision did you arrive at?” She did not sound at all pleased. “Am I now ...truth or fiction?” she questioned, eyes flashing with something close to contempt.
He ignored the demand for the moment, continuing... “Then, when Isabella Kendal rang this morning ...as it turns out, she could have enlightened me about what I was trying to confirm without my having to read Shaw’s diary.”
“Ah, Isabella ...so she is still alive?” Liana did not appear particularly thrilled with this news. “I never met her face to face and yet she disliked me so ...she was Jon’s only sister and they were very close. I think she would have resented any woman ‘taking away’ her little brother, and when he told her about me, well ...he never said as much, but I knew from what he didn’t say,...you know how it is?” He nodded, and she went on, “So, now you think you know the ‘truth’ about me presumably? But you had already found the church records ...Were they not truth enough for you?”
“The records only suggested that you may have been here for a very long time ...nothing more or less than that,” he said. “I have to admit, it piqued my curiosity, and I felt I wanted to know more about you, and who you were. It was hard to believe that you were real, despite what I was seeing, and hearing, from people like Arthur Blaine.”
“Who I am?” she sat up straight and pulled her legs from under her body “...And would ‘defining’ me make me more …or less, real?” Her unhappiness at his comment was so apparent that he could tell she was going to get up and leave soon if he didn’t steer this conversation onto safer ground. She was talking as much to herself now, as to him ... “Hmmm …Arthur Blaine ...I remember him and his father in the Garden …he was just a little boy...I frightened him once. I didn’t mean to …and he ran away, scared....”
Hamish tried a new approach... “O.K., I’m sorry, I’m not putting this well and I seem to be tripping over my own big feet here …but even before I found the diaries, I had an idea of who you were and that this place was really more yours than mine. I wanted to find you to suggest that you either live here in the cottage and I …leave” this was not his favoured plan but he felt honour-bound to suggest it as an option, “or, if you didn’t like that idea that you might prefer to make the summer house yours, ...Look,” he leaned forward, anxious that she should not take what he said the wrong way, “you made it fairly clear by leaving that you didn’t want to stay in the main house with me and I thought perhaps that the summer house would be a good alternative if it was fixed up with kitchen and bathroom facilities. As far as I’m concerned White Briars is yours anyway...so I’m possibly only offering you what is rightfully your own to take?” At least, now, she was looking at him again. Even if her face had darkened with annoyance.
“White Briars, as you call it...belongs to no one,” she stated with some force. “Including you or me. Any role that you might have here would be purely custodial ...for the duration of your mortal life, that is. Which …in my considerable experience is not terribly long.”
“I’ve been told as much as that already...about the ownership of the house, that is, not about how long I might or might not live. But it would look odd, wouldn’t it, to have a patch of jolly olde England not owned by anyone at all? There has to be someone’s name on the title documents, or people might start asking questions.” She didn’t reply. He could see her closing him out again. Exasperated, he declared, “Could you help me out a little please ...this is unknown territory for me, ...and I’m not accustomed to dealing with,...um,” he was at a loss to describe her, “ ...a person like yourself.”
“A person like me ...and what exactly is ‘a person like me?’,”....she wasn’t trying to help at all, ...that much was patently obvious,...but she was talking, and he figured that was better than nothing.
But he could see that this was going down a dead-end street. “We’re not going to get anywhere if you continually look for mistakes in what I’m saying ...because they won’t be hard to find,” he admitted. “I may not know a great deal about you, but I do know something of what it feels like, to be in that da
rk place that I believe you’re in at the moment. I can only imagine what it would feel like to have that compounded; I don’t know how many times over ...it must be terrible. I’m no psychoanalyst ... I don’t the exact right words to say.” He was growing impatient at her belligerent attitude. “Would it kill you to be a little more helpful?” As soon as the words were out of his mouth he was wishing them back.
“Kill me?” she gave a short derisive laugh, “If only you knew...”
“What?” he replied, raising his eyebrows quizzically. “That you wanted to harm yourself? But I do know ...I’ve considered taking that road myself, and if nothing else, it helps me recognise it in others.” He was surgeon-like in his honesty this time, cutting straight to the truth. “Why did you think I was so determined to find you?”
“You have no understanding of what my existence has been like.” Her latent anger that had been quietly simmering away rose swiftly to boiling point and he, interfering mortal that he was, was going bear the brunt of it. Rising out of her seat, she started to pace to and fro in front of him. She didn’t raise her voice a great deal, but there was a quality to tone that made him want to back away ...he held his ground, and remained sitting, watching her angry stalk ... she was passionate in her fury, eyes flashing and arms flailing to make her points. “I have been awakened, when I chose not to be awake. I do not want to be here, but I seem to have no say in the matter. This place, this Garden ...White Briars as you call it, made that decision for me. It would seem that I can’t even decide upon my own destiny any more. I don’t know what has happened to me ...and since waking, I have felt cold and hunger in a way that I have never experienced before. In past times I could run barefoot in snow and not feel a thing and if I ate, it was only because I wanted to, not out of necessity. .” She halted her pacing to face him, hands on hips, “Yes, perhaps if I could choose death, I would ...but that path is denied me ...on so many levels.” Her anguished voice showed the strain she felt, “... Even the spirits of this place have taken away the one solace that I had; Sleep...and now there is no escape left for me.” The last was spoken in barely a whisper. She turned away from him, but not before he caught sight of the silent tears welling up and overflowing down her cheeks.
Hamish rose and went to her, gently turning her body to face him. Now she was sobbing in earnest, given over to a mixture of grief and self-pity that he found heart-wrenching. He put his arms around her and she held on to him like a drowning person clinging to a passing lifeline. Speaking softly to her all the while as she cried …a mixture of endearments, clichés and a sharing of the knowledge he had acquired in the past year, borne of his own experience with grief. Once she calmed he led her to back to the wide sofa, sitting companionably alongside her but not too close, in case she should think he was trying to crowd her. She accepted the box of tissues that he offered, wiping tear-reddened eyes. When she finally spoke, it was to apologise for her outburst but he held up a hand, forestalling her, as she was about to continue, “Never feel that you must excuse yourself to me for tears,...if the past eighteen months has taught me nothing else, it has at least taught me that we all need to cry occasionally.”
Once the floodgates had been opened by her tears, she talked more freely, sharing some of her past with him. Hamish listened, offering sympathy and more tissues as needed. After a time, he got up to replenish the fire, then later, to collect cheese and crackers, a bottle of red wine and glasses from the kitchen. They sat, drinking, eating, and talking, for hours. He heated soup and brought it to her, in the assumption that if he kept feeding her and prodding her gently, she would continue to speak. That she needed the catharsis of sharing her grief was obvious to him ...he knew something about her already from reading Shaw’s diary, but that was negligible, compared to the tales she was telling him.
It was late, and the fire had died down to glowing embers by the time she had finished her saga. Hamish had long given up any pretence of talking, preferring to listen solely to her. The stories were made all the more fascinating by the knowledge that she had lived them, and wasn’t merely relating history, or, he thought, to be more correct, herstory. She sat, still at last, only half visible in the light of the dying fire and a pair of candles on the mantle that he had lit earlier. He had not wanted to switch the lights on, her narrative seemed more suited to the soft glow of the candles than the harshness of modern electrics. The silence was broken only by the muted chiming from the grandfather clock in the foyer, muffled by the closed door but loud enough to bring Hamish from his reverie. He counted the chimes …10, 11, 12 ...midnight.
“It’s the New Year,” he announced, not wanting to be as trite as to wish her a Happy New Year, but thinking, privately, that a little happiness would do her a power of good...“Will you stay?” When she looked askance at him, he continued, “The big bed is yours if you want it, I have my own bed under the eaves in the corner of the studio.”
She thought for a moment before replying, reluctant to agree to his offer but aware that she hadn’t been faring well outdoors, “The dovecote is adequate, but a bed would be warmer and I find I have need of more comfort it seems, than trees roots and cold, hard ground can offer me, so I’ll accept …for now.”
“Tomorrow you would have had company of the avian variety in the dovecote anyway, that you might not have planned on.” he added, smiling. He would broach the idea of the summer house again, he thought, but not tonight. After filling hot water bottles they carried clean sheets upstairs and she gave him a hand to change the bed ...finishing the job he had started the morning before. He plugged a reading light into a nearby socket, stuffed one of the hot water bottles in the bed and handed over the four diaries ...after showing her where they had been hidden. She expressed surprise at the secret compartment. She had slept in this bed for years and never known of its existence, she said. The bed, she told him, dated from a much earlier house that had stood on the same foundations as White Briars, both built by Jean-Marc de Joux. She thought that she’d been privy to all of his and its secrets. To prove this she showed Hamish another small drawer-like compartment in the base that opened with her turning a carved rosebud. This contained a single dried rose stem, so desiccated the Hamish dared not touch it for fear it would crumble to dust. Liana just shook her head sadly at the sight of the flower but did not mention how it came to be where it was. Hamish took the hint to leave her, wished her good night and left her tucked up under the covers with the oldest of the diaries.
Despite his weary state, Hamish remained awake a long time, staring up at the night sky through the window above his head, other times, looking across at the thin slivers of light that were visible between the drapes surrounding big tester bed, where she lay reading her former lover’s diaries. He tried to imagine what that might be like ...living on, long after all those that you loved had died, but decided, in the end, that it was beyond anything that his mind could conceive. His thoughts turned to Liana herself, …she was undeniably beautiful to look at, despite the wild-child-cum-wood-nymph hairdo, and obviously intelligent, but, he thought, any moves on his part to let her know that would be pretty sure to set her running in the opposite direction. He lay there, formulating a plan that he hoped might help her come to terms with her present-day existence. Eventually, he slept, but the light was still peeking from behind the curtains for the rest of the night.
***
Jack had been hanging around the cottage all day growing increasingly annoyed that his efforts in finding Liana had been no more successful than the mortal’s –she was as good if not better at concealment than he. He had been stretched out on the flat section of the kitchen roof hidden among the vines when the two had returned. He agilely climbed down to listen at the downstairs windows but could only catch snippets of their conversation. Now he was back up on the roof formulating a plan –he stopped for a minute to skitter across the tiles to peer at her through the high dormers before going back to his position above the kitchen.
He hunkere
d down among the vines considering his options. If only he could get rid of Liana his plans to gain power and influence beyond the boundaries of the Garden might come to something. As she lay comfortably in the big bed, reading of her lovers’ history and thoughts, he sat of the roof, scheming long into the early hours of the new morning.
I love to pick you flowers in the morning
White briars as the sun begins its climb
Sweetpeas in my pretty woven basket
Lovely now but they won’t last the time
Anon
Chapter Fourteen
Hamish woke, to find the curtains that had screened the tester bed the night before were pulled back and the bed empty, neatly made up as if she had never slept in it. “Don’t panic, don’t panic,” he muttered under his breath, turning to survey the room. It felt like a bad case of déja vu as he quickly checked the upstairs bathroom before running downstairs. He searched the lower rooms then went out the front door to peer around into the garden closest the house. This latest fall of snow had been mercifully brief and little more than a few patches remained upon the ground. It didn’t take long to confirm his suspicions that she wasn’t in the house or anywhere near it. Well, he thought, there’s no point running after her ...she was either coming back of her own accord or ...or what? He wasn’t sure, so he went slowly back upstairs to shower and dress, returning to the kitchen to make fresh coffee and set the fires.
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