The grounds were next, and she discovered a sight which took her breath away. Passing a brick wall, she came across a secluded fountain, surround by an array of ferns and greenery that fanned out around the cascading water, with moss filling in any gaps, making the whole area a lush green. It felt truly magical; as though fairies could live there,unknown beneath the umbrellas of ferns, weaving their magic on the inhabitants of the house and gardens.
Outside the walled garden, Beth leant back on a wooden bench, and pulled out her phone.
It was time.
Three rings were all that she had before the line was picked up; very little time to get her words together, but then she thought that if she had time to think, she’d just decide not to do this - and it needed to be done.
“Hello?”
“Hi mum.”
“Elizabeth, hello, I wasn’t expecting to hear from you today.”
Beth sighed; it was always the way with her mother. She knew it wasn’t meant in any cruel way, but the words certainly made her feel like her phone call was unwanted, not just unexpected.
“I’ve got news,” Beth said, jumping straight in at the deep-end, response be damned.
“Oh?”
A deep breath, then the words came tumbling from her mouth: “I’ve moved. To Dartmouth.”
“Sorry… you’ve moved to Dartmouth? When?”
“Two days ago.”
“And… and… was this planned? Or is this just another one of your spontaneous mistakes?”
“Not planned, and not a mistake. I don’t want to argue mum, I really don’t - but I don’t want my own mum to not know where I’m living. So there it is - I’ve moved to Dartmouth, I’m only fifteen minutes from Lee, and I just got a job.”
“I don’t know what to say, Elizabeth…”
“Say: Congratulations on the job! Or that you’ll visit soon. I’m happy about this, mum - I’d had enough of going nowhere. I needed something to change.”
“Well, then… I hope it works out for you.” It was strained, but the words were positive, and Beth decided to take them in that way.
“Thanks mum. I’d better run - we’ll catch up properly soon.”
It was on the way to the ferry that the heavens opened once more, but it did not stop Beth from skipping down the hill. She couldn’t wait for things to start; for her life to truly begin.
***
It was a dark and stormy night, she wrote, then put a line straight through it. It was a cliche, she knew, and sounded more like a children’s story than whatever it was she was trying to write.
Rain streamed down the windows as though the world was mourning this loss, and wind buffeted the old glass panes, making Adelaide shiver despite the warmth of the fire. This night, surely, was the night when they would find out who had murdered her father-in-law. This night, full of misery and despair, must be the night when he was finally apprehended…
She glanced back at what she had written in the leather-bound journal she had purchased when she was only visiting Dartmouth with Lee, and smiled. She had never written creatively before - well, not since she was in school and had no choice - but she found she was pleased with the words that were coming out. She had no plot, no plan, just the inspiration from that view, that house, and the vision of Adelaide, sat by a fire in a rickety old building, wearing a faded red dress framed in brocade, waiting for a killer to be caught.
She had been desperate to write for the whole journey back, the words building in her mind as they traversed the disturbed waters and as she dashed home to cracks of thunder. She was sure lightening would soon be upon them, and she knew that she wanted to be safe in her flat with a cup of tea once that happened.
And so here she was, facing out to the miserable, dramatic weather, a cup of tea to one side, a pen in her hand, and a whole world ahead of her that she could create. She felt as though the electricity that was shooting from the charcoal skies was running through her fingertips, and it was the most alive she had ever felt.
This was what she’d wanted, she realised, when she’d upped and left everything she knew. Something that would truly get her excited about her life - and as small as it might seem to others, this was making her excited. This job, this flat, this notebook: it thrilled her.
Chapter 12
Monday morning rolled around with a blue sky speckled with occasional white clouds. Beth had spent the night before agonising over what to wear, and had finally settled on a blue button-down dress covered with sailing boats. It felt appropriate to the setting, at least, and she felt as though she looked professional in it.
She waited for the ferry with a few other people, choosing to take the earlier one of the two options, and with her travel mug of tea in one hand she leant against the railings, watching the gulls swooping over the water.
“Good morning,” a gruff voice came behind her, and she jumped out of her daydreaming state before realising who it was.
“John!” she said with a wide grin. “Good morning! And thank you so much for the tip the other day - I got the job!”
“I thought you might have done,” he said, heading down the steps towards the boats. “Good luck!”
It felt like a great start to the day. The ferry was perfectly on time, and as it chugged along the water, she felt pleased she’d put her hair into a more business-like bun today - it would save her looking bedraggled before she even got there.
She huffed and puffed her way up the hill, having forgotten the distance she had to walk the other side, but decided to look on the positive: a few weeks of walking like this and she would be so much fitter than she was at the minute. She’d spent far too long sat at a desk.
Despite the hard work getting there, she looked at her watch as she reached the pillars announcing the grand estate and was pleased to find she was still twenty minutes early. She decided to take a few minutes to compose herself on a bench, finish off her tea, and take a few deep breaths. Letting her eyes flutter closed, she focused on breathing in, and out, drinking in the peacefulness that surrounded her. A few nerves fluttered in her stomach, but it was excitement, more than anything, that made her feel a little restless.
Eighteen minutes early. How early could you be on your first day? She didn’t want to get in the way… perhaps ten minutes? And so she pulled out the leather-bound notebook from her handbag, put the pen to paper and let the words that kept filling her head flow out.
It had not been a simple marriage, even before murder arrived on their doorstep. Three years of matrimony, but it certainly had not been wedded bliss. There was the fact that her husband had been chosen for her by her father; then the fact that he was ten years older than she. But she thought she could have got past both of those facts, if it were not for the third: the fact that he was undoubtedly in love with another.
Three years of being married to someone who was polite, and kind, and wholly invested in another person had made Adelaide’s heart feel as though it had shrivelled to the size of a prune. She had once had childish dreams of falling in love, of marrying for love - and, even once she was married, of falling in love with her husband, as the characters in her favourite novels always seemed to - but that hope was now lost to her.
And now he was in mourning for his father, and she felt terrified to step outside her front door in case the perpetrator had some vendetta against their family - and things were so much worse than they had ever been before.
Suddenly, Beth looked at her watch and jumped up out of the bench in shock. Never mind eighteen minutes - time had run away with her and she had less than three before she would become late. She shoved the notebook and pen back in her bag, took one final deep breath and hurried to the front desk to meet Tanya.
“Good morning, Beth!” She greeted her like an old friend, with an easy smile and clasp of her hands. “Great to see you again, and your references were brilliant, so we’ve got a busy season ahead of us!”
“I can’t wait to get started,” Beth said truth
fully.
“Well, it’s going to be a lot of reading to begin with, I’m afraid - to familiarise yourself with everything we have here. Then hopefully we can get you out on the floor with another guide tomorrow, and on your own by Wednesday, if that all sounds okay with you!”
“Definitely,” Beth said. Being made to read about this beautiful house and its contents for a day hardly seemed like a chore - in fact, the day sped by so fast that Tanya had to come into the little back room to remind her to have some lunch and take a break.
It seemed there were four members of staff working at a time at the property, as well as a gardener to tend the grounds, and they took lunches at different times so they had enough staff on the floor. However, as Beth was essentially extra that day, she took lunch with another member of staff, and as they unpacked their sandwiches (Beth’s was simply cheese, as that was all she’d had in), Beth was pleased to note that the lady in a sky-blue dress covered in daisies was closer to her own age.
“I’m Laila,” she said, as they began to eat. “I’ve been here for two years, every holiday while I’m doing my degree.”
“I’m Beth. First day!”
“I’d presumed!”
“What are you studying?”
“Archeology,” she said. “I didn’t go to uni when I was younger so here I am, thirty-two and doing a degree. My friends think I’m mad, but it was the decision that felt right for me, you know?”
“I totally understand that!” Beth said, with a grin, deciding to confide her secrets in this new acquaintance. “I moved to Dartmouth on a complete whim, on a feeling that I got when I was down here visiting my sister for a week. Felt I needed a change and, well, here I am!”
Laila had just taken a large bite of her sandwich and took a moment to respond. “Wow. That’s brave!”
“Or stupid!” Beth said with a laugh.
***
“I think,” said Beth, as she and Lee sat in Lee’s garden, drinking orange juice and soaking up the sunshine that weekend, “That I’m writing a novel.”
“A novel?”
“Well, I’m writing, and I feel like that’s what it is! Whether I’ll finish it, who knows, but I gotta say that I’m loving it at the minute!”
“That’s amazing, Beth,” Lee said, watching her daughter on a play mat in front of them. She occasionally crawled off at great speed, and Lee would dash off to stop her getting into the hedges or onto the gravel.
“It’s this place, honestly - it makes me feel inspired in a way that I never have been. Not just with the writing, but with getting up in the morning, going to work…”
“The new job’s going well then?”
“It really is. I’m doing tours on my own now, I remember almost everything, I’m in beautiful places all the time…”
Lee watched her sister for several moments before speaking again. “I’m so pleased for you, Beth. It seems like everything really did work out!”
“Well, I don’t want to say I told you so, but…”
“Yeah, yeah, you were right!” They both laughed, causing Holly to look up at them. She made a sound then, as she watched Lee, a sound that made Lee and Beth glance at one another and then back at the baby.
“Mamam.”
“Did she-”
“Did that sound like-”
“I think so!”
“Clever girl!” Lee said, picking up her daughter and swooping her in the air. “Mama! Mama!”
Chapter 13
Although Beth’s days became a routine of writing, going to work, the occasional evening (although not late-night!) trip to the sea and seeing her sister, somehow she did not feel that dragging sense of monotony that had plagued her in her old job. She reasoned that it had only been a few weeks, and that this might change, but as the end of July approached, and Beth could get up the hill without getting out of breath, she found she still looked forward to work every single day - and how many people could truly say that!
It was an ordinary Tuesday, a light breeze in the air, a day that seemed no different than the twenty or so that had preceded it. Beth sat on a bench waiting for the ferry, as had become her custom, and scribbled away in her notebook at the story that was now far greater than a few paragraphs long.
Adelaide had spent some time dong detective work of her own, both to wile away the hours and in the hopes of finding something that had been missed by one of the many men who were involved in the case. She did not tell anyone this; they would have laughed at the idea of a woman being capable of some sleuthing.
One night, when rain once again battered the windows and her husband was mysteriously late home, she’d found a letter hidden in a between the stonework of the living room. She’d been almost excited at its discovery, convinced it must be something of interest to the case, but when she had read it, it had only served to further batter her poor, withered heart.
‘There can be no divorce in this family. You married her and you will have children with her. Keep as many mistresses as you wish but do not utter the word divorce again.’
“Every day I see you writing in that thing,” John’s voice said from a spot against the rails where, unbeknown to Beth he had been standing for some time. “Can I ask what you’re writing?”
Beth blushed, adding a full stop to the end of a sentence and meeting his eye. “It’s a novel,” she admitted, something which she had told only Lee.
“What sort of novel?”
“A murder mystery.”
“Ahh.” He rested the end of his pipe between his fingers, and Beth glanced at it, realising she had never seen someone actually smoking a pipe before. Perhaps that was something that could be added to her novel… “Taking inspiration from your work, eh?”
“I think so,” Beth said. “The words just seem to be in my mind, fighting to get out - oh, there’s the ferry. Sorry John, I’ll have to run!”
“Keep up the writing!” he shouted as she dashed past a crowd of tourists to reach the ferry, and although they were the words of someone she didn’t know all that well, somehow they cheered her. Perhaps she could tell other people what she was writing - perhaps, one day, she could actually let them read it!
***
The first tour group started at ten, and once they had paid Laila who was on the counter that morning, Beth ushered them into the living room to start her spiel.
She was three minutes in when she felt an uncomfortable feeling as though she were being watched very intently. Of course, she was being watched, by eight pairs of interested eyes - but this feeling was more pronounced, and she tried to look at the faces of those watching her to figure out where the feeling originated - without, of course, getting distracted from the information she was giving. An elderly couple stood on her left, nodding along with what she was saying but certainly not staring; then a family of four, with two younger children that were barely listening to a word she said. An older woman stood to their right, with kind brown eyes and a smile, and then-
And then she did stumble over her words. It was so unexpected,so jarring - like a bolt of electricity going through her.
It was him.
She cleared her throat, apologised, and finished what she needed to say, all the while fully aware that a man who had seen her swimming - and possibly nearly drowning - in her underwear, a man who had possession of an item of her underwear, was staring directly at her. It made the blood rise to her cheeks, and it took every ounce of focus she had in her to finish the speech before she could let them roam the room for a few minutes in peace.
He didn’t come directly towards her; instead he accompanied the woman with the kind brown eyes around the room, while Beth surveyed them all, judging when it was time to move on . She couldn’t approach him - it was mortifying. If he pretended he didn’t know who she was, she decided she would do the same; after all, there was a chance that he didn’t know who she was. Perhaps he didn’t remember, or didn’t recognise her fully clothed and not bathed in moonlight.
The thought made her blush even harder.
As they approached the vase standing directly to her left, she felt the hairs on her arms prickle and stand on end. Her breathing was shallow, and she couldn’t focus on anything but this mysterious man who might or might not have a clue who she was.
“I think I have something belonging to you,” he said, in the softest possible whisper - but she heard.
Aware that she needed to remain professional, at least to the rest of the tour group, she turned to one side, hoping her speech would be more hidden that way. “Perhaps you shouldn’t go stealing people’s…clothes,” she said, feeling a lot more flustered than she hoped she sounded.
“Add ‘don’t leave your underwear with strangers’ to the list of things you shouldn’t be doing,” he said, after checking that the woman - who Beth assumed was his mother - wasn’t close enough to hear.
The South West Series Box Set Page 42
