by Marie Laval
She had also draped fancy fabrics on the sofa, pulled a string of fairy lights along the mantelpiece, and put up more holly, winter berries and sprigs of pine arrangements everywhere. Belthorn was transformed, touch by touch, like by magic…
He wedged the plump reindeer cushion behind him, put the steaming mug on the coffee table, and opened Vaillant’s diary.
5th September 1919
I kissed her. I kissed my sweet Ruth.
I was reading in the garden this afternoon when she came looking for me to ask if I wanted a cup of tea. She looked so pretty with the autumn sunlight dancing on her skin and turning her hair golden, that I couldn’t help it. I stood up, drew her to me, and kissed her. She didn’t push me back, didn’t run away. My heart close to bursting, I held her tight. For a too short moment, we were alone in the sunshine, with the birds singing and the breeze rustling the trees. It felt wonderful.
Then she stiffened, shook free of my embrace and ran away. I haven’t seen her since. Her mother later said that she had been taken ill and gone back to the farm.
What if Ruth never wants to see me again, what if I have ruined everything? How can I convince her that my feelings for her are genuine, that I’m not just a crippled, good-for-nothing ex-pilot but mean to marry and take care of her?
Ashville may not like Belthorn very much but I have found peace, beauty and love here. I don’t dream of flying every night like I used to. I have almost forgotten the tat-tat-tat of machine guns; the stink of burning oil; the impotent rage when a comrade’s plane was shot down. Almost forgotten too the abject fear that twisted my guts before every mission.
During all those weeks in hospital, surrounded by men crying out, the stench of death and rotting bodies, and the pervading smell of disinfectant, the only moments of relief were Ashville’s visits. To pass the time he told me old stories about Belthorn – the Grey Friar who haunts the abbey, the lady who mourns the death of her lover, and the felon who was refused sanctuary by the abbot and whose shadow hovers near the stone.
Stefan looked up from the diary, and gazed at the flames that danced in the fireplace as he thought back to the day he had arrived and the shape that had floated in front of his windscreen near the Sanctuary Stone, forcing him to crash the car. It was lucky he didn’t believe in ghosts.
The stories amused me, intrigued me, and made me forget my predicament, at least for a few hours. When Ashville said Belthorn would help me heal, I laughed aloud. Nothing would ever help me. I was finished and couldn’t see what I could do with the rest of my life. I didn’t even know if there could be a rest of my life.
Stefan’s fingers rested on the brittle, yellowed page for a moment, and traced the faded contours of Vaillant’s last words. How uncanny that the man’s experiences, his thoughts and feelings should almost echo his own a century later – minus kissing a girl, of course.
What would Cassie do if he tried? Would she stare at him in horror and run away like Ruth had, or would she nestle in his arms and let him savour the sensations of having her soft body pressed against him?
He snapped the diary shut. It was a moot point, since he had no intention of ever being foolish enough to try and find out…
He rose to his feet with a grimace of pain and walked stiffly to the mantelpiece where he had left his phone the night before. After coming back from the pub he had felt compelled to look at some photos, for the first time in months. Photos of a trip to Mount Hombori with Charlie; of a blood coloured sunrise over the sand dunes during his last hike in the desert – probably his last ever; of friends and colleagues at a birthday party someone had thrown for one of his mechanics at the base…
The last photo had sent knife-stabbing pains into his chest. It was Isa, smiling as she stood in front of the plastic Christmas tree she had decorated at the base, the previous year. She loved Christmas, and had been ecstatic to learn that her leave request had been granted at last and that she would be spending Christmas with her family back home for the first time in three years… That’s where she would be now if he hadn’t insisted they flew to Charlie’s dispensary despite the terrorist threats. If he hadn’t messed up and caused her death.
Isa, whose parents kept sending him texts and emails he never read because he could too easily guess what they contained. They were angry, grieving, lost, no doubt… Whatever they had to say or write, he told himself a hundred times every day, they couldn’t hate him more than he already hated himself.
He put the phone down again, and walked to the kitchen to make another coffee. His eyes swept over the table and Cassie’s latest sticky note. ‘What did the aliens from the cheese planet say when they landed on Earth?’ He flipped the note over. ‘Gratings!’ Despite his grim mood, a smile tugged at the corner of his lips and he added the Post-it to the pile on the dresser, on top of the joke she had left two days before – something about ‘raindeers’ being the wettest animals in the world…
Cassie… He could smell her citrus fragrance everywhere in the house, and it conjured pictures in his mind – pictures of her laughing and of him doing all the tickling with her feather duster. It was crazy to feel so attracted to someone he had only just met, but he couldn’t help it. Perhaps it was that syndrome psychiatrists talked about, the one when a patient fell for their nurse or doctor.
He made himself another coffee and returned to the drawing room. There was still time to read a few more pages before Cassie’s daily visit.
15th September 1919,
Ten days without seeing Ruth, and I was going mad. Ten days torturing myself thinking that if she hadn’t returned to Belthorn, it was because she wanted nothing to do with me. I had to see her, talk to her, and ask her if she would give me a chance to prove myself to her and her family, so I set off for Patterdale Farm yesterday after breakfast.
It was pouring with rain, and by the time I got there I was drenched and exhausted, and my clothes splattered with mud. As I knocked on the door I heard voices inside. One was a man’s – harsh and aggressive. The other was Ruth’s, and she was crying.
I didn’t hesitate but pushed the door open, in time to see a great brute of a man wrap his arms around her waist and yank her to him.
‘Get your hands off her,’ I shouted, anger surging inside me. I rushed in, my aches and pains all but forgotten.
Ruth’s eyes were wide with fear. The man’s mouth twisted into a sneer and he shoved Ruth aside. ‘You’re that French cripple who’s staying at Belthorn, aren’t you? Ruth is as good as my wife. You’ve no right to meddle in our affairs. Now crawl back where you came from and leave us alone.’
He was much bigger than me, but love and desperation gave me speed and strength. I rushed forward, curled my fist tight and punched him squarely in the face. He stumbled back with a grunt, blood pouring out of his nose.
My triumph didn’t last long. The brute charged towards me in the manner of a bull, so fast I didn’t have time to step away. He head butted me in the stomach, pushed me all the way against the wall. I smacked the back of my head. A white light flashed inside my skull and I passed out.
The next think I knew, I was lying face down in the mud outside the farmhouse.
‘André, wake up!’ Ruth’s voice pierced through the pain. There were other voices too, among them Ruth’s father.
‘I’ll fetch the doctor,’ he said. ‘What a mess you’ve put us in, girl. What will Lord Ashville say when he finds out that his friend received a beating because of you? What if he turns us out of the farm?’
‘I did nothing wrong,’ Ruth whimpered.
‘Your mother said you encouraged him instead of telling him you were spoken for.’
‘That’s not true! I never encouraged him. We’re… friends. And I don’t want to marry Gideon. You know he’s a bully.’
‘Marrying Hardy is the best thing that can happen to you, and to us as a family, so you’ll do as you’re told. I don’t want to hear any more nonsense about the Frenchman. This is real life, not one of your pen
ny novels… or that silly folk story you like so much – The Hunchback and the Swan.’
As I passed out again, an image flashed in my memory. This was the painting in my bedroom, a man looking out of his window at a swan gliding on the pond, its feathers white as snow. When I next woke up someone was probing my skull, my arms, my legs.
‘Nothing appears to be broken,’ the man decreed.
‘Are you sure he’ll be all right, doctor?’ Ruth’s father asked. ‘He got a bump on the head and he’s been out of it for a while now.’
My head hurt like hell and my mouth was parched but this time I opened my eyes and looked at Ruth’s father. ‘Tell Ruth… that I’ll look after her. Please…’
Merriweather gave me a black look, but it was the doctor who spoke next. ‘Don’t agitate yourself, young man. You need to rest, but first we must get you out of those wet clothes.’ He asked Ruth’s father to bring a shirt and a pair of long johns for me to change into.
I managed to undress and put on William Merriweather’s clothes before lying down again. How weak and pitiful I was. No wonder Ruth’s family considered me unsuitable for their daughter.
‘I shall come back to check on you tomorrow morning and if you feel better William will take you back to Belthorn. For now, you should drink this. It’ll help you sleep.’
Whatever he gave me made me fall into a deep slumber. The doctor came back as promised the day after and pronounced me fit to travel. Ruth’s mother gave me back my clothes. She had dried them and brushed the mud off so they were reasonably clean. I climbed onto William’s cart with considerable difficulty, but I was damned if I’d ask for a helping hand. A man has to hang on to whatever pride he has left even when he was beaten up and humiliated in front of the woman he loves.
I had hoped to see Ruth but she wasn’t there, and fearful of causing any more trouble between her and her parents, I didn’t ask after her. As we set off on the road to Belthorn, I was however determined to find out more about the brute she seemed destined to marry, even if she appeared against the match… even if I dared to hope that she had tender feelings for me. It was now up to me to prove that I was worthy of her.
Stefan closed the diary and put it down on the table. He needed a break from Vaillant, from the account of his hopes and broken dreams that in so many ways mirrored his own…
Chapter Eighteen
‘I’m so glad the van is ready at last. What took you so long?’
Mason looked up from the engine he was fixing and pulled a face. ‘First the supplier couldn’t get hold of any snow tyres, and then they sent me the wrong ones. In the end it turned out to be a total waste of time.’ He sighed. ‘I only wished I’d checked your old tyres before ordering new ones.’
‘Why is that?’
‘The tyres weren’t punctured but had faulty valves. I could have fixed them straight away had I realised… The thing is, I was so busy that week I got Shaz to tow your van back and take the tyres off without asking him to check what was wrong with them. I just took your word for it that they both had a puncture. Shaz assumed I knew the valves were faulty. I only realised my mistake yesterday.’
He shook his head and sighed. ‘Of course, since it’s my fault I didn’t charge you for the new tyres.’
‘Thanks… but does this valve problem happen very often?’
Mason shrugged. ‘It’s not uncommon, but it was really bad luck both failed at the same time.’
Cassie frowned. Stefan would probably insist that luck had nothing to do with it and her flat tyres were Darren Morse’s doing. Something the Frenchman had said came back to her. Darren had looked as if he was inspecting her tyres the day he came to Belthorn… what if he had been fiddling with the air valves instead? Now she was being paranoid too!
‘Thanks, Mason. I owe you one. Is Brenda in?’
‘She’s in the office,’ he replied before grabbing hold of a spanner and bending down over the engine of an old Fiesta.
Cassie pushed the door to the office, and immediately took off her hat and unbuttoned her coat.
‘Good morning, Brenda. I don’t know how you can stand having the heating on so high. Aren’t you roasting in here?’
Brenda laughed and patted her tight brown curls. ‘Nothing is ever too hot for me, darling – and that goes for radiators, curry… and men. Talking of hot men, I bumped into your Mushier Lambert in the pub the other night.’
Cassie rolled her eyes. ‘He’s not my Mushier Lambert,’ she said, mimicking Brenda’s terrible French accent. ‘It’s Monsieur Lambert, and there’s nothing “mushy” about him.’
‘I agree with you there. He may be no oil painting, but there is something very attractive, very hard, and very male about him. And those wonderful tawny eyes of his do strange things to my system.’ Brenda let out a dreamy sigh.
‘He has a short temper and a grouchy disposition,’ Cassie said.
‘There was nothing grouchy about him the other night,’ Brenda protested. ‘Sadie and I had a long chat with him. In fact, Sadie got along so well with him she was practically sitting in his lap by the end of the evening.’
Cassie felt a nip of jealousy in her chest. ‘Is that so?’
So, Stefan could be charming and communicate with words and sentences as well as grunts or monosyllables. It must be only around her that he reverted to being a caveman. That’s because he found her stupid and irritating, not to mention that he resented her for coming to Belthorn every day. He had hardly been able to hide his dislike at the pub on Saturday night. Mind you, it had been silly of her to try to tickle him with her feather duster. Even after a couple of Big Jim’s cocktails, she should have known that it wouldn’t cheer him up. She seriously wondered if anything could… Between the feather duster incident and her awful Bandanamama singing, he no doubt found her even more irritating now, if that was possible.
Brenda chuckled. ‘Well, not literally, of course, but young Sadie seemed very keen on him.’ She handed Cassie a piece of paper. ‘Here is your guarantee for the tyres. Sorry for the mix up. Mason has been a bit distracted lately, poor boy.’
‘What’s up? Is he not well? Between the garage and doing up his house, he works too hard. He was complaining the other day that he didn’t have time to undertake all the changes I suggested. I can help with the painting and decorating. In the meantime, I’ll make a few new cushions for his living room.’
‘I don’t think paint or cushions are going to help, love.’ Brenda’s eyes hardened. ‘But it’s nothing we can’t handle. He’ll be all right, eventually. I’ll make sure of it.’
None the wiser about what was the matter with her friend, Cassie bid Brenda goodbye, and spent an hour doing her admin at Bluebell Cottage. She made a cup of tea and studied her diary.
The only item that stuck out was the review meeting with Piers the following Friday, which she had scribbled in big red letters, and she spent the following hour searching through her files for the relevant timesheets to cover the past few months, cursing when some were missing – Sophie had probably forgotten to file them before she left for Manchester – and organising those she had in chronological order. She would have to visit every cottage before Friday to take photos of the comments in the guestbooks with her phone, in case Piers’s secretary hadn’t taken care of that herself.
She could only hope Piers wouldn’t try to renegotiate her contract to bring her fee down. Why was this review even necessary, and why should her work matter to Gabrielle Ashville, even if she was suddenly taking an interest in the running of the estate?
She dropped the papers on the kitchen table and blew out a loud breath. Of course! She should have put two and two together before. Mason must have heard that Gabrielle was coming back… Poor Mason. No wonder he was distracted.
She checked her watch. Salomé’s must be open by now. She would buy some buns for Stefan’s breakfast before driving to Belthorn.
Half an hour later, her red van bumped along the road towards Wolf Pass Road. It was
good to have it back at last. Mason – or perhaps Shaz – had even given it a valeting. The wooden dashboard gleamed, the carpets were grit and mud free and a fresh scent lingered in the cab, mixing with the blissful smell of fresh cinnamon buns.
Belthorn Manor’s chimneys appeared on the line of the horizon, dark grey against the overcast sky. Although her fear had lost its sharp edges in the past weeks, the place still made her uneasy, especially in the run up to Christmas and the anniversary of the most horrible night of her life…
Lambert’s Range Rover stood in the drive and lights shone from a couple of windows both downstairs and upstairs. Stefan was in, but the odds were that as usual he would hibernate in the library and only make one brief appearance to make himself some coffee, or he would grab his coat and his keys as soon as she arrived after grunting a vague greeting – and that’s if he was in a good mood. He obviously reserved his charm and witty conversation for long-legged Sadie…
She rang the bell, waited for a minute or two, and then let herself in. She put her shopping bags down and took her hat and her coat off.
‘Hello? Is anyone home?’ she called.
Stefan appeared at the top of the stairs, barefoot and wearing grey sweatpants and a khaki T-shirt. He looked out of breath, as if he’d been working out. Cassie’s pulse started racing and her heart skipped another beat as she tried not to gawp at his broad shoulders, or his tanned, muscled arms.
‘I wasn’t expecting you so early,’ he said in lieu of greeting.
‘And a good morning to you too,’ she muttered. No matter what Brenda said, the man was crabby and unpleasant, and right now she couldn’t think of any reason why just being close to him should turn her into this hot, clumsy, breathless mess.
