I’ll take some winter ones, too.’
‘She’ll ask you. I’m glad you’re still keen on the book, Cassie. I like the idea. I think it would do well.’
‘I’ve thought of doing a succession to take in the whole history of the place. I’ve worked out I could write four, all linked to Deer’s Leap. I’d start with the building of the house, I think, in 1592. There should be loads of good factual background material; the Pendle Witches, the Civil War …’ I decided not to mention Margaret Dacre.
‘OK. Get the current book finished and I can’t see why we shouldn’t give you a contract. Are you up to four in fairly quick succession? When it’s a series, it’s better if there isn’t too long a lapse between the books.’
‘I can do it!’ Of course I could. Writing about Deer’s Leap would be no trouble at all. ‘You know how fond I am of this place.’
‘You had mentioned it! And had you thought, Cassie, that the bank just might give you a mortgage on the strength of a four-book contract?’
‘Oh, I couldn’t!’ I felt my face flush. ‘I’d be so scared owing so much it would affect my work. I’d dry up, I know it. Besides, I don’t even have the deposit.’
‘Pity. You could do it, you know, but I suppose it isn’t for me to try to influence you.’
‘Aunt Jane always said that if a thing is for you, it will come your way in the fullness of time. I suppose I can always hope.’
‘Have you seen any more of the ghost?’ She changed the subject so quickly I was caught unawares.
‘Y-yes,’ I admitted, though I’d meant not to mention it. I mean, what would she say if she knew I’d biked back here in the dark, and been scared witless because I imagined I was being followed. ‘I thought I heard him at the kissing gate, but it was dark. I’d popped out to check that the white gate was shut.’ The lie came glibly. ‘I thought I heard him talking – maybe to Susan. Imagination, probably.’
‘I know. A lot of writers suffer from a fertile imagination, thank God! Shall we see this off?’ She divided the remaining wine between the glasses. ‘Then it’s me for bed. I shall sleep tonight. I always do here. It’s so peaceful after London. No street lights, no noise.’
‘Before you do, Jeannie, what’s the drill for tomorrow?’
‘I’ll give Susanna Lancaster a ring to confirm I’ll be picking her up, and at what time. The lunch is twelve thirty for one, so she’ll want to be there a bit beforehand – get her bearings. Suppose I should leave here no later than half-past ten. Don’t let me sleep in, there’s a love?’
‘I won’t. I’ll wake you with coffee – how’s that?’
‘You’re a good girl, Cassandra Johns,’ she murmured.
‘Yes, but good girls don’t have a lot of fun!’
‘I know exactly what you mean!’
So we laughed, which is all a couple of spinsters can do, come to think of it.
‘Get yourself off to bed,’ I ordered. ‘There’s plenty of hot water if you want a bath.’
‘Bless you.’ She finished her drink then kissed my cheek. ‘’Night, Cassie …’
The day lived up to the promise of the previous evening. The morning sky was clear and blue with not a cloud to be seen. I stood at the window, staring, a habit I seemed never to tire of, and felt sad that in ten more days there would be no more hills nor endless skies nor stone walls clinging to the hills in untidy lines. Soon, I would look up from my desk and see only a pinboard on the wall, just three feet away.
I filled the kettle, thinking about Susanna Lancaster; wondering if I would ever have a signing session.
The kettle began to whistle, pushing pie-in-the-sky dreams out of my head. Of more importance was the fact that I had little more than a week in which to do something about the airman, because I couldn’t leave here knowing I was in Rowbeck and he was still trying to hitch a lift to Deer’s Leap with everyone around pretending he didn’t exist.
‘But what can I do about him?’ I demanded of the coffee pot. ‘All things being equal, he just isn’t my responsibility!’
‘Beg pardon?’ Jeannie appeared in the open doorway, bucket in hand.
‘Good grief! Couldn’t you sleep?’
‘The birds woke me so I’ve been cleaning the car.’ She kicked off her wellies. ‘Why were you talking to yourself? They section you for that, you know!’
‘As a matter of fact, I was trying to straighten things out in my mind – about the airman, actually – and I’m coming to realize that what happened around these parts more than fifty years ago is really none of my business.’
‘No. But you’ve got yourself tangled up in it, love, so I reckon it is. And I’ll take bets that if you do the Deer’s Leap books, the last of them will be Jack and Susan’s story – or as near to it as you can get.’
‘You know it will, Jeannie. I’ll have to be careful, though. Wouldn’t want Susan to recognize it – nor people like Bill Jarvis and his sister. Deer’s Leap will have to have another name – right from book one – and Acton Carey too. But I’ll worry about that when Firedance is out of the way. There’s plenty of time. Did you sleep all right – apart from the birds?’
‘I just crashed.’
‘The coffee’s ready. Want to take the pot back to bed?’
‘No, thanks. I’ll just sit here and empty it. What did they do in your war, Cassie, about coffee? I suppose it was hard to get.’
‘It wasn’t my war. I’m interested in it, that’s all. Aunt Jane once said the tea rationing was awful; said you just couldn’t brew up whenever you felt like it. And they didn’t have teabags. Those came later. But coffee I’m not sure about. Tea was the drink of the masses, I believe. Coffee was more middle class in those days. I wish Aunt Jane were still here. There’s so much she could have told me – especially when it comes to writing Jack and Susan’s story.’
I decided to talk some more to Bill Jarvis before I left; try to meet his sister too – ask her how it had been to grow up in a war. I might be really lucky, and get her to talk about Susan Smith.
‘Cassie – you’ve got three books to see off before you can get down to the star-crossed lovers. Don’t get too tied up with them – not until you have to. Do you find the pilot attractive, by the way?’
‘Yes, I do.’ If she’d expected a red-cheeked denial, then she wasn’t getting one! ‘As a matter of fact, he’d have been the type I’d have gone for fifty years ago.’
‘Fair, didn’t you say – Piers’s opposite. Did he put you off Piers?’
‘Jeannie! I’m not that stupid! Don’t you realize if he were still alive, Jack Hunter would be seventy-five, at least! He wouldn’t be young and straight and fair – and a little
