She pulled away.
‘I’m sorry, Herv, I shouldn’t have done that. I can’t . . .’ She stood up. ‘Thank you for being so lovely, but I—’ oh what could she say to explain why she shouldn’t be here and why he should stop fancying her immediately and save them both the future heartache. She shagged a married man, that would do it. After what his wife had done to him, that would be as precise a hit as the knee had been in her uncle’s crown jewels. But she didn’t want him to despise her, as he surely would then – only to keep his distance, and to stay behind the platonic fence. Her heart would lap up this good guy like a starving cat would attack a bowl of cream if she let it. Herv Gunnarsen could make her the most vulnerable she’d ever been; then all sorts of things would come out of the woodwork and he’d hate her for what she was, what she’d done. ‘. . . I don’t think about you in that way. I’ve had a shit couple of days and I shouldn’t have given you the wrong signals, I’m sorry.’
‘It’s fine,’ said Herv. ‘I understand. Forget it and drink your coffee.’
‘No, I should go,’ she said. ‘Thank you, but I should go.’
And she bolted out of his cottage hearing her body, soul and all her internal organs wildly protest. She was stupid, an idiot, a total fuck-up.
When she got back to Little Raspberries, she shut the door behind her and locked it. There was an incinerator in the garden and she filled it with the remaining boxes of cheesecake. There were houses she hadn’t called at: Emelie and the Oldroyds, to name two, but she couldn’t face them. She set fire to Mrs Abercrombie’s last order and stood staring into the flames, hypnotised for a while, thinking about Herv Gunnarsen’s lips on hers and how he was probably the sort of bloke who would have kissed her for hours without it having to lead to more.
As the fire died to smoke, her phone tinkled the arrival of a text message.
Marnie, it’s Justin. Can we talk?
As if she hadn’t had enough today. She might have ignored him again if the morning hadn’t gone in the way it had, but she found herself stabbing in a reply with a very angry finger.
What do you want
The answer came back immediately.
I need to talk to you. Please. Will you meet me?
When
That voice in her head screamed at her, What do you mean, ‘when’? Don’t you dare.
Friday? 2pm? The Peacock. That’s near where you live isn’t it?
He didn’t know she’d moved. She enlightened him.
Ive moved
She didn’t find him worthy of punctuation.
The Blue Boy?
The Blue Boy, the last ‘date’ they’d had. When she’d done everything she could on the back seat to make him change his mind about spending her birthday with her. And failed.
Yes
Thank you x said the text. She didn’t reply to that.
Chapter 33
Marnie had an email from Mr Wemyss that afternoon to inform her that her recommendations had been approved by the new owner of Wychwell, apart from the rental cost she had agreed for Little Raspberries because no one ever paid for living there, it was an unwritten law; but she was to go ahead and implement her other suggestions. Marnie couldn’t wait. She wrote letters to all the householders informing them of the new arrangements. In the case of Una and Kay, she put their rents up by an extra five pounds per month, not enough to have them seeking out the workhouse, but enough to make a point. They would still be paying a quarter of what they would anywhere else plus all their heating and lighting and rates were thrown in. Titus’s letter was especially long as she itemised everything that she had found he had been claiming for and demanded he pay it back.
She hand-delivered them as soon as she’d printed them out. Then sat back and wondered how long it would take for Mr Shit to meet Mrs Fan.
Nothing happened before bed, although Marnie was so keyed up for some reaction that she once again couldn’t sleep and so decided to take herself off for a walk around the green to tire herself out.
There was just a fingernail snip of moon that night, bright against a velvety black starless sky. She sat on the bench after she’d done three laps and marvelled at how quiet everything was. The only sound was Dr Court’s ginger tom stepping through the front-door cat flap. She liked it, though. She loved how the quiet of Wychwell seeped into her soul and she wouldn’t have wanted to go back to a busy street in a busy town, or worse, a city like Hilary Sutton craved. Hilary hadn’t adjusted to life here, but she had, too easily. Give or take the couple of village busybodies, as she and Hilary had touched on yesterday in the Red Café. She blurted out a giggle as she thought of Una Price opening up her door, standing there with her great saggy bosom propped up by her flabby arms, hint of triumph on her lips.
‘What do you want?’
‘I came to pass something on to you, Una.’
‘What?’
‘This.’
Marnie had picked up the cheesecake (thank goodness for the thick base she favoured) and slapped it straight onto Una’s face like a clown’s pie. It was a beautiful moment. Una had had a delayed reaction but a satisfying one. She’d screamed that she was blind. She had stumbled out of the house, slipped on some strawberry topping and landed flat on her bum on the road. She’d have an almighty bruise there by dawn and no Derek on hand to rub arnica into it for her, but Marnie didn’t care. Or rather, she wasn’t allowing herself to care.
Lilian would have hooted. They would have sat in her conservatory and laughed until the tears rolled down their cheeks. Marnie looked across at the manor; it was such a beautiful house. Lilian had been so happy there in the last years of her life and it was a good thing, at least, that she’d died there and not in some impersonal hospital bed.
Then she saw it again. That pink light. But in the thick darkness she could also see a figure, she was sure of it. That was no ephemeral orb.
Marnie had the keys to the manor with her, on the same ring as her house key. She threw herself off the bench and across the green, past the end of Herv’s lane, up Kytson Hill, fast as her legs would take her. Past Emelie’s house, up the manor drive, key in her hand ready. She plunged it into the lock, barged through the door, flicked on the light and bounded up the stairs.
‘Hello,’ she called. ‘Who’s there?’
There was no orb of light, no spectral figure in the gallery. But deep in the belly of the house somewhere, she was sure she heard a door close. And ghosts, she knew, had no need of doors.
Marnie wasn’t quite brave enough to hunt around the house then. Not because she was afraid to encounter a ghost, but a human. Was it the new owner or a burglar? Had he stayed in the house all night? When she went to the manor the next morning, she checked all the doors and windows and found them bolted from the inside, so whoever it was could only have got in through the front door. It had to the new owner, surely? Cilla and Herv had keys, but what would they be doing skulking around up there at stupid o’clock?
She was in the dining room scouring through the ledgers when Cilla and Zoe came in. Cilla greeted her cheerily. In the letter Marnie had given them, she’d offered Johnny and Zoe a cottage each if they wanted one, the rent to be included in their wage deal. Or if they didn’t want to carry on working for the estate, she had offered them a much-subsidised one. In the case of Zoe, Marnie had proposed – and this had been endorsed by the new mystery owner – to help her with any costs she might incur if she went to university. She was sure by the following year there would be some money in the pot for that.