Marnie didn’t answer straightaway. She took her book into the garden down by the stream. The raspberries had ripened early, she noticed; they were fat on the brambles and would need harvesting soon. They would have made wonderful toppings for Mrs Abercrombie’s cheesecakes: raspberry and champagne, raspberry and white chocolate, raspberry and even more raspberries . . . but that was a closed avenue. Maybe someone in the village made jam or pies, like Jessie Plumpton had, and could use them. Or maybe Lionel or David would take them for their wine-making; it would be a shame to waste them so she’d ask around. She wondered who the next occupant of Little Raspberries would be when she left. It had been the most wonderful bolt-hole. In winter, when snow fell, the garden would look like Narnia. She could imagine sitting in this spot with a fire crackling in an iron basket and drinking a mug of warm spiced cider. She imagined kissing Herv Gunnarsen with cinnamon lips and gave her head a shake to rid it of the image.
She forced herself to focus on the Country Manors book, willing it to pull her into the story again so she could forget all about her future and Caitlin and really annoying Herv Gunnarsen and Christmas snogging, and it worked for a while until Manfred’s nephew Jurgen Goss arrived at the manor all the way from Austria – a whopping great hunk of a bloke with a lion’s mane of blond hair, blue eyes and a penchant for gardening and fornicating with some very inventive uses for his garden twine. Marnie closed the book; she’d read enough today.
She replied to Caitlin just before she turned in for the night.
Dear Caitlin
I am so sorry to hear that you’ve been through all that. You don’t need me to tell you that you are so much better off without G. Onwards and upwards – good luck.
My best wishes
Marnie x
That said all she needed to really.
Lying in bed, she started to think about her own plans for Wychwell. That lovely tearoom she had envisaged. It would have been the ideal place to sell her cheesecakes in, if she’d stuck around. Screw Mrs Abercrombie and her rubbery crap. As for the question of which one would be better – Winter House or Summermoor . . . well, why not both? It would make perfect sense to knock them together into one big tearoom.
As Marnie started to lift off the shores of consciousness and drift into sleep imagining how the combined buildings would look, her eyes flashed open. She sat bolt upright, switched on the bedside lamp and starting frantically hunting for a pen and paper. There was something she had to write down before she did a Lilian and forgot it.
She had a hunch where Margaret Kytson’s well might be. Lilian hadn’t found a clue in the ledgers – which is why she couldn’t locate it again when she looked. It’s what Lilian hadn’t seen in them that had given her the answer.
Marnie got up and made herself a hot chocolate in an effort to reboot her bedroom routine because her mind was spinning. Going out for a walk around the block was not an option. Knowing her luck she’d see the Pink Lady floating across the manor gallery, and there were only so many mysteries her brain could deal with in one evening.
Chapter 42
Marnie was awoken at half past seven hearing the squeak of her letter box. It was Sunday so it couldn’t be the postman. There was a note waiting for her on the doormat when she padded downstairs to investigate. A handwritten one, no envelope.
I wanted to warn you, Titus has been asking a lot of questions about you, I have no idea why though I have tried to find out. I do know that today I overheard him on the phone and he mentioned that you had been a foundling and (quote) ‘the dates tie in’. It has something to do with Lilian going off to Ireland in January 1984 and returning in late June. There has always been a story circulating that Lilian was pregnant and was sent away for six months to avoid a scandal. But this has never been substantiated. Wish I could be more help, but I thought you should know.
H
Marnie’s hands, holding the letter, were overtaken by the worst pins and needles. This couldn’t be. Surely this was rubbish. It was a wild assumption. Bonkers. But Titus seemed to be taking it seriously. Was that why he asked for her birth date that day outside the shop? Was that why Kay Sweetman had once alluded to Herv sucking up to her but it had nothing to do with fancying you?
Emelie would know. Marnie had intended to go up to visit her that morning to see how she was. She thought she might perk her up telling her the theory she’d come up with about the location of the well and now she would ask her about this too, this mad rumour that she was Lilian’s child. Emelie was an early riser but still, it didn’t seem polite to call on her before nine. As soon as the clock on the wall started to chime that hour, though, Marnie was on her way, half-walking, half-running across the green to Little Apples.
As she passed the end of Herv’s lane, she fixed her eyes forward so that she wouldn’t see the blonde walking out of his house, his hand familiar on her back, or the two of them snogging on the doorstep, though the temptation to turn her head and torment herself was right there. She hurried up the path to Emelie’s cottage and knocked on the door, but there was no answer, which was odd. Marnie knocked again and tried the handle. Emelie’s tiny boots were in their usual place on the mat so she hadn’t wandered over to the shop. Marnie pushed the door fully open and the smell of damp assailed her nostrils. Thank goodness she’d agreed to let Herv sort it for her.
‘Emelie?’
Marnie stepped into the kitchen, but there were no signs of breakfast and the kettle was cold. She called up the narrow staircase.
‘Emelie?’ She hoped she hadn’t woken her up.
‘Marnie, is that you?’ Emelie’s voice was weak.
Marnie bolted up the stairs to find her on the bedroom floor.
‘I think I might need a doctor, Marnie,’ said Emelie. Marnie rang for an ambulance.
Emelie’s breathing was coming in fluidy rasps; she was in pain and Marnie daren’t lift her in case she had broken something, so she sat on the carpet and cradled the old lady until the ambulance arrived within a quarter of an hour, though it felt like much longer.
‘We’re up here,’ Marnie called when she heard the knock on the front door. The paramedics – a man and a woman – moved in swiftly, took over with calm proficiency, asked questions, looked at the tablets on her bedside table.
‘Don’t you worry, sweetheart, we’ll get you to hospital and comfortable,’ said the male paramedic to Emelie.
‘I’m dying,’ said Emelie as they lifted her onto a carry chair.
‘You’re going to be okay, don’t you talk like that,’ insisted Marnie, holding her hand, feeling Emelie grip it back hard. ‘And, what’s more, you’re moving into the manor and out of this cottage for a while, I won’t take no for an answer.’
‘No, Marnie, I really am dying.’
Marnie let go of Emelie’s hand and followed behind as the paramedics descended the twisty staircase with expert ease.
‘Emelie?’ Herv was standing in the doorway, a bag of tools in his hand. ‘What’s happened?’
The female paramedic slipped an oxygen mask over Emelie’s nose. ‘You breathe in nice and steady,’ she said, her attention fully focused on the old lady.
‘I found her upstairs,’ said Marnie. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong.’