‘Lionel, where is Spring Cottage, Spring House, Spring whatever?’
Lionel tapped his lip in thought. ‘I . . . I don’t know that there ever was one. I’ve never come across mention of it. Why?’
‘There are two derelict houses named after Winter and Summer, and Derek’s house – Autumn Leaves, but no Spring one. I find that a bit odd.’
The vicar processed this and nodded slowly.
‘Yes, I see what you mean. But there isn’t.’
‘There must be. Lilian told Emelie that whatever she had found was more or less hiding in plain sight.’
Lionel considered this for a moment.
‘Wait a minute,’ he said and walked out of the room, reappearing soon after with a blue cardboard folder. He pulled the contents out onto the table.
‘This is all the stuff that wasn’t of any use but I didn’t throw it away, just in case. You never know. Here’s the child’s picture we found in one of the cottages.’
It was a drawing, of no interest so she put it back into the folder. Along with everything else because Lionel was right, it was rubbish.
‘We have a complete list of all the cottages – past and present names – but there is definitely no Spring amongst them,’ Lionel reiterated.
‘There has to be,’ replied Marnie. She had looked at the layout of the village so many times it had become tattooed on her brain. She went back to the blue folder and took out the drawing again.
‘Do you have a present map of the village here, Lionel?’
‘No, I don’t. I only have this collection of research rejects.’
‘Can I borrow it?’
‘Of course,’ said Lionel and gave a chuckle. ‘It’s yours now anyway.’
Marnie, a woman on a mission, said a quick goodbye and headed over to Little Raspberries to pick up the key for the manor house.
She was near to finding Margaret now, she absolutely knew it.
Chapter 49
Marnie opened the heavy door and walked into the manor.
‘Hello,’ she said in the quiet. ‘Nice to see you again. I’ll be living here soon, if you want me.’
There was no reply, simply a feeling that she would be welcome when she did. She was getting as batty as the Dearmans. She clapped her hands together.
‘Okay, house, you and me are going to find Margaret Kytson. And I won’t take no for an answer, all right? Good.’
She strode into the library where the ledgers had been stored to make way for Emelie’s funeral tea, and she carried them back through to the dining table. She pulled out all the maps and plans of the village that she had found and unfolded them. Oh, where to start?
She turned her head upwards and implored, ‘Come on, Margaret, give me a hand here.’ And her heart nearly bounced out of her chest when someone rapped loudly on the window behind her.
It was Herv. Beautiful, lion-maned Herv with his large blue eyes that seemed to hold the sunshine in them. He pointed to the left and mimed unlocking the door. She was aware of how quickly she moved to do it.
‘Hello, how are you?’ he said.
‘I’m good, how are you?’ she replied. He seemed bigger, wider, his accent sounded stronger, his lips looked even more kissable and the sensation of them upon hers drifted across her mind.
She saw him smile, cross his arms, shake his head. ‘It’s so strange that you’re here. As Lady of the Manor.’
‘Yep, well . . . it’s odd for me too,’ said Marnie, jiggling her head nervously.
‘Are you . . . are you moving in? Do you need any help?’
‘No, I’m not moving in, but I could do with your help. If you aren’t too busy?’ She asked hopefully.
‘You’re the boss.’
Whatever Emelie might have said about Lady Chatterley and the gardener, somehow being Herv’s boss was a further wedge between them. Marnie picked that up in his only half-jokey tone.
She told him her theory and waited for his reaction and his eyes narrowed as his brain spun behind them.
‘It would make good sense, but there is no Spring House or Spring Hill or Little Springs . . .’
Hill. Little . . .
‘Herv look at this.’ She opened up the file and pulled out the drawing found under the floorboards in Winter House.
‘I have seen this before,’ he said. ‘It’s just a child’s picture.’
‘Or is it?’ Marnie positioned the three formal maps they had of Wychwell so they were in date order. She put the drawing in first position. ‘Let’s call this Map A, those B, C, D, okay,’ then she tapped the top right-hand corner of A with a heavy finger.
‘Here, look how it compares to the other ones. Can you see what I’m seeing?’
Herv’s eyes journeyed across the four maps. All he could see was that on the proper ones Emelie’s cottage was in the right place and on the drawing, it was much further into the woods.
‘Obviously not,’ he answered her, flummoxed.
‘Look at the manor and the church and the vicarage and the Wych Arms. The oldest still-standing buildings.’
Herv did as she asked. ‘They are the same on the maps and the drawing.’
‘Yep. These are the only buildings in the village which are in the same position on all four. Exactly the same position. And in the right place. So what if A isn’t a child’s drawing, what if it’s a very accurate map and the earliest one we have of the area.’
Herv looked again, studied the proper maps, compared them all to the drawing. She was right.
‘This isn’t supposed to represent Emelie’s house then?’ He tapped the top corner of map A. ‘This was another house built before Little Apples, is that what you mean?’
‘Yes, I think it was.’ She excitedly flipped over to a clean page in her A4 notepad and started scribbling. ‘Here’s a timeline. I’m guessing but I feel I’m onto something. One: Margaret Kytson’s house gets burned down and the well is closed up in the mid-sixteenth century. Next, trees grow, time passes. People remember the witch but it’s a long time ago. They have a vague recollection of where she lived and the well she was drowned in but by now she’s probably become more of a myth than a real person. Maybe something to scare naughty kids with. Then maybe later . . . yes . . . I know, so that kids aren’t scared, they make up a story that the witch lived at the other end of the village, and in time that’s what leads people to believe that her house was near Little Raspberries.’ The excitement was adding pace to her speech; she was so close to solving this, she could almost smell the hubble and bubble in Margaret’s cauldron. ‘Anyway, the Lord of the Manor decides that he wants a cottage built near to him. Maybe for a worker or his mother or his bit on the side. It’s close, but still tucked away. So he has the trees cleared and up the building goes.’
Herv tapped on the drawing, at the misplaced house they’d presumed was Emelie’s on map A. ‘This one?’
‘Yep. For the sake of argument, let’s call it Spring Cottage. Named after the fabled natural spring that is in the area somewhere nearby, though no one can remember quite where it is. Next, more cottages are built in the village and whoever names them presumes that ‘Spring Cottage’ is named after the season, so it makes sense to call three buildings after the other seasons.’