Chapter Seventeen

Y esterday’s changeable weather has settled into mild sunshine. Jack peers out his sitting room window above the King’s Shilling, notes pale grey clouds. accumulating beyond the river, and prays they stay where they are. He’s eager to introduce Mara to the way the sunlight gleams through the beech trees above St Ceyna’s well, and how the well reflects the light, giving the impression of lanterns burning in its clear depths.

Her blue Fiesta pulls up in the pub car park and Mara steps out. She’s wearing tailored dark brown trousers, a green jumper and a camel-coloured jacket which might be too smart for traipsing in the woods. Never mind. Jack suspects Mara has no concept of dressing down in keeping with the old-fashioned, relaxed ways of the Forest. With her thick black hair and dark, gold-flecked eyes, Mara is an attractive woman.

Jack shifts from foot to foot, experiencing again the familiarity which came to him the first time he saw her. For reasons he can’t put a finger on, the feeling unsettles him. He grimaces, and glances at Mara’s feet, wanting a tangible reason to be staring at her. Good. Walking boots.

Possibly sensing eyes on her, Mara squints into the sunlight, staring up at the window. She waves.

Jack pushes open the casement and calls, ‘I’m on my way, see you in a second.’

The drive to the well is on narrow winding roads past fields fenced by thick hedges which intrude into the already confined space. Mara confesses these country lanes terrify her.

‘What do you do when a tractor comes the other way?’ she asks.

‘Back up. There’s generally a gap to squeeze into.’

‘Guess I better practise my backing.’

‘You’ll learn.’ He hopes she’s here long enough to learn.

Once into the forest proper, Mara gazes out the passenger window at the treed hills rising either side of the road.

‘It’s beautiful,’ she says.

‘It is.’ Jack gives her a quick glance, admires her profile. ‘Late spring and summer are lovely with this lush green. My favourite season is autumn with its rich colours.’ He wants to add, and open fires, a glass of good red, company to talk with. He doesn’t, for in his mind Mara is with him by the fire, sharing the wine and the conversation. To say such things out loud would sound like a clichéd romantic come-on. Jack has no wish to be a cliché. He wants to be friends, for as long as Mara is here, given there is nothing more he can be.

‘Yes, autumn must be brilliant.’ She twists to face him and her smile is enough colour. ‘Josie arrives in September, and I’m hoping to take in the autumn glory before I head off to an Australian summer.’ She pulls a face. ‘Back to the heat, the flies, the mozzies …’ She holds the smile through her grumbles.

… to your husband … Jack remembers to lift the corners of his mouth to cover his unsolicited reaction. It’s not enough. Like a kid picking at a scab, he blurts, ‘Your husband’ll be glad to have you home. Must be missing you.’ He briefly faces her, in time to catch the shadow which fleetingly darkens the gold glint of her eyes.

‘Yes.’ The acknowledgement is stiffly given, the required polite response. Mara stares out the side window at the trees.

What’s that about? She’s not sure he’s missing her? Whatever his name is? His heart skips, veering off at tangents thanks to one tiny word. Don’t be stupid, Jack. He’s reading things he wants to hear. He should enjoy the day, and not let his thoughts run wild.

Slowing the car, Jack drives into a pot-holed dirt lane which climbs a short way uphill. There’s a house on one side, forest on the other. ‘Just along here,’ he says, ‘and we’re there.’

The brief walk up the steep rise along the bracken-edged path is everything Jack wished for. Sunlight winks between the entwined branches of the beech trees, mistle thrushes greet the warmth with their sharp call, and a woodpecker busies itself nearby. The meandering path allows for single file, and Jack reaches the ridge first. Mara joins him, and gasps softly at the view below.

Jack never tires of the reactions of friends he brings here, people from his city days who used to tease him about his retreat to this backwater. Once they’ve been to St Ceyna’s, the teasing tends to stop.

He studies Mara’s face. She stares down the slope which falls from the ridge to a valley where a silver sliver of a stream feeds the rough stone rectangle housing the well. Tangled branches of beech and oak form a protective canopy overhead, putting Jack in mind of a church nave, nature’s own. The grassy forest floor is dusted with the pink and white stars of wood anemone, the startling pink notched petals of red campion, and blue wild forget-me-not. White and brown butterflies dip and rise in the light and shade, and bumblebees and dragonflies add their colourful flashes.

‘Stunning,’ Mara says.

‘Legend says,’ Jack tells her, ‘St Ceyna was a Welsh princess from about the sixth century. Despite her great beauty, she never married, travelling the country doing good before settling here as a hermit.’

‘Uh uh.’ Mara shades her eyes with her hand. ‘Do you see them?’ Her voice has fallen to a murmur.

‘See what?’ Jack keeps his own voice low. Some spell is at work here. He concentrates where Mara is pointing at mottled sunlight shimmering above the well.

‘A silly fancy.’ Mara lifts her gaze. ‘I could have sworn I saw fairies, water sprites, whatever you like to call them, dancing above the water.’ She laughs. ‘The dappled light, that’s all.’

‘Ah.’ Jack is enchanted by her possible vision. ‘They say St Ceyna communicated with the spirits of the trees and the streams.’ He lifts his hands, palms up. ‘They might still be here. Shall we see if we can spot them?’

‘You’re making fun.’ Mara tosses her hair, pouts, grins to show she’s not offended, and makes her way ahead of him down the steep, root-studded path to the well.

Her slim form in her earth-toned clothes melds into the shadows. Jack blinks. Glittering shards of light – what Mara suggested were water sprites – play about her hair and shoulders. She tilts her head to the side, listening. He strains to listen too, and catches the soughing of the breeze in the beech and oak.

When he catches up with Mara, she welcomes him with a brief uplift of the corners of her mouth and returns to studying the deep, clear water. Her hands hang comfortably at her sides, her stance is relaxed. Her smile loops inward, winking on her lips, delighting in a luscious secret. Jack dares not ask what she’s thinking or feeling. He has the sense a word spoken out loud would break whatever spell has woven itself about his companion.

Mara lifts her head from the contemplation of the pool and walks the few paces to where water rushes headlong through a stone arch above a steep-sided cleft in the hill, falling in a gush of bubbles as it transforms into a brook once more.

Jack peers up into the lacework of branches and rubs his chin. There’s a change in the air, a chill dampness carried on the breeze. Steel grey clouds broil above them.

Mara arches her brows. ‘Smells like rain,’ she says. ‘We should go before we drown.’

‘Good idea, if you’ve seen enough?’

She lifts her shoulders. ‘For today,’ she says, and lowers her voice to her earlier murmur to add, ‘I’ll be back, I promise.’

The words aren’t meant for Jack. A tremulous contentment courses through his body. Does Mara experience it too?

The first raindrops bounce off the leaves onto his head and shoulders. Without thinking, Jack holds his hand out to Mara, who takes it, not hesitating.

‘Come on,’ he says. ‘There’s a much shorter way to the car, no need to walk the scenic route.’

The raindrops tumble faster, cold and heavy. A growl of thunder rumbles over the slope. Jack leads Mara downwards, around the marshy area where the waters spread among the trees, and onto the road and the car. He opens the passenger door for her to slide in, races to the other side.

They sit in the car, hair and coats damp. Driving rain pools across the windscreen, beats on the metal roof.

Mara turns to Jack. Her eyes are soft, distant, her smile gentle. ‘There’s magic there,’ she says. ‘I begin to appreciate what my mother meant.’ She brushes back her rain-spotted hair. ‘Which reminds me.’ Her manner shifts to brisk business. ‘I need to quiz you on the history of Lavender Cottage. I might have stumbled on a miracle.’

‘Sure.’ Jack switches the ignition, the engine bursts into life, and the windscreen wipers throw themselves into the futile task of clearing the windscreen. ‘I know a bit, happy to help.’ He’s unsurprised by her request. There’s a connection between himself, Lavender Cottage and Mara. He presses the accelerator and steers the car carefully along the river-like lane.

‘I’ll fetch my car from the King’s Shilling,’ Mara says, ‘and if you’ve the time, why don’t you come to the cottage for coffee? I might have biscuits.’

‘The biscuits have sold me.’ A lack of biscuits would have sold him too.

***

The weather has cooled sufficiently for Mara to claim her Australian blood justifies lighting the wood burner. She ignores Jack’s smirk and his wondering aloud how she would survive an English winter, and leaves him squatting to set the match to the newspaper.

In the kitchen, Mara makes a pot of coffee and pulls the pack of biscuits – with their worthy name of digestives – from the cupboard and sets them on a plate. She carries a tray with biscuits, pot, milk and mugs, into the next room and places it on the sea chest. The fire crackles and leaps in a satisfactory manner, and Jack has made himself comfortable on the sofa to regard his efforts with pride.

‘St Ceyna’s a special place, isn’t it?’ she says. A sense of being surrounded by friendly spirits had crept up on her as she descended the path to the well. Mara’s not given to religious experiences, but the shimmering white light, the scattered colours of the butterflies, insects and wildflowers, the birdsong, the sense she and Jack were among the presence of others, the whispers on the air – all had enveloped her in a warmth like being wrapped in a summer cloud. A sensuous richness had invaded her body and calmed her heart. She could have remained there forever, and she will keep her promise to the spirits to return.

‘You seemed to feel more than the usual connection,’ Jack says. He reaches for a biscuit, crunches into it and peers at Mara over the brown circle.

Mara stares at him, one hand on the coffee pot plunger. The urge to tell Jack about the nymphs, about the goddess telling her to be strong, about the woman in the garden fills her throat. No. Too early to give him reason to believe she’s a nutter. Mara wants Jack, with his attentive eyes and care for her wellbeing, to like her, to keep on looking out for her, be her friend. The word friend sticks, like it’s not the word she wants, and Mara pushes the plunger to disguise the blush warming her cheeks. She pours the rich-smelling liquid into the two mugs, hands Jack one.

‘I loved the place,’ she says. ‘Thank you for taking me there.’

He meets her gaze, quizzical, and Mara believes he realises there’s more and would embrace any foolishness she came out with. Her blush deepens. She coughs, collects her own mug and sits in the wing chair.

‘The cottage –’ she waves her arm to take in the room ‘– what’s its history, do you know?’

Jack stirs sugar into his coffee. ‘I do.’ He winks. ‘Have a family connection to the place, and when it came up for sale a few years ago I made sure to get my offer in early.’

‘Family connection?’ Mara’s heart does a tiny twist as if anticipating unwelcome news. Why?

Jack cradles the mug in his hands, settles on the sofa. ‘The seller, a City banker type who used it as a weekender, hadn’t owned it long. After the contract was signed he told me he found the place spooky, and he’d heard witches once lived here, and not long ago.’

‘Witches?’ Mara’s heart twists a little harder.

Jack laughs out loud. ‘Don’t worry,’ he assures her. Worry of a witchy nature isn’t what’s scurrying around in Mara’s head. ‘The cottage once belonged to my great-aunt …’

‘Ellen Goode.’ Mara finishes Jack’s sentence and stares, her mug tilted dangerously.

Jack blinks. ‘Yes,’ he says, in a wondering tone. ‘What –?’

‘Ellen was my grandmother. We’re cousins, Jack.’

And, try as hard as she does to insist it’s a sweet coincidence and being cousins is why she likes Jack, an essence of shared family binding them, Mara understands what the twisting of her traitorous heart forbode.

***

Jack leaves to open the King’s Shilling for the evening. Rain squalls about the cottage and Mara is glad of the fire. She’ll refill the basket tomorrow, make sure there’s kindling. The English summer is living up to its reputation, and Mara is guiltily pleased for the excuse to lounge by the crackling flames. As long as there’s more sunshine to come.

She peers into the fridge searching for inspiration for dinner, decides on cheese and tomatoes on toast and takes her plate and a glass of wine to the wing chair and the warmth.

Witches. Not exactly, as Jack had explained. Ellen and her mother, Hester, were herbal healers. Jack has no memory of Hester, who died when he was two. He does, however, remember Ellen, who passed when he was in his late teens, not long before he left the Forest for university. There was a sister, Rose, who must be the blond girl in Aaron’s sketches. Rose, it turns out, was Jack’s grandmother on his dad’s side. Which makes her and Jack second cousins.

What was Rose’s maiden name, does Jack know? Williams, he’s pretty certain.

Does Jack remember Rose? No. She died before he was born, near the beginning of the war.

Mara took this in.

Staring into the mesmerising flames, she finds she isn’t bemused at finding her temporary home is Ellen’s cottage. Jack’s story confirms what the sketches already told her. And means her theory of Hester, Ellen and Kathryn living together in Barnley is correct. Probably with Rose as well. More than that – they had lived here, in Lavender Cottage. Which is why Mara has seen Ellen, or Hester, in the garden. A shiver of spooky delight runs through her.

What does surprise Mara is the coincidence of finding the King’s Shilling down its hidden track, of Jack having a cottage to rent, and the cottage being their mutual great-grandmother’s home.

With Jack playing with his coffee mug, Mara had gazed around the room. ‘Is this furniture from then?’ she asked, and Jack told her yes, the big pieces had sat in their places for over a hundred years.

‘There’s a chunk of your family history sorted.’ He had tossed another log on the fire and crouched, watching it catch. He kept his back to Mara. ‘ Our family history,’ he muttered, before saying he must be off, things to do before the pub opened for the evening.

A strange awkwardness had opened between them. Mara found she didn’t want to talk about Aaron and the journals, not yet – she had flicked a sideways glance at them lying on the sideboard – and in any case she had no chance because he was thanking her for the coffee and the biscuits, and she was thanking him for St Ceyna.

His blue eyes had searched hers for a moment. ‘Ellen. My great aunt, your grandmother. I’ve had a sense of you reminding me of someone since you came to the Shilling. You could be Ellen’s twin.’

Mara let a secret smile play on her lips. Ellen in the garden then, not Hester. ‘I thought so too,’ she said.

Jack frowned at her use of the past tense, gave a brusque nod. ‘Mirror image.’ And he was gone.