‘If your Mum brings some parkin, I’ll call her Duchess!’ Jeannie grinned. ‘Now let’s tidy the place up a bit – put out the welcome mat!’
‘As long as the kettle is on the boil, Mum won’t mind.’ I felt light-headed and happy and eager to show Mum the house. ‘But not one word about the airman, if you don’t mind. They don’t believe in ghosts.’
‘Then who did you get your kinkiness from, Cas?’
‘Obliquely, I suppose, from Aunt Jane. We were always on the same wavelength. We still have little chats, sort of. Now, will you be a love and get rid of those dead flowers, and pick some fresh ones?’
I was acting as if Deer’s Leap were my own house, which it was, really, until the end of the month. And the end of the month was a long way away!
Mum and Dad arrived ten minutes early, which meant I hadn’t opened the white gate, nor shoved Hector in the outhouse.
‘They’re here!’ Jeannie called, but it was too late to stop the angry dog rushing out and snarling and snapping from the other side of the gate.
‘Behave yourself, dog!’ I yelled. ‘Just a minute – I’ll lock him up!’
‘No! Leave him be,’ Dad said quietly. ‘He’s got to learn a few manners! Open the gate, lass.’
‘Be careful, Dad …’ I was reluctant to let go of Hector’s collar.
‘I’ve never yet met the dog that got the better of me,’ he said, standing feet apart, arms folded. ‘Now then, my lad. Stop your noise!’
Man and dog glared at each other. Neither gave way. Dad dipped into his pocket and took out a cream biscuit, tossing it from hand to hand so Hector got the scent of it. Then he dropped it at his feet, standing very still.
Hector’s nose twitched; the barking stopped. Then he sidled on his belly to snatch the biscuit, retreating behind me to crunch it. Dad went down on his haunches, then offered his hand. Hector gazed back with suspicion, then with longing at the second biscuit on Dad’s palm.
‘Come on then, lad. Either you want it, or you don’t,’ he said reasonably.
Hector wanted it. Avoiding Dad’s eyes, he took it warily, then slunk away round the side of the house to reappear later, I shouldn’t wonder, in a more friendly frame of mind. And hopefully to be given another biscuit.
‘Mum! Dad!’ I hugged them both. ‘Sorry about the reception committee – and this is Jeannie, my editor from Harriers. My mother and father, Jeannie …’
‘Lovely of you to come,’ Jeannie beamed. ‘You’ve brought good weather with you. Did you enjoy the drive?’
‘Aye. Once we got off the motorway, it was real bonny,’ Dad said. ‘Not a great deal different to Yorkshire.’
‘Only the other side of the Pennines,’ I said. ‘But wait till you see the view from the terrace. I’ve got the kettle on. Can we give you a hand with the things?’
When the chicken and vegetables my parents had brought were stowed away, I said, ‘You didn’t forget the parkin?’
‘Of course not. I brought one for Jeannie, too, to take back to London.’
‘Mrs Johns! You are an angel!’ Jeannie opened the tin, sniffing rapturously. ‘Can I have just a little piece now?’
‘No, you can’t!’ Mum said. ‘It’ll spoil your dinner!’
We all laughed. Dad and Hector were friends; Mum had charmed Jeannie. The sun shone benignly. It would be a perfect day.
When the vegetables were cooking, the dining-room table laid and a bottle of white wine placed on the dairy floor to chill, I left Dad and Jeannie together, and showed Mum the house.
‘I noticed when we got here,’ she said, ‘that this place is over four hundred years old. What tales it could tell!’
‘Mm. Even going back to the war, there’s a story. I could write a series of books with Deer’s Leap as the focal point, sort of, starting when it was built until the present day. It was here when the Pendle Witches were tried and hanged, and I don’t know whose side it would be on in the Civil War; probably they’d be King’s men. I could get half a dozen books out of it if I set my mind to it.’
We walked round, up and down the many steps, Mum marvelling at the solidity of the house and its cosiness.
Then: ‘Cassie?’ She hesitated in a bedroom doorway. ‘Now you know I’m not one to pry, but has anything – well – happened since you came here?’
‘N-no. What makes you think it has?’
‘I can’t put a finger on it. It’s just that you seem different, somehow.’
‘We-e-11, Jeannie did say she liked the first ten chapters of the book and that I’m writing with more authority, though what she means I don’t quite know.’
‘Not the writing,’ Mum said, very positively. ‘It’s this place. There are no ghosts here but not far away is witch country, you said. Did a witch ever live here?’
‘I’m almost certain not or there’d be some record of it. Anyway, why are you worrying? You don’t believe in witches!’ I teased, because for the life of me I couldn’t tell her about the airman.
‘There’s something different about you, Cassie, for all that,’ she persisted.
‘Then blame it on Deer’s Leap. I’ve fallen in love with the old house! But we’d better be getting downstairs or Dad is going to think we’ve fallen into a priest’s hole!’
‘Oooh! There isn’t a priest hole too?’ Suddenly Mum forgot witches.
‘Not that I know of, but the house is the right age, and it’s very higgledy-piggledy, isn’t it? I’ll bet you anything you like that if someone tried hard enough, and went round measuring and knocking on walls, they’d find one. Around these parts is priest-hole country. A lot of northern people refused to acknowledge the Church of England and they mostly got away with it because this was such wild country. Catholic priests came and went almost as they wished.’
‘It still is wild country,’ Mum sighed as we walked through the kitchen. ‘I can understand why it’s got you bewitched. I wouldn’t mind living here myself.’
‘If you did, we’d be able to look for priest holes to our hearts’ content, wouldn’t we?’
We broke into giggles, which made Dad ask us what was so funny and we said, ‘Priest holes!’ at one and the same time, then refused to say another word on the matter.
After our lovely Sunday, and when I had taken Jeannie to the station next day, the house seemed empty and quiet. I went to sit in the kitchen armchair and Tommy jumped on my lap, purring loudly to be stroked; Hector settled himself at my feet and fell into a snuffling sleep.
Yet I couldn’t feel lonely; Deer’s Leap was a safe, snug house. And I wasn’t entirely alone; not if you counted the airman who was never very far away – of that I was sure.
Yet Mum was right. This house had no ghosts, which made me certain that Jack Hunter could not have met Susan’s parents before he was killed. I’d have felt his presence here if he had. Were they ever lovers, even though in those days girls were expected to keep their virginity for their wedding night? I wished fiercely that they had been.
I