FORTITUDE
Eliza paused to look at the view. The cottage garden was in full bloom, Hidcote lavender with its dense purple flowers abuzz with bees, some new soft pink roses called Gertrude Jekyll which Guy had planted in the border and her own favourite, the deep blue delphiniums swaying in the breeze. Isaac stepped outside and placed an arm around his wife’s waist. Instinctively Eliza leaned into him.
‘This is a magical place, isn’t it, Isaac? A place where dreams can come true.’
‘Indeed.’
Momentarily a shadow passed across his face.
‘If those dreams are meant to be. Life can’t give us everything we wish for, my love. We have to accept our fate then and now.’
Eliza squeezed his hand.
‘I sense that we’re still needed here, Isaac.’
She felt his resistance.
‘There’s another guest on their way to Hideaway Cottage. Someone who is in need of this place as much as we’ve needed it.’
‘Then we shall remain to welcome this person,’ Isaac said with a hint of a sigh, ‘and watch over them, keep them safe and endeavour to guide them towards happiness and contentment.’
Eliza dipped her head in gratitude and as the summer breeze whisked at her skirts she felt a frisson of anticipation.
Isaac dropped a kiss on the top of her head.
‘Except this time, Eliza, there must be no meddling.’
Eliza adopted her most innocent expression.
‘What you called meddling was merely a helping hand.’
The slightest wrinkle of a frown crossed his forehead.
‘Your plan may have worked with our last guest, but it could also have got us into trouble.’
‘I know, I know,’ she replied, turning her face to the sky, ‘but you worry too much, Isaac.’
‘I worry that we can’t stay here for ever,’ he said, dampening her spirit a little with a stubbornness that she recognised so well. ‘It is not…’
Eliza stared at the blades of grass around her feet. The gardener, Guy, would be here soon to cut the lawn. Maybe his girlfriend, Carrie, would come with him. Maybe she would remove the little mahogany box from beneath the floorboards again and take out its contents. How Eliza longed to see those precious objects once more. Because precious they obviously had been to someone. Isaac was still searching for the right word and seemed to find inspiration from staring at the sheep in the adjacent field.
‘…appropriate,’ he declared with a nod of approval and righteousness.
A wave of panic washed over her. He meant well, but she couldn’t leave, not until she had seen that box once more. To confess that, however, would incite his wrath again. Isaac was not prone to bursts of anger. She could count on one hand the number of times he had raged during their many yearstogether, but only once had he stormed off and that was after the discovery of the box. Two long days he had been gone. She began to think he wouldn’t return, that he had passed over without her. She had sat on the fallen log beneath the willow tree waiting, hoping, praying for him to rejoin her. And then, just as dusk was falling on what would have been her third lonely night, the fronds of the tree parted and he was there, his dear face set with anguish. For a moment they had faced each other. She had vowed that she wouldn’t make the first move yet was it not nearly always the women who swallowed their pride and instigated forgiveness? So, she’d lifted her arms, the lace around her wrists fluttering like the beating of her heart, and stepped towards him.
‘I’m sorry,’ she’d whispered, even though she felt it was not her place to apologise. ‘I do not know why I made you angry, but I’m sorry.’
He’d held her tightly and briefly she’d felt safe again, but something had changed between them. He was still her beloved protector, but there was a suppressed nervousness which rippled from him, a restlessness, even more of an imperative to move on. He thought that he hid it, but she knew him too well. In addition, he was keeping something else from her, but she couldn’t work out what that was. Her memory was so tiresome! She was sure there were things from long ago which, however hard she tried, eluded her; strands of their life floated like distant shapes within the mist that rolled in from The Solent some days. She grasped for those memories, but as soon as they seemed to be within reach they would fade away. She was left bereft and with a feeling of failure that she did her best to suppress. If Isaac thought she was unhappy, there was a danger he would accelerate their plans to depart and that could not happen. He himself said that she knew what others needed in advance of their own awareness – that was her gift. InstinctivelyEliza knew that she would not get the answers she needed by leaving. She had always devoted herself to Isaac and to others. Now it was time to be aware of her own needs, too, and if they involved her remaining and Isaac departing, she would have to steel herself and find a way to endure without him.
‘Do you have an inkling as to when our next guest is due to arrive?’ he asked, jolting her from her reverie.
Eliza looked up at him, his dear face now smiling tenderly down at her. She transferred her gaze across the garden towards the horizon where the silver sliver of water merged with an expanse of summer sky.
‘Soon,’ she murmured. ‘Very soon.’
ONE
Jules stretched out her arm. It met empty space. In truth, she hadn’t needed to reach out to know that the other side of the bed was empty. She lifted her head to look at the clock: 5.23 a.m., although you wouldn’t know it from the light filtering through the curtains. It was so bright it could have been midday. She lay there for a moment, listening. Through the briefest of pauses in the birdsong, she could hear the tap, tap of fingers on a keyboard. Dread gripped at her stomach and she tried to calm herself. She was being ridiculous. The feeling was totally illogical. There was bound to be a good reason why Gavin kept getting up in the early hours to look at his laptop, but up until now she hadn’t managed to find out what it was. Just sending a few emails, he said when she asked. She wanted to believe him, but… Throwing back the duvet she swung her legs over the side of the bed and padded, barefooted, across the varnished floorboards towards the sitting room. If she could just get a look at that screen… It wasn’t that she didn’t trust him, she just needed to reassure herself.
