‘But I don’t know how to do that, Eliza. You are the one who comes up with plans, the one who creates solutions. You are the one whose destiny it is to bring happiness to others. That has always been the way.’
She sat quietly for a few moments, staring once again into the distance.
‘Where is Jules now?’ she asked at last.
‘Still at the cottage. Carrie is making her lunch although I doubt that she’ll eat much. This afternoon, when she has composed herself, Jules wants to go to the hospital and say goodbye to Rita in person and tomorrow she’ll leave.’
She stood up, smoothed her dress and lifted her chin.
‘Do you have a plan?’ he asked.
‘No, not yet, but I’m sure that by the time I’ve walked down through the woods and communed with the trees something will have occurred to me.’
She set off back towards the holloway at pace.
‘Come, Isaac!’ she called over her shoulder. ‘Do not dawdle. There’s not much time. We must get back to the cottage before they leave for the hospital.’
As Isaac skedaddled after her, he sent up a silent prayer of thanks. This was his Eliza. She was restored to him. At least for now.
TWENTY-TWO
‘Absolutely not!’
Rita’s voice boomed down the length of the ward. A couple of people in the adjoining beds smiled wryly at Jules and Carrie.
‘Perhaps we should wait,’ Carrie suggested, tugging at Jules’s sleeve, ‘or come back another time. You’ll come and visit me in the future. You can come and see her then and, in the meantime, you could always give her a call or write her a card.’
‘Perhaps you’re right,’ Jules said, standing still. ‘I don’t want to bother her if she’s upset.’
Something nudged her in the small of her back and she took a step forwards.
‘Was that you?’ she asked Carrie.
‘Was that me what?’
‘Pushing me.’
Carrie lifted her hands in front of her.
‘Not unless I’ve got a third arm I don’t know about.’
‘It definitely felt as if someone pushed me.’
‘You’re imagining it,’ Carrie said. ‘Come on, let’s go.’
‘Alastair, you can’t make me.’ Rita’s voice reverberated. ‘I’m not listening to any more of this.’ She put her hands over herears and began to sing in a wavery contralto. ‘Eternal Father, strong to save,
Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
Who bid’st the mighty ocean deep
Its own appointed limits keep;
O hear us when we cry to Thee,
For those in peril on the sea.’
As she paused to take a deep gulp of the antiseptic air the whole ward burst into applause.
