Summer at the Little Cottage on the Hill_An utterly uplifting holiday romance to escape with

by Emma Davies

  Tom pushed a cup of tea across the table. ‘It’s a place called Joy’s Acre,’ he added. ‘I’m working there at the moment while renovations are taking place. Thatcher by day, folk musician on evenings and weekends. Brilliant timing though, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘The best,’ said Sally, with a look to the other two members of the quartet. ‘And not just because of today… I don’t think I’m speaking out of turn here, but to be honest, Isobel, you coming today couldn’t have come at a better time. Our other violinist, Mary, has been struggling to make our bookings over the last six months or so. She has three children and her mother-in-law is very poorly too. Today was a one-off, but I think Mary might actually be quite relieved if we could find someone to take her place on a more permanent basis.’ She looked between Tom and Isobel, breaking into a grin at Isobel’s stunned expression.

  ‘Would you at least think about it?’ she said. ‘If you don’t live a million miles away, it could be perfect. We travel all over the county, further afield sometimes depending on the booking.’

  Tom saw Isobel open her mouth to protest, but then she closed it again. She gave a cautious smile. ‘It’s difficult at the moment,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure what I’m going to be doing come the end of the summer. It all rather depends… on how certain other things go, but I will think about it, I promise.’

  Sally gave her watch a quick check. ‘We might have to take these with us, ladies, we’re on again in ten.’

  Isobel gave Tom an anxious glance. ‘I should have brought my car,’ she said, ‘then you wouldn’t have to hang around. We might be another couple of hours yet, Tom.’

  He smiled. ‘I don’t mind,’ he replied, and he really didn’t. ‘I said I’d stay and stay I will. In any case I might pop and have a word with the wedding planner while I’m here. I needed to do a recce on this place anyway to make sure everything is straight for when we’re playing here. No time like the present, as they say.’ He leaned back in his chair, sipping his tea slowly. ‘So, go on, go have fun.’

  Tom stood waiting for Isobel. The wedding breakfast was almost over and she had finished playing half an hour ago. Doubtless she would be saying a very fond farewell to the other women in the quartet; perhaps there would even be the first inklings of new friendships among them. He hoped so.

  He could see her coming towards him now, her movements slow at first, hampered by the tables and chairs that she had to pick her way through, negotiating waitresses clearing tables, and random small children now let loose from their parents. Then, as she cleared the edge of the tightly packed space, she hurtled across the dance area towards him, her thick plait flying out behind her. Her face shone with the joy of her second performance, but it wasn’t only the way she looked that made his heart squeeze just a little more. He could tell the way she was feeling came from somewhere deep inside, as if something had been breached from which there would be no going back.

  He wasn’t sure he could stand another hug without getting carried away, so was mightily relieved to see that Isobel wasn’t going to cross to his side of the table. He was half on his feet, but now sank back down into his chair again, meeting her massive grin with one of his own.

  She practically threw herself into the chair, laughing as she did so.

  ‘That was so much fun!’ she said, laying her violin on the table. ‘But crikey, I’m exhausted. I feel like I’ve run a marathon.’

  ‘Metaphorically speaking, I think you probably have,’ he replied.

  She looked up then, acknowledging the truth in his statement. ‘And I wasn’t even sure if I could still run.’

  ‘It’s going to take you a while to stop…’ He paused for a moment. ‘Or perhaps you might just keep on going…’ He took in her expression, still elated, but obviously tired. ‘You’ve certainly been running on nervous energy, that’s for sure. Have you had anything to eat since that cup of tea earlier? Or drink?’

  Isobel tucked her plait back over her shoulder, and nodded. ‘Someone brought us a plate of sandwiches and some pastry things,’ she said. ‘I think the poor waiter thought Sally was going to eat him alive the way she fell on them, but they were very welcome.’

  ‘Yes, but did you eat any of them?’ asked Tom, knowing how little she usually seemed to indulge.

  She gave a wry smile. ‘One or two… I couldn’t manage any more.’ She looked around her, brightening again. ‘I tell you what I do really fancy right now though.’

  Tom raised his eyebrows.

  ‘A bag of crisps, just salted ones.’ She licked her lips. ‘Those would go down a real treat.’

  He got to his feet. ‘Coming right up, I’m sure the bar will have some. Would you like a drink to go with them? The sun’s over the yard arm?’

  But she shook her head vehemently. ‘No thanks.’

  A few moments later Tom deposited two bags of ready-salted crisps onto the table.

  ‘You’re glad you came then?’ he asked with a grin.

  ‘Oh, Tom…’ she began, her words borne on a sigh. ‘You have no idea.’ Her eyes searched his. ‘I can’t thank you enough. This was something I so desperately needed to do, and I never would have—’

  Tom held up his hand. ‘Ay, none of that. I might have provided the opportunity, Isobel, but make no mistake, what you did today was down to you, and no one else. You screwed your courage to the wall on this one, not me.’

  She looked a little disappointed. ‘Yes, but just having you with me…’ She stopped. ‘Well, it certainly made it easier.’

  He gave a slight bow. ‘Then I’m very pleased and proud to have done so.’ Having to keep his distance was killing him.

  ‘Anyway, how have you left things with the girls? You could do a lot worse than take up their offer, even if it’s just in the short while.’

  She nodded, stuffing crisps into her mouth. ‘Mmm.’

  He waited until she had finished chewing.

  ‘I said I’d get in touch as soon as I could. But it’s difficult, I…’ She took another crisp from the packet. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to be doing. It’s not that easy, there are other things…’ She trailed off, avoiding his eyes.

  He paused for a moment, wondering how much he would be able to get away with asking her. ‘So, what are your plans then? Obviously you came to Joy’s Acre for the summer to finish the composition you’re working on, but what next? There must be an end goal for you?’

  ‘I'm not sure I can answer that.’

  ‘Well I know your music hasn’t quite gone the way you wanted it to, but you had a deadline – the least you can do is tell me a little bit about this project you're working on, and what happens when you finish it.’

  ‘No, you misunderstand.’ She smiled. ‘I'm not being disingenuous, I only meant that I can't answer your question because now I'm actually not sure what happens at the end of my stay. Things really haven’t gone according to plan.’

  ‘Yes, but what did you originally intend to do?’

  She leaned forward, sending her plait over her shoulder. ‘Actually,’ she whispered, ‘I’m not supposed to tell you that either. It’s top secret.’

  ‘Yeah, right.’ He snorted at her joke, but immediately he did so, he realised that what she was actually doing was laying down a smokescreen, trying to put him off from asking questions, but like the best secrets, they were more easily camouflaged in plain sight. She wasn’t joking at all, and Tom knew exactly what her secret was.

  He thought back to the night when he had trawled the Internet looking for information on a young musical prodigy, one he had seen perform as a child and who had mesmerised him with her playing. The woman sitting in front of him now had changed her name and time had ensured she looked nothing like the child he remembered, but the only thing she couldn’t change was the quirky way she had of shaking her long thick plait back over her shoulder. It was like her signature.

  ‘You’re staging a comeback?’ His voice was so quiet he could hardly hear it himself. But Isobel
did.

  She slowly lowered the crisp she had in her hand, until both hands lay in her lap, lifeless. The colour had all but drained from her face.

  ‘How did you know about that? You’re not supposed…’

  To his horror, he saw her eyes widen with fear. She stumbled to her feet, the forgotten crisp packet falling to the floor as she caught her chair which rocked backwards violently.

  ‘Isobel, wait!’ he shouted, snatching up her violin, but she was already several paces away from him.

  She whirled around as he caught up with her, trying to take her arm. She was visibly trembling.

  ‘Tom, take me home… now!’

  ‘Isobel, please.’

  ‘I said… Take. Me. Home.’ She spat every syllable at him, before striding off across the room.

  Chapter 17

  The drive home was one of the most uncomfortable Tom had ever experienced. Isobel refused, point-blank, to even speak to him, but instead sat rigid as a post staring out the windscreen at the road ahead. After a while, he gave up trying to explain and fell silent too, kicking himself for his stupidity.

  The minute the car drew up at Joy’s Acre, she flung open the door and took off across the yard at a speed he had no chance of keeping up with. By the time he'd managed to clamber from the car and grab her violin she had already disappeared around the side of the house. Tom was pretty sure she would head straight back to the cottage, and that had a very solid front door. If she reached it first there would be no way she would let him in, and his only other course of action would be to stand and shout at her from outside, which was the last thing he wanted to do.

  He practically sprinted around the corner of the house, and skidded to a halt in the garden as, mercifully for him, he saw that Isobel had been held up by Maddie, who perhaps had been enjoying a little break in the late afternoon peace and quiet. Although he couldn't hear what was being said, it was obvious from Isobel's mannerisms that she didn't want to talk to Maddie, but never overtly rude, she stopped, and the few moments of conversation they shared were enough to allow him to catch up.

  He slowed his pace, waiting until he could see that Isobel was about to move off, and tried to remove the anxious expression he knew was on his face.

  ‘Beautiful afternoon, isn’t it?’ he remarked, flashing a smile at Maddie as he passed.

  He was now only a step or two behind Isobel and reached her just as she pushed open her door. She spun around, struggling to get the door between them, but Tom shot his foot out, wedging it in the gap.

  ‘Don’t,’ she hissed, holding up a hand to his face. ‘Just don't. Whatever you've got to say I don't want to hear it… and get your foot out my door.’ Her voice was dangerously low.

  ‘Isobel please, this is ridiculous.’ He made a slight backwards motion with his head. ‘And for God’s sake let me in or you’re going to have Maddie on your doorstep as well wanting to know what the hell is going on.’ He pushed her violin case in the gap between them, quite prepared to use it as a battering ram if he had to.

  She stared at her instrument, and a part of him could see she would love to have snatched it, but instead she held his gaze, dark eyes glittering, and then she shoved the case at him hard and stalked off down the hall.

  He closed the door gently behind him and followed her down the hallway. ‘At least let me explain.’

  ‘Why should I?’ She glared at him. ‘I don't want you anywhere near me. You're just like the rest of them.’

  That hurt. The rest of whom? Whatever Tom was, he really doubted that this was the case. Had today not been proof enough of that? His own anger began to rise.

  ‘Do you want to think about that for a moment? About the last few days in fact, and in particular what happened earlier. You were amazing, Isobel, you broke through some barrier that has been holding you back for goodness knows how long… and no, you didn’t need to tell me that, I worked it out for myself. I thought we were beginning to understand one another. I’ve shared stuff with you that meant something to me, more than you will probably ever know, and in doing so I’ve begun to feel better than I have in an awfully long time. So forgive me if I took up the “top secret” invitation that you so very obviously dangled in my face, but I was only trying to help.’

  She balked at his words, her mouth opening and closing as she fought to find the right response. ‘So how do you know who I am then?’ She narrowed her eyes at him. ‘Oh, I get it,’ she sneered. ‘Jesus, I really am stupid… Did my mother send you? Is that what this is all about? You were supposed to get friendly with me, and then once you’d got me to trust you by telling me your little sob story and making me think that we had things in common, you were going to get me to tell you everything I was planning. How did you even find me?’ She took another step backwards. ‘Dear God, have you been following me?’

  Tom stared at her. This was rapidly turning into the script from a rather poor soap opera. What on earth was Isobel talking about? He almost laughed until he realised that she was still slowly, almost imperceptibly, backing away from him. She wasn't angry any more, she was scared.

  He held up both arms, an age-old gesture to show that he was unarmed and meant no harm, and took a tentative step forward.

  ‘Isobel,’ he began, his voice as soft as he could make it. ‘I haven't been following you. I haven't been trying to set you up, and to my knowledge I’ve never even met your mother. I'm a thatcher. I get up early and go to work, I work through into the early evening at which point I go home, have a shower, and if I can stay awake for long enough, read a book for an hour or so. Then I go to bed, get up the next morning and do it all over again. And that’s all.’ His anger evaporated in an instant as Isobel took in his words, her face beginning to crumple.

  ‘You still didn't answer my question,’ she murmured. ‘How do you know who I am?’

  ‘Isobel?’ He waited until he was sure he had her full attention. ‘When I was eight years old my father took me to see you in concert and, over the course of the next four years, I think we attended every appearance you ever made. I pretended to be unaffected by your playing, but in fact your brilliance was the only thing we agreed on. Ever.’

  Her hand rose to her mouth as she stood in shocked silence.

  ‘When I first met you, I thought there was something familiar about you, but I only realised who you were the other day when you flicked your hair back over your shoulder just before you started to play for me. Maybe you don't even know you do it, but it's a habit you've had since you were a child, and when I saw that, you may as well have had a neon sign hanging over your head. Of course, it took me a while to work out who you were. As a child the fact that you stopped performing so abruptly meant nothing to me.’

  ‘But it does now?’

  There was no point in lying. He would, if he thought he could save Isobel from further hurt, but he knew she would see through him in an instant. ‘Yes, I admit I did go looking for information.’

  ‘So now you know everything?’

  He nodded gently and the two of them stood in the dim hallway looking at one another. Even the lack of light couldn’t prevent him from seeing a slow tear make its way down her cheek. She dashed it away angrily.

  ‘You see? Even after all this time, you see how it makes me feel? Sometimes I think I'm never going to be free from it.’

  She turned and walked down the hallway into the kitchen, crossing to the fridge. She took out a dish of something Tom couldn't see and plonked it on the table.

  ‘I'm sorry,’ she said. ‘You probably haven’t eaten anything. But there's some strawberries here if you'd like some. I haven't got any cream or anything, but I think perhaps they’re sweet enough to eat on their own, or I've got some sugar if—’

  Tom laid a hand on her arm. ‘Isobel?’

  She sunk onto a chair, dropping her head and clasping both hands together in front of her on the table. Her thumb moved rhythmically back and forth over her wrist as if this tiny movement might prov
ide some comfort.

  ‘I'll make us a drink.’

  Neither of them said a word while Tom busied himself making tea, and it was only when he joined her at the table several minutes later that she raised her head at all. He pushed a mug towards her.

  ‘I'm not sure whether this ever helps,’ he said. ‘But there are certain times in your life when you're prepared to give anything a go.’

  She smiled gratefully, clasping her hands around the warm mug, despite the heat of the afternoon.

  ‘I ought to apologise,’ she began. ‘I was very rude…’

  Tom eyed her across the table. ‘Possibly,’ he said. ‘But I spoke without thinking back at the hotel, which was unforgivable, and I’m sorry too. I never meant to upset you… And just for the record, I’m really not a spy…’

  Isobel passed a hand over her face. ‘That’s frankly embarrassing.’ She groaned. ‘I can’t believe I even said that.’

  He shrugged. ‘You were upset, it happens. I’ve been called worse, and believe me some of the times I actually deserved it.’

  ‘But not today though.’

  ‘No, not today.’ He swivelled his mug around so that the handle was facing him. ‘So, what’s the deal here, Isobel? I mean, I know what I’ve read, but I very much doubt that it’s the truth, and I’d much rather hear it from your point of view.’

  ‘Oh, I don't know, what’s to tell? I'm sure the papers got the gist of it very well. I was a child prodigy. I gave my first solo performance at the age of seven, but by the time another seven years had gone by I was on my way out. At age sixteen I had a nervous breakdown and I quit the music scene for good. To all intents and purposes, I disappeared off the planet. Me and my vast fortune, except that now there's very little left of it and, as being a child prodigy doesn't qualify you for anything else in life, I have no choice but to try to begin working again.’

  ‘Hence the comeback?’