Then his gaze shifted, and the look of surprise turned to one of dismay.
Jake followed his gaze and looked down at the patch of trampled flowers underfoot. He looked up, unrepentant. ‘I came to visit my wife,’ he said.
Jake watched the young man slowly turn around, the ladders balanced awkwardly on his shoulder, and walk back through the gap in the hedging. Jake followed him and stood like a sentry, guarding the entrance for several minutes, ensuring he would not return, ensuring he would be left alone. Satisfied that the young man was not coming back, Jake returned to the centre and cast his eyes down to the small white oval memorial stone that was engraved simply with the words:Eleanor, Chosen, 25thDecember.
They were Jake’s words and Jake’s comfort.
Chosen; a single word, yet the full meaning, a true understanding, eluded Jake. He had felt that this simple word spelled a deeply cherished hope that she had to have been chosen for a reason, because it just hadn’t been her time. How could it be anyone’s time at the age of twenty-six?
Jake held out his hands and touched the two other memorial stones – those for his parents – weathered with age, standing solemnly side by side. It hadn’t been their time either.
Jake retraced his steps through the gap in the hedge, back into the main gardens. He stopped just beyond the hedge and looked around the garden; there was no sign of the lad with the stepladders and shears. Jake breathed a sigh of relief and walked back across the gardens towards the gate. He was in no mood to apologise, no matter how much trouble the gardener had gone to over the flowers. He felt that his lost family were there, and no pretty flower display was going to change that fact.
Jake paused and closed his eyes, remembering the house with its brilliant white windows and blazing green shutters sitting majestically in the centre of the grounds. All was as it always had been – in his memory. This was still his house, and this had briefly been his childhood home until fate had dealt the cruellest of hands.
He had come to them late in life – a son – when they had all but resigned themselves to remaining childless. His father, an army officer, had intended to spend his retirement with his wife and young son in the peace and tranquillity of his beloved Scotland. But, a month before his early retirement, their plans had been cruelly cut short by a road accident. Fortunately, Jake had not been with his parents at the time, otherwise he would have perished too.
They had left behind a confused and lonely little boy with no relatives and an uncertain future – until William had stepped in.
They had bumped into each other, literally – Jake’s fatherand William – on the ski slopes beyond the house when Jake’s father had been on leave, not long after Jake was born. They had both become fathers for the first time late in life, and something had clicked; they had become firm friends. It was during one of Jake’s parents’ Christmas parties at The Lake House, when he’d invited William and his family, that Jake’s father had confided in William, out of earshot of his wife of course, his fears for his newborn son. What if something should happen on his final commission?
How prophetic.
Of course, William had reassured him that he would always be there to advise Jake if need be, little realising how great those needs would become. But William was stoical; he had barely known the man for four years, yet he had taken care of his son without a second thought and had welcomed him into the family fold. Further, he had ensured that Jake never lost touch with his roots by making it a tradition that all the family spent each Christmas at his house, The Lake House, so that Jake could ‘visit’ his parents. It was an arrangement that had worked surprisingly well. So well, in fact, that even as adults, wherever they might be, they had descended without fail on the house at Christmas.
The house was cursed.
Jake opened his eyes. Of course, that wasn’t true. There had been many, many good times and an abundance of fond memories, but Jake recognised that it was all it held for him now – memories. There was no future there for him. The question he was now asking himself was what to do with the house. It was such a waste, this beautiful old house standing alone, forlorn, forgotten. It needed people; children running around its lawns, laughter in its corridors.
Jake looked in the direction of the hidden garden. It had been William’s idea to have Jake’s parents buried in the grounds oftheir beloved house. But William could not have foreseen the events that would lead Jake to contemplate the future of the house – the future without Eleanor.
Chapter 34
Jake was about to head back, but he turned on his heel and crossed the lawn to the house before he could change his mind. He was not all that eager to go inside, but finding the kitchen door open the previous night had given him cause for concern; had the house been broken into while he’d been away? A big house standing empty was easy prey for opportunists. Jake had heard of instances where thieves had been blasé enough to turn up in vans and empty a house of its entire contents while the owners were away.
There were no valuable antiques, cash or jewellery there. In fact, there was nothing of great value in the house; only the sentimental value it held for Jake. If somebody had been in the house, Jake thought it more likely that it was just local kids daring each other to stay the night in an empty house, complete with memorial garden and possibly ghosts. Of course, Jake didn’t believe in any of that mumbo-jumbo; the place wasn’t haunted, and there was no such thing as ghosts. But it was the sort of thing kids would do – he should know.
There was another reason for Jake to linger; it was time to say his final goodbyes. He was seriously thinking of selling the place, letting it go.
Jake tried the front door first. It was locked. No sign of forced entry. He still had the keys somewhere, but he had left them back home in London, not intending to stick around long enough to see the house.
Jake returned to the back garden, stopping at the back door. He knelt down and lifted the mat by the French doors, expecting to find the old spare door key under the mat.
There was no key.
Jake stood. That key had been under the mat, unused for years. If it had still been there, it would probably have been full of rust. It was just as well the door was already unlocked. He wasn’t surprised after what had happened at Christmas that they’d probably overlooked locking up a door when they’d left. There were no broken panes of glass, and the door didn’t look as though someone had forced entry to the house. His only concern was whether anyone else had discovered the unlocked door, which would allow them to gain entry to the house quite easily.
Leaves crunched underfoot as Jake stepped through the door into the kitchen. Shafts of sunlight filtered through the leaded windowpanes, throwing small squares of white light onto the cream linoleum and lime green kitchen units.
Jake walked straight through the kitchen, skirting the large wooden table in the centre of the room, and opened the door to the hall. He stopped abruptly; something had caught his attention. He slowly turned back, his eyes settling on the kitchen table. Jake let go of the door. He walked back to the table and picked up a china mug. A dried black substance lined the bottom. Jake held it up to his nose and sniffed – coffee. The red-headed lad with the shears and ladders came to mind. Jake had nothing against him stopping in the house to make a cup of coffee. Jake put the dirty mug back on the table. But what if it wasn’t the gardener discovering the back door was open and making himself a cuppa?
This was not good news. He had thought it could be kids larking about, but he hadn’t bargained for squatters. The state of the house had advertised its emptiness, advertised a vacancy. Jake cursed at the thought.
He went over to the kitchen cupboards and opened doors and drawers at random to see if there were any tell-tale signs of people living there, but all the cupboards were empty, apart from some condiments that were always left in the kitchen. Jake opened the pantry door and poked his head inside; it was cold and dark. He breathed in the pungent, yet not unpleasant, odour of food. Jake moved his hand around in the air until he felt the plastic flex of the light switch. He pulled. Nothing – the electricity was still out. Either someone had turned the electricity off before they all left after Christmas or there had been a power cut. Either way, it probably meant a trip down to the fuse box in the cellar to turn it back on. Jake didn’t bother. There was light enough from the kitchen to see that most of the shelves were empty, apart from a large jar of instant coffee, along with some sugar, teabags, and long-life milk. Like the condiments in the kitchen cupboards, they were the basics always left for when they arrived there on holiday before the supermarket delivery arrived.
Jake closed the door to the pantry and looked at his watch. It was a little after eight in the morning. If anyone was still there, they were about to get a rude awakening. With that thought in mind, Jake decided to start his search in the bedrooms at the top of the house and work his way down.
A few minutes later, Jake was back where he had started in the back passage outside the kitchen – alone.
