Page 39 of The Runner
‘With weather like this, how can I decline? It’s almost like Seville,’ said Kate.
They laughed, all knowing that even during the British summer, it was liable to be dull and rainy the following day. Kate offered her full services to assist them with the grand opening and they chatted and made plans to divide up the long to-do list as the big day approached.
Kate said she’d especially love to be involved with anything to do with their family history, and so they decided they would talk about what else she might know that could help them, while George was overseeing the final steps with the builders in the centre, that afternoon.
‘I must also give Eddie a quick call,’ said George.
Cara looked up. ‘Everything okay?’
‘All good. Just wanted to run a few things by him. He made a few interesting suggestions when he was here.’
Kate looked intrigued. ‘How is Eddie? We really hit it off at your wedding. He’s so lovely.’
They chatted for a while longer, not wanting to leave the sun trap by the peaceful, meandering river. Finally, George stood. ‘Come on, you two. I must get back to see the builders before they call it a day.’
On the way home, they passed a sign that pointed to a footpath which led into the nearby village of Willow Wick. ‘We’ve not been that way yet,’ Cara said. ‘We should check it out and take Kate into the village when we have a chance.’
‘I’d love that. Willow Manor was at the heart of Willow Wick back in the eighteenth century,’ said Kate. ‘Many of the villagers depended on our ancestors for their livelihood and were tenants in their cottages, and from what I could glean, it appears there was a thriving community, and the family even funded a school for the local children which was far ahead of the thinking of the day.’
Cara stopped in her tracks. ‘I’d like to hear more about that and make some notes later,’ she said.
She saw herself riding along the footpath into Willow Wick, and a vision of Ralph flooded her mind and panic shot through her.
Kate touched Cara’s arm. ‘Are you okay? You look a little pale again.’
‘I think I must be coming down with something,’ she said. ‘I don’t feel quite myself today.’
Back at the house, Cara and Kate settled down in some stripey deckchairs in a shady patch of the garden, and Mrs Lightfoot brought them a pot of tea and some home-baked scones.
‘My goodness, I can see I’m going to have to watch my weight while I’m here with you lot,’ said Kate. ‘These scones look scrumptious,’ she said, slicing one in half and spreading it with butter and a spoonful of strawberry jam.
Cara poured them both tea and opened her notebook, ready to quiz Kate. ‘Please, tell me all you can about your ancestor, George Cavendish, who was head of the estate in the eighteenth century—around 1729. He inherited the title of earl when his father died.’
In between mouthfuls of delicious scone which crumbled on her tongue, and sips of hot tea, Kate regaled Cara with what she could recall about the house and its inhabitants. ‘So, as I told you before, this particular George has a reputation as having been a bit of a black sheep.’
‘Remind me why exactly,’ said Cara, her pen scratching the paper of her notebook as she scribbled furiously. ‘What did he do?’
‘I think it may have been more about what he didn’t do. He let the side down, as it were.’
‘Oh… in what way?’
‘Well, I don’t know all the details, and I don’t know how we would find them, but my understanding is that he fell in love with a servant who was employed at Willow Manor—she may have been a governess or something like that, so not quite one of the servants, but not an aristocrat either.’
Cara scrawled as fast as she could to keep up as Kate talked. ‘What about him burning the house down? You mentioned something about that, didn’t you?’
‘Yes, that’s right. Again, I don’t know how or what, and the original house still stands, so he obviously didn’t burn it all down.’
‘But why on earth would he want to burn his own house down?’
‘There are various versions of the legend I’ve heard over the years. Some say he was so heartbroken over his lost love he vowed to burn it down and didn’t want to live without her.’
A chill ran through Cara as she thought of the George and Caroline, she’d seen so much of in her dreams recently. It sounded like they were headed for doom, even though Sylvia had overwritten Ralph’s menacing hypnotic karmic warrior spell. Perhaps this was the life when they destroyed each other with no one else’s help…
Cara prompted Kate to continue and asked a lot of questions to see what she might have overlooked. Every word was of consequence in helping Cara to solve the eighteenth-century puzzle.
‘What was that thing you said about George losing the estate in a card game?’
‘Um, that’s part of the legend, too,’ Kate said, pouring them a refill from the large china teapot. ‘You know how legends are—big on drama and small on detail!’
