Chapter Two

Two nights later, and I still couldn't sleep. I had been exhausted, and would have bet anyone everything in my wallet (much good it would do them- two cinema tickets from last year and an out of date young person's railcard) that the second my head hit the pillow, I would have been out for the count. As it turns out, I would have lost. I lay there in the darkness, eyes wide open, mind zapping, and, just as I reached for my phone to check the time, it rang, under my fingers. Thanks to an extremely dorky personalised ring tone, I didn't need to check who it was before answering.

"It's a good thing for you that I wasn't asleep."

He laughed. "What would you have done?" he asked. "Driven six hours north and then given me the pounding of a life time?"

"It has been a long day, Edward," I said, not without a heavy icing of prim, school-marmishness. "If I had been asleep, you would have deserved…it."

"Yadda, yadda, yadda."

"Hey!"

He laughed down the line. "Deserved it?" he said. "I can tell it's been a long day."

I sighed in resignation. "You're impossible."

I heard a certain smile shoot down the line. "So," he said. "How's it all going? Having a nice time down there while we slave away up here in the bleak and misty north?"

"First," I said, "it is wild and untamed, epic in its beauty and mysterious in its charms."

"You mean cold and windy?"

"Second," I said, ignoring his idiocy, "you are not slaving. I have known you, what, two weeks, and you have not worked hard for one day of that, except, perhaps, to hide from your sister."

He snorted down the phone. "It's so nice to know that I can count on my friends for support, El," he said. "Can I have you as a character reference in case I ever need it?"

"No," I said, and turned over in bed. The springs creaked ominously.

"Where are you?" he asked. "In a pirate ship?"

I sighed. "Yes, Ed, I am in a pirate ship."

He snorted again.

"So how are things at home? Besides your sister plotting her evil plots, I mean."

"You really do have a brilliant grasp on the English language. It's like you're Shakespeare, reborn."

"Shut up."

He laughed. "It's fine. Your Mum and I are both assiduously avoiding Fi like the plague. Maggie is busy planning a trip to the Shetlands to view Sea Otters…"

"Of course."

"…and Mari is packing up to go back down to Oxford."

The sound of his voice had slowly been lulling me to sleep. That information however woke me up again. "What?" I asked. "Already?"

"It has been over two weeks. She's going to fail if she doesn't return soon."

"Great," I said, grimly.

He sighed. "She'll need to finish up the year, pass her exams, get her degree," he said, slowly, "or else how is she going to earn her keep?"

"Nice."

He sighed again. "You know what I mean. The last thing she needs after the last month she's had is then to fail her degree. It'd be like a slap in the face after breaking your leg…or something."

"Now who's the wordsmith?"

"El…"

"I know," I said, "and I don't mean to be so crabby."

"You're not."

I sighed, and contemplated kicking the wall. The chance of very old plaster flying out and whacking me in the head was a very real possibility. I thought better of it.

"How's it going down there?" he asked, smoothly changing the subject. "What was the interesting prospect?"

I turned over again as the jumbled thoughts of the day smoothed out in front of me. "Cliff wants a new Estate Manager."

"What?"

"Yeah," I said, nodding to myself. "The last guy really screwed him over, and after everything that happened down here last month…well he feels reasonably guilty about it."

"Why?" asked Ed, through a mouthful of something. I didn't bother asking. No doubt it would be horribly processed, hideously un-nutritious and incredibly delicious.

"He is the reason that Dad got where he was. It was Cliff's dad who instigated the scholarship at the school, and then a few years later when he died, it was Cliff himself who saw that Dad had everything he needed. He helped him set up the business, he found the clients. And it was Cliff who organised the cruise."

Ed sucked in his breath. "The cruise?"

"Yeah."

He was silent for a moment. "Why wasn't he the one who was sued?"

I winced as the truth of the matter came crashing down. "Because he didn't have as much to lose. All he has is wrapped up in an entirely unprofitable estate. Dad owned the shipping company. They stood to gain much more from suing us than suing Cliff."

He sighed. "It's an ugly business."

"Yep."

He was silent again for a moment, then, "don't you just want to punch this Cliff in the face? I mean…seriously."

"He's my Godfather."

"So?"

I smiled. "No, Ed. I wasn't his fault, and it wasn't Dad's fault. No one was solely to blame."

"But you've lost everything, and he's just lost a bit of business." He was silent for a few seconds. "Seriously, El. You are the most gracious, non-money-grubbing, extraordinary person. Ever."

I smiled a little. "I think it's more like massive push-over."

"No," he said, decisively, "whoever gets to marry you is a lucky man."

Everything Mum had said and Fi had implied came rushing in. I tried to stamp them down, but they rose, before my eyes. "I…well, I…" I started, finding that I had turned into a stammering school girl.

"He'd be a fool not to give you the job," said Ed, swerving back to topic. "I hope it works out."

"I…yes. Me too."

"And hey," he added, "if it does, I'll only be a few hours away, right? Maybe I could come and visit sometime?"

Once I had a secret love rose to a crescendo in my ears. My traitorous, musical loving ears. Damn them. "Sure," I said, with an ever-so attractive quaver to my voice.

"Cool," he said. "Well, I'd better go. Leave you bright eyed and all that to wow that Cliff character tomorrow."

"All right," I said, struggling to maintain control. "Sleep well." Sleep well? What was I, his Grandma?

"You too," he said. "See you soon." Then he hung up.

I turned my light back on. The chances now of sleeping were slim to none. I reached for, and flicked open Wuthering Heights. For once, I barely took in any of the words.


I got home the next night just as the sun was setting. Mum came out to meet me.

"So?" she asked. "What happened?"

"Where are the others?" I asked, pulling together my bags from the back of the car.

She waved a vague hand. "Around. Inside, I think. Nowhere near here. So?"

I took a deep breath. "He offered me a job. Estate Manager of Barton Park."

Mum's face was a rich tapestry of emotions. She took a deep breath, then hugged me. "Then we're going back to Barton."

"Mum…" I tried to start.

She waved the hand again. "It's a job, sweetheart. Maybe the only one we're going to find for a while. If we have to move, then we should do it in good time for Maggie to be settled before she starts back to school after the summer. Who would you rather work for than Cliff?"

I shrugged, locked the car, and hefted my bags simultaneously. I turns out, none of them are that easy to do while doing other things. "He's my Godfather," I said. "I've never worked for him. Only taken his spurious spiritual advice."

Mum smiled slowly, and took one of my bags from me as we headed back to the house. "And that with a pinch of salt."

"I'll say."

We paused on the steps and watched the last sliver of sun disappear. She turned to me. "Did you look into somewhere to live?"

The Red Kites were flying high enough to still catch the sun. They looked magical. I sighed, despising the thought that they weren't mine anymore. "There's holiday accommodation on the estate. Cliff reckons that he can get it sorted out in a couple of weeks."

"He doesn't want it for paying guests?"

I shrugged. "He'd rather I got to work."

Mum slung an arm around me. "He's a good man, Ellie-Em. I think it's a good thing."

"It's Barton."

She shrugged right back. "Yeah, but this last month aside, I also met your Dad there."

"You want to go back?" I asked, somewhat incredulously.

She smiled. "No. But this is a job, Cliff is like family, and it was home for years. You never know. This might be the best move we ever made."

I let out a long gush of breath as the night closed in. "Fine," I said. "But now we have to tell them."

She winced. "Yeah," she said slowly. "About that…I think you should do it."


Ed was sitting at the kitchen table, pretending to work on his laptop, but really, he was watching Mari bake. The expectation of devouring delicious cake was clear in his eyes. She, meanwhile, was silent, and busy with an oven glove. It was remarkable that I could really take in any of this given that I had three-fold bad news to give to Mari and the coffee cake that she had just taken out of the oven smelled out of this world.

"Uh, Miz?" I began tentatively.

"Hmm?"

"Could I talk to you for a second?"

Her back was to me, as she fiddled around with the oven shelves.

"Sure," she said, jiggling the shelves harder, trying to push them back in.

Ed caught my eye. I gestured out of the room. He grimaced, gathered up his things, and said, "I'll just get out your hair, Mari. Be sure to save me some cake." His voice was all lightness. His expression toward me at having taken away warm, fresh coffee cake was not.

As the door swung shut behind him, Mari swung round. "Thank goodness," she groaned, and immediately abandoned the oven.

"What? You were…avoiding him?"

She shrugged. "He was boring me out of my mind."

"Mari!"

She sat down at the table, heavily. "He doesn't have an opinion on anything. Not a favourite film, or a favourite book, or even favourite music. Apparently he'll watch, read and listen to anything."

"So?" I said. "He's easy."

"He's boring," she said, slumping across the floury table. "He doesn't have an original thought in his tiny brain."

"Hey!"

She turned her face to look at me as I also sat down. "What?" she said. "You can fancy him. I don't mind…"

"First," I said, "we are not twelve. Fancying is not part of my repertoire these days."

She grinned. "More fool you."

"Secondly," I said, "I don't."

She grinned some more, head still on the table, with a stunning disregard for everything still strewn across it. "Liar," she said.

"I don't!"

"OK, Cleopatra."

"What?" I regretted asking straight away.

She smirked. "Queen of…"

"OK," I butted in, "but I'm not. I…like him, I think."

"Wow," she said, finally sitting up. "Cool your jets there missy, or your burning lust is going to set fire to something."

"Funny."

She smiled. "I thought so. Shall I put Burning Love on? I'll bet Ed likes it."

"All right," I said, kicking her. "Give me a cookie. I want to talk to you about something."

She rolled her eyes, leaned over and fished a still-warm peanut butter-chocolate chip cookie off the cooling rack.

"Thank you," I said, and broke some off. Then I nearly forgot everything I had come in there to say. That good. "So," I said, regaining some semblance of my mind, "I've found somewhere to move."

She raised an eyebrow. "I thought John said we could stay."

"He did," I started, "but I don't think that it was entirely open-ended. Plus," I added, "my job soon won't exist anymore."

She frowned. "Why?"

I winced. "It's kind of being dissolved."

Mari fought hard to keep her emotions in check. She vented by scratching at a groove in the grain of the table. I tried not to slap her hands away. "Bloody Fi," she muttered. "Stupid, ruddy, stupid…"

"It's done," I said. "She wants to start something here which incidentally dissolves my job. Maybe," I said, gaining momentum, "maybe it's a good push to get out of here."

She looked at me, hard. "You and Mum have been saying 'maybe' a lot these last few weeks."

"I know…"

"Because nothing," she went on, "nothing, is certain anymore."

She shot out of her chair and started pacing the room. Unfortunately, Fi chose that moment to come in. "YOU!" bellowed Mari, and started towards her.

"Could you give us a moment?" I asked, and, for once, she retreated, with a heart-warmingly terrified expression on her face. That'll teach her. Mari slammed into the now closed-again door, and thumped it with her fists. I gave her a second to catch her breath.

"Mari," I began, slowly. "Cliff has offered me a new job."

She turned, still leaning on the door. "Cliff Middleton?"

"Yeah."

She blinked, heavily. "Barton? We're going back to Barton?"

"Yeah."

She slid down the door, landing in a heap of elbows and knees on the floor. "Why on earth would you choose to go there? They'll hate us."

"No…"

She raised an incredulous eyebrow. "Yeah. OK."

"They won't."

She shook her head. "We could stay here a bit longer, couldn't we? You could look for a different job? We could…"

I stood up, picked up another couple of cookies, then sat down beside her. "We could," I said, "if it weren't for the fact that we have barely any money."

She paused, cookie midway to her mouth. "What?"

I sighed. "They sued us."

"Who?"

I winced. "The people of Barton?"

She rolled her head back, irrespective of the whack it made against the door. "Barton," she muttered darkly.

"Yeah," I said.

"They can't have taken every…"

"Everything," I said, completing her sentence. "They went for, and took everything except the investments Dad made for each of us."

Mari thumped her head against the door again. "Mine's mainly gone," she said. "University ate most of it."

"Mine too," I said. "Maggie's is still there, though Mum won't touch it."

She sat in silence for a moment. I didn't dare say anything. Then, she sighed. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Creeping guilt snaked its way up the back of my neck. "I'm sorry," I said. "I should have."

She let out a hissing breath through her teeth. "I probably would have been more of a hindrance than help," she said, gloomily.

"No…"

She smiled, ruefully, mirthlessly, and shrugged. "You know, I am trying to be less melodramatic."

I slipped an arm round her shoulders. "You've been invaluable. Don't you dare change."

She smiled again. "Old Marianne, you realise, would at this information probably go for a long walk in the rain and not tell anyone where she was. For hours."

"Maybe a day."

She nodded, sagely.

"OK," I conceded. "I like the new model too. Just don't, I don't know…"

"Go native?"

I found a grin pulling at my mouth. "Yes."

She slipped her arm back round me too. "We'll get through this." She smiled with unaccustomed sense and then let out a gusty breath. "When sorrows come, they come not single spies, But in battalions."

"Your own, Jeeves?"

She grinned back. "The Bard, actually."

I nodded, slowly. "Beardy? Inky? Impossibly hot? You know…Jacob Phones…?"

"Joseph Fiennes?" she asked, patronisingly. "Yes, except, you know, probably not as hot, and probably not as many teeth."

"Disappointing."

She smiled again. "OK," she said. "You should probably know right now that Christopher Marlow was also not as hot as Rupert Everett made out."

"Was he the one in A Room with a View with that Holly Bingham-Catchpole?"

She gave me a look. "No. That was Rupert Graves and Helena Bonham Carter."

"Oh."

She shook her head slowly. "And people think that I'm the annoying one."


In her mercy, Mum told Maggie. She told me about it later. The words tree-house and lake were bellowed, along with hell-hounds, barbecued billy-goats and mutton-headed galloots. Mum placated her with the fact that there was a tree-house years ago on the Barton property, and maybe we could restore it, and the fact that the sea was a short scramble down the cliff path away. Maggie was not amused. She went to bed muttering about how Alan Quartermain didn't have to put up with this kind of nonsense. Given her reaction to being told she had to wear a dress for Dad's funeral, we all thought that we got off lightly. That was until the next morning, when she couldn't be found.

"It sounds more like me than her," said Mari, pulling on her boots. Her car was packed and waiting to go back to Oxford, but right now, this was more important. We were all astutely not thinking of all the times we'd vaguely warned Mags about not drowning in the lake or trying to climb the older of the trees. Ed appeared in the kitchen, dressed and ready to go, and gestured out the door for me to follow.

Outside it was already starting to warm up. The dew was thick, and the mist clung in the hollows, but it only served to promise the sun, later. We started down, past the birds starting to wake up in their aviaries, and off towards the lake.

"She told me that she wanted to run away to China," Ed said, breaking the silence eventually. "Not that I think she's going there," he added. "I just…"

"I know," I said, and I did. The silence was awkward, and scary. He smiled, and as easily as a breath, he took my hand in his.

"Come on," he said. "Let's try the tree-house."

His hand was warm. The contact was friendly, and easy. My breath, however, caught in my throat. We walked over the bridge spanning the outlet of the lake, then up the steep hill on the other side. On the top, the slope flattened out, and on the edge was the big old oak with the tree-house built around it.

"Please be here, please be here," I heard myself mutter out loud. Ed squeezed my hand. Then he cupped the other hand around his mouth.

"MAGGIE!" he yelled. The sound bounced down the valley. Somewhere below, on the other side of the lake, a bird squawked.

I took a deep breath, then climbed the ladder. Inside, the tree-house was spotless, with maps pinned across the walls, extra pins rammed into the places that she wanted to go to. It was, however, devoid of Maggie. I took a deep breath, squashed down the flutter of panic, then turned to see Ed climb onto the veranda outside, and straighten up, before walking in. He glanced around, then grimaced.

"All right then," he said. "Where else?"

I sighed. "Anywhere. Of all of us, she knows the estate the best. She's climbed every tree, swum in all of the lakes and ponds, scaled every rock face…" I rubbed at the back of my neck. "She could be anywhere."

He looked at me hard, strode over, and hugged me. "OK", he said. "We can do this. Where did the others go?"

I wrenched my thoughts back to Maggie, and not to how his arms felt around me. "Uh…Mari's going to the farm and will ask them if there's anyone to spare to help, and to keep an eye out. They'll check all of their buildings, and Mari will drop into the old water-mill on her way there. John was taking the dogs and going across the fields to the village. Mum and Fi were staying at the house and gardens. As soon as people turn up for work they'll be sent to check out all the commercial areas, though she's not likely to be there."

"OK," he said again, wandering around the wooden room, touching the maps lightly. "What about…" He trailed off as he looked through one of the windows back to the house. A smile spread across his face. I mentally scolded myself for a) marvelling at how a relatively unremarkable, though friendly face could be transformed by a smile, and b) that my first thought was for his handsomeness and not for why he was smiling. I pulled myself together.

"What?"

He grabbed one of my hands, and pulled me to the window. "Look."

I looked out across the wooded hill, over the misty lake, the squawking foreshore, and back up the gently sloping grass to the terrace and the house, with its statued and crenelated roof silhouetted against the morning sky. "What?" I asked again. All I could see was everything I was about to give up. It was like a punch in the stomach seeing it all at one go.

He grinned again. "There is one extra statue."

I looked again. Sure enough, one of the figures who, at first glance, appeared to be one of the statues which edge the roof line, was at second look, moving. That, and the flag bearing the family crest which normally flew largely for the pleasure of the tourists was, today, not flying. It had been replaced with a Jolly Roger. "Dammit," I murmured. "I'm going to kill her."

Ed smirked, and all but giggled all the way back to the house. At least, I think he was. I left him behind as I sprinted back up the hill to the house, barrelled into the house, up the stairs, and up the twisty stairs to the roof.

"Maggie?"

She sat down, slowly, purposefully, and began the strains of We Shall Overcome on her recorder.

"Maggie," I said again, this time less pleading, and more threatening.

She eyed me over the recorder, and carried on, regardless.

Ed burst out behind me onto the roof. "Wow," he muttered, peering over the edge. "High. Really…high." He swallowed and turned to Maggie.

She stopped playing and looked at him, very distastefully. "I thought that at least you would have been on my side."

He smiled a little, then straightened it out. "I am Mags," he said, all seriousness, "but Ellis is only doing what is best for you."

She raised an eyebrow.

"She needs a job to be able to pay for things…"

Mags made a dismissive sound, and moved to start playing again.

"…and that job happens to not be here. I rather suspect that she's more gutted about leaving here than any of the rest of you."

Maggie paused.

Ed looked at me. "Right?" he asked. He turned back to Mags, and sat down next to her. "You know," he said in a lower tone, which I took to be conspiratorial. I turned away, but not so far that I couldn't hear them. "You know," he continued, "that she's heartbroken about leaving."

I hadn't said it out loud. I'm not sure I truly felt it until then. It was like another punch to the stomach. I felt winded.

"If she could stay," Ed continued, "she would. But you guys haven't any money, and if there's no money, then there's no chance of China in the future."

Maggie seemed to weigh this for a second. "I suppose," she said slowly.

"And if there is no tree-house, I will personally come and build you something, somewhere."

I winced at the promise, knowing that it wasn't our land and certainly not our trees, but still, his reassurance to Mags was touching. I turned to see her nod, slowly. "Maybe," she said, then looked up and caught my eye. "What about the dogs?"

I sighed, and shook my head. "There are too many of them, and it'll be too small. John will take good care of them. It just wouldn't be fair otherwise."

Maggie's lower lip trembled just for a second.

"Maybe something smaller?" said Ed, slowly, his eyebrows raised at me.

I sighed again. "Maybe a rabbit."

"Maybe a rat?"

I swallowed my immediate reaction of 'hell, no," and said, "maybe."

She rolled her eyes, then nodded slowly. "OK," she said, and stood up, picking up her recorder.

"Come on," said Ed, with an arm slung around her shoulders. "Let's go and get some breakfast."

They walked over to me, and with a hand on my back, Ed guided both of us to the stairs.

"Just so you know," said Maggie, "this sucks."

"Don't I know it," I said, and saw Ed smile out of the corner of my eye.


Mari left to go back to Oxford that afternoon. Maggie relapsed into loud silences and dirty looks, but at least, at last, things were going somewhere. Mum and I started to organise and pack, and both inner-bewailed the fact that most of our much loved furniture was actually part of the house. We already knew it, and it's not like the many-thousand-pound chandeliers would suit a three bedroom holiday cottage, but it was still hard to take. John was very generous. Fi matched Maggie's dirty expressions look for look, especially when John insisted on our taking some of the paintings. After all of our personal things were sorted, it turned out that there wasn't much to take. I sent a few frantic emails down to Barton to ask them if we could use the furniture in the old holiday cottage. Leisurely, measured replies winged their way back saying Of course and we'd be delighted. I sighed a gust of relief, and Mum carefully packed some of the larger and less useful of her belongings away for safe keeping in the expansive Norland attics.


Several weeks later, and with an impressive amount of stuff, despite all we were leaving behind, we were just about ready to go. I got up early that morning, and slunk out to the birds. Dad started it, bringing in exotic birds, ones that used to be native, and some home-grown talents. The enclosures started out smallish and huddled in the corner of the estate. Twenty years on, and the aviary had become extensive. Some of my favourites, however, were not particularly fancy. The Red Kites that had been re-released just a few years ago flew so high sometimes that it could take my breath away. The tiny ducks with their sleek heads and fast feet would come and say hello, heads bobbing, eyes bright. But it was the storks that made my heart ache to leave them. "They bless a house," I had told Ed, just a few nights ago. It had taken realising how close a friend he was to allow an introduction to them. He deserved it. He had raised an eyebrow. "You can say that?" he asked. "You who has been through so much?" I had shrugged. After all, I believe in the storks. They clack their beaks, and land awkwardly occasionally, and wheel lazily over the lake, and I never get tired of them. They are always magical.

Standing the in the morning light, I sighed and watched them stir in the tree tops.

"You're going to miss them."

I spun around to see Ed, walking down the path, carrying something.

I shrugged. "Of course."

He stopped next to me. "Maybe they'll follow you."

"No."

He tipped his head on one side, and look at me. "It'll be all right."

For once, the emotion bubbled up in me, and I couldn't press it down. It rushed too fast, thick in my throat and stinging my eyes. "How?"

He frowned in sympathy, and then smiled a little. "Maybe with this?" He put the wrapped bundle into my hands. Covered in tissue-paper it was heavier than I expected. "You didn't have to," I said, peeling off layers of paper one after another.

He said nothing until the last layer was removed, revealing a tin stork, gleaming in the sunshine, its wings folded, its face looking down, peacefully. "Ed…" I breathed.

"It's so that you'll be blessed in your new house." He smiled. "You deserve it."

I hugged the stork to my chest, regardless of the sharp edges and uncomfortable lines. "Thank you," I said, and reached out my other hand to the back of his neck. Suddenly, I found myself pulling him down and kissing him. The stork was awkward between us, and for a second, he did nothing, but just as I started to pull away, he kissed me back. Then he rested his forehead against mine.

"Ellis," he murmured.

"I know. I'm going away. My whole life is starting again. I just…" I looked up at him. "I just wanted to say thank you."

He looked shaken, but he laughed a little. "You did that," he said. "Very well." He stepped back, suddenly awkward, and unsure.

"I don't expect anything," I said, seeing his expression. "Really. I know things are awkward with your family, and heaven knows I've got a mountain to climb with mine."

He drew a hand over his face. "It's not that, El. It's just…"

"It's fine," I said. "You don't have to explain. Life is complicated enough." I reached up and kissed his cheek. "Goodbye, Ed," I said, then walked away, the stork still clutched to my chest, and hot tears streaming down my cheeks. It was the sensible thing. It was the right thing. It was also, however, the hardest thing that I had ever done in my life.


As ever, Sense and Sensibility is not mine. Neither is Once I Had A Secret Love. Nor are most of Maggie's piratical exclamations. They were written by Jane Austen, Sammy Fain & Paul Francis Webster, and Arthur Ransome respectively.

Thank you to my reviewers. And readers. And those who craft cake for a living. And whoever's idea it was to put Ace of Cakes on the Food Network. You all help me keep writing.