A Perfect Proposal (32 page)

Sophie rummaged in her rucksack and pulled out her now very crumpled picture. ‘Did it look like this?’

Jacca took the paper. ‘No, my lover, it didn’t look like that at all.’

Luke and Sophie exchanged glances. Luke drank some more cider.

‘So the house you had in mind isn’t there any more?’ asked Sophie.

‘That’s right, my bird.’

‘But it didn’t look like this house, so this house maybe
is
still there?’

Jacca scratched his head. ‘I don’t know. You’ve got me confused now.’

‘Me too!’ said Sophie. ‘But I hope it’s in a good way!’

‘But we can have another pint though?’ Jacca didn’t seem to think that having discovered his lead was the wrong house was any reason to stop socialising.

Luke got up. ‘My shout,’ he said. ‘Sophie? More water?’

She shook her head. ‘I’m awash.’

‘Did you want dessert?’ Luke went on. ‘We were going to have it.’

Sophie shook her head. Now that she’d started to digest her first course she discovered she was full. She didn’t want to waste time, either. ‘I think when you and Jacca have had another drink we should go. We have a house to find and it’s getting late.’

‘Ooh, my dear, the chances of you finding that house are slim,’ said Jacca, shaking his head in a way appropriate for one breaking bad news. ‘You didn’t know much about it, did you?’

‘No,’ Sophie agreed brightly. ‘That was why I put the
advertisement in the paper. It’s a long shot but I’m going to do my best. We’ve got one more lead to follow up.’

Luke put down one pint mug and a half-pint. He handed the pint to Jacca.

‘I hope that won’t put you over the limit, Jacca,’ said Sophie, who was annoyed with him for pointing out the truth about the likelihood of them finding the house.

He winked at her with a deep sideways nod. ‘We be a bit more lenient about these things in these parts, my dear.’

She pursed her lips, half expecting a fake parrot to appear on his shoulder and for him to call her Jim, lad.

‘This stuff isn’t very alcoholic, Sophie,’ said Luke reassuringly, sounding perfectly sober.

‘I think it goes to your legs,’ said Sophie, fighting a losing battle. ‘So I’ve heard.’

‘Ooh, you don’t want to believe everything you hear, my dear,’ said Jacca. ‘Another couple of pints here, barman, please!’

Sophie sighed and looked at her nails. It was fun to see Luke so unbuttoned but it was also a bit worrying. They had to find somewhere to stay and it would be dark soon. The Cornish lanes would be even harder to negotiate then.

Half an hour later Luke walked unsteadily to the car and tried to get in the driver’s side, not, he assured Sophie, because he thought he was going to drive, but because he forgot for a moment that he was in England.

Once he was buckled in she took the map from him and then compared it to the napkin on which Jacca had attempted to draw his own map of the way to the village suggested in their second lead. It wasn’t too far away. Neither seemed to make much sense, but she knew her way back to the main road. Luke fell asleep and snored gently. She glanced across at him, loving the vulnerability revealed by his lashes against
his cheek and his slightly open mouth. She wondered longingly what it would be like to wake up and see his head on the pillow next to her. Adorable, she imagined, then shook her head.

She set off hoping she wouldn’t have to wake him to get him to navigate.

She realised she should have woken him when the lane she was on started growing grass up the middle. She was on some tiny track that was so narrow she couldn’t turn round so she just had to plough on, hoping for a turning space. She’d done quite well to begin with, keeping going in the right direction, passing signs and place names she was expecting.

Then suddenly there stopped being signs to the village she was after, as if it had been removed from the planet just as she approached it. She slowed down, checking the occasional farm gate to see if she could turn. She didn’t want to risk getting stuck in a ditch.

She crossed a shallow ford, and was trying to remember if Matilda had mentioned crossing one when she’d talked abut the house when the road took a sharp right. And then she saw it, on a little rise: Matilda’s house, not in the village at all, but quite a way outside it.

Noting with relief that she could also turn and so wouldn’t have to reverse for several miles, she drove up to it, parked the car and got out, closing her door as quietly as she could so as not to disturb Luke.

The house was beautiful, even in the gloaming. Large, with two sections making a U shape so that the two windows on either side of the front door gave views into the other room. There were French doors on both sides and diamond panes added to the charm. It obviously hadn’t been lived in for some time. Some sort of creeper covered the walls and most of the windows. The roof looked higgledy-piggledy, some of
the diamond panes were missing and one of the chimney stacks leaned slightly. But in spite of this air of neglect and abandonment, Sophie instantly recognised why Matilda had loved it so much – she felt exactly the same.

She set off round the house to see if there was a way in that didn’t involve major breaking and entering. It was hard to get round at the back. Outbuildings sprawled from the house, odd walls had fallen down and elder trees grew wherever they could find a foothold. Eventually she found a coal shed or something that had a door on both sides. She fought her way through cobwebs and dust to the far door and escaped into the dusk.

The house was just as lovely from the back. There was a stable block, what could have been pigsties and, through a gate, a walled garden with glasshouses, many of the panes broken, abutting the walls.

Feeling just a little bit spooked, Sophie went back to the main house. She felt safe near that as if the ghosts were kept away by the happy atmosphere. Or maybe it was the presence of Luke that reassured her. He might be asleep, but he was still there if she needed someone to scream to.

There was a window that was partly open. Inside were drifts of autumn leaves, blown and dried by possibly years of Cornish winds. She opened it a bit more and hopped inside.

She was about to explore further when she realised that she’d do better with a torch and, she was forced to admit, Luke. There was a tiny torch on her key ring. If she went back and got that Luke might wake up. Then they could explore the interior together.

Luke wasn’t in the car when she got back to it. It gave her a bit of a shock, but then she decided he had probably gone for a pee or something and would reappear soon. He hadn’t locked the car so she was able to retrieve her bag and find her torch.

She went and stood in front of the house, waiting for Luke. When he came up behind her she jumped, although she knew it was him.

‘Did I startle you?’ He sounded apologetic.

‘No, not really. I knew it was you.’ She paused. ‘This is the house, isn’t it?’

‘There’s not much doubt about it. How clever of you to find it, without a navigator too.’ He was impressed. Then he went on: ‘I should have believed you when you told me that cider was alcoholic.’

She smiled at him. ‘Yes, you should!’

‘You see at home —’

‘I know, cider is like apple juice in America. Scrumpy in Cornwall is quite different.’

‘I won’t make that mistake again. Although I enjoyed it at the time.’

She made a face. ‘I hope you don’t get a hangover.’

‘If I do, I deserve it. So how did you find it?’ His eyes crinkled at the corners in a way she hadn’t noticed before. Perhaps it was because she hadn’t seen him so relaxed before.

She wanted to say, ‘You see, you don’t need to know the difference between left and right to get to where you want to go,’ but she didn’t. ‘Actually, I got completely lost and found it by accident.’

He chuckled and came nearer to her, putting his hand on her arm. ‘Shall we see if we can get in?’

‘We can!’ said Sophie. ‘And I’ve got a torch now.’

It wasn’t easy but they found their way round most of the ground floor. They didn’t go upstairs. Sophie was frightened of ghosts and Luke said the floorboards might not be sound and it would be dangerous.

‘I wonder why it’s been empty for so long,’ said Sophie. ‘It’s such a beautiful house in a beautiful situation. I just love it!’

He was amused by her enthusiasm. ‘I suspect it was left to several members of a family and they couldn’t agree about what to do with it,’ he said. ‘It happens all the time.’

‘Hm,’ said Sophie. ‘Bet they’re kicking themselves that they missed the property boom. This would have made a lovely project.’

‘Don’t say that to my grandmother.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It’s just the sort of thing she would say. It would be crazy.’

‘I don’t see why.’ The thought of some other property developer getting hold of it was like a cold hand on her heart. ‘If it’s for sale, why shouldn’t she buy it?’

Luke shook his head. ‘Because she lives in New England? She could come visit, and see it. That would be OK, but buying it?’ He sucked his teeth.

‘She could afford to just buy it and keep it as a pet,’ said Sophie, determined now that Matilda
should
buy it, if only because at that moment she wanted it so much herself.

Luke shrugged. ‘She could. But I imagine if she did, she’d want to do something good with it – maybe turn it into a centre for disadvantaged children to have holidays in. Although it would be a little small. She wouldn’t want it lying empty, I don’t think.’

Sophie was pensive. ‘That’s a very specific use for it. Has she talked about it to you?’

‘No, but she donated a lot of money to a centre like that back home. It’s something she’s keen on.’

‘It could be a brilliant place!’ Sophie put a firm clamp on her own unexpected desire for the house. ‘But we really need to see it in daylight.’

‘Yes. Let’s go find somewhere to stay nearby and come back in the morning. I won’t be able to hang around for long though, I need to get to London soon.’

The reminder that their adventure together wasn’t going to
continue for much longer made Sophie suddenly sad. There was something magical yet poignant about them being together, in the quickly gathering darkness, outside the house where Matilda had been so happy as a child. She didn’t want to leave, although she did accept they couldn’t stay. They had to rejoin the real world.

‘OK. Are you feeling all right now?’

‘I think so. I don’t want to drive though.’

‘It’s all right, I’ll drive. When I was coming down here I was just grateful to see there was somewhere I could turn. I thought I might have to reverse all the way back to the main road.’ She gave him a stern look. ‘My brother is convinced that women can’t reverse.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of saying anything of the kind,’ said Luke, his hands held up in a gesture of peace.

Sophie chuckled. ‘I’m not very good at reversing actually, but my three-point turns are amazing!’

‘Your what?’

‘Oh, you’ll see.’

It was pitch dark by the time they set off again. Sophie located all the lights on the car and realised that she felt completely safe with Luke sitting beside her. Had she been alone she’d have been nervous about breaking down, getting lost or landing in a ditch while she tried to pass something. With him there she knew he’d help deal with it. She drove back across the ford and up the long, steep lane to the main road and they turned left. The road to the village involved another descent until they were by the water and just as they reached it the moon came out from behind a cloud.

‘Amazing!’ said Sophie, seeing how it danced across the water. ‘It’s like one of the scraperboard kits we had as children. Did you have them? You have a little tool and create moonscapes.’

Luke didn’t reply immediately and they just sat in the car and looked at the moonlight reflecting off all the little yachts that were moored along the harbour. ‘Is that the ocean or a river?’ asked Luke eventually.

‘The ocean,’ said Sophie when she’d shaken herself out of her reverie and had time to think about it. ‘Can you look out for somewhere to park? Oh, over there. I wonder if we have to pay as it’s out of season?’