Beyond the Green Hills (31 page)

‘Is there a mortgage on Drumsollen?’

‘No, I tried to raise one for Ginny, but they wouldn’t have it, given my erratic income. It was
Ginny who lent Teddy the money for the roof here when it had to be done, so she’d no money of her own when she most needed it,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘Apart from the said roof, there are other bits of Drumsollen ready to fall down and I’ve got nothing to prop them up with, except a pile of bills for The Lodge.’

‘Sounds like you need some short-term capital input and a longer term loan,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Shouldn’t be difficult, given the available collateral and the general economic upswing.’

He looked at her blankly, not sure he knew what she was talking about.

‘But, Clare, no bank here would touch me with a barge pole,’ he said flatly. ‘I’m certain of that. I’ve tried.’

‘I wasn’t thinking of you,’ she said. ‘I was thinking of me. And it would be a French bank, probably the one where I have my investments.’

‘Investments? Clare, you’re joking. You have to be joking.’

‘I’m not.’

Andrew laughed, and then looked at her seriously.

‘No, my love, I can see that you’re not. And it doesn’t really surprise me. Do you remember Jessie once telling you that if you ever worked for a bank you’d make their fortune?’

‘I’d forgotten all about that,’ she said, amazed he should have remembered.

‘But Clare, my love, doesn’t your having investments make things worse? Here am I with nothing to offer you except
myself and a load of debts. How can I
possibly ask you to give up the life you have?’

He propped himself on one elbow. ‘Come and share my encumbered estate, my often boring job, my fish and chips and baked beans,’ he said soberly. ‘Clare, it just wouldn’t be fair,’ he ended sadly.

‘But life isn’t fair, Andrew. Not in the way we expect it to be. You inherit an estate and for all your hard work, you’re short of money. I hadn’t a bean, except what Harry lent me, and I end up with more money than I ever dreamed of and some collateral I haven’t even told you about yet. But if we put the two together we could make something good.’

‘Do you really think so?’

‘I know so.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because I know I can trust you to do your best and to let me do mine. You’ve always done your best, Andrew, ever since I’ve known you, but you weren’t given many options. I worked hard too, but no one got in my way. I may have been badly off, but at least I was able to make my own decisions. You just had to get stuck in with a mess you’d inherited. Where would Ginny be without what you did for her? And Barney and Helen? Neither of them would ever have coped with The Lodge having to go. It’s time
you
had some choices.’

He grinned sheepishly.

‘Poor old Ginny, she did have a bad time. Don’t know how I’d have coped without that psychiatrist
chappie.’

‘Yes, but you found him and you found the money for his bills,’ she said vigorously.

‘Yes, I did. But I still don’t see how I can ask you to give up all you have and come and marry me.’

‘But you don’t have to ask me to give anything up. I’ve done what I needed to do. It’s given me so much. I’ve made some dear friends. But it’s time for me to move on. I want to make a life here, with you, and the little green hills.’

‘You really mean that, don’t you,’ he said, surprised.

She nodded vigorously, clear at last about the meaning of all the images that had come to her in the years she’d been away. From those daisies on the edge of the vineyard near Nîmes, to the alpine pastures of the Dolomites, she’d been prompted time and time again. But the most potent prompt of all had been given to her on the turret of the château at Chirey. No wonder the words had come so easily, though she didn’t know then that they were true.

‘And for my next problem?’ he said, teasingly.

‘Right,’ she replied.

‘Have you kept up with the radical changes in the social and economic structure of your beloved province?’

‘Yes, I have. Armagh Rural Council plans to replace its condemned houses within thirty years.’

‘You didn’t read that in
Le
Monde,
did you?’

‘No. Charlie Running told me when I was over last year. But Ronnie still keeps me posted. I’ve no illusions, Andrew. We may yet have to go on our travels. But at least we could try. What d’you think?’

‘There is nothing in the world I would like more
than you and me making a life together, wherever that might be. But I’d love if we could start at Drumsollen. Do you really think we could?’

‘Yes, we can. I’ll show you how when I’ve got a sheet of paper. But not just yet. We don’t have to do sums in bed, do we?’

He lay down and shut his eyes.

‘Don’t wake me up. I’m having a lovely dream. You
and
Drumsollen. Could I bear so much happiness?’ he said, opening his eyes and looking up at her.

‘We could try. I think you’ll survive the strain.’

‘I don’t know about you, but I’m starving,’ Andrew said, as he came back from the bathroom and began to put on his socks.

‘They say making love burns up an awful lot of calories,’ she said, sitting up and laughing. ‘That sandwich disappeared hours ago.’

‘We could see what there is. Should be eggs at least.’

‘And there’s some sliced loaf,’ she added, as he pulled on the rest of his clothes and left his dressing gown on the bed for her.

They had scrambled eggs on toast at the kitchen table and then made coffee.

‘When do I have to part with you?’ he asked, as he filled up her cup.

‘Depends a bit on Jessie,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘If she’s as pleased to see you tonight as I think she’s going to be, it’s probably safe to leave her. We could have the weekend together before I go.’

‘That would be wonderful.’

She sipped her coffee and thought about Paris, about Robert and Louise and her life there. Of course it would be hard. Anything of any value is hard to part with.

‘I could give a month’s notice, but I think I need a bit longer. If I came back in August, we could be married in September. Would you still like a country wedding?’

‘Grange Church?’ he said, smiling.

‘Yes, please. And only our nearest and dearest.’

He nodded vigorously.

‘If I stay in Paris till August, you could come over for a holiday in June or July,’ she went on, thinking how delighted Madame Dubois would be that she had at last produced a lover. ‘I want you to meet Robert Lafarge. He’ll love your Breton accent. Actually, I’d like him to give me away, if that’s all right with you. Who will you have as best man?’

‘Oh, my partner, John Creaney. He’s been such a good friend. Heaven knows what would have happened if he hadn’t known the ropes for keeping me out of jail.’

Clare laughed, leaned over and kissed him.

‘Now it’s my turn for the lovely dream. I can’t believe it. This morning I was sitting here talking to June. Now we’re planning our wedding. Can it really all happen so quickly?’

‘Well, we
did
work on it for a long time,’ he said thoughtfully.

‘And then we worked on ourselves.’

‘Yes, I suppose that’s what makes it all so easy. We
know what we want and what we can’t have and what to do about it.’

‘Speaking of which, have you got a sheet of paper?’

They finished their coffee and sat side by side at the scrubbed wooden table while Clare sketched out a financial plan for The Lodge and Drumsollen.

‘Well, that’s quite incredible,’ he said, when she finished. ‘Jessie was right. But you did say there’d have to be collateral for the development loan.’

She nodded.

‘Do you remember the small gift the Missus promised me?’

‘Yes, a brooch wasn’t it? I never saw it. I just passed on her note to the solicitors so you’d know it was meant for you and not as a wedding present if you married me. I think they had it in a safe deposit.’

Clare suddenly thought of the night in Paris when Madame had brought the small packet to her door, the sheet of paper with the solicitor’s letter folded and creased to fit round the small box. That strange moment when she thought it was her engagement ring.

‘It was an emerald brooch, Andrew. There’s a story to tell about her and about the emerald itself and where it came from, but the main thing is I had it valued a few weeks ago.’

She told him the amount and he whistled.

‘So the Missus has given us back Drumsollen. That’s our collateral,’ she said quietly, as she saw the look of relief and joy spread across his face.

For a moment he sat so still, his face so immobile,
his eyes downcast, that she thought he might cry. She hugged him and kissed his cheeks, feeling tears come to her own eyes. No one could give him back the home he had lost when his parents died, but having Drumsollen returned to him, with someone to help him make a new life there, would do much to heal the old hurt. The thought came to her that in healing his hurt she would probably heal her own.

‘Why don’t I take you on a tour of works in hand,’ he said. ‘I’ve had a go at grandfather’s conservatory. June has some fuchsias in there. And I’ve done up the morning room,’ he began, as he collected up their plates and took them to the sink.

‘Actually, on second thoughts, why don’t we go outside first while the sun is still shining. We can do inside any time.’

They went out through the front door, and followed the sweeping curve of the drive to the point where a gravel path led off under a wrought-iron arch and began to climb steeply to the highest point of the low, rounded hill that hid all but the chimneys of Drumsollen from the Loughgall Road.

The slope was steeper than Clare had imagined, and even at the end of the April afternoon the sun had real warmth in its rays. They climbed slowly, hand in hand, pausing every so often to look back at the changing perspective on the house and the surrounding landscape.

Nearest to the house, the lower slopes of the hill were planted with clumps of daffodils, now in full
bloom. As they climbed higher, Clare’s eye caught the pale, green-grey buds of honeysuckle, just beginning to unfold, on a trellis by the path. All around, in the still air, binds fluttered and scuffled. A large jackdaw passed overhead, a stick in its mouth, heading for the trees beyond the house.

‘I don’t think you’ve ever been up here before, have you?’

‘No, I haven’t.’

At the top of the climb, a wooden summerhouse looked out across the Drumsollen farmland to the north and west, its roof recently repaired, the elegant wrought-iron weather vane newly cleaned and painted.

‘Andrew, I had no idea,’ she said, as she ran her eye around the full sweep of the horizon, her voice breathless from the climb and the excitement of seeing her world suddenly opened up and spread out all round her.

Beyond the fields and meadows, the wooded hollows and the winding lanes of the adjoining townlands, she could just see the silver-blue acres of Lough Neagh, its unruffled surface sparkling in the low, late afternoon sunlight. Away to the west, the hills of Tyrone and Derry swelled up, layer beyond layer, higher and higher, till the eyes could no longer resolve the difference between the misty tones of the farthest ridges and the infinitely more distant bands of low grey-blue cloud.

Clare scanned every inch of the horizon. For a moment, her eyes rested on the little parish church of Grange, its spire a thin pencil in the arc of the sky. Suddenly, she remembered a morning, aeons
ago, when she had climbed a ladder and stood steadying herself against the roof of the forge and saw Drumsollen alight with the morning sun.

Tears sprang to her eyes. Her beloved forge was gone, but its memory was hers to cherish for ever. In its place, Drumsollen itself. Perhaps ‘the hill in the sun’ was what the name really meant. No one could be sure. Her life had been full of puzzles and mysteries she couldn’t resolve, but what was no longer a puzzle was the love they had for each other. Nor was her immediate future any mystery.

She glanced again at the spire of Grange Church, in whose lengthening shadow Robert and five generations of Scotts lay buried. It would be a happy wedding, a meeting of friends old and new. And afterwards they would drive back to Drumsollen to celebrate, and chase the old sad ghosts out of the house and launch it and them into a new life.

‘Would you like a wedding ring?’ she asked, as a thought came to her.

‘If you’d like to give me one,’ he replied, turning towards her.

‘We’ve got two wedding rings in Harry’s safe,’ she said, smiling.

‘And your engagement ring,’ he added. ‘Unless you’d like something different.’

She shook her head vigorously. ‘Perhaps those rings were meant for us after all.’

He put his arm round her shoulders and they watched the shadows lengthen over the fields laid out below them. She moved closer to him and felt the comforting warmth of his body as the air began
to chill.

With someone to love who loved her, she’d always be able to make a life, no matter how hard things were. And this was the place she needed to be.

‘Look, Clare, you can even see the mountains of Donegal,’ he said, gazing into the far distance. ‘Beyond your beloved green hills.’

We hope you enjoyed this book.
Do you want to know about our other great reads, download free extracts and enter competitions?
If so, visit our website
www.allisonandbusby.com
.
Sign up to our monthly newsletter
(www.allisonandbusby.com/newsletter)
for exclusive content  and offers, news of our brand new releases, upcoming events with your favourite authors and much more.
And why not click to follow us on
Facebook (AllisonandBusbyBooks)
and
Twitter (@AllisonandBusby)
?
We’d love to hear from you!