The Dream Weavers by Barbara Erskine (best ereader for pc TXT) 📗

Raising his right hand, he made the sign of the cross. ‘Requiescat in pace, domina,’ he whispered.

He didn’t move for a long time after she disappeared. The terrace was totally silent. The birds had gone. Even the sheep were quiet. The only sound was the soft moan of the wind soughing through the trees on the sides of the valley below them.

‘You addressed her as domina. Lady.’

Mark turned to see Simon standing in the doorway. ‘It seemed appropriate somehow.’ He wondered how long Simon had been there watching.

‘Poor woman. She’s at rest now?’

‘I hope so.’

Mark sat in the car for several minutes before he reached forward to turn on the ignition. He had seen a ghost, spoken to a ghost, prayed for a ghost. Suddenly what Bea did made more sense. He had always kept an open mind about her stories, believed that she believed in what she did, but always he had had that niggling kernel of doubt. Up to now. But even so, the fact remained that she had lied to him; or if not lied, at least let him believe she was not going to get involved with Simon and his ghost.

Simon, having watched him walk down the path and get into his car, had gone back indoors and closed the door. He too had seemed thoughtful.

‘Requiescat in pace,’ Mark murmured again as he let off the handbrake at last. ‘Rest in peace.’

Now he needed to find his wife.

10

‘Don’t be silly! Of course I’m not drunk!’

Ray had insisted on driving Bea home that evening after he found his wife and Bea giggling in front of a TV sitcom.

‘No, I can see you’re not drunk, Beatrice,’ Ray persevered patiently, ‘but I don’t think you should drive. You can fetch your car tomorrow!’ he added firmly as she protested. ‘You will have to get Mark to bring you over to collect it.’

‘We only had a couple of glasses each at lunchtime!’ She was feeling thoroughly ashamed of herself.

Ray had been quite shocked when he returned home from the golf club. Chris and Bea had finished the bottle and then opened another.

‘It was my fault, Ray,’ his wife called out. ‘Being washerwomen is hard work.’ They had finished the laundry between them and made up the B & B beds in the house ready for Chris’s next influx of visitors.

Ray had shaken his head tolerantly as he dropped Bea off in Hereford.

Mark was not finding it quite so easy to be understanding. ‘You could at least have left me a note. I was worried sick not knowing where you were. After Sandra’s message this morning I thought there was something really wrong.’

‘I didn’t leave any message with Sandra. I barely spoke to the woman!’

‘She said you were looking for me. She was concerned.’

‘No, it was her idea that l was looking for you. I was looking for someone else.’

‘Who?’

Bea was silent for a moment. This was not an interrogation she wanted pursued. ‘Look, I only wanted to be alone for a few minutes and the wretched woman pounced on me. It was none of her business!’

‘I’m sure she thought she was being helpful,’ he reprimanded. He was finding it difficult to contain his anger. ‘I know where you’ve been.’

‘With Chris.’

‘Before that. I went up to the cottage. I met Simon Armstrong.’

Her mouth fell open. ‘Mark, I—’

‘You promised me you would give up doing it!’ Suddenly he was shouting.

‘I didn’t make any promises! I just didn’t tell you everything, and that was only because you weren’t in the house long enough for us to have a proper conversation! You seldom are, these days!’ She pushed past him into the kitchen. ‘Back off, Mark! If you remember, you promised not to interfere! Chris asked me to go up there to help, you know she did. I told you. I didn’t lie!’ She faced him defiantly, her eyes sparking with anger. ‘You had no right to ask me to give this up. I know I agreed to stop, but I can’t stop being me. I’m not going to make a habit of going to people’s houses, I know that would reflect on you if anyone found out, but this was different. Very different!’

‘Different in what way?’ He had followed her. He sat down at the kitchen table and folded his arms.

‘It wasn’t in Hereford, and it involved a stranger. No one was going to find out.’

‘And when you got there you couldn’t do it.’

She stared at him, dumbfounded. ‘What do you mean I couldn’t do it?’

‘You didn’t remove the ghost.’

‘I did. Simon told me it was sorted and I needn’t go back. Mark, I was—’

‘I saw her.’

It was a full second before his words sank in. ‘What do you mean you saw her?’

‘While I was talking to Simon, we both heard the voice calling. I prayed and she appeared. She was an elderly nun.’

‘You saw her?’

‘I saw her.’

‘That doesn’t make sense,’ she said at last. She sat down opposite him. ‘She’s a young woman. A girl. She wasn’t a nun.’

‘I thought you said you hadn’t seen her.’

‘I didn’t. At least,’ she added quickly, ‘only a shadow in the garden. And the voice is a young woman’s voice.’

‘No. Not the voice I heard.’

‘Then we didn’t hear the same person.’

They stared at each other in silence.

‘The main thing is,’ Mark said at last, ‘I saw her and spoke to her, and I prayed with her and she’s gone, Bea. She seemed at peace.’ His tone had changed.

She nodded.

‘And Simon can get on with his book.’

‘He’ll be relieved.’

‘And thank God, you won’t have to go up there again.’ He took a deep breath, swallowing his anger. ‘Bea, I had no right to ask you not to do this, but please, in future, if there is another case, at least be discreet. And don’t whatever you do say anything again that could be misconstrued by Sandra Bedford.’

There was a long pause. ‘Why did you go up there?’ she asked.