Page 42 of The Perfect Guests
Her voice was flat. “Maybe you should go and have lunch at Jonas’s house, Beth.”
I stared at her. “I can’t—”
“Mum!” she bellowed back into the hall. “Beth says she’s going to eat at Jonas’s house instead.”
I tensed, waiting for Leonora to come scurrying out, to tell me this wasn’t allowed, to drag me back into Raven Hall. But instead, Leonora’s voice floated calmly down the hall.
“Okay, that’s fine. Come inside, then, Nina, and close the door.”
It was like the sun burning through winter cloud: the truth hung there, clear and shocking, in front of me. Why had I never realized it before? I could leave whenever I liked; I could go wherever I liked. It was Nina who was banned from the village, not me. Nina who was kept here in a little bubble. Not me.
“But I don’t want to—” I began.
Nina’s voice was tight. “A bit late for that, don’t you think?” She retreated into the house, slamming the door behind her.
I turned to Jonas, my heart rattling.
“What do I do?”
He gave me a cautiously optimistic smile. “Come home with me?”
I felt dazed as I walked to his car, not sure what I was committing to—not in regard to Jonas, but in terms of leaving Raven Hall, and walking away from Nina. Would the family—would Nina—definitely allow me to go back? I sat in silence on the short drive to the village, gazing sightlessly through the windscreen. Jonas cast me concerned glances, but he didn’t speak again until he’d turned onto the B and B’s driveway and parked by the bicycle shed.
“My mum’ll be pleased to see you, you know,” he said. “Delirious, actually. I mean, I’m downplaying it, if anything. You really don’t need to worry.”
“It’s not that,” I said.
He studied me. “I’m worried about you, you know. That family. It’s like you hide your feelings all the time, in case they don’t approve, but—it’s not right. You shouldn’t have to pretend to be something you’re not...”
I gulped, thinking of the two occasions I’d tricked Nina’s grandfather into believing I was Nina.
“I shouldn’t have left,” I said. “I need to get back. It feels disloyal...”
“Beth.” He took my icy fingers in his and tried to rub some warmth back into my hands. “Look, you’re almost sixteen. You can leave Raven Hall if you want to. Talk to your aunt Caroline. Come and live here, with me. I mean, it doesn’t have to be—Mum would happily put you up, as a friend of mine; I promise you. And then we’d be...” He squeezed my fingers gently. “You can be yourself, here. And we could see each other whenever we like.”
I shook my head slowly, feeling like the worst person in the world.
“But that’s not what I want.”
Jonas blinked a few times. “What isn’t? Being with me—?”
I pulled my fingers free of his, and I indicated the yellow-brick house in front of us. “It’s such a nice offer, but it’s not—”
“Nice?”Now he sounded insulted.
I twisted in my seat to face him, trying to find the right words. “It’s just that—I’d still be so close to Raven Hall, and—I can’t even think it all through. They’d stop paying my school fees, wouldn’t they, if I left? And for me to move just down the road would seem so... rude, somehow. But you’re so close to your mum, and thebusiness, and this whole place—the village, everything. I can’t expect you to leave that behind and—”
“What do you mean?” He searched my expression. “Move somewhere else, together, you mean?”
I shook my head. “You can’t. You can’t leave this place; you belong here. And I can’t just leave Raven Hall but stay nearby. I’d need to make a proper break, a clean break.” I sat back in my seat, then, and turned my head to the side window. “Which I’m not ready to do. So.” I took a deep breath. “I need to go back.”
“You’re really not making sense,” he said.
I curled my fingers around the door handle, feeling dizzy, as though I were teetering on the edge of the dock back at Raven Hall, unsure whether to fall one way or the other. All I knew was, I couldn’t have it both ways: I couldn’t have Jonasandmy life at Raven Hall. I had to decide between them. And there was no point in trying to explain that to Jonas, because there was nothing he could do about it. He’d be better off without me. I couldn’t give him the happy, carefree,normalrelationship that he was looking for, or that he deserved.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Look, I’ll walk back. You go in. Your mum’s waiting for you.”
The hurt in his voice was clear. “Fine. Go running back to them, then. But things won’t get any better, you know. Markus’s dad’s coming back again, and Mum says he’s determined to sell the house this time; did you know that? He has an appointment with an estate agent while he’s here. He’s desperate to get Markus and Nina to the States with him, with or without Leonora, and Mum reckons he won’t accept any more stalling...”
