Rosemerryn

by Rosemerryn (retail) (epub)

  ‘Crikey,’ Colin Uren announced, peeping round the shop door, making the bell ring persistently until Alfie yanked him back inside. ‘He’s going to kill her.’

  ‘No, he’s not,’ Alfie said knowledgeably.

  ‘He was red in the face.’

  ‘Not that sort of red in the face,’ Alfie pronounced like a true man of the world.

  Eve blinked and stared up at Ince as if she’d been struck stupid.

  ‘What were you going to say just now?’ he demanded.

  ‘O-only that if your invitation is – is still open I would like to go out with you.’

  Ince had sworn less than half a dozen times in his life and he put his score up to five. ‘About bloody time!’

  * * *

  The moment Daisy saw Laura, she burst into racking sobs, relieving some of the severe shock Dr Palmer said she was suffering from. Laura hugged her and after ten minutes her terrible trembling ceased.

  ‘I think you’re over the worst now, Mrs Tamblyn,’ Dr Palmer said kindly when her tears finally stopped. ‘What you need is a few days of rest, absolute peace and quiet with no worries. I’m sure Mrs Jeffries and the other ladies will look after you admirably.’

  As Laura showed the doctor to the door, he said quietly, ‘I don’t think she’ll have any more problems but if you’re worried at all, don’t hesitate to call me. Her heart’s not as strong as I’d like it to be.’

  ‘Thank you, Doctor. I’ll keep a careful watch over her. Would it be all right if I take her to Rosemerryn? I don’t like the idea of her being alone here even for a moment. I know she’s got her son but I don’t think he’d be much use to Aunty Daisy.’ Daisy had confided to her all her disillusionment with Bruce since the fight in the pub.

  ‘I think that would be the best thing for her but make sure the journey to the farm is slow, warm and comfortable.’

  Laura got back to the sitting room to find Roslyn and Pat had made tea, Mrs Sparnock had gone home and Daisy had found her voice. Daisy beckoned Laura urgently to her.

  ‘What is it, Aunty?’ Laura said, kissing her hot brow and holding her hand.

  Speaking hoarsely as if she had laryngitis, Daisy whispered, ‘I want Bruce out. Tell him to go now.’ Then tears flowed down her flushed face and Laura rocked her like a child.

  ‘It’ll be my pleasure,’ Laura said, and after Daisy’s tears had subsided, she turned to Pat. ‘Will you come with me? Roslyn can stay with Aunty Daisy.’

  Pat could be a fierce little woman, as capable of evicting a troublesome drinker from the pub as her large husband. ‘I’ll be with you every step of the way, my handsome.’

  Leaving Roslyn to coax Daisy to drink some hot, sweet tea, the two women climbed the stairs side by side. Without knocking on the door they walked straight into Bruce’s bedroom. He was lying on the bed, his stockinged feet up on the bedstead, his head propped up by an arm on the pillows, reading a magazine, a cigarette dangling from his lips. His nose had been left slightly crooked by the beating he had received. He had kept mostly to his room since that night, not inquiring once about Joy or the family he had helped destroy.

  He could see the women were in a confrontational mood and said acidly, ‘And to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit, ladies?’

  ‘You probably haven’t noticed but your mother has been taken ill and the doctor has just left,’ Laura replied sourly.

  Bruce looked her coldly in the eye. ‘What’s the matter with her?’

  ‘She had a shock. She was told that Bert Miller is dead.’

  Bruce sat up straight and took the cigarette out of his mouth. ‘How?’

  ‘He was found on the moor. It looks like he killed himself.’

  Bruce paled but said nothing more.

  ‘Daisy wants you out,’ Laura went on bluntly. ‘Right now.’

  ‘You bitch.’ His lip curled in contempt and he got up off the bed and stood in front of the two women. ‘I suppose you put her up to that.’

  Laura raised her chin. ‘I would have advised her to throw you out weeks ago, but it was entirely Aunty Daisy’s decision. It’s a pity for her, the Millers and Kilgarthen that you ever came here.’

  ‘We’re staying here until you’ve packed your bags and gone,’ Pat said stoutly, folding her arms.

  Letting out a string of profane language, Bruce stormed to the wardrobe and tossed out his canvas bag. He stuffed his clothes into it and put on his shoes.

  ‘I haven’t got any money,’ he snarled. ‘So if you want me to go you’ll have to give me some and ring for a taxi. I’m not walking anywhere and the bus has gone.’

  ‘Very well, you can stay here until the taxi arrives and then say a brief goodbye to your poor mother. I’ll give you ten pounds to send you on your way,’ Laura said.

  She and Pat made to go but Bruce had more to say. ‘I need more than that to make a fresh start!’

  ‘Too bad. That’s all you’re getting.’

  The shop was closed for the lunch break when the taxi driver knocked on the door. Ince stationed himself at the bottom of the stairs with Laura and Pat. Bruce ran the gauntlet of their grim faces and snatched the ten pounds out of Laura’s hand. He swept out of the house slamming the door. He did not say goodbye to Daisy.

  People were huddled outside their doors talking in stunned whispers about Bert’s death when Bruce got into the taxi, the personal car of the local bus company owner. He received jeers and ill wishes, and with a scowl and rude gesture he got into the front seat beside the driver. ‘What’s going on here?’ the taxi driver asked, riddled with curiosity, lifting off his flat cap and gazing at the angry faces. ‘You don’t seem very popular.’

  ‘Narrow-minded lot of bigots,’ Bruce spat. ‘Hurry up and drive on. I’ll be glad to see the back of this bloody place.’

  The taxi driver, a hired worker who lived in Lewannick, raised his thin eyebrows at his fare’s venom, but he wanted to chat and find out all Kilgarthen’s latest news and started off a friendly conversation with the usual topic, the weather. Bruce lit a cigarette from one of the packets he’d stolen from the shop and kept a tight-lipped silence.

  When Kilgarthen was left behind, the driver asked, ‘Liskeard railway station, is it, sir?’ hoping that if he could get nowhere with friendliness then politeness would earn him a good tip from his well-dressed passenger.

  ‘I’m thinking about it,’ Bruce muttered sullenly.

  Chapter 29

  As dawn broke the next day, there was a sharp nip in the air that threatened to frost the dew although it was the middle of August. Eve was up early. She breathed in this hint of autumn soon to come, then hurried through the chores of milking and feeding the goats and seeing to the pigs.

  Back indoors, she skipped up to her room, and although it would risk raising suspicion in her grandfather, she changed into the prettiest of her work dresses, put on a touch of make-up and took more care than usual with her hair. She sometimes wore earrings and clipped on a shiny yellow pair to match her sunny mood. She looked at her reflection in the tarnished dressing table mirror, the same one her mother probably looked into on the night she was conceived, and thought dreamily about the way Ince often studied her. She was sure he would notice her efforts. She wanted to please and encourage him.

  This would be the first time she had gone out properly with a man. Mrs Howard-Armstrong had positively discouraged it. During the war, Eve along with other Land Army girls had accepted drinks from groups of servicemen, but her natural reticence and the severe training she’d had drummed into her stopped her from letting any man get to know her better. When she returned to Mrs Howard-Armstrong’s employ, all her energies had been used in nursing the old lady who was by then bedridden with rheumatoid arthritis.

  Before dashing back into the shop yesterday, Ince had said they would work out the details of their date the moment they knew Les couldn’t overhear them. Eve had lain sleepless in her lumpy, narrow bed most of the night working out the lie she had to make up. Her firs
t thought had been to suggest to Ince that they pay a visit to Rosemerryn and she would say she had spent the evening there, but now wouldn’t be the right time to take up Laura’s invitation with her being concerned for Daisy Tamblyn. Eve regretted not taking the trouble to get to know more people in Kilgarthen, but she felt she had a good choice in Ada Prisk. She had the feeling the kindly old gossip would like to see something happen romantically between her and Ince, and somehow she felt she could trust Ada, not only to keep their association a secret but actively to assist them. Eve would go over to the village after breakfast and ask Ada if she could say she had invited her to supper.

  Eve felt daring and excited, like a young girl. She rubbed handcream into her hands and liberally applied her favourite violet scent. After one last look in the mirror, she grinned impishly at herself and tripped downstairs.

  Singing softly and gaily, she prepared the breakfast and waited for her grandfather to make his bleary-eyed appearance. It was only after she had a big plate of fried food keeping warm in the oven and toast on the table for him that she realised she had heard none of the usual bad-tempered mutterings and hacking coughs he greeted each morning with. It was broad daylight now and he never stayed in bed after it got light. Perhaps he wasn’t feeling well again. He had gone to bed with one of his headaches last night. This one had been particularly painful, and she was going to nag him, if need be, to go and see the doctor at the village surgery tomorrow afternoon.

  ‘Grandfather!’ she called up the stairs but got no answer.

  She hoped Les wasn’t sulking for some reason and felt a stab of conscience that she was intending to deceive him. But she was resolute she would go out with Ince. She was over the age of consent, and as Mrs Howard-Armstrong would have said, ‘If you must have a young man one day, Eve, be sure to find one that is suitable.’ Ince was more than suitable, he was kind, honest, tender-hearted, strong-minded and very good-looking. And she didn’t want to waste any more time. She knew she shouldn’t be thinking it in the circumstances, but she was afraid that Andrew Macarthur would offer Ince Bert Miller’s job and she would not see so much of him.

  Eve called again, louder, then again at the top of her voice. But all stayed silent. After a few moments she went up to Les’s room to rouse him before his breakfast dried up.

  It was dark and gloomy inside the bedroom with the thick curtains pulled across and there was an unpleasant sweaty, mossy smell added to the usual stink of stale urine. Eve had not had any luck getting Les to use the lavatory at night but she insisted that he wash himself more often. With a resigned sigh, she drew back the curtains and opened the top window before going to the bed.

  ‘Grandfather, wake up, your—’

  Les was lying absolutely still. His scrawny body was twisted in a strange S-bend shape, his head lunged to the side, mouth wide open, white-furred tongue protruding. His pallor was like clay, his eyes rolled back in his head.

  Eve knew deep down he was dead, but struggling to keep her panic in check, she shook his shoulder violently. ‘Granddad. Wake up. Please wake up!’ His shoulder was cold and stiff and she gulped and backed away from his body.

  She shook her head, eyes wide with shock. ‘Oh no, you can’t be dead, not so soon after I’ve come here to be with you.’ Then she fled from the room.

  ‘What to do? What to do?’ she muttered as she ran down the stairs.

  She didn’t stop when she reached the kitchen. Her chest felt tight and she could hardly breathe. Running out into the yard, stopping by the well, she clutched the battered handle and gasped in lungfuls of air. Her resolve and reason had left her, her mind would not work and she was at a loss to know what to do. But one thing she did know, she could not go back inside the house with her grandfather dead inside it. This was supposed to have been a morning of hope, a new beginning, but it had turned into death, despair, the end of a life. Her future was uncertain again.

  Somewhere through the fog that glazed her mind like a sudden change in weather filtered a glimmer of comfort. Ince would be walking to work by now, he wouldn’t be too far away. Suddenly she was desperate to see him. He would know exactly what must be done.

  All at once a gust of wind whistled round her head and plastered her skirt to her legs. It shook the shrubby little trees and moaned through their branches, whistled through the gaps in the moorstone walls, scattered dust and grit, rustled the hawthorn hedges. The gate which she was sure had been shut banged and whined on its hinges. The atmosphere became heavy and ominous, the sky seemed a deep and angry grey with heavy black clouds sweeping across it. The goats shifted about in their yard and bleated complainingly, the pigs snorted and snuffled. Eve shivered violently and the bubble of panic that had been gathering into a tight knot inside her burst, replaced immediately by dread and a wave of fear.

  With a hand to her mouth to stifle a cry of despair, she rushed away from the smallholding and onto the lonely narrow track, pounding along in her slippers, her fraught nerves rubbing their edges sickeningly raw inside her. She had not believed the stories about Carrick Cross being haunted, she had never been prey to fears and fancies, but she felt something was taunting her, hunting her.

  She tore along the track, the wind whooshing in her ears, stinging her face, wailing all around her. She imagined a hundred crazed demons and demented souls were chasing hot on her heels, including the recently released tormented spirit of her grandfather, out to get her for planning to go against his express wishes.

  The track was straight and she could see a long way ahead – open moor, stark granite rock shapes, heavy bleak sky. Where was Ince? Dear God, don’t say he wasn’t coming this morning. Had Laura Jeffries, damn her, got him to work in the shop instead? Ince! her mind screamed, but the words refused to come from her lips. She could hear her heart thundering in her ears, her breath bursting ragged and laboured.

  The moment she saw Ince she thrust her arms out to him like a sleepwalker and increased her speed. He had been striding along jauntily, thinking about the evening ahead, hardly able to wait till then. He couldn’t take Eve to the Tremewan Arms because Les would soon find out, but he thought they could risk going on to the pub in North Hill, the next village. His chirpiness vanished when he saw Eve tearing up to him as if all the terrors of Hades were after her.

  There were several yards of ground to cover before their paths met. He ran towards her, calling out to reassure her, and even from a distance he could see she was staring at him from huge, desperate eyes. The instant her outstretched fingers touched him she fell in a heap into his arms, clenching his shirt with clawed hands, pushing her face like a little burrowing mole into his chest.

  ‘What is it, Eve?’ he asked, appalled at her frenzy, trying to hold her away from him so he could look into her stricken face.

  She didn’t want to speak, she didn’t want to think, she just wanted to get as far away as possible from Carrick Cross.

  Realising she was out of breath and wouldn’t be able to speak until the violent shivers coursing through her abated, he held her close and stroked her back. ‘It’s all right, princess. I’m here now. Whatever it is I won’t let anything hurt you.’

  Very slowly her rasping breaths gentled and some of her natural calm returned to her. She loosened her stranglehold grip on Ince and rested lightly against him, waiting for her trembling to cease. Now he was here her reason returned and she felt foolish at what her mind had fabricated. When she was sure she was in control, she pulled away from Ince, then wiped her hands across her burning cheeks and smoothed at her hair. He kept his hands out, an inch away from her, in case she became wobbly.

  She coughed and cleared her throat. ‘I’m sorry, Ince. I’ve had such a shock. I – I went upstairs to get Grandfather up for breakfast and… and found him dead.’

  ‘Good heavens, are you sure?’

  She nodded, pulling on all her reserves of willpower to keep a rush of tears at bay. ‘You can’t mistake that look on someone’s face, and anyway he’s… it must
have happened in the night.’ A tickle of panic filled her stomach as she found she couldn’t think clearly again. ‘Wh-what do I do, Ince? What do I do now?’

  ‘You don’t have to do anything alone, Eve. I’ll call the doctor and inform the police – it has to be done in a sudden death. Then I’ll get in touch with the Reverend Endean.’

  Eve felt numb, but with Ince to help and comfort her she became more confident. ‘Yes, of course.’ She looked up at the sky. The black clouds had been blown out of sight but the wind was cold. ‘I’d better go back and get a cardigan and my handbag and do something about my hair and face.’

  Windswept and flushed,’ young and vulnerable, she looked lovely to Ince, but he knew she would feel better keeping up her usual immaculate appearance when they went on to the village.

  They walked side by side, Eve with her back perfectly straight but her body more yielding than normally.

  ‘Was Les feeling ill last night at all?’ Ince asked her gently.

  ‘He complained of a headache and went to bed early.’

  ‘Could have had something to do with that, I suppose.’

  ‘Oh no,’ Eve gasped, wringing her hands. ‘I should have insisted he saw the doctor before. I knew it couldn’t be right for him to be having so many headaches. They didn’t seem like migraine attacks.’

  ‘It’s not your fault, Eve. You mustn’t think that. Les was too stubborn to go anywhere he didn’t want to, and whatever happened to him it was probably inevitable.’

  ‘Yes, I expect you’re right. It’s such a comfort having you here, Ince.’

  ‘Good, I’m glad of that.’ He stopped walking and she, too, came to a standstill, gazing up at him uncertainly. He held out his arm and she went to him. They walked on and eventually she put her arm round his waist.