by Tania Crosse
She watched with vague curiosity as Mrs Stratfield-Whyte’s cheeks blanched.
‘Marguerite,’ the lady repeated in a whisper, and her hand went, inexplicably, to her throat as if she were in danger of choking.
Her husband was instantly by her side, his face a study of concern. ‘Let’s all sit down,’ he suggested firmly, his tone one of a man who was accustomed to being obeyed. ‘And perhaps someone could bring my wife and Miss Chandler another cup of tea,’ he said, eyeing the two empty cups.
‘Of course. And yourself?’
‘If it’s not too much trouble, thank you. Brandies would be preferable,’ Mr Stratfield-Whyte added wryly, ‘but I don’t suppose such a thing would be on offer.’
‘You suppose right. But I’ll see to some tea for you all.’ The doctor paused as he turned to go. ‘I really am so very sorry, Miss Chandler,’ he repeated, and then disappeared.
Meg sat down again. Slowly. Sinking down into a deep, dark ocean penetrated by nothing but writhing shadows. And her heart closed into a hard knot somewhere deep inside her.
Eight
Meg let herself into the farmhouse and went inside without turning back to Mr and Mrs Stratfield-Whyte or acknowledging them in any way. They’d wanted to come in, so she wasn’t on her own, for a while at least. But that was the last thing she wanted. She closed the door behind her and leant back against it, shutting her eyes. She listened to the crunch of the tyres as Mr Stratfield-Whyte turned the car around, and then to the fading purr of the engine as the tamed beast was driven slowly away down the track. The beast that had mown down and killed her parents, the only family she’d ever known.
The house was utterly quiet then, ringing with the sepulchral silence of a mausoleum. Meg strained her ears to catch a groan or creak of the old building, but it wasn’t talking to her tonight as if it, too, was in mourning. Still as death itself.
Meg hiccoughed back her sorrow and opened her eyes. It was fully dark now, the house lit only by the silver glow from a full moon in a clear, unblemished sky. The rooms held nothing but grey shadows where no one else would ever move again. No more talking. No more laughter. She was alone. More alone than she had ever been in her entire life. And it was unending.
The tears came then, a single pearl slipping down each cheek, joined by another and another until the salty pools in her eyes overflowed in a torrent. She couldn’t stop them. Didn’t want to. Allowed herself to sink beneath the tide of grief and anger and bewilderment that streamed through her. The strength that had kept her going all those hours suddenly drained away. Her knees buckled and her back slid down the door until she was sitting on the cold floor. A dreadful, aching emptiness opened up inside her and she poured her anguish into it with each sob that racked her body until every drop of misery had been wrung out of her.
She waited. But it seemed she had run out of tears. That was odd, wasn’t it, when she knew her pain was only just beginning? But she supposed her torture had exhausted itself. For now. She felt numb, the legacy of her tears being merely her sore, pricking eyes.
There were things she had to do. Tasks she could bury herself in and so allow herself to forget the nightmare of the last few hours. For a short while. Although there was mains electricity in the village, the farm was too isolated to be connected to it as yet, so she fumbled for the candle and the box of matches that were always kept on the table by the front door. One day soon, perhaps, those wondrous cables would bring their magic into the house. But for now, it was easier to light the candle and then by its vacillating flame to light the oil lamp that stood next to it. Wouldn’t want to break its glass chimney or shade by trying to light it in total darkness, her dad had always said.
Dad. She hurled the hurt aside as she made her way through the house carrying the lamp and then set it down by the back door. She wore trousers almost all the time nowadays, and had put on her heavy shoes to go to market, but out in the farmyard, gumboots were more sensible. She changed quickly, even pulling on her old duffel coat which she hadn’t worn all summer, as she suddenly felt chilled to the marrow. Take her dad’s… dad’s big torch, and then tramp across to the field where their small herd – her small herd now, she supposed – was currently grazing.
Oh, the poor creatures were waiting by the gate, lowing pitifully. Meg opened the gate at once. She didn’t need to drive them to the milking shed. They knew their way of old, lumbering down the track to the farmyard. Meg fired up the small generator that powered the renovated barn. At least she’d persuaded her dad to modernise to some extent, even getting him to buy one of these brand-new milking machines, the first small farm in the area to have one. They got every last drop of milk from the cows’ udders, and there was never any danger of having to throw dirty or contaminated milk down the drain. So it made perfect sense.
As she flicked the switch and the lights grew to a comforting brilliance as the generator powered up, Meg wished for the umpteenth time that the electricity supply connected to the house as well. We’ll have to wait until the electricity company and our landlord get together, her dad had told her on numerous occasions. Well, that was something she would press for now the farm was hers.
She pulled herself up short. Oh, no. Guilt and horror at her own thought ripped through her. May God forgive her, she didn’t mean it like that! Nevertheless, as she turned on the milking machine and connected up the first two cows to it, remembering to check each udder for mastitis or any other problem as she went, she was grateful for the brilliant glare that beamed down from the light bulbs overhead. The already familiar suck-chunk of the milking machine and the physical warmth of the large, gentle animals brought her some small degree of solace. The cows were all named after herbs or wayside flowers, and her favourite of them was Mallow. When it was her turn to be milked, Meg laced her arms about the solid, dependable neck and buried her face against the coarse hair. Mallow turned her head and gazed at Meg with huge, doleful eyes as if she understood. And so, for a short moment at least, Meg didn’t feel so utterly alone.
With milking over and the cows back in the field, there was the problem of how to get the churns to the platform at the end of the farm track for collection early next morning. Normally they would use the cart, but that was at the Stratfield-Whyte’s’ house. She wondered vaguely where it was. They’d given her a phone number and an address, but it wasn’t somewhere she knew. She guessed it must be somewhere quite posh, judging by the car they drove.
But that didn’t help her now. There was only one thing for it since Meg knew they… she couldn’t afford to pour the milk away. Use a wheelbarrow.
Everything she’d done had aggravated the discomfort in her shoulder, but she had to do it, somehow heaving each churn onto the wheelbarrow and then trundling it down the rutted lane. Thank goodness for the dry night and the full moon! But she could only manage one churn at a time, so it took her several trips, and by the end, her shoulder was screaming at her.
Next she fed the pigs, which were making a hungry racket and went berserk when she tipped the kitchen scraps plus some feed into the troughs. Lock the hens away in their coop for the night, out of the way of any prowling fox. Had she forgotten anything? If she had, it would have to wait until the morning. She really had gone beyond caring.
God knew what time it was when she went back inside and locked the back door. She was too exhausted even to look at her watch. She supposed she should eat something, but she didn’t think she could stomach a morsel. A hot drink, perhaps. Her heart plummeted as she found that, without any attention since that morning, the range had gone out. She simply couldn’t face clearing it out and relighting it now. So she poured herself some milk from the cold shelf in the pantry, swallowed a couple of aspirin with it, and stumbled up the stairs.
She virtually fell into bed. She didn’t feel afraid to be alone, although she wished so much that Mercury was there to comfort her. She’d jolly well make sure she had him back the next day! As it was, she just felt strange, as if everyth
ing inside her was trundling around even though she was completely still. She curled up in a ball, trying to wrap herself in an impenetrable cocoon, safe inside its unbreakable shell. But it didn’t help. The room next door where her parents should have been sleeping soundly was empty. She wondered, if she climbed into their bed, if she could somehow hold onto them. But she was too tired to move a muscle, and besides, it wouldn’t make any difference, would it? Nothing could bring them back, not even the tears that were coursing down her cheeks again. She realised she was howling to the empty air, drenching her pillow as she sobbed. And some time in the early hours of the following morning, she fell into a bottomless pit of exhaustion.
*
Wigmore and Clarissa drove home in a horrible silence, each lost in reflection of the devastating events they had been part of that afternoon. It was somewhat different from the homecoming for Wig that they’d envisaged. First there was the lack of success of his business trip, and now this appalling accident.
The sequence of events kept playing itself through before Clarrie’s eyes. Looking out through the windscreen from the back seat and suddenly realising they were travelling much too fast. If only one of them had been sitting in the front, as they both were now, they would have said something to Green earlier and it would never have happened. But they had been apart all week and had wanted to be together, which meant sitting in the back.
Clarrie kept seeing the young girl’s face, her beautiful features ravaged by grief and understandable anger. For Clarrie knew exactly what it was to lose someone so close that it felt as if your own heart had been ripped from your chest. You needed to blame someone, but in the end, there could be no release and you had to keep the agony contained within you. But it was like a bottle of sparkling drink with the cork just waiting to explode.
And Clarrie’s cork had exploded that afternoon. Another face, just as lovely, innocent, had escaped from that little box deep inside where she had tried to keep it locked away. The face that had come back to haunt her was smaller, helpless, never spoken of, but the image of Marguerite Chandler in her head had done something to Clarrie’s heart in much the same way.
‘Oh, that poor child.’ She found herself breaking the silence as if her lips were moving of their own accord. ‘What are we to do? I can’t help feeling responsible for her.’
‘I know.’ Wig’s voice was thoughtful and slow as he concentrated on the road ahead, driving with extra caution given the tragic events of the afternoon. ‘It wasn’t our fault. Not directly. But I blame myself. I completely misjudged Green. The way he behaved when he was arrested and I gave him his marching orders was, well, deplorable. And there is no doubt that he was driving too fast. If only one of us had realised earlier.’
‘Yes. And… there’s the other thing, too. Her name.’
Clarrie had spoken so quietly that Wig glanced briefly at her, allowing his eyes to leave the road for a fleeting moment. ‘Ah,’ he pronounced solemnly. ‘I was wondering when you’d mention that.’
‘How could I not? I know we always called her Rosebud, but her real name was Marguerite. The same as this poor girl. And she’s about the same age as Rosebud would’ve been. Well, a couple of years younger at most. And she even has the same colour hair.’
‘Not quite. Our Marguerite’s hair was much fierier. Miss Chandler’s is more of a rose gold. A sort of strawberry blonde, I’d say.’
‘But near enough.’ Clarrie gave an agitated groan. ‘Don’t you see, Wig, we must help this poor child. For Marguerite’s sake if nothing else.’
‘I agree, of course. But I fear Miss Chandler doesn’t want our help. And so it might be difficult to give it to her.’
‘Well, she’s in shock at the moment. And deeply angry. But if she has no one else, as I believe is the case, she will need our help, whether or not she wants it. She’s just a child.’
‘A pretty capable one, though, I’d say.’
‘I’m sure you’re right, but she’ll still need someone to help arrange the funeral, all that sort of thing. And to claim against our insurance. And then there’ll be an inquest and a court case of some sort, won’t there? The poor girl will need someone to guide her through all that. We simply must give her all the support we can.’
‘Indeed. But not because she happens to have the same name as Rosebud. Because it is our moral duty.’
Clarrie nodded, and fell silent again as they moved along the darkened country lanes, the trees like tall, silvery ghosts in the headlamps. But she simply couldn’t get the thought out of her head.
‘You know, Wig, I can’t help feeling that this is a sign. That she’s been sent to us as a sort of second chance. So that I can prove to myself that I won’t let her down in the same way I did our own dear Marguerite.’
Wig changed gear as he slowed to turn into the long driveway at Robin Hill House. The building stood to attention as if welcoming them, solid and unshakable. Wig brought the motorcar to a standstill, his joy at returning to the home he loved tempered by the tragedy of the afternoon – and the tragedy that had broken both their hearts all those years before.
He turned to his beloved wife before he made to get out of the car. ‘You didn’t let her down. You know what the doctor said. Meningitis can come on so suddenly. And there’s no known cure. So you no more let Rosebud down than I let this Meg Chandler down by hiring Green as our chauffeur. But we will help the girl in every possible way, I promise you.’
‘Thank you, Wig. You’re such a good man. That’s why I love you so much.’
‘And you’re the only woman in the world for me. Let’s go inside and have a drink and a good meal. And tomorrow we’ll see what’s to be done.’
Clarrie felt herself fill up with love for this strong, caring man who’d been the cornerstone of her life for so long. She knew that between them they would do the right thing by Meg Chandler who’d been orphaned that dreadful day. In some strange and inexplicable way, Clarrie was convinced that Providence had sent them another chance. And she made a secret vow to do everything in her power to care for and protect the young girl who had come so tragically into their lives.
Nine
‘Hello-o-o?’
Meg frowned, and paused in her hosing down of the milking shed after the previous night’s and that morning’s milking. It was usually cleaned out after each session, but she’d simply been too exhausted the previous evening after all that had happened. She’d only slept for a few hours before waking with a start at seven o’clock and leaping out of bed the instant she spied the clock. It was late! Why hadn’t her mum…?
Oh, God, the crucifying memory crashed in on her. But had she merely dreamt a terrible nightmare? If only she had.
She had moved by instinct alone, like one of the automatons she had once seen at a fair. The animals must come first. Milking was late again, but not as late as it had been the evening before, so she was catching up. But the lorry from the dairy would be there any minute! As soon as she’d seen it arrive at the end of the track, she ran down to hail Percy Watts, the driver, as she simply hadn’t had time to bring the second consignment of churns down to the platform.
Mentally bracing herself, she had summoned the courage to tell Percy what had happened. There, she had done it. The first time of many. It was unreal, a bit like acting out a play. The kindly chap had been appalled and totally sympathetic, saying that he would tell the people at the dairy for her. Then he’d broken the rules and driven the lorry up to the farmyard and heaved the churns onto the back himself.
‘Thanks ever so much,’ Meg told him. Was that her voice? It didn’t feel as if it was.
‘You look after yourself. And let me know if there’s anything I can do. But I’m afraid I must get on.’
Yes, that was it, wasn’t it? Everybody else’s life was going on as normal, no matter how sympathetic they felt. And her life must go on as well. She must get on with all the daily tasks, not just her own, but everything her mum and dad would be doing as well. She wa
sn’t sure how she was going to manage, but she was going to have to.
She had seen to the livestock first. Sworn at herself that in her agony she must have missed one of the hens and it had been killed by a fox overnight. But there were worse things. No one knew that more than her. And since the fox had left its plaything more or less intact, she could turn it into a casserole.
By the time she returned to the milking shed it must have been well gone ten o’clock. She’d been incarcerated in numbness as she hosed it down, using the stiff broom where necessary. The noise of the running water and the bristles rasping on the concrete had masked other sounds, but she suddenly thought a human voice had penetrated the shield the familiar job had drawn about her, and she lifted her head.
A man was lingering tentatively by the open shed doors, drawn no doubt by the sounds of running water and sweeping. His shape was silhouetted by the bright September sunlight outside, a dark, menacing outline. He was on the tall side of average, of medium build but lithe. It wasn’t until he walked into the gloom inside the shed that Meg could see him clearly. He was young, in his early twenties she would have guessed. Brown hair, brown eyes – at least she thought they were brown, but it was difficult to tell in the poor light. She searched her memory, but he seemed to her a stranger. Her fingers tightened on the broom handle, heartbeat gearing up a notch.
‘Miss Chandler?’
‘Yes?’ she answered brusquely, her uneasiness swinging at once to defence. She had the broom in her hands. Could swipe at him with it if need be. ‘And who the devil are you, coming uninvited onto my property?’
The fellow blinked in surprise and his head jerked back on his neck before he stepped forward and held out his hand. ‘The name’s Ralph Hillier. I’m the under-gardener at Robin Hill House. I’ve brought back your horse and cart and your—’