Touch the Silence

by Gloria Cook

  The dog eyed Honor as if enjoying a malicious game. Then it picked up the rat in its teeth and spilled it at her feet. Honor screamed and rushed backwards. She hit a bale of hay, was off-balanced and sent tumbling down. Afraid the rat might next end up on her lap, she used the shirt as a shield. ‘You beast! Get away from me and take that disgusting creature with you. Tilda! Tilda, I need your help.’

  ‘Miss Honor, hold fast, I’m coming.’ It was Archie Rothwell’s voice.

  Honor sucked in her breath until he reached her on his strange tripping steps. The tenor of his voice carried authority while he ordered the Jack Russell outside. Using a two-pronged fork, he edged the rat’s body out after it. Honor regained her feet and tried to regain her decorum, but she was shaken up and dropped on to a bale to wait for her thumping heart to settle.

  Archie Rothwell returned. ‘Are you all right, Miss Honor?’ ‘Yes, thank you, Mr Rothwell, I am now. I do feel silly. Oh, I brought this shirt in for you but couldn’t find a place to put it. I’m afraid it’s got rather crumpled.’

  After a moment in which to ensure his balance, he took the shirt from her and packed it into the bag slung over his shoulder. ‘I’m grateful to you. If you’ll excuse me, I must get on.’ Honor shot up. Her eyes excited and narrowed, she was about to let rip of a kind unknown to her before. ‘No, I’ll not excuse you, Mr Rothwell. It’s obvious you’re leaving and doing so while Mr Harvey is away and Ben has gone out. Why are you treating the people who have befriended you in such an underhand way?’

  Archie Rothwell used his vivid green eyes to peer all around the barn as if trying to escape from something, before bringing them back to meet Honor’s indignant stare. ‘I’ve left Mr Harvey a letter explaining my reasons. I don’t like goodbyes and I don’t like a fuss.’

  With no one here in charge, Honor felt she should say something more. ‘Are you leaving because the workhouse children are due here soon? Would it be too many people about for you?’

  ‘Your observations are correct, Miss Burrows.’

  Honor marvelled that his tone, as always, was polite and calm, but feeling now that he was deceitful, she wondered if this was a deliberate cultivation.

  He added, ‘And when one stays in a place too long people start asking questions.’

  ‘That’s your own fault.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Mr Rothwell, if you don’t want people to wonder about you, then I suggest you do something to make yourself less conspicuous?’

  He surprised her by seeming amused and it took some of the gauntness off his troubled expression. His long fingers touched his copious beard and tumbling hair. ‘I found it warmer the first winter after…’ In another rapid change of mood he swallowed hard, and as if in panic, twisted to face the doors. ‘I’m sorry, I have to go.’

  He rocked on his unstable feet and Honor had to move quickly, grabbing at his greatcoat to prevent him plummeting to the ground. For a time he seemed stunned, then thanked her in a barely audible voice. Silence. Either he didn’t know what else to say or he wasn’t going to speak any more. She understood how Emilia had felt the first day he had come to the farm. There was something vulnerable and achingly sorrowful about him. She revalued him again. Even though he was roughly twice her age, she felt protective towards this mystifying stranger, who fought so hard to remain an outsider.

  Honor released her grip, retreated to give him the space he desired. ‘Please don’t go like this, Mr Rothwell. It’s a cowardly and unkind thing to do, and I would prefer to think you are neither a coward or unkind. At least talk to Mr Harvey or Ben first. Why don’t you sit down? You look overcome.’

  He gave a short bewildered nod, then shuffled to the bale of hay she had used, clutching his stick as if it was a lifeline. He said nothing, just looked somewhere above her head.

  ‘Why not let me help you make up your bed?’ She persisted because, watching his almost boyish discomfort, she felt him worth the bother. ‘You ought not to go right now. I heard you coughing when I arrived, you’re getting another cold. Colds are sweeping through the village at the moment. If you were to become ill, wouldn’t it be better to be among people who care about you?’

  He glanced at her, then looked away. He sighed. It was hard to tell what his feelings were.

  ‘I doubt if you’ve been treated as well or had your privacy respected as much anywhere else you may have worked. Am I right?’

  Silence.

  She searched her mind but couldn’t think of anything else to add. This was awful. Another second and she would leave and let him to do as he willed.

  As she turned away, he gave a strange strangled cry, like an echo of anxiety, of terrible suffering. She swung back. He appeared to be fighting something trapped in the fathoms of his soul.

  ‘Trust me, Archie, or at least try to. I only want to help.’

  His leaden expression gave a little. He released the white-knuckled grip on his stick. His penetrating gaze was on her suddenly, in such a way that Honor coloured hotly. He was, after all, an elder and a former naval officer of high rank. From her usual manner and her looks he must see her a mere child, and she was now expecting a reprimand over her impertinence.

  He said in the softest of ways, ‘You’re right in all you’ve said, Miss Burrows. I don’t suppose you happen to have a pair of scissors with you, so I can trim my beard?’

  He wasn’t actually smiling, but Honor felt he was from somewhere within his deepest self. Bursting with relief and triumph, she cleared her throat to forestall a little shriek of joy. Em could argue people into good sense in a trice; this was the first time she had achieved something similar. ‘I do have a pair in my handbag. They’re small but sharp enough for the job.’

  ‘I don’t know how I’m going to manage with my hair.’ He tugged at the luxurious length clinging to his neck.

  ‘I’ll do it for you.’ If Em could pluck a chicken and gut a rabbit, she was sure she’d not be squeamish about cutting a man’s hair.

  ‘No. It’s kind of you but I couldn’t ask you to. It would make you late getting home.’

  She was ready with the scissors. ‘I don’t mind, honestly. You’re the right height there for me, you’ll only have to turn your head from side to side.’

  He relinquished his bag, produced a comb from an inside pocket and turned the collar of his greatcoat down. When close to him and lifting the first sandy lock, she fought down the reappearance of her natural shyness. After the first cut, in which she had three inches of his hair tingling her fingers, she grew confident, snipping and shaping, calling on her memory of the close-cropped effect Ben’s barber made for him. From time to time she glanced into Archie’s face but he was keeping his expression detached. Speculation abounded in Hennaford about this man. There were many theories about him: an ex-serviceman suffering from shell shock; a disgraced gentleman in exile; an eccentric scholar; an escapee from a ‘loony bin’. She and Emilia had discussed his likely full story many times. Honor was burning to know all about him. Her simplest question: did he miss the sea?

  Using her hands to sweep off the snippets clinging to his coat, she moved in front of him and started tentatively on his beard, trimming around the lean outline of his jaw, giving his moustache a neat line. He closed his eyes for this, perhaps, so she thought, to allow her no passage into whatever he was so set on concealing.

  When she stepped back to survey her handiwork, and he unlocked his eyelids, she hid a gasp of wonder. He was transformed. She had considered him old enough to be her father, but now he looked about Alec’s age. And while she had never thought of a man as being beautiful, it was how his eyes were now. Vibrantly green like burning emeralds in the lantern light, and, before his hauntedness returned a moment later, extraordinarily soft and serene. She experienced a surge of victory, certain that for a while, at least, she had breached his torment and given him comfort.

  She rooted about in her handbag for a mirror. ‘Would you like to take a look?’

>   ‘I don’t think so. It’s been a long time since I saw myself.’ He used his fingers to feel the difference she had made. ‘I’ll have to be even more careful now to avoid a cold. The cough comes and goes. I’m very grateful for your kindness, Miss Honor. I shall stay here at Ford Farm, at least throughout the winter. Could I ask you to keep my intention to leave today in confidence?’

  ‘Of course. You’d better keep the scissors.’ She was overcome with sadness. What had made him want to wander aimlessly, to insist he sleep at a distance from all others? And despite some unexplained optimism on Emilia’s part for her and her aunt’s prospects, she was overcome with gloom about their fate. ‘No one’s future is certain, Mr Rothwell. I must go before I get caught in a shower.’

  She looked into his eyes. He was considering her as if with sympathy, as if he knew she had some crushing worries. He gave her a brief smile, the first smile he had given anyone here. She smiled back.

  She got as far as the ford when rain lashed into the front of her body. Clutching her hat, she made to hurry over the bridge. Her foot slipped on the mud-slimed surface and she grabbed at the wet hedge to steady herself. Unable to get a firm purchase on the saturated foliage or bare twigs, it seemed she was fighting with something unyielding and hostile before she plunged into the ford. She screamed in fright, and then in pain as her side hit the slab of granite, before ending up in two feet of freezing cold water.

  Then, although badly shaken, she was screaming in fury. And she swore for the very first time – she had overheard some choice language from Cyril Trewin, and she used every word in outrage and frustration. Somehow, she hauled herself out of the churning water. Dripping and tender where she’d hit her side – a magnificent bruise would come up there – she ripped off her gloves and hat and threw them on the ground. Kicked at the hat, wanting to destroy it.

  Lifting up her face to the teeming rain, she shouted to anything that cared to listen, ‘Damn and bleddy and bugger and all the rest of it! I’ve had enough! Can life get any worse?’

  She decided to go back to the farm and borrow some dry clothes of Emilia’s. It struck her then how funny her outburst would seem when she related it to her friend. How Em would laugh when she heard what she’d bawled out in the worst temper of her life. ‘Perhaps I’m not so different to you, after all, Em.’

  Honor bent to retrieve her battered hat and thought she was dreaming to see a grand carriage-built motor car heading down the hill towards her. It was brought to a stop and Ben jumped out from the back seat.

  ‘Honor! What happened? Are you hurt?’ Within seconds she was being lifted up and hurried into the vehicle. ‘Julian, give her your rug.’

  Ben got in beside her and covered her with the rug. He placed his overcoat round her shoulders, keeping his arm around her. ‘Don’t worry, my love, we’ll take you home. I’m going over your way as it happens. You’ve met my friend, Julian Andrews, haven’t you? Julian, this is Miss Honor Burrows.’

  Honor glanced at the nattily dressed young man she had been seated next to. ‘I saw you at the farm the day Emilia learned of her brother’s death. It’s good of you to stop, Mr Andrews. I hope I’m not making you wet.’

  ‘Not at all. I’m only glad we happened upon you in your predicament, Miss Burrows. Vosper, drive on.’ Julian tapped on the chauffeur’s shoulder, for he was partially deaf. ‘I think there’s a medicinal drop of brandy in here somewhere.’

  ‘No, thank you,’ Honor said, bracing herself for the bump, the swoosh of water and the rise across the ford. Ben was caressing her shoulder in a comforting manner.

  ‘It’s time something was done about that bridge,’ Ben said. He was using a different intonation in his voice now – public schoolboy, like his friend’s. ‘It’s too narrow and it becomes slippery and dangerous.’

  They had turned off on to the main road that passed through Hennaford. There was the shop and the tiny concrete square where the village pump was and, set back from it, at irregular angles, were rows of small, thatched cottages and single dwellings; one the home of Edwin and Dolly Rowse. If the fierce shower of rain had not been keeping people indoors, many would have rushed out to stare at the unusual sight of the ‘posh’ motor car. Ben directed Vosper to turn left at the next junction.

  When they were navigating the narrow twists and turns of Back Lane, Honor said, ‘You came along at the right moment, I’d have caught my death.’ She was shivering – even her underclothes were drenched and clammy.

  Ben hugged her tighter.

  They arrived at Bracken House and he escorted her inside. Florence was not there. It was likely she had taken herself off to take tea in the cheerier surroundings of the schoolmaster’s wife’s sitting room. Ben stoked the fire that had been banked in inside the old cooking slab. ‘I’ll fetch some more wood inside for you.’

  ‘We haven’t any,’ Honor sighed.

  Ben couldn’t have felt more shocked and sorry if he’d heard the roof had blown off. Honor was the lady in distress of his old games, the last person who should suffer deprivation. ‘You should have mentioned this to me, Honor. I’ll bring a cartload over for you later today, I promise.’

  ‘Thanks, Ben. I’d better change out of these wet things.’ She handed him Julian Andrews’s rug. Now she was standing in front of the fire trying vainly to warm herself, she felt she was about to cry and cry. She thanked heaven her aunt was out – she would have fawned over Ben, travelling as he was in the sort of splendour she had always craved.

  Ben heard the tremble in her voice. ‘Oh, sweetheart, what’s wrong? It’s more than taking a tumble into the ford, isn’t it? You haven’t been yourself for ages.’ He’d had no need to ask – the fine complement of Florence Burrows’s personal furnishings was sadly diminished.

  ‘I can’t put things right, Ben. I’m just useless.’

  ‘You’d never be that, you’re my little princess, remember?’

  ‘I should be tough and capable, like Em. She’d have stood up to my aunt and not pretended she was something she wasn’t. We’re just two ordinary people, not a cut above anyone else. We’ll become homeless any given moment and I don’t know what to do.’ She rammed her fists against her face. ‘I don’t know what to do, Ben! I want to be brave, but I’m not. I’m scared.’

  Ben reached for her, stroking her hair, soft and fine and fragrant despite its dampness. ‘There’s nothing wrong in being human, Honor.’ And needful and vulnerable. She felt childlike and fragile to hold in comparison to Emilia.

  It seemed a lifetime since he had touched and kissed Emilia, and, although he loathed to admit it, she had left him with a terrible loneliness. He missed her warmth and love. But she had turned against him without pity when he’d needed her most. She couldn’t have loved him as much as he had loved her. During their first crisis as sweethearts, as lovers, the loss of his Army career had meant more to him than she had. She had seen his weaknesses and resented them. Emilia was tough and capable – he didn’t want a woman who was stronger in will and spirit than himself.

  ‘You’ve always trusted me, haven’t you, Honor?’

  It felt so good to feel safe for a while. So good that it was Ben holding her. She leaned into him, never wanting him to let her go. ‘Yes, Ben.’

  ‘Do you believe me if I promise to make everything right for you?’

  She raised her face to his. His tone, his expression was determined and confident. ‘How could you do that?’

  He angled his limited sight in the dim light and saw her candour and softness, saw her hope. This was what he needed now – someone who relied on him, who was devoted to him.

  She saw the Ben of old, kind and caring and fun. The boy who had ripped up his own shirt to bind a bad cut on Billy Rowse’s leg, who had shared his treats out equally with his gang, who would never hurt an animal or allow a wounded or sick one to suffer. Strong, courageous, assertive Ben. Handsome, masculine, desirable Ben. Part of her had always adored him as the man he was. Pray God he had only been with
Julian Andrews all morning. She hoped he would kiss her.

  Should he kiss her? If he did, would he steal the belief she had in him? She was keeping her face tilted upwards, closing her eyes. He kissed her. With care and tenderness. He sensed no unease in her. She returned his gentle, steady pressure with devotion, a commitment that spoke of indissoluble loyalty. She really did trust him. This sweet girl would never misread him, deny him, or turn against him. She would never hurt him. And he would never experience the terrible need to hurt her as he had Emilia, who had brought out the best in him, and the worst.

  Honor forgot she had ever had worries as she concentrated on Ben and the glorious answer to her question as to how he could make everything right for her.

  He released her as gently as he had held her. ‘Tell your aunt I’ll be back later to speak to her. Now I’m going to ask you something, Honor. I want you to stay away from the farm for the next few days.’

  * * *

  ‘What an absolute little pearl,’ Julian said, when Ben rejoined him. The rain had stopped and a watery sun was peeping out of the sulky clouds. ‘Do you think I’d stand a chance with her?’

  ‘You and Honor? Sorry, old man, I’ve already laid a claim on her.’

  ‘So soon after Emilia? Is that wise?’

  ‘To line up the perfect wife for myself, yes, I do.’

  ‘Well, good for you, pity for me. Miss Honor Burrows seems the quiet, gentle sort I could cope with.’ Julian’s voice fell away. He touched his feeble chest over where his defective heart lay. ‘This and my boyish looks have meant I’m overlooked. I know I have little attraction for a woman, except my wealth, but I’d have liked a wife and children in the few years I’ve got left to enjoy them. I can’t be vigorous in the bedroom department, of course, but Miss Burrows doesn’t look as if she’d expect too much.’

  Ben gave Julian a sideways glance. ‘So you’ve made heavenly contact then?’