Solsbury Hill

by Susan M. Wyler

  “You’d rather I didn’t come with you?” the woman asked.

  “No, no. I would rather you did.” Eleanor was confused and didn’t want to ask what it was she had missed in what had been said. She started to her feet.

  “Even if you found your way home, you wouldn’t know the bookshelf the letters are in. It’s gone quiet and dusty in there. The children all grown and gone.” She turned and waved for Eleanor to follow. Her tiny hand flicked at the wrist.

  “You know this way well,” Eleanor called out, catching up to her.

  “I do.”

  The woman’s skirt didn’t touch the ground but grazed her ankles, and she gathered the full fabric in her hand and lifted it as they walked side by side through the heather. It was not hard for Eleanor to keep up even though the woman walked very fast on the uneven ground.

  “I should by now,” she said matter-of-factly. “Let’s run!” And she took off. Like a child in her body now, she skipped and swirled, and as she ran her hair tumbled out of her bun. She called back to Eleanor not to lose her, to hurry and keep up.

  Eleanor ran, but her boots were clumsy and she tripped and fell into a clump of bright yellow gorse and got thorns stuck in her hands. Exhausted and on the verge of a temper tantrum, she plucked out a couple of them and got herself up only to find the woman gone.

  If she knew her name, she’d call it out. Now she was lost. She had known the way home from on top of the hill, but down in this valley she had no idea. From here, she couldn’t see the abbey. She couldn’t see the tree that held the swing. She couldn’t see the house and had probably taken herself a mile or so in the wrong direction. Because everything was the same color, the landscape was mesmerizing. To be in the center of so much that is some shade of sameness: rolling, climbing, falling away. The land rose up a hill to the right on ahead. That was where the house had to be. She kept her eyes on the ground and her mind carefully fixed on every thought that flitted by.

  A fox moved on the hill and when Eleanor looked up, there was the young woman. She was doubled in half with her hands on her thighs, catching her breath and smiling. “I would have headed back for you, now I’ve caught my breath.”

  Eleanor was bothered.

  “For a lass not accustomed, you’re not at all bad.”

  Eleanor walked without speaking up the hill toward what she hoped would be the house.

  “Come on, I was teasing running away from you like that. Don’t you like teasing?”

  For Eleanor, it had been an impossibly long day.

  The woman’s wrap slipped off her shoulders and she pulled it back up. “Out here on the moors there’s lots left behind. You can see it, can’t you? Sometimes broken hearts, some broken children left with the task of pulling together what’s gone amiss. Out here, there’s lots left behind. You can see it.”

  The woman’s shawl slipped again and Eleanor stepped close to wrap it tight around her. “This really is beautiful wool.” Eleanor spoke softly.

  “You need to mind my words. The letters are where I left them tucked inside a box hidden inside a cupboard. It was a sitting room when I hid them there, where the children played.”

  Eleanor heard a whistle and, turning away from the woman, saw Granley at the top of the hill waving his arms broadly to let her know she was on her way home.

  When Eleanor turned back the woman was gone. She looked all around and as far as she could see. There were trees she might have hurried through, but the sun was setting.

  As Eleanor started up the hill, she saw Granley heading back inside the cottage where he and Tilda lived.

  Eleanor went in the house through the mudroom and up the back stairs. She had barely closed the door to her room inside a room, when she heard her name and saw Mead below. She cranked open the window.

  “I’m going in to the village to pick up some rents. Want to come?”

  It had been an exhausting day, but she wanted to be with him, to get away from Trent Hall and escape her confusion. It was late in the evening and almost dark. “Can you wait? I’ll be right down.”

  He nodded, put his hands in his pockets, and leaned against the car.

  Eleanor hurried down the back stairs through the vegetable garden and onto the gravel driveway, where Mead waited inside a handsome old Aston Martin.

  “You ready to go, then?” he said.

  “I am, I guess.” She felt out of sorts from the recent encounter, but was determined to shake it off. As she slid into the car she noticed the burled wood dash, the cream leather seats, soft with wear and care. She looked around for her seat belt, but there was no shoulder strap.

  Mead reached across her lap to find the belt and his hand, as it brushed against her leg, sent a surprising shiver up her spine. “She was my father’s once. She’s quite an old thing now.”

  “It’s beautiful.”

  “Came out the same year I did,” he said.

  She cinched the seat belt around her waist. “Thanks for asking me,” she said. “I’m tired, but I’ve no interest in going to bed.”

  “Well, that’s fine, I don’t fancy you, either.” His voice feigned umbrage, but she was distracted and the tease went right over her head. “We’re off, then.” Mead drove down the long drive onto the wide road for a stretch till he turned onto a dirt road that bounced through the moorland.

  Shaggy wool sheep with black faces grazed. They bent to chomp and chew on grasses and heather, on their way home. A ram lifted its head and broke into a clumsy sheep’s sprint. Mead downshifted and let the ram run beside them.

  “The thwaite’s just beyond the bending tree on that hill,” Mead said. “You know they grow that way against the wind.”

  “I wondered about that.” Eleanor pulled her feet up onto the seat and looked closely at his face. She saw the pain there: eyes that had been crying, skin gray from nights without sleep. She felt drawn to stroke his cheek and comfort him, but couldn’t. Instead, her voice a good deal warmer, she continued, “You’d think the wind would kill them, but they just bend.”

  “It’ll happen to you, if you stick around long enough.”

  “How long does it take?” She smiled at him, but his eyes were on the road and he didn’t see it. “Well, I won’t be sticking around, so no chance of that.”

  The wind was growing strong and the clouds looked like a storm might be coming. It was quiet in the car until, with a jolt, Mead turned onto another dirt road and they bumped to a stop in front of a pub called Fiddleheads that popped up out of nowhere in the shadow of some shade trees.

  “Up for some Yorkshire brew?” he asked Eleanor.

  “Sure.”

  In a dark corner, she settled in and looked around. Nervous, she twirled her hair and let her eyes adjust. There was a young couple tangled up in each other in the opposite corner and two old men at the bar so drunk their eyes were closing.

  “Tim Taylors, Danny,” she heard Mead say to the barkeep, then watched as he managed two large mugs and a bowl of nuts to the table.

  The jukebox blasted U2.

  The lager was bitter, earthy, chocolate brown, tart, and cold.

  Dark wood in the tables and paneling, red leather, and a red and green plaid. The customers were familiar with each other.

  “What do people do here?” Eleanor asked. “I mean, I’m sure there are lots of things to do, but what do people do?”

  “Work hard and end the day at a pub. That’s the truth.”

  “Do you live here all the time?”

  “I am for now. For most of my life I’ve come and gone. I was at university, got a degree in literature, studied architecture.”

  “Architecture.”

  “Drawing some things and building others, really.”

  “What do you build?”

  “Dreams, castles, bookshelves, whatever one needs.”

 
Her face propped on the flat of her hand, she leaned on the table with her body turned toward him, her half-drunk lager behind her elbow. She felt golden from the fire. “I need a castle,” she said fancifully.

  “Wait till they read the will, milady.”

  “Oh, that. Sorry. I was kidding, actually . . .”

  Mead gestured to Danny, who brought them another round and dropped an envelope on the table.

  “Danny, this is Eleanor Sutton.”

  “Goodness, it’s an honor to meet you, miss.” He bowed a bit.

  “You, too,” she said.

  He cuffed Mead on the shoulder and shuffled away.

  “What’s that?” Eleanor asked, indicating the envelope.

  “It’s the rents we came for. Lately, I’ve been taking care of things.” He stopped and sipped and held her eyes for a moment. “You were a bit of a pleasant surprise.”

  “A pleasant surprise? That’s nice.”

  “It meant the world to her that you came, it really did. What made you decide to come, after all?” he said.

  Inside the warm leather of the booth where they drank the strong lager together, Eleanor could have drifted into telling every part of the story that led to her coming. Sorting through her thoughts, she said nothing.

  “I suppose Gwen wouldn’t have taken no for an answer,” he said. “But I know Alice wanted you to visit all along . . .”

  “I should have come sooner. I don’t know why I didn’t.”

  “Don’t be worrying, you’ve done nothing wrong. Far from it. She was so pleased that you came.”

  “I might have come sooner.”

  One of the two drunk old men was asleep on his forearms and his friend shuffled out of the pub. Danny polished his wood bar. A middle-aged woman in sensible shoes and a skirt to her knees came in and waved to Mead.

  It was dark outside and the strings of tiny white lights around the windows flickered in the wind.

  “Is that snow out there?” Eleanor asked.

  The wind was rising and a hard snow had begun to fall. Eleanor and Mead watched it blow sideways in the halo of lights outside the small leaded-glass window. “That’s a good sign, snow falling tonight,” he said. Mead was pensive and Eleanor noticed the handsomeness of his features, something indomitable and appealing through the sadness in his eyes.

  Two loud young men burst into the pub. Cool with spiky hair, beaten leather jackets, and jeans as tight as skin, they groused about the coming storm as they shook the snow from their coats. Mead smiled at the sight of them and they hailed him, sauntered over, and started to bump their way into the booth with Mead and Eleanor.

  “Who’s the smashin’ bird you’ve got this time?”

  One young man elbowed the other hard.

  “Gosh, sorry, Mead, we heard, we did. We were right sorry to hear.”

  “Thanks.” Mead moved to the other side of the booth, next to Eleanor.

  The young men slid in, across the table.

  “You’re a right fine lass. We mistook you for one of his.”

  Mead smiled uncomfortably.

  “This is Eleanor Sutton Abbott.”

  They sat up, straightened their hair. One adjusted a tie that wasn’t there.

  “Alice’s! Right. Good to meet you,” they said.

  “Eleanor, this would be Charlie MacKenzie and Len Perkins.”

  “Bubble and squeak,” Danny said as he placed before them four plates of sausages cooked up in beds of shiny potatoes, cabbage, and onions all stewed together.

  “Thanks, Danny.” Mead and the young men talked about Alice, but, famished, Eleanor dug in. There were four more large mugs of beer on the table. The sausage was rich, fatty, thick. She devoured it while the three men talked fast in a strong Yorkshire tongue and with words between words she couldn’t understand, till she wiped her mouth with a napkin.

  “Sorry, I don’t know when I’ve been so hungry,” she said.

  “You haven’t eaten all day,” said Mead. His thigh touched hers and moved away.

  “You knew Aunt Alice?” she said to the men.

  “Aye, knew ’er well,” Charlie said. They nodded, the two young men. “Loved her, we did. She was a great one and ye’d not forget her if ye’d been near her for even a moment in yer life.”

  “She taught us loads o’ things,” said Len. “Pointed in the right direction, ’at’s what she did, eh, Mead?”

  “She were fine,” said Charlie, “weren’t she? She were keen. We’ll miss her. You’re from America, eh?”

  Danny brought over some whisky. They toasted to Alice, and Eleanor savored the taste of peat, welcomed the warmth in her belly, and drank down the whole thing.

  “Would you guys excuse me?” Eleanor said. Mead got up and let her out.

  “You all right?” he said.

  “I am.”

  He looked dubious.

  “Maybe just a little tipsy.” She smiled.

  Danny pointed the way through the curtain to the water closet, and she glanced at herself in the mirror as she passed by. It was a round mirror and looking at herself she saw photographs on the wall behind her. She pulled the sweater off over her head, looked at her unhappy face and mussed-up hair, the sweat under her armpits, the stained cotton turtleneck. She lifted her arm and smelled the sweat, fingered her hair into an organized tousle, pinched her cheeks pink, and tried to smile. As the strained smile moved, another wallop of emotion seized her.

  Mead knocked, then opened the door a crack. “All right, in there?” He stepped back into the hall. “Listen, it’s become a bad storm, so we can get a couple of rooms here for the night. It’s easy enough, and we’ll go back at the first sign of daylight.”

  She splashed her face and wiped her eyes. “Really?” Still in the clothes she’d walked in all day, she longed for a bath and a change of clothing.

  “Those chaps, they said their good-byes. A nice bit ruined, they were, but they’re good kids. The last of Alice’s crew, kids she helped this way and that. Pissed on a Saturday night, that’s pretty much all that happens around here.”

  She came into the hall. “Did you say we’d get a room?”

  “It might be safer than driving now. Sleep and we’ll be off in the morning.”

  “All right, then.” It seemed a good idea to spend a night away from Trent Hall, after all. “I could use a drink of water.”

  Mead came back with fresh water that was ice-cold in the glass, and she lifted her eyes—gladdened, gratified.

  The photographs on the wall behind her were of local people. She turned to them and recognized parts of the landscape. There were pictures inside the pub, soccer victories and prom pictures, weddings and such, but there was one of a boy and a girl fishing in a pond and another of the same kids: the girl with muddied boots over her knees displayed a frog in the palm of her hand and the boy had a fish he held upside down. They looked like the girl and boy Eleanor had seen on the swings and at the waterfall. There was a black-and-white picture of a pretty woman in a wide-brimmed hat and khaki clothing holding a baby. These caught Eleanor’s attention.

  “Who are they?” Eleanor asked.

  “I don’t know all of them, but this woman is Alice, I’m sure of that . . .”

  She stepped up close.

  “The wee one is me.”

  Eleanor noticed the pained look on the woman’s face and the ruins of a building in the background.

  “Over here, this one is you.” He walked her to a small, framed picture on the lower half of the long wall. It was a picture of her mother with Alice and a tiny girl, all dressed up in greens and blues, standing between them, holding one finger of each woman’s hand, at the Central Park Zoo.

  “This is me,” Eleanor exclaimed. “What’s it doing here?”

  “Danny puts pictures up, so people give them
to him. Alice started it.”

  He led her away from the picture, down the hall, and opened the door into a small quaint bedroom wallpapered many times, with some of the layers torn and other layers exposed, so it looked like a patchwork of pretty florals.

  The bed looked inviting.

  Eleanor was sleepy from the day, from rich food, beer, and whisky, and also from a bizarre quantity of change and strangeness, upsets and bolts from out of the blue. She sat on the edge of the twin bed. On the wall around her, layers of wallpaper peeled into animal shapes. She lay back on the bed.

  When Mead came back, she’d slipped off her shoes, socks, and turtleneck and was lying down in her T-shirt and jeans with her arm across her forehead. Mead sat down beside her.

  “Why’s my picture on the wall here?” she asked.

  “Because you belong here,” Mead said.

  “I do?” She was willing to believe him.

  “Are you sleeping right here, like this?”

  “I am,” she said.

  He would sleep in the room down the hall, but right now his body was warm and felt good, so close to hers. Mead unfolded the quilt and laid it on top of her, made sure to cover her bare shoulders.

  Eleanor breathed in the scent of the man beside her who rested his face on his own hand and traced the shape of her face with his eyes. He smelled of burning wood and green herbs.

  “Would you mind,” she whispered, “telling me another story?”

  “A story?”

  “Mm-hmm.” She nodded yes.

  And he started in like a man who knew how.

  “Then it was, in the years before you were born, that two young girls lived in a vast stone house on the top of a graceful hill . . .”

  Eleanor curled up warm and happy against him. “No, tell me your story,” she mumbled. It was good to feel him close and she stretched out.

  “Ahh.” Steady like the shifting of gears, he adjusted.

  “Now, far away beyond and above the highest reach of man or beast”—he rolled his words in a Scotsman’s brogue as he began the story of his father, Duncan Macleod—“there grew a child from boy to man in the Outer Hebrides. And he walked with a very large stick in his hand, from the time he was small.” Mead placed another light blanket over her. “When he was wee, the stick was taller than his da—so tall it reached halfway to God—and helped the boy up sides of scarps, to poke about in caves, and down into cracks in the crags on the mountains.” Mead looked to see if she was sleeping. “For fear of impossible wolves. The boy warred with hedgehogs, toppled anthills in a blow, and waited. He waited”—Mead’s voice became a whisper—“till the boy was taller than the stick he held, and confident as a hawk in the sky, he met a woman and so he fell. Fell inside my mam’s fair green Spanish eyes. Where neither stick, nor God, nor any man could help him.”