by Jane Anstey
Robert was invited back to the rectory on Thursday afternoon, as term had not yet started, and she was pleased to see with what confidence and happiness he set out for the afternoon’s socialising. Chris and Bethan were his best friends, and he clearly felt secure and comfortable with their parents, who, after his prolonged stay at the rectory with his mother during November must seem more like aunt and uncle than merely friends. She delivered him there after lunch, checked with Liz that he was invited for supper, and was assured that the Swansons would bring him home sometime in the early evening. As she walked home, she caught sight of a rather hunched figure trudging along the lane ahead of her in the light rain. When she caught up with him, she found it was George Warrendon, the farmer from Church End Farm. She realised she had not given him a thought either over the past couple of weeks, to her shame.
“Hallo, Rose,” he said, turning a wan face towards her as she called out a greeting. She was shocked at how tired and aged he looked.
“How are you, George?” she asked, full of remorse for her neglect. “How is Lucinda?”
“Still in prison,” he told her glumly. “The trial won’t be for a few months, apparently. I still feel guilty, you know, that I couldn’t keep her out of it.”
God knows you tried, George, she thought. You could hardly have done more, and even what you did do was illegal enough. But it probably wouldn’t help to voice this thought. She had not heard whether the police were still intending to prosecute him for the lies he’d told them during their investigations. Jeremy had certainly thought it possible he would have to go to court for impeding their enquiries, she remembered, but she had been immersed in her own concerns since and had completely forgotten about George’s problems.
“I don’t know how I’m going to get through it all,” he went on. “Lucinda wants to divorce me, and how can I blame her? I’ve failed her in every way she cared about. It was just the final straw that I couldn’t keep the police off her back.”
“George, that’s not fair,” Rose exclaimed at this. “Surely she brought all this on herself? You did everything you could to help her. You can’t blame yourself for her wrongdoing.” She felt sorry for George, certainly, but not even Jeremy’s recommendations of Christian forgiveness could rid her of a continuing anger with Lucinda for her murderous intentions towards Robert.
George shook his head. “She was so beautiful when I first knew her. Lively and fun. Everyone wanted to go out with her. I persuaded her to marry me, promised her whatever she wanted just to get my ring on her finger. But I couldn’t deliver what she asked, in the end. The farm didn’t do well enough to pay for luxuries, and she found farming life hard––uncongenial. I can’t blame her for that. I feel I let her down badly, you know. I’m not surprised she stopped loving me. I shouldn’t have persuaded her to marry me. I should have known it would be no use.” The gentle country voice faded into silence.
Rose, enlightened by her own newfound understanding of the nature of love, doubted whether Lucinda had ever felt any real affection for George. She patted the farmer’s arm inarticulately, unable to find any words to comfort him.
“They’re still putting together the case against her,” he went on. “But they wouldn’t grant her bail. She’ll be on remand at least until the Crown Court trial.”
Rose had been very glad to hear that Lucinda had not been bailed, though she’d managed to refrain tactfully from saying so. Prison populations might be close to capacity, but a woman as dangerous as Lucinda should surely stay behind bars. Her flesh crawled at the thought of her being released even temporarily. What might she do to Robert, if she came home? She wondered what sentence the farmer’s wife was likely to get if convicted of manslaughter or attempted murder and hoped it would be many years’ imprisonment. But she couldn’t say that to George. She said goodbye to him at the entrance to the farm and walked on to Sundials thoughtfully.
Thirteen
Robert was having a glorious time at the rectory. Chris and Bethan’s big attic playroom was always a delight to him. Most of his older sister’s toys had been disposed of before his birth, and his own playthings did not represent in the same way the accumulated entertainment of a whole family. The rectory playroom was moreover well provided with cupboards, and as the rectory finances did not stretch to replacing many old playthings with new ones, the room was stocked with fifteen years’ worth of classic toys and games. Robert loved exploring those cupboards where board games, packs of cards, boxes of building bricks, painted metal vehicles, drawing books, crayons, old spirographs and a myriad of plastic novelties jostled for space. There was even a whole trunk of dressing-up clothes!
Even the presence that day of Bethan’s friend Em, a bossy girl with a taste for Barbie dolls and pony magazines, whom Liz had decided to invite (wrongheadedly in Chris and Robert’s view) to even up proceedings from a gender point of view, failed to spoil his enjoyment of the afternoon. They had a happy, noisy supper of sausages, mashed potatoes and baked beans round the kitchen table, supervised by Lorna to give her mother a chance to attend to arrangements for the adult meal that would follow. To add to the festivities, Mike entertained them after supper with an assortment of magic tricks he’d learnt from a book and was still in the process of perfecting.
Liz came into the room just as they were finishing their meal to tell Em that her mother had arrived to collect her. She admonished the teenagers for making the younger children over-excited before they went home. “Go and sit the three of them down quietly and read to them or something, Mike, until I’ve finished in the kitchen,” she said. “I need Lorna to cut up vegetables for me. I’ll run Robert home as soon as I can.”
“Where’s Dad?” asked Mike, shepherding his charges out of the room obediently. “Shall we go into the drawing-room so I’ll hear the doorbell when Mr Hellyer arrives?”
“Good idea,” agreed his mother. “Dad’s in his study, I think. But make them wash their hands first, please, after all that greasy food. And keep their feet off the furniture. I’ve just tidied in there.”
“Okay,” said Mike equably, rounding up the children capably before corralling them in the downstairs bathroom to wash. His father was nowhere to be seen, but the study door was shut, so presumably he was beavering away at some urgent piece of parish business or other. The impending visit of Simon Hellyer was much more important, as far as Mike was concerned. Sitting in the drawing-room, he would hear his idol come and not miss a minute of his time at the rectory.
Robert had not realised that the expected dinner guest was Simon Hellyer and was as thrilled as the older boy when Mike, having answered the doorbell as promised, ushered the teacher into the drawing-room. He had had no chance to speak to Simon since his life-saving intervention on Robert’s behalf, though he had wanted to, and here was a prime opportunity. He sidled up to Simon carefully, trying to snatch a moment between Mike’s enthusiastic pumping of his teacher on the subject of the Cairngorms and Chris’s equally insistent desire to show Simon his favourite Christmas present, a large and energetic jack in the box. Since Simon had witnessed the rescue of a climber and helped the helicopter crew to winch the injured man off a hillside, and since Chris was keen to demonstrate all the capabilities of the jack in the box, this took some time. At last, Simon noticed Robert hovering shyly, and diplomatically included him in the conversation.
“Hi there, Robert. Did you have a good Christmas?”
Robert smiled up at him and wondered why his face looked so sad. He thought of Christmas as a usually happy time, not to mention hearing Simon tell Mike he had flown away on an aeroplane for a holiday in the mountains. How could anyone be unhappy in such circumstances?
Now that they were actually talking to each other, he found he couldn’t work out whether Mr Hellyer was really keen to know about his family and their Christmas, even though he had asked. Grown-ups often asked questions to which they didn’t really want accurate answers, so it was sometimes difficult to tell.
�
��I had a great time,” he told Simon, deciding to take the question literally. “Dad bought me some more railway track and we built an enormous layout all around the sitting room. But we had to put it away again when Dad went back to work,” he finished, with wistful resignation. “Mummy’s not very good at railways. Still, I think she enjoyed the rest of Christmas. She likes the decorations and we bought a lovely cake.”
The sad expression on Simon’s face intensified, but Robert burbled on anyway. “Mummy bought me some software that lets the computer play Scrabble with you when you don’t have anyone to play with.” He laughed. “Which is funny, really, because she spells the words all wrong when we play Scrabble for real, and of course she can never sort out the computer when it goes wrong. But she bought it because she knew I’d like it,” he finished with warm appreciation for his mother. He took a breath and, remembering belatedly his earlier desire to thank Simon for saving his life, opened his mouth to speak again, but it was too late.
“It’s a good game, Scrabble,” Simon agreed, unaware that Robert had more to say. “I sometimes let my class play the board game version at school, when we have wet break, or on the last day of term when everything else is packed away for the holidays.”
Mike grinned. “A computer version would be even more popular, sir,” he said.
“I bet it would,” returned Simon. “But you guys spend too much time in front of a screen as it is.”
At that moment the doorbell rang again and, as Mike went to answer it, Jeremy arrived from his study.
“How are you, Simon? I’m sorry I wasn’t around to greet you,” he said, shaking hands with the teacher.
“I’ve been well entertained,” Simon assured him, smiling. He put his hand in his pocket and brought out a book. “I brought a small gift for you, Remy. I thought you might like to try some modern verse.”
Jeremy looked at the slim volume with interest. “Why, Simon! I didn’t know you were a poet.”
“Not really,” disclaimed Simon quickly. “Just an armchair amateur. These are the first I’ve written that anyone’s been interested in publishing.”
“Well done, well done! How very exciting.” Jeremy’s voice vibrated with real pleasure, and Simon was glad in his turn that he had thought of the gift. Neither of them had noticed Mike returning until they looked round and saw that he had brought Rose with him.
There was a moment’s awkward silence.
“I remembered you were entertaining,” she explained, looking only at Jeremy. “I thought I’d come to fetch Robert and save Liz a trip. The rain’s cleared and—oh, Simon, I didn’t know you would be here!”
He had moved involuntarily as she started speaking and had come into her line of view. She coloured, whether with pleasure or chagrin he couldn’t tell. His own heart was beating painfully fast. The sight of her was like a shot of cocaine, immediately exhilarating but with the promise of a heavy crash to follow. So much for thinking he might be able to get on with his life without her.
“Simon’s given me this little book of poetry,” Jeremy told her, making the best of the situation.
She looked at the small volume in his hand. “Your own poems, Simon!” she exclaimed with delight, beaming at him. “You’ll be famous, just like John Donne.”
Jeremy felt slightly embarrassed on Simon’s behalf by this rather naive effusion, and also uncomfortable that the two of them should have met, however accidentally, under his roof, when he was fairly sure they had been avoiding each other. But then he saw that Simon was touched by her reaction, that to him it was precious. For a moment, an expression of great tenderness came over the teacher’s face as he looked at Rose. Then they both seemed to recall their surroundings. Simon’s face closed up, and Rose’s flushed crimson.
“Time to go, Robert,” she said quickly to her son. “Get your coat and shoes on, darling, and say goodbye to Chris and Bethan––and thank-you to Liz and Remy.”
There were a few moments of confusion as Robert, baulked in his latest attempt to express his thanks to Simon, made a bid to stay longer and was refused, while Jeremy pointed out that most of the work had been done by Mike and Lorna, who had looked after the children while their parents were otherwise engaged. By that time, the shoes and coat had been found and donned, and Rose led her reluctant son away.
When the Althorpes had gone, Mike took Chris and Bethan away to be supervised in their preparations for bed by Lorna, and Jeremy offered Simon a drink. But conversation between them failed to flourish. Rose’s comments seemed to have put discussion of Simon’s poetry uncomfortably off the agenda, and no new topic occurred to Jeremy, while all Simon’s normal social graces seemed to have deserted him. Even when Liz arrived from the kitchen to join them, a constraint remained. It wasn’t until Mike’s return that Simon revived a little and, encouraged by his pupil, consented to regale them with more holiday anecdotes, this time amusing ones from his recent experiences of first-footing at a Scottish Hogmanay.
But the revival was superficial, and in the end Simon wished he had not accepted the rectory invitation. He knew the Swansons had not intended for Rose to be present, that those few heady moments of joy meant nothing in terms of the future, merely offering him a momentary respite from grim reality, but he found himself once more unable to come to terms with the prospect. After the meal, Jeremy bore him off to his study where they talked about the complexities of English verse, and Jeremy promised to read Simon’s poems and discuss them with him at a later date. It was good of him to take the poems seriously, Simon thought gratefully. But he wasn’t sure whether he would take up the renewed invitation. His first instinct had been the better one…to look for solace in solitude.
As he drove home, he tried to face his situation fairly and squarely. He had two realistic options. One was to try to put Rose out of his mind altogether as an object of love, steeling himself to meet her at ringing practice and bump into her on walks or at local activities, learning to meet her equably as a friend or even as simply an acquaintance, without being overwhelmed each time with unreasonable joy, or jealousy of her husband, or a desperate longing to hold her in his arms. The other was to leave the area altogether, quit his job and sell his house and set out for somewhere different, to create a new life without her. There would be pros and cons to either choice, he knew. But tonight, that chance meeting with her at the rectory had made him realise he couldn’t go on with things as they were.
When he got home, he closed the door of his cottage behind him and leaned against it, looking round at the room he had come to love. It would be hard to leave it, hard to find something that could come close to replacing it, just as it would be a wrench to leave the job he loved as head of English at Northchurch College. He decided he would not even try to recreate the idyllic rural life he had enjoyed here. Something completely fresh and different was what he needed. A new situation that could not possibly remind him of Two Marks, Northchurch and St Martin-on-the-Hill.
In the morning, he phoned one or two estate agents to ask for a valuation of the cottage; and that evening he started to search the Internet for city teaching jobs.
~ * ~
Rose had felt just as unsettled by their unexpected encounter, though she had little opportunity for reflection as she walked home from the rectory, for Robert was chattering happily about his afternoon with the twins––though he also complained that he hadn’t had a chance to speak to Simon about rescuing him from Lucinda.
“I did so want to thank him, Mummy. And then I didn’t manage to do it.”
“I don’t think you need to worry, darling,” Rose soothed him. “Mr Hellyer knows how grateful I am, and I’m sure he knows you are too.”
“He’s awfully nice, Mummy,” pursued Robert in a plaintive voice. “Why can’t we ask him round to tea? Then I could say thank you myself.”
Rose swallowed painfully and tried to keep her voice even and steady. “He works all day as a teacher at Mike’s school,” she explained. “I don’t suppose he
has time for afternoon tea.”
“We could ask him at the weekend,” suggested Robert. “Dad’s away sometimes, so he wouldn’t have to know.”
Rose stopped dead in horror. “Robert, we mustn’t even think of keeping things from Dad like that,” she said. “Dad wouldn’t like us to see Mr Hellyer, and that must be enough.”
“But why not?” whined Robert, sinking back into the impotent frustration of childhood in the face of this parental prohibition. “Dad has secrets from us. Why shouldn’t we have some from him?”
Rose was dismayed. “What secrets, Robert?” she asked without thinking. “I don’t know of any secrets.” God, what now? What does Robert know that I don’t?
“He wouldn’t say where he’d been for the weekend,” Robert pointed out. “That’s a secret, isn’t it?”
Rose couldn’t think of a reply. The logic of her son’s thought was irrefutable, but for some reason she had become certain Clive’s secrecy had been just that, not a front for deception. But how sure am I? He says he’s finished with Olivia, and he hasn’t lied to me about going away on business. Why won’t he say where he went last weekend? We can’t build a new start on a foundation of secrecy.