The Loner

by Rachel Ennis

  ‘What does Tom say?’ Gill asked.

  ‘He said it was my discovery, my decision.’ She took a breath. ‘It’s been going round and round in my head.’ She thought back to the previous morning, hearing Elsie claim how talking about her granddaughter had helped. All she had wanted was a chance to share her worries with someone she trusted.

  Having just done the same, Jess felt lighter. ‘You’re right. He lived in the village as John Preece. That’s how he should be buried.’ She washed out the mugs.

  ‘Speaking of Tom,’ Gill said from the sofa. ‘He looked like the cat who’d been at the cream when he come in the shop the other day.’

  Drying the mugs, Viv nudged Jess. ‘You done it, haven’t you.’

  Jess felt herself blush. ‘None of your business.’

  ‘You have! Good for you. ’Bout time too. When we first married me and Jimmy was at it like rabbits. Never went off the boil neither. Well, not till lately.’

  ‘Viv, for goodness’ sake –’

  ‘I’m just saying, enjoy it while you can. Once they hot flushes start you won’t want to know.’

  ‘Thanks for that.’

  Viv lowered her voice. ‘Do you think Mor and Ben have –?’

  ‘I don’t know and I’m not going to ask,’ Jess hissed back. ‘Nor are you,’ she warned as Viv looked past her and opened her mouth. ‘Mor’s entitled to a bit of privacy.’

  ‘She’d be better off with some advice. You know, a few tips to make it easier? We all been married but she’s coming to it new –’

  ‘So she and Ben will have the fun of finding out for themselves. Anyway, Ben’s been married so –’

  Viv clutched Jess’s arm. ‘I forgot that. Mind you, that was over twenty years ago. Didn’t she leave him for someone else? Maybe he wasn’t no good at it. Maybe that’s why she went off –’

  ‘Maybe he just chose the wrong woman and now he’s found the right one.’

  ‘Oh Jess, that’s some romantic. See, that’s what comes of you and Tom –’

  ‘Pour the tea while I cut more cake.’

  After the coroner had phoned to say the body could be released for burial, Jess had rung the vicar.

  ‘We haven’t been in the village very long so I didn’t know Mr Preece,’ he began.

  ‘No one did,’ Jess said.

  ‘That may be accurate,’ he said gently, ‘but it doesn’t give me much to work with, Mrs Trevanion.’

  ‘I’ll talk to Gerry and Sandra and get back to you.’

  ‘I think he’s afraid it will be the shortest eulogy in history,’ Jess said across the counter.

  Gerry nodded. ‘John Preece come in here twice a week. He’d tow his trailer loaded up with trays and boxes, lift it all off, and wait for me to check what he’d brought. One thing I will say, he never tried to pass off anything bruised or bad. Straight as a die he was.’

  ‘I’m not sure that will help Mr Griffin.’

  Sandra came to stand beside her husband. ‘He brought the veg. Gerry paid him. He picked up the empty crates and went.’ She shrugged.

  ‘Only time he spoke was if I asked when something would be ready,’ Gerry added. ‘He’d say, “two weeks”, or “Friday”, but he was never one for chat. I’m sorry he’s gone. But truth is, for all the years he lived here he was still a stranger.’

  Jess was surprised to see so many people at the church. The centre pews were full, with overspill into those on the left below the lectern.

  The hymn ended and Paul Griffin waited while everyone sat. ‘We are here today to say farewell to a man none of us knew. John Preece lived in Polvellan for many years. His bike and trailer piled with boxes was a familiar sight. Friendship was offered, but when he declined it people respected his decision and his right to live as he chose. He resided in the village but outside the community. He worked hard in the garden he loved, growing a wide range of vegetables and fruit. Sharing the results of his labour through the shop, he touched every family in the village. Perhaps a lesson we may learn from this it is that there are many different ways of connecting with people. Some have no need of words. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.’

  Jess gripped Tom’s hand tightly as she swallowed the aching lump in her throat. Alongside her Mor wiped her eyes on Ben’s handkerchief and Annie sniffed.

  Outside the sun shone as the undertaker and his assistant slid the coffin into the hearse for the short journey to the cemetery.

  ‘Annie, Viv, and me will go on down to the hall and start setting out the food,’ Gill said.

  ‘We shouldn’t be long.’ Tom put his arm around Jess’s shoulder. He turned as Mor and Ben came out of the church. ‘You coming with us, or going with Gill?’

  ‘We’ll come,’ Mor said. ‘You was there for me when Mother went.’

  ‘It was a bigger turnout than I expected,’ Jess said, glad her voice was steady.

  ‘Having that collection in the shop made people feel involved,’ Tom replied.

  Less than an hour later they walked into the hall through the back door. Food and drink had relaxed voices that initially would have been hushed. Now people were laughing and chatting.

  Tom gave her a quick hug. ‘He’s had a good send-off, Jess. I’m chacking for a cup of tea.’

  Jess joined Viv at a worktop crowded with plastic tubs, cake tins, and serving plates.

  ‘You wasn’t long. Go all right did it?’

  Jess nodded. ‘It’s a beautiful view down over the river.’

  ‘Next best thing to his garden, eh?’

  Jess pushed the knife she was holding into Viv’s hand. ‘Will you finish slicing that sponge?’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To bring Claire Griffin in.’

  Viv peered past her. ‘Who’s she?’

  ‘The vicar’s wife.’

  ‘I wondered what she looked like.’

  ‘Viv,’ Jess hissed. ‘Be nice.’

  ‘I’m always nice. Known for it I am.’

  Jess hurried to the doorway. ‘I hope you’re here to help. We need another pair of hands.’ She smiled and put a hand under Claire’s elbow, surprised to feel the woman’s arm shaking. ‘I don’t know what it is about funerals, but people are always ravenous.’

  ‘It’s relief,’ Claire murmured. ‘One day will be their turn, but not this time.’

  Jess looked at her. ‘That’s –’

  ‘Not something you expected to hear from a vicar’s wife.’ Claire was looking at the others.

  ‘Your husband is the one who took holy orders. You can say what you like.’

  Claire eyed her briefly and a wry smile touched the corners of her mouth. ‘You think?’

  ‘Give it a try.’ Jess raised her voice. ‘Everyone, this is Claire Griffin. She’s come to help. Gill runs the post office counter, Annie used to be a district nurse, Morwenna is the choir’s star soloist and will be getting married in the autumn, and that vision in royal blue, lemon, and shocking pink is Viv.’ Jess guided Claire to where Viv was slicing cake.

  ‘What shall we do?’

  ‘One can cut and spread jam,’ Viv pointed to a dozen scones. ‘The other put cream on. Like gannets they are,’ she confided, jerking her head towards the noisy hall. ‘Always the same after a funeral it is. We got a job to keep the plates and cups filled.’ She smiled at Claire. ‘So where you from then?’

  ‘Our last posting was in Wiltshire, but Paul’s family is from Helston and mine are from St Day.’

  ‘Never! Jimmy’s uncle married a girl from St Day. Williams her name was, Elizabeth-Jane Williams.’

  ‘I have a second cousin with that name,’ Claire said.

  ‘You have?’ Viv beamed, clearly delighted. ‘Here, want a cup of tea do you?’

  A week later, Annie, Gill, Mor, and Viv were once again seated in Jess’s living room to hear what she had discovered about Marigold’s. Ben hadn’t wanted to leave his father so Tom had picked up a six-pack of beer and gone to keep them
company.

  ‘Ben made me promise to tell ’n all about it when he come round my place tomorrow,’ Mor said, taking the lid off a cake tin to reveal a bacon and egg tart.

  ‘Tom already knows,’ Jess said, setting plates and cutlery on the coffee table. ‘So he’s not bothered about hearing it again.’

  ‘What did Mr say about it?’ Gill asked, carefully slicing a fluffy sponge cake filled with homemade raspberry jam and whipped cream.

  ‘He rang me the evening after I took it in, absolutely delighted. I’d put my invoice in an envelope in the folder and he said he’d already put his cheque in the post. So seeing he was in such a good mood I asked if it would be all right to share what I’d found with all of you.’

  ‘He must have said yes, else we wouldn’t be here,’ Annie said, setting out four cheeses on a board with a dish of crackers and a bowl of washed green grapes.

  ‘She’s so sharp she’ll cut herself,’ Viv tipped her head towards Annie. On the surface she was her usual mouthy self.

  ‘Did you see the doctor?’ Jess asked quietly.

  Viv nodded. ‘Lovely he was. Took my blood pressure and asked scores of questions. He’s give me some tablets. He said if they don’t work I must go back and we’ll find one that do.’

  Jess squeezed her arm, then carried a dish of chutney to the spread on the low table, telling the others, ‘Mr Opie said if it wasn’t for me coming into the café while I was investigating Mor’s ancestry, it might have been years before he got round to doing anything about finding Marigold.’

  They all sat down and began helping themselves from various plates and dishes.

  ‘What will happen to John Preece’s cottage, Jess?’ Gill asked.

  ‘He didn’t own it after all. His was the last “life” on the lease so it has reverted to the estate. Mr Opie doesn’t know whether to have the cottage updated and lease it again, or sell it.’

  ‘Be a shame to let the garden get all overgrown,’ Viv said.

  Jess helped herself to a slice of savoury tart. ‘I asked what he thought about someone from the village keeping it productive while he was deciding what to do.’

  ‘Who did you have in mind, Jess?’ Gill asked.

  ‘Stan Hooper,’ Annie said.

  Jess nodded. ‘I told him Stan is a retired gardener and his family are local. His wife Shirley makes pasties in the village butchers. Their son Sam works at the marina, and Sam’s partner, Tina, is a mobile hairdresser.’

  ‘Be perfect that would.’ Gill spooned chutney onto her plate. ‘Stan could prepare a weekly box for Mr Opie for the cafe and sell the rest to Gerry. What did he say?’

  ‘He would phone Stan that evening.’

  ‘Fancy the Griffins being Cornish,’ Viv said past a mouthful of pastry. ‘She got some lovely dry sense of humour. Mind you, she need it. I wouldn’t want to be wife to no vicar, even one as good-looking as him.’

  ‘Viv!’ Mor gasped.

  ‘I’m married, Mor, not dead. I can still look.’

  ‘Remember Mrs Everton?’ Gill cut a piece of cheese. ‘Always wore a twinset and pearls. She hardly ever spoke, just smiled at everyone.’

  ‘She didn’t know which way was up.’ Annie took a slice of sponge cake.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Jess asked.

  ‘Four bottles of sherry a week. She was never reeling drunk, but never sober either. Then there was Father Anthony. Very high church he was. His housekeeper was a nun.’

  ‘Remember that handsome young man, what was he called?’

  ‘Gideon,’ Annie said, her mouth full.

  ‘That’s right. Gideon. Miss Edwards used to blush like a sunset whenever she saw him.’

  Viv grinned. ‘I remember him, blond hair, blue eyes, went off to live with his boyfriend in the Seychelles.’ She turned to Jess. ‘See what you missed while you was living over Truro?’

  ‘Claire’s worried about her daughter. She’s a nurse in Africa. I didn’t catch which country. I hope it’s not one with Ebola.’

  ‘All the more reason for her to find an interest of her own,’ Annie said. ‘We’ll sort her out another time. Tell us about Marigold’s.’

  Fetching a folder lying beside her laptop on the kitchen table, Jess went back to her seat.

  ‘Marigold Mitchell’s story is tied in with Henry Arthur Morley Chenhall –’

  ‘That’s some mouthful of a name,’ Mor said.

  ‘There were three Henry Chenhalls, Mor. I had to be sure I got the one who owned the estate before it came to Simon Opie’s father.’ She glanced up. ‘Before I start, does anyone want –’

  ‘If we do, we can get it,’ Annie gestured for her to continue.

  ‘Henry Chenhall of Pengilly House was born in 1872. In 1902 he married Adelaide Susanna Wynne. He was 30, she was 24. Her parents were keen on the match. His family had reservations because of concerns about her health.’

  ‘How – ?’ Viv began.

  Jess looked up. ‘There was a folder of private letters in one of the boxes of estate papers.’

  ‘Here, Viv,’ Gill put another slice of tart on her plate.

  ‘Adelaide was described as fragile,’ Jess continued. ‘In middle-class Victorian England this was considered the mark of a lady. Henry was fond of Adelaide and she declared that if any obstacle was put in the way of their marriage, she would remain single for the rest of her life.’

  ‘Sounds a bit intense to me,’ Annie murmured.

  ‘You have no idea,’ Jess said. ‘Adelaide brought a large dowry to the marriage. So even allowing for her jointure –’

  ‘What’s that then?’ Viv demanded.

  Jess turned to the back of the folder. ‘A jointure is money or property settled on a wife by her husband to support her in her widowhood should he die first.’

  ‘They done things proper back then,’ Mor declared.

  ‘Now there’s life insurance,’ Annie said.

  ‘If you’re lucky.’ Gill directed a sympathetic smile at Jess.

  ‘And the stingy sod have paid the premiums,’ Viv added.

  Jess grinned. ‘Fat chance of me going into a decline with you lot around.’

  ‘All that drooping and wailing?’ Annie snorted. ‘I got no time for it. Come on then, we’ll be here all night else.’

  ‘I found letters from several doctors about Adelaide. She would fall into deep depressions that lasted several weeks –’

  ‘I knew it,’ Annie said. ‘No wonder her family was keen to get her married off.’

  Ignoring the interruptions, Jess kept going. ‘Then she would start to improve. But instead of levelling out, her mood would soar to euphoria. She only slept three or four hours a night and crammed her days with social activities. But after two or three weeks, exhaustion would plunge her back into despair and depression. I found accounts for all kinds of medicines and treatments. One was from a private sanatorium that looked after half a dozen patients considered a danger to others and at risk of self-harm.’

  ‘She was in some bad way then,’ Viv said.

  ‘You haven’t heard the worst of it. In 1918 Adelaide Chenhall was accused of killing a local doctor believed to be her lover. She was judged unfit to stand trial by reason of insanity and confined to the private wing of the Cornwall County asylum at Bodmin.’

  ‘Dear life,’ Mor gasped.

  ‘Surely her being mad was grounds for divorce?’ Gill said.

  Jess nodded. ‘Henry’s solicitor believed he would get a sympathetic hearing if he applied. But he wouldn’t because it would have been reported in the papers. That would have made her condition public and shamed her family.’

  ‘So he was tied to a madwoman,’ Viv said, ‘with no hope of marrying anyone else.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Jess said. ‘By 1914 Gilbert & Sullivan operas were hugely popular. All over Britain amateur operatic societies were performing them under licence. The terms of the licenses were very strict, not just about details of the costumes and sets, but about the morals of the cast as w
ell.’

  ‘Cheek!’ Viv huffed.

  ‘Things was different then,’ Gill reminded.

  ‘In 1915 Henry applied to join the army but was rejected on medical grounds. He’d had rheumatic fever as a child and this had left him with a weak heart. As he couldn’t fight he threw himself into raising funds for the War Field Hospitals’ Supply Unit. He organised swimming galas, sports events, and concerts.

  ‘After the terrible battles in northern France, some of the casualties were brought to Falmouth. Schools and halls were turned into temporary hospitals. Local people set up canteens in churches, and soldiers were taken into homes all over the town.

  ‘In 1918 Henry spent some time in a London hospital. Then in 1920 he returned to Cornwall where sisters Maisie and Evelyn Radford were becoming known for staging grand opera and choral recitals. Henry preferred Gilbert & Sullivan and attended a production of Princess Ida staged at the Palace Theatre in Berkeley Vale.

  ‘One of the lead roles was played by twenty-year-old Marigold Mitchell. A good actress with a beautiful voice, she had been with the society since the age of fourteen. After the show Henry asked to meet the cast. He praised them all, but it was Marigold who entranced him. He was forty-eight years old, shy, stressed, and lonely, and he fell headlong in love with her.’ Jess looked up and saw them watching her.

  ‘Go on then,’ Viv urged.

  ‘What are you waiting for?’ Annie demanded.

  Smothering a smile, Jess returned to her notes. ‘Henry stayed to talk to the producer, determined to invest in costumes and sets for more Gilbert & Sullivan operas.

  ‘Marigold lived with her widowed mother, Sarah, a dressmaker employed in Downing’s Drapers. Marigold worked in Downing’s office as a typist. Sarah was involved with the society, altering and repairing costumes. Her late husband’s mother lived with them in a small cottage in Coke’s Backlet off Church Street.

  ‘I found Marigold’s replies to Henry’s invitation to supper. In the first she thanked him but declined. When he asked again, this time including her mother if she would kindly consent to come too, Marigold accepted.

  ‘Sarah Mitchell wrote to Henry saying she admired his efforts to alleviate the suffering of men injured in the war, and his generosity in supporting the society with a view to raising more money. However, as he was married and his wife was in Bodmin asylum, she could not but be concerned about his intentions towards her daughter.