by Gloria Cook
‘I didn’t fancy a trip away.’ Brooke sighed softly, but there were tones of dejection. Two nights ago Ben had accused her of no longer fancying him.
‘It’s not that, darling,’ she had pleaded. ‘It’s just—oh, why can’t I make you understand?’
‘That you’re not willing to contemplate another baby yet? OK, OK!’ He had kicked back the bedcovers and fetched his wallet. ‘You don’t trust me to be careful, but as far as I’m concerned there’s no point in making love at all if we have to use one of these horrid things again.’
‘Ben! How can you be so cold? If it’s not going to be a loving experience then I don’t want to be with you.’
He had pulled on his pyjama trousers and then flung himself down on the couch and shrugged his shoulders. ‘I’m sorry, Brooke. I don’t know what else to suggest. We’ve always had a good love life. I don’t want it ruined. I love you. I love being with you. Damn it, Brooke! I’m a young man. I didn’t come near you for three whole months after the last miscarriage. Am I supposed to take a vow of celibacy? And surely I have got the right to have a son.’
She had sat up in bed, sobbing. ‘I’m sorry too, Ben. I don’t know what the answer is either. I just…’
‘Just what, for heavens sake? You’re not the first woman to have lost a pregnancy, even more than one. I said last week if you lose one more then I’d be willing to give up. Adopt a son or something. I don’t think I can be more reasonable than that!’
‘Stop shouting, Ben, please. You’ll wake Faye and the servants. I understand your point of view. I do. I’m sorry. I know this isn’t fair to you and you’ve been more than reasonable. I think what I want is for you to understand that to me it wasn’t just the end of two early pregnancies but two babies. They were my children, Ben. As real to me as Faye is.’
Ben paced the luxurious bedroom, his feet silent on the deep-pile carpet. He lit a cigar, drawing on it impatiently. He pulled back the silk curtains and the voile drapes inside them, and the moonlight had gleamed on his chest, making his skin gleam like burnished bronze. Watching the powerful movements of his perfectly aligned body, she had wondered how she could resist him. In a low, defeated voice, he had, at last, said, ‘What do you want to do?’
‘I don’t know.’ She had stayed in bed, the covers pulled up to her chin, shivering, dreading what he would say next.
He’d turned to her, stubbing out the cigar. ‘I suppose we all take different lengths of time to get over something. I can’t entirely sympathize with you. There are men who came back from the front in ruins. There’s one in the village left an imbecile. Wives back then lost babies at the shock of their husbands’ deaths. You need to find some courage, Brooke. I can’t imagine Em going to pieces over something similar.’ He went to his dressing room. ‘It’s still early. I think I’ll drive to Truro and call on Dougie Blend. Tomorrow, I’ll go up to London and fly on to Paris. Then take a tour around the vineyards and look for some new wines. I take it you don’t want to come with me?’
She had shaken her head, and cried the night away. Ben had made her feel small and guilty and selfish. He measured everything she did by Emilia’s level, and because his partially blinded eye had denied him war service, he measured everything else by the horrors and sufferings of that. Dougie Blend was his business associate, a wine merchant, a seedy individual, and some of the business Ben conducted with him was not legal. Brooke behaved as if she did not know this.
‘Alec,’ she said. ‘Do you think I’m self-centred? That I should be made of stronger stuff, like Emilia?’
He smiled at her, a philosophical smile. ‘There’s only one Emilia and there’s not enough of her to go round. I know what you’re saying about yourself, Brooke. Of course you’re not self-seeking. You’re mourning. I’m sorry, because although I sympathize I can’t help you. I’ll never get over Jenna’s death. I haven’t really made the effort to and now I don’t think I can.’
‘Are you afraid?’
‘I don’t know.’ He frowned, rubbing his brow at the threat of another headache; they were creeping up on him more frequently and with greater intensity. Sometimes lights sparked and marred his vision, sometimes the pressure inside his head made him think his brain was about to implode. Winifred had given him some of the analgesic she used for her occasional migraines but it hadn’t made any difference. ‘I don’t seem to be able to take anything in any more. Do you think I’m going mad?’
‘Of course not. You and I have a bad habit, that’s all,’ she smiled in understanding. ‘We think too much. Others would advise us to do something new, find a distraction, but neither of us have the energy or the inclination to. I’d never have believed I could feel this way. I’m glad there’s you, who identifies with how I feel.’
Alec held out his hand. Brooke put hers into it. ‘So am I.’
They stayed as they were, words no longer needed.
Chapter Ten
Laden with a box of farm produce, Emilia knocked on the front of Wynne Cottage, which had been old Mr Quick’s home all his life.
Jim answered. ‘Mrs Em! Surprised to see someone at this door. Don’t suppose it’s hardly ever been used. Come in.’
‘I sort of wanted to christen your new home, Jim.’
‘Thanks.’ He took the box from her. ‘This is very kind of you. Sit down. I’ll put the kettle on.’
‘How are you?’ She gazed about. Everything was in the same tidy order that old Mr Quick had left it in. Jim had been living here since hearing the news of old Mr Quick’s death. Emilia had gone to Druzel Farm herself to tell Jim, interrupting a hostile quarrel between him and Eustace Eathorne. Jim had immediately gone to Wynne Cottage, where he had begun a vigil over the old man’s coffin, ensuring that Mr Quick was laid out in his best suit.
Old Mr Quick had no living relatives and Jim had walked behind the bier and pair of black horses all the way to the church. The mourners had joined in the procession as it had wended its way past houses, smallholdings and farms. In respect of his age and lengthy associations in the village quite a few women went to the funeral. Ruby Brokenshaw had walked behind Jim, and when the cortège had got as far as Ford Farm, as wife of the squire, Mr Quick’s landlord, Emilia had stepped in front of her. No one looked to take over the lead from Jim, not even those who usually denounced him. Elena Rawley attended every such Anglican occasion and had stayed circumspectly in the background.
‘Are you going to the wake?’ Emilia had asked Jim after the burial in the churchyard. The wake was to be held in Gilbert Eathorne’s front room, adjoining the shop. Jim had taken no interest in its planning, even though Gilbert had come across the road to invite him specially, saying in reverential tones that his brother Sidney was ‘going to do the old boy proud with a nice hunk of ham.’
‘No,’ Jim had replied to Emilia. ‘I’d like to stay here for a while.’
‘Jim, I need to speak to you. Mr Quick had entrusted some papers to Alec’s care. What they contain concerns you. Will you come to the farm later today?’
He’d nodded, seeming much like when she’d first seen him, a lost, woeful fourteen-year-old, brought out of the workhouse, a boy who considered the world was against him.
‘It was good of Alec to agree to me taking over the tenancy here,’ Jim said now, pouring boiling water on the tea leaves in the fat brown teapot and placing it on the exact spot where old Mr Quick used to put it. ‘One or two people have been kind to me. Ruby Brokenshaw says I’m admired for calling regularly on Mr Quick. Suddenly my estimation’s gone up in the village. And what with the dear old soul leaving me his worldly goods and fifty-five-pound savings… I can’t quite take it all in.’
‘I’m so glad for you, Jim. A home of your own and the security of having a little bit put by, it’s what you’ve always wanted. I hope you and Sara will sort out your differences.’
Jim made a grim face. ‘She’s hurt me, the way she’s behaved. Well, she’ll have the spare room for her new baby. I suppose she’ll invi
te me over for Christmas and I suppose I’ll go. The more I think about it, it was her way of protecting her new life. Eustace wouldn’t hear of me working out my notice on the farm, he must have been glad to get rid of me. And now, thanks to Mr Quick, I can make a good start on my own little business, as a handyman.’ Jim’s enthusiasm was evident in the energy he used lifting a bag of biscuits out of the box. ‘I can put my hand to anything; you know that. I’ve just bought a used van and I’m having my name printed on it. I shan’t change anything in the cottage for a while. I can still picture Mr Quick sitting in his armchair there by the hearth. He’d have liked the idea of me living here. I’ll look after his garden. And his hens and the budgie. I’ll be getting Mr Quick a granite headstone; in the meantime I’ve made a wooden cross. The blacksmith’s going to burn his name and the dates in the wood. Do you take sugar, Mrs Em?’ Jim was suddenly shy and gave a boyish smile. ‘I’ve never made you tea before.’
‘No sugar, thank you, Jim.’ She smiled back. ‘Alec’s very pleased for you. We have every faith in you to make us and old Mr Quick proud. We’ll be happy to recommend you, it should bring you in some work. Have you got enough bed linen, that sort of thing? There’s lots to spare at the farm. Just call in any time. Of course, we’ll be grateful to have an extra hand in the fields for haymaking and harvesting. Goodness, Jim, you’re already like a different person.’
‘No longer a snotty-nosed workhouse brat, eh? Perhaps people will forget I ever came from there. You’ve brought ginger biscuits. I’ve missed Tilda’s cooking.’
‘I hope you’re cooking for yourself.’
‘I try.’ He grinned. ‘I might not have to for long. I’ve had a few hints from the maids round here, and a pie or two’s been handed in. Now I’ve got my own little place, seems I’m marriage material.’
‘You’ve been that for a long time.’ Emilia paused. ‘You call occasionally at Ford House.’
‘So I do. To help out.’
‘Any other reason?’
Jim took a moment to answer. ‘Elena Rawley’s hardly going to welcome any suggestion from me to step out.’ Jim thought about his love life. He was content to visit a certain working girl in a backstreet in Truro two or three times a month. If he ever did feel like taking a wife it would be someone mild and respectable, someone who’d never make him feel small, never be unfaithful. A marriage in which he would be in charge of the lovemaking. ‘I doubt if she’ll ever get married. Will Alec be home in time for the village show next month? Miss Rawley’s getting anxious about the arrangements, I think.’
‘Well, it’s not so easy for her now she’s got the Annear children to consider.’ Emilia didn’t want to mention yet again that she had no idea when Alec would be home. She was asked that by someone new nearly every day, and Will and Tom were fretting to see their father, demanding that they be allowed to spend the next weekend at Roskerne with him. Alec was friendlier over the telephone but quieter than usual and vague. She drank her tea and left Jim to his new life.
* * *
A short time later Jim was on his way to Ford House, to ask if he could borrow the typewriter. He would explain about his new venture. ‘I want to put up some notices,’ he planned to say. ‘Make it look professional. I’ll hand them out round the villages and get some pinned up in Truro.’ He couldn’t type, of course, and he was hopeless at spelling, but no doubt the generous young lady would offer to do it for him, and he’d insist on paying her for the service. He could see the first sheet of paper now. Jim Killigrew Esq. Handyman. Speciality Drystone Walls. No job too small. Wynne Cottage. Hennaford. Or should that be James Killigrew. General Builder? He wanted to create the right impression.
‘Uncle Jim! Uncle Jim!’
While the children made a mad exodus outside to the man who had taken over as father figure to them, Elena watched from the parlour window, her insides in knots. She was about to write a letter to the authorities explaining that it wasn’t possible for her to keep Alan and Martha. Her income wouldn’t stretch that far. One disaster, say with the roof or something, and things would be really stretched. It would be different if she could afford a full-time nanny. It was important to her that she helped lots of people, served the whole village. She was behind with the arrangements for the local horticultural show for the first time and it troubled her. It was strange to be putting all her energies into just two people, and the children needed a lot of attention in their present anxious state. Yesterday Alan had asked if he could have his own room when he got older and she hadn’t answered. Fear and suspicion had marked his little fair face and he had taken Martha away to curl up together in a corner. She hoped Jim would take them rambling in the woods. He had a settling effect on them and she would get the chance to think about what promises she’d make to them to ease their passage into an orphanage.
Jim sent the children to play in the back garden, promising to join them soon for a game of tig, when he would chase them and catch them and whirl them about in endless tizzy-wizzys. The children would scream in delight and beg him for more. Elena met him at the back kitchen door, where Jim always knocked. He took it for granted he’d be offered tea but he’d drink it outside. In no way would he compromise the young lady, earning her disrespect. In the pursuit of juicy morsels to spread round, the gossips would think nothing of destroying her reputation, no matter how highly they had thought of her previously.
‘What’s the matter?’ he said at once.
‘The matter?’ Elena shrank back on the doorstep, a guilty flush climbing her neck. ‘Nothing. Why?’
‘You look all upset. Got problems? Something I can fix for you?’
‘No! No, nothing like that.’ Elena tried to force a smile but one wouldn’t come.
His lifelong cynicism, his wary expectation that fate would have yet another kick in the face for him, made Jim receptive to others’ moods. ‘It’s something to do with the kids, isn’t it? They’re both well. What is it? Has a relative come forward and you’re grieved you’re going to have to give ’em up?’
Elena didn’t answer. Her throat was choked dry. Jim was the one person she was dreading having to explain her intentions to. So many times he had said he admired the way she had taken the children in.
Jim was reading her thoughts. There could be only one reason why Elena Rawley was looking like a roasted turkey. She was throwing the children out! It was a double blow because she was the last person he’d expected to serve her own selfish needs. He stamped over the threshold and Elena retreated into the kitchen, to the far side of the room. She knew Jim could bellow when he was angry and she didn’t want Alan and Martha to overhear a scene. ‘You’re not keeping them, are you? Why on earth not? Do you realize what you’d be doing to them?’
‘I… I, it’s difficult.’
‘I don’t understand. How could it be difficult?’ Jim went closer and closer to her, until she was scrunched up in front of the dresser. He knew the terrible sense of rejection Alan and Martha were in for, the terror of the unknown, the dreadful possibility of them being split up and taken into different homes, or one adopted while the other was left to rot in a cold institution, and he was boiling mad. ‘The kids need a home and you’ve got plenty of room. Too much trouble for you, I suppose. Bloody nuisances. Or don’t they fit the bill for you? Yeah, who wants a pair of common brats living in such a grand house?’
‘It’s nothing like that, I swear!’ Elena cried. ‘I simply haven’t the money to support them.’
‘Support them.’ Jim said the words gravely. ‘And which way would you suppose Alan and Martha want to be brought up? Private education? Fancy dancing lessons? Mixing with fine people?’
‘I wasn’t brought up like that, Jim.’ Elena wished she could tear her sight away from his accusing eyes.
‘All they want is a roof over their heads, for goodness sake! Food in their bellies and to know someone cares. Most importantly they need to know they can always stay together.’ Jim reached out with his hands, hovering the
m over her shoulders. She looked nervous and, thank God, in the wrong. ‘Think again, Elena, I beg you. You’d never forgive yourself if anything bad happened to either of them.’
Elena’s mind was a mess of confusion. Everything Jim had said was right. She couldn’t reject the children. Their lives might be ruined for ever. She had taken them in. It wasn’t right or Christian to fob them off now. Tears glittered along her eyelashes.
Jim said, ‘You believe the Lord provides a way out of all our problems, don’t you?’
She didn’t have to think about it. ‘Yes,’ she whispered, swallowing hard.
‘Good. Then look for that provision.’
'I… I will. Yes, I will. I promise.’ Her legs felt wobbly. She had to move away from him, his righteousness and his powerful masculinity. ‘W-would you like a cup of tea now? I could really do with one!’
Jim stepped back and she rushed past him to the hob. ‘So you’ll tell the kids they can stay for good? They need to know that.’
Spooning tea leaves into the pot, she said, ‘Of course.’
At those words her spirit soared. She was doing the right thing. It was meant. Why hadn’t she seen it before? She had been given a new ministry. Foster mother. And she would work as hard as she knew how to make Alan and Martha feel wanted and secure. As for her other works, there were others in the village, like the Harvey women and the rector’s and schoolmaster’s wives, who could arrange the annual events. It occurred to her that she’d have plenty of spare time to help them when the children started school. And if the village school was good enough for the squire’s children until they were eleven, it was good enough for hers. Her children. She had never thought to become a mother – now the thought was fantastic.
She felt a rush of love for Alan and Martha and hurried to the window to look outside. They were huddled together on the swing Jim had made for them, looking doleful. She turned to her advisor.