The Healing Stream

by Connie Monk

  ‘I’m pretty fit, but I have to face the fact that whilst you are fourteen’ – and glancing back to the start of the letter Tessa saw it had been written five years previously – ‘I have just had my eightieth birthday, so it’s time I put my house in order. Richard and Naomi are aware that I am writing this to you and are happy with the arrangement.

  ‘It’s a strange feeling to know that should you ever be given this to read it will mean that I’ve gone from the world. But Tessa, you mustn’t grieve. Rejoice for the gift of life, rejoice for all the fun and love we have shared through the years, and be sure that even if I’m done with living I shall always be there for you, wanting to know you are happy. Take life by the horns, love with all the faith and strength that’s in you, for that’s the way to have a full life. Always your loving Gran.’

  Tessa felt trapped. Emotion was tearing her in all directions: fear, anger, grief such as she’d never believed possible, those were uppermost, crushing the hope and excitement for the freedom she’d briefly believed would be hers.

  ‘Did you know about this?’ She tried to sound strong, self-assured so that Richard would see that she was mature enough to live by herself. But where? The house was to be sold . . . the furniture would go to the auction rooms . . . the car would go . . . there would be nothing left of the things that had been home to Gran and her. If she were that fourteen-year-old her grandmother had written the letter for, then she could have cried and no one would have been surprised. But she was grown up. Gran had known how she would feel if the time ever came that she was given the letter. Tessa was resolved not to fail her grandmother, but equally to let it be firmly understood that nineteen was a far cry from fourteen.

  ‘I was just a child when Gran wrote this; she wouldn’t expect you and Aunt Naomi to be tied to things that were said all those years ago.’

  ‘We talked about it in May when Mother was at the farm and you were holidaying with a friend in the Lake District. It was almost as though she had a premonition.’ Richard spoke gently, his manner making it even harder for Tessa to hang on to her composure. ‘Naomi has your room ready for you. You must have heard me telling Mr Sedgley that I mean us to be on the mid-morning ferry tomorrow.’

  ‘Us? I can’t do that!’ Tessa could feel her face twitching despite the effort she was making to hold back her tears. But her voice refused to be controlled; she heard it break, rise to a high pitch far different from what she had intended. ‘I’m not a piece of baggage to be parcelled up and put in your case. I’m me. I live here. I have a job; Mr and Mrs Briggs at the hotel have been kind and let me have time to do the things I had to this last week, but tomorrow I shall go back to work. I will! Even if you make me live with you, I can’t come yet. I have a job. I can’t just walk away as if it’s not important.’ She shouted defiantly but her final thread of composure was lost; she was sobbing uncontrollably. In her misery she didn’t care that her face was contorted and her mascara leaving black streaks on her cheeks.

  ‘Listen, Tessa.’ Richard reached across the table where they were sitting and took both her hands in his. ‘Mother knew how upset you would be – Naomi and I both expected you to feel as you do. If you hate living in the country—’

  ‘I won’t come. I told you – I’m not coming. I’ll ask Mr Briggs if they’ll put me up at the hotel until I find somewhere of my own. I could work extra hours to make up for it,’ she managed between hiccoughing sobs.

  ‘Your work there is finished. I found the number of the hotel from Directory Enquiries and talked with him last night. I explained the situation and he completely understood. I suggested sending him a cheque for four weeks’ salary or however long notice was expected, but he wouldn’t hear of it.’

  ‘You had no right to interfere! Do you think that’s the sort of thing Gran would have wanted? You’re not my gaoler, even if you think you are.’

  Richard was at a loss. Even allowing for grief and fright, surely hysterical behaviour like this wasn’t normal. He thought of the peaceful, busy routine at the farm; he imagined Naomi shouldering his work as well as her own. If only she could have been here perhaps she would have been able to take away some of Tessa’s fear – because surely it was fear and pent-up grief that was behind her outburst. He looked helplessly at Thomas Sedgley.

  ‘Now then, my dear’ – the elderly man took the cue – ‘you take this and wipe away your tears.’ He passed her a snow-white folded handkerchief and sent up a silent thank you when, without a word, she took it and started to mop up. ‘Now, I know I’m an outsider but I was very fond of your grandmother and she used to talk freely to me. I knew what was in the letter because she told me; and she told me, too, that it worried her that you wouldn’t want to go to live at this farm. I remember her words: “Even if Saint Peter lets me through the pearly gates, how can I be happy if I know Tessa is fighting what I’ve arranged for her? Make her understand, Tom, make her see that I want to know she’s there with the others. The three of them are all the family I have left and I shall rest easy if I know they are caring for each other”. I’ve thought of those words many a time over the years. She was a very special lady; we were all blessed to have had her.’

  What a sorry sight Tessa was as she gave her face a final rub and returned his handkerchief, by this time smudged with mascara, eyeshadow and lipstick, generously diluted with tears.

  ‘Rejoice,’ she said with a hiccough, ‘that’s what she wants me to do. Can’t fail her, can I?’ For a second or two she was silent, but when she spoke again her voice was quiet. It was as if all the fight in her had been washed away with her tears. ‘I’ve got to do as she says. Just can’t picture what it’s going to be like. Sorry I made a scene. Didn’t mean to start crying – I started and couldn’t stop. It’s all so different. I ought to have realized. Just pictured living here, working at the hotel, everything the same except I’d be on my own. Was silly of me.’

  ‘If that were possible, my dear, then Amelia – your grandmother – would have no peace in her soul.’

  Tessa nodded. Already the future was beginning to have a structure. She would pack all her things in her school trunk before she went to bed. And she’d take the photograph album, and that picture of Gran and her that the street photographer had taken by the pier in Bournemouth when they went for the day during the July sales. The house wouldn’t be theirs any longer; someone else would cut the roses next summer, but no one and nothing could take away memories. Chagleigh Farm was only a few miles from the coast; she’d find a job in a seaside hotel. Before she knew it she’d be twenty-one.

  The greatest advantage of youth is its ability to hear the beckoning call of Life.

  Her hysterical outburst had left her drained of emotion. How else could she have dragged her trunk from the roof space adjoining her bedroom and packed, clearing drawers and wardrobe? Habit made her fold each item carefully, training from years at boarding school. In normal circumstances packing a case always held excitement. But on that evening it held nothing: no anticipation, no aching misery. She felt as lifeless as a robot as she stripped her room. With drawers, wardrobe and bookshelf empty, furniture that had been part of her life as long as she could remember meant nothing. She felt no pain; she felt no hope.

  In the same numb state, next morning she helped Richard carry her trunk out to the car. They were both making a conscious effort to be polite. He hoped that it might make a base to build on and was prepared to put the previous day’s scene out of his mind. She didn’t ask herself why it was she behaved with forced friendliness – perhaps she subconsciously knew that if she asked the question the answer would have melted the ice that protected her. She was doing it for her grandmother; deep in her heart she knew that was the truth, but her hurt was too new to probe.

  Youth came to her rescue as they boarded the ferry that took them on the first stage of their journey, from Yarmouth to Lymington. Once on the mainland they set out westward.

  ‘Keep your eyes open for a pub or even a roadsid
e café where we can get a bite to eat a bit later on,’ Richard said as they left the New Forest behind. ‘We mustn’t waste too long on a meal but we shall need something.’

  ‘Yes, all right,’ Tessa answered automatically, craning her neck to take a last glimpse of a group of ponies standing together just off the road. ‘Gran and I used to come this way when we went to Bournemouth. It was longer, but the forest is so special.’ Then, remembering her resolve to try to behave as her grandmother would have wanted, ‘What time do you think we shall get to your farm?’

  ‘Home? Later than I’d like, I expect. I wanted to be back in time to see to the late-afternoon milking. You’ll understand when you’ve been at the farm for a while just how impossible it was for us to get away. With a shop you can put a sign on the door and lock up, but a herd of cows live to a strict timetable, Christmas Day, Good Friday, hell or high water.’

  ‘Yes, Gran always said that’s why you could never get to see us. It was a shame – but she understood. And she used to come to the farm quite often when I was at school, didn’t she? She used to talk to me about it.’

  And so the drive to Chagleigh Farm progressed. It was a few miles from Dorchester when they saw an inn with a car park sufficiently full to hint that meals were being prepared.

  ‘What about there?’ she suggested, aware that despite all her inner misery she was hungry and eating out was a treat.

  ‘Looks promising,’ he agreed, turning in to park alongside the cars already there. And promising it certainly was. They found a table and turned their concentration to the menu chalked on a board.

  ‘I’ll have steak pie. What about you? And what to drink?’

  ‘I’d like the same, please – and cider.’ Consciously she kept a pleasant tone in her voice, frightened that if she let the facade of friendliness slip her control would be lost.

  The order given, Richard came back from the bar with her cider and his beer.

  ‘I hope they’re not going to be long,’ he said, as much to himself as to her.

  ‘I expect you’re fed up having to waste your time on me like this. You needn’t have, you know. I’m not stupid.’ Careful, she told herself, wishing she hadn’t spoken her thoughts, but it was too late. ‘When Gran wrote all that, I was only a school kid. I’m grown up now and quite capable of making my own living. She said she’d talked about it to you and Aunt Naomi, but that was ages ago. Even now you could dump me off. With that four pounds a month I could get a room and still have enough until I found a job. You live in the sticks, so how am I going to get work there? Much better you drop me off in town somewhere. I haven’t even got a car to drive now Gran’s has gone so I’ll be stuck.’

  Putting down his tankard he looked at her very directly, somehow making it impossible for her to avoid his gaze.

  ‘Tessa, Mother and I talked about this when she was last with us at the farm – you remember, she visited while you were holidaying with a friend. Even if Naomi and I had ever looked on the idea as an inconvenience we should have agreed. But, believe me, we don’t see it that way. We don’t know you; you don’t know us. But surely we can all give each other the benefit of the doubt and try and believe we shall get along.’ Then, with a sudden smile that transformed his stern face, ‘I promise you, I have never considered myself to be your gaoler.’

  ‘That was rude and horrid of me. Gran would have been ashamed. But you must see, I don’t need to be taken care of. Gran and I looked after each other; we were sort of equals. She was the boss, of course, but I was fitter, quicker – well, of course I was – and between the two of us we were a good team.’

  He could see her eyes were looking threateningly pink and reached across the small table to take her hand. ‘We have one thing in common, all three of us: we all loved Mother. Two things in common, in fact: she loved each of us.’

  Tessa nodded. ‘I know.’

  Then the man from behind the bar shouted, ‘Number sixteen, ready,’ and Richard got up to collect their food.

  ‘Do you reckon she can see us here?’ said Tessa.

  ‘Perhaps. One thing is certain, whether or not she knows it, she is pretty close.’ Then, embarrassed by what he’d said, he hurried to the bar to collect their tray.

  The food looked good and he attacked it without further ado. If his words hung between them, they pretended not to be aware.

  ‘Do you want pudding?’ he asked as she put her knife and fork together on her empty plate.

  ‘No, thanks. We’d better get on the road, I expect.’

  ‘Good girl. I shall be glad to get home. There’s too much there for one person.’

  So they continued their journey. Whether they’d come closer to knowing each other neither was sure, but the tension between them eased. Tessa had never known a moment’s shyness and in her effort to be agreeable she made herself sound genuinely interested as she questioned him about the farm. But, after a moment’s silence he surprised her by saying, ‘You’ll be no good at Chagleigh in those stilts you seem able to walk on. Why girls do it I can’t think. By the time you’re sixty your feet will be fit for nothing. Naomi says she thinks it’s a reaction from wartime; years of sensible, long-lasting brogues.’ Then he surprised her with a sudden laugh. ‘My poor love – not even a pair of sensible walking shoes for her unless it’s when she goes off sometimes for eight o’clock church on a Sunday morning. No, from the moment she steps outside the door each day till she comes in to start cooking the main meal around teatime, she’s in wellies the same as I am – and you will be too, young Tessa, if you’re to be one of the team.’

  Such an idea had never entered Tessa’s head. ‘What? Work on the farm, you mean? I’ve never even visited one until today. I’d be useless. I’ve been working for two years and you won’t find I’m long getting a job. I’ve learnt a lot about hotel work. And you know I can drive. Gran taught me; I didn’t have a single lesson from anyone else. You know, I never thought of her as being old. There’s more to age than years, don’t you think? She was bright as a shining button. But I was telling you about what experience of work I’ve had. The day I left school, Gran picked me up and drove us down to Bournemouth for a few days. It was our first jaunt – with me grown up and not on school holiday, I mean. We had such a gorgeous time, she enjoyed it as much as I did, buying me proper smart grown-up clothes. After we got back to the island we put our heads together about what sort of work I might do. I was pretty average, not stupid but not the sort to stay on at school with the idea of going to university or training for a proper career. Then, in stepped Fate. It usually does, don’t you think? In the local paper was an advertisement for a trainee manager at a small hotel about a mile from the house. I wrote and applied, not thinking I had a chance because I’d never had a job before and it sounded very grand. But, there you go! Fate again. Of course it wasn’t as highfalutin as it sounded in the advertisement and I expect no one with experience could have applied. The hotel was small, only fifteen bedrooms and run by the owner and his wife – with daily staff to help, of course. To start with I was just a general run-about; but like Gran said, if you don’t get a good firm foothold on the first rung of the ladder you can’t climb. Anyway, I got taught things. For the last year I looked after the wages, got the cheques all ready to be signed to pay the bills, took bookings, did the typing – self-taught, but I go really fast using four fingers. Even then, though, I still had to turn my hand to anything else that needed to be done whether it was clearing up in the kitchen, arranging flowers, rushing out for anything that had been forgotten. I did all sorts of odd jobs.’

  ‘I ought to have let you speak to the owner yourself. I suppose the truth is that I suspected you would be against doing what Mother wanted and thought it better to make your resignation a fait accompli.’

  ‘I shall write to Mr and Mrs Briggs, the owners. But Uncle Richard, I expect you did what you thought was best. And, I feel ashamed about yesterday. I know I was rude and . . . and . . . obnoxious. I felt sort of trappe
d. But like Gran always said: if things aren’t plain sailing that’s because life is giving you a challenge.’

  Turning to look at her, Richard thought how pretty she was and how delightfully honest. Give her a few weeks at Chagleigh and she’ll be a real asset, he decided. Time Naomi had a break. His expression softened as he imagined her. By this time she would be well on with the milking, sitting there on the stool with the side of her face pressed against the animal’s warm flank, probably singing softly under her breath or talking coaxingly, while her strong, gentle hands encircled the animal’s teat as she worked with firm pressure so that the milk spurted into the pail with a steady rhythm.

  ‘It seems warm to me,’ he commented. ‘I’ll pull in and we’ll fold the roof back. Not too windy for you if we have the top down? I know what women can be like about their hair.’

  ‘Yes, let’s. Gran’s didn’t have an open top and we often said we wished it had. She never worried about her hair; it always looked lovely but she never fussed over it. We used to walk on the cliffs when we could hardly stand up in the wind.’

  He drew to a halt and together they opened the hood.