by Terri Nixon
I was just finishing clearing the yard when Evie returned from work. I hadn’t even heard the lorry that dropped her off at the top of the road. I had been too preoccupied thinking about Oliver; he’d be allowed to write and receive letters soon, and I was mentally preparing what I would say to him, how I would describe this new life, and whether or not I should ask him if he’d heard from ‘the parents’, as he called them. I didn’t want to open any wounds that might be beginning to heal over.
I looked up as Evie came into the yard, her bag across her shoulder, her hat off, and her sleeves rolled back against the evening warmth. She put the bag down and came over to help me put away the last of the sacks, stacking them neatly in the now-swept corner of the barn.
‘How’s the new girl settling in?’ she asked, as she closed the barn door.
‘Well, I think. She and Frances are very close.’
‘Yes, Lizzy was telling me. Frances knew Jessie’s mother, quite some time ago when they were both living in Gloucester. Your trousers are filthy, by the way.’
I dusted them down. ‘I thought Frances was from Tavistock?’
‘She was, originally. Then again neither of us is from Devon are we? Yet here we are. They met when they both worked at the same hotel.’
‘Jessie doesn’t say much about her mother. Perhaps they had a falling out?’
‘Perhaps.’ Evie took my arm as we walked back to the house. ‘Have you seen Will today?’
‘He and Nathan joined us for lunch. They went for a long walk in the woods, I think. They seem to have talked things through and reached some understanding.’
Evie looked across the yard towards the woodland path. Her expression was guarded, but I could see her blue eyes narrowing slightly, and it wasn’t in reaction to the early evening sun. I followed her gaze.
I frowned, unsure if I’d said too much. ‘Are you worried?’
She didn’t answer at first, then seemed to shake off the shadow. ‘No, not worried. Sad for Will, though.’
‘What happened between them?’ I asked softly.
‘It doesn’t sound so awful really,’ Evie said, ‘not when you compare it to everything that’s happened since.’ She guided me towards the low wall that kept the pigs in their sty, and we sat down. Evie ran her hands through her dishevelled hair and tried to tug it back into order, but quickly gave up. ‘When they were very young, and lived in Blackpool, they were the best of friends. Nathan inherited an attic room in Breckenhall and asked Will if he wanted to go with him, to set themselves up an art studio.’
‘I love Will’s work,’ I broke in, and Evie smiled, pride and love glowing in her expression.
‘He’s incredible,’ she said quietly, and for a moment I thought I’d lost her; her eyes seemed focused on a different place, and a different time. Then she swam back. ‘Nathan’s very talented too. He’s a painter. But no-one bought his work, and Will’s small sales at market weren’t enough to sustain them. One morning Will woke up to find Nathan had gone. No word, no note.’
‘That’s horrible.’ I knew how it felt when someone close just vanished from your life. Betrayed and hurt barely scratched the surface.
‘The real trouble was he’d left an unmanageable pile of debts,’ Evie went on. ‘He’d sold the studio, without telling Will, and so Will had to try and find work to pay off those debts, but he also had to leave the studio and find another home. That’s when he took the job with the butcher.’
‘Didn’t you say his family were butchers too?’
‘Yes.’ Evie smiled suddenly, as if that question had brought back some private memory, but I didn’t press her to share it.
‘So Nathan didn’t write, or come back at all?’
‘Not until now,’ Evie said, her smile dropping away. ‘Which makes me wonder why. And how did he find us down here?’
‘Maybe someone at Oaklands told him.’
‘They wouldn’t, I’m sure. More likely it was Martin, the boy who took over from Will as Mr Markham’s apprentice when Will joined up.’ She stood up and held out her hand. ‘Anyway, Skittles, that’s the whole sordid, but not very exciting story. Now, have you heard from Archie lately?’
‘He writes,’ I said, feeling my throat tighten when I thought about those letters—light-hearted, even funny, confident and matter-of-fact. I loved to look at his slightly scrawly handwriting, yet it hurt a little too. Worse was the way I could actually hear the words, spoken in his softly accented voice. He had never again asked me to consider waiting for him, but now and again he would say something that made me realise we must talk; I had to tell him how it must be between us now, because while he had accepted that I didn’t love him in the same way he loved me, he still believed we could be good friends. But I wasn’t sure I could do it. How could I bear to be that close to him and not be touching him? Or watch him fall in love with someone else and have to stand by and smile, offering congratulations while my heart splintered as I knew it would? I had to decide whether to break from him completely, or to hold on to as much of him as I could without ruining his life.
I left Evie to wash and change out of her uniform, and almost went into my old room out of habit, before remembering Jessie. I longed for privacy, to lie down and let my mind reach out for Archie, but if I went to my new room I would have poor, bored Bel talking to me. So I went back out to sit in the barn, half my attention on waiting for Frances’s call for help preparing the evening meal, the rest of it fading away, replaced by the memory of Archie’s hand on mine, and his grey eyes glinting with humour and warmth. Before I’d told him no.
I was jolted out of a happy dream-state some time later, by the sound of the door creaking open. I sat very still, not yet ready to move and dispel the pleasant warmth of the dream that lingered, and waited for either Sally’s or Jessie’s voice to drag me back to this tired reality. Instead I heard the flare of a match and, a moment later, a long, relieved exhalation.
‘Bel?’ I sat forward, peering around the hayloft ladder, blinking in the shadows. But it wasn’t Belinda who looked back at me; it was Nathan.
He removed the cigarette from his lips with his finger and thumb, and squinted at me through the smoke. ‘Why, it’s pretty Kitty.’
I flushed. ‘No, just plain Kitty.’
‘Nothing plain about you, sweetheart,’ Nathan insisted, and crossed the barn to where I sat. He was still not particularly close, but I didn’t like the feeling of him looming over me, and stood up quickly. I immediately felt a little more in control, and my heartbeat settled a little bit.
I nodded at the cigarette. ‘It’s dangerous to do that in here.’
He looked at the glowing tip, then put it back in his mouth, speaking around it. ‘You and Belinda didn’t seem to mind last night.’
‘That wasn’t me; that was just Bel. Besides, your cough won’t get any better if you keep smoking.’
He shrugged, and took a long pull. ‘Want some?’
‘No, thank you. Why are you here?’
‘Here as in the barn, or here as in the farm?’
‘Either. Both.’
‘I’m at the farm because, as you know, I have amends to make for someone I once wronged. And I’m here…’ he looked around us, at the high roof arcing over our heads, and at the dark corners filled with farm tools and implements, and those freshly dried sacks ‘…because someone mentioned peeling potatoes, and I have a strong aversion to that kind of thing.’
I couldn’t help laughing at that, and was rewarded by a slightly quizzical smile in return. ‘You’re hard to read, Miss Maitland. One moment all blushes and turning away, the next rather attractively cross, and then…then that laugh.’
‘What laugh? It’s just a laugh.’
He dropped the barely smoked cigarette on the floor and, following the direction of my eyes he carefully twisted his boot onto it to put it out. ‘Oh no, it’s not,’ he said softly. ‘Your laugh is like…’ he waved a hand ‘…trickling water. Cool and fresh on a hot day.’
>
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ I spluttered, trying not to laugh again in case he thought I was doing it on purpose. But he sounded so earnest it was hard not to. ‘You’re a charmer, Mr Beresford. I’m sure you’ve been told that more than once.’
‘I have,’ he admitted. ‘But that doesn’t mean I’m not saying what I really think.’
A silence dropped between us, and I found I didn’t know what to do with my hands so I folded my arms.
‘Ouch,’ he said.
‘What?’
He grinned. ‘When a pretty girl folds her arms at you, you know you’re in trouble.’
‘Stop calling me pretty! Evie’s pretty, and so is Lizzy. Belinda definitely is. But I know what I am, and I know what I’m not.’
‘So you think it insulting, that I see you in a way you see others but not in the way you see yourself?’
I didn’t know how to answer that, so I dropped my arms back to my sides. ‘There, is that better?’
‘Much,’ he said, and took a step closer. He brushed one finger down the length of my arm. ‘Strong arms, but beautifully shaped,’ he mused. ‘You’re a hard worker, Miss Maitland. Tell me…’ he stepped away again, leaving me feeling a little light-headed ‘…is there someone you’re waiting for? A handsome soldier, perhaps, holding your promise like a talisman to keep him safe?’
Again, I couldn’t answer, but this time it was because my breath had caught so hard, and so tight in my chest, that it hurt to breathe. My heart screamed at me to tell him yes, my handsome soldier was Captain Archie Buchanan. He was strong, brave and loyal, he loved me and I loved him, and I would wait for him for ever…but the word that echoed in the barn now was the same one that had cut his future loose from mine. ‘No.’
‘Good,’ Nathan breathed. He moved closer again, and I looked at his warm, hazel eyes, the smile that put deep laughter lines around those eyes despite his youth, and his wide, generous mouth. That mouth drifted closer to mine, and, without thinking, I raised my face to his. This man was undoubtedly a scoundrel. His past and mine were both littered with casualties of our poor choices: my parents, Will, my lost child… We were a match, of sorts, the two of us, and if I didn’t deserve a good man like Archie, then Nathan only deserved me.
As our lips met I pushed away the image of Archie’s smile, and the memory of our kiss, but as Nathan’s hand rose to touch my breast I was suddenly not in the barn any longer, but in the back of a stinking ambulance. With a sharply indrawn breath that stuck in my throat, I stepped back, my blood racing, my hands bunched into fists. There was no gun in my side now, and the man in front of me was as far from Colonel Drewe as a man could be, but pushing Archie away had pushed away the only barrier between me and that dark, shocking memory.
‘Don’t be scared, little Kitty,’ Nathan said softly, and reached out to take my tightly clenched hand. He didn’t say any more, but gently began loosening my fist, finger by finger, while my breathing slowed and I searched deep inside myself for a way to accept the touch of another man; I couldn’t live my life like this! I had to do it… Drewe would not destroy this part of my life as he had destroyed my family, and my work.
So I removed my hand from Nathan’s, and placed it on his chest, then I kissed him. Firmly, without further hesitation, and with my lips parting beneath his to accept his gently probing tongue. It was an experiment, nothing more. The kiss held none of the heart-staggering joy of kissing Archie, and Nathan’s slight body, so close to mine, felt almost like that of a boy when I compared it to the height and strength of the man I truly loved. But if there was no passion, and no deep, burning need to stay there for ever, at least there were no more flashes of horrific memory, no instinctive revulsion, no self-loathing for my weakness.
I felt Nathan’s hands at my waist, and I raised my own to rest on his shoulders. I tried not to think of the way it had felt to slide my hands around the back of Archie’s neck and touch the warm skin there, how his thick, soft hair had felt to my questing fingers, how his mouth had tasted of rum from the tot his company had shared in celebration of their safe return. But I remembered the feeling of his chest swelling with the breath we’d shared, the sweet frustration of not being able to press myself close enough to him, and how I’d wanted to touch every part of him at once.
I had no desire to explore Nathan’s body further, and his tongue was starting to prod too far into my mouth—his mouth was wider than Archie’s, and his lips less firm. His hand went to my breast again, squeezing gently, and this time I didn’t pull away, not until I became aware that tears were sliding down my cheeks, and more were clogging my throat. At the same time I realised that, I heard an outraged shout that froze my blood.
‘Kitty!’
Nathan thrust me away and I stumbled back, and we both turned to look at the doorway. Belinda stood there, resting heavily on a broom, the head of it cushioned beneath her arm.
‘Bel? Are you… I’m—’
‘Mrs Adams asked me to come and find you for dinner,’ she said in a chilly voice, and turned and hobbled away.
‘It was just a kiss, sweetheart,’ Nathan said. ‘You didn’t do anything wrong.’
I didn’t say anything, but flung him a dark look and hurried after Belinda. She was moving quite quickly, despite the awkwardness of using the broom as a walking stick, but I caught her up halfway across the yard. ‘Bel, wait!’
‘I don’t care what you do,’ she said, without turning. ‘I just think that he’s the wrong one to be doing it with.’
‘I know!’
‘Then why do it?’ She stopped then, and swung around to face me. ‘We’ve both agreed he’s a rotten egg, haven’t we?’
‘I had to,’ I said miserably.
She caught her breath, and her voice lowered to a whisper. ‘What? You don’t mean—’
‘No,’ I said quickly, ‘not like that. I mean…I didn’t know if I could, you know, let a man touch me. I had to find out.’ I hadn’t told her about the kiss in Belgium. It was mine to hold and to remember.
‘With him?’
‘Who else is there? And it made me feel good that he wanted to.’ I sighed. ‘I didn’t really enjoy it, but…’
‘But it didn’t make you scared,’ she guessed, and reached out with her useful hand to take mine. ‘I understand. But he’s not to be trusted, darling. You know that.’
‘I know. I won’t do it again.’
‘Does he know that?’ She jerked her head in the direction of the barn.
I shrugged. ‘I don’t know, but he’ll soon find out.’
Belinda looked at me, and gave a laugh that was more like a snort. ‘That’s my girl. Come on, Mrs Adams needs some help.’
After dinner, when Sally had gone to close up the hens for the night, and Lizzy had gone home, Belinda, myself, Evie and Frances finished our chores and sat chatting quietly in the sitting room until bedtime. I cherished times like these—they didn’t happen every day; usually one or more of us would be working until it grew too dark, and we would often simply melt away to our beds without even seeing any of the others. But tonight was one of those nights where we all found ourselves in the sitting room at the same time, and a companionable peace was settling over us all. Jessie came in, and I gave her a little smile, which she returned before plucking a book from the shelf and curling up in the corner of the settee.
‘Where’s Will?’ I asked Evie. She was sitting in her favourite spot by the window, and she looked strangely incomplete. I hadn’t seen Will at dinner, nor Nathan, and assumed they’d been talking again. But that was hours ago.
‘He went to bed,’ Evie said, a shadow crossing her face. ‘He was in the loft trying to fetch something down, and he slipped. He didn’t fall, but it…pulled something.’ Her hand went to her own stomach, and I winced.
‘Why was he doing it alone?’
‘He shouldn’t have been,’ Frances said, her voice sharp. ‘I told him to wait until Mr Beresford could help.’
‘And where was h
e?’ Evie said coldly. I felt my face heat up, and met Belinda’s eyes across the room. I gave a tiny, pleading shake of my head, hoping no-one else had seen. She looked at me steadily for a moment, then her gaze shifted deliberately to Evie, who was clearly distraught at her husband’s pain. I understood what Bel was trying to say, and Nathan’s words about avoiding peeling potatoes suddenly sounded mocking and hollow in my head. But if Frances discovered what I’d been doing…
‘I think he was helping Kitty finish up in the barn,’ Belinda said. ‘I saw him stacking tools when I went to fetch her for dinner.’ I shot her a look of gratitude, and she replied with a slight nod. ‘I expect he would have gone right up to help Will when he’d finished, but it was too late.’
‘And where is he now?’ Frances wanted to know.
None of us had an answer, and the silence grew less companionable, and more awkward. Then, bless her heart for ever, Belinda brightened.
‘Evie! I forgot to tell you, a letter arrived for you.’ She hobbled over to the fireplace and reached behind the clock for a grubby-looking envelope.
Evie looked at the handwriting and the concern for Will was hidden by a smile. ‘It’s from my brother.’ She smoothed the letter out, and after a moment the smile widened into a grin. ‘I hope Mother doesn’t find this! He says:
“Dearest Evie,
I just wanted to let you know I’ve been granted home leave for ten days from the fourth to the fourteenth of July, and I’m asking you, no, begging you, to please come to Oaklands and save me from Mother! In all seriousness, I’m longing to see you and Will—I was devastated to hear of what happened—and would be so pleased if you could come home for a few days, at least. I understand if Will is not able to travel so far just yet, in which case please tell him I’m thinking of him and wishing him well, and I will take a few days out of my time to come to you instead.
Your ever-loving brother
Lawrence”.’
‘I do hope you plan to go,’ Frances said.