by Ivy Ferrari
Tina’s lips trembled After the scene she had just experienced, kindness threatened to break her. Only that vein of ore, her father’s courage and determination, came to her rescue. Thank you,’ she said. ‘Yes, I am tired.’
A plump, heavily-boned woman appeared in the doorway, looked stolidly at Tina from under sandy eyebrows and said: ‘What is it, Mrs. Butterfield? And who’s yon?’
‘Some tea, please, Isa. This is Tina Rutherford, Bruno’s sister.’
‘Oh aye. So she’s come after all? She’s like him—like as two peas.’ Isa backed out, still staring.
‘You mustn’t mind Isa,’ Carrie Butterfield said ‘She’s a bit of a rough diamond, but you’ll get used to her ways.’
Tina began to notice things about her, to relax just a little. It was a pleasant room, with a floor-length window set deeply in the wall between folded white shutters, and overlooking steeply-descending woods. A log fire famed in the hearth, but apart from a few conventional water-colours, Tina found the decor of the room was rather strange.
Over the mantel was a huge propeller of polished wood, with an Air Force crest in the centre. Pictures of wartime aircraft, of young people in uniform crowded the bureau and bookcase tops. And standing about on occasional tables and shelves were many lettering model aircraft, some brass, others white metal. Perhaps, Tina reflected, Mr. Butterfield had been in the Air Force.
Isa arrived with a large tea-tray, still staring. ‘By, she’s like him! And bonny!’ She set the tray down and sighed gustily. Tina heard her muttering as she left. ‘What did she say?’
Carrie, busy with the caps, smiled. ‘She was quoting a text. Isa’s always quoting texts. Her father was a travelling preacher and she must have had texts from her cradle. You’ll seldom ever see her smile. She’s a born pessimist but very good at heart.’
‘What was the text?’ Tina gratefully accepted a cup of tea.
Carrie hesitated. ‘It was: “Set not thy foot in thy neighbour’s house, lest he weary of thee and so hate thee.” Proverbs, I think.’
‘Oh,’ said Tina, and shivered. The feeling of doom returned.
‘Oh, no one minds Isa. It’s just that she has an uncanny knack of sizing up a situation and finding a text to suit. Do you take sugar?’
She offered a cigarette, took one herself, and sat down. Hazel eyes twinkled frankly at Tina, matching a mass of untidy waves rising from a very definite widow’s peak. The face was too determined and bony for beauty, but was fascinating and full of character.
‘Drink your tea and relax. There—feeling better now?’
Tina set down the cup, again on the verge of tears. She was still wildly upset. Her shock at finding herself in Adam Copeland’s company, his behavior towards her, the revelations he had made, were still too new and wounding. Added to this had come the strain of new surroundings, the need to control herself before strangers. Now her face crumpled a little.
‘I didn’t know who he was,’ she burst out. ‘He offered me a lift—I didn’t know—’
‘And then—he told you?’
Tina nodded, blinking back her tears.
‘I can imagine it. He’d steam-roller you with temper of his until you’d wonder what hit you. Not that I blame him, in some ways. He thinks the world of his sister, you know. He feels her humiliation and heartbreak just as if it were his own. They’ve always been very close. But there, we won’t talk of it now.’
She turned the conversation towards Rome. Tina brightened. They discussed her father’s lecture tour.
‘Best thing for him,’ Carrie Butterfield nodded. ‘Best to get away from it all. Close the hangar doors.’
‘What was that?’ Tina looked up, puzzled.
‘Oh just an old Air Force expression. You’ll hear plenty of them from me. I suppose you’ve noticed this room’s almost an R.A.F. museum?’
‘Well, yes. Was Mr. Butterfield—’
‘No.’ Her companion’s voice was sharp. ‘No. He wasn’t in the Air Force. We were divorced some years ago. Don’t bother to make sympathetic noises, my dear. It’s all past history now. But we might as well get the record straight. I’ve been looking after Hadrian’s Edge ever since, combined with some lecturing and field work, of course.’
‘Oh, I see. Then—’
‘Then why the museum? Because I served in the W.A.A.F. during the war—the latter end, anyway. But that story can wait. You’ll want to go up to your room and have a rest before supper.’
The house was large and lofty; a wide corridor running its full length upstairs. Tina’s room was in the east gable, overlooking the same descending woods at the back of the house. From the window she could see beyond them to the hollows and heights of the grey-green moors and far beyond the misty blue line of the Cheviots.
The room was comfortable, not in any sense modern but solid and charming, the window seat upholstered in blue patterned chintz to match the bedspread and armchair. There was an electric radiator and a wash-basin.
‘You might like to sit here sometimes,’ Carrie Butterfield said, ‘but come down to my den any time you like. Adam doesn’t use the living-room much. He is usually still working in his office most evenings. That’s the room to the left of the hall.’
‘What exactly does he do? Bruno said in his letters he was a land-agent,’ Tina unhasped her suitcase.
‘He is just that—agent for the Willingdon estate, and that means he has fifteen tenant farms on his books. And answerable for all of them to Sir Walter Willingdon. And I can tell you this—the estate runs like clockwork. He’s actually up to the eyes at the moment. Helen usually does his typing and office work. Thank heaven. I’m no use bashing the keys or he would have roped me in!’ she smiled. ‘Well, see you at supper.’
The meal, cold meat and a tempting salad, was laid out in the small dining-room next to Carrie’s den.
Rested and a little less disturbed, Tina roused herself to make conversation, and found herself telling Carrie about the scale model of the Roman Wall. ‘It was so real to us. A toy and yet not a toy. It was quite a thrill to glimpse the real Wall today—or some of what’s left of it. But possibly I’m due for some disillusion.’
‘I doubt it,’ Carrie spoke abruptly. You’ll get Wall Fever, just as I did, and generations of other searchers.’
‘How did you begin?’ Tina was curious.
Carrie poured more coffee. ‘Scratch a woman for a motive and ten to one you’ll find an emotional one. I don’t tell everyone this, but—well—’ She eyed Tina calmly. ‘You’ve just had a bad loss. You’ll understand. It might even help you, just to know how someone else had to face up to it ... It so happens I first came to the Wall with someone I loved.’
Mr. Butterfield? Tina wondered.
Carrie lit a cigarette. ‘It’s a long story, but I’ll try to shorten it. When I was just eighteen it was still wartime. I joined the W.A A.F., as it was called then, in 1944, and went parachute packing on a station in Wiltshire. It was an M.U.—Maintenance Unit to you—with none of the drama of Bomber or Fighter Commands. Just a bunch of men and girls isolated on the Wiltshire downs, with nothing to do in our spare time but fall in love. As I did.’
She pushed aside her coffee cup. ‘His name was Laurence Ames, but he was always called Lofty. He was tall and had smashing looks. But that wasn’t all. We had lots in common, walking and poetry—quiet things. Then I found he was an amateur archaeologist. He used to yarn on for ever about the Roman Wall. Oh, he had “Wall Fever” all right ... Well, we both managed to get seven days’ leave together and he took me to walk the Wall, from Wallsend to Bowness on Solway. It was no piece of cake in wartime, I can tell you. Some stretches we had to by-pass—War Department property, rifle ranges, barbed wire sometimes. But we did it—together, and my Wall Fever was born. Possibly because that was almost the last time I saw Lofty.’ Her voice had slowed and dropped.
‘What happened?’ Tina was intrigued, her own troubles receding a little.
‘He was posted sudde
nly to the Far East. Later he was missing, believed a prisoner. You’ve probably read about the conditions in those Jap prison camps?’
‘Yes, I have.’
Carrie tapped the ash from her cigarette. ‘I haven’t heard from that day to this what happened to him.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry. Didn’t the War Office or whatever it was—’
‘They had to presume him dead, eventually. But it’s just—not really knowing. And the last thing he said to me was: “If we don’t meet again until the war’s over—or if we ever lose touch—you’ll find me one day up on the Wall, on a fine summer’s day, with the wind whistling over Sewingshields and Crag Lough blue in the sun”—’
Tina was silent, awed Carrie went on softly:
‘He was joking, in a way. But maybe that’s the answer. If he’d survived I would have found him again, somewhere on this middle stretch of the Wall, his favourite part—from Chollerford to Birdoswald.’
She paused a moment. ‘That’s how I come to be here, you know. After the war I began studying the Roman occupation. I went out on all kinds of field work, learning all I could about the things that motivated him. And every week-end I came up to the Wall—walking and looking and—hoping.’
‘Then you married?’
‘Yes.’ Carrie gave her a wry smile. ‘After a year or two of that I told myself I couldn’t live on dreams.
‘I married and was divorced two years later—sheer incompatibility. And there were no children. I’d long ago given up hope of seeing Lofty, but I had a hunger to see the Wall again—I’d been living in Birmingham, of all places. So I came back, took this job and kept up my archaeological interests. I’m contented and happy. No heights or depths, but I’m living the life I enjoy, the life that holds meaning for me.’
‘But you’ve given up looking for Lofty?’
‘In a way. Except that he could still be here, in spirit. After all, heaven has its own shape for all of us. For Lofty it would be the Wall and the summer moors with the gorse in bloom and the wind over Cuddy’s Crag. But don’t imagine I’m just mooning around, thinking thoughts like that. I’ve told you, the Wall is my life now, my past and my present. I’m happy in my own queer way. Daft Carrie, they call me round here, because I’d much rather muck about in the mud, finding the past, than live a sensible life attending Women’s Institute teas ... And that’s enough about me. You look tired again and need your sleep after that journey.’
Tina found her bed so comfortable that despite the still whirling conflict in her mind she burrowed beneath the covers to instant sleep. So much to fret about, so much to do, but tomorrow was another day ...
She was awakened by the sweet ragged sound of children’s voices, singing on the wind. At first the words were indistinguishable, then resolved into:
‘She’s a big lass, she’s a bonnie lass
And she likes her beer—
And they call her Cushie Butterfield
And I wish she was here...’
Tina remembered it as a much-loved old Tyneside song her father used to sing to her when she was tiny. She heard the words die away in a chorus of giggling and, wide awake now, she jumped out of bed and flung back the curtain.
At first she could see no one in the gravel courtyard below, with its high wall of hewn stone. Then beyond, in the woods, she saw a flash of colour up a tree, followed by a scrambling movement and further giggling. Too small figures slid to the ground, clad alike in dark jeans and scarlet jerseys. They ran off down a ride between the trees, the girl’s fair hair streaming in the wind, a mongrel dog yapping ecstatically at their heels.
Carrie entered with a cup of tea, grinning ruefully. ‘Not to worry, it’s only the Finch twins—cheeky little brats. They’re thoroughly wild, but you’ve got to hand it to them—they know how to live.’
Tina took the tea-cup and nestled on the bed. ‘I remember now—Bruno mentioned them in his letters. Quite a family of them. He seemed to go there quite a lot.’
Carrie nodded. ‘Oh yes, Bruno was very friendly with the Finches.’ Her tone was a little uneasy, Tina thought. She asked curiously:
‘Don’t you mind—about the serenading, I mean?’
‘I’d be daft if I did. They mean no harm. Did Bruno tell you? They’re by way of being poor relations of Adam’s. And quite a thorn in the flesh, too.’
‘Doesn’t he like them?’
‘Let’s just say he endures them. And occasionally descends on them like the wrath of God. The trouble is Adam’s so straightforward and efficient himself he can’t stand shiftlessness in any shape or form.’
‘How many of them are there?’
‘Five. Matt’s the eldest, and the only dependable one. But he’s a dreamer and inclined to be obsessed with his pigeons, anyway.’
‘Pigeons?’
‘Racing pigeons. You’re in the north of England now, you know. Pigeons are one of the men’s favourite hobbies. There you are, look—’
Tina followed Carrie’s pointing arm, saw a flash of grey and white wings over the far woods. ‘He’s just released some,’ Carrie explained. ‘Probably young birds on a trial flight ... Where was I? Oh yes, and then there’s Jamey. He’s around twenty-two, and more than a bit wild. Then Francey—she’s eighteen, a lovely-looking girl. Got the most gorgeous red-gold hair you ever saw. The local lads are always chasing her. But she’s deep—I wouldn’t trust Miss Francey further than I could see her. The twins are just ten—their mother died when they were born. And a few years back the father ran off with another woman and left the family to fend for themselves. Matt does his best to keep the home going, but Adam doesn’t altogether approve.’
‘Why not?’ Tina asked a little sharply.
Carrie shrugged. ‘He isn’t convinced it’s the best thing, that the twins are getting a stable upbringing. He lets the family live at the Quarry farmhouse, as the Quarry Farm land runs with Tipstones now and no one needs the place. He found them a housekeeper—more than once—but no one would stay. Then he got Matt a good job as farm foreman, but he gave it up after a fortnight—said he hadn’t enough time for his pigeons. Oh, they’re not an easy family to help.’
‘And—Jamey?’
‘I think Adam wrote Jamey off long ago. He’s had several convictions for poaching—on the Willingdon preserves, too. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you! As for Francey—’ Carrie hesitated. ‘Maybe if it hadn’t been for Francey he’d have washed his hands of the family long ago.’
‘You mean—he likes her?’
‘He’s a man, isn’t he?’ Carrie said drily. ‘Very much of a man. And she’s a very attractive girl. I once had an idea it would come to something, but he seems to blow hot, blow cold.’
‘Oh,’ said Tina.
Carrie had turned towards the door, but paused again. ‘Now Bruno—this’ll interest you—Bruno was very much at home with all the Finches. The twins adored him. Funny about Bruno, though. Being Italian, or half-Italian, was no barrier there. He seemed to get right on their wavelength. It was the oddest thing.’
‘I don’t know about that,’ Tina said slowly. ‘Perhaps the Finches are rather like the Italians—I mean just living for the day, being happy-go-lucky. Bruno was like that himself.’
She felt a little cheered, convinced that she too would know and like the Finches. And from them she might learn all she needed of Bruno’s last weeks at Hadrian’s Edge.
Carrie was at the door now. ‘Just a thought,’ she said abruptly. ‘If you get too thick with the Finches, Adam won’t like it.’
Tina stiffened. Her chin went up. ‘Why not?’
‘Because he’s had trouble between the two houses too often, I’d say. There was a time when Helen couldn’t keep away from Jamey Finch. Then the business of Bruno being down at Quarry Farm too much—which upset Helen. And—well, let’s face it, my dear. You’re a beauty—and trouble has a habit of following beauty around.’
‘Is Helen pretty?’
‘Helen? No. Pretty is the wrong wo
rd. She’s rather fragile, and very—bewitching. A little on the weak-willed side. Adam’s always been inclined to over-shelter her. All the same, I wouldn’t underestimate her, by any means. She’s not a girl easy to forget.’
Carrie added: ‘I know what’s on your mind, Tina. You’re not satisfied that Bruno was entirely to blame. In a way I agree with you. That’s why I’ve tried to fill in the background for you. But just don’t deceive yourself that it’s going to be easy, because it isn’t. See you at breakfast.’
Tina dressed in thoughtful mood, glad that she needn’t fuss over what to wear. Jeans, a blue sweater and a matching ribbon to tie back her hair were about right for the dig.
Her mind was full of the Finches. A thorn in the flesh, were they? All the more likely that they would ally themselves on her side, and help her in her investigations.
Adam Copeland wouldn’t like it, of course. He had warned her off the whole situation in no uncertain terms. And for a moment near-panic rippled through her. She was remembering Chris’s words:
‘One day you’ll meet a man who has a trick for every one of yours; who will hurt you like hell and make you wish you’d never been born.’
Again she was seeing the battered estate car riding off into the storm. The chaotic emotions of that moment returned to overwhelm her. Then she shook herself. She must be crazy. Adam Copeland was the last man on earth she’d ever be attracted to.
She braced herself to meet him at breakfast
He was sitting at the dining-table reading the newspaper, and cocked an unimpressed eye at her. He did, though, have the manners to stand up, Tina noted.
‘Good morning. Did you sleep well?’ Without waiting for an answer he indicated a seat opposite and returned to the study of his newspaper.
‘I slept very well,’ Tina announced. And added a slightly caustic: ‘Thank you.’