In This Quiet Earth (Part Three of The People of this Parish Saga)

by Nicola Thorne

  And finally another arrival had awakened, deep inside him, emotions that he thought had gone ever since his rejection by Emma. This was also unexpected, to have ideas of romance reawoken by a woman towards whom he had once behaved shamefully: Connie Yetman.Seeing her in the churchyard, moving about so gracefully, like the woman of one’s dreams, was a little like beginning to fall in love all over again.

  And now she was leaving without giving him the chance to explore new opportunities. He re-read with horror the letter which had just been delivered in the morning post.

  ‘Dear Carson,

  This is to thank you for a most delightful lunch the other day. Forgive me for not writing to thank you sooner, but I had to go to Bath and then on to London on a matter of business. I now find that I have to return to Italy sooner than expected, so I am writing to say ‘farewell’, at least for the time being.

  How are you faring with dear Agnes? (Rather you than me!)

  With sincere good wishes,

  Yours affectionately,

  Constance Yetman.’

  Carson looked at the clock, jumped up and hurried from the breakfast room leaving the rest of his post unopened. On the way he passed Jean Parterre who was briefing workmen on the morning’s operations. Jean put out a hand as if to waylay Carson, but he was brushed aside.

  “Not now, Jean. I have an urgent errand. I’ll see you when I get back.”

  He then entered the stables, saddled his horse and set off at a gallop over the fields towards Wenham.

  Connie thought that in many ways she would be sorry to say a final ‘goodbye’ to the place of her birth, the little town of Wenham. She had been born just a short distance away in a house practically opposite the Rectory, that had belonged to her mother. Euphemia Monk had been the only child of wealthy parents too, so that by the time Miss Fairchild died, and another fortune thus fell to her, Connie was a very wealthy young woman indeed, and could live the rest of her life doing pretty much as she pleased but without a care in the world.

  It was true that Connie had a call to go back to Venice. The rest of the palazzo in which she had her apartment was on the market and Guido Valenti, her lawyer, was suggesting that she might purchase it and restore the palazzo to its former glory as one of the great houses of Venice.

  It would be an exciting and challenging thing to do. She could become one of the city’s celebrated hostesses with a salon for the arts and music, entertaining writers, artists, politicians, anyone she chose.

  It was a very exciting prospect, and yet ...

  She looked out of the window across the fields leading down to the river where she had wandered as a child, seldom playing with other children because she was so solitary and shy that she found making friends difficult. Her young contemporaries avoided her because they thought she wasn’t much fun, and indeed she wasn’t. A plain, bookish, withdrawn child who, by her birth, had been responsible for her mother’s death, and was orphaned early on, was indeed burdened with disadvantages when it came to spending time with healthy, carefree youngsters, many of whom came from large, jolly farming families. They thought she was a freak.

  This sense of freakishness was enhanced when she first became engaged to Carson Woodville, an act that seemed unreal in itself, and then was subsequently jilted within weeks of the banns being called.

  It was something that, at the time, she thought she would never get over, and yet she had. She had found a new life, made a new life for herself. Why then this reluctance to sever all her links with Wenham, to sell Miss Fairchild’s house, in exchange for the glamour and excitement of Venice?

  The answer at that moment appeared at the gate of the house astride a fine horse. The words of the lovely poem by Scott sprang to her mind: ‘Young Lochinvar has come out of the west ... and save his good broadsword he weapons had none, he rode all unarmed and he rode all alone ...’

  Astride his horse Carson was a splendid sight and once again, as it had done many years before, as it had done when she saw him so recently in the churchyard, her heart turned over with joy.

  Carson was looking anxiously at the house and then, when she opened the door, his expression turned instantly to one of relief. He vaulted off the horse and tethered him to the railings of the house.

  Connie, slightly bemused, hands on her hips, stood on the steps looking at him.

  “Do you mind if I come in?” he called from the gate.

  “Of course not,” she replied stepping back.

  “I wasn’t sure if you were still here,” he said, panting as he came up the steps. “I just got your letter.”

  Connie didn’t know how to reply, so said nothing as she led the way indoors to the drawing room which was full of half packed cases and tea chests.

  “When are you off?” Carson surveyed the scene with dismay. It all looked so final.

  “Tomorrow,” Connie replied. “I’m getting the Pullman from Victoria.”

  “And will you be back?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Have you sold the house?”

  “Not yet. I’ve had several people to see it, but that’s no problem. The agent will handle it for me. I ... I may never return to Wenham, Carson. I have the chance to buy the whole of the property where I now live. If I do that I will definitely spend the rest of my life in Venice.”

  Carson looked at her and wondered how he could ever have considered her plain. Despite her fashionably bobbed hair, her lightly applied powder and lipstick, her appearance was slightly dishevelled. She wore a silk blouse tucked into slacks, a sight in a woman he was still unused to. Few women, if any, in Wenham would dream of wearing trousers, but the war had changed everything. The previous year the suffrage had been given to women over thirty. The Liberal Party leader, Asquith, had just called for the opening of all professions and trades to women on the same terms as men. Connie’s appearance was in line with the idea of the New Woman and, on the whole, Carson felt he approved. His had always been a family of strong women – his grandmother Henrietta, his mother Margaret and his aunt Eliza. They held no fears for him. As for Connie, she looked so adorable that it seemed incredible he could possibly not have loved her.

  “I wish you wouldn’t go!” he burst out. “You’ve hardly arrived, and now you’re going again.”

  Connie stared at him, perplexed.

  “But, Carson, I was never going to stay here for long,” she said gently. “I left Wenham and I am never coming back, for good anyway.”

  “All because of me ...” He flung himself dejectedly into the one chair that wasn’t full of clutter needing to be packed.

  “We’ve said it was a very long time ago. Anyway I like my life now, I’m very happy. It’s so,” she looked around as if searching for the right words, “so very, very different. You can’t know how different it is.”

  “Yes I can. Don’t forget I have been away for nearly five years too.”

  “Yet you have a home, roots.”

  “You have a home too. This is a very nice house. You have family here, friends, bonds.”

  “I hope you don’t call Agnes family,” Connie said with a note of amusement in her voice.

  “No, I don’t mean Agnes. Hopefully she won’t be staying long. But Eliza, whom you always loved ...”

  “Do love still,” Connie insisted.

  “Sophie, your Yetman cousins. And me,” Carson finished lamely. “I’m very fond of you Connie.”

  Connie perched on the arm of the chair opposite him, arms folded. Her expression was grave, thoughtful, composed. When she raised her eyes, she looked directly at him.

  “You rejected me once,” she said. “It was very hurtful.”

  “I know. But now it’s not the same. You’re not the same.”

  “It is the same. I am the same person only a little older. I’ve got the same feelings and the same fear of being rejected again.”

  Carson rose and went over to the window which overlooked the pretty garden at the back of the house on which
Miss Fairchild had lavished such love and care. Now in high summer it was at its best. He turned to look at Connie, who was watching him carefully.

  “I’m not quite sure how to say this, but put it this way. I’m not the same person. The war has taught me a great deal, changed me forever. I think – I hope – it’s made me a better person. I was selfish, superficial. I was also very unhappy without realising it. I was never clever or successful like my brother George. I also knew my mother loved him better than me, and my father adored Emily. I was the odd one out. I wanted my mother to love me and I think that, of course, she did, though not as much as George. But instead of pleasing her I hurt her, and then before I could make it up she died. I never really got over my guilt about not being a better son while my mother was alive.”

  “It’s true that a blunder was made about our marriage in which both of us were really stooges to the wishes of my father and your guardian. You would not have wanted to be married to a man who didn’t want to marry you ...”

  “Of course not!”

  “Well,” his expression was abject, “for me that’s all changed. It’s a different situation, a different set of circumstances. I can’t ask you to marry me at this moment because I don’t want to make the same mistake again. I want to be sure, but I do feel very strongly about you and I would like you to stay.”

  A wave of indignation welled up inside Connie and she said witheringly, “On approval.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Goods on approval.”

  “Not at all.”

  “Then what, Carson?” Her voice throbbed with anger. “You don’t take account of my feelings in all this. I mean am I meant to hang around while you consider the situation? And then, if you decide in my favour, do I gratefully accept?”

  “Not at all.” Carson felt flustered. He realised he’d made yet another error. He flung out a hand towards her. “Look Connie. I’m a country bumpkin, an uneducated man. I’ve put it badly. I’m sorry. I want you to know I do feel –”

  “And I want you to know that I have feelings too, Carson Woodville. They are feelings that are not to be trifled with. Put bluntly – and in case you think I am likely even to consider hanging around waiting for you – there is someone in Venice to whom I am deeply attached. It is likely that when I return we’ll get engaged.”

  Then she paused and gave him a smile of disarming sweetness. “I hope that will enable you to make up your mind once and for all.”

  She then walked to the door and held it open, firmly indicating the way out.

  “Now, Carson, if you would be so kind I have a lot of packing to do.” She held out her hand and gave him a detached, impersonal smile that was more chilling than anything she’d said. He could see very clearly now that, contrary to his hopes, in Connie all love had died and there was no hope for him.

  He took her hand, held it briefly to his lips and then stumbled down the steps towards his horse.

  As he rode away he didn’t look back.

  Part II The Prodigal Daughter

  Chapter Eight

  Agnes fretted out the summer in Wenham, unsettled, getting in everyone’s way, wanting to be somewhere else.

  As for Carson, having lost Connie his world became a dark place and he blamed much of it, somewhat unjustifiably, on Agnes. Now that Connie had gone he knew that he wanted her and that no one else would do. He toyed with the idea of going to Venice after her, but he too had his pride and, besides, his experience with women, which was extensive, told him that was not the way to capture anyone’s heart. Best to lose someone for ever than have her despise you.

  The family helped out as much as they could. Lally had Agnes and Owen for a meal several times, Eliza and Sophie were both generous with their hospitality. They all had to put up with Agnes’s complaints, criticism and general dissatisfaction which she voiced freely among members of her clan as if it didn’t matter what they thought of her.

  Owen was quite liked but not much admired, pitied for being a stooge of Agnes, a butt for her unkind, remorseless jokes at his expense.

  It was true that he cut an odd figure as a countryman with his waxed moustache, his shiny shoes encased in grey spats, his natty suits and soft, wavy, brimmed trilbys worn outdoors or at a rakish angle in the car. One of his accomplishments, doubtless perfected if not learned in India, was horse riding, and he often accompanied Carson on a morning ride well before Agnes was up, faultlessly attired in highly polished riding boots, fawn jodhpurs and brown hacking jacket.

  But the thing Owen knew most about was tea and, when Agnes let him get a word in edgeways, he talked about it with all the authority of his years as a tea planter, commented on every cup he drank as if he was tasting fine wine, and bored everyone to death.

  But Owen’s favourite pastime was to occupy a comfortable chair on the terrace, preferably alone and away from his wife, reading the morning paper with a cigar in his mouth and a glass of whisky by his side.

  He was a very idle and, indeed, deeply boring man, with apparently few original views of any kind and a desperate desire to please. Carson, who got to know him better on the morning rides, still found him slightly effeminate, with his emphasis on “correct” attire, even if it was clearly out of place in the country. He couldn’t understand how it was that such a man had captured the affections of his mercurial and demanding step-mother who never passed an opportunity to demean or snub him, unless it was that, with advancing age, she was afraid of being lonely.

  So the summer passed. It was not one enjoyed by Carson, irritated to death by his aunt and wracked with misery about thoughts of the women who had spurned him: Emma and Connie. But Emma seemed firmly rooted in the past now and was comparatively easy to forget. He had known that that love was dead. About Connie he was more optimistic. Eliza had given him some hope. Apparently she was not engaged to be married and in her frequent letters she always asked after him. However for a man who had always enjoyed success with women it was mortifying to be rejected by two in a very short time.

  In days gone by Carson would have laughed it off and jumped into bed with the next casual woman who crossed his path, but not now. Real love had made him more selective, taught him the importance of an enduring relationship and shown him, yet again, that the war had changed everything; he was not the man he used to be.

  Progress on Pelham’s Oak remained slow. The problem was paying for the materials needed for repairs. Jean Parterre worked well and thoroughly and proved an amiable companion, a foil to Agnes, her frequently expressed boredom and her moods.

  Yet sometimes Carson had the feeling that life couldn’t continue for long in this unsatisfactory way. Things were bound to come to a head and, one afternoon, towards the beginning of September, he was proved all too prophetically right.

  Carson had been down to one of the farms with Ivor Wendor to try and settle a boundary dispute with the neighbouring tenant. The mission had been successful and he felt pleased with his afternoon’s work. Matters such as this justified his position as landlord, custodian of a centuries old tradition of service both to the land and the community. It made him feel magisterial, authoritative, mature.

  It had been agreed to divide the disputed land so that one tenant got one half, the other tenant the other. It was not as difficult a judgment as that of Solomon, in fact it had appeared quite simple and obvious but, nevertheless, it was a grievance that had been simmering for years between two stubborn men who several times had come to blows.

  Thus it was with a feeling of satisfaction, a job well done, a day well spent that Carson stabled his horse, bade goodbye to the bailiff who lived in a cottage on the estate and made his way back to the house.

  The days were drawing in, the sun was setting. Autumn. He paused on the porch of the great house and looked over the earth, the quiet earth, he loved so much. The fields of cut hay stretched away into the distance, fodder for the stock in the cold coming winter months. Some trees were beginning to shed their leaves, the sq
uirrels were busy gathering nuts for the long months ahead when the land was hard and barren. The cattle were still in the fields, but soon they would be brought in for the winter. In a few months snow, frost and ice would cover the landscape starkly outlining the skeletal trees against the horizon.

  Carson loved the seasons. At times of utter peace, such as this, his mind involuntarily returned to the noise and carnage of war; the chaos, disorder and death that made it seem as though mankind suffered from some sort of collective madness. Then visions would come of men squirming in the mud in their death throes, sometimes their pitiable animals beside them. Carson shut his eyes to the images flitting across his mind. He knew they would never go away, never cease altogether, either as nightmares or as horrible interludes to torment him during the day. It was the price he had to pay for being a survivor, for living to see this day, this sunset and, hopefully, the morrow; to greet the dawn that so many hundreds of thousands of his comrades would never see.

  Carson opened his eyes, jerked rudely back to life by loud voices coming from indoors, his aunt Agnes’s the most predominant. He quickly ran up the steps and entered the hall to be confronted by a bizarre sight. Aunt Agnes on one side and Arthur and one of the maids, Maudie, on the other, the latter in tears. Aunt Agnes was stabbing the air in a frenzy and Maudie’s sobs grew louder while Arthur’s low voice occasionally intervened in an effort to make peace or, at least, reduce the temperature.

  “And I absolutely demand that this girl is dismissed,” Agnes pointed to the weeping maidservant, “but not before she has restored all my missing jewellery. I shall decide with Sir Carson whether to press charges or not.”

  “Oi bain’t taken nothin’ ma’am,” Maudie sobbed, screwing up her white apron in her hands. “Oi bain’t never seen your jewels, save what you wuz wearing ma’am. Oi swear ...”