Both had had hard lives, but in different ways. Certainly Elizabeth’s had been the harder, at least in the last few years.
She knew that she and Elizabeth would not get on; they would soon clash, and yet Carson felt so guilty about his half-sister that she risked his displeasure if she agreed with him now, that is if she said that it would indeed be difficult to have Elizabeth at Pelham’s Oak after their marriage.
The long silence convinced Carson that he was right. Connie did not want to share her home with his half-sister, and then there would be her husband and children. He sighed.
“Well, that’s a problem we can face when we come to it. In the meantime I want her to feel welcome in a home that, rightly, should have been hers.”
“‘Rightly’?” Dora looked sharply at him. “How do you mean ‘rightly’?”
“Well, if her father and mother had acknowledged her, as they should, she would have had a home here, and as long as she wanted it. Subject now to Connie’s agreement, she has a home with me.”
Suddenly it was as though a little breeze had blown through the valley and on to the terrace, and no one spoke.
Deborah Woodville stirred restlessly in bed. She, opened her eyes and saw that daylight was streaming into the room. She had only gone to sleep at dawn and the dreams were fearful.
She lay awake hugging her bedclothes to her. If only she could go to sleep again and not wake up.
It was a week since Michael had gone. He had not come home one night from work and she had not seen him since. She had toiled up the hill to the big house where he was working, asking for him, but no one knew where he was, or where he had gone. Michael once again had done a flit, only this time leaving her behind.
How she wished he’d done that when he’d left Wenham, instead of persuading her to come with him.
At first it had seemed a lark, a joke, a bit naughty, certainly, unfair to her mother, but different. Debbie, the daughter of a man of the cloth – even though her father had not been an ordained clergyman – was also the stepdaughter of a full blown priest of the Church of England. Her mother was very religious. She had always been taught to say her prayers night and morning, church twice on Sundays, sometimes three times if you included Sunday school.
Debbie had been a good girl, not much chance to be anything else, but inside she had disliked her role and secretly rebelled. She started to hang around the men working on the church, and then Michael Stansgate had introduced her to the delights of forbidden love ... once even committed in church after the rest of the workmen had gone. Maybe that act of sacrilege was why she was in the condition in which she now found herself: pregnant and abandoned by the man who had seduced her.
Michael had had very few belongings, he seemed to prefer travelling light, but he had taken one or two things she only noticed after he left. His shaving kit, spare trousers and a jacket, extra pair of boots. He must have stowed it all away while she slept, knowing that he would not return.
They’d reached the small Yorkshire village high up in the Pennines about a month after they disappeared from Wenham. Michael said it was near his home, Hull, and they were working their way towards it. She longed to ring her mother and tell her she was all right, but Michael forbade it. He’d even said he would kill her if she told her parents, and she believed him. This was not a very nice man, after all, that she’d cast in her lot with. He was a seducer, a thief, and she knew not what besides. As long as she was with him she felt herself a prisoner.
She thought he was rather like Heathcliff, who had seduced poor Catherine Earnshaw, and she felt, sometimes, especially here on the edge of the wild Yorkshire moors, that Catherine’s fate would be hers also.
Finally Debbie dragged herself out of bed, trembling. She was hungry, she was exhausted, her belly was beginning to show. She was sure that’s why Michael had left her. He had tried to get her to have an abortion, but she refused. She not only thought it was against the laws of God, she was too frightened. She feared what would happen to her more than she feared what Michael might do.
And now he had gone.
Debbie sluiced her face, brushed her teeth and rapidly dressed. It was very hot in the little cottage and the milk in the kitchen had gone sour overnight. She knew she had to go home. She had somehow to make her peace with her mother. But she was frightened. Really she was terribly afraid, much as she loved her mother, of her wrath.
She drew water from the tap in the yard and, making a scoop of her hands, drank it. There was a little bread left and she ate it all. She put a coat over her dress and she started up the hill towards the big house which was owned by a lady called Mrs Middleton whom she had never met.
Her hopes now were pinned on the kindness of this stranger whose employment Michael had so abruptly left. Supposing Mrs Middleton was a dragon? What would she do then?
The house stood on a side of the hill overlooking the village. Mrs Middleton was building an extension and Michael had been taken in as casual labour to work on it. It was a lovely house with landscaped gardens and a waterfall. Debbie stood on the road outside looking at it, at the high cliffs behind it, and the blue sky above.
It was not like Pelham’s Oak, but in her mind’s eye she could see Pelham’s Oak, the home of her father’s family for generations. She hoped Mrs Middleton would be understanding, and she trudged up the drive towards the back door. There was a beautiful black Labrador lying outside sunning itself, and as she approached he rose and, wagging his tail, came over to greet her. For a while she stood stroking it, not quite knowing what to do.
“Can I help you?” a voice said and she looked up to see a thin, decidedly unfriendly face looking suspiciously at her.
“Mrs Middleton?” Debbie asked. The woman continued to look at her, as though not quite being able to make her out. She had the air of a lady, and a refined accent to go with it, but she looked unkempt and her clothes were those of a gypsy. She was about to shoo her off, but something in Debbie’s expression stopped her.
“Who shall I say wants her?” she asked.
“Deborah Woodville.”
“Just a minute.” The woman turned her back and disappeared through the kitchen door. Debbie went on stroking the dog, her heart in her mouth, her teeth chattering with fear.
“What can I do for you?” This time the voice was more kindly, the tone cultured, and she looked up to see the lady of the house, who was not as old as Michael had suggested, maybe late forties, early fifties, about the age of her own mother. She had softly waved brown hair and wore a striped cotton dress with a white cardigan. She looked a friendly, cosy body who could be somebody’s mother, perhaps a grandmother too.
“I wonder if I could speak to you?” Debbie asked, looking past Mrs Middleton at the sharp-eyed woman who was probably her housekeeper, “in private, if you please.”
Mrs Middleton pointed towards the garden and Debbie followed her into an arbour on the far side of the lawn. “Gertrude will bring us coffee, presently,” she said looking curiously at her guest. “Now, in what way can I assist you?”
“I very much need help,” Debbie said. “I’ve been abandoned ...”
“Oh my dear!” Mrs Middleton exclaimed, putting a hand to her face.
“I was here with Michael Stansgate, one of your workmen. He’s left me.”
“The foreman was saying that one of the men had gone without notice.” Mrs Middleton glanced in the direction of the new extension. “Unfortunately they do that all the time.”
She looked closely at Deborah again. “You’re not married, you poor little thing, are you? And you’re pregnant?”
“Yes.” Debbie hung her head shamefully.
“Not more than eighteen, or nineteen either I’d say.”
“Eighteen.”
“But, my dear child, you must have a family, parents ...”
“I ran away with Michael. My stepfather is the Rector of Wenham.”
“And have you no mother?”
“Oh yes,”
Debbie plucked at her dress: “I just dare not tell my mother.”
“And has she any idea where you are?”
“No.”
“But that’s awful.” Mrs Middleton looked appalled. “How long is it since you left home?”
“January.”
“January! And you have not been in touch?”
“No.” Debbie’s spirits sank lower and lower. She began now to regret that she had ever approached nice Mrs Middleton. She made her feel worse, more ashamed, if that were possible, than she’d been before.
“She must be out of her mind with worry. Are you afraid of your mother?” Again she looked closely at the girl.
“A little. She’s very religious. My father was a missionary who died of fever in New Guinea where he was trying to convert the savages. My father was a saint and a hero, and I feel I’ve let the family down.” Deborah kept her eyes on the ground.
“Didn’t you think it was a little selfish of you, Deborah?” Mrs Middleton’s tone was still kindly, but more censorious.
“Michael threatened to kill me. I believed him. He has been gone a week. I don’t think he’ll come back. I have no money, nothing to eat.”
“You must let me call your poor mother at once.” Mrs Middleton got to her feet. “Where is Wenham?”
“Dorset, but please,” Debbie also hurriedly rose, “please call my uncle, that’s my father’s brother. I would rather you called him. He’s a very kind person and he ... well, he can tell my mother.”
Then Debbie sat down on the bench again and gazed abjectly at the ground, feeling utterly wretched and helpless. But, strangely, she was no longer afraid.
“A call for you, Sir Carson!”
Carson was standing outside the west wing of the house going over plans with Jean, who was due to leave quite soon. He was saying “I shall miss you Jean,” when Arthur interrupted.
“Who is it Arthur? Would they call back?”
“It is a lady, sir. A Mrs Middleton, calling from Yorkshire. She sounds rather agitated. She says it is about your missing niece.”
Carson shoved the plans he was examining into Jean’s arms and rushed into the house, seizing the phone once he was in his study.
“Sir Carson Woodville.” The woman’s voice sounded mildly astonished. “Is that Deborah’s uncle?”
“Yes, yes ...”
“It is about your niece.”
“Yes, is she all right?”
“I have her here to speak to you, Sir Carson ... Deborah.”
When Carson heard her voice he nearly sank to the floor in gratitude to a God in whom he had thought he no longer believed.
***
Carson, Connie behind him, crept into the church. The light was shining through the stained glass window that had been dedicated to his brother, George, and his cousin Laurence. Sophie would often go into the church and sit by the window:
Sacred to the memory of George Pelham
Woodville ... also in loving memory of
his cousin Laurence Thomas Yetman.
They had been told at the Rectory that Sophie was probably there, these days she went a lot. And, indeed, she was, her head bowed in the beam of sunlight that shone through the window directly on to her.
Carson, his heart full of joy, his hand in Connie’s, went up to her and sat beside her. He touched her arm and, startled, she looked up at him and he could see she’d been crying.
He looked at her tenderly and, reaching for his handkerchief, dabbed at her eyes.
“She’s found. She’s all right. I spoke to her,” he said, and he held Sophie very close to his chest. “Connie and I are going straight up to Yorkshire to get her. We’ve packed and the car’s outside. In a couple of days we’ll all be together.”
Connie drove swiftly through the narrow lanes of Dorset and Wiltshire until she struck the main road to the north. Carson sat beside her, arms folded, head slumped on his chest.
“Penny for them?” Connie said after a while.
“Just thinking.” He raised his head and smiled rather wearily at her.
“Why didn’t you tell Sophie that Debbie was going to have a baby?”
“You can read my mind,” Carson replied. “That’s exactly what I was thinking about.”
“So?” Now that they were on the open road she put her foot hard down on the accelerator. If they were to get to North Yorkshire by the next day she had no time to lose.
“I thought it would take the joy out of the news. It would be too much of a shock for her. You know how religious she is.”
“But she has to know some time. Possibly the day after tomorrow, if we can make it. Don’t you think it might have been better to prepare her?”
“Maybe we’ll go back to Pelham’s Oak, first.”
“Sophie already wonders why Debbie phoned you and not her.”
“I think I convinced her that Debbie was too scared. Maybe, by spending a few days with me ...”
Connie briefly took her hand off the wheel and put it on his knee.
“Carson darling, you are too nice, too sweet. You give succour all the time to the needy and the hopeless. You will have Debbie taking up cause with Elizabeth.”
Carson remained silent.
“You’ll turn Pelham’s Oak into a home for needy people.” Connie’s voice had an edge to it, and Carson looked anxiously across at her.
“Maybe I should. A home for lost causes?”
“I wish you’d let me help you with it.”
“Connie we’ve been over all this a thousand times. I don’t want your help.”
“But if it is to be my home too? If I am to be your wife?”
“It is perfectly all right as it is. Jean has done a very good job. We can all be comfortable there. There’s stacks of room.” Connie’s heart fell at the word “all”. Carson was going to turn it into some kind of community home.
“You realise,” his tone changed to one of wheedling excitement, “that now we’ll be able to get married as we wished, with all the family, the town band ...” He reached out and put his arm lightly around her waist.
“You’re trying to change the subject, Carson.”
“No I’m not; but as soon as we get back with Debbie we can start preparations for the wedding.”
Silence.
“Connie?”
“I heard you.”
“You still want to, don’t you?”
“Of course. I’m just concerned that our home should also be a home for waifs and strays. Elizabeth is the main problem.”
“Why is she the problem?” Carson set his mouth in a firm line, prepared for an argument.
“Because Debbie will go back to Sophie, no question of that. What will Elizabeth do? She has nowhere to go. She’s homeless. You know she likes Pelham’s Oak. She kept on saying at lunch how she loved it.”
“Well, that’s not unnatural. We all love it. It’s a lovely place. Look, darling, I think Elizabeth has had a bad deal. I feel as head of the family that I owe her protection.”
“Maybe one of the houses on the estate could be given to her? Eliza has also offered. Darling I would prefer to start our married life alone, together. Don’t you understand that?”
“I understand,” Carson said, “but as much as I love you I don’t want to hurt Elizabeth. She’s suffered so much.”
Connie looked ruefully at him again. “We’ll work something out. We haven’t got this far not to be able to find some solution.”
“We’ll find a solution,” Carson said, reassured by her tone. “Be sure I never want to lose you again.”
After Carson and Connie had set out on their journey to Yorkshire – they had packed within an hour of the phone call, pausing on the way to bring the news to Sophie – and there had been tears as well as rejoicing, Sophie crept back to the church and took up her seat in front of the window. It had been dedicated almost eight years ago, in October 1913, to George and Laurence. She recalled how the family had gathered for the ceremony: hersel
f, Hubert who officiated. It was also the occasion of his installation as rector in place of her father. Debbie and Ruth were there, naturally; Eliza, but not Guy, who was too ill. Dora, Hugh, Prosper, Lally, Carson, Sarah Jane and the children, Roger and Emma.
All lives had been changed, hers perhaps least of all but, after the war, no one could say their lives were the same. How often in these past, agonising months had she looked at the window and tearfully imagined that one day Debbie’s name might appear near to that of her husband?
Eliza had come over to rejoice at the news about Debbie, and had just left with Dora. There seemed to be talk of marriage in the air between her and Jean Parterre, and Eliza was very excited.
Suddenly everything seemed to have changed for the better. Now Carson and Connie would be able to celebrate their nuptials in fitting style. Maybe Elizabeth would extend forgiveness to her mother?
Sophie devoutly hoped that she and Hubert would resume their loving relationship, all tensions gone now that Debbie was to be returned to them, safe and unharmed.
Tearfully, Sophie bent her head in thanksgiving to a God who had sometimes treated her and her family harshly, who had appeared on occasions not to listen, whose very existence she, a daughter and wife of the rector, had occasionally doubted. At one time she had thought she’d lost her faith altogether.
But now the long ordeal was over, and all the family, their friends and the parishioners of the little town of Wenham, would rejoice.
Sophie Turner raised her eyes to the window and, as if communicating with George, paraphrased those beautiful, comforting words from the Bible, saying softly to herself, over and over again:
“... this my daughter is come to life again, was lost and is found.”
Contents
IN THIS QUIET EARTH
Publishing History
About the Author
By the same author
Synopsis
Part I THE SURVIVOR
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
In This Quiet Earth (Part Three of The People of this Parish Saga) Page 24