Gather the Bones

by Alison Stuart

  Alice looked over her shoulder at Pollard. “Can I come and visit the horses?”

  The man smiled. “Any time, lass.”

  Chapter 2

  Every time he returned to Holdston, Paul Morrow paused for a moment to look up at the old house that he knew he should call home. The familiar weathered stone walls of the medieval house, pierced with mullioned windows, slumbered peacefully in the summer sun. It still felt no more a home to him then it had when he first saw it twenty years ago.

  He straightened his shoulders, hefted his suitcase in his right hand and strode across the bridge over the moat.

  Sarah Pollard waited at the door, her face wreathed in a welcoming smile.

  “Hello, Sarah.”

  “I heard the car,” she said. “It’s good to have you home, sir.”

  A normal response would be “It’s good to be home” but Sarah knew him too well to expect such a response. He smiled and kissed her on her forehead, a gesture that would have appalled his aunt.

  “Lady Morrow’s in the parlor,” Sarah said and Paul nodded in acknowledgement.

  Striding across the stone flags of the Great Hall toward the living rooms of the house, the sound of his boots echoed in the silence, betraying the slight unevenness of his stride.

  His aunt sat at her writing bureau, spectacles perched on the end of her nose. He knew she would be here without Sarah telling him. Lady Evelyn Morrow always wrote letters from two to three in the afternoon.

  “Hello, Evelyn,” he said.

  His aunt started, turning abruptly on her seat and removing her glasses as he entered the room.

  “Paul.”

  She rose to her feet, still as slender and elegant as she had been the day he had first met her.

  They made no move to greet each other with any more intimacy than that of polite acquaintances. Although physical displays of affection were not in Evelyn’s nature, a smile greeted him as she gestured to the armchair for him to sit.

  “You look well, Paul,” she said taking the high-backed chair across from him. “Palestine must agree with you.”

  “Mesopotamia,” he corrected her.

  She frowned and said more to herself than to him. “Why did I think it was Palestine?”

  “I was in Palestine last season,” Paul said.

  “Of course. I lose track. I suppose you will be locking yourself in the library again like you did last summer?”

  The question needed no answer so Evelyn continued. “Well, I hope you are not too busy to greet our guests.”

  “Guests?” Paul raised an eyebrow. Guests at Holdston had been almost unheard of since the war.

  “Helen and Alice. They arrived a few days ago.”

  Paul involuntarily straightened in the chair. “Charlie’s Helen?”

  “Of course. Who else? I wrote and told you that I had invited her,” Evelyn said.

  Paul glanced at one of the many photographs on Evelyn’s bureau, his cousin Charlie grinning like the Cheshire cat, his new Australian wife beside him, her arm tucked lovingly into the crook of his elbow.

  “When this bloody war is over,” Charlie had said over a cup of warm liquid that their orderly had loosely described as tea, “I can’t wait to bring Helen to England. You’ll like her. She’s not like any of those hothouse roses you find in Ma’s drawing room. She’s got real spirit, Paul.”

  After Oxford, Charlie had been smitten with wanderlust and sailed for adventure in Australia. Paul couldn’t remember what had thrown Charlie into Helen’s path but in his letters to Paul he had told him it had been love almost at first sight. He had married her within six months. Charlie had always acted on impulse.

  Sir Gerald and Lady Morrow had been incandescent with rage. Charlie had shown him some of the letters that had passed between them at the time. Paul had been spared the family hysteria by an absence on a rather boring army posting in Wales that was interrupted by the outbreak of war.

  On one of Paul’s rare visits back to Holdston it had been clear that there had been no anticipation on the part of his uncle and aunt that the marriage would have lasted. Charlie’s parents expected him to return to Holdston unencumbered by inconvenient colonial wives. Whatever the long-term prospects, the marriage had outlived Charlie, and now Helen and her daughter were another of his responsibilities.

  Responsibilities he would have preferred to have stayed in Australia.

  Paul’s fingers beat a tattoo on the arm of the chair. The thought of any strangers in the house, let alone Helen Morrow, filled with him dread.

  “I hope you aren’t expecting me to play at being the perfect host?”

  “I long since ceased to have any such expectations of you,” Evelyn responded with a trace of acerbity in her tone.

  He brought his gaze back to her and forced a smile as he rose to his feet. “Good. Now if you’ll excuse me, Evelyn, I’ll leave you in peace to finish your letters.”

  “Shall I tell Sarah to lay a place for you at supper tonight?”

  He turned at the door and looked at her. “No,” he said. “I’ll take supper in my room.”

  Their eyes met in perfect understanding and he felt a trace of remorse as she said through tight lips, “Paul, she is Charlie’s wife.”

  “I know,” he said as he shut the door behind him. “God help me, I know,” he muttered under his breath as he climbed the familiar, worn oak stairs to his room.

  * * * *

  Upstairs in the suite of rooms that should have been Charlie’s, Sarah had already begun to unpack for him. Paul shook out a cigarette and wandered over to the window to smoke it while Sarah tutted over the state of his clothes.

  He perched on the broad windowsill, looking out over the park as Sarah’s gossip drifted over him. Beyond the fresh lily pads on the moat, lay the Holdston lands, neglected and unloved by him. Now he was home, he would have to work harder on Evelyn, to convince her that they had no choice but to sell up.

  “Her ladyship’s told you that Mrs. Charles is visiting?” Sarah asked.

  Paul brought his attention back to the housekeeper. “She has.”

  “It’s wonderful to have a child in the house again,” Sarah continued. “Just lovely to hear a child’s laugh again. This old house needs that. Miss Alice is how old? Let me think...”

  “Eight,” Paul said absently.

  Alice Evelyn Morrow had never known her father. Charlie had left his pregnant wife in Melbourne when he sailed off to join Paul’s regiment on the Western Front. Would Charlie’s daughter look at him with her father’s eyes, wanting answers to questions she didn’t understand?

  Paul rubbed his left shoulder. The chill and damp of the house had already begun to seep into his shattered and badly healed bones. Conscious that Sarah was watching him, her gentle expression full of concern, he managed a smile.

  “Thanks Sarah. Leave the rest. I’m expecting some boxes from the museum. They’ll arrive either tomorrow or the day after. Have them sent to the library, please.”

  “Will you be dining tonight?” Sarah asked.

  Paul shook his head. “I’ll take supper in here, Sarah. Hope that won’t be too much of a nuisance for you?”

  Sarah hesitated before she replied. “Mrs. Morrow and the lass will be disappointed not to meet you. You can’t avoid them indefinitely.”

  Paul stubbed out his cigarette and looked up at the housekeeper. Only Sarah really understood him. He managed a wry smile. “Not tonight, Sarah.”

  Sarah opened her mouth to speak but he gave her a warning look and she left the room, closing the door with the faintest click.

  Paul straightened, thrust his hands into the pockets of his trousers and turned back to the window in time to see a horse and rider galloping across the nearest field toward the house.

  “Good Lord,” he said out loud, recognizing the horse as Minter, Evelyn’s old hunter. “They’ll never take that hedge.”

  The great horse took the hedge with ease, the slight figure on his back barel
y shifting in the saddle.

  The rider, a slender woman who hardly looked strong enough to control the huge horse, drew the magnificent beast to a slower pace, allowing Paul the opportunity to study her. Her long legs were encased in khaki jodhpurs and highly polished long, brown boots. She wore an old jumper and her thick, honey colored hair was tied loosely at the nape of her neck.

  “Helen.” he whispered her name and almost as if aware that some unseen eye watched her, she looked up at the house. Paul stepped back into the shadows as her gaze raked the old stone walls, resting for a moment on the window of his room.

  She raised her hand and tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear and Paul leaned forward again. The young woman bore little resemblance to the sepia tinted bride in the dog-eared photograph Charlie had kept in his field notebook. A photograph was only ever a two dimensional representation of the real woman, and now that reality, Mrs. Helen Morrow, was at Holdston

  “Mummy!”

  The sound of the child’s voice startled him. He looked down toward the bridge over the moat and saw a small girl in a blue dress running from the house and his breath caught in his throat.

  Charlie’s daughter.

  There had been many times in the last few years when he had cursed Charlie for producing a girl, not a boy. A boy would take the entail and the tedious responsibility of all that went with the title. As the reluctant titular head of the family, Paul had tried to fulfill what was expected of him. Every Christmas and birthday since the war, he had dutifully sent the appropriate money order and cursory greetings and had been rewarded with a brief, polite letter of thanks that always began “Dear Uncle Paul...”

  Paul ran his hand across his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose, conscious of the familiar tightening sensation behind his eyes that he had been trying to ignore for the last few hours. He never thought he would ever have to face Charlie’s daughter. Helen Morrow should have stayed in Melbourne. Turning away from the window, he bumped into a chair.

  He swore and ran his hand over his eyes. He knew what was coming.

  Migraines had afflicted him since childhood–he couldn’t blame them on the war. In the trenches and on archaeological digs, he rarely suffered from them. As soon as he set foot in this house, they started again.

  All the more reason to sell up and be rid of the damned place.

  Paul swore under his breath and stumbled into his bedroom, throwing himself, fully clothed on the bed. As he closed his eyes he heard a whisper, like the slightest breath of wind, no more than a sigh, the words indecipherable. They knew he had returned.

  * * * *

  “Hurry, mummy!” Alice fidgeted under her mother’s hand as Helen worked the wayward hair into two neat plaits.

  “Ribbons?” Helen asked and Alice handed her the blue velvet ribbons, carefully chosen by her for the occasion of meeting her mysterious Uncle Paul. Helen tied them in two neat bows at the end of each plait.

  “Do you think he’ll like me?” Alice asked, her eyes wide with anticipation.

  Helen smiled. “I’m sure he will. Now come on, we’ll be late for supper and Grandmama will be cross.”

  Helen set her hairbrush back on the dressing table. Checking her own hair in the mirror, she smoothed her skirt and followed Alice down to the dining room.

  Alice’s shoulders slumped as she saw the dining table. Her grandmother sat alone in her customary place at the head of the table with only one other place set beside her.

  “Good evening, Grandmama,” Alice said, her eyes sweeping the room as if expecting her mysterious relative to emerge from behind the curtain.

  “Good evening, Alice. What brings you downstairs? I thought you would be in bed by now?”

  “Alice thought she saw Sir Paul arrive home and she was anxious to meet him,” Helen said.

  Evelyn stiffened, her lips pursed. “Yes, Paul did return this afternoon. I’m sorry to disappoint you both, he’ll not be joining us for supper. However, the house is only so big and I’ve no doubt you will meet him in his own time. Now come and kiss me goodnight, Alice.”

  Alice complied with the command and after pausing to kiss her mother, left the room.

  Helen took her place beside her mother-in-law, unfolding the immaculate linen napkin.

  “Since he has been doing this work for the British Museum with archaeological digs, I hardly see Paul,” Evelyn said, the faintest note of complaint in her voice. “He’s gone for months on end over winter and when he returns from his digs or whatever they call them, he has a great deal of work to do–reports to write, that sort of thing. I’m sure that’s not what the doctors meant when they said he needed peace and quiet.” She glanced across at Helen, her shoulders straightening. “Anyway don’t expect too much of him, Helen.”

  The warning in her eyes told Helen far more than her words. She’d seen it with her own brother when he had returned. The young men who had marched off with so much hope had returned with more than just physical scars. They carried the ghosts of their comrades in eyes that had seen horror beyond the wildest imagining. Would Charlie have been the same, she wondered?

  As Evelyn dabbed the corners of her mouth with her napkin, she said, “I meant to tell you, Helen. We have been invited to Wellmore House tomorrow afternoon. Lady Hartfield is simply dying to meet you.”

  “Lady Hartfield?”

  “Surely Charlie mentioned the Hartfields? The Honorable Anthony was a great friend of his at school...”

  “Oh of course, you mean Tony Scarvell,” Helen exclaimed. “He’s Alice’s godfather. I would love to meet him and to see Wellmore.”

  Sensing her mother-in-law’s disapproval, Helen curbed her excitement. “Will Tony... Mr. Scarvell be at home?”

  “I have no idea. Anthony prefers London to the country.” Evelyn rose to her feet, signaling they should adjourn to the drawing room.

  Helen spent a quiet evening, reading a magazine while Lady Morrow worked on an elaborate needlework chair seat, one of a set, she told Helen, that had occupied her since her marriage. As the clock struck ten, Helen bid her mother-in-law good night and climbed the wide, oak stairs to the gallery that connected the three wings of the house.

  Before going to bed, Helen checked on Alice who lay sound asleep, curled in a ball, her favorite stuffed rabbit tightly encircled in her arms. Helen smiled and stooped to kiss the fair hair.

  She tightened the sash of her dressing gown and sat down at the elegant Georgian escritoire to write a letter to her parents. The desk had been stocked with heavy cream writing paper bearing the Morrow coat of arms. The yellowed edges indicated that it had been in the desk for some considerable time, probably long before the war.

  Helen unscrewed the top of her fountain pen and drew one of the sheets of paper toward her. It almost seemed a crime to desecrate its pristine surface but she filled the creamy sheet with the details of the last few days at Holdston, signed her name and put the letter in an envelope.

  Seated at the dressing table, Helen began to pull the pins from her hair. In the short months of their life together, Charlie had reserved that task for himself, running his fingers though it as it tumbled to her shoulders. He would bend and kiss her...

  Letting the pins fall to the glass top, Helen looked down at the photograph of her husband taken by a Melbourne photographer just before he left for England. Charlie, as she remembered him–slightly rumpled, his fair hair drifting across his forehead, his smile wide and his eyes twinkling with life and mischief. The army officer with the moustache in Evelyn’s photograph would never be her Charlie.

  She picked up the frame, smiling as her fingers brushed the glass. She could no longer remember the lilt of his voice or the touch of his hands, but just sometimes the tang of a familiar shaving cream would cause her to pause in the street and turn in hope, knowing even as she did so that it would never be Charlie. Strange how smell could evoke a memory in a way sight never could.

  Helen sighed and set the photograph back. Here in h
is home she felt Charlie’s absence more keenly than she had for years and overwhelmed by memory, she crossed her arms on the glass top of the dressing table and lowered her head, the tears soaking the sleeves of her dressing gown.

  She heard the rustle of silk petticoats and her nose twitched at the faint scent of Lily of the Valley. Something brushed her cheek, with no more force than a feather, leaving an icy trail across the skin. A slight weight, as if someone had placed a comforting hand, rested on her shoulder. Helen jerked upright, instinctively throwing back her arm to fend off whoever stood behind her. She met no resistance and she looked up expecting to see Sarah Pollard or Lady Morrow, words of apology for her action and disheveled appearance already forming on her lips. Only her own face in the mirror, wan and red-eyed, looked back at her.

  She sat quite still staring at her reflection as the silence of the room closed around her. The sensation of the hand on her shoulder seemed to linger and she raised shaking fingers to touch her cheek. It had been so light but she could have sworn that it had been the touch of a woman’s fingers.

  Her heart thudding in her chest, she spun around on the stool to confront an empty room. Conscious she had been holding her breath, Helen let it out in a slow, shaky expiration as she fumbled for her handkerchief in her dressing gown pocket.

  “Alice, is that you?” she said aloud, her words sounding thin in the cold air of the room.

  She rose to her feet and went to check again on Alice. The child turned and murmured in her sleep but did not wake.

  Helen took a deep breath and wiped her eyes and nose with her handkerchief. In an attempt to regain her composure, she splashed her face with cold water from the washbasin and took a sip of water before climbing into the bed. She flicked through several pages of the cheap novel she had bought for the train journey, without seeing the words.

  Long after she had turned out the light, she lay awake staring at the ceiling, trying to make sense of what had occurred. She had been thinking of home and had willed herself to wish her mother was there to hold her in her arms and comfort her, nothing more. With this thought in her mind, Helen fell into a fitful sleep.