The Dead Woman Who Lived

by Endellion Palmer

  “Juliana, how are you?” he boomed.

  “Enjoying a walk after all that rain,” she replied, her eyes sparkling at him.

  “Good Cornish rain, that was,” he laughed. “You’ll see plenty of it. Get everything you needed from Minnie Sercombe?”

  “I just needed some odds and ends. Stamps, and some cotton.”

  “Well, your appearance will have enlivened the post office for the day, I’m sure.”

  She smiled at this and then thought of Simon. She mentioned him to her companion.

  “Mrs Serombe looked at him like she would have liked to order him out the shop, but didn’t quite dare to,” she said. “It was most peculiar. And rather upsetting. And then, as he was leaving, another woman did this odd thing with her hands.”

  She mimicked the hand gesture and William sighed heavily.

  “She was making the horns at him,” he said, the faint Scotch accent broader in his anger. “Bloody pagans, if you will excuse my language, Juliana.”

  “But why were they so rotten to him?” she asked. “He paid for his tea like anyone else. She even checked that his money was good! It was most insulting!”

  William looked at her a little sadly.

  “Your concern does you credit, Juliana. But Simon does not fit in here. And to be frank, I don’t think he wants to. At any rate he shows no sign of it. His state of mind is not conducive to community living, and the townspeople all know that. Look, it’s too cold to stand here. Where were you off to? I’ll walk with you a little, if I may.”

  “Actually, I was going to visit your wife. She invited me to come down.”

  “Excellent,” he replied, and offered her his arm. “I need to go to visit a parishioner, so I will escort you to our gate and carry on up the hill myself.”

  They began to walk slowly past the Lugger, the windows of which were being cleansed of salt and sand and polished to a high gleam by a young woman in a sacking apron. William turned to Juliana again.

  “Simon was not born here, and the Cornish are dreadful people for not trusting outsiders. He had friends when he was younger, when he moved down here after his parents died—none so great as Jamie Evans. Pair of young rips by all accounts, along with the Roskelly lads, and the Enddas. But when they came back from France, it all changed.”

  Juliana was thoughtful. “They both served, I remember Geoffrey saying so. Were they not too young?”

  “A lot of men round here served, but those two lied about their age to sign up. They were only sixteen. But it wasn’t the manner of their going that people didn’t like. It was them being different when they returned. For a start, the two of them actually came back. There were many from Penwith that didn’t. Several from right here in the town. For two men to come home when others died over there, and to outwardly show no great signs of trauma… well, that was incomprehensible to many. They see Geoffrey, or Adrien, and there is a physical sign of the hurt inflicted. Simon and Jamie appear to have got off scot-free. It’s not fair, I know, but that is just how it is.”

  “I think it’s the same everywhere,” she replied. “And even the men with physical damage do not receive the care and respect they deserve. It really is unfair, to say the least.”

  William looked down at her, and she saw the question flare in his eyes. She wondered just what kind of woman she had been, before all this had happened. Had she been so blind to the plight of others? But the query passed and instead she saw only compassion there.

  She brought her mind back to Simon as they walked, barely noticing the neat rows of cottages they were passing. She vaguely registered the immaculately kept gardens, fresh with wallflowers and early jonquils. Through gates she caught glimpses of rows of cabbage and the odd washing line hung with rugs, the dust being slowly beaten from them with determination. But her concentration was on what William could tell her as they zigzagged up through the streets.

  “It was not just resentment from those women in the shop,” she said finally. “It was more than that. There was an undercurrent of something else. Almost… almost like fear.”

  “Frankly, it’s lucky Simon wasn’t born a couple of hundred years ago,” said William, not entirely humorous. “It wasn’t only women who were burned as witches.”

  “It’s 1925, surely they can’t still believe that!” Juliana said.

  “This is Cornwall, not London, Mrs Creed. In London, it is difficult to forget real life. There is so much around to remind you, so much going on. Constant rebuilding. But here, in the heart of the Hundreds… it is much easier to forget reason and education, and go back to believing in old magic and ancient things.”

  He looked down at her gravely.

  “They don’t understand what happened to Simon, to Jamie, over in France. Those boys bear no scars, apart from Simon’s hands, and no working man round here has unmarked hands.”

  “I saw them. What caused those marks?” she asked.

  “He was a stretcher bearer. One of the most demanding jobs there was. I doubt there was one bearer who came back who did not suffer similarly.”

  They walked on, past a small dog that sniffed momentarily around their shoes, then sat and watched them walk on without a sound.

  “No, the boys bear nothing that can be seen, and to the ill-educated that is beyond comprehension,” William continued. “They can see Geoffrey’s wounds, hear the damage to his lungs. They know it was gas, and fire. They see Adrien’s limp, and know it was a grenade. Fancy wasn’t the only person to disbelieve her son’s sickness when they came home.”

  They rounded a corner and Juliana could see, at the end of the street, the gate to the churchyard. They stopped before they reached it. On their left, through a neat garden, crammed at the moment with wallflowers and primrose, was a grey stone house, bearing the name Vickery House carved deeply over its front door.

  “Jamie got better, though,” said William. “People forgot his first months back here, when he never left the house and Damaris had to look after him night and day. And he was born here, right in the town. That’s another tie, and a powerful one. But Simon’s personal troubles continue even now. He is seen by most of the townspeople as fey at best, and he bears the added burden of coming here from the North. Many people round here haven’t travelled further than the nearest market town. Most can’t understand why anyone would want to.”

  He gave her arm a squeeze.

  “Don’t worry about it too much, Juliana. There really is nothing you can do. Simon is in God’s hands, and that is the best place he could be. And here we are. I shall leave you to the tender ministrations of my wife.”

  “Thank you, William. For telling me all this. I understand a little better.”

  He smiled at her.

  “It was my pleasure. Oh, and use the back door, would you?” he added cheerfully. “The front has jammed shut with the damp!”

  Waving goodbye, she pushed open the gate to Vickery House and set foot on the cobbled pathway. As she walked round the side of the red brick building, she was startled by a figure bolting from the back door and disappearing so quickly that she was aware only of a flash of a pale blue shirt and a mop of black hair.

  She knocked on the back door, and poked her head round. The room was warm; bread proving and a pot of soup simmering on the back of the range provided fragrance to scent the air.

  “Was that Simon Cundy?” she asked. “He seems in a bit of a hurry today. I just saw him down at the harbour!”

  Jean looked up from where she was peering over a pad of writing paper. She gave a wide smile when she saw Juliana in the door, and waved her inside.

  “Has he gone already? Bother! I had some supplies for him too, and some new bootlaces. His old ones are knotted beyond belief.”

  “I think I startled him,” Juliana began to apologise, but Jean waved it off.

  “Not your fault at all. It was me. I mentioned that his hair was disgracefully long and that I was going to give him a haircut—he wasn’t particularly pleased.
He came looking for William but they must have missed each other in town.”

  “I just walked up with your husband myself. He said that he had parish visits to do.”

  Jean poked the paper with her pen, then scribbled another line or two.

  “Mrs Rose, I think. She’s been poorly again,” she said. “Oh well, he’ll be sorry to miss him. William has a great deal of time for Simon, as we all do,” she continued. “Come in and sit down. I was just making a list for the grocer.”

  Juliana smiled back. How comforting this place was, with its air of homeliness and comfort. She settled herself in a Windsor chair, her coat draped over the back. A noise from under the table startled her; she looked down to find Jolyon and Lintie playing under there, a heap of small objects between them.

  “How do you know Simon?” Jean asked, finishing off her list with a flourish.

  “I don’t, really. Only that he is a friend of Jamie’s,” replied Juliana. “I did bump into him—quite literally—the other day, but he ran off before I could introduce myself.”

  “You won’t need to do any introducing,” Jean said with a chuckle. “What Simon Cundy doesn’t know about Sancreed and everyone in it would barely fill a postage stamp.”

  “He seemed fragile. Not necessarily physically, but…”

  Juliana was unsure how to continue. For a moment she had seen a blankness in his eyes that she had recognised as seeing in her own, looking into a mirror on nights when bad dreams and isolation had stalked her hand in hand. The sight of him scrambling away in panic had touched her.

  Jean raised an eyebrow. “I don’t suppose you met him much before, did you,” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” Juliana replied with a shrug.

  Jean looked ashamed. “I’m sorry, Juliana. You’ve slipped back into life here so neatly that I am afraid I forget that your memory is still a mystery to you.”

  “You are not the only one. It has happened a few times,” replied Juliana, wanting to ask if Jean believed her fully, but not ready to hear a true answer. “Actually, I quite like it. It means that I really did live here. I really did know you all. I am actually grateful for the way you have all just let me drop back in as if I’d only been gone for a short time. It has helped me feel at home.”

  “It must seem as if we are very cold about what happened,” Jean said suddenly, looking troubled.

  “What do you mean?” Juliana was puzzled.

  “Well, you’ve just found out what happened,” replied Jean. “For you, the whole thing is raw and new. But the rest of us have had to move on. We’ve had three years to come to terms with what happened. Juliana, you mustn’t think that it has always been like this. The first months after you disappeared were dreadful. Adrien… well, he was inconsolable. Trevennen was like a graveyard. Gradually things got back to normal.”

  “How long have you and William been here? You clearly know everyone well.”

  Jean thought for a moment, chewing on the end of her pen.

  “We moved here about six months after the Armistice. We got married as soon as possible after William got back from the Front, and instead of going back to the East End, where his former parish had been, we were sent here. Bit of a difference, as you can imagine. Adrien was back. He got discharged quickly because of his leg.”

  “What about Simon? And Jamie?”

  She was not sure why Simon Cundy fascinated her so much, except that queer feeling of kinship she had experienced.

  “Jamie was here, being cared for by Damaris. That’s what really set her on course to be a nurse, I think. She had her war work at a local convalescent home, and then got a baptism of fire when Jamie needed her so badly. Simon was in and out of hospital. None of them seemed to do much good. He ran away a couple of times and came back here on his own. One of them requested that he be taken away. They couldn’t help him, they said. Bob and Daphne were at their wit’s end over what to do.”

  She took some cups from the dresser and set them on the table.

  “It was Jamie, actually, was the one that found the right place for him. He has been much better since then. I think they finally got him to talk, and he had someone to listen to him. Sometimes nightmares have to be released, otherwise the pressure is too much.”

  She paused, and her eyes turned bleak.

  “He is as well as he will ever be, I think.”

  “Where does he live?” Juliana was curious. “Jamie said that he found the Cundy household too much.”

  Jean went to the range and brought the pot of tea back to the table, pouring out as she spoke.

  “Actually, he sometimes stays here. When it gets too cold up on the moor even for him. There’s a stove in the old summerhouse, at the bottom of our garden.”

  She sighed, passing the milk jug over.

  “I’ll let you pour for yourself. William always complains I put in too much!” She stirred her own cup.

  “Simon would be welcome to stay in the house if he wanted,” she said. “I’d prefer it, really. But he feels better on his own. And if he is not here, then he’s up on the moor. There’s an old shepherd’s hut up there. He has fixed that up and it is peaceful.”

  That explained Jamie’s visit the other day, and Juliana had a sudden thought.

  “You know, I can take up whatever you wanted to give him. I was going to go for a walk anyway, now that the rain has stopped.”

  She did not say that time was weighing heavy on her hands, that she was unused to being at leisure all the time, but Jean seemed to understand. For a moment Juliana was tempted to blurt out her worries over Adrien, who was kind and solicitous when they met, at mealtimes, or after dinner, but seemed to be avoiding her. When they talked it was of minor matters. The polite conversation between them was doing nothing to give her confidence. She felt increasingly that there was more to come out, about the year she’d spent in Sancreed, but no one seemed willing to explain it.

  “That would be kind of you, Juliana. There’s a new pair of laces, and some linctus there in case his cough starts again. I know he’s finished the last bottle, and I don’t want him to be without that. He had bronchitis badly in the winter. There are a couple of other things I promised him. You can’t miss the hut—straight up the path near the boathouse is the best way. Do you know where that is?”

  “Jamie showed me on Saturday.”

  “Good,” Jean said. “Once you know the moors it’s easy to find your way about, but we’ve had more than one accident around here with strangers getting lost, stranded out there in a bog, or falling into an abandoned pit. Stick to the path and you’ll find Simon’s little domain quite easily.”

  Jolyon poked his head out from under the table and looked at them. He produced a bag and held it out to Juliana.

  “Can you take these to Simon as well?” he asked. Lintie joined him, adding, “He likes liquorice too and he left without having one.”

  Juliana looked at the children gravely, and assured them that she would do so. Joly handed over the bag, which she put into the inside pocket of her coat, and then they disappeared back under the table, crawling in and out and round the chairs in their play. Juliana drank her tea, and remembered her conversation with William about witchcraft. She mentioned it, and Jean snorted, and looked cross.

  “I see them at service every Sunday, listening piously to William’s sermons,” she said, lowering her voice so the children would not hear. “And I know that however much they nod and kneel and cross themselves, inside each and every one of them is more superstition than you could shake a stick at. It’s not something they can change. It’s in their bones. They take it in with their mothers’ milk. And I have to admit that I’ve given up on fighting against it. When Violet Sercombe stands there and tells me that the pisky was responsible for the milk souring, I just nod and accept it. I know it’s bosh, but I possess neither the time nor the patience to convince her that the milk was simply left on the counter too long on a hot day.”

  They sat for a momen
t, finishing their cups of tea.

  “Simon is too mysterious for the townsfolk,” Jean said finally. “It drives me mad, but there’s nothing I can do to change it. He doesn’t want to please them, he just wants them to leave him alone. At least he still has Jamie. That means a lot to him. They’ve been like brothers ever since they met. Although sometimes I wonder if their friendship is now the thing holding them back.”

  She looked across at Juliana, as if she was about to say something and considering whether or not to go ahead. Finally she gave a nod.

  “You knew this before. You understood then. That their service during the War came much too early for them. Normally, children of sixteen are still learning to be adults. They are not flung into hell for two years, living every day wondering if they will see nightfall. It was bad enough for fully formed adults out there. Adrien and William will tell you that. But losing those final years of childhood, of coming to terms with who they really were—they did not get to complete their growing up. I think it was smashed out of them, and finding it again has been terribly difficult.”

  Juliana could see what she meant. Sometimes it didn’t seem that Jamie was much more than a boy, even now. Even after all he had been through, even with the serious nature of his job, she had felt that sense of being older than him by far. Damaris, too, seemed older than her brother, although Juliana suspected that nursing would do that to a person anyway.

  “I think I know what you mean,” she replied. “Jamie was sweet over the weekend. I liked both him and Damaris straight away. I enjoyed them being in the house. I hope they come home often.”