by C F Dunn
“Fine. Everything’s fine. Rosie, er, thought she would have some cake after all.”
Rosie ran her tongue over her lips. “Yummy,” she said.
“Little monkey.” Beth ruffled Rosie’s hair. “You’re as bad as my three. Better tell Mum, Em, so she’ll stop fretting.” I didn’t need to; Rosie had skipped from the kitchen back into the great hall. I admired her quick thinking and artless guile, but for the umpteenth time wished she could be herself and not have to project this image of normality imposed by society. But then I suppose we all do that to an extent, don’t we? Pretend to be something we’re not.
I picked out the hum of a car engine and recognized it as my own. “That’ll be Pat and Henry back,” I said, and went to greet them.
“Did you get what you wanted?” I asked.
Henry opened the rear door and leant in to retrieve a sturdy box from the back seat. “We did… and we didn’t.” Several plastic bags slumped in the footwell.
“Can I give you a hand?” He handed me a bulging carrier bag smelling of new leather. The edge of a buckle, showing at the top, rattled as I took it from him. I peeked in. “A collar, Henry?”
He straightened and, to my surprise, his fading tan deepened. “Ah, well, you see, we… that is, I, thought we would take a little scenic detour through Edith Weston on the way back, and we passed a sign…” The box he carried snuffled and squeaked. I inched back the lid. A small, black nose pushed it open and a hopeful pink tongue licked my fingers. I raised a single eyebrow.
He cleared his throat. “Yes, well, they were looking for good homes…”
“And you thought we might be able to provide one?”
“Well, it’s Theo’s birthday, and Rosie would like a… I know, I know, I should have asked you first. I hope you don’t think I’ve been irresponsible.”
In answer, I stood on the points of my toes and kissed my stepson’s cheek. “The children will love having a puppy. Rosie will love a puppy.”
* * *
“Awesome!” Rosie’s new word escaped from her lips with a reverential sigh. Kneeling by the box in the snow, Henry lifted out the golden puppy of indeterminate parentage.
“Would you like to hold her, Rosie?” He placed it in her arms, long legs and paws too big for its body, sprawling at angles. Lost for words, she could only nuzzle the puppy’s floppy ears as it nibbled her hair.
“He’s always wanted a dog,” Pat said, shivering in the brisk, damp wind from the north. “He couldn’t have one when he was growing up.”
“Matthew regretted not allowing him to have animals – the children, also – but it wouldn’t have been sensible. If we’d had to move fast it would have meant abandoning them, and a dog was out of the question. As it is, we had to leave Ollie. Thank goodness he was at his winter livery at the time.” I remembered our escape from the burning house; a dog would surely have given us away.
“Anyways,” Pat said, “Henry wanted to do something for Rosie. He’s so aware she misses her papa and he feels responsible for not being there in those early years. I know it might not be sensible, sweetie, and it’s another mouth to feed, but Henry will help Rosie train the puppy, and he wants to bridge the gap between them. He wants her to trust him.”
“It looks like it’s working.” Henry was showing Rosie how to hold the puppy to stop it from squirming, and she was doing her best to avoid the remnants of the buttercream being licked from her face, and laughing at the same time. “Thank you, Pat. If it helps them both, I’m all for it.”
“I wonder what Theo will make of it all?” Pat asked.
“I’m not sure if I want to find out,” I said, envisaging small fingers, pulled ears and sharp teeth. “Better make sure we keep him fed.”
CHAPTER
23
Break, Blow, Burn
Days lengthened, bringing early signs of spring in primroses crowding under bare-branched hedges and around cracked headstones in the graveyard, and burgeoning warmth drew me outside to follow the face of the sun. Bundled against the easterly wind and keeping a weather eye on Rosie, I sheltered beneath the orchard wall with the journal, rereading Nathaniel Richardson’s entries and imagining the play of events taking place a few miles from where I sat now, separated only by time.
Tired of running, Rosie climbed onto my lap. Cuddled together, I read her extracts from the journal mentioning her father and grandfather, until the point when William Lynes turned on his family and brought about its fate. I closed the diary.
“Don’t stop, Mummy,” she pleaded.
“It’s getting late. Look, the sun’s setting and my toes are cold.”
“Just a teensy bit more. Pl-ease?” The sky was beginning to glow to the west; gold became brass, bronzed, then polished copper, flooding the sky. The blackbird began its evening song and peace lay on the land. “Just a little more, then,” I said into her wavy hair, lit by the dying sun.
“Mummy, you missed a bit.”
“I don’t think I…”
“Yes, you did – there,” and she pointed at the entry. Canting her head she read carefully, sounding out the words: “It says, ‘… Upon said day the Heavens burned as with a mortal fire…’”
“You can read that?”
“It looks like Daddy’s writing.”
“Yes, it does, doesn’t it? But this is the sad bit about Daddy’s Uncle William.”
“Daddy told me.”
“Oh, did he? Well, in that case, ‘… Upon said day the Heavens burned as with a mortal fire as William came forth with a company of divers men and made war upon this house and did cut from him by grievous means the young master’s life.’” As I read, the bloom to the west intensified until it infused everything with an eerie orange glow. Rosie pointed. “The sky’s on fire, Mummy.”
Just like it was then. Some things never change. Never. Change.
I stood suddenly, dislodging Rosie. “‘The Heavens burned…’ Daddy said he didn’t remember seeing many torches that night, but Nathaniel said the sky was alight.” I grabbed her hand. “Rosie, quick, before the light goes.”
“Where are we going?”
“There’s no time to explain. Quick!” From the orchard through the walled garden past the barns and into the outer courtyard. From there, using memory to find our way across the darkening flags and under the gatehouse towards the residual sun, then along our track where the land rose to crown the surrounding land. Panting, I slowly rotated, searching the gentle valleys.
“Mummy, what are you looking for?”
In the dusk, I found it. “There, look – that’s where New Hall used to be; that’s where Daddy was born.” Extending my arms, I made a compass of my body. “That’s west – where the sun set; so that’s east,” I wiggled my right hand, “and so that must be north.” I faced the dark sky, with nothing but the first sparkle of a lonely planet to the north-west. “It wasn’t a late sunset, and it couldn’t have been the torches carried by the men, so what made the light to the north of New Hall?”
“’Thaniel said it was mortal fire.”
“Yes, he did, and it certainly wasn’t street lighting. Perhaps there was a fire somewhere – big enough to be seen from the manor.” I frowned, visualizing a map of Rutland. “Uppingham’s to the south, Stamford’s due east, so Oakham’s to the north.” I stared at the distant lights of the town. “Maybe there was a fire in Oakham at the time? Well,” I breathed, “there’s only one way to find out; would you like to come on a mystery hunt, Rosie?”
I’d quickly established that the local archive in Oakham didn’t have what I needed and had been directed to the Record Office at Wigston Magna, where I’d arranged to meet the archivist. My friend Greg had moved on, apparently, which was a shame because I could have done with some friendly forces. I eked out the petrol, keeping one eye on the gauge and another on my rear mirrors, half-expecting to see a pursuing car behind us.
“Where’s the myst’ry?” Trotting next to me, Rosie eyed the Victorian red-brick
building with suspicion. “It doesn’t look like a myst’ry.”
“I’m hoping we’ll find the answer in here,” I said, leading the way into a foyer so festooned with leaflets hardly an inch of wall was spared. “We’re going to meet the archivist. Do you know what an archivist does?” I picked up the pen sitting on the reception desk.
“Yes, you told me. Mummy, that’s not your name,” Rosie whispered as I signed in.
“It is today,” I murmured, keeping my back to the CCTV camera on the wall.
“Hello,” a musical voice said behind us. “Are you waiting to see me?”
“I am,” I said, turning around to find an apple-round figure, swathed in a glorious rainbow of colours. “Oh! Hello again! I didn’t realize you worked here.”
The momentary confusion on the woman’s face gave way to a radiant smile. “I know you!” she sang. “Stamford Museum, just before it closed. You were looking for a name. I can’t remember which.” She waited for me to supply it, but on this occasion I neglected to help.
Mesmerized by the colours in the hand-knitted jumper, Rosie stared in the way parents wish their children wouldn’t. “Mummy, she sounds funny.”
“Rosie, that’s not very polite.”
The woman knelt on one knee. “Rosie, is it, love? My name’s Judy – Judy Falconer – and I come from Wales. Where do you come from?”
Rosie was just about to tell her, when I intervened. “I’m so sorry. Rosie hasn’t heard a Welsh accent before.”
“Not to worry, love. I have two little girls and I never know which is going to say something outrageous next. So, you’ve come to look at the records with your mam, have you, now, Rosie?”
“Mummy’s coming to find a myst’ry.”
Judy laughed. “Ah, there are plenty of those in here. And are you going to be a historian, like your mammy?”
Rosie gave a firm shake of her head. “I’m going to have lots of puppies and be a sci’ntist like my daddy. I’m going to study… paletology.” She held out her dinosaur rucksack as evidence.
“My, palaeontology, is it? That is a big word for a little girl. Do you know what it means?”
Rosie fixed unblinking blue searchlights on Judy’s kind hazel eyes. “Yes.”
“Oh, right then, well, that’s good.” She pushed herself to her feet. “We’d better get on. What they teach them nowadays at school, hey, love?”
Sitting on a stack of files, Rosie began to fidget. “What are we looking for?”
“Anything that mentions a great fire in Oakham, sweetheart. I’ve found the one in Loughborough – destroyed over two hundred homes, apparently – but that was in 1666 and in the wrong area.” Rosie’s eyes began to glaze. “I’ll just go through these –” I prodded a pile of papers, and indicated the screen in front of me, “ – and then we’ll go home.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.” Frankly, I hadn’t found anything to get excited about, so I could hardly blame my daughter for being bored. I hunted around the room and spotted a discarded science periodical. “See if there’s anything in here,” I suggested, noting her brightening expression. She took the magazine and slid off the chair and went to lie on her stomach out of the way in a corner with it open in front of her. I returned to the database, scouring entries for the summer of 1643 – not that there were many for the Oakham area, nor any references to a fire large enough to be seen from Martinsthorpe.
“This is hopeless.” I threw my pen on the table and sat back to stretch stiff shoulders.
“No luck, then?” Judy squeezed between tables and peered shortsightedly at the screen.
I raised a wry smile. “That’s exactly what you asked me all those years ago in Stamford.”
“And did you then?”
“Did I what? Oh, did I find what I was looking for? Yes,” I said, remembering. “I found all that I was looking for and more – much, much more.”
“Well then, that was a bit of luck.”
“I don’t believe in luck,” I mused almost to myself.
“That’s what my husband says. Tell you what, he’s a historian, a bit later than your period – Restoration’s his thing – but he knows a lot about the Civil War in this area; studied it at uni, see. He’s taking me out for a bit of lunch; I’ll ask him then. No point in having them otherwise, is there?” She laughed, but I’d missed the point somewhere.
“Having what?”
“A husband.” She sobered. “Oo, sorry, I thought you were married.” She nodded towards my rings.
“I am. He’s away.”
She must have sensed there was more to it than that because her eyebrows took on a sympathetic curve and her voice softened. “Well, let’s see what my Tom has to say for himself. You’ll join us, won’t you? I bet Rosie’s famished. You can take the magazine, if you want to, love. Lots of pretty pictures, aren’t there?”
“He’s beaten us to it,” Judy said, spotting a figure sitting in the café window with his back to us, reading a newspaper. Spring sunlight reflected off his scalp as he turned a page. She rapped on the window and waved cheerfully as he turned. “Brought some guests,” she mouthed, pointing at the two of us. He stood as we approached the table, folding the paper. “Sorry I’m a bit late, love,” she wheezed slightly in the warm air of the café, kissing him, “but this lady’s in need of your help and Rosie, here, needs some lunch.”
Already smiling, he turned to look at us, but the welcome evaporated as he took in my face, his calm blue fluctuating wildly before settling to a curious teal. “Hello,” he said. “It’s been a long time.”
I frowned. “I’m sorry, I don’t think…”
Judy flicked him with her coat. “Don’t be daft, Thomas, she won’t know you.”
Thomas. Tom. Falconer.
“Tom?” I said, hesitant.
He grinned, the years instantly dissolving as I recognized the youth behind the receding hairline and broadening girth. Nothing could occlude the light, and he embraced me like the friends we had once been.
“You know each other?” Judy asked.
“We were at uni together,” Tom explained, pulling out chairs for us. “We were on the same course with that supervising tutor I told you about.”
Judy rolled her eyes. “Oh, him.”
“You haven’t changed, unlike some of us.” He patted his stomach. “I’d recognize you anywhere.”
“Nor have you in the way that matters,” I responded with a grin. “It’s good to see you. What have you been up to all these years?”
“Apart from marrying my lovely wife and fathering the two best girls a man could wish for?”
Judy coloured. “Get over, you daft ha’porth.”
He gave her a swift kiss on the cheek and winked. “I teach in a school,” he went on. “History to all of the senior school. Thank the Lord for school holidays, hey? I’m afraid Cambridge hols spoilt me so I had to find a job with decent breaks. I earn them, though. Never did understand how our tutors at uni could complain about the workload. Just thought they wanted more time to research. Would suit you though, Emma – you liked research, didn’t you? How about you? What have you been up to for the last fifteen years?”
“Teaching,” I said, stifling the urge to laugh. “At Cambridge and then in the States. This is my daughter, Rosie.”
“Hello, Rosie, it’s good to meet you. I like your bag. What’s your favourite dinosaur?”
I helped Rosie with her rucksack and she climbed on her chair and studied the pictures.
“This one.”
“Ah, the, er, the…”
“An-ky-lo-saurus. It had a thumpy tail like a morning star to go bash, bash, bash…” she illustrated with a clenched fist, “… and a teeeeeny brain. Daddy says it was a armoured cow.”
“Wow! I like the sound of that. Do you like learning about dinosaurs?” She nodded vigorously. “What school do you go to?”
I could see her compiling an answer that would avoid lying. “MummyandDaddy school,” s
he said in a rush.
“Oh, right, well,” he said, trying not to smile. “That’s a very good school indeed. So, you’ve been living in the States, have you?” he said, turning back to me. “What have you been up to there – apart from teaching?”
“This and that. Tea, please, and a strawberry milkshake,” I said to the lad taking our orders, “and Rosie and I’ll share a BLT, thanks.” I waited for Judy and Tom to decide on their order and then ambushed him with a question before he could ask me to enlighten him about the last decade and a half of my life. “Tom, Judy thought you might be able to help me with a question on the Civil War.” I removed Rosie’s bag from the table to make way for knives and forks.
“I thought that would be more your line than mine; you’re the one with a PhD on the subject.”
“Yes, but this is regarding local history and I’ve been out of the area for a bit.”
“Go on.”
“Have you ever heard of a big fire occurring in Oakham, or nearby, in July 1643? A fire big enough to be seen from miles away?” Rosie had unzipped her bag and was engrossed in the scientific article, swinging her legs back and forth under her chair.
“I take it you’ve been through the archives?” Judy gave him a What do you take us for? look and he returned it with a guilty smirk. “Well, in that case…” He scratched his neck, thinking, then gave a slow shake of his head. “I can’t think of any instances, or none that’ve been recorded.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. I teach the kids local history as part of their coursework. Why, what are you researching?”
“I felt sure…” I raised my hands and let them fall in defeat on the table. “There’s a reference to the Heavens burning, and I thought it must have been a fire.”
“Not one I’m aware of.” With his fingers and thumbs, Tom drew a rectangle in the air. “Breaking news: First recorded sighting of a UFO in England’s smallest county.” He shrugged. “Rutland has to be famous for something.”
Judy nudged him. “Not helpful, love.”
“It might as well have been a UFO for all I know,” I said, a touch gloomy. “Still, at least I can rule out a fire. It doesn’t matter; it’s probably not relevant.”