‘I think I’ve got everything under control, Mrs Farrow, but it’s kind of you to ask,’ Laura smiled as she took a seat. ‘I’ve a shrewd idea what that notebook’s for. The vicar told me you like to get people involved in the village events.’
‘Oh, he didn’t, did he?’ Roslyn clapped a hand to her face. ‘Trust Kinsley to open his big mouth. I hope you don’t think I’m only here to rope you into something. It’s just that I believe it helps newcomers to get to know their neighbours and to feel integrated in the community.’ She opened the notebook and held her pen over it. Winking, she asked, ‘What can I put you down for? Choir? An act in the concert coming up soon? Or perhaps you’re good at needlework and can help with the costumes. Or painting scenery?’
‘I was good at art at school and I used to paint for relaxation, although I haven’t painted anything in years. I suppose I could help with the scenery. One thing I do enjoy is flower arranging. That any good to you?’
‘Is it!’ Roslyn exclaimed, nearly jumping off her, chair. ‘You’re a life saver. Old Mrs Sparnock used to do the flowers every week until she passed away three months ago. She’s buried on top of her husband three graves away from your dear husband, so he’s in very good company, I hope that’s a comfort to you. I’m hopeless at doing the flowers. Mrs Tamblyn and Miss Buzza do them occasionally but I don’t like to call on them too often as they’re busy sewing the costumes and rehearsing their own sketch.’
Laura raised her perfectly curved brows. ‘Aunty Daisy and Bunty are in the concert?’
Roslyn swallowed a mouthful of tea. Her dark eyes were twinkling like stars. ‘Oh, yes. They do something in the comedy line every year. They’re a great hit with all ages in the audience.’ She looked at Laura artfully. ‘I don’t suppose I could press you to do the flowers this afternoon for tomorrow’s service? It’s my youngest child’s birthday today and I have such a lot to do getting ready for the party. It would be a wonderful help to me. I’ve got flowers lined up from Hawksmoor House. Mrs Lean kindly sends some over most weeks.’
‘I’d be delighted to,’ Laura replied truthfully. Bill had told her one reason he wouldn’t take her to Kilgarthen was because the villagers were standoffish and would never accept her. He had lied; becoming involved in the village life was easier than she could have dreamt.
‘Splendid, splendid,’ Roslyn said, repeating one of her husband’s jovial sayings and jotting Laura’s name down in two places in her notebook. ‘There, that’s organised that. You’ll find everything you need at the back of the church by the font. The flowers are soaking in a bucket of water. When you’re finished perhaps you wouldn’t mind shoving the scissors and things into the vestry and the waste on the bonfire round the back of the church.’ She rapidly drained her cup. ‘Now I’d better get off and let you get on with your settling in.’
Laura stood up to let Roslyn out and was startled to see a face peering in at the window. ‘Oh! Who’s that?’
‘Oh dear, it’s Mrs Prisk,’ Roslyn told her. ‘I’m afraid she can be a little bit too curious for comfort. If you let her in she’ll keep you talking all day.’
‘In that case I’ll go to the church and arrange the flowers now,’ Laura said, reaching for her coat on the bottom of the banister.
The two women waited a minute but Ada Prisk was lurking about outside when Laura shut the door. She didn’t lock it, Daisy never locked her doors, except for the outer shop door, until she went to bed, and Laura found it natural to follow suit.
Roslyn said forcefully, ‘Good morning, Mrs Prisk. Are you walking my way?’
‘No, Mrs Farrow, I’m on my way to the shop. I’m right out of flour for my apple crumble.’ She turned from the vicar’s wife and concentrated on Laura. ‘Good morning, Mrs Jennings. And how are you today? I know what it’s like to grieve for a beloved husband. Mine was a farm labourer and peat cutter. I see you’ve moved into your husband’s cottage. How brave of you, how painful it must be.’ The woman’s face darkened and narrowed like a metal rod. ‘But then you have no choice, have you? I’ve heard your father’s company went bankrupt, despite all the hard work Bill must have put into it. I bet you wish now that you’d taken the trouble to come down to Cornwall before.’
‘I wish no such thing,’ Laura returned, lifting her chin, her eyes tightening and flashing blue darts of fire. Harry Lean had wasted no time in trying to sully Bill’s memory, but if Ada Prisk was anything to go by, it was her father’s reputation that was damaged, not Bill’s. She added tartly, ‘What I wish for now is to have the peace and quiet and the understanding of those around me to allow me to live through my grief.’ She didn’t mean grief over Bill.
Roslyn was astonished at Ada Prisk’s piece of gossip. She had wondered herself why Laura had decided to move into Little Cot now when she had never made an appearance in the village before. She made a wry face at Laura’s counter-attack.
‘I’ll be on my way then,’ Ada Prisk sniffed and with a snort of displeasure she stalked on up the hill.
Laura looked Roslyn in the eye. ‘My father always advised me to start as you mean to carry on. I won’t let a village gossip get the better of me.’
Roslyn put on her headscarf. Slightly embarrassed, she cleared her throat. ‘Well, if you ever need anyone to talk to, don’t forget I’m only just across the road.’
As she placed the flowers into the pedestal that would stand in front of the raised pulpit in the church, Laura thought over her retort to Ada Prisk. Before Bill’s death she would have been so cowed she would have taken all the old woman had said, and more, without retaliation.
In one way she was grateful that news of the company’s bankruptcy was out; it would stop villagers like Ada Prisk expecting too much of her.
* * *
Laura climbed into the bed that Bill had used on his visits. There were three more bedrooms in Little Cot but she had deliberately chosen his room to prove to herself that she was no longer under his’ thumb.
Gazing up at the slanted beamed ceiling she tried not to admit she could sense his overbearing presence in the room. Many of his things were here, the war novels he must have read in bed, a half-full packet of his expensive brand of French cigarettes. The sort of clothes a ‘country gentleman’ would wear were packed in the wardrobe; he had acquired a lot of clothes and luxury items on the black market. His favourite cologne and hair cream stood beside his brush, comb and clothes brush on the dressing table. A trinket tray was full of cuff links and tie pins.
Acting on a sudden thought, Laura, searched under the pillows and came up with a pair of silk pyjamas Bill had bought at Harrods. She tossed them contemptuously on the floor. ‘I’ll pack up your stuff tomorrow,’ she glared defiantly at a photograph of him on the bedside cabinet. ‘A charity might be glad of it. Out with your things, in with mine.’
It was over two years since she had shared a bed with Bill, or rather since Bill had come to her bed in the large house he had bought in South London. She had been grateful to be spared his rough, insensitive lovemaking. After the first year she had not thought of it as that, just as doing her duty, and Bill had always criticised her even when she’d tried to please him. She had come to hate it when he had forced himself on her, usually when he was drunk. Apart from her father and chaste kisses from male friends, she instinctively avoided contact with men.
Her one hope had been that she would have a baby, something she had always longed for, to have someone she could love and cherish, who hopefully would soften Bill’s attitude towards her. But Bill had hated the thought of having noisy children disrupt his selfish life; he had denied her anything that had meant something to her.
Laura had gone to bed very late, hoping she would be tired enough to drop off to sleep quickly but she lay wide awake for hours. The road ran on this side of the house but she heard only one vehicle driving through the village, at about two o’clock in the morning. Harry Lean taking Marianne Roach home after a night out? She couldn’t imagine the dour schoolmaste
r allowing his daughter to go out with Harry, and so late, even if he was the richest man in the village. Was Marianne slipping out to see the good-looking estate agent secretly? It seemed so after what Laura had witnessed last night.
She thought about the villagers she had met so far. Most of them seemed pleasant and honest. Most of them had liked Bill. But then why shouldn’t they? They were ordinary and hard-working, they would not have seen the dark side of him. Most of them seemed to have forgiven her for her abrupt behaviour on the day of his funeral, readily believing her lie that she had become distraught. What would they say if they knew what an excellent liar Bill had been?
But had he lied to them? Perhaps he had genuinely liked them and been happy to provide for the village.
* * *
‘You’ve done a beautiful job with the flowers,’ Daisy whispered to Laura as she sat sandwiched between her and Bunty in a front pew of the church. ‘The congregation will be impressed.’
‘Arranging flowers is something a businessman’s wife is expected to be good at, but I’ve always enjoyed doing it,’ Laura whispered back.
She felt self-conscious. She hadn’t really felt like attending a service so soon after Bill’s funeral but had thought it a useful place to meet more of the villagers. When she had arranged the flowers yesterday she’d blocked out the memory of Bill’s coffin lying on the trestles in front of the altar rail, but now, wearing her black clothes again, the hushed atmosphere, the bowed heads of people in prayer and the rather mournful notes of the organ brought back the raw feelings of her hurt and hate. She felt she shouldn’t be in the church while she harboured such feelings of anger and unforgiveness. And she felt she was the one on view to the villagers instead of it being the other way round.
The Reverend Farrow conducted the service of morning prayer in a flowing manner and while Laura switched off to much of what was said and couldn’t join in the prayers, except for those said for Johnny Prouse, the service seemed to be over quickly. She stood in the churchyard with Daisy and Bunty protectively on either side of her and received many compliments and thanks from the congregation over the flowers. Ada Prisk sneered at her from a short distance and grabbed another woman’s arm and chattered away while looking at Laura.
‘You done a proper job in there, maid.’ The man doffed his flat cap and greeted her enthusiastically. Laura had to smile. This was Mr Maker, the old man who talked to the bees.
Roslyn lined her three young children up to introduce them to Laura. ‘This horrid bunch you see before you are Rachael, Richard and Ross. Ross is the youngest. He was the birthday boy yesterday, he’s now eight years old.’
The children squirmed with embarrassment and when they had shaken Laura’s hand and said ‘Good morning’, politely, they ran off to join some other children.
‘I can remember hating being introduced to grown-ups at that age,’ Laura said, looking after them sympathetically. She noticed a flash of white-gold hair hanging down from a red wool hat and saw Vicki Jeffries being carried out of the church in Spencer’s arms. He shook hands with the vicar and Kinsley tweaked Vicki’s nose, making her giggle. Then Spencer moved aside to talk to Cecil Roach. Laura watched Vicki. The little girl’s eyes were roaming all around the churchyard and they lit up when she saw the group of children.
‘Mrs Jennings?’
‘Laura,’ Daisy pulled on her arm. ‘Mrs Farrow is talking to you.’
‘Oh, I… I’m sorry,’ Laura stammered, coming back to those immediately around her.
‘I was just saying it’s a pity that Mr Jeffries doesn’t let his little girl play with the other children,’ Roslyn said. ‘He’s so protective of her. And she’s a bit too old to be carried around like that. He’s going to hate seeing her grow up.’
Laura shrugged her shoulders as if she wasn’t interested in the Jeffries. ‘I’m surprised not to see Ince Polkinghorne here,’ she said. ‘Didn’t you tell me he’s very religious, Aunty Daisy?’
‘He’s up the other hill in the chapel,’ Daisy replied. ‘He’s a Methodist.’
‘Oh, I see. There are a few faces I’ve missed this morning. Does this mean they go to the chapel too?’
‘Some of them, not all,’ Roslyn replied. ‘Mrs Lean from Hawksmoor House comes to church only on the anniversary of her daughter’s death. Mr Lean, her son, doesn’t go anywhere. The Penhaligons from the Tremewan Arms are Methodists. The Daveys from Tregorlan Farm come here but we don’t see much of them, except for Mr Davey, although that’s not because they aren’t devout. Johnny Prouse goes to both church and chapel, whatever takes his fancy, but no one really minds. Now the hospital says he’s over the worst, hopefully he’ll be home soon. Kinsley’s got the terrible task later today of telling him that Admiral died in the accident.’
‘Poor Johnny,’ Laura said, her eyes straying towards Vicki who was now looking bored with her face laid on her father’s shoulder.
The people began to disperse but Laura hung back until she was following the Jeffrieses out of the churchyard. She smiled at Vicki and the little girl lifted her head. ‘Hello, Mrs Jennings,’ she piped brightly.
Spencer stopped walking, with obvious reluctance. Laura ignored his bad manners and ill humour. She didn’t want to talk to him anyway.
‘Hello, Vicki, it’s nice to see you again.’
‘Uncle Ince said you’re not living at the shop now,’ Vicki said.
‘That’s right. I live just across the road. In the cottage with the hanging baskets.’
Spencer muttered something.
‘I beg your pardon?’ Laura said sharply.
He put Vicki down and repeated very quietly, ‘I said we get rid of one only to get another.’
‘Another Jennings, I presume you mean,’ Laura challenged him.
Daisy shot Bunty a worried look. She took Vicki by the hand and drew her away.
‘That’s exactly what I mean,’ Spencer replied.
‘You ought to remember you’ve just come out of the church,’ Laura hissed at him.
Spencer bent forward from the waist so his face was closer to hers. His grey eyes were like cold slate. ‘Your rotten husband should never have set foot inside it and he should never have been buried in hallowed ground. You and the rest of the villagers might think he was God’s gift to Kilgarthen just because he threw his money around. I knew him for the callous bastard he really was. You never cared a damn for the place in the past so what are you doing here now?’
Laura physically recoiled, as if he had punched her in the face. Her heart thudded painfully and her breath locked in her lungs. She paled and looked as if she was about to faint. Daisy rushed to her and grabbed her arm.
‘Spencer, how could you?’ she exclaimed. ‘Take Vicki out of the churchyard before she realises what’s been going on. Ada Prisk was close by, she might have heard every word.’
‘What she needs to hear is the truth,’ Spencer scowled. He strode away and gathered Vicki up in his arms from an embarrassed-looking Bunty.
‘Aunty Daisy,’ Laura pleaded, her voice weak and shaken. ‘For goodness sake tell me what Bill did to that man.’
Chapter 8
Andrew Macarthur stopped walking, put his suitcase and briefcase down cautiously at his feet, and anxiously scanned the fog-laden atmosphere for signs of dawn. Aided only by the inadequate light of a small torch, he had been tramping the lanes for what seemed like hours, trying to discover the whereabouts of Kilgarthen.
No taxi was available so early in the morning at Liskeard Station, and he thought he’d been fortunate when the strange old Cornish man he’d shared a railway carriage with had offered him a lift on the horse and cart his equally strange old wife had waiting for him. Andrew thought he’d been offered a lift to Kilgarthen, but the old couple had taken him as far as the village of North Hill where they lived and insisted Kilgarthen was ‘just a few minutes away on foot, ’bout two mile or so, boy’.
Although he’d listened attentively to the old man’s directions,
Andrew had hardly understood his broad accent. He had ‘turned right at the shop, walked down the hill and on past the Methodist chapel, then turned left and followed the lane for ’bout a mile’. By then, with not even a solitary cottage to be seen, he was sure he was lost. Eventually he’d found a bridge he was sure the old man had mentioned, then racking his brains for the rest of the directions he’d turned two rights, a left and another right and followed the twisting and turning of a lane. He seemed to be going nowhere.
He was cold from the raw dank air and in a very bad mood. His shoes were muddied, his feet were aching, his trousers were snagged on foliage sticking out indiscriminately from the hedges. His scarf had been torn from his neck by dead brambles and he’d had to fight to get it back.
‘Only one thing for it,’ he exhaled a long, impatient breath, ‘I’ll have to find someone to ask the way again. It’s like being at the end of the world!’ He wished he had a detailed map with him.
Hoping the battery in the torch would last, he strode on and took the next turning to the left. Before long he realised he’d made a mistake. He had turned off onto a rutted track with a low hedge running either side of it and his feet were sinking into deep mud. Cursing under his breath, he turned sharply to retrace his steps and fell over, his cases skidding away from him.
‘Damn! Damn! Damn!’ He pulled his hand out of four inches of thick, squelchy mud.
Hauling himself to his feet, Andrew peered all around. He couldn’t see the road through the fog, and over the hedges on either side of him all he could make out was a small expanse of rugged moorland. The fog obscured the view up ahead. Resisting the urge to swear in fury he picked up the torch and shone it on the ground to find his cases. He used his handkerchief to wipe the mud off his briefcase; there were some important papers inside it. Then he started off carefully back to the lane.
So measured were his steps that he didn’t realise someone was walking towards him until they nearly collided. His first thought was that he’d met up with a short, chubby man but a closer look under his raised torch made him realise it was a young woman dressed in baggy men’s clothing and Wellington boots that looked too big for her. He hadn’t passed her on the short trip up the track so she must have come off the moor.
Kilgarthen Page 8