Tall Chimneys: A British Family Saga Spanning 100 Years

by Allie Cresswell

  He thrust me aside. ‘She needs to know the truth, Evelyn. Better to come from us, than from a malicious gossip.’

  ‘My father is dead,’ Awan said, her voice breaking. ‘He isn’t in prison.’

  ‘Oh!’ Ratton jeered, thrusting his jowls forward, ‘you mean John Cressing! He isn’t your father! Dear me, Evelyn,’ he turned to me with a look of bogus shock on his face, ‘what tales have you been spinning the poor child?’

  ‘He…?’ Awan looked at me, her eyes huge with questions, her mouth agape.

  ‘Awan,’ I faltered, wringing my hands, my eyes flooded with misery and self-recrimination. This, a small, prosecuting voice whispered to me, is what you have brought upon yourself.

  ‘Tell me he’s wrong!’ Awan screamed. ‘Tell me! Tell me, Mummy.’

  My poor child. I wanted to run to her. I wanted to hide from her. Her whole world had disintegrated into a million fragments and it was my fault. I held my hands out, palms upwards. I was all out of prevarication. ‘I can’t,’ I said.

  She wrenched at the door handle and fled.

  I threw myself again at Ratton. ‘How could you?’ I spat, beating my hands on his chest, flailing at him like a mad woman. ‘How could you?’

  He caught my hands to still them. ‘Evelyn, Evelyn,’ he crooned, ‘darling. She’ll be all right.’ He let go of my hands and tried to put his arms around me. I leapt from him as though electrocuted.

  ‘Don’t touch me,’ I said, coldly.

  His face, from a study of concern and compassion, became bland, utterly devoid of any expression at all. ‘Someone had to, and it was better coming from us,’ he announced, as though the matter was a detail of business, now effectively dismissed.

  ‘From us? From you, you mean.’ I couldn’t let it rest. Then something, I don’t know, a light in the depth of his piggy little eye, a quiver at the corner of his plasticine mouth, something reminded me of the fact that underneath the veneer of earnest restraint there lurked the Ratton I had always known. How could I have forgotten? How could I have been fooled? ‘You enjoyed that, didn’t you?’ I said, in a level voice.

  ‘Well,’ he turned to the mirror which hung above the fireplace, picked a thread from his lapel, ‘it seems sensible to establish a stake in the ground at an early stage,’ he said. ‘There has always been that skeleton in her cupboard, Evelyn. I didn’t put it there, you did. But now she knows about it, that’s all. So, like you, she stands at a fork in the road. She can walk one way, and trust me to lock the door on it forever, or she can walk another, and allow it to dog her steps and put the kybosh on her hopes for the rest of her life. And mark my words, it will do.’

  ‘You mean, you’ll make sure it does?’

  ‘These things have a habit of getting into the public domain. Being illegitimate is one thing if your father is a member of a bohemian artists’ set - all very avant-garde and glamorous, I’m sure, to those who aren’t too picky. But to be the bastard of a disgraced queer, (who, by the way, will be buggered senseless every day of his life if he gets a prison sentence), I mean, that kind of stain never washes clean, does it?’

  My legs were shaking so much I had to sit down. I collapsed into the chair behind me.

  ‘There now, darling,’ Ratton said, seeming to notice my distress for the first time although he must have seen how his words assaulted me, syllable by syllable, as he had spoken them. ‘Don’t worry. I’ve told you, I’ll look after you - you and the girl. You have nothing to fear.’

  His utter callousness astounded me, his calculated extortion was amazing, and yet I was as limp and helpless as a puppet.

  He looked at his watch. ‘Look at the time!’ he declared, ‘I must go.’

  He crossed the rug, leant over me where I sat and tilted my chin up with his finger. His mouth on mine felt appalling but I did nothing to resist him. When he prompted me I parted my lips and he thrust his tongue inside. It was thick, and too wet. I endured it. His breathing was quick. One hand slipped inside the neck of my blouse and pushed inside my borrowed bra. His fingers found my nipple and he made a guttural sound in the back of his throat. His other hand groped for mine where it gripped the arm of the chair and forced it to his crotch. He was very hard. He lifted his mouth off mine long enough to croak, ‘Do it.’

  It was easy, and very quick. He was so engorged only the least touch was required. He came with a spasm which shook his whole body and made him cry out so loudly he had to remove his hand from where it clutched at my breast to clap it over his own mouth. At last he slumped against me, over my shoulder, spent and weak. He rested there for a few moments until his breathing became more regular, and then lifted himself off me to straighten his clothes. He smiled down at me, a beatific smile, and said, ‘Next time, I will pleasure you. I am not a selfish brute. I understand a woman has her needs too. But today we didn’t have the time or privacy we needed, did we?’

  I muttered something - I don’t know what - and the next thing I heard was the door closing softly behind him.

  When I looked at the coffee tray on the table beside me he had left a scattering of coins. I wondered if they were for Patricia, to pay for the coffee, or for me.

  I sat on in Patricia’s parlour all afternoon. At a distance I could hear the murmur of conversation in the bar and the thump and pump of the beer engines. Presently these melded into the soft clash of glasses being collected and the rush of water. Finally I heard the whinge of the heavy outer door and the solid shot of the bolt being sent home. Then the building fell silent. I knew I ought to move, vacate the little room so that Patricia and her husband could put their feet up, but I felt nailed to the chair, my limbs flaccid and feeble. My future rolled out before me in dreadful detail; Ratton’s fist-like grip on my comings and goings, his jealous hand on my arm or in the small of my back, guiding, pushing, controlling. I could see the rubbery sneer of his smile - a thin veil of courtesy masking malevolent intent. I felt the triumphant glint in his watchful eye as though it bored into me even now. What nightly horrors he might visit on me I could only imagine but I expected an onslaught until the years of pent up lustfulness had purged themselves.

  And all this I would have to endure. He knew too much about me; my secrets were like knives in his hand which he could use to sanguineous effect, or keep sheathed.

  It was much later when I came to myself and realised Awan had not returned. How could I have forgotten about her? She must be terribly distressed, I thought to myself. She will need me.

  Without stopping to look at myself in the mirror to so much as tidy my hair, or consider the spectacle I would make in the ill-assorted garments I was wearing, I went through the back door, across the pub’s yard and into the village street. It was deserted. At the school, the playground was empty. The shop was closed - so it must have been after five - and Kenneth’s workshops behind it all shut up. His vehicle was gone - he must be out on a job. I asked at the farm if anyone had seen Awan but the answer came back in a negative. Then I recalled the plan to go swimming.

  The pool was on Clough Farm. The lane to it had never seemed so long or arduous to walk along. Dust rose off it and went into my shoes, which were too big for me. I took them off and went barefoot. Ann was in her yard, sweeping wisps of hay into a heap. Was it only three days ago that we had brought her harvest home?

  ‘Did the children come to swim?’ I asked her. ‘I’ve lost Awan.’

  ‘Some children came, but they’ve long gone home again now. That pool falls into shade early on, you know. It gets too cold.’

  ‘Was Awan with them?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, I don’t think so. Will you come in and have a cup of tea? It’s Jethro’s day at the market. He won’t be home until late.’

  ‘I haven’t time,’ I almost shouted at her. ‘I must find Awan.’

  At the top of Clough Farm lane I saw Bobby, riding idly on his bicycle. I hailed him with my hand. ‘I’ve lost Awan,’ I told him. ‘She’s upset - very upset - have you seen her?’
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  ‘Not since morning. We climbed trees in the knoll.’

  ‘I know,’ I raked my hand through my hair, my mind a whirlwind of thoughts; places she might be, people she might have turned to, dangers she might encounter. ‘She said she’d enjoyed it. Could you go there, Bobby, and see if she went back?’

  He pedalled off at top speed. Back on the village street a few men were making their way to the Plough and Harrow - it must be opening time. What would that make it? Six? Seven? I had no idea. A chill breeze sprang up. I only had on the thin, second-hand blouse and my skin puckered into goose-bumps. I approached the men. ‘Please,’ I asked them, desperately, ‘have you seen my daughter? She’s blonde, with curly hair, about this big?’

  They all sucked their teeth and stroked their chins.

  ‘Have you seen her or not?’ I barked out. For God’s sake, they must know, mustn’t they?

  ‘No, missus,’ they chorused.

  I pushed in front of them into the pub and rushed up to the room we’d been using. It was empty, the curtain flapping at the open window. I checked the parlour. The coffee tray had been removed but there was no sign Awan had been there. I stepped into the bar to speak to Patricia, behind the bar. ‘I’ve lost Awan,’ I said. ‘She was upset. Ratton told her… but it doesn’t matter. I’m worried, Patricia. Where has she gone?’

  Patricia lifted the telephone receiver with one hand. ‘You lot,’ she said, to the gaggle of men who were waiting to be served behind me. ‘Get out and look for this child. The beer will be free once she’s found but not a drop will I serve until then.’

  There were shouts of dismay and grumbled complaints but they turned tail and shuffled back out into the street.

  I hammered on the back door of the shop. Mrs Greene opened it quickly, her hands floury. ‘I know, I know,’ she said, before I could open my mouth. ‘Bobby called in on his way. The other two lads are out looking, and Kenneth too. He’s gone down to the old house to see if she’s there.’

  An hour, two, went by. Men searched farm buildings and haylofts. Children toured stubble fields and hollered through thickets, delighted to be allowed up so late. The women stood at their garden gates and discussed the matter, their arms folded, their foreheads creased in a communal frown. Someone set off in a motorcar to drive the road which led to the local town, to see if she was walking there, perhaps to the railways station, although I could think of no earthly reason why she might do such a thing; we hadn’t a friend in the world outside these parish boundaries. Colonel Beverage gathered a group with dogs and began to search the moor. Bobby returned from the place he called the knoll to report there was no sign of Awan there. I sent him down to Clough Farm pool - I hadn’t, in my panic, actually checked it. I wanted to go everywhere with everyone, but somebody told me to stay put at the pub so that, when Awan turned up, we could be reunited immediately. That little parlour seemed smaller and stuffier than ever. Somehow Ratton’s aura remained there, and I found myself staring at the chair where the day’s outrage had been enacted as though it represented the sum of all the calamitous parts which had made up the last thirty six hours.

  It suddenly came to me that Ratton might have taken Awan. Perhaps he had overtaken her on the road and persuaded her - or even forced her - to get into the car. I had no way of knowing how to contact him, but when the local police constable came in to tell me that he had nothing to report, I mentioned the matter to him and he hurried off to follow it up.

  It was almost dark when Bobby threw his bicycle down outside the pub and came in to report Awan was found. ‘She’s at the gatehouse,’ he panted. ‘Dad is with her.’

  News travelled fast. As I ran down the street to the entrance of the drive, I passed men hurrying for their free beer.

  ‘Thank you. Thank you,’ I said to them as they went by.

  There was no moon that night. The road across the moor was only the dimmest strip across the black heather and bog on either side of it. Faraway I could see pin-points of light, and hear the whistle which told the searchers there that the quarry had been found. I rushed on, my breathing laboured, tears running down my face. I had forgotten to ask Bobby if Awan was all right - unharmed - I had no idea what I would find at the gatehouse. I still wore no shoes. The sharp stones of the gravel hurt my feet but I forged on. I had to get to Awan. I had to know that she was safe.

  The gatehouse stood as it always had - as it does today, as I write these memories down - solid and dependable at the place where the moor meets the trees. At its back the forest whispered and swayed. Over the moor the coarse grasses and tufted moss quivered. But the gatehouse was rock-steady, the grey of its stalwart stones coming from the very earth that anchored it; timeless, faithful, a bastion against the cruelties of life.

  I pushed at the door and it swung open. Someone inside stirred. No lamp shone and the interior was impenetrably dim. Even so I could make out the nebulous shape of the old table, the friendly silhouette of the dresser against the wall, the hazy form of the chairs which flanked the fireplace, and Kenneth, standing square and solid between them.

  ‘Evelyn,’ he said, quietly. ‘She’s safe. She’s asleep, upstairs.’

  ‘Oh God!’ I cried, breaking down. ‘Oh! Thank God. Should I go up to her?’

  He took my arm and guided me to one of the chairs. ‘No,’ he said. ‘She’s sleeping.’ He took the chair opposite to mine, and let me cry until my tears were spent.

  The room was alive with ghosts; they hovered in the gloom. John, energised by some artistic idea, daubed with paint, his unruly hair falling to his shoulders. I could almost hear the echo of our love-making, that first time, and many times since, and recalled how the building had seemed too small to contain our passion. Awan was there, as a tiny baby - I had sat in this very chair with the mess of her afterbirth still larding my coat - and that other time, when she had gone missing, and the motes falling from above and the twang of some deep and resonant instinctive string had told me that she was above. Through my tear-blurred eyes I could almost see myself, as a child, kneeling on the rag rug before the fire while Mr Weeks filled his pipe and his kindly wife wrote the alphabet in the soot on the hearth.

  ‘This place,’ I said, in a low voice, ‘seems to be a sort of crucible - all the important things have happened here. When there has been nothing else in my life, there has been this.’

  In the gloom, I felt Kenneth nod.

  It was interesting, I mused, that although my words had sprung from my foregoing thoughts and could not have made any kind of sense to him, yet, he understood.

  ‘Is Awan safe?’ I asked him. ‘Was she down at the house?’

  ‘No, she was right here.’

  ‘I should have known. Is she all right?’

  ‘Quite safe,’ he said. ‘Tired… confused. But I explained things.’

  ‘Did you?’ I wondered how on earth he had made coherent to her the tangled mess of unwelcome news and revelation she had been subjected to.

  He nodded again. ‘She understands, now, about her father.’

  I sighed. ‘How on earth did you explain it?’

  The gloom shifted fractionally, and I knew he had shrugged, as though nothing had been easier. ‘It’s just the same as with Bobby.’

  Of course, I thought. Whoever had fathered Bobby, Kenneth would always be his Dad. How had I not seen this parallel? ‘And…’ I cringed in the dark, ‘she told you… everything?’

  There was a pause. Perhaps Kenneth was too disgusted with me to discuss it. The notion of him knowing just how low I had fallen - what extremes of desperation I had come to - was unbearable. His disapproval made me feel almost as sick as the thing itself. Oh! I didn’t blame him, I was disgusted with myself. And yet, through that mire of self-loathing, I could still make out no alternative. Now that Ratton had both me and Awan in his clutches, I could see no way of placating him other than by becoming his wife.

  ‘You tell me,’ Kenneth said at last.

  ‘I can’t,’ I burst out. �
�Don’t make me. It’s too awful, too shameful.’

  He gave his head a shake, irritation, I supposed. ‘Tell me,’ he said again.

  And so I did. Out it poured. I told him everything, from the very beginning. How Ratton had pursued and assaulted me when I had been a girl and how John had rescued me. I spoke of John at length; my great love for him and my crippling insecurities also, and how pique and envy had taken me to Giles Percy’s room that night. I talked of Monique, of Amelia, of the others I suspected had entertained John’s fancy while he had been away and I told him about Cameron Bentley - that great opportunity which had been snatched away. It was easy, speaking in the dark like that, surrounded by the benevolent spirits in that comfortable stronghold, pouring my life story into the endlessly patient and reliable vessel that was Kenneth. He sat in the dark and listened and said ‘I see, I see,’ from time to time, immobile in the chair across from mine. He remained implacable in the face of my anger and my tears, but nodded, and stretched out the receptacle of his understanding until it encompassed my whole life.

  My story brought me at last to the recent months and my struggle since Colin’s death. I don’t know how many hours had passed. From far away the church clock struck, but I did not count the chimes, and after a while the slightest lifting of the heavy darkness told me that dawn was coming. ‘There’s no money in the bank,’ I said, calm now after the turbulent retellings of the night. ‘I visited the housing office but they said they can provide no shelter for us, and Awan might be taken away. I applied for jobs but no one wants me except one man who said he would give me work hostessing in a gentleman’s club. Maybe I should have taken him up on his offer? How awful could it have been? But I ran away from him. The truth is I am unfitted for any career; I was born to be a gentlewoman in a time when gentlewomen are obsolete. And now the house has gone!’ The truth of this statement impacted me strongly. I think, up until that point, I had been in a sort of denial over it, but saying the words out loud made it irrevocably so. ‘I can’t even hide there, I can’t wall myself up in it because the walls are all rubble,’ I moaned. ‘I can’t even throw myself from the roof!’ More tears, but short-lived. My well was dry. ‘No,’ I went on, sniffing. ‘This is where life has brought me. I have nothing at all except myself - here, the sorry scrap you see before you, in borrowed clothes and barefoot - and Ratton stands ready to take me, bare feet and all! My self is all I have to bargain with, to pay over in exchange for anything at all. He’ll take it, and in return, he will give us everything.’