The Hidden Dance

by Susan Wooldridge

  ‘You’ve gone quiet,’ she heard him say.

  ‘I was thinking about Mother,’ she replied. ‘Even at my great age, she can still silence me.’ And she thought, How do I put this moment in my pocket so that it’s always there to have and to hold? With the sun going down and the moon coming up and cheese sandwiches and cider and this man.

  Later that night, alone at Melsham, Charles, thank God, in London, she sat at her dressing table slowly creaming her face and staring out at the warm starry sky. Careful, careful, don’t rush any detail – keep every moment alive and well.

  She thought of Sam shyly kissing Mary, the wedding service at an end, the rickety old organ warbling the ‘Trumpet Voluntary’. She thought of her squashed hat and Johnnie’s face. And she closed her eyes remembering the first touch of Johnnie’s hand as he pulled her up the final rocky step of the castle rampart.

  All that talking – and the laughter! How long must we have sat on the pub wall? And the cider and sandwiches. And the pub that’s always been there between the river and the railway line. How often I’ve passed it collecting Charles from the station and never really noticed it. The Man In The Moon.

  She felt again the strong evening light slipping away into the warm summer night which never became quite dark as they talked and talked. They had to throw us out – me in a pub at closing time! She knew Charles would be appalled but she couldn’t be bothered to think of him.

  When they’d arrived back at Lily’s car for the second time that day, Johnnie had asked, ‘There’s a new book I’ve just read, may I send it to you?’

  It’s not yet to be goodbye, sang Lily’s heart.

  Two days later at breakfast, a brown paper parcel sat waiting for her. As she unwrapped the contents, even with Charles watching from behind his copy of The Times, she started to laugh.

  ‘Who’s sending you books?’ he asked, as though amazed that she had friends who would do such a thing.

  ‘Dolly Barton.’ And at the earliest opportunity, she ran upstairs and read The House At Pooh Corner from cover to cover.

  It was only much later she realised how easily she had lied.

  Chapter Seven

  Freston, England. June 1931

  When Johnnie Sturridge had sent Lady Sutton The House at Pooh Corner, he had done so only out of courtesy, a promise to be fulfilled. They had spent a pleasant enough day wandering round the castle walls but that would have to be that. After all, the woman was married and he was too set in his ways for any romantic entanglement at this stage in the game. He had been pleased to receive her note of thanks for the book but was immediately distracted by an invitation to tea at Sam and Mary’s arriving in the same post.

  High tea in their new cottage; speckled eggs and ham, shining tomatoes and Mary’s freshly baked bread in a bright white-washed kitchen.

  ‘I can see you’re not eating enough, mate, now I’m not there to feed you. Come along, eat up.’ And Sam had piled more ham onto his plate as Mary nodded at them, walking away across the garden, looking over the gate and down the lane.

  ‘Missus is coming. Lady Sutton,’ said Sam. ‘Mary likes to keep an eye on her.’

  Johnnie had said nothing. But Lady Sutton had not appeared. In some ways, he’d been relieved; sitting with Sam and Mary had been quite like old times, just the three of them. No talk, the men smoking, the only sound Mary tunelessly whistling under her breath as she cut, turned and stitched some old sheets.

  At nine o’clock he stepped off home, walking slowly back down the summer lanes to his farm. The evening air was drenched in dusk-scents, wood-pigeons gently fluting in the woods beyond, the sensual beauty all around, massaging his loneliness back to life.

  Alone once more in his cold kitchen, a glass of brandy and, tonight, a copy of Thomas More’s Utopia his solace, he sat gazing at the unlit range, trying to distract his thoughts from the pain of his boredom, the doors and curtainless windows locked against the beauties of the night. Slowly he drifted asleep…

  ‘Open up!’

  Thunderous banging.

  He woke. And the banging came again.

  A dream.

  No, again banging. He sat up. Oh, so stiff and his head…the banging going on and on.

  He unlocked the back door. ‘What on earth—’

  Sam stood in silhouette, the moonlit farmyard behind him. He was carrying a woman, she seemed to be sleeping, her head fallen forwards.

  From behind came Mary. ‘Get her inside.’ The authority in her voice pushed the two men into the kitchen. Johnnie, confused by all this sudden noise and company, stood blinking.

  ‘Come on, mate, give us a hand. Let’s get her onto here.’ Sam propelled him forward and they lifted the figure onto the old sofa in the corner. There was a mumble of pain.

  ‘Hush, hush now,’ said Mary and she turned on a light. Sam was saying, ‘Careful, there may be bones broken.’ But Johnnie didn’t hear, he was staring down at Lily Sutton.

  She lay folded up, her face hidden by her two hands, and although the night was warm, she was shivering.

  ‘Bad do,’ muttered Sam. Johnnie didn’t think he’d ever heard his friend so angry.

  Mary appeared with a blanket and, carefully, gently, covered the woman, talking softly as she did so.

  Sam whispered, ‘We couldn’t keep her at ours. If he comes looking, it’d be the first place he’d go. The husband, that is.’

  ‘What about a doctor?’

  ‘She won’t hear of it. Doesn’t want anyone to know. As always.’ He held Johnnie’s look of realisation, and simply nodded.

  ‘Take her up to your old room, Sam, she’ll be more comfortable up there.’ His friend carried the woman upstairs.

  Now, he could hear them, the floorboards creaking above. He cleared away the brandy bottle and made a pot of tea.

  Sam appeared back down in the kitchen. ‘Sorry to land this on you.’

  ‘No, no, not at all—’ He stopped and looked at his friend. ‘Good God, does this happen often?’

  ‘Not so much recently. Sir Charles is in London most of the time. With his lady-friend.’ Sam could barely contain his disgust.

  The two men said nothing more. They had thought themselves numbed by the horrors of war but here and now, this fresh violence left them both wretched and ashamed, horrified by the raw brutality. And its pitiful outcome.

  Mary arrived back down. ‘She’s asleep at last.’ She nodded at Johnnie. ‘I gave her one of your tablets like you said.’ She stopped. ‘The state of her. She’s covered in bruises—’ Unable to speak further, she bent her head away.

  The night crawled into dawn, the lemon-light of day filling the kitchen, and they made and re-made the pot of tea, the three of them talking low, braced for any sound of movement above, all the while Mary planning for ‘my lady’s safety’.

  ‘The master’s gone to London, more than like. He usually disappears after a “do” like this. But the minute he returns to Melsham, I’ll tell Mrs Benton – the cook – to telephone here directly and warn us. If before’s anything to go by, he’ll stay away in London at least a week. But we can never be sure. Is it all right if she stays here until she’s more herself? Me and Sam can’t think of anywhere else. We’d be the first place he’d look.’

  ‘Of course, of course.’

  ‘Perhaps then we can persuade her to go and stay with her brother, Mr Hugh. He’s a nice long way away.’

  Dawn turned into day and with it came the chatter of birdsong. At last Johnnie asked, ‘Do you know why Charles Sutton did this?’

  ‘Oh sir,’ said Mary. ‘You don’t know the half of it.’ She looked at her husband, who briefly nodded. ‘Seems this time she was seen with a gentleman in a public house, the day of our wedding, and someone saw fit to tell Sir Charles. Thank goodness, the sneaky tattle-tale didn’t know who the man was.’

  Lily Sutton stayed three days in Johnnie’s farmhouse.

  All the while he had to admit he felt a strange sourness, his privacy amb
ushed by the presence of this unknown woman under his roof, lying broken by the hand of another man. He wanted to be alone again. He wanted his solitary state. And his books. He needed no woman to be dependent on him. He had been married and he had been found wanting. He wanted no more responsibility.

  But Lily demanded none. She remained in her room, eating little from the trays of food he took her. She emerged after the third day, the ashen pallor of her face gone, only a tiny cut through her eyebrow remaining. She demanded no talk, no chatter. But sat on the outer reaches of the orchard, hidden by the apple trees. So minimal were her requirements that he felt discomforted by his own grudging hospitality, though it had been in thought only. He tried to entertain her by talking about the latest books and introducing her to Marie Antoinette, his prize pig. She smiled but never laughed.

  When she left at the end of the third day, Sam driving her back to Melsham, she extended her hand, a stranger in her stance. ‘Thank you for putting up with me.’

  He had replied, ‘You mean, surely, “putting you up”.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ she said and walked away to the waiting car.

  Left alone once more, his wish for solitude granted, he found himself talking to the silence, his head and heart filled with unspecified rage, rage at his solitude. Somehow her presence had unlocked the loneliness of years. He stood at the edge of the farmyard and gazed at the empty orchard.

  A week later there was a knock at his door and Lily stood there. Her Pre-Raphaelite pallor shone on his doorstep, her beauty saved from perfection, he thought, by the tiny white scar through her eyebrow. ‘Forgive me for the interruption but Mary said you liked cherry cake and Mrs Benton is so good at them.’ She held up a cake-tin. ‘I wanted to thank you for my stay.’ No smile but the haunted darkness had gone from her eyes, he saw with relief. ‘Come in, come in.’

  She glanced round the kitchen, no expression registering the bachelor chaos. ‘Can I say hello to Marie Antoinette?’

  Later, sitting in the orchard at her request, picking at the cherry cake, she explained to him, ‘It’s the summer holidays next week so Nickie and I are going to spend it with my brother, Hugh.’ No mention of Charles Sutton.

  ‘And where’s that?’

  ‘The Trough of Bowland. He has a farm and some horses up there. Do you know it?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, and said no more. ‘The Trough of Bowland, it’s like the Promised Land,’ his young wife, Sarah, had observed on their honeymoon as they looked out at the wide, wide plain that crept up to the hills and beyond into the mists of the high horizons. They had sat, Johnnie and his new bride, gazing out of the tiny inn window, so long ago.

  ‘And Nicholas’s summer holidays. How long do they get these days?’ he asked Lily.

  ‘Nearly eight weeks,’ she replied. ‘Until the beginning of September.’

  Johnnie waited two weeks before he wrote to her at her brother’s farm.

  Dear Lily,

  I hope you don’t mind my writing. Mary thought you wouldn’t and gave me your address.

  I don’t think I mentioned but my wife, Sarah, and I spent our honeymoon around the Forest of Bowland and I remembered we very much enjoyed an outing to a ruined castle at Clitheroe. I also seem to recall visiting an Abbey at Whalley. There are terrific day-trips along the Ribble Valley and to the Hill of Pendle, a favoured haunt of the Lancashire witches. I thought Nicholas might enjoy them. Mary tells me he is becoming a splendid angler.

  I hope you are well. Marie Antoinette sends her best, as indeed do I.

  Johnnie

  Dale Top Farm. 12th August

  Dear Johnnie,

  Splendid, splendid suggestions. We needed a few excitements and like Mother, like son, Nickie loves old castles. Clitheroe Castle was a great treat. Tomorrow, if the weather continues fine, we are off to make the acquaintance of the Lancashire Witches. If they are in residence at this time of year, that is.

  Nickie is thrilled with his new-found angling skills and Hugh has also taught him to play chess. We are both as brown as berries.

  We return at the end of next week. May I bring Nickie to tea so we can tell you all about our adventures?

  Lily

  Well, it had been as good an excuse as any to spring-clean the farmhouse; they hadn’t had a party there since before the war. Between Sam, Mary and himself, they rustled up a fine spread. Potted meat and spiced beef, veal and ham pie and little pork sausages, home-cured. Mrs Benton had sent over another cherry cake and Mary baked a sponge-roll and scones bursting with currants. Whipped cream in peaks sat ready in the cool of the larder alongside a large pot of raspberry jam, grown, picked and made courtesy of Mr Samuel Valley. Marie Antoinette sported a large red bow.

  ‘This is Nickie.’

  ‘Hello, young man. I hear you’re something of an angler.’

  They sat under the shade of the apple trees, wreathed in drifts of blossom, swatting flies and fighting wasps. From behind the big barn came the constant snuffling of pigs.

  Tea over, he and Sam took the lad down to the stream to plan a future fishing expedition, wading and mud cakes immediately becoming the order of the day. After a fair while, Johnnie left Sam and the boy to it.

  Climbing back up through the orchard, sopping yells and shouts rising up behind him, he stopped on the edge of the farmyard. In the soft peace of the late afternoon, he felt the lonely old farm absorb the clatter of life and he caught the sound of the two women washing up. Crockery clinked, a streak of laughter and the continuous gentle murmur of their chatter.

  Goodness, I’ve missed her. He stood looking across at the kitchen window, willing her to pass by so he could have sight of her. As if in answer to his prayer, she appeared, cloth in hand, head on one side listening to Mary, hidden deep within the room.

  Suddenly aware of his presence, she turned and saw him.

  Neither looked away.

  SS Etoile. Friday, teatime

  In the third-class general room, the teatime crowd milled round a couple of tea-urns. Out of this scrum, the wiry little Irishman emerged bearing two mugs and a glass of milk in his square fists. His grandson, small and square, followed in his wake wearing his purple turban.

  ‘Refreshments, ladies, if I may be so bold.’ And depositing the drinks, without waiting, the man scooped up his grandson and disappeared back into the crowd.

  Mrs Webb grinned at Lily. ‘Well, one of us has found a dancing partner.’ The iron-grey hair pulled severely back only served to emphasise the soft, broad planes of the big woman’s face but now, with this expression of dancing mischief, Lily glimpsed the courting girl; a pretty girl innocent of the tragedies to come, tragedies that would coarsen and weather-beat the round open face, leaving only the smile undamaged.

  Anthea silently got to her feet and, following the little man into the crowd, re-emerged minutes later carefully carrying a large plate with three biscuits. With the solemnity of a serving maiden in a temple, she offered Lily her gift.

  ‘How very kind. Thank you, Anthea.’ The little girl stared down at her sandals.

  Lily sat back and drank her tea; she took a bite of biscuit. ‘Goodness, these are delicious. Here, Mrs Webb, you must try one. And this third one must be yours, Anthea.’ The child whipped up the biscuit and jumped into the gap between the two women. They sat, all three, sipping and munching, watching the room.

  Mrs Webb remarked, ‘And you, Mrs Valley, you’ve got children. I can see that.’

  The statement kicked into life all Lily’s sleeping terror and astonishing fear drenched through her, leaving her body empty and numb. Her mind, however, remained clear and ringing so that she was aware of Mrs Webb at her side looking at her – anxious for an explanation. But she knew that if she spoke she would cry. Staring down, she stayed completely motionless, the only movement her thumb running back and forth, back and forth, over the tweed of her skirt. Somehow, anyhow, she thought, I must be still. Don’t speak yet. The fear will pass… Yes, there… She could feel it ebbing. Li
ke pain.

  She raised her head and looked straight at Mrs Webb. ‘Yes, one. Nicholas. Nickie. He’s with his father—’ She tried to regroup her words but faltered – then, despite herself, gabbled, ‘I mean, he’s at school—’ She stopped. It was still too dangerous to speak. No more words. But the strain was as a net held taut which instantly dissolved and tears cascaded down her face, bringing a relief that overwhelmed her.

  Mrs Webb was immediately burrowing into the depths of her skirt, taking out a handkerchief and flapping it open. ‘Here, lass, have this. Don’t worry, it’s nice and clean.’

  Lily tried to gulp back the tears but found the warmth and comfort of the big woman too much. She felt the overwhelming need to cry surge up again. She buried her face in the hankie.

  ‘That’s right, have a good blow. Anthea, stop staring! Take—’

  ‘But, Gran—’

  ‘Take that bucket back where you found it.’ The little clown dawdled away, continually checking progress over her shoulder.

  Mrs Webb moved herself in front of Lily. ‘No one’s looking, all got better things to do. Though they’re a load of nosey parkers if you give them half a chance. There now, that’s better.’

  With little gasps, Lily pulled in her breath and tried to control the crying. ‘I’m so sorry – do forgive me.’ Mrs Webb patted her hand. Slowly, slowly, the sore need to cry eased then ceased altogether, and a sense of stunned calm filled her. Weakly, she turned and looked at her appearance in the darkening reflection of the port-hole.

  She saw her face, all blotchy, her hair worked free of its bun. ‘Oh dear, look at me. Have you got a compact, Mrs Webb? I look like a pink blancmange!’ She puffed out her cheeks. Both women started to laugh, relief and comfort in the sound.

  ‘There now,’ said Mrs Webb, ‘in my opinion, you look a great deal better than before.’