A Stranger Light

by Gloria Cook

  Len took up the tale. ‘And when we called on Agnes we overheard her talking to her neighbour about them. She said, “All we got to do is just wait and watch nature take its course. There’s an age difference, of course, but it’s better to be an old man’s darling than a young man’s slave.”’

  ‘Alice wouldn’t tell us what she meant, Mr Fuller,’ Bob had whispered, bringing his ear close as if he was hoping to learn some great secret of the universe. ‘Ladies say some strange things. Who’s a slave? Mrs Dowling? What will happen when nature takes its course?’

  Mark was used to speaking frankly to troops, but he’d been lost at what to say to a pair of sharp boys. He didn’t want them to work it out for themselves and cause Susan further embarrassment. He would hate to see her frightened away from something that would be totally right for her, and for Maureen. Tristan showered devotion on Susan from afar, and although Susan acted as if she might be aware of it and was often distant with Tristan, she sometimes forgot to be careful and unconsciously responded to him. ‘I’ve never really understood ladies. Chaps don’t. I’m sure if we did it would spoil things.’

  ‘What things?’ the twins, wide-eyed and heads forward, had asked together.

  ‘That’s a subject for another day,’ he had answered firmly. The boys had been satisfied with that, not inclined to pester and delve and pick away, like Maureen would.

  He smiled as he rode along Back Lane. His refusal to allow Maureen to join him meant she’d give the twins a hard time today. From his vantage position he waved to Faye’s labourers in the fields. As he neared the end of the lane, he reined in to chat to a pensioner and his wife over their garden wall. So broad was their accent he grasped little of what the white-haired and dark-clad couple said, but he gathered their sapper grandson had been killed by a German booby trap at Tobruk. He felt it was important to them that they tell him this, him being a former officer, and he had offered them his sympathy. He accepted their good wishes for his continuing health. It had been nice talking to them. He could have made his way anywhere along the network of lanes and avoided people, but he now felt able to show his face in Hennaford. He had heard a lot about the villagers. No doubt he’d soon meet some of its strongest characters.

  He headed in the direction of the pub, and after a few yards was a row of cottages; in between them was the butcher’s shop, and at the end, the general stores. He dismounted outside the stores, tying the hunter’s reins to the wooden gate at the side of the long cream-painted building. He ignored the discomfort in his lower limbs that would make it hard to get started the following morning. ‘Addi, stay. I won’t be long.’

  Before he climbed the four wide mismatched granite steps, a ruddy-faced man opened the door, making the shop bell tinkle merrily. ‘You can be no other than Mr Mark Fuller, guest of the Harveys at Tremore, sir.’ The man thrust out a thick paw. ‘Proud to make your acquaintance, to have you call on my humble little establishment. I’m Gilbert Eathorne; shopkeeper and sub-postmaster in this here tiny spot of the world these past forty-odd years. Come inside and meet my good lady wife, Mrs Eathorne, Myra. The horse will be fine there. No one’ll touch her.’

  Once inside one of the central meeting places of the village, Mark shook hands with the Eathornes. He knew it was from this bespectacled pair, in their early seventies and still sprightly, where a lot of the gossip was gleaned and passed on. Mark glanced about. Before the war he had enjoyed these sort of old-fashioned places, but he was finding it a bit claustrophobic here. The shelves were close together and packed with a diversity of goods. The Eathornes were able to order just about anything anyone wanted, from linoleum for floors to make-up, from walking sticks to baking soda. There were written apologies for scarce and unattainable goods, with references to the rationing and polite pleas for patience. Inviting smells of boiled ham, toffee and tobacco mingled with those of paraffin and coal tar soap.

  There were two hoop-backed chairs for customer use, and taking the weight off her podgy, veined legs on one, was a beady-eyed housewife, in a wraparound print apron, droopy cardigan and severely tied paisley headscarf. She had a well-used, checked leather shopping bag on her lap. It bulged here and there, so she had been served and was lingering. Mark was introduced to Mrs Moses. He could see she was a stalwart villager. The downward turn of her grim mouth pointed to her being intolerant and prudish. She did no more than nod when he said, ‘Pleased to meet you,’ but he got the uneasy sensation she was trying to look into his soul. Here was someone who was bitter and spiteful. Who was probably feared by her family and didn’t have one single friend, nor deserved one.

  Myra Eathorne, doughty, a natural giver of smiles, with stone-grey permed hair and starched white apron, examined his face every bit as finely as a doctor would. ‘Glad to see you’re up to getting about at last, Mr Fuller. You’re still far too thin, but I’m sure Miss Faye will sort that out. How is she, by the way? Will Mr Harvey and the little ones be joining her soon? And you also?’

  ‘Tomorrow, actually, Mrs Eathorne.’ Mark wished she and her husband wouldn’t stand so close. He felt pressed in on all sides.

  Mrs Moses snorted. Mark had no doubt she was one of the locals who had made Faye feel unaccepted. Tristan had filled him in on Faye’s troubles to avoid him saying something unfortunate when they joined her. This particular gossip had better not say a word against Faye. He wouldn’t have her maligned. Faye didn’t deserve any sort of pain. She was a wonderful woman, and he missed her. He was glad for her and for Simon that the boy’s father had made contact, but he had no wish to meet Fergus Blair, who was staying on at Watergate Bay.

  The shop door was swung open and the bell protested with a clatter. ‘Ah-ah!’ The owner of the bellow and a hearty chuckle came rushing inside. His white coat, striped apron and boater pointed to him being the butcher. Mark’s insides jumped at the commotion. There was nowhere he could go to get away from the butcher, who leapt on him and pumped his hand up and down. ‘I said to my boy, I believe that there’s the stranger from Tremore. I’m Sidney Eathorne, brother of Gilbert. It’s an honour, Mr Fuller, to meet one of our brave fighting men. Got the kettle on then, Myra?’

  ‘No tea for me.’ Mark had to draw a deep breath to stop his head turning muzzy.

  Gilbert went round the serving side of the heavy wooden counter. His ruddy face broke into a toothy grin. ‘What can I get you, Mr Fuller? You’re welcome t’look round and browse as long as you like.’

  Mark felt surrounded by avid faces. He stepped away from Sidney and his beaming curiosity, but the butcher relentlessly closed up each gap. ‘Just cigarettes, please. Have you any State Express 555?’

  ‘As it happens I do. I’m proud to say we keep in a few of the finer things for our more discerning customers.’ Gilbert turned round, took a packet off a shelf and put it down with a friendly flourish. He raised his bushy brows. ‘Matches?’

  ‘No, thank you. I have a lighter.’ Mark sensed hard stares coming from Mrs Moses.

  He wished only to pay for the cigarettes and leave. He produced a ten shilling note and hoped Gilbert wouldn’t take his time with the change.

  ‘Hear you’ve been doing up Rose Dew? See anything of poor old Jude who haunts it?’ Sidney asked. ‘You must be some brave or mazed to work there for so long. Nearly finished it, is it?’

  Mark saw Jude from time to time, and Jude didn’t seem to mind him being there. He was determined to protect the former farm worker’s privacy. ‘I’ve found nothing creepy there,’ he said. ‘Working on the cottage has been therapeutic.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad to hear it. What do you think Miss Faye will do with the place, Mr Fuller?’ Myra ventured. ‘You might not find anything scary there, but I can’t see no one local choosing to live there.’

  ‘I’m thinking of asking for the tenancy myself, actually.’ Mark thought he might as well admit it. If he stayed on in Hennaford, these people would be his neighbours.

  ‘Not thinking of going back to your wife then? As you very
well should,’ Mrs Moses said, with a noisy sniff.

  Mark saw all three Eathorne faces burn with embarrassment on his behalf. No doubt they’d all like to learn the private details of his marriage breakup, but it was good to know this was not the sort of gossip they went in for. He turned to face his accuser. Mrs Moses put her nose in the air and aimed back a gaze direct. He guessed rightly that she rarely looked away from a confrontation. As she tightened her hard features, her skin wrinkled to walnut likeness and she seemed like a witch. People must be more frightened of her than of Jude. ‘It’s none of your business.’

  ‘Don’t believe in divorce,’ Mrs Moses remained sitting, like a highborn lady pronouncing on the lives of serfs under her jurisdiction. ‘You should get back up to her and work things out. She should make the effort too. This war hasn’t done any of us any favours.’

  ‘Specially not the dead and maimed and bereaved, Mrs Moses.’ Mark took his change from Gilbert. He knew he should excuse himself and leave, but there was something despicable about the Moses woman and he wanted to slap her down.

  ‘My cousin lost her two boys in the fighting, and my brother was killed in the Great War. I know about bereavement.’

  Acid dripped off her every word, and Mark wondered if she actually mourned her family loss. ‘Bad examples are being set everywhere. Your hostess being the main culprit in the village. She’ll encourage the young maids to flaunt themselves. And Mr Harvey’s no better, preying on that young widow.’

  ‘There was no need for that, Mrs Moses!’ Myrna gasped. ‘Perhaps it’s time you left.’ She turned her shocked face to Mark in apology.

  ‘Perhaps it’s time you shopped elsewhere,’ Sidney said, opening the door for the caustic woman. ‘You won’t be welcome in our shops if you go on saying things like that.’

  Mrs Moses rose slowly, lips puckered primly. ‘You Eathornes are bound to jump to their defence, you’re too eager for Harvey custom. But I’ve only said what others have been saying, including you lot.’ She marched out on her heavy feet.

  Mark was furious. The Moses woman had insulted the two most important women in his life. He missed Justine at that moment. And again he missed Faye, so much.

  A blustering Gilbert said, ‘We all like a bit of tittle-tattle, Mr Fuller, but please don’t think we share that woman’s views. We allow for human nature and people’s mistakes, none of us are lily-white, after all. Mrs Moses’s husband left her for another woman years ago and she’s never forgiven him. She never was a pleasant person, and now she’s bitter and twisted. Can’t understand how she dares show her face in chapel.’

  ‘I’m afraid there’s little one can do against people like her,’ Mark said, wishing the Moses woman would one day know what real suffering was like. ‘They have no feelings, they’re rotten. Good day to you.’

  When he reached the door, Sidney blurted out, ‘P’raps you’ll do the honour of accepting a drink from me and my brother in the Ploughshare one night, Mr Fuller.’

  ‘Yes, perhaps,’ Mark said. It would be a while before that was likely to happen.

  Needing a smoke, he lit up and rode on, taking the turning beside the pub. Setting the horse at a brisk pace down Church Lane, he looked over the fields of Emilia Bosweld, hoping the hot sun and fresh air would quickly dissipate the bleak mood thrust on him. He cantered through fallow fields, jumping over the occasional low hedge, working up a sweat, growing thirsty. Wondering how Faye was. Her decision to leave Hennaford was understandable, but it was terrible that she felt she must go because of a few poisonous tongues. Justine had mentioned over the phone that she’d had a few unkind remarks over the divorce but she had laughed them off. She didn’t have the vulnerability of being an unmarried mother.

  He bypassed Ford Farm – he’d call in there on the way back – and wandered the fields and lanes for another hour. Stopping at the church, he read the names on the war memorial. William Harvey, Lottie’s brother, had been added in neat black lettering, with eight others of those lost between 1939 and 1945. How close his name had been to being laid on a Surrey stone. He saluted the dead comrades-in-arms and left.

  He took another long canter, then turned back, eventually coming to a meandering sloping meadow, the lower reaches stubbly from cut hay. A gently curving stream ran along at the bottom and red clover, meadow clary and comfrey figured among the pretty wild flowers. He jumped down and led the hunter along an oft-used path beside the cooling lazy stream. Addi raced off excitedly, and he saw why. A young woman was sitting near the bank under a towering oak tree. After receiving a welcome and a patting from her, Addi lay down at her feet. Mark reached Lottie moments later. ‘Hello. Hope we’re not intruding.’

  ‘Not at all. You’re welcome to join me.’ Lottie gazed up, shielding her eyes from the sun. ‘I’ve got some lemonade, if you’re thirsty.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Mark eased himself down beside her, rubbed at his sore limbs, and gratefully soothed his dry throat with a drink. He gazed into the stream, which chinkled along over a stony bed. ‘This is a very peaceful place.’

  She gazed up at the old heavy branches high above, thick with summer growth. ‘It was my father’s favourite spot. He used to come here to find peace, and it’s where, one early morning, he came to die. He had a tendency to brood, but I like to think he found the peace he was looking for in the end. I’m here now trying to find some peace for myself.’

  ‘I’m sorry about your father, and sorry that you’re troubled,’ Mark said quietly. He had only seen her once, the day she had come to Tremore House with her mother and then-infants, and Lottie Harmon had been vivacious and purposeful then. Now she was almost lifeless. Her eyes were dull and her skin was grey. Unless weighed down with burdens, expectant mothers were usually radiant.

  ‘I suppose you’ve been told my circumstances.’

  ‘Yes. I feel for you.’

  ‘Do you really?’ Her words were flat. ‘I can easily sympathize with you. You’ve endured some of the worst things a person ever could. You hardly know me, but you must have heard what a selfish cow I can be. I should feel that I’ve got everything I want, don’t you think? I’ve brought my troubles on myself.’

  ‘I’m sure others have contributed to them, Lottie. I know what it’s like to think everything you’ve been longing for is within your grasp, only to be snatched away. It’s a feeling that wipes out everything you have in you. It’s hell to deal with. Would you like to talk? You might find it helpful to talk to a stranger, and you have my word it won’t go any further.’

  Pulling in her face to forbid the tears lurking behind her eyelids, she nodded. ‘Thanks. The thing is, I’m a mess. I shouldn’t be, of course. I’ve never gone without anything and I’ve always had the security of a large family. But there was one important person I never really knew. He ignored me most of the time. He didn’t even seem to like me. My father. He died when I was five, and all through those years he became more and more remote and sometimes behaved strangely. No one knew, not even he did until the end, that he had a brain tumour, the reason why he couldn’t stand a noisy, rebellious little girl around him. And he’d wanted me to be sweet and dainty, he didn’t approve of me being a tomboy. My mother explained it was because of the baby girl they had lost. Jenna had been soft and delicate. He never got over the loss. Sadly for me, I felt rejected by him, although not in the way Faye suffered because of her father’s attitude. The Harvey men tend to be a brooding lot. My brother Will was a bit like that too. Thank goodness the trait can’t be found in Uncle Tris and my brother Tom.

  ‘Anyway, to try to understand the person I am, I’ve come here to somehow try to get to know my father. This place was special to him. He chose it as his last place on earth, and even though he loved my mother desperately, he chose to die alone. He didn’t tell anyone he had a terminal illness. I don’t know if that’s terribly sad or wonderfully poignant. My poor father, he was only forty-two when he died. Before you arrived I sat for a whole hour hoping to sense something of him s
till lingering here, to see if I could form a link with him, and he’d comfort me and tell me what to do.’ Her tears could no longer be denied. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Cry as much as you like, Lottie.’ Mark put a firm touch on her arm. ‘And did you feel anything?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ she said between sobs. ‘I thought I heard him whispering my name. It might have been just the breeze, but I’m sure it was he calling to me. Is that crazy?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I believe the dead come back to comfort and direct us. Did you sense anything from the call?’

  ‘No advice or anything like that, but I felt he wanted me to know he loved me. That he understood that I’m in turmoil. It meant a lot.’ She wept with her head bowed over her knees for some moments. ‘I don’t believe that my father deliberately tried to hurt me by making me feel rejected, but it’s a horrible feeling, isn’t it? Then I felt betrayed and misunderstood by Nate, my husband. He didn’t mean to hurt me either. But I took what I saw as his neglect very badly. His homecoming was ruined, and nothing has been right between us since. I’ve been beastly to just about everyone. I’ve been jealous of my thoroughly pleasant sister-in-law, Jill. I thought she had everything, you see, until I heard her crying the other day. I asked her what was wrong. She said she was thinking of something sad. Then I overheard her saying to Tom, ‘No luck again.’ Then I realized they’d been trying for a baby and were unsuccessful again. Here I am, soon to be a mother of two, and I don’t really want this second baby, I didn’t want another child yet anyway. Strange, isn’t it? So many of us don’t appreciate that we have exactly what would make someone else blissfully happy. Jill and Tom will in all likelihood have a family. I hope they do. They deserve every happiness. They’re so much in love. But things aren’t going to easily be put right between Nate and me.’

  It was a statement of her belief. Mark offered no platitudes. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘If you and your wife had children, I suppose things would be different.’