by Gloria Cook
‘And you. I’m not joking and I’m certainly not imagining it. I’ve seen it with my own eyes, Belle. I’d wondered about it once or twice but today in Merrivale it was unmistakable. The boy is besotted with you. It’s well past being a crush. He adores you, he looks at you as if he wants to ravish you. It shocked me, disgusted me, and I wanted to punch his face in there and then. If this isn’t nipped in the bud there could be big problems. I’ll warn the bugger off.’
‘Oh, Charlie, don’t do any such thing, promise me,’ Belle snapped, but it wasn’t Charlie she was angry with. ‘I believe you. You couldn’t be mistaken over something you’re so positive about. I don’t want you to get into trouble over a callow youth. He’s not important. He’s a newcomer, the son of a criminal and a neurotic woman, come to that. He’s not worth letting any hassle be caused to us, or Sam. You will swear to me you’ll do nothing. You nearly ended up in court over that persistent salesman back-along.’
‘I’m hardly going to lay into a boy, am I? And Finn is just a boy, although he doesn’t think so. I don’t think he’s quite wet behind the ears; he’s probably had some experience with a woman, likely a girl. I’d just take him aside and tell him his longing is inappropriate and offensive and to stay away from you, from all of us.’
‘I suppose I was a bit melodramatic but I can’t bear the thought of you being locked up away from me for even a day. And I’d hate for Finn to feel he’d made a right fool of himself, and for Fiona to be upset now things are going so well for them both. Leave this to me. I’ll speak to Finn, put him right.’
In the early hours Belle was downstairs pouring herself a large whisky. Sleep had evaded her as the facts and implications of what Charlie had told her went round and round inside her head.
‘Damn you, boy,’ she seethed under her breath. ‘You come into this village and lap up all the help people have willingly given you. I come to your house and you look at me with lust! You wretched little bastard. Who do you think you are? You’re just a lowlife nothing. How dare you look at me and imagine knowing me intimately, to want to take me away from my beloved Charlie. How could you think I could want you in that way, you’re just a brat, a spoiled brat who doesn’t acknowledge what his place is. You’re evil, a demon. Want to wreck my life, do you, Finn Templeton? Destroy my happy family, to cast Charlie and Sam into hell? Well, I hate you for that. I could kill you.’
Twenty-Four
While Belle was fuming in her front room and thinking murderous thoughts, Finn was outside in the darkness pacing up and down the bank of the stream, trampling down the grass and moss and kicking at it.
Greg Barnicoat’s confidential chat (‘A word to the wise, Finn’) kept thumping into his mind. Thank God his neighbour had taken him aside, to this very spot, at the end of the christening party and delivered his speech – delivered Finn from making a complete and utter ass of himself. ‘I’ll come straight to the point, Finn, and you must listen to me and take note. I’m speaking to you as a friend and as I would have done as an officer to the men under my command. Not for a moment must you sweep aside what I’m about to say, it’s very serious.’
At first Finn had been puzzled and worried the secret meeting was something about his mother. Or that he had done something dreadfully wrong. Greg had continued like a judge peering down over his glasses. ‘Verity and Dorrie have noticed that you’ve taken more than a shine to Belle Lawry. No, don’t argue with me. They wouldn’t have got the notion if it weren’t so. Unfortunately, Charlie has noticed it too. You must end this infatuation immediately, Finn. Dorrie and I know the Lawrys very well. They are devoted to each other and will both be deeply offended by your interest in Belle. They will see it as a betrayal to their hand of friendship. If you persist it will cause an unholy rumpus. Belle would shun you, Sam too, but Charlie would come after you with his fists. He’s done so before. He’s utterly jealous where Belle is concerned. He once nearly beat a chap to within an inch of his life. I witnessed it and Charlie’s rage was so great I couldn’t drag him off the man. If the man hadn’t wanted to keep the true reason for his severe injuries a secret, because he was married and didn’t want to lose his job, Charlie would have gone to prison for a long stretch.’
‘Don’t go on, Mr Barnicoat,’ Finn had muttered forcefully, feeling smaller and sicker by the second. ‘I understand what you’re saying, really. Thanks for telling me. I won’t deny my feelings . . . for . . . her. Now would you mind leaving me alone?’
‘Of course, whatever you do now you must – I stress must – hide your feelings for Belle Lawry.’ Greg had put a fatherly hand on his shoulder. ‘If you need someone to talk to I’m readily available.’
Finn nodded, miserably, desolately, his guts heaving and his head threatening to implode and plunge him into a well of dark despair. Alone, he bent over double and clutched his middle. He sank to his knees and hit the ground with his head. He banged his head into the dirt of the stream bank again and again. Fool! Stupid, stupid fool! You showed yourself, left yourself wide open. They know and after what Mr Barnicoat said they must hate you for it.
He was desperate to break off his anguished thoughts but peace refused to rescue him. He loved Belle but now she must loathe him. He couldn’t bear it. Where once there had been kindness and interest in her eyes for him there would now be contempt. To her he was a green odious child. He couldn’t stand it, how he had made such a crass idiot of himself. For one terrible minute he wanted to die, throw himself into the stream, keep his face under those few inches of trickling water and let himself drown.
Then from the cottage he heard Eloise cry and he shot crazily to his feet. My treasure! Eloise was his everything, how the hell could he think of wanting his life to end when he had his baby sister to care for? His mother was better in her health but it wasn’t written in stone that she wouldn’t have a relapse. Her mind might always be shaky. Some future bad event might send her down again to the depths.
Finn kicked viciously at the ground, sending grass and dandelion leaves and flower heads to shower into the stream. He screamed silently at the miles of dirt, earth and rock under his feet. ‘No! You can’t have me. I won’t go down to the depths.’
He needed to switch off his mind, clamp off his thoughts. He needed to sleep. He needed to rest. He was as weary as if a hundred years had fallen upon him.
Somehow he staggered into the cottage. His mother and Guy were in the kitchen, the only ones now left in the place. Fiona was holding a fretting Eloise. Guy was passing her the baby’s bottle. ‘Finn!’ Fiona shrieked. ‘What on earth is the matter? You’re dirty, you’re bruised, have you taken a fall? You look terrible. You’re ill. I must call in the doctor.’
‘I’ll be all right, Mum.’ He knew he was in for a panicky reaction and had an excuse ready. ‘I got bitten by a horse fly; remember when I was bitten a few years ago? It’s just an allergic reaction, and I tripped over a large stone. I feel sick and a bit strange. I need to lie down, that’s all. You don’t mind if I don’t help you clear up, do you?’
‘Of course we don’t,’ Guy said. ‘There’s not much left to do anyway. Are you sure you’ll be all right? Want me to help you up the stairs?’
‘No, you both see to Eloise. I hate to hear her getting upset. She’s had a trying day, being fussed over and passed around. I just need the calamine lotion and to sleep.’
‘I’ll look in on you in an hour,’ Fiona said.
Finn nodded and squeezed out a weak smile. He had to get away from them. By willpower alone he walked as steadily as he could into the sitting room. He grabbed a half-full bottle of sherry and crawled up the stairs. Ripping off his suit jacket and tie and kicking off his shoes, he glugged down the sherry until it was empty, coughing and snorting and gasping, the pain of his heart shredding him. He threw the bottle under the bed, yanked his curtains across to darken the room, got in under the bedspread and pulled it up over his head. Soon the drunkenness blotted out his raging torment taking him straight into sleep.
He was back on the bank of the stream. He couldn’t hear the water’s innocent dripping and trickling, the fire of his wrath and the stamping of his feet were blocking it and all else out. He never wanted to see Belle again. He knew now he had never really been in love with her, just the image he had made of her, what he had thought her to be. The pedestal on which he had placed her was crushed to dust, as he felt his sanity was when he woke up feeling so sick he feared he would die.
The wild beating of his heart echoed throughout his brain, round and round growing louder and louder, seeming about to split his skull open and spill his brain on his pillow. Drinking so much sherry so quickly had poisoned him. It probably wouldn’t kill him but if he didn’t do something about it he’d be seriously ill for days. His throat was dry as a drought. He was dangerously dehydrated. And he was going to throw up! Heaving aside the bedspread he somehow got to the bathroom. Soon after he was bent over the toilet bowl, down on his knees, his mother was there, rubbing his back, talking. He didn’t know what she was saying but was sure it was the usual soothing stuff to suit the circumstances.
When at last he raised his spinning head and sat against the bathroom wall groaning with the pain in his head and his guts Fiona said she was going to telephone for the doctor.
‘No,’ he moaned, shivering and twitching. ‘I didn’t really get stung . . . got drunk too much, sorry. Need water . . . lots of it.’
‘Oh, Finn, how could you have been so silly? I hope this will be a lesson to you,’ Fiona tutted, vexed, yet her tone had sympathy for it was easy to see he was suffering horribly. She filled glass after glass of water for him but made him sip it slowly. ‘You won’t be fit to work at Petherton for a few days. I’ll let Mrs Mitchelmore know.’
He wasn’t going to argue with that. The last thing he wanted was to show his face anywhere for a while. Getting drunk that way was a harsh lesson to him and not the only one. He had learned not to make snap dreamy judgements about a woman no matter how beautiful she was, and that there was no such thing as love at first sight. Belle Lawry’s beauty was only skin-deep. How could she be offended – as Greg Barnicoat said she would be – because another man fancied her? His infatuation had been a sexual one but what did she expect? If she didn’t want to be noticed, she should dress more like a housewife, make herself a bit frumpy. She was not a deliberate temptress but she was a fake, putting herself forward as all sweetness and light. Yet she did flaunt her sexuality – she had been pregnant when she’d married her bloody smart-ass husband!
‘Keep to your ready-fisted big-headed husband.’ He aimed his words down the hill and past the crossroads and Sunny Corner to The Orchards. ‘Don’t come near me again. I’ll show you both you’re wrong, that Mrs R and Verity got it wrong. I’ll concentrate on Tilly, a decent, natural girl, and I’ll treat her with utter respect.’
Thanks to the timely intervention of his real friends he had avoided being made to be the biggest fool, a figure for gossip and ridicule. His reputation and pride were more important to him than some fruit-grower’s wife. Finn gave an ironic laugh. He had something of his father in him after all – and he realized that wasn’t a bad thing.
He had a plan, a good one that might stand him in good stead for the future. He should have plunged in straight away at the suggestion that he partner Mrs R at trying to get a book of illustrated poems published together. He would work his heart out on it. Mrs R had dropped in some selected poems but so far he had only browsed through them – that was what made him a fool, not concentrating on his future; after all his future was tied in with Eloise’s and she was his priority. That meant he had to do what was best for her and although it went against the stamp of him, he must shuffle off his pride and go to Guy, ask him to sponsor him in getting a place at an art college. Finn wasn’t so big-headed he didn’t realize he still had a lot to learn about his chosen craft. This would delight and satisfy his mother and be good for her and in turn good for Eloise, and that was his goal, the only thing that mattered to him.
He had only a day’s work left on the first cellar at Petherton, and if Mrs Mitchelmore didn’t like him having some time off, then too bad. He felt guilty over his attitude. He rather liked Esther Mitchelmore with her forthrightness, and occasionally it surfaced that she had a racy, even barrack room sense of humour. He hoped she wouldn’t mind waiting for him to be well again to finish tidying and cleaning the last part of the cellar and burning the rubbish – he was looking forward to putting a match to the gigantic bonfire he’d built, for Mrs M had kept little of the cellar’s contents. She had turned down his suggestion that she call in Denny Vercoe and get a few bob for the rickety furniture and odds and ends, which he could mend and sell on. ‘It’s all part of Petherton and my husband family’s past and there it shall stay,’ she had declared firmly.
The only time he was going to leave home while working on the art for Mrs R’s poems was if Mrs Mitchelmore still wanted him to carry on at Petherton and start on the second cellar. And to see Tilly. Sweet, innocent Tilly, when she smiled was adorable. He had a plan for her.
Twenty-Five
Esther was in the little upstairs room of the Olde Plough, sometimes used for wedding receptions, where she had called the next meeting of the village hall committee. A long, plain room, it nonetheless had a few splashes of grandeur, all gifts from ancestral Mitchelmores: a huge elongated gilded framed mirror, a mahogany hour-striking clock and an array of embroidered Biblical scenes. A couple of uninspiring bronze equestrian groups sat up out of reach on the heavy oak mantel shelf above the yawning brick fireplace. Keeping company with the bronzes were some tarnished silver cups won in local darts tournaments. The thick brocade curtains at the diamond leaded windows were also originally from Petherton, cast-offs. Once a wine colour, they had fallen via time and sunlight to a grubby brown. Now too fragile to launder they were thick with dust, as Esther had found out to her chagrin. The meeting room, she felt, was a little part of the Petherton estate and she was cross that all in all it had been allowed to languish into sloppy disorder.
The landlord and his wife, Johnny and Margaret Westlake, were loosely related to Denny Vercoe and embraced the Vercoes’ lackadaisical way of life. Esther had complained about the tarnish and dust, but Johnny and Margaret, both commonplace and ebullient hosts, had laughingly told Esther to mind her own business.
‘You won’t be laughing when all the meetings I’m involved in are held in the new village hall in future and your drink takings are down,’ Esther muttered cuttingly.
She sat down at the ‘top table’, having previously asked Johnny to set out two other tables at right angles to it. The people of Nanviscoe had their lives to get on with and only a few of them were capable of being a pioneering leader – Greg Barnicoat came to mind but he was too nice, didn’t like offending anyone and that was a necessary part of true leadership. Esther quite enjoyed offending those she thought deserved it. Her prime target had been the late, barely missed Delia Newton. Jack Newton should be leadership material but his father’s incessant cruelty had leeched anything useful out of him. Jack, when he wasn’t tom-catting, set about making amends to the world for the brute Randall’s existence in it. Esther secretly liked Jack. She also liked Finn Templeton, currently recovering from severe dyspepsia, but she wasn’t one to admit to anyone she favoured. Jack was at last throwing off his morbid widower weeds, letting go of the lingering threads of his peculiar tragic young wife, credit to the presence in his life of the fully womanly Verity Barnicoat. Like Dorrie Resterick, Esther had met Lucinda Newton while making the usual respectful first visit. Esther had left appalled by the freakish perpetual child, who had allowed Esther to preside over the tea and cake, and she had been glad to get away and had never called back. In Esther’s opinion Lucinda was verging on being a dangerous being. Thank goodness she had killed herself and not someone else.
Esther had her large notebook ready to record the more important decisions. Hector Evans would jot down the mi
nutes of the meeting. Soames, as a businessman, was treasurer and would take hall bookings. It would be handy for people to make them in the Stores. Esther always arrived early for meetings so she could get her thoughts together. On this afternoon’s agenda were the decisions about what the nearly completed hall should be called, when the official opening day should be held and who should do the honours of opening it, and what sort of occasion it should be.
She was surprised when the first committee member came in. ‘Good heavens! Honoria, this is a first for you. You’re twenty minutes early and you usually arrive when a meeting is nearly over. Is there a problem?’
‘Not in the least, I just happened to have got on early today. Thought I’d pop along early for a tête-à-tête. When I know when the hall is to be opened I shall plan to spend the winter in sunnier climes, my first time away since the war broke out. Not much choice really, with so many countries still suffering the ravages. I’m thinking of the Caribbean, somewhere not too native.’
Honoria sat down on the right of her sister at a separate table. She snapped open her beige handbag and slid out her cigarettes. A minute later she and Esther were smoking, sharing a cheap tin ashtray, having to stretch out their arms to reach it. ‘The thing is, will you be all right when I’m out of the country? It will be a few months. If you’d rather I didn’t go then I won’t. Of course, I can cut my stay short; you’d only have to make a call. Such a pity you can’t come with me. Why not let me get you a passport? The contacts I used to sort out those beastly blackmailers could easily get you a passport that even the most diligent customs officer would think was real. They got you the necessary papers and ration cards. You can trust them, darling.’
Esther shook her head emphatically. ‘I’m too afraid to take the risk. Their man wasn’t careful enough and was quite easily caught. He might have spilled the beans. He might not have known who asked his bosses to put up the hit but it might have led to you and then to me. I’d kill myself rather than face a day’s questioning. The truth would be discovered and I couldn’t bear that. You know what they’d do to me, the scandal would be unprecedented and all I have is my name, my good name. I’d love to go abroad like we did in the old days but I’m quite happy in my home. I never thought I’d have such a big home where I can be the lady of all I survey. I’m quite content to put my life and energy into Nanviscoe, to be thought of as a do-gooder battleaxe. You go away, Honny, and enjoy yourself. I’ll be fine.’
