The Guest Who Stayed

by Roger Penfound

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Published in 2013 by Performance Media Ltd.

  The Guest Who Stayed: Prologue

  The Guest Who Stayed: Chapter 1 – 1915 – 1917

  The Guest Who Stayed: Chapter 2 – Autumn 1919

  The Guest Who Stayed: Chapter 3 – Winter 1919

  The Guest Who Stayed: Chapter 4 – Spring 1920

  The Guest Who Stayed: Chapter 5 – Summer 1920

  The Guest Who Stayed: Chapter 6 – September 1920

  The Guest Who Stayed: Chapter 7 – Late 1920

  The Guest Who Stayed: Chapter 8 – Spring 1921

  The Guest Who Stayed: Chapter 9 – Summer 1921

  The Guest Who Stayed: Chapter 10 – August Bank Holiday 1921

  The Guest Who Stayed: Chapter 11 – August 1921

  The Guest Who Stayed: Chapter 12 – August 1921

  The Guest Who Stayed: Chapter 13 – August 1921

  The Guest Who Stayed: Chapter 14 – August 1921

  The Guest Who Stayed: Chapter 15 – October 1921

  The Guest Who Stayed: Chapter 16 – Winter 1921 – Autumn 1922

  The Guest Who Stayed: Chapter 17 – Christmas 1927

  The Guest Who Stayed: Chapter 18 – Spring 1928

  The Guest Who Stayed: Chapter 19 – July 1940

  The Guest Who Stayed: Chapter 20 – Summer 1942

  The Guest Who Stayed: Chapter 21 – February 1946

  The Guest Who Stayed: Chapter 22 – 1947

  The Guest Who Stayed: Chapter 23 – August 1960

  About the Author:

  The Guest Who Stayed

  by

  Roger Penfound

  Published in 2013 by Performance Media Ltd.

  Copyright © Roger Penfound

  First Edition

  The author has asserted their moral right under the

  Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified

  as the author of this work.

  All Rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, copied, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the copyright holder, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  The Guest Who Stayed is the first book in the Destiny series. Book 2 – Devious Affairs – is available from Amazon at:

  https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01N6B5SRC

  &

  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N6B5SRC

  You can discover other books published by this author and join Roger Penfound’s mailing list by visiting:

  www.rogerpenfound.com

  The Guest Who Stayed: Prologue

  As consciousness penetrated the black infinity in which he was immersed, Jed’s first impression was of pain. It felt as if a hammer was striking the inside of his forehead with relentless ferocity, whilst a more acute sense of agony gripped the back of his head – as if someone was trying to burrow their way in through his scalp.

  He recognised the first pain as merely that of an excruciating hangover. The rancid taste in his mouth confirmed the presence of stale alcohol coating his teeth and gums. But it was the pain at the back of his head that confused him. Had he fallen? Had he been attacked?

  Up till now, he had not subjected any part of his body to the test of movement. Now, slowly, he tried to connect with his limbs. He felt his legs move across some sort of dirt or gravel surface. His fingers responded but he felt new pain lacerate his shoulders and arms.

  He paused, trying to recollect where he was. Eventually he tried opening his eyes. The pain in his forehead increased immediately forcing him to clamp his eyes shut again. Gingerly, he squinted from behind half closed lids. The place was in semi–darkness. He could make out a door in a wall from under which shards of light reached into the room.

  He closed his eyes again and tried to remember. There had been a fight. Alice was there. She had been naked, screaming and hitting him. He remembered entering the house. He was holding his shotgun. He had wanted to teach them both a lesson.

  Before that, he could remember sitting in his shed, watching them through the half pulled curtains as he eased his pain with whisky, seeing them as they laughed together and crying as he saw them kiss.

  He carried the gun up the stairs. Was he just going to frighten them or kill them? He couldn’t remember. Bursting into her room, he had faltered. Then she was there – upon him – screaming. A hand jerked him from behind, wheeling his body round. He came face to face with Jack whose fist made splintering contact with Jed’s chin. As he spun round again and fell, Alice pinned him to the floor, spreading her naked body across his. He remembered briefly inhaling her perfume and thinking how beautiful she looked. She reached for his gun. He tried to pull it away. Then the shot; a deafening crack; more screaming; another blow to his head and a vague vision of snow falling from the sky across his aching body.

  As memories of the previous night filtered slowly into his brain, he was filled with a deep sense of fear and misgiving. Had the shot hurt anyone? Alice had been on top of him. Had the shot killed her? If it had, he couldn’t live. His own death would be the only way out. Perhaps he had killed Jack. If he had, he was glad. No man could suffer what he had been made to endure without taking revenge. Would a jury exonerate him? Was there mitigation for a crime of passion? He doubted it. He would probably swing from the gallows.

  He redoubled his efforts to move only to discover that his hands were bound together with cord. He managed to pull himself into a sitting position in spite of the pain.

  Slowly he began to recognise where he was. His bike was leant against the opposite wall. Coal was piled in one corner. They had bundled him into the coal house at Hope Cottage – the very house that he’d built for him and Alice to spend their lives in together.

  He began to sob silently, tears mixing with the coal dust that lightly coated his face. It was hard to recall the journey that had brought him here, a journey that had begun with tragedy back in 1917. He heard footsteps approaching outside. He would know the truth soon enough.

  The Guest Who Stayed: Chapter 1 – 1915 – 1917

  Jed: August 1917

  Clouds were blowing in from the North Sea and temperatures had begun to dip. Jed was walking back from Frampton where he was apprenticed to a local handyman. At sixteen, he was still too young to be fighting in the war like his eldest brother, Matthew, who had left triumphantly two years earlier to join the Norfolk Regiment.

  As he turned the bend in the drive leading to the farmhouse, his attention was drawn to the unfamiliar sound of an engine making its way along the road from Frampton. There were still not many petrol vehicles in this part of the country. Some of the better off farmers had begun to purchase diesel tractors but in the main the fields were still worked by the faithful shire horses which had trodden the loamy Norfolk soil for generations.

  He saw a motor bike turn off the main road and onto the farm track. As it made its way towards him, he could see that it was painted khaki and the rider seemed to be in uniform. The bike growled onwards, throwing up clouds of dust from the unmade track. Jed expected the rider would stop to ask directions but he continued on past, with just the slightest inclination of his head.

  Jed stopped where he was, gripped by a sense of unease. The bike stopped on the gravel outside the front door. He watched as the rider kicked down the stand and took an envelope from a pouch strapped to the back of the bike. Then he appeared
to glance from side to side as if expecting someone else to join him. Having decided that he was on his own, he made his way to the front door and banged with his fist.

  Jed’s heart began to race as he waited. The door opened to reveal his mother. She was wearing her baking apron over a brown woollen dress. Strands of black hair had broken away from the bun on the back of her head and hung casually across her face. Jed saw the rider hand over the envelope. He couldn’t see his mother’s expression but he saw her rip the envelope open.

  She let out a penetrating scream. He raced towards the house, tripping, stumbling, thorns tearing at his legs. His mother was now crumpled on the floor. The man stood motionless on the same spot. As he reached the garden fence, he saw that his father and his elder brother Tom were already at the scene. He vaulted the fence and arrived by the door as his father was lifting his mother from the step. His father’s face was ashen and blank. His mother sobbed uncontrollably as she was carried into the parlour. The door was slammed in Jed’s face and he was left listening to the sounds of despair – his father’s voice as he’d never heard him before, braying, gasping, breathless yelps.

  Jed realised that he was shaking uncontrollably. He heard the engine of the bike start up and the wheels move away over the gravel. He banged on the door.

  “Ma, Pa, let me in, please let me in.”

  Moments later the door opened and Tom came out. Tears rolled down his cheek. He took Jed by the shoulder and led him away from the parlour.

  After the news of Matt’s death at the Somme, life for Jed began to change. When the official period of grieving was over, a steel shutter seemed to slam closed in the household. Photos of Matt disappeared and his name was not mentioned. Jed yearned to talk about the brother he had idolised and sometimes tried to draw his mother into conversation.

  “Ma, I was thinking earlier about that time that me and Matt went fishin’ over the ponds on the heath. And do you remember, Matt goes chasin’ a puppy an’ falls in the water and you’s right mad with ’im ‘cos ‘e’s lost a shoe in the water and ...” She interrupted him.

  “Jed, let it lie. What the Lord giveth, the Lord taketh and we can’t interfere. We just have to accept what comes our way and hope death takes us from this miserable life quick.”

  The impact on Jed’s mother had been particularly severe. In a dour family of farm labourers who seldom smiled or celebrated, Matt had stood out like a shining beacon. He represented all that Jed’s mother would have liked for herself but never had the slightest chance of achieving. Through Matt and the stories he told her, she had begun to live a little. Though she scolded him for his cheek and misbehaviour, inside she had rejoiced in his irreverence, self–confidence and appetite for life.

  Whilst Jed’s father and Tom took refuge in their work and seldom left the outbuildings where some job always made demands, his mother became increasingly depressed and dependant on Jed. It wasn’t long before he had to take time off work to care for her as her health was declining rapidly.

  Almost a year after Matt’s death she was diagnosed with consumption and took to her bed. There was no money to pay for nurses so Jed had to take on the role of full time carer. It was a job he hated but it was made plain to him that he had no choice. As his mother’s health deteriorated and she became bedridden, he found himself having to care for her very private needs – helping her wash and deal with toilet pans. As she declined further, his mother lost her sense of modesty and Jed often saw her withered body exposed to him as he struggled to cope with her daily care.

  This was his initiation into the world of women. Whilst other young lads his age were becoming sexually active and their minds were beginning to fill with erotic fantasies, Jed was witnessing his mother’s physical decline, hating the sight of her wrinkled skin and the stale smell of urine that constantly filled his nostrils.

  Alice: September 1917

  The rain fell in sheets across the flat Norfolk country permeating every item of their clothing. They had been walking for three days now along tracks and unmade roads, running away from the scene of their father’s latest drunken exploits.

  “Father, can we stop for a few minutes? Polly needs a rest. Look, she’s exhausted.”

  He had been warned by the local police constable that unless they packed their bags and left, he would be arrested and thrown into Norwich gaol.

  “Only a few more miles now and then we’re at Frampton. We’re sure to find somewhere warm to sleep tonight. Just keep going a while longer.”

  With that, he picked up the kit bag that contained their sole belongings and slung it over his shoulder. He strode forward without looking back to where Alice and Polly were huddled under a tree. Seeing him disappear into the mist and rain, Alice had no alternative but to gather Polly up into her arms and follow him.

  It had been so very different until five years ago when Alice’s mother gave birth to young Polly. Their father had been a respected metal smith, mending agricultural machinery and making simple farming implements. They had lived comfortably, feeding themselves from the cottage garden and using what little money their father made for occasional luxuries. Alice, who was ten when Polly was born, attended the local village school and had surprised her teachers with her tenacity and determination to succeed in her subjects.

  Then, when her mother died a year after Polly’s birth, their world fell apart. Their father found consolation in drink and was prone to outbursts of violence which could be directed equally at his daughters or to other drinkers in the ale houses he frequented. When money became scarce, he thought nothing of stealing from shops or from friends. At first, neighbours rallied round to help Alice care for Polly but, as they were met with drunken abuse and insults, the help soon evaporated. Alice was able to attend school less and her father began to treat her as a substitute wife, demanding that she carry out chores and occasionally beating her if she failed. Alice lived in fear of him hurting Polly whose health was beginning to deteriorate. From once having been a plump and boisterous baby, she now had a sallow complexion and was nervous with people.

  “Look, this is it. This is Frampton,” he announced.

  “But where are we going to stay? Where’s the cottage you spoke of?”

  Alice guessed the truth. There was no cottage. Her father had heard of fruit picking work in the area with accommodation provided, but there was no specific offer of a place to stay. It was only gossip passed on by drinkers in an ale house somewhere.

  “I’ll go to find it. I know it’s not far from here. I want you to stay put whilst I go looking. I’ll be back before long and I’ll bring some food too. Mind you stay here.”

  With that he was gone, striding into the evening gloom. Alice held Polly close to her and stared at the bleak surroundings. The road they were following wound through a wood and the foliage seemed to offer some protection. Alice dragged the kit bag that her father had left behind into the wood and felt inside for an old army tarpaulin, the prize for some bet her father had wagered. Still damp from the previous night, she hung it over an overhanging branch and placed stones on the extended sides to form a basic shelter. Then she gathered Polly into her arms and they both huddled together, listening to the monotonous patter of drizzle on the tarpaulin.

  Peering out into the grey gloom, Alice felt heavy with fatigue and depression. She seemed trapped in this spiral of decline which got worse with each day. She had to find a way to escape yet leaving Polly to her fate with a drunken father was not an option. She feared each day for Polly’s safety as well as her own. Soon she would be sixteen and was already experiencing some sexual harassment from her father – comments about her breasts, unwanted touching and lewd language. She shuddered with her private memories.

  Dusk turned into night and still he didn’t return. Alice and Polly slept fitfully, being awoken by strange unseen sounds in the dark. Then a different noise roused Alice. In the distance she could hear the faint sound of someone singing – a tuneless, flat dirge. She knew at o
nce that it was her father returning. He had spent their remaining money on drink. There would be no food and no proper shelter. They would spend the rest of the night like wild and hungry animals.

  Flora: October 1915

  Flora and her mother and father were made to wait outside the small chapel which had been created from one of the cottages. The Brotherhood owned a dozen of these rundown premises which were situated in a working district of Frampton. They cast their eyes down as latecomers made their way past them into the chapel. Flora’s father was dressed in a black suit with a starched white shirt buttoned tightly to his neck. Her mother wore a long black dress with white cuffs and a black bonnet. Flora was dressed in her usual chapel attire, a black cotton dress over which she wore a white apron, a sign that she was a virgin.

  The door of the chapel opened and a lean, white haired, old man spoke to them.

  “The congregation is ready. You must answer to the people in the sight of our Lord.”

  He stood aside and Flora’s father led the way into the chapel. Her mother followed with her head bowed low and Flora walked behind.

  Inside, the chapel was dimly lit and meagrely furnished. Six rows of seats were positioned either side of an aisle. They were filled with Brotherhood members, most of whom directed their gaze at the floor. A few looked with curiosity at the strange procession. At the end of the aisle, and below a large wooden crucifix, were three seats set out for Flora and her parents. To the right of these and facing the congregation were six seats, five of which were occupied by elders. The sixth was taken by the senior elder who had brought Flora and her family into the chapel. He remained standing and spoke.

  “It is the tradition of our church that those who deviate from our laws be judged by the congregation in the eyes of our Lord and that those who are found guilty of transgressions shall be banished from our midst. Today, we are called to pass judgement on the Fulton family: Harold Fulton, his wife, Henrietta Fulton, and their thirteen year old daughter, Flora Fulton. It is in respect of the activities and behaviour of Flora Fulton and the refusal of her parents to curb her sinful ways that we are gathered here. Let me first remind you of the rules of the Brotherhood which have been passed down to us since the founding of our church in 1778 by the Venerable Thomas Aitchison. In the sacred words of Psalm 1, ‘Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly’.”