The Fleethaven Trilogy

by Margaret Dickinson

  Esther walked all the way home, her anger making her quicken her pace until Kate begged her to slow down.

  ‘I’m getting a pain in me side, Mam,’ she wailed.

  ‘I’m sorry, Katie,’ Esther said, immediately contrite.

  Kate, soon sunny-natured again, asked, ‘Can I go and play at the Point when we get home?’

  ‘Yes, yes, you can,’ Esther decided suddenly. ‘I’ll come and see Ma, too.’

  When they reached the stretch of ground between the cottages and the river bank, they saw three of the younger Harris children and Danny playing soldiers, marching up and down with sticks on their shoulders for rifles.

  ‘You can’t play, Kate,’ shouted Georgie Harris. ‘We’re going to war. War is men’s work.’

  Esther looked down at her daughter to see the child’s lower lip quivering.

  Then Danny was standing in front of them. ‘Dun’t cry, Katie. Course you can play. You can be a nurse when we gets wounded – like Mester Godfrey.’

  Esther felt a lurch in her chest at the mention of his name, but Danny, unaware of the effect his words had upon her, was taking Kate by the hand and leading her into the game.

  Esther wandered towards Ma Harris’s cottage. She tapped on the door, opened it and was about to step inside when Ma’s ample frame appeared in the doorway. Esther gasped aloud as she looked into Ma’s set face. Her eyes were cold and her mouth set in a hard line.

  ‘Well?’ she asked shortly. ‘What do you want?’

  Esther shrugged. I just came – to – to see you.’

  Ma stood her ground, making no move to invite Esther in. ‘Well, Ah dun’t want to see you,’ the older woman said harshly.

  ‘Ma, I . . .’

  Ma Harris turned away. ‘Please go, Esther. We’ve nowt to say to one another. Not any more.’

  Esther turned and blundered away before anyone might see her tears. She picked up her skirts and ran and ran across the marshland and along the Spit. Running, running until she felt her lungs would burst. At the end of the Spit, close to the water’s edge, she picked up a handful of stones and hurled them one by one into the water.

  Angry tears blurred her vision.

  Why was she being punished for having love for Jonathan? When at last she’d tasted – oh, so briefly – real happiness, it had been cruelly snatched away. Now, even her tender memories were being soured by the condemnation of those around her.

  Down the years, in brutal mockery, came the echo of Beth’s curse.

  ‘You an’ yours will never know happiness.’

  Thirty-one

  IT seemed incredible to all of them that the war had been going on for over two and a half years. Mothers dreaded the passing of the months as their sons who were still at home grew older, nearer and nearer the age when they could volunteer, or be called up. Esther heard – through Enid – that Peter Harris, now fifteen, was already planning to volunteer. Esther shuddered and, despite Ma’s present coldness towards her, she prayed that the woman who had once shown her such friendliness would not lose yet another son to the war.

  As men were killed and went on being killed in their thousands, the Military Service Act had been passed the previous February and all men between the ages of eighteen and forty-one who did not have special exemption were being conscripted. Wives feared that any day their husbands, who had believed themselves too old, would have to go too. Would Robert Eland and maybe even Mr Harris and Tom Willoughby be next? Esther wondered.

  She dragged herself through the weeks and months, through the ploughing, through the spring sowing. Now no one came to offer to lend her their machinery, horses or manpower. Whether it was because they were no longer able to offer the help or because they no longer wished to help Esther Hilton of Brumbys’ Farm, she did not know. She managed most of the ploughing with her own pair of horses, but the seed drilling was beyond her strength and she was obliged to go back to the old way of broadcasting the seed from a carrier hung around her neck and shoulders.

  ‘Thank you, Aunt Hannah,’ she said to herself, grudgingly admitting that the reason she at least knew how to do the sowing this way was once more due to her aunt. How was it, she mused to herself as she walked up and down the fields, casting the seed from side to side as she went, that she could not bring herself to think of her aunt with any shred of affection? Yet she was forced to acknowledge that all the learning and the know-how she was now drawing on in her lone struggle to survive, she had acquired from her aunt. Even her stubborn resilience – going to bed each night to sleep the sleep of the exhausted and rising still as bone-weary to face another lonely day – had been fostered by her aunt’s harshness. Esther had survived a loveless childhood and grown the stronger for it. But having known love, Jonathan’s love, and for that matter Ma Harris’s friendship, it was harder now to live without affection. She had the farm, Esther told herself sternly when weakness threatened to overwhelm her. She had Kate and always, she had Will. He still came each week, as faithful and uncritical as ever.

  Esther never spoke of Jonathan to anyone – was never able to say his name aloud. Not even to Will, for whilst he stood by her, defended her sometimes in the face of the censure of those around, she knew that even he had disapproved of her love for Jonathan.

  Her heartache and her loneliness had to remain locked silently within her own heart. The days stretched ahead, unendingly desolate. She would face them – and she would survive – but, oh, how she missed the feel of Jonathans’ arms around her!

  On a bright summer morning in 1917, Esther woke with a sense of foreboding. It stayed with her through milking. The animals were restless and obstinate, and later, in the dairy, the heat of midday affected the milk and the butter would not come. She churned and churned until the sweat prickled her armpits and ran in rivulets down between her breasts.

  ‘Mrs Hilton, Mrs Hilton’

  ‘Now what?’ she muttered, passing the back of her hand across her damp forehead. Giving the churn one last vicious turn, and then letting the handle swing loose, she stepped out of the pantry, through the kitchen and out of the back door into the sunlight. She screwed up her eyes against the glare and shaded her face with her hand trying to see who the caller was. A dark uniformed shape stood before her, thrusting a white square of paper into her hand.

  ‘It – it’s a telegram, missus’ The young man’s tone was apologetic.

  Esther stood staring at it, not moving, until he thrust it towards her again, anxious to be gone before she read what awful news it must contain.

  Jonathan! Oh no! Her lips formed his name, but she made no sound. With trembling fingers she reached out and took the telegram. The young man turned, mounted his bike and pedalled away quickly.

  The words blurred before her and she had to blink and read it several times before the truth penetrated her consciousness.

  Beneath the heading ‘POST OFFICE TELEGRAMS’ and some small printing which she did not trouble to read, the message was handwritten, the wording terse and impersonal:

  OHMS. War Office, London. To Hilton, Fleethaven Point, Lincolnshire. Deeply regret to inform you that Sgt M. Hilton, Lincolnshire Regiment, was posted missing 21st May. Secretary War Office.

  There was not even the name of the sender to soften the harsh, dispassionate wording.

  For a long time Esther looked down at the piece of paper in her hands, reading and re-reading the words until they blurred before her eyes. She walked slowly into the house. In the kitchen she stood, dazed, in front of the mantelpiece. With shaking fingers she reached up and took down the photograph of Matthew in its silver frame. The postcards stacked behind it slithered down and scattered around her, floating down on to the floor like falling petals. She picked each one up and sat down at the table, resting her arms on the plush green table-cloth. She placed his photograph in front of her and then read and re-read every postcard he had sent.

  ‘Oh, Matthew,’ she murmured aloud, ‘Matthew, I’m so sorry. I never wanted this to happen
.’

  She stayed a long time in the house on her own, coming to terms with the news. Learning to live with the knowledge that now she was really on her own. Thoughts of Jonathan intruded, but resolutely she pushed them away. Now was not the time to think of him.

  At last she sighed and heaved herself up from the table. She replaced the photograph and the postcards on the mantelpiece and then gently touched the face in the picture with her forefinger. ‘Poor Matthew,’ she murmured.

  She went across to the sideboard and opened the drawer. Lying face upwards was the companion photograph to the one in the frame. She took it out and closed the drawer. Picking up the telegram from the table, she left the farmhouse and turned towards the Point.

  There was something she had to do.

  Esther walked the short distance from her farm to the Point. At this time of day there was no one about outside the cottages or the pub and for this she was thankful. She didn’t yet want to face the inevitable questions. She stood on the bank below the towering bulk of the Elands’ boat home. She waited uncertainly. There was no one in sight and she did not want to venture up the gangway uninvited and unheralded. She heard a footstep on the wooden planking of the deck and saw Robert Eland appear at the end of the wooden jetty.

  With the hand that still held the telegram Esther shaded her eyes against the sun and met Robert Eland’s gaze unflinchingly. She saw his glance switch to the piece of paper rattling gently in the breeze, then come back to her face.

  Levelly she said, ‘Robert – can I speak to Beth, please?’ She heard him draw in breath quickly between his teeth and for a moment his eyes seemed to widen.

  He nodded briefly, turned away and disappeared, leaving Esther standing on the river bank below.

  It seemed an age that Esther waited, and yet it could not have been more than a few moments that she stood in the sunlight, staring at the black bulk of the boat in front of her. Her eyes took in the peeling paint exposing rotting wood. Poor Robert, she thought, he hasn’t had time to keep his own home in good repair. Being one of the few able-bodied men left, Robert Eland always helped out on the estate when needed. And he was often needed.

  I wonder why no one has called him a coward for not volunteering? she thought and then answered her own question in her mind. It would be difficult for anyone to accuse Robert Eland of cowardice; many times he had risked his life out at sea in the lifeboat rescuing others. The war had brought a greater number of tragedies at sea. She bit down hard upon her lip as she remembered it had been just such a reason that had brought Enid rushing to the farm for the horses; the night the girl had seen Esther emerging from the barn, her clothing in disarray. I mustn’t think of him, she told herself, not now!

  She waited in the hot sun, breathing in the scent of the countryside, yet unaware of it. Seagulls screeched overhead, bees hummed busily and butterflies fluttered aimlessly. But the bright day seemed only to mock her. How can it be such a beautiful day, how dare it be, when I . . .? She closed her eyes a moment against the glare and when she opened them again she saw that Beth was standing at the end of the planking.

  The two women stared at each other and then Beth came slowly down to stand in front of Esther.

  Neither of them spoke, yet their eyes held each other’s. Wordlessly, Esther held out the telegram for Beth to read. The woman, who had borne Matthew’s son, reached for it with shaking fingers.

  Dragging her gaze away from Esther’s she lowered her eyes and read the words. At last she raised her head, eyes closed and a low moan of anguish escaped her lips. ‘Oh, no! No!’

  Gently, Esther eased the piece of paper from Beth’s rigid fingers. ‘Beth – I know how you feel. I never – understood – not before. Now I do.’

  No more explanation was necessary. The two women regarded each other sadly. In that moment of mutual loss, they came the closest they ever would to understanding one another.

  Esther had not known love before Jonathan, but if Beth had loved Matthew in the same way, then there was room for compassion.

  Esther held out the photograph. ‘I thought you might like to have this. Matthew sent me it soon after he – first went.’

  Beth took his likeness and stared at it and then held it to her breast. ‘Don’t you want it?’ she whispered.

  ‘There were two,’ Esther explained simply. ‘I have the other in a frame on the mantelpiece.’

  Beth nodded. Her eyes filled with tears that spilled over and ran down her pale cheeks. ‘Thank you, Esther. And thank you for coming to tell me.’

  Beth turned away and, like an old woman, dragged herself back up the slope of the gangway.

  Thirty-two

  THE small community was shocked by the news.

  The squire rode over in person to visit Esther. ‘Of course, my dear,’ he said taking her hand and patting it comfortingly, ‘it does say “reported missing”. There is room for hope, my dear. It must be chaos out there, you know. Maybe he’s been wounded and carted off to some field hospital and not able to tell them who he is. Anything like that can happen. You must – we must all – continue to hope that he is alive somewhere. It’s not definite – you must cling to that hope’

  Esther tried to smile. ‘Thank you, Squire, you’re very kind.’ She bit her lip. She wanted so much to ask him what was to happen about the tenancy of the farm, but suddenly the picture of his angry face and his censorious words after Sam Brumby’s funeral made her bite back her question. Now was not the time!

  Life continued much as before through the summer of 1917 – day after day the same. What had she to look forward to now? What had she to hope for? Indeed, with this dreadful war snatching all the young men from their midst, fathers, husbands – and lovers, what hope for the future had anyone?

  The day that Esther had dreaded arrived without warning and before she could take the evasive action she had done the last time. The little man with the sheaf of papers under his arm arrived so unexpectedly that she had no chance to move Punch and Prince from the meadow.

  ‘I am quite aware, Mrs Hilton,’ he began without preamble, ‘that on the occasion of my last visit you were able to deceive me. I don’t intend to make trouble for you.’ His voice softened. ‘I’m not really the hard-hearted villain you take me for – but I have a job to do and I am afraid I really must commandeer your horses.’

  ‘How am I to get the harvests in? There’s no fellers and . . .’ She stopped and bit her lip. She had been about to tell him that she no longer had the usual help from her neighbours now that they were ostracizing her at the instigation of Martha Willoughby and – yes, she had to admit it – even Ma Harris.

  ‘I really am sorry,’ the official was saying again. ‘The squire has been allowed to keep three horses on condition that he loans them out to anyone nearby who has real need . . .’

  ‘How do you think just three horses can cope with all the work around here at harvest? The grass and the corn dun’t wait, mester.’

  The man sighed. ‘I do understand . . .’

  ‘No, ya don’t. Ya can’t!’ She turned away before he should see her tears. Before she would let any man – other than Jonathan – see her cry, she turned her back on him. With an angry gesture she waved him away. ‘Oh, take ’em, then. Only, don’t let me see.’

  She sat in the kitchen, her hands lying idly on the table, staring out of the window that faced on to the front garden, determined not to risk catching sight of her beloved horses being led out of the meadow and up the lane towards the town.

  Two pairs of small feet pounded across the yard and Kate, followed by Danny Eland, came bursting into the kitchen.

  ‘Mam, Mam, they’re taking Punch and Prince. Mam, stop them.’ Tears ran down her daughter’s face and even the boy seemed to be having difficulty in holding his mouth from quivering. Esther held out her hand and Kate came and stood at the side of her chair. The child leant her head on her mother’s breast and the tears flowed. Esther held out her other hand to Danny and he came and stood
close beside her, and rested his head against her shoulder.

  ‘It dun’t seem fair,’ he muttered. ‘They’re old, yar ’osses, anyway. What use can they be in – in the war?’

  ‘I know,’ Esther murmured. ‘I can’t rightly understand it myself, Danny. But there it is, they’ve got to go.’

  Through the open back door the three of them listened to the distant sound of clopping hooves going up the lane, growing fainter and fainter until they could hear them no more.

  So many leavings, Esther thought sadly. How many more beings she loved – human and animal – were to walk away down that lane never to return?

  Danny twisted his head and looked up into her face. ‘I’m sorry about the mester.’

  Esther looked down into the boy’s dark brown eyes and for a moment rested her hand on his black curly hair. He was so like Matthew that one day, as he grew older, he would surely have guessed just who his sire was, if Matthew had still been around. Now Matthew would not be returning. Would Danny ever know who his natural father was?

  Quietly she said, ‘Thank you, Danny,’ then more briskly she added, ‘I’ve some scones in the oven. Would you like one with some fresh butter?’ She was rewarded by a replica of Matthew’s cheeky grin, and as she rose and went to take her baking from the range oven, she spared a moment’s thought for Beth.

  How the sight of her son must twist at Beth’s heart every day of her life!

  ‘Tom – they’ve taken me ’osses.’

  ‘Eh, Esther, lass, I’m sorry to hear that.’ He shook his head. ‘You did well to hang on to them the last time they came. I didn’t,’ he added with feeling.