The Fleethaven Trilogy

by Margaret Dickinson

  ‘And Mr Eland rescued you?’

  ‘Yes, yes – he did,’ Esther croaked, for her voice was still ragged. ‘I – I think he saved my life.’

  Kate, full of importance, said, ‘I must go and find Danny and tell him.’ In the next moment the child had rushed from the house and Esther had not the strength to stop her.

  The following day, Esther opened her back door in answer to a knock and was surprised to find Tom standing there.

  ‘Tom – come in,’ Esther invited, her voice still croaky.

  Tom hesitated a moment and then eased his bulk through her scullery and into the kitchen.

  He pulled his cap from his head and stood twisting it in his huge hands. ‘Esther, lass,’ he began, ‘Eland told me what happened yesterday. I want you to know – I’m sorry.’

  ‘Tom . . .’

  ‘No, lass. Hear me out – please. They’ll not bother you again, I’ve seen to that. But I’d just ask ya to keep away from me farm for a while – an’ mebbe church an’ all. Just for a time, like.’ The cap was still revolving through his restless fingers. ‘I’ve never in me life raised me hand to me wife an’ I dun’t intend to, but, by God, when Eland told me – I came close to it, lass.’

  Esther shook her head sadly. ‘Tom – I’ve told you before, I never wanted to cause trouble between you and your wife . . .’

  ‘I know, I know.’ He shook his head, wonderingly. ‘I just dun’t understand her mesen. You’re like a red rag to her, Esther, an’ that’s a fact.’

  ‘Tom,’ Esther asked, suddenly remembering, ‘were you related to Sam Brumby? Is that what started it all?’

  ‘Oh, aye, but years back. Now let’s see – my grandfather’s sister was Sam’s mother.’

  Esther nodded. ‘There’s an entry in Sam’s old family Bible. I did wonder.’ She sighed. ‘Martha thinks all this – ’ she waved her arm to encompass all Sam’s belongings in the house – ‘should have come to you.’

  Tom shrugged. ‘Mebbe, Esther. To tell you the truth, I never give it a thought.’

  Esther believed him. It was only Martha and her grasping sister who resented her.

  She also believed Tom when he said that their persecution of her was at an end. For that, she was thankful, yet his advice to stay away, not only from his farm but from the church too, would isolate her from the community more than ever.

  Like Ma Harris, but not as bluntly, Tom was saying they wanted no more to do with Esther Hilton.

  A few days later, when she had fully recovered, Esther went to the point in search of Robert Eland..

  ‘I came to thank you, Robert. You saved my life.’

  The man looked up at her from where he was sitting on the river bank, mending his fishing net. He nodded briefly in swift acknowledgement of her thanks. Then, looking back down at his nets, he said, ‘I reckon we’re equal now, then. For yar man saved my life that night.’

  She knew she was referring to the time Matthew had gone out in the lifeboat and had rescued Robert.

  ‘Please – thank Beth for me, will ya?’

  There was a pause, then Robert nodded and muttered, ‘Aye, I will.’

  There was no more to be said. To say any more would have been an embarrassment to them both. Robert Eland might have saved her life but it had changed nothing in the attitude of the people of Fleethaven Point towards Esther Hilton. Not one thing.

  It was the farm that devoured Esther’s time and strength through the rest of the summer, autumn and even the winter of 1917. Thankfully, her growing daughter, happy at school and always welcomed by her friends at the Point even if her mother was not, was little trouble. Kate never seemed to suffer from childish illnesses, she was sturdy, strong for her age, and healthy. If anyone’s health was in question during those months, it was Esther’s.

  Apart from Will Benson, she saw no one but to say that she was utterly alone was not quite true for she had two very willing helpers, and for their age and strength they were remarkable.

  Kate – and Danny Eland. Without their help she would have lost more of her crops than she did, for when winter set in with a vengeance there were still two fields uncut. As for the rest, Esther cut the corn with a hand sickle. She had tried Sam’s scythe but found it too heavy and unwieldy. Day after day she moved slowly down the field locked into a stooping position, grasping a bunch of corn in her left hand and cutting it with the sickle in her right. Day after day until she thought she would never walk upright again, until every limb in her body ached and cried out for rest. Still she drove herself on. On and on until the pain in her body drove out the ache in her heart and left her mind dulled and unable to think of Jonathan. At night she fell into bed exhausted and slept at once.

  The children took on the job of raking, tying the sheaves and stooking. Esther cut down the handles of two rakes to make them more manageable for them and their merry laughter as they worked was the only sound in the fields, normally alive with noisy chatter from the numerous harvest workers. The fields at Brumbys’ Farm were silent, waiting their turn under Esther’s lone sickle – and some would wait in vain.

  ‘Ya’ll kill ya’sen, lass,’ Will told her bluntly.

  ‘What else can I do, Will? I can’t lose it all. I won’t lose it all.’

  ‘Ask the squire for help, Esther. After all, it’s his land.’

  ‘I dun’t want him to think I can’t cope. I don’t know what he intends – now Matthew’s not coming back. He might only need the slightest excuse to take the tenancy off me.’

  Will was silent, scratching his head in defeat.

  ‘And,’ she added bitterly, ‘I dun’t want him to know why none of the others are helping me this year.’

  ‘I ’spect he knows,’ Will muttered under his breath, but Esther’s hearing was sharp.

  ‘I suppose you’re right. I can’t understand them,’ she said angrily. ‘They all came last year, when Jonathan was actually here. They liked him – everyone did. So why are they punishing me now?’

  ‘They didn’t blame him, Esther lass,’ Will told her gently, unknowingly echoing Ma Harris’s words. ‘At first he was a hero in their eyes. A soldier wounded in the war and going to go back. But then you kept him here. To their way of thinking it was you turned him into a deserter. They blame you for everything.’

  Esther closed her eyes and swayed slightly as her loss swept over her again. Tiredness made her vulnerable. Whilst for the most part the hard work blotted out her memories, when those same memories did intrude, she had no resistance to the hurt. She groaned and sank down into a kitchen chair and leant her head on her arms on the table.

  ‘Why was it so very wrong of me to fall in love with him?’

  ‘Because you were married – are still, for all we really know – and to one of their own. More than anything else, they can’t forgive you for that, Esther.’

  ‘It’s different for men, isn’t it?’ Her voice was muffled, but there was no mistaking her resentment. ‘They get away with it. They can have affairs, even bring – bring bastards into the world and are just thought “a bit of a lad”. Even envied by other fellers. But a woman! Oh, no, she’s a trollop and a whore . . .’ She stopped, appalled that she was talking to Will in this way, that she was thrusting the knife of her years of resentment into him of all people.

  Will Benson sighed but said nothing. What was there that he could say to her accusation?

  ‘Me husband’s dead,’ Esther went on. ‘Am I supposed to live the rest of me life alone, just because . . . ?’

  ‘No, of course not, Esther. You jumped the gun, that’s what’s caused the resentment. You hadn’t even had word that he was missing before you took up with Jonathan Godfrey.’

  It was a fact that she could not deny and it was that fact the people of Fleethaven Point could not forgive.

  Through the long winter, Esther threshed the corn in her barn by hand with Sam’s old flail, spending long hours in the cold, with the wind whipping between the two sets of open doors, blow
ing away the chaff and leaving her the precious harvest of grain.

  There was no news of Jonathan. Was he dead too, like Matthew? Or was he still out there in the muddy trenches? Did he ever think of her? she wondered. Did he remember Fleethaven Point and the warm sand and the soft, lapping sea, music to their love-making?

  By the spring of 1918 the news from the war front seemed no better – worse if anything. The newspapers which Will still brought each week were gloomy. The Germans had launched massive attacks on the Western Front and British-held trenches were overrun and captured. The British faced defeat and fresh fears swept through those left at home. Had they lost so many young men in vain?

  Then, like the turn of the tide, the British and their allies were marching forward, breaking through the Hindenburg Line and marching on and on and people began to speak as if victory could be a reality.

  One morning she heard Will’s whistle; not one blast as usual to herald his arrival, but three shrill notes piercing the air. Esther set down the egg basket she was carrying and ran to the gate. Will was standing up on the front of his cart, excitedly waving a newspaper and climbing down before his horses had stopped. ‘Esther – Esther lass. It’s over. It’s really over.’

  Esther stood at the gate staring at him as he came towards her.

  ‘The war, Esther. It’s over.’ Wordlessly, she put her arms up and he hugged her to him. ‘It’ll be all right now, lass. Things’ll get better – you see.’

  At the eleventh hour on the eleventh day of the eleventh month, it was indeed all over. Of course there was rejoicing and in some towns and cities there were joyous celebrations, but amongst the community at Fleethaven Point there seemed only relief, their happiness tempered by the losses their small number had sustained. The squire’s son, who would never step into his father’s place; Ernie Harris, Ma’s firstborn – and Matthew. In the months since Esther had received the final letter from the Army authorities there had been no further word, no hint that there was any hope that he could still be alive.

  Now that it was finally all over, Esther clung to the hope that Jonathan had come through, that perhaps he would come home, that he would come to the Point to see her and, maybe, finding her a widow, just maybe . . .

  During the weeks which followed the Armistice, Esther grew increasingly restless. There was little she could do on the land in December, nor could she seem to generate any enthusiasm for Christmas preparations. Once again she had struggled virtually alone with her harvest, though this year she had use of the squire’s horses for a week and the loan of one of his men. Yet again, no one from the Point had offered help, nor even Tom Willoughby. And Ma Harris, whose coldness hurt more than anyone’s, kept stubbornly away from Brumbys’ Farm – and Esther.

  Wandering around the farm watching the pigs, the hens, checking on the cows, Esther felt as if she were waiting for something to happen, only it didn’t seem to be happening.

  She sighed and walked towards the farm gate, leaning on it and looking up the road towards the town. If only he would come walking back round the bend. But the lane was empty. There was no sign of a tall, fair-haired soldier marching towards her.

  Her gaze travelled round and came to rest on the rise in the road – the Hump – beyond which were the cottages at the Point. Before she fully realized what she was doing, or had even stopped to think, she was moving out of her gate and down the lane towards the Point. She knocked on the door of Ma Harris’s cottage and stood waiting, her heart thumping. It was strange that she should feel afraid. She had missed Ma’s warmth, her chatter, her friendship so much. As she stood there she could hear the sound of children laughing and shrieking as they played on the scrubland beyond the cottage.

  The door opened and Ma stood there, wiping her floury hands on her apron.

  ‘Oh – it’s you,’ she said, turned away abruptly and went back to her kitchen table to her pastry-making. But she left the door open. At least she had not slammed it in Esther’s face.

  ‘Ma – can I come in?’ This was a new Esther, a tentative, penitent Esther.

  ‘If ya must.’

  ‘Ma – can’t we be friends again?’

  The older woman glanced at her and then back to her pastry, thumping it over and over, rolling it out with the wooden rolling pin. For a long time she didn’t answer.

  ‘Ya know what the Good Book says, “As ye sow, so shall ye reap.” There’ll come a day of reckoning, lass. Somewhere, some time you’ll be made to pay.’

  An angry retort rose to Esther’s lips, but for once she literally bit back the words, pressing her teeth into her bottom lip to suppress them.

  Ma Harris let out a long sigh and now there was more sadness than censure in her tone. ‘Oh, Esther lass, part of me does understand why you were drawn to that young feller, but it’s hard for me to forgive you. Young Matthew has always been part of our lives. I helped bring him into the world in that cottage next door,’ she nodded her head beyond her own cottage wall indicating the adjoining house. ‘He were like one of me own and after he’d lost both his parents, well, he more or less did become one of me family. But more than that even, it was you leaving your bairn in the house on her own that really riled me. Ya know how I am about bairns?’

  ‘I – I know you think badly of me and I’m sorry, real sorry. As for Kate, yes, I felt guilty about that and it never happened again.’

  Ma cast her a sideways glance but said no more. To Esther her look said, ‘So, you took him into the house then – into Matthew’s house.’

  Esther’s chin came a little higher, but she kept her tone submissive. ‘There’s a lot I’m sorry for now – a lot that’s to do with Matthew – and Beth. But I’ll never, ever, say I’m sorry I met Jonathan.’

  Ma gasped and stared at her. Esther met her gaze levelly. ‘Eeh, lass, you’re honest, I’ll say that for ya. An’ though I dun’t hold with what ya’ve done, ya didn’t skulk about it. Ya didn’t try to hide what was going on between you and Jonathan from us all, even knowing we wouldn’t like it. You’re a strange one, Esther Hilton, an’ no mistake.’

  Then slowly, like the sun appearing as a cloud passed away, a smile began to spread across Ma’s shrunken mouth. She shook her head, almost as if in disbelief at herself for what she was about to say. ‘I can’t go on being mad at ya – an’ the Lord knows I’ve tried. Truth is, I’ve missed ya, lass. Missed talking and laughing with ya, I really have.’

  Now she was smiling broadly and Esther was smiling back.

  ‘So, you’ll both be here for Christmas this year, will you?’

  ‘Try and keep us away!’

  So it was a merry Christmas that year of 1918 which Esther and Kate shared with the Harris family once more, for Mr Harris and all their brood took their lead from Ma. Her word was law. If she wanted nothing to do with Esther Hilton, then they obeyed, but if Ma forgave and welcomed her back, then they were ready to do that too.

  And their country was no longer at war – it was time to forgive and to make new beginnings. They all went to Midnight Mass together, walking the long lane in the frosty, moonlit night, the children, far from sleepy, skipping and dancing and chasing each other; the grown-ups, walking arm in arm, smiling and content and thankful. Yes, thankful, Esther thought, that despite what they had all lost, there would be no more killing and maiming. Their soldiers were coming home.

  Oh, dear Lord, she prayed silently, let one of them be Jonathan.

  It was in the New Year that Esther’s restlessness grew and became unbearable. She could find no solace in the farm. Even her favourite place on the Spit and the peaceful scenery brought no comfort and serenity. Her anxiety over Jonathan festered until she was sleeping badly and could not eat.

  There should have been some word. Surely the soldiers were coming home from France now? He would have got in touch somehow. Perhaps he was still in France. Perhaps he was wounded and in hospital, or – heaven forbid – perhaps he was dead and lying in a grave in foreign soil, alone and forgotte
n by everyone but her.

  It was Will Benson who gave her the idea that there was something she could do.

  ‘Have you heard the latest?’

  She was listening with only half an ear to his chatter, but his next words commanded her immediate attention. ‘Squire’s going over to France to see if he can find his boy’s grave. Course Mrs Marshall ain’t going. Poor lady – she’s never got over the lad’s death, y’know. Just the squire and his younger son are going.’

  Esther stared at him. Her heart began to beat a little faster and she felt herself go breathless with excitement. ‘How’s he managed that? Can anybody go? When’s he going?’

  ‘Eh, steady on, lass. ’Ow should I know? All I know is, he’s got in touch with that there Major Langley. You know, ’im as gave that speech in the town just after the war started.’

  ‘Oh, I remember him all right!’ Esther said grimly.

  ‘Now, lass, the man was only doing his duty—’

  ‘Never mind that now, Will,’ she cut him off sharply. ‘Do you know when Squire’s going?’

  ‘Next week some time I think. He found out from the major where young Rodney’s company was when he was killed.’

  ‘Oh, next week, eh?’ Esther muttered, her mind busy. Jonathan must have been in the same company as the squire’s son. She remembered the squire asking Jonathan if he had known his son and Jonathan had said that he knew him by sight. They’d all been in the same regiment, Rodney Marshall, Ernie Harris, Matthew – and Jonathan! Perhaps . . .

  ‘Esther Hilton – what are you up to?’ Will was eyeing her shrewdly.

  She grinned at him, feeling alive and hopeful for the first time in many months. ‘Never you mind, Will Benson, just never you mind.’

  ‘Mr Marshall – please, I want to come to France with you.’ Once more – as if time had taken a tilt – Esther was standing facing the squire across his huge desk.