The Fleethaven Trilogy

by Margaret Dickinson

  Esther drew breath – it was the closest she had come to having to tell the squire a deliberate lie. Fixing her mind, for the moment, on her husband and not on Jonathan, she answered, ‘It – it was only – presumed.’

  ‘Well,’ the squire said slowly, ‘I understand there are still some of our men here.’

  ‘Still here?’ Esther repeated, sudden hope flaring in her breast. ‘In this hospital, you mean? Why? Why haven’t they been sent home?’

  The squire shrugged. ‘Several reasons, I suppose. Some may be too ill to travel yet. Maybe – maybe they don’t know who some of them are, if their identification papers were lost. I’ve heard of that happening.’

  ‘Really?’ Esther gazed up at the square, grey building. It looked more like a prison than a hospital. It was a gruesome place. There was such a mixture of feelings within her, a sudden dread of what she might find.

  They were made welcome by a nursing sister at the hospital. She displayed surprise, though not displeasure, at their coming and bustled about making ready a narrow bed for Esther in her own quarters. Embarrassed, she said, ‘I’m afraid all I can offer you gentlemen will be a bed in a ward.’

  ‘Don’t mention it, dear lady. Are you sure you can spare us that? I mean, are you sure we won’t be taking up a bed you need for patients? I wouldn’t want to do that.’

  ‘Oh we’ve the room now, sir.’ Her eyes were weary and sad and there were shadows beneath them that told of long months of soul-destroying nursing of the wounded, sick and dying. ‘We’ve a few patients left, of course. Those still too ill to make the journey home,’ she said, confirming what the squire had already thought. She sighed heavily, ‘Of course there are several who are so shell-shocked, they don’t know who they are or where they come from. Naturally, we shall repatriate them as soon as we can but . . .’ She shook her head. ‘Oh, dear me, it’s so sad, so very sad.’

  Esther’s heart leapt and plummeted all in the space of a second. Hope soared and then died. Jonathan might be alive, he might be here. Yet if he were it meant he was so ill that he was scarcely alive.

  ‘Could we – could I see the patients?’ She knew there was longing in her voice and desperation in her green eyes as she looked at the sister.

  ‘Well,’ the woman said doubtfully, looking Esther up and down. ‘Most of them are very ill, you know. Not -not pleasant sights . . .’ Then she must have caught some of the pleading in Esther’s tone, for she added more gently, ‘Are you looking for someone? Is that why you’ve come?’

  Esther swallowed the lump that had risen in her throat, and, not trusting herself to speak, she nodded.

  ‘Ah, well, of course, that makes a difference. Perhaps in the morning . . .’

  Esther grasped the woman’s wrist. ‘Now, please. I beg you . . .’ There was no mistaking the urgency in her plea.

  The sister nodded. ‘Very well,’ she said, relenting. ‘This way. Please be as quiet as you can.’

  Holding a lamp high for them to see their way, she led them along cold, dank passages. Stone walls on either side ran away into the darkness, further than the light showed. Their footsteps echoed eerily on the flags as they passed from room to room, and between the rows of beds on either side. Many were in use, their occupants, lying swathed in bandages, motionless and silent, or tossing restlessly, muttering in delirium. Some sat up in their beds staring fixedly ahead of them, taking no notice of the people who came and went, still trapped in their own world of horror, reliving the nightmare played out in their mind again and again and again.

  Esther peered into each face, almost holding her breath each time, then letting it go with a mingled feeling of disappointment and yet relief.

  Jonathan, oh, Jonathan. I want to find you, but not here, not like this, not maimed and crippled, or deranged. I want you alive and whole and . . .

  She stopped at the foot of one of the beds and the sister, glancing back to see if she were following, came back and held the lantern higher.

  The man in the bed was sitting up, rocking backwards and forwards, his head nodding continuously as if he had no control over it. His arms were clasped around his own body, and his eyes stared unseeingly into the darkness. From low in his throat came a whimpering sound, like an animal in pain and suffering.

  Esther drew in a breath and held it as she stared at the man in the unsteady light from the flickering lamp. His hair was cropped short to his head and there was a growth of stubble masking the gaunt jawline and yet there was something about him that made her pause instead of moving on.

  She saw him become aware of the light, conscious that there were people standing at the foot of his bed. She saw him blink and run his tongue over swollen lips, saw his gaze flicker and come to rest on her. For a long moment they stared at each other. She saw the frown on his forehead as he struggled to remember.

  Then he held out his arms to her, arms that trembled. His voice was a hoarse, pleading whisper, ‘I knew you’d come. I’ve been waiting for you. Take me home. Take me home!’

  ‘Goodness me!’ the sister said in a stunned voice. ‘That’s the first time I’ve ever heard him speak. We don’t know who he is – he had no identification on him and he couldn’t tell us – couldn’t seem to speak.’ She looked at Esther. ‘Who is he?’

  Esther looked down at him. She was overwhelmed with compassion. In that moment as she stood in this makeshift hospital ward, a dark, cold, damp place, she remembered him as he had been. Once so strong and vibrant, his life had now been destroyed. He was no more than a trembling wreck. In that moment, Esther Hilton passed from girlhood to womanhood. Gone in an instant were all her naïve, immature dreams of happiness, all her hopes for the future. Before her, grim reality stretched down the years and became her future. Loyalty and duty and yes, love, but a very different kind of love, must, of necessity, come before the desires of her own heart.

  After a moment’s hesitation she put out her own hands and grasped his outstretched, shaking fingers.

  With infinite gentleness, she said, ‘Yes, my dear. I came to find you. I’ll take you home.’

  The man’s thin shoulders were shaking with racking sobs and he pulled her hands up to his cracked lips and kissed her fingers.

  As she leant towards him, only she heard the name he whispered.

  ‘I’ve been dreaming about you. Oh, Beth, Beth – thank God you’ve me.’

  ‘Is he the man you’re looking for?’ the sister asked.

  ‘I—’ Esther hesitated fractionally, trying to evade answering the woman’s question directly, then added, ‘I – know him.’

  ‘What’s his name, then? Who is he?’

  ‘His – his name is Matthew Hilton. He’s my husband.’

  Thirty-five

  IT was a difficult journey home, and without the help of Squire Marshall and his son Arthur, Esther acknowledged she would not have managed. Though the hospital had been thankful to release Matthew into his wife’s care, being one less burden on their dwindling resources and supplies, he was by no means fit to travel or to be in the hands of someone without proper medical experience. He seemed constantly to be running a fever. Every limb in his body seemed plagued by shaking fits, whilst his head nodded continuously in a nervous tic.

  ‘Whatever’s causing that?’ Esther whispered to Squire Marshall.

  ‘I think,’ he answered soberly, ‘it’s what they call shell-shock. The continual sound of gunfire and shells exploding all around them for months, years even, finally shatters their nerves.’

  He shook his head with infinite sadness. ‘To think I sent my boy into all that. With such pride – with such damned, stupid, ignorant pride.’

  As the squire blew his nose noisily and cleared his throat, Esther patted his arm. Out here amongst all this carnage, she felt the squire’s equal in a way she never would back at Fleethaven Point. ‘Don’t blame ya’sen, Squire. They all wanted to go. He’d still have gone, your lad, whatever you’d said.’

  He sighed heavily. ‘I suppo
se you’re right, my dear, but it doesn’t help me to think that I actively encouraged him to go.’ He was silent for a moment, still watching Matthew. With an almost fatherly concern for her, he covered her hand which was still resting upon his arm. I’ll tell you something else, my dear, that I never thought I’d hear myself say. Looking at poor Matthew here, I’m almost glad my son didn’t survive, not if he were to live a life like – like that.’

  They watched Matthew’s hands fluttering in the air, uncontrolled and without purpose, watched his nodding head and the saliva dribbling from the corner of his mouth.

  ‘Oh, my dear, I don’t envy you your task ahead.’ He shook his head. ‘You may have your husband back, but at what cost?’

  What cost indeed – more than the squire could ever know! Esther thought, though she said nothing.

  Those thoughts must remain her own.

  Once they were home and when Matthew was settled in bed and asleep exhausted by the journey, Esther slipped away to the Spit. Despite her frightening experience at the hands of Martha Willoughby and her sister, Esther still loved the place, still found comfort and solace there. She didn’t blame the sea for having almost taken her life – she blamed the people concerned. The Spit was her special place and she wrapped the serenity of it around her like a cloak.

  She walked the full length and at the very tip where the water lapped at the edge, she sank down and dug her hands into the shingle and sand, the sharp stones cutting her palms. She didn’t notice the pain. She was so thankful to be home, so grateful that her land and this place were still whole and untarnished. She looked about her, drinking in the tranquillity. The sea lapped softly at her feet. Behind her the land stretched smooth and flat towards the pale gold of the wintry sunset.

  Young men had died to keep this land – her land – whole. Perhaps one of them had been Jonathan. Tears blurred her vision and spilled over but she let them run down her cheeks unchecked. They were tears of sorrow for what might have been, and now would never be. For a few moments she allowed herself the luxury of self-pity. Never again would she see Jonathan, yet she still prayed that somewhere he was alive and whole, that he had somehow, by some miracle, survived that slaughter.

  The memory of that ravaged land would never leave her. If she closed her eyes she could still see all the horror. She had only been there for minutes; how then had it been for the men who had spent four years there, trapped by circumstance and awaiting inevitable death?

  No wonder her husband had come home a broken man.

  She knew now what she had to do. She knew where her duty lay. Gone were all her romantic hopes and dreams. Before her lay a lifetime of caring for her sick husband, of running the farm single-handed and bringing up her daughter without the love and support of a robust, healthy man in her life.

  She prayed as she had never done before. ‘Dear Lord, give me the strength. And – please – please – let him be alive somewhere. Somewhere in this same world as me, just let Jonathan be alive and well and – and happy.’

  If only I could know, she thought, one way or the other, then I could go on. But her reason told her that it was best she did not know, for if she knew that he was somewhere, maybe back home in Lincoln, not all that far away, wouldn’t she want to see him, to meet him secretly? The voice of reason told her that cruel though it was, it was best that she did not know what had happened to Jonathan Godfrey.

  Now her duty, her loyalty and her compassion lay with the man who was her husband, for all that he did not truly love her any more than she was in love with him. It was Beth he had been dreaming of, Beth’s name he had whispered in his befuddled state, confusing his dream world of longing with reality.

  Esther had a kind of love for Matthew. He was the father of her child and the maternal spirit that was within her would always hold a place in her heart for the man who had sired her child. And it was she, Esther, he now needed. A broken wreck of a man, it was her from whom he could draw strength. She could not desert him, whatever the desires of her own heart might be.

  She could almost hear within her head Ma Harris’s words, ‘As ye sow, so shall ye reap.’ And down the years Beth’s shrill cry still echoed, ‘Ya’ll reap a bitter harvest . . .’

  Oh, what a bitter harvest she must now reap.

  Esther waited for the solace of tears, but now they would not come. Not any more. Her time for weeping was over. The future stretched before her, bleak and lonely.

  With heavy limbs she dragged herself upright and taking one more look at the calm sea and the gentle sky streaked by the setting sun, she turned away and walked back along the Spit towards home.

  As she did so, she knew she was turning her back for the last time on all her dreams of love.

  They all came to see him. One by one and from all around, those who knew Matthew, hearing the news, came knocking at the door, a joyous smile of welcome upon their lips. But they went away sick at heart, no longer smiling, no longer rejoicing at such a homecoming.

  Yet out of every sadness, usually there’s some good comes. Esther smiled, thinking of Ma and her sayings. ‘It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good.’

  All the gossip about Esther and the soldier stopped just as if it had never happened. The community drew in around itself to protect its own. Not one of them would ever tell Matthew how his wife had taken up with a soldier even before she had been told that he, Matthew, was presumed killed. For how could you tell the poor gibbering idiot such a thing? Besides, wasn’t she the angel of mercy herself the way she was looking after him now? And the young soldier – what was his name? They couldn’t rightly remember – he’d never come back nor by all accounts had he even written to her. For didn’t they all know exactly who had cards and letters at the Point? No word had ever come to Mrs Hilton except the telegram and the official letter about Matthew. Esther guessed – and guessed correctly – at what the talk would be over the pints in the Seagull.

  Without a word being spoken directly, Esther felt the change towards her, and, most gratifyingly, the last vestige of any lingering animosity between herself and Ma Harris was swept away.

  ‘Eh, lass, Ah said ya’d have to pay, but Ah wouldn’t have wished this upon ya. Not in a million years!’

  ‘I know, Ma, I know,’ Esther said sadly.

  But it was a comfort to have Ma Harris’s robust friendship once more.

  Three days after they had arrived home, Esther, washing up in the back scullery, heard the shrill sound of Will Benson’s whistle in the lane. Three times he blew on it, just as he had on the day the war had ended. Had he heard already that Matthew was home, she wondered, and it was his joyous greeting to someone they had all believed lost?

  Will pulled his carrier’s cart into the yard and climbed down from his seat, a broad grin on his face. ‘Esther, lass, I’ve got news for you. Wonderful news!’

  ‘Have you, Will? That’s nice,’ she said, drying her hands on her white apron. Outwardly she appeared calm, but inside her heart was thudding in her chest.

  Will was coming towards her, his arms outstretched as if to embrace her, though normally he was an undemonstrative man. ‘Wait till you hear what I’ve . . .’ His glance went beyond her, towards the back door of the house. His gaze became fixed, the smile faded from his face and his arms dropped limply to his side. Esther knew why, for behind her she heard the shuffling, unsteady gait of Matthew’s footsteps on the cinders of the yard.

  Esther stretched a smile upon her mouth. ‘We’ve got news for you, Will,’ she said quietly. ‘Look who I brought home from France.’

  She turned and went towards her husband, taking his arm and gently leading him forwards. ‘See, Matthew, here’s Will come on one of his visits. He’s come all the time, right through the war.’

  She leant forwards putting her mouth close to Matthew’s nodding head. ‘He spoils our Kate summat rotten, given ’alf a chance. Now, come and sit on this seat against the barn wall. Ya can sit a few moments, but not long. It’s not warm en
ough yet to sit out. Come the spring, we’ll all feel better.’

  Will was still standing in the middle of the yard, just staring at Matthew.

  ‘You taken root there, Will Benson?’ Esther forced herself to laugh. ‘An’ close yar mouth, ya’ll be catching flies.’ The older man still continued to stand and watch as Esther lowered Matthew tenderly on to the bench seat against the barn wall.

  ‘Mr Marshall sent this across yesterday, from his own walled garden, so his man said. Weren’t that kind? He said he thought Matthew would be able to sit in the garden when the weather gets warmer. I’ve put it here for the time being, as it’s more sheltered near the barn. Later on we’ll move it near the pond.’

  She kept up the bright, inconsequential chatter, but behind her she heard Will murmur hoarsely, ‘Lass, eh me lass!’ She did not turn round, did not respond to the sympathy in his tone. She dare not, for the lump that rose in her throat threatened tears. She refused to let anyone except Jonathan see her weep.

  Her mind latched on to other thoughts. ‘What was your news you were so anxious to tell me, Will?’

  ‘Oh, er, yes, that.’ He shuffled his feet on the cinders. ‘Oh, ’twas nothing really. Just – er – just that I got a better price for your eggs than usual at the market last week.’ His voice faded away. ‘It – it was nothing – really . . .’

  She glanced at him, but his eyes flickered away and would not meet hers. ‘Ya’ll stay for your dinner, Will, as usual?’ she asked quietly, knowing full well that the price of eggs had not been his news. She had never before seen Will Benson so excited about having secured another couple of pence on her eggs. But it was obvious that he was not going to tell her now – not once he had set eyes upon Matthew.

  All through dinner, whilst Esther patiently fed Matthew, Will could only look on helplessly. He picked at the food on his own plate, his anguished gaze going from Matthew to Esther’s face and back again. Will seemed, time and again, to try to speak, to try to think of something to say. Easy, natural conversation would not come. Esther could sense that he did not know how to handle this new and uncomfortable situation.