The Fleethaven Trilogy

by Margaret Dickinson

  It turned out to be the happiest Christmas she could remember. Matthew seemed more even-tempered and much better in health. He even made an effort to help with the preparations. He stirred the puddings, urging Kate to make a wish. ‘Dun’t tell what you wish, not to anyone, Katie, for then it won’t come true.’ He was smiling down at her as the child shut her eyes and screwed up her face.

  Matthew was chuckling. ‘My word, that looks as if it’s a wish and a half.’

  He plucked, drew and dressed the goose ready for the oven – a job Esther hated.

  ‘We must put up the trimmings, Katie, and tomorrow we’ll drive into town and get a Christmas tree.’

  ‘Oh, yes, Dad, yes. Like the one in the square in the town.’

  ‘Well, perhaps not quite as big as that, but . . .’

  ‘They’re expensive to buy, Matthew. There’s some fir trees on the old marsh. You get one of them,’ Esther began and then she saw the disappointment written plainly on both their faces.

  ‘They’re not the same as a real Christmas tree off the market, Mam,’ Kate said.

  ‘It’s me first Christmas back home, Esther. Let’s have a proper tree, just this year,’ Matthew added.

  She sighed inwardly. Really, she thought, half-amused, half-exasperated, it was like having two children instead of one. Aloud she said, ‘You pair! Ya reckon ya can twist me round ya little fingers!’ But she was smiling as she added, ‘Oh, very well, then, but dun’t you go mad, Matthew. Promise?’

  ‘I promise, Esther.’

  When they arrived home the following day, Esther could see at once that his promise, so lightly made, was also easily broken. Kate was dancing around him in excitement and the tree was so large that Danny, who had been invited to go with them into town in the motor car, was having to hold one end whilst Matthew struggled to drag the tree through the door, the full extent of the branches being wider than the doorway. But seeing the children’s joy and Matthew’s pride in his purchase, Esther hadn’t the heart to spoil their fun by scolding.

  They set it up in a tub in the corner of the living room and Kate hung paper decorations and painted fir cones on its branches.

  ‘Teacher showed us how to make these at school, Mam. There, doesn’t it look pretty?’

  ‘Yes,’ Esther nodded. ‘I must admit it looks splendid.’

  She felt Matthew’s arm around her waist and involuntarily she stiffened. He did not seem to notice as he said close to her ear, ‘You’re not such a bad old girl, Esther Hilton, in spite of your shrewish tongue.’ He planted a swift kiss on her cheek, turned away, took his cap down from behind the door and winding a muffler round his neck, he left the house and headed in the direction of the Seagull.

  Esther watched him go. Shrewish tongue, eh? Was she sounding to Matthew like her Aunt Hannah had seemed to her? Only concerned with work and duty, and devoid of any capacity to enjoy herself?

  Kate interrupted her thoughts. ‘Mam, when can I hang me stocking up on the mantel?’

  It was late when Matthew staggered in – too late to help Esther fill Kate’s stocking with an orange, some nuts and sweets. And lastly, just one main present – a doll with a china face and a cloth body for which Esther had painstakingly made the tiny clothes on her Aunt Hannah’s sewing machine.

  They had Christmas dinner at the farm – just the three of them with Matthew sitting at the head of the table carving the goose.

  They were invited to join the Harrises’ noisy Christmas in the cottage at the Point for the evening, so during the afternoon she had made an over-excited Kate rest on her bed. Matthew, too, was stretched out in the front parlour, snoring in front of a blazing fire which Esther had lit in honour of Christmas. So whilst the others dozed, Esther snatched a few quiet moments to walk alone to the end of the Spit. The tide was high and lapped at the ridge of land along which she walked, but she had no fear of the water now.

  As always her thoughts turned to warm, sunlit days. The memory of Jonathan’s blue eyes and gentle mouth was so vivid she almost felt that if she turned quickly he would be there, walking towards her. Sometimes, he seemed so close . . .

  Pushing away such foolishness, she bent and picked up some flat oyster shells. Leaning sideways she held the shell between her thumb and forefinger and flipped it across the water. It scudded over the surface bouncing three or four times before it sank beneath the waves. She sent three more skimming after it and smiled to herself as she remembered Matthew teaching her the game.

  Ducks and drakes, he’d called it.

  Her mind was filled with both the men in her life: Jonathan, her lost love, no more now than a sweet memory, and Matthew – poor Matthew – still suffering from his dreadful ordeal in the war. He needed her and deserved her compassion at least.

  But would there ever be real happiness for any of them?

  She sighed. Pulling her shawl closely around her she took one last look at the bleak, lonely sea and bending her head against the wind, she went back home.

  At the beginning of January north-easterly winds blew in from the sea, combining with the highest tides of the year which pounded the coastline and flooded over the Spit and on to the marsh, swelling the haven and the mouth of the River Lynn.

  On the first Saturday after New Year it seemed to reach a climax. The gale howled around the farmhouse, battering the windows and rattling the tiles, and the rain lashed against the glass.

  Esther, who had never liked storms, blocked the back door with a chair against it. ‘It’s like that day you went out on the lifeboat. Remember, Matthew.’ she said as she came into the kitchen where he was sitting by the range. ‘When Robert Eland was out in his fishing boat and—’ She broke off as Matthew got up from his chair and stared at her with wide, stricken eyes.

  ‘Why, whatever’s the matter, Matthew?’

  He stumbled across the room towards the door.

  ‘Matthew!’ she cried again. ‘Matthew, what is it?’

  ‘The boat,’ he mumbled. ‘The boat – I must . . .’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Matthew.’ She pushed against his chest, trying to calm him, to make him sit down again. ‘There’s no boat out there on a night like this. Sit down . . .’

  Suddenly there was surprising strength in his hands as he gripped her arms, his eyes wild. ‘No, no – their boat, Elands’ boat. It’s not safe – not in this storm. Beth – Danny – they’re on that boat.’

  ‘Matthew, listen to me – Robert’ll have brought them off. He wouldn’t . . .’

  ‘He’ll not take care of them.’ Matthew was ranting now, panic and terror in his frenzied eyes. ‘He’ll not care for my son. Or for Beth . . . my Beth. He’s let that boat go to ruin. The wood’s rotten now – I’ve seen it.’

  Esther opened her mouth to argue, but suddenly a memory flashed before her – a memory as clear as if she were seeing it before her eyes right now. It hadn’t really registered at the time, yet now amidst Matthew’s wild babbling, she knew he was speaking the truth.

  It had been when she had received the telegram about Matthew and she had gone to see Beth. It was the only time she had been really close to the Elands’ boat home – and now in her mind’s eye she was seeing once more the rotting, unpainted wood of the boat and the poles and stays that supported it on the river bank. All had been allowed to fall into a state of decay.

  She gasped as realization hit her. In such a storm those poles, rotten with neglect, would give way.

  ‘They won’t have stayed on the boat, Matthew,’ she insisted. ‘Not in this lot . . .’

  He wasn’t listening to her rational statement. All he was thinking of was Beth – and his son.

  With sudden, inexplicable strength – the strength that fear gives for those few vital minutes – he pushed her aside, not caring that she lost her balance and fell to the floor. Reaching the back door, he flung aside the chair and the door blew open, the storm raging into the house.

  ‘Matthew, Matthew—’

  But he had gone out
into the storm.

  Esther dragged herself to her feet and staggered after him. The wind blew her shawl from her shoulders and tossed it into the air. The rain soaked her blouse within seconds and plastered her hair to her head. Leaning against the wind she struggled towards the Point. She saw Matthew crest the Hump and disappear from her view.

  As she reached the top of the steep rise and came down the other side, she saw he was striving to reach the boat. Already the swollen river was flooding on to the bank, the water swirling around his ankles. The boat seemed to have been lifted up off its supporting poles and looked to be floating, heaving from side to side, and yet it had not yet broken adrift: from its mooring.

  Matthew arrived at the wooden jetty and reached out to grasp the rope.

  ‘Matthew! No!’ Esther shrieked, but the sound was snatched and tossed away by the gale. She could not even hear her own voice let alone be heard by Matthew.

  He was pulling himself up the gangway as she reached the water. Lifting her skirts, she waded through it to reach him. She must stop him. This was sheer madness.

  She had reached the bottom of the gangway and had even put her hand on the rope. Looking upwards, she saw him jump from the end of the gangway on to the boat, saw him stagger for a moment and then right himself, though the boat rocked beneath his feet.

  Then he disappeared from her view.

  As she tightened her grip on the rope and steadied herself to step on to the swaying planking, she felt herself pushed to one side. Above the roaring wind she had heard no one behind her and so the push, catching her off guard, sent her sprawling into the shallow flood-water on the bank. Gasping and gulping she staggered up again, thinking, irrationally at such a moment, that she seemed to be spending more time on all fours than on her feet this night.

  When she looked around it was to see that Beth had taken her place. Now it was Beth ‘s fingers which grasped the rope, Beth’s face which was upturned to the boat, her eyes wide with anguish and terror. Her mouth was moving and although Esther could hear no sound above the noise of the storm, even this close, she could see that it was his name Beth was shouting.

  ‘Matthew! MATTHEW!’

  Esther too glanced up again, but he had vanished, gone below in search of his other family.

  Beth made to heave herself up the gangway, and Esther, too, grasped the rope and made to follow her.

  Strong arms seized them, pulling them backwards. Robert Eland’s arms were around Beth’s waist, but still she clung tenaciously to the rope. Esther felt herself held by Mr Harris.

  Close against her ear he shouted, ‘Nay, lass, ya’ll all be killed. Have some sense, Esther.’ Suddenly the fight went out of her and she leant against the huge comforting bulk of Ben Harris. She closed her eyes and dropped her head momentarily against his shoulder as a shudder convulsed her whole body. The man must have felt her fear, for his arms tightened about her. Esther took a deep breath, raised her head and opened her eyes again to see Robert Eland trying to drag Beth off the landing stage. Her hands gripping the rope were grazed and bleeding, but still she clung on, her mouth wide open, her eyes frantic, her face the colour of death itself.

  Then from the mouth of the river, a huge tidal wave, blown in from the sea, came rolling up towards them, sluicing on to the banks on either side, sweeping aside ail that lay in its path. Esther felt herself lifted from her feet and carried by Mr Harris away from the bank, and only when they were against the shelter of the cottage and Ma Harris too had taken hold of her, did they turn to look back.

  They stood in a petrified trio, Esther in the centre with Ma Harris and her husband on either side. They clung together watching the bizarre and awful scene played out before their eyes. The wave came nearer and nearer, yet Beth would not relinquish her hold upon the rope of the gangway, and Robert Eland would not leave her.

  The horrified watchers saw Matthew appear at the side of the boat above the gangway. Seeing them below, he seemed about to step over the side to come down. But in that split second he must have become aware of the surge of water bearing down upon him for he half-turned, looked down river and was stilled. His hands resting on the side of the boat, he was motionless. He looked down – just once – at Beth. He had time only to raise his hand as if in final farewell, before the wave crashed against the boat, lifting it like a cork, tearing it from its mooring and wrenching away half the landing stage with it. For a timeless moment, the boat seemed suspended above them, and then with slow finality it rolled over on its side into the river.

  They saw Matthew flung backwards, saw his arms flail wildly and then he and the boat plunged beneath the torrent, sending huge waves washing on to the river bank.

  The waters subsided and drained back into the river as the wave, lessening with each yard it travelled, rolled on up the river. Then Esther saw the two of them – Robert with his arms still locked around Beth – lying on the ground.

  The Harrises and Esther struggled towards them. As they did so, with a cruel irony the wind dropped suddenly. Now they could hear another dreadful sound.

  The sound of Beth’s shrill screaming that went on and on and on . . .

  Forty-one

  MATTHEW’S body was washed up three days later, ironically on the place which Esther had called her own; the place where so often she had found comfort in her solitude and yet the place where she too had almost lost her life – the end of the Spit.

  The storm had blown itself out. It had calmed almost at once after the tragedy, as if it had exhausted its cruelty and was appeased.

  Beth and Robert Eland were safe, yet Beth, they told Esther, had retreated into a world of her own, neither speaking nor eating. She sat in Ma Harris’s kitchen just staring out of the window at the river, at the place where her home had been. At the place where Matthew had died.

  Esther was tormented by feelings of guilt. I should have stopped him, she told herself over and over, and even voiced her feelings to Will. ‘I should have gone up after him . . .’

  ‘Aye, then there’d have been two deaths, lass. Where would me pretty little Katie have been then, without father or mother?’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘But nothing, lass. I’ve heard it all from Ben Harris. He says you’d have gone up if he hadn’t held on to ya.’

  ‘I should have stopped him here, before he went out. He – he wouldn’t listen, Will. I tried to tell him they’d have come off the boat, but – but he didn’t even seem to hear me, let alone believe me. He was gone so quick, before I really realized what he meant – what he was going to do.’

  Will, not often given to displays of open affection, put his arms about her, and likewise Esther, not used to giving way to emotion, laid her head against his chest and her voice was muffled as she said, ‘Oh, Will, I feel so – so guilty.’

  Will stroked her hair and she heard his words deep from within his chest as he said, ‘Dun’t blame yourself, lass. We all feel guilt when someone dies. It’s not his death you feel the guilt about, it’s the life, all that went before. All the things you’ve done or haven’t done. Now you’re denied the time to put it right.’

  Esther listened to his wise words of comfort. ‘You shouldn’t need to feel the guilt, lass, because since you brought him home from the war, no one on this earth could have been a more devoted wife than you.’

  His voice dropped to a whisper as he added, ‘An’ I know, more than anyone else, just how much it’s cost you to do it, lass.’

  She heard the catch in his voice and she lifted her head a little and, her own eyes brimming with tears, she looked up into his face.

  ‘Thank you . . .’ the name she longed to call him hovered on her lips but she ended, ‘Will.’

  *

  They all came to his funeral. Everyone from the Point, and from the surrounding farms: the Harrises, the Willoughbys, the Souters and the Squire.

  And Beth came.

  Supported by her husband, she stood at the end of one of the pews half way down the ais
le, her eyes fixed upon the coffin. By her side stood Danny, solemn and white-faced.

  The young boy had lost his friend, a man he had helped towards recovery. The man he knew as Kate’s father.

  Would he ever know, Esther thought, just how much more he had lost?

  Following the coffin out of the church as chief mourner, with Kate on one side and Will Benson on the other, Esther paused in the aisle as she came level with Beth. She felt a soft sigh run through the congregation and knew they were watching herself and Beth in this moment.

  Esther glanced at Robert Eland – this compassionate man who had borne so much in the face of his wife’s love for another man. Yet even now she read the silent consent in his eyes to her unspoken question. She put out her hand towards Beth and Danny and gestured that the Eland family should take the place in the funeral procession directly behind herself, Kate and Will.

  It was a gesture she knew might find censure amongst some and would certainly cause gossip amongst many. But as always Esther Hilton flouted convention, cared nothing for how things looked or what others might say or think. She owed this to Beth and to Danny.

  Most of all, she owed it to Matthew.

  The two women in his life, who had loved him each in their own, but very different, way, stood side by side as the coffin was lowered into the ground.

  Esther heard a sob and she reached out and took Beth’s hand in hers. It was like ice. She held it between her own, trying to warm it, trying to comfort the woman at her side. There was nothing she could say that would lessen Beth’s pain, nothing that could turn back time and make everything different.

  The vicar intoned the words over the grave and then Matthew’s family and friends threw handfuls of earth on to the top of the coffin.

  Danny and Kate stepped forward, their faces solemn, feeling the importance of the moment. They stood close together and Esther saw Danny take hold of Kate’s hand. Together they bent and picked up a handful of earth and together they threw it on to the top of Matthew’s coffin. They stood in silence for a moment and then Danny turned to look at Kate, concern for her on his young face.