by Ruth Sutton
FORGIVEN
PART 2
OF THE TRILOGY
BETWEEN THE MOUNTAINS
AND THE SEA
RUTH SUTTON
First published in United Kingdom
by Hoad Press in 2013
2 Lowther Street, Waberthwaite, Millom, Cumbria LA19 5YN
www.ruthsutton.co.uk [email protected]
ISBN–13: 978-0-9523871-8-3
Copyright © Ruth Sutton 2013
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of the copyright holder, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. The right of Ruth Sutton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Prepared for publication by Aldridge Press
[email protected]
Editorial: Charlotte Rolfe
Design: John Aldridge
Cover design: Kevin Ancient
Cover photos: John Aldridge
Text photos: 1, 31, 51, 136, 198, 257 John Aldridge; 60 Boguslaw Kupisinski | Dreamstime.com; 106 Sergiy Zavgorodny | Dreamstime.com; 153 Menno67 | Dreamstime.com; 218 Prentiss40 | Dreamstime.com; 248 Chris Leachman | Dreamstime.com; 283 Spbphoto | Dreamstime.com
Typeset in Bulmer 11.5/14.5pt
Printed and bound in UK by TJ International, Padstow
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
As with A Good Liar, the first book in this trilogy, I am grateful for the help provided by the staff and resources of the local history archives in Whitehaven. Details of many of the events stemmed from the pages of the Whitehaven News, and from the memories of my friends and neighbours.
For the background of coal mining during the period, particular thanks are due to Pamela Telford at the Haig Mining Museum in Kells, Whitehaven.
Invaluable feedback and support has been offered on first and successive drafts by Mick Shaw, Judy Coghill and my editor, Charlotte Rolfe. The final meticulous production was achieved through the skill and experience of John Aldridge. Thank you to all of them.
RS, Waberthwaite, April 2013
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Much of the inspiration for this trilogy has come from the landscape, people and history of West Cumbria where I now live. All the characters are fictional, and any resemblance to real people is purely coincidental.
Much of the action takes place within the real communities of Kells, Boot, Sandwith, and Seascale. The village of Newton, however, is a fictional community, combining the features of two or three villages close to where the Esk River meets the Irish Sea.
I have presented the voices, accents and dialect of some of the key characters in a way that I hope maintains authenticity while making them intelligible to the reader without a tedious glossary.
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
CHAPTER 1
1946. EARLY SEPTEMBER, LATE AFTERNOON. The air was thick, stifling. Jessie Whelan looked up from her desk in the empty classroom, knowing that something was about to happen. When she opened the outside door of the school, her hair rose from her scalp, galvanised by electricity crackling in the air. Almost at once, with the roar of an approaching train, the storm tore into trembling trees that moaned and thrashed in protest, torn leaves and branches sailing across the yard. Jessie fled back into the building and shut the heavy door with all her strength. Breathless, she peered through the rattling window. Beyond the blizzard of foliage, across the lane, a figure was crouching by the schoolhouse door. She saw it jerk, impaled by light and sound, before it straightened, turned and lurched towards the school.
At the gate the figure stopped, thwarted by the catch. Then it was through, a long coat clinging to the thin body that strode across the yard. The outer door burst open and wind tore through the room. Someone called out, ‘Miss Whelan? Are you there?’ Jessie backed towards the furthest wall of the classroom as the stranger appeared in the doorway. He wore a beret, and a long coat, from which water dripped onto the floorboards. He wiped his thin brown face with his hand. Jessie noticed the round white collar.
‘Who are you?’ she asked, realising as she spoke that she already knew.
Another thunderous crash coincided with lightning that tore the sky above their heads. Jessie saw the man’s mouth move but heard none of his words. She waited until the overwhelming noise abated, reverberating among the old stone walls of the village and the rocky fells all around.
‘You must be Reverend Barker,’ she said. ‘They told us you would be here next week.’
The man nodded. ‘Gideon Barker. And you must be Jessie Whelan.’
She was surprised. She was Miss Whelan to everyone except close friends. ‘How do you know my name?’
‘You are on my list of people to see,’ he said. ‘There was no answer at the schoolhouse, then I saw someone at the window, here.’
‘The children will be back next week and I came across to do some work. Take off your coat, vicar,’ she said. ‘We’ll go back to the house when it calms down.’
He hung the dripping coat over a chair, and took off his beret, revealing pale hair plastered to his head. His face was tanned but thin and drawn. Without the coat he looked like a bedraggled schoolboy; she wondered how old he was, where he had been.
‘Sounds strange to be called “vicar”,’ he said, pulling up a small chair. The wet trousers clung to his legs. ‘It was always “padre”, out east. I got back home a couple of weeks ago and found the letter from the diocese.’
‘About being the vicar here in Newton, you mean?’
‘Aye. Didn’t know anything about it. Orders go astray all the time. Didn’t even know where Newton is. I’m from Sheffield. Bit different down there.’
More lightning lit up the north-facing window, and the thunder was less strident, a second or two later.
‘The storm’s passing over,’ said Jessie. ‘I was going to light a lamp, but we may not need it.’
He glanced round the room. ‘No electric?’
Jessie laughed. ‘No electric anywhere in Newton,’ she said. ‘Not yet. A few cars, one or two telephones.’
‘Tractors?’
She shook her head. ‘Most farmers round here don’t like the idea, and where’s the fuel going to come from when everything’s rationed? Milligans just up the valley, they have a tractor. Much more noisy than the horses.’
‘It’s like another world,’ he said.
Jessie felt uncomfortable, as if he disapproved of her, and Newton. ‘The rain’s eased off,’ she said. ‘We might as well make a dash for the house and I’ll brew us some tea.’
She hoped that tea and cake and a comfortable chair in the small front room of the sch
oolhouse would soften the young man’s mood, but it did not appear to do so. He seemed restless, staring out of the window that Jessie had opened. The storm had passed, and already the air was fresher.
‘Can you smell the sea?’ she asked.
‘Can’t smell much any more. They beat us. The Japs, in the camp.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said.
‘Aye. Well, that was the war, out there. Everyone’s war was different. What was it like ’ere?’
Jessie hesitated, still thinking about what he had said. ‘Some of the men went away to fight,’ she said, ‘and we even had some stray bombs, but nothing like those poor folk in the cities. And we’ve had the rationing and coupons of course, shortages of everything, queuing for food, all that. Nothing’s changed much, really, since the end of the war.’
‘Everything has changed,’ he said, turning back to the open window. ‘People here, people like you, Jessie, you won’t understand that, not really. But for people like me, the war is here,’ he tapped his hard tight chest. ‘We served, we suffered. I’ve seen things in the camps, that you couldn’t imagine.’
Jessie didn’t know what to say and said nothing. He was like a child from a wretched home, set apart by memories of violence. She watched his narrow back, silhouetted against the window. The sky had cleared, and a thrush was singing somewhere outside.
‘Tell me about this place,’ he said. ‘Here we are, miles from anywhere, mountains over there, sea over here. Farms, fields, poverty, except for those folk at Skeffington Hall yonder. They’re doing alright, I’ll bet.’
He wants me to react, she thought. ‘We are isolated, that’s true,’ she said. ‘But actually it’s not just green fields and feudalism. Further north there are pits and factories, just like in Yorkshire. And south of here there’s Barrow, with ships and steel. That’s where I was born. Barrow was hit badly, Mr Barker, and we all did our bit, digging the coal, making the uniforms, building the ships. Hundreds of evacuees from the north-east came, the children were in our school. Our previous vicar’s son, Andy Leadbetter, he was a gunner with the Canadian air force. And my nephew John Pharaoh, he wanted to join the navy but he wasn’t allowed. “Reserved occupation” – he had to stay in the pits.’
Gideon Barker wasn’t listening. ‘This isn’t where I thought they would send me. I wanted Yorkshire, where I’m from, the city, real problems …’
Jessie dealt with her mounting irritation by clearing their cups and plates. He followed her into the kitchen. Before he could say any more she turned to him. ‘I think you need to understand, Mr Barker,’ she said, choosing her words carefully, ‘that we are real people here, too, with strengths and doubts like everybody else. We may be a little behind the times, but sometimes it feels as if the war is still going on. Rationing, shortages, everything run from London. The men are only just coming home. Our Mr Crompton, the other teacher, he was demobbed only a few weeks ago. I haven’t spoken to him yet. He was in the navy, in the Atlantic I believe.’
‘I heard that,’ he said.
‘Alan Crompton and I worked together here before the war,’ Jessie went on. ‘It could be difficult for him, coming back.’
‘How long have you been here?’ he asked.
‘Since 1925. I was very lucky to get this job, and the schoolhouse, and to hold on to it during the thirties.’
‘Twenty years,’ he said. ‘And you live alone at the schoolhouse? No family?’
She shook her head. ‘My mother died many years ago, and my sister went to New Zealand. There’s just my nephew, John. He works in Whitehaven.’ She hesitated. ‘He has his own life. And you, Mr Barker?’
He ignored the question.
‘So, you’re sitting pretty Miss Whelan, I would say,’ he said, not looking at her. ‘In charge at the school, pillar of the community, nice house all to yourself.’
Jessie asked herself if this was jealousy, or just rudeness: either way, the man was insufferable.
‘You may see it that way,’ she said quietly. ‘All I see at present is that the children return next week and I have to be ready for them, and to welcome back Mr Crompton, of course. I’m sure you and he will find much to talk about.’ She moved towards the door.
‘I’ll have to get back to the vicarage,’ he said. ‘Got some people moving in there. Too much space for me. Thanks for the tea, Jessie. And the chat.’ She had opened the front door with an unmistakeable gesture of dismissal, but he paused and looked back at her.
‘It was my faith that kept me going, all those years,’ he said. ‘Sometimes I can hardly remember the man I was before, but I will find him again. It’ll just take a little time. Sorry if I’m a bit, you know, sharp.’
Jessie smiled but said no more as she closed the door behind him and leant against it. Sharp or not, what had he been trying to say? It sounded like disapproval, that she should move over and leave her job and the house to someone more deserving. And what would her friend Agnes Plane, wealthy, well-connected Agnes Plane make of him? Jessie couldn’t help but smile at the thought of the confrontation to come. Agnes had wanted a village party, to mark the anniversary of the end of the war, but the parish council had scorned the idea. ‘Nowt to celebrate, nowt to celebrate with,’ they’d said, so the party would be at Applegarth, not the village hall, and Jessie knew that the new vicar would be invited. She would have to warn Agnes about him, but she still wanted to be there when they met for the first time. Agnes knew more than most people about the post-war world through her work in London at the Ministry of Supply. Gideon Barker wouldn’t be able to browbeat her, but Jessie would enjoy seeing him try.
The following morning a letter arrived at the schoolhouse. Jessie recognised the writing on the envelope and felt a familiar twist in her stomach. It was from John Pharaoh, the man she called her nephew. Even after all this time, ten long years, any word from him made her anxious. When they had settled on the public lie, to keep their secret and protect Jessie’s job and home, lying had seemed so easy. It should have been even easier as time passed, she thought. but instead, her sense of unease grew. She wondered how much longer he would let her deny that he was her son, that she had given him away to strangers when he was four days old and lied about it ever since?
She opened the letter, feeling the fear in her clumsy fingers.
Dear Jessie,
Agnes has invited me to her birthday party next week, but it will be easier for both of us if I don’t come. I have a new job, by the way, in the wages office at the Haig Pit. It’s a step up, and closer to the house in Sandwith.
I hope you are well,
John
New job, his own home. No mention of a girlfriend. She wondered how John would keep their secret when he had a wife and children of his own? She hated not knowing when the axe would fall. Maybe it would be better to just tell people, herself. When the secret was out, she would have to resign; if she didn’t they would sack her, and she couldn’t let that happen. And what about Matthew? He liked her, she knew that, but he was the doctor, respectable Dr Dawson. How would he react to the news that she was a liar and a fraud?
John’s letter lay on the kitchen table, taunting her. She crumpled it up and threw it away.
The party would certainly be easier without John. Relieved of that anxiety, she could enjoy Agnes’s hospitality, and catch up with friends she hadn’t seen for a while.
* * *
‘Have you seen Matthew, dear?’ Caroline Leadbetter asked as she was taking off her gloves. ‘He set off from Cockermouth ahead of us.’
Jessie smiled at Caroline’s eagerness. ‘He’s in the kitchen, talking to Agnes.’
‘He was so looking forward to seeing you, Jessie, he told me so himself. He looks well, don’t you think? Handsome even, for a man his age.’
Jessie nodded in agreement. He is a handsome man, she thought, more than she remembered from those years ago when he and his wife lived in the village, before the war.
‘And here he is,’ said Caroline. �
��I’ll leave you two to catch up. Can you hear Lionel anywhere?’ She squeezed Jessie’s arm and was gone.
‘Hello, Jessie,’ said Matthew, ‘Have you got a drink? Can I get you something?’
‘I’m fine, thank you,’ she said, picking her glass from the hall table.
‘I’m going to have a look at the new raised beds outside that Agnes was telling me about, while it’s still light. Come with me?’
Why not, she thought. They slipped out of the front door together, and round the side of the house.
The warmth of afternoon sun was still trapped in the enclosed garden. Jessie and Matthew inspected the raised beds and considered what might grow well, and who would manage the project.
‘Agnes feels she’s done enough at the Ministry. She hasn’t said it in so many words, but she never expected the demands to be as great, or long-lasting. This is her home, and she’s full of plans for the house and the garden when she finally has time to spend on them. It’s frustrating for her to have this lovely home and not have enough time to enjoy it. Nellie looks after the house, and Mr Barnett does the garden. They’re both very conscientious, but it’s not the same as doing things yourself, seeing the fruits of your own efforts.’
Matthew nodded. ‘You must feel that about the school – the fruits of your own efforts, I mean.’
‘I do in a way,’ she said. ‘You know the best time for me was when the evacuees were here. They were a challenge, but it was a challenge I needed. Since they went, it’s felt rather flat. I should be happy to coast along until I retire, but I don’t feel like that.’
‘Sounds as if the new vicar may be your new challenge,’ said Matthew, ‘from what Agnes was saying. She’s invited him to the party, but no sign of him yet.’
‘I do hope he comes,’ said Jessie. ‘We could have sold tickets!’
‘Is he so difficult?’ he asked.
‘Not difficult, just very different. And whatever happened to him during the war, it’s left him bitter, wanting to change everything. He’s only been here a few days, and he’s managed to upset everybody, apparently. The only person who seems to like him is Alan Crompton, the other teacher at the school, the one who’s just come back. They were both overseas and treat each other like brothers-in-arms, standing together against a common foe. Or that’s how it feels anyway.’
