by Sarah Rayne
And although it was quite scary to be going off into the unknown like this, completely alone, it was not as scary as sleeping in the house in Pedlar’s Yard, trying not to hear the stumbling footsteps on the stairs. So I’ll cope with the scary feeling and I’ll just think about finding that house.
It was not so many years since a child travelling alone would have attracted concerned attention – ‘Shouldn’t you be with your mother, my dear…?’ ‘Where are you going on your own…?’ But it had been the start of the so-called liberated 1970s: children went more or less where they liked and did more or less what they wanted, and respecting your elders was uncool, boring, a thing of the past. What’s it to you where I’m going, mister?
Mother had always said it was ill-mannered to talk in that way, but at least it meant nobody took much notice of a child travelling alone. And it turned out to be easy to slip into the big anonymous railway station and hide in the lavatories until it was morning and there were enough people milling around not to look twice at a child. It was easy, as well, to carefully study the glass-fronted maps in the railway station, and then buy a train ticket to Peterborough which seemed to be the nearest big town to Mowbray Fen, although it was suddenly heart-bumpingly anxious to sit waiting for the train to come in. What if police come storming in before the train arrives, looking for me? What would I do?
But the train came in, and once on it, once it started away from the station, it was possible to feel safer. I’m going away from Pedlar’s Yard, and the farther I go, the safer I am. I am nothing to do with Pedlar’s Yard any longer and I am nothing to do with North London any longer. I am a person travelling to Lincolnshire, going to visit my grandmother. The words brought a deep satisfaction. Just as the names of the villages and towns learned from mother had been a litany to blot out the brutality, so now was the phrase ‘going to visit my grandmother’ a charm that could be recited to inquisitive grown-ups. I am going to visit my grandmother who lives in Mowbray Fen. The wheels of the train sang the names of the stories. Thorney and Witchford and Whissendine. Rockingham Forest and going-to-see-grandmother.
Peterborough was finally reached after lunch, and from there on, buses had to be taken, but this also turned out to be easy. People at bus stations could be politely asked for directions, although once a stout, bossy-looking woman said sharply, ‘Shouldn’t you be at school?’ and there was a breath-snatching moment of panic. But it was easy to point to a well-dressed female on the other side of the square and say there was Mother, and that there had been a dentist’s appointment that afternoon.
Seeing the sign that said ‘You are entering the County of Lincolnshire’ brought a lurch of delighted expectation. Lincoln. Robin Hood and Sherwood Forest. And Pedlar’s Yard was a long way behind now, and clearly the money was going to last, which was one huge worry out of the way. It was even possible to be interested in things like newspaper headlines on placards. The Space Race – America and Russia sending up Apollos and Pioneers and probe-ships to Mars. And there were stories about the fairly shocking musical, Jesus Christ, Superstar, and about the really shocking films like Last Tango in Paris, and Deep Throat. People had sniggered about Deep Throat at school, but films and musicals had not played any part in the life of Pedlar’s Yard. Because there had been no money for them, or because there had been no understanding of how marvellous things like that could be? Yes, but one day I’m going to be grown up and then I’m going to know about films and music and books.
And then at last there was a bus that left Grantham, which rumbled along through all the places with the fairytale names. Thorney and Witchford and Whissendine. Parson Drove and Kings Cliffe and Collyweston…There was the feeling of being pulled deeper and deeper into Mother’s stories.
And now Mowbray Fen, just the tiniest of tiny villages on the edge of the Lincolnshire Wolds, was only a few miles away, which meant the house in the marshes was only a few miles away as well. And when I get there I’ll really have escaped, and I’ll have stepped into a different world.
Shall I change my name for that different world? Tear up the birth certificate and be called something entirely new? Would it be safer to do that, so that nobody could ever know about Pedlar’s Yard? What could I be called?
The appalling possibility that Mother’s whispered stories might not be true could not be considered, not even for a moment. The marsh house must exist and that was all there was to it. It had been dreamed about and yearned for so strongly and for so long, that it could not be simply a fairytale.
But once off the bouncing country bus came the search for signposts that pointed to Mowbray Fen, and a different panic swept in, because supposing there weren’t any signposts? Supposing this whole thing was going to turn out to be as elusive as looking for the rainbow’s end so that you could claim the pot of gold? Supposing that letter Mother showed me was an old one and the house isn’t here any longer? Or supposing I got the journey wrong, and I’ve ended up miles away from where I should be?
But the panic did not last long, because this was the land of the jack o’ lanterns and the will o’ the wisps, and there was a strong pure light everywhere – a light that bore no resemblance to London’s thick cloggy skies – and if ever will o’ the wisps danced in England they would surely dance here, to their own strange wild music, moving across the flat rolling marshlands, in and out of the thick fringings of reeds and rushes. Keep looking. The road will be here somewhere.
The road was there, of course. As if the creatures of the myths were pointing the way, there was the sign-post: ‘Mowbray Fen, 4 miles.’
Mowbray Fen. Heart’s desire and journey’s end. I’m nearly there.
Mowbray Fen, when it was finally reached, turned out to be a village with a little straggling street and a big square area of grass at one end, with a stone cross. There were shops – some of them with little roundy windows – and there were houses built out of stone, which was something you hardly ever saw in Pedlar’s Yard.
But Pedlar’s Yard need never appear again, and it need not be talked about or even remembered. Out here, it was possible to believe this.
Just beyond the main street was a church with a little spire; music came from its half-open door – lovely music, not like anything you had ever heard before, but music that was somehow part of the strangeness of this place and that was all mixed up with the feeling of having escaped.
And there, beyond the church, and behind the green, was a small sign, so weathered it was almost impossible to read. But to the prepared mind it was very clear indeed. ‘The Priest’s House’ it said, and at the sight of it memory stirred all over again.
‘It’s called the Priest’s House,’ Mother had said. ‘It was built when people could be put to death for believing in the wrong religion, and there are legends that priests hid there before being smuggled out of the country and across to Holland.’
The house lay at the end of a bumpy, gravelly track. It was not really part of the village at all: it was a mile or two outside the village, and it was much bigger than Mother had described it. Mother had made it sound an enchanted place: a tiny pretty cottage, the walls covered with roses or ivy, and sunlight glinting permanently on the windows. But it was not like that at all; it was built of the same grey stone as the village shops, and it had twisty chimneys and gardens all round it. There was a white gate that swung inwards, and a crunchy path led up to the door. A little lamp hung over the door – it gave out a lovely amber glow that made you feel warm and hopeful – and there was a light on in one of the downstairs windows. And surely, oh surely, the lady who lived here – the lady who had had the handsome young man in love with her all those years ago – would still be here. Because this was the beckoning dream at last: it was the place that had shone like a beacon all your life. I can’t have come all this way to find she’s moved away, or died.
It was the hardest thing yet to reach up to the heavy door knocker, but it had to be done. The knocker rapped smartly down, and the whole world
narrowed to this single moment: to the violet dusk and the scents of the garden, and the silence which was not like any silence anywhere else. Light years spun past and whole worlds were born and died, and it began to seem as if Time had become stuck and nothing was going to happen ever again.
And then the door opened and she was there, framed in the doorway, an inquiring look on her face, not particularly worried by an unexpected caller, merely wanting to know what this was about. There was the sound of a radio or a television from one of the rooms, and there was a faint drift of something savoury cooking, all mixed up with the scent of polish and cleanliness.
‘Yes?’
She was not quite as Mother’s stories had suggested. For one thing she did not seem as old, although there were lines around her eyes and at the corners of her mouth, and her hair was grey. But when she smiled she had the most beautiful smile in the world, and it did not matter if she was seventy or only sixty, or if she was ninety or even a hundred. She had the loveliest voice in the world, as well. In Pedlar’s Yard people did not bother overmuch about voices; they just said what they had to say, and did not care how it sounded. But from now on, I’ll always know that voices are important. Not posh accents or anything like that – for a moment Pedlar’s Yard surfaced stubbornly, because it was wimpish and stupid to pretend to be posh! – but I’ll remember that a voice can be beautiful. Like a midnight sky. Like velvet.
Take a deep breath and then say what you’ve planned. Say it properly and politely. Here I go, then. ‘I’m looking for my grandmother. But I don’t know if this is the right house.’
The lady with the voice like a midnight sky and the most beautiful smile in the world, said, ‘It could be the right house. What is your grandmother’s name?’
‘Alice Wilson.’
She did not speak for a moment, and then she said, ‘Where have you come from?’
‘London. A place called Pedlar’s Yard.’
‘Oh!’ she said, and there was a moment when something seemed to switch on behind her eyes, and there was the feeling of an emotion suddenly springing out of nowhere, and whatever the emotion was, it was so extremely strong that it would not have been surprising to see it leap out and take solid shape in the dusk-lit garden.
Then she said, ‘Then this is the right house. I’m Alice Wilson. I know about Pedlar’s Yard. But I didn’t know I had a grandchild, although I’m very glad to meet you. I think you’d better come inside.’
Come inside…The words uttered by all the enchantresses in all the stories…Come inside, my dear…And sometimes ‘inside’ was evil and dangerous, and sometimes it was wonderful and magical. And until you actually stepped inside, there was absolutely no way of knowing which it was going to be.
But to do anything other than step into the house was absolutely unthinkable.
Those first days in the Priest’s House were filled with bewildering new impressions – so much so that even the aching loss of Mother – the pain that had nagged and gnawed just under the surface all the way here – became nearly bearable.
For some inexplicable reason it had been unthinkable not to tell the whole story of Pedlar’s Yard with complete truthfulness. Alice (‘You had better call me that – I don’t think I can cope with being “grandmother”,’ she had said) had listened without interrupting that first evening, but at one stage her lips had trembled and she had clutched her hands together so tightly that the knuckles showed white. And – this was the curious thing – the part that had upset her so much had not been where Mother had died; it had been the part where Mother had used the scissors on the man who had brutalized and cowed her for so many years.
But then she had said, ‘That was a very dreadful thing for you to see, but the memories will get better after a while. And you’ll travel away from the sadness in time. You’ll build a bridge away from it and you’ll go across that bridge into whatever’s waiting for you in the future.’
‘I will?’
‘Yes. It’s how life works. We aren’t allowed to be sad all the time.’
‘I ’spect you’ll have to tell the police about what happened, won’t you?’
‘Don’t look so frightened, you solemn little owl. We’re not going to tell the police anything.’
‘We’re not?’
‘No. That house – Pedlar’s Yard – is a very long way away from here. And you brought that last letter I sent, didn’t you? Well, I know you did.’
‘I thought you might need to see it so’s you’d know I really was me.’
She smiled. ‘I can see you’re really you without any letters,’ she said. ‘Even without the photo you brought, I can see it.’ A pause. ‘I’m glad you brought that.’
‘I wanted to remember Mother as happy. She’s happy in the photo, isn’t she?’
‘Yes.’ Alice had looked at the small photo for a very long time, occasionally reaching out a finger to trace the features. Once she said, ‘You’re more like your mother than your father.’
‘I know.’
‘Were there any other papers in the house? Anything that might link Pedlar’s Yard to this place? Other photographs, perhaps? Old ones?’
‘Not really. There wasn’t much space for things like that. I only knew about you from the stories. My mother liked telling me stories. She was good at it – she used to make me see the people and the places. Once said she would have liked to be a writer. A proper writer, I mean. Books and things.’
‘And – you do remember her as looking happy sometimes? Like she was in this photograph?’
‘Oh yes. She once said he – my father – could be very charming.’ And for a moment Mother’s face was vividly there, half-sad, half-happy, talking about the charming young man she had married and must once have loved very much…
‘Charming,’ said Alice thoughtfully, as if trying out the word. ‘Yes, I’m sure that’s true.’ And again a memory came surging upwards – this time of Mother saying that families were odd things; that if you married someone your family did not like…
And then, with a switch of mood to practicality, Alice said, ‘Well now, it doesn’t sound as if there’d be anything in that house to connect me – or you – with it. And so I think we can count ourselves safe.’
This had to be considered carefully. Then, because it was as well to get things absolutely clear, ‘You mean we aren’t going to say anything to anyone?’
She took a moment to answer. ‘No, I don’t believe we are,’ she said at last. ‘We’re going to keep it just between the two of us. I’m glad to know she talked to you about me, though.’ She said this half to herself, but there was a flicker of sadness. ‘It means that out of all that hatred and violence, I’ve got you.’ The smile showed briefly. ‘But now your mother’s dead, I think we should make sure we keep her memory as a good one. Keep the photograph carefully, won’t you?’
‘Yes, of course. Uh – do you mean we’re going to keep what she did a secret? In case people think of her as – um – a murderer?’ The word came out a bit bumpily, but Alice did not seem to notice.
She said, ‘Yes, that’s just what I do mean. People love to gossip and to speculate, and they aren’t always very kind. You’d grow up with everyone whispering behind your back.’ Again there was the pause, as if she was arranging in her mind what to say next. ‘And the truth is that your mother was defending herself – and you. Mothers do defend their children – very fiercely at times.’ Again there was the flicker of anger and grief all mixed up together.
‘Yes, I understand that.’
‘Also,’ said Alice, ‘it’s the intention that counts, remember that. I was brought up to be quite religious – most people were when I was young – and I know it’s the things in your heart and in your mind that count. That’s what God sees and hears and knows about. And I don’t believe your mother intended to kill him.’
They looked at one another. Impossible to say, But how can we be sure?
If Alice heard this thought, she did not show i
t. She said, ‘Everything will be perfectly all right. No one will find you here, and no one here will ever connect you with Pedlar’s Yard.’ This was said with absolute conviction. ‘I’ve lived in this village for a great many years, and I’m very well thought of here.’ She paused. ‘But I think what we will do is to tell a small lie about you. I don’t think you’d better be known as my grandchild, because people are inquisitive. They might say, “Goodness, Alice, a grandchild? We didn’t even know you had any children.” So I think you’ll just be a young relative.’ The smile that was so beautiful you wanted it to go on for ever beamed. ‘But whatever we say, you’ll be safe. I won’t let anything happen to you, I promise.’
‘All right. Thank you.’
‘Good.’ She stood up. ‘So now you are here, you’d better have some supper, hadn’t you? If you’ve been travelling all day you probably haven’t had a proper meal. I want to hear all about your journey, and I want to hear all about you. And after you’ve eaten, we’ll see about making up a bed for you. There are a couple of very nice guest rooms upstairs. Would you like to be at the back of the house, overlooking the trees, or would you like to be at the side, overlooking the lane?’
CHAPTER NINE
Incredibly, it had been as unfussed and as straightforward as that. Supper that first night was a delicious chicken casserole with fresh fruit afterwards, and one of the very first lessons to be learned was that eating and cooking meals in this house was friendlier and much more interesting than in Pedlar’s Yard.
The evening meal was called supper and the midday meal was lunch. Quite early on, Alice said, ‘We’ll see about school for you – there’s a good one just beyond the village, I believe. During the term you’ll have your lunch there, of course, but when you’re at home – weekends and holidays – I might not always want to be bothered with breaking off what I’m doing to prepare a meal. Or I might be out – there’re various church activities I like to be part of, and charity things. Sometimes I meet one of my friends or a friend comes to lunch here. We shan’t want children around while we gossip, and you’d be bored anyway. I’m a selfish lady, my dear, but I’ve lived on my own for a long time, and I don’t think I can change at my time of life. So we’ll work round that, and we’ll draw up a few house-rules. All right?’
