by Gloria Cook
‘What is it?’ She was puzzled by the tremendous depth of emotion in the greyness of his eyes.
‘Oh, nothing. I suppose at times like this one likes to feel safe.’ Long ago Emilia had made him feel safe. And alive and valued in a way no other had since. He longed to feel like that again.
Jim Killigrew hadn’t intended to come to Ford House. It had an unfortunate history for him too. Perry Bosweld’s cruel, amoral sister, Selina, had seduced him here. Jim had thought he had fallen in love with her. He had become obsessed with her. But she had entertained many lovers and had spitefully thrown him over, laughing at him. Her way of sex had involved pain and humiliation. He didn’t like to think of those times, even though, despite his attempts to keep his association with Selina Bosweld a secret, people had suspected there had been an involvement, and women tended to think he was some kind of stud, and men either congratulated him or were jealous of him. Righteous parents kept their daughters away from him, even though the war had left a chronic shortage of husband material. But he was here because he wanted to speak to, of all people, Ben Harvey, and he hadn’t got the chance after the interment. Elena Rawley’s kind personal invitation had given him the courage to come, because although he wasn’t in any way a coward, he needed a sort of courage if he was to get the insufferably pompous toff to listen to him.
Emilia caught him during a moment when he was looking sympathetically at the Annear children. ‘Jim’s remembering what it was like when he and Sara were left orphans. Elena will have to make up her mind soon about what to do with Alan and Martha. She’s been trying to trace their relatives but there don’t seem to be any.’
Ben did not consider Jim Killigrew worthy of a comment. ‘Perhaps someone will take them in.’ He considered it himself. If he wasn’t to get a son from his loins he could adopt one. Alan Annear was young enough to be moulded into different expectations. The girl could amuse Faye. But Brooke was unlikely to countenance such a proposal. She had refused to come to the funeral, pleading a headache and saying she would be of better use minding Lottie and Faye and tending to Alec, so the staff of both households, who had known Leslie Annear better than she had, could attend the funeral. Next moment Ben rejected the idea. There was still plenty of time to produce a son. Brooke would probably come round eventually.
Elena had a daily help. When the Annear children began to rub their eyes and threaten to cry, Maisie Clennick, an ordinary young housewife and a relative of Mrs Eathorne from the shop, took them upstairs for a nap. Elena made her way to Emilia and Ben. Her pure-toned voice was sad and contained. ‘Poor things. It was getting too much for them. Emilia, I’d like to thank you for helping with the fund that’s been set up for Alan and Martha.’ She omitted that it was she herself who had started the fund. ‘I think a few words needs to be said about it. I wonder, Mr Harvey, could I prevail upon you to call for order and read out this little speech I’ve written on this notepaper? I’m not really any good at that sort of thing.’
‘Of course, Miss Rawley. It will be my pleasure.’ Ben smiled down on her, comparing her sweet unassuming looks and shy, faltering manner to Emilia’s unconscious magnetic sensuality. Elena Rawley had only a year’s advantage on Em but her old-fashioned respectability made her seem older. Her trim figure was buried by a quantity of unflattering clothes of serviceable quality, a deliberate decision, no doubt. He gazed at her long enough to make her blush and turn to Emilia as if looking for reassurance.
Emilia tilted her face so Elena could not see her hiss at him. ‘Get on with it, Ben!’
He grinned back, showing amusement at her annoyance over his attempt to charm the dear little spinster. As children, even though at that time her father had held the lower position of Alec’s cowman, Emilia had been bossy with him, refusing to take into account his superior position. It was good to be back on familiar ground with her.
Ben picked up a serving spoon and banged it on the table. A hush descended almost at once. His speech was well received as he confirmed the grief of the occasion and thanked all those who had contributed to the Annear children’s fund, which stood, so far, at nearly fifty pounds; a generous amount during these times when recession and uncertainty were looming in the country. ‘I’m sure everyone will agree that Miss Rawley will know best about what to do with the money and all else concerning the children’s interests. I’m also sure that you’ll all agree that Miss Rawley deserves to be congratulated for her splendid efforts and that we should resolve to support her in every way.’
A wave of accord went round from those in the room and those listening out in the hall. Elena thanked him and looked a little lost. Emilia squeezed her hand. She didn’t have a close friendship with the saintly Miss Rawley but she had total respect for her. ‘Don’t worry. You’ll do the right thing.’
‘Yes,’ Elena said bravely. ‘All that’s required is to wait on the Lord. I’m afraid I haven’t had the time to enquire yet about Mr Harvey. How is he?’
‘Well, the district nurse is pleased with his progress.’ While the women fell into conversation, with others listening in about Alec’s injuries and what was required in nursing him, Ben excused himself and went outside for a smoke.
Jim took the opportunity of following him round the back of the house, where there was a good view up the valley to Ford Farm. At first Jim pretended not to notice his quarry. He lit a cigarette, as if he too had simply slipped outside with the same intention. Then he approached the arrogant Ben Harvey, who had never welcomed him and his twin coming to Ford Farm. Ben Harvey was observing him through narrowed eyes, as if he was something disgusting.
Jim braced himself to be humble and subservient. It was necessary if he was going to succeed in his plan to get away from Druzel Farm and the suffocating presence of the Eathornes. He’d encouraged his sister to accept Wally Eathorne’s interest in her, thinking the apparently amiable farmer’s son and his settled father would allow him to have a say in the running of the little farm, but he hadn’t been prepared for the Eathornes’ territorial passion for the scrap of land that had been farmed by generations of their forebears. He loathed them. Sara always took her husband’s side, leaving him feeling small and rejected, and he was beginning to loathe her too.
One answer to his problem was to ask the squire for his old job back on the far larger bordering land, but that would be too humiliating. He had been thinking of moving away from the area, and then Leslie Annear had been killed. The Annear cottage and workshop would soon be cleared out and lying empty. Although not a trained craftsman, Jim was good with his hands. He was an expert at drystone walling and he could turn his hand to general building work. He was sure that with hard graft and careful planning he could build up a successful business. He had made extra money this week making good the storm damage at several addresses – but he had rebuilt old Mr Quick’s garden shed for free as the pensioner was one of the few locals who paid him any civility.
A new future beckoned. All he had to do was get over this one huge hurdle. And it meant going cap in hand to a man he hated to ask if he could take over Leslie Annear’s tenancy.
‘Mr Harvey.’ Jim slightly bowed his head as he spoke. ‘Can I have a word with you?’
Ben sneered. He would have told Killigrew to skulk off, using a choice swear word, if not for being at a wake. He blew out cigar smoke lazily between his lips. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Please,’ Jim returned quickly, fearing someone would witness him humbling himself as well as in eagerness to say his piece. He couldn’t prevent the hope shining out of his deep blue eyes. ‘I know we don’t get along, but please hear me out. I know this is hardly the time and place but I’d like to put in a request to take over the Annear place. I’ve got money for the rent. I save. I can pay you three months’ rent in advance. More if you want. And I’d give the Annear kids a good price for their father’s furniture and tools.’
‘You must be mad, Killigrew, if you’d think I’d have you living on my land. I wouldn’t rent you
a cup of dirty water if you were on fire. Now clear off. Get back to shovelling cow shit, where you belong.’
Jim’s instinct was to lunge across the few feet of paved path and punch his old enemy in the face. He felt he had been delivered a physical blow to the guts. He thought he would choke on the bile rising in his throat. He drew desperately on his pride; he wouldn’t allow this man to see him grovel, see him wounded and bitter. ‘Well.’ He brought his cigarette up to his mouth, only his shaking hand betraying his discomfort and fury. ‘I’d an idea you’d say that. It was just a thought, that’s all.’
‘You’ve never had a decent thought in your life, Killigrew.’
‘Nor have you, Ben Harvey,’ Jim seethed. ‘Some day someone will bring you down. Watch out it isn’t me, I’d enjoy that pleasure. But with your rotten ways ’tis more likely you’ll do it all by yourself.’
Chapter Four
Alec woke with a start as something was rammed between his teeth. He instinctively fended off the intrusion and groaned as pain cut through his ribs and where his hand had rubbed a cut near his mouth. ‘What the… ?’
He tried to focus but it was some time before his sight cleared. Then he saw Lottie in her nurse’s play clothes. Faye was with her, a tidy little thing in a knitted dress and embroidered cardigan, her black hair shiny and sleek, staying back shyly from the bed.
‘Daddy! Keep still.’ With determination, Lottie lowered a pencil towards his face. ‘Be a good patient. I’m trying to take your temp’ture.’
‘What? For goodness sake! Get out, Lottie! Go downstairs. Where’s your mother?’ Alec hadn’t meant to bawl so loudly. Lottie jumped back from the couch, her reaction hurt and sulky, then she fled from the bedroom with Faye scampering after her. Alec was sorry about his anger, but he was also peeved his daughter hadn’t been kept under control.
‘God in heaven, what have I done to deserve this?’ he muttered, reaching out from the couch for a drink of water to soothe his horribly dry and bitter palate. The doctor said it was the result of shock. Sometimes it was worse than his aches and pain. The food that Emilia and the district nurse insisted he eat, broths, savoury jellies, stews, eggs and milk puddings, all tasted foul. He was dizzy and every small movement was an effort. The migraines he got were enough to blast his head open. He moaned as he got a grip on the glass. He saw two glasses. He blinked, startled. Then shouted and swore as his fingers slipped and the water spilled over his neck and the glass crashed to the floor. The glass did not break but it rolled back and forwards on the carpet, as if mocking him.
Brooke hurried into the room. ‘Alec. I’m sorry if the girls were annoying you. They’ve raced off to Lottie’s room.’ The concern in her mild American accent softened even more. ‘Oh my goodness! Don’t worry. I’ll soon mop you up.’
Alec liked Brooke. She was without airs and thought herself no better than any other housewife in Hennaford. She put the latest fashions on her neat, sparely shaped body but wore them without show. She’d kept her gold-flecked, light-brown hair in the same short bob from when she’d first met Ben in Ypres, Belgium, where they had been paying homage to the war graves of relatives. ‘Thanks,’ he said, his voice husky and raw, after she had put the glass up on the veneered davenport and dried his skin carefully with a towel. ‘Where’s Emilia?’
‘She’s gone to Leslie Annear’s funeral, remember? I’m in sole charge. Sorry for neglecting you. You’ll need a dry shirt.’
She went to his double wardrobe. All the furniture in this, the master bedroom in the Victorian part, were gems of the period in walnut or mahogany. The chairs had pierced carved backs and slender cabriole legs and, like the couch, were upholstered in powder-blue velvet. The huge tester bed had gold and ivory floral needlework friezes and luxurious flowing drapes. Brooke liked this house with its dual personality, its thick uneven walls and ceiling rafters in the original quarters and the smooth half-panelled walls and moulded ceilings in the newer part, far better than her own modern furnished home. She was beginning to like Alec more than Ben. Alec might be getting a bit grumpy – and scatty, as the locals would say – but he was a man of principle, of genuine kindness, who had taken many an underdog under his protection, while Ben, she had come to see more and more, was shallow and selfish.
‘I forgot about the funeral. I seem to forget a lot of things these days.’
‘What you need, Alec, is a holiday. Ben and I go to Paris twice a year and we often go up to London and elsewhere. Last year we had that fantastic fortnight in my homeland and then we went on to New York. Faye loved it. We were away for months. I lost my second baby on the ship on the way back.’ Her last words were delivered slowly and sadly, then she shook her head as if to dismiss her loss as nothing.
‘You’re still grieving for both your babies, aren’t you? I know how you feel.’
The pain in her heart showed in the wistfulness and bewilderment of her expression. ‘It can’t be anything as bad as when you lost Jenna, but I’d liked to have had two little bodies to bury. Somewhere to go to remember them. Names on headstones to prove they’d actually once existed. Ben thinks… well, I mustn’t get maudlin.’
‘And the funeral today, even though it’s for an adult, has made it hard for you. I understand that too.’
‘That’s what I like about you, Alec,’ she said, bringing the fresh shirt to him. ‘You’re such a deep thinker and that makes you more perceptive than the average man. Come on then, sit up. I’ll help you pull off your wet things.’
Alec clamped his hands across his body. ‘I can’t ask you to do that, Brooke.’
‘Don’t be silly. I’m a married woman and you’re my brother-in-law, so it’s hardly improper.’ She laughed. ‘Sometimes you’re a little old-fashioned.’
‘I’m not,’ he protested good-humouredly, letting his hands fall away in free sweeping movements. ‘I’ll let you sign your name on my plaster.’ Brooke was an uplifting sort of woman and for the first time since his accident he felt encouraged. The moment his strength returned he’d be able to get about with the pair of wooden crutches waiting for his use.
‘Now that’s something more of the way Emilia would like to see you look. She’s been anxious about you. Thinks you’re too quiet even for someone recovering from a bad accident. In a way, she’d have been pleased to witness your fit of temper just now. Shows you’re feeling a little less apathetic. She felt bad about leaving you today for so long. Emilia’s devoted to you.’
Alec said nothing for a while. Emilia gave him every consideration. Sometimes she behaved as if she was over-compensating for something and it didn’t feel right. It made him uneasy and this worried him because he couldn’t understand why. Their happy marriage was often remarked on, in the village and socially when they mixed with more influential people in Truro and further abroad. ‘She wouldn’t be happy about the way I shouted at Lottie.’ He struggled to sit up straight, wincing as he reached for his shirt buttons. ‘She spoils her.’
‘Don’t you? Here, let me do that for you.’
‘Of course, sometimes. But Lottie’s as hard as nails. She doesn’t need fussing over.’
‘She’s certainly a lot different to Faye. I think Ben wishes our daughter was more of a tomboy.’ Brooke started unfastening the buttons of his shirt. She felt his skin was hot and feverish where her fingers brushed his chest and arms. ‘I don’t think you’re drinking enough. I’ll see you get some water after this.’
‘You should have been a nurse. You’re gentler than the district nurse is. She’s pretty fierce. And the questions she asks me.’ He rolled his soft grey eyes. ‘She’s enough to embarrass a soldier.’
‘I’m sure Emilia’s gentle with you. And I bet you enjoy having all this female attention.’ Brooke thought he’d be more comfortable if he was helped to freshen up but it would be out of order for her to suggest it. He could only shift a fraction at a time and she patiently guided his movements. His badly bruised chest was thick with crisp dark hairs and was broader and m
ore muscled than Ben’s. There was something splendidly animal about him, and despite his injuries he exuded virility and a noble strength. Suddenly she was aware that she was keeping her brother-in-law half naked, wearing just socks and trousers, the cloth of the left leg cut from ankle nearly to the thigh and fastened with large safety pins to accommodate the plaster around his broken leg. For the moment he was vulnerable and under her power. This new sense excited her. She had never felt this way with Ben. Ben had always been good to her but he had always been the master in their marriage, making all the important decisions, and lately because she was unwilling to be fully intimate with him in case she got pregnant, she had been feeling defenceless and inferior. This new awareness of Alec would be disturbing if she didn’t welcome it.
Alec showed no signs of noticing anything different about her. She was pleased about this as she slid the sleeves of the clean shirt up over his arms, folded the collar and secured the buttons down his front, for if he attempted to flirt with her she thought she just might reciprocate with eagerness. In the same way as with the wet shirt, he wasn’t bothering with cufflinks. He started to fold up the sleeves. ‘Are you going to be warm enough? I’m know you’re hot but if the temperature drops you might feel cold. I don’t want you getting a chill. Shall I drape a sweater round your shoulders?’
‘No, thanks. I’m roasting,’ he said emphatically. ‘But how about one of my mother-in-law’s shawls?’
It was unusual for Alec to bother with funny witticisms and she laughed. ‘I’ll pour you a full glass of water, then in a little while I’ll go downstairs and make us both a nice cup of tea. How does that sound?’
