by Gloria Cook
The letter was signed, Yours sincerely, Emilia Harvey. Perry pressed the letter to his lips. To other eyes it was just a letter from a friend relating some sad circumstances and information about a hobby, but to him it was what he had been waiting for during eight lonely, soul-leeching years. Emilia had only sent cards with a short note enclosed in them before and they were always signed from Alec and Emilia Harvey. Alec’s name was not included this time. Perry sensed loneliness in the letter today. Emilia was lonely. It was a sign he had been waiting for, hoping for, longing for. He loved Emilia more than the breath in his body, but when he had left Ford House he had vowed to himself that he would not return to Cornwall or do anything to try to break up her happy marriage unless he was sure she needed him. Obviously her marriage wasn’t as happy as before. Emilia was at the farm and Alec was taking a prolonged stay at Roskerne, fourteen miles away – too far for easy visits. It was unusual for Alec to stay away from home. He didn’t socialize much and went down to the village pub just once a week. Something had changed. It might be a temporary thing and he sensed Emilia – his Em, his darling, wonderful Em – was confused, so he wouldn’t pack himself off down to the beautiful Celtic county at the bottom of the country immediately. He’d wait for one more sign. And pray that he’d get it. Then he would go to Emilia. Without delay.
Chapter Seven
The night was disturbed by a cacophony of terrible, chilling proportions. Emilia, sleepless and brooding about Alec, and wondering how Perry had found her letter, leapt out of bed. The terror and cackling that had been unleashed could come from only one place and the urgent, ferocious barking of the dogs meant only one thing. In her dressing gown and the first pair of shoes she grabbed, Emilia tore down to the den, snatched up a shotgun and ran to the henhouses.
She reached what she was dreading to see, a mindless carnage, and had the shotgun loaded and ready to kill the creature decimating her poultry. Her rage knew no limits. This was all so unnecessary. Someone – Will, for he had been responsible last evening for making sure every door of the henhouses were securely latched – had made a terrible and costly lapse in his duty.
Her father was there beside her in his pyjamas, holding up a lantern. Dozens of hens were dead, their heads bitten off, their feathers scattered in bloodied heaps, and many more needed to be humanely finished off. The smell of death and fear and blood hung heavily in the air. The sheepdog and the Jack Russells ran about the vicinity, sniffing and watchful, excited and agitated.
‘He’s still about here somewhere,’ Emilia whispered, referring to the dog fox who had caused the slaughter. This was not the work of a vixen. A vixen was more likely to slip in during daylight and daringly snatch an unsuspecting bird and steal away with it to feed her cubs.
She looked to all sides and Edwin Rowse swung the lantern in time with her for the telltale signs of a pair of sharp, vicious, glassy eyes. He didn’t speak, he just stared, hoping to see the culprit that was suspected also of raiding Druzel Farm in the same manner two nights before, and he didn’t try to take the shotgun from his daughter. Emilia was a keen shot, and light and fast on her feet. If anyone could pick off the fox, she could. Will and Tom and Dolly were there now, keeping back out of the way.
Suddenly there was a terrified squawk. One of the Jack Russells leapt straight across Emilia’s path. She whirled in that direction and hared after it. She saw the fox running, coming out from where it had hidden behind a coop, a live hen dangling from its mouth. After a few seconds she halted, stood stock still, raised the gun to her shoulder, aimed and fired.
The fox dropped.
Dead.
She ‘broke’ the gun safely and hurried across the few yards of ground and in one swift, efficient movement put the young hen out of its misery. Sighing in anger, she shook her head over the brownish-red, bushy-tailed, larger body. This sort of occurrence wasn’t rare on a farm and it was something all farmers hated, but in her case, with one of the horses lame and more cattle than usual recently needing to be ‘drenched’ for digestive troubles, it made her feel that she wasn’t coping without Alec. Damn the fox! Damn Alec! In daylight she would shoot other pests to the remaining poultry, carrion crows and magpies, and hang them up as a sign to their friends to beware!
Edwin tapped on her shoulder. ‘It’s all over, maid. That was a good shot. You got him clean through the heart.’
Emilia tilted her head and when she saw her father’s kindly, rugged face the tension went out of her. He was a small, stooped man, his weathered face adorned with old-fashioned side whiskers, his hair donkey-grey. He wasn’t rattled at all by what had happened: it was just another of nature’s vagaries to him. And although he had hurried from his bed, he had swept on his worn-out tweed cap, and his hooded brown eyes exuded reassuring strength. The farm was being managed very well; there was nothing for Alec to be concerned about or for her to chide herself over. And although foxes like this one were a pain and a nuisance, she enjoyed the sight of a family of cubs playing near their earths, and the occasional sleek, proud-faced creature that might be encountered in the lanes or padding as a free spirit through the meadows.
The boys and Dolly were gathering up the carcasses of the hens. ‘I’ll speak to you later, Will,’ she said to her elder son, who for once kept his dark head down, guilty-fashion.
She drew Dolly away. ‘Mother, you don’t have to help with this.’
‘I’ve not gone soft. I’m not an old woman yet.’ Dolly wrinkled her formidable brow, and in the silvery light of the dawn, she looked as if this or nothing else would disgust or alarm her. She wasn’t an emotional woman and she surprised Emilia the next moment by displaying a glitter of tears and having a shake in her voice. ‘You haven’t got your husband with you and I know you’re worrying over him. We’re all worried about Alec. His behaviour towards Lottie is strange considering he’s lost a child. You and I bear the mark of that loss too, as we do your brother, Billy. Lottie needs you more now because her daddy seems aloof to her, and you need plenty of support. I’m here to help you, Emilia, dear, whenever and wherever you need it. A good mother will do anything for her children. Anything at all to make sure they’re happy.’
Chapter Eight
Jim Killigrew was taking his employer’s cob to the village blacksmith to be re-shod. When he trotted past Ford Farm, where he had been treated kindly, and more as a member of the family than the way his sister did now, he was tempted again to turn into the yard and ask for his old job back. Or he could ask Alec to recommend him to another farmer next market day, somewhere far away from Hennaford.
But Jim had always solved his own problems and he was on the point of trying something entirely different, perhaps the merchant navy. He could become a sailor, like his father had been. He ought to branch out, see something of the world. It was an exciting prospect. He’d never have stayed in Hennaford if it weren’t for Sara anyway. Her preoccupation with her new family, her declaration that she owed the faithful, plodding Wally Eathorne everything for marrying her, cut deeply into Jim. She owed Wally Eathorne everything? Who the hell had been looking after her between the time of their parents’ deaths and her marriage?
Before he left Hennaford he’d like just one chance to show those he worked and lodged with, and certain villagers, like the other snobbish Eathorne brothers and the egotistical Ben Harvey, that he could make something of himself, that he was a worthy individual. He had been inclined to be confrontational in his youth and some people had expected him to get into trouble, by fighting and perhaps stealing and even being sent to prison. Once or twice he had nearly strayed down a thorny road but, apart from his fist fight with Ben Harvey, something – his pride, he guessed, a streak more stubborn than his temperamental-ness – had stopped him.
A heavy smoker, Jim lit a cigarette on the ride down the short, steep hill after Ford Farm. At the bottom was the ford and the horse’s big-hoofed, short legs barely made a splash through the trickle of dull water, which was ferried by leats through the
high hedgerows. Then he came to a fork in the rough-paved lane. To the right was a narrow, twisting way, the shortest route into the village. To the left, round a bend and up a short climb, was Ford House. Jim’s thoughts didn’t often go to others but they drifted to Elena Rawley and her two orphaned charges. Village opinion was that she was doing a good job with them. He respected her for that.
While waiting for the blacksmith to complete his work Jim called in at the shop to buy cigarettes. The doorbell had a merry tinkle. The shop was a cosy place full of homely smells, where just about every type of commodity could be bought or ordered; a much-loved local meeting place, but Jim had never felt he belonged here. He waited behind Ben Harvey’s attractive foreign wife to be served. Brooke Wilder Harvey always exchanged a greeting with him. Jim always addressed her back respectfully, but as if her equal. It irked him to observe how subservient Gilbert Eathorne was as he carried her shopping basket to the door.
‘Why don’t you use your nasty gossiping tongue to lick the floor before her every step?’ Jim whispered to himself.
Gilbert Eathorne was back behind the counter in double quick time. ‘Busy on the farm, are they?’ he asked with an interrogatory lift of bushy brows.
‘Forty Players Weights,’ Jim snapped. It seemed to him the shopkeeper was eyeing him as if suspicious he had lifted something. Jim had had his hands in his corduroy trouser pockets when Eathorne had gone to the door and he had not moved – it must be obvious. Seething over this and the high-handed presumption that he was slacking on Druzel Farm, he snatched up the cigarettes and change and banged his way out of the shop. On the way down the wide, mismatched granite steps he used the side of his boot to push the Eathorne’s ageing, slumbering ginger cat over the edge of the penultimate step. The cat was unhurt – Jim would never hurt an animal – and it hit the ground on its four paws with an affronted hiss. ‘Bugger off!’ Jim hissed back. Lighting up again, he resolved that from now on he would get his cigarettes, and everything else he needed, in Truro and deny the Eathornes his custom. That cheered him.
Across the road was another favourite meeting place. Surrounded on three sides by cottages owned by Alec Harvey was a concrete court, in the middle of which was an ornate, cast-iron pump where the housewives met up most days to get their water supply. Two women were there now, dumpy and plain, in pinnies, slippers and headscarves over their curlers. Jim didn’t call a word to them. Apart from old Mr Quick, he didn’t feel he had a friend among anyone in Hennaford. Years ago old Mr Quick had lost his wallet after drawing his pension, and without thinking twice Jim, who had found it under the village seat opposite the pub, had returned it to him. The old man had returned his honesty with genuine friendship. It meant a lot to Jim. Before returning to the forge he would call on the old boy, have a mug of tea with him, see if he wanted any little jobs done. Wally and his miserable father could complain as much as they liked at how long it had taken him to take the cob to and from the blacksmith.
On the ride back, in the lane he saw a pair of small, fair-haired, well-dressed children, hand in hand and heads down, hurrying towards him. It was Alan and Martha Annear. Without looking up they made to skirt round the cob. Jim reined in and jumped down on the dusty, animal-fouled ground. ‘Where’re you two off to then?’
‘Home,’ Alan said bluffly, scowling, drawing his sister, whose thin infant legs were already finding the trek hard to cope with, slightly behind him. They reminded Jim of the times he had been forced to protect Sara and himself in the workhouse, but back then he and his twin had, a little more fortunately, been orphaned a few years older than this pair.
Jim bent from the waist to speak to them. ‘I’m afraid you haven’t got your old home any longer, my handsomes. Your daddy’s in heaven. Up there with your mother. You’ll have to go back to Miss Rawley.’ He didn’t have the heart to tell them someone else was now living in their former home.
Tears welled up in Alan’s puckered eyes and Martha squeezed in tighter behind him. ‘I broked a window. I didn’t mean to.’
‘You’ve got nothing to worry about there. Miss Rawley’s a kind lady. She’ll understand, she won’t mind. But she’ll get worried if she finds you’re gone missing. Tell you what, how’d you both like to ride back on Cuby? I’ll lead her reins. We’ll have you there in no time.’
Alan nodded. He shrank back, however, when Jim made to lift him up, and Martha shrieked. Jim spent another two minutes reassuring them. Then he gathered them up together and positioned a child on each of his broad shoulders. ‘Right then. You can still hold on to each other. Cuby will follow on after us. Let’s make a game of it, shall we? You count up to ten and we’ll see how far we’ve gone.’
Jim’s head was almost crushed as the children clung round him to each other. He could hear Alan counting under his breath. When he got to ten, he stayed silent. Jim said, ‘Well, you must have a good view up there. What can you see?’
‘Cows,’ Alan said after a long hesitation.
‘Good. Anything else?’
‘Trees. Hills. The ford!’ Alan exclaimed, becoming more confident.
‘Flows,’ Martha said in a whispery voice. Jim assumed she meant flowers. The hedges and verges were fully fledged with primroses, celandines, wild violets, pink campion, bluebells.
‘Aunty,’ Alan said nervously, his small body becoming rigid.
‘Who?’
‘Aunty ’Lena.’
The worried calls and light running steps of Elena Rawley could be heard, presumably echoing down the hill from Ford House. ‘Alan! Martha! Dears, where are you?’
Jim rounded the last bend and there was the fork in the lane. Elena Rawley pelted round the bend at the bottom of the hill and cried with relief. ‘Oh! Mr Killigrew! How wonderful. Thank you so much. Alan, Martha, you’ve had me so worried. I was afraid you’d got lost.’
‘Alan told me about the broken window,’ Jim said, amused at the sight of the demure young lady pink-faced and puffing and her well-worn clothes somewhat in disarray. She wore her glossy, mid-brown hair in an unbecoming bun and pins were sticking out of it – a few lengths had escaped altogether. ‘I’ve explained how you won’t be cross with them.’
‘Of course I’m not cross, Alan and Martha.’ Elena was breathing heavily. It had only been a short run but her anxiety had chewed up all her energy. ‘It was an accident. Listen, Maisie has baked you some fairy cakes. Would you like one, with a glass of milk?’
‘Yes, please,’ Alan said. His sister nodded, and as Jim tilted his blond head he was pleased to see Martha smiling. He was aware of the good influence Elena Rawley had over the children from Alan’s good manners. Alan added, ‘Can we ride the horse now?’
‘Course you can,’ Jim said, swinging the children towards the dark brown creature’s strong back.
‘Can we ride the horse now, please?’ Elena corrected in a kind tone.
Jim inspected the broken lower sash window of the parlour while Elena settled the children in the back garden with their promised treat. She came to him, standing back a little, all gratefulness and shy smiles. ‘I’ve telephoned the glazier. I’m afraid he can’t come until tomorrow. I thought I’d put up a piece of wood or something until then. There should be something appropriate in the shed, I’m sure.’
‘I’ll do it for you. Weather’s good, something of the right size taped up will do. Save banging nails into your window frame. I’ll sweep up the glass and put it in the dustbin.’
‘Thank you, Mr Killigrew. That would be a relief. I’ll pay you for your time and trouble.’
He gazed at for her some moments, liking the way that the more he stared the more she blushed. She swallowed and he watched her throat move, a throat as white as lilies and as smooth as silk, he reckoned. Then he remembered she was one of the few people who showed him respect, the only one to call him Mr Killigrew. ‘I wouldn’t dream of taking money. Be neighbourly, that’s what the Good Book says, doesn’t it? I’ve been looking at your perimeter wall. It needs some atten
tion. I’m a dab hand at drystone walling. Matter of a little rebuilding, that’s all. I’ll do that for you too, in a few days’ time, for a small charge.’
‘How very kind of you.’ Elena gave a brief smile, ducked her head and blushed again. ‘Thank you very much. Can I fetch you a cup of tea?’
Jim was already on his way to the shed. ‘I’ll come to the kitchen when I’m done.’ Knowing its way home, Cuby the cob had trotted off. Wally and Eustace Eathorne would be angry. Too bad. Jim had been up and grafting before dawn and if it pleased him he’d stay out until milking time. They could dock his miserable wages for all he cared.
Elena’s insides had turned to water. It felt as if a surging sea was frothing away inside her. She put the kettle on the hob and hurried into the parlour to brush up the few splinters of glass on the windowsill and carpet, hoping, praying as ardently as when in chapel or last thing at night, that she would be finished before Jim Killigrew arrived on the other side of the window and she found herself under his keen, blue-eyed scrutiny again.
