by Gloria Cook
‘Ben!’ Emilia rounded on him. ‘Don’t be so rude.’
‘I think he should go. You both know why! My brother’s hardly cold in his grave.’
Selina was there. ‘Ben, your foreman’s brought this letter for you. It’s from New York. He thought you’d rather have it now than to wait until you get home.’
Ben snatched the envelope out of her hand. ‘And you can get away from here too. Now! Everyone’s had a stomachful of you.’
Emilia glanced at Perry and they exchanged a look of helplessness. ‘Shut up, Ben.’
‘Yes, Ben,’ Selina scowled at him. ‘It’s in your interests that you keep your mouth shut, or I shall open mine.’
Jonny and Will added themselves to the gathering. Dolly and Jim were not far behind. Will demanded, ‘What’s going on?’
‘It’s nothing,’ Emilia replied, distraught.
‘They’re all getting concerned about me.’ Perry forced a brightness. ‘My leg’s not up to it. I’m about to leave. Selina, I think you should come with me.’
‘I don’t want to go,’ she retorted. She was rigid with wrath. Obviously, the game was up over Emilia and Perry, but she wasn’t about to be run off by these wretched people again.
‘Now, Selina. I’m sorry, Em. Goodbye. I’ll ring you tonight. We need to talk.’ Not least about Selina’s feelings for her. Perry began to walk away.
‘Don’t ring her at all,’ Ben hurled at his back.
‘You haven’t got the right to say that, Uncle Ben,’ Tom turned on him.
Perry whirled round and clutched Selina by the arm and dragged her with him. ‘Don’t say another word. We’re going before we cause this family any more trouble.’
With the cosy future she had been looking forward to ripped from her and all her hopes crushed, she struggled against him. ‘I won’t go unless Emilia says I must.’ Lashing out at Perry’s face and kicking his good leg, she made him stumble and got free. She ran up to Emilia. ‘What do you say, Em? Do you want to me to leave?’
Her heart down in her feet, mindful that her children were listening and Lottie was running to her for reassurance, Emilia drew away from the gathering, her expression pleading for understanding. ‘I don’t want this, Selina, but I think you’d better go.’
‘To leave you for good?’ Selina asked, a mounting assortment of emotions and demands fusing in her mind. She looked injured and this made Emilia afraid. Never was Selina more deadly.
‘I hope not.’
But Ben hadn’t finished having his say. ‘Of course she wants you to go for good. No one in their right mind would want a poisonous bitch like you anywhere near her home and children. The same goes for me, and everyone else here.’
Selina was roused to hate-filled passion. There was only so much humiliation she could take. ‘You’ll regret this, Ben Harvey. Emilia, ban me from coming here and I swear your whole family and others too will regret it.’
Ben nudged Emilia, making her jump. ‘Tell her, Em. Her reign of fear, of disgusting everyone, is over. And he, her brother, must never set foot here again either.’
Dolly had no idea what Ben had against Perry but she was eager for her daughter to put a stop to Selina’s visits. ‘Go on, Emilia. Tell her exactly where she stands.’
‘Yes, Mum. Do it!’ Will exclaimed.
Selina stared into Emilia’s eyes waiting for her verdict. Her abusers, including Jonny Harvey, Edwin Rowse and Jim Killigrew, had taken up a stance that was threatening towards her and protective towards Emilia. ‘Well, Em,’ she said dangerously. You have the last word. What’s it to be?’
‘Selina, don’t…’ Perry begged. With his life falling apart yet again he was finding it hard to keep steady on his feet. The repeat of Selina being publicly hounded out of these people’s lives, and now he also, was almost too much to bear.
‘Still your tongue, Perry! It’s up to Emilia to speak.’
Emilia swallowed the hardness tightening her throat. What could she say? With her family making demands she had no other choice. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to leave here for good, Selina.’
She expected more argument, a hurl of abuse, perhaps a scream of rage. But Selina considered her very coolly. Then she simply turned round and walked away. She would take her revenge when Perry wasn’t present to witness it, for he was all she had left now. When she reached him, she enveloped his wilting body as if aiding a frail patient. ‘Come with me. I swear on Libby’s memory that these people will never hurt us again.’
Standing still, Emilia cried at the sight of Perry’s dejected figure, at the man she loved being ejected from her life. An arm was brought over her shoulders. She thought it would be Ben’s and she would have pushed it away, ordered him to go too. He was the main instigator of this new heartbreak for her and Perry. But it was Tom, and she leaned against him for support. When she looked at Ben she was shocked to receive a stare as hateful, no, even more so, than when he had blamed her for his partial blindness. He stormed off.
‘Come on, Mum,’ Tom said softly. ‘I’ll take you to the rose garden.’ Lottie went with them and her younger son and daughter were her only comfort.
As the day wore on, the corn-rick dwindled in size and a new straw-rick grew. It was thatched, roped and reeded, all without Emilia seeing it, for she could not bring herself to face those at work. She left it to her father to thank her weary neighbours, whose eyes would be watering and scratchy, only to have to start all over again the next day and the next until all the farms had been serviced, as well as their necessary jobs morning and evening at home. When the mammoth activity finally came to an end, and the traction engine clattered on its way back up the lane to Druzel Farm, taking the thresher and the bundler rattling and bumping with it, she finally broke down and wept, going off to be alone. With no comfort at all. Just a sickening worry over how Perry would cope and what Selina would do now.
Chapter Thirty-One
Ben didn’t read his letter from New York until the following day, while having a lonely breakfast. He glanced first at the other end of the table, and now his hopes for Emilia were extinct he was feeling betrayed and cheated, and he was missing Brooke and Faye and looking forward to seeing them again. He took consolation in the fact that he had another child on the way, perhaps his longed-for son. It was cold and he shivered. It was raining hard, it had been lashing down all night, and everything was dark and gloomy, almost sinister.
The words from the American lawyer swam in front of his eyes. Brooke was divorcing him for mental cruelty and demanding a huge financial settlement, and it was stated she and Faye were staying in a secure place where he would be unlikely to find them, and if he did he would be jailed because she had taken an injunction out against him.
He put the letter down, numb with disbelief. Mental cruelty? He hadn’t been the most attentive of husbands in the last year or two, but how did she work that out? He might have been rather aloof, insensitive and perhaps a little controlling, but cruel! He had never been cruel to her. This was the excuse of the card-sharp American lawyer. Americans looked after their own. There was nothing he could do. Brooke had turned against him. She must hate him to deny him another chance, and his daughter and coming child. Seconds later, he didn’t care. About Brooke, about anything. He knew hatred. He shook hands with it, welcomed it. He had despised people before, but now he felt he knew hatred by its first name in capital letters. Everything else was forgotten and above all else he was happy to concentrate on the hatred he had for Emilia for loving another man.
Agnes disturbed him out of his anger and desolation with the announcement that he had a visitor. It was the last thing he wanted, but this person he could deal with and he didn’t mind seeing her too much. It was Louisa Hetherton-Andrews. Her sweet company, and hers alone, would lift him a little.
Are you all right, Uncle Ben? You appear quite shaken. I’ve heard there was quite a disturbance at Ford Farm yesterday,’ Louisa said, joining him for tea and toast. ‘I telephoned there to say
I was going over to say goodbye to Jonny before he goes up again, but Aunty Emilia advised that I should stay away. She said everything’s unsettled. Would you mind telling me what happened? Did it have something to do with that dreadful Bosweld woman?’
‘It was, but it’s nothing for you to worry about, my dear,’ Ben said. At least Louisa was one person the evil witch couldn’t threaten. Unless… no, surely not? Suddenly, Ben was very afraid for her and some others.
* * *
Perry had written a letter to Reggie Rule apologizing for not staying on for his return from Switzerland. Forsaking his mac and hat, he was becoming soaked in the downpour as he dumped his suitcases in the motor car. More carefully, he put in Libby’s things. He was about to make a sad journey home to London with all that he had left of his daughter. How he regretted having her buried in Hennaford churchyard, where it would be impossible to visit her grave; the heartbreak would be too great.
‘When are we setting off?’ Selina asked tonelessly, when he made a wet trail into the hall.
‘Straight away. Have you packed?’
‘Yes. I’m about to bring my things down. It’s chilly. We need something to set us up. Before we leave, let’s have a cup of tea, and I’ll make some sandwiches to eat on the way up.’
He sighed in relief. ‘I was afraid that you’d refuse to come with me. That you’d stay behind, intent on wreaking vengeance.’ But as soon as they reached London he’d turn her out of his life for good. He loathed her. He felt sick at the mere thought of her. He was only taking this last journey out of Cornwall with her to make sure she was out of reach of Emilia.
‘What’s the point?’ Selina shrugged, appearing defeated for the first time ever. ‘I’d only end up hurting myself again.’
By the time she’d prepared the food and cleaned up the kitchen, Perry was sleeping deeply. She had drugged his tea. Taking the car keys out of his jacket pocket, she left. For Hennaford.
* * *
Dolly Rowse was collecting Lottie from the school gates, and because Alan Annear was spending dinner time with her granddaughter, she was collecting him too. Dolly stopped long enough to fasten the last buttons on the children’s coats. ‘Martha’s already at the farm, Miss Rawley’s paying a call on the rector. Your mummy’s gone into town, Lottie. Come on then, best foot forward, the pair of you. The wind’s picking up.’ Taking a hand of each child, she set off determinedly with them down the village hill.
* * *
Selina parked the Daimler in the town and took a taxicab to Hennaford. If she pulled up in Perry’s motor car there wouldn’t be a door opened to her. She was wet through. Her shoes were ruined, the hems of her trousers were muddy and uncomfortable. Water dripped off her hat and the tip of her nose and stung her eyes. She didn’t care. She was hardly aware of it. All she was intent on was getting to Ford Farm before Jonny Harvey was collected by his father, and gloating over the truth about the parentage of Louisa Hetherton-Andrews. And when she’d done that, she’d tell Emilia, Perry’s precious Em, who had so cruelly rejected her again, that she’d keep Perry away from her for ever, even if it meant taking his life.
She had directed the cab driver to drop her off on the outskirts of the village, where she would take the lane that led past Ford House. All seemed quiet in the house, there were no lights on to offset the deepening murkiness. She had no time now to make some sort of attack on Jim Killigrew and his sickly sweet fiancée, but she’d think of something at a later date. Something to tarnish his professional reputation and put an end to his business. She could suggest he had been making approaches to the housewives in the homes he’d worked in. Mud stuck and, hopefully, enough of it would make the self-righteous Miss Rawley break off with him and then he’d have nothing, just as he deserved!
Carrying on down the hill from the house, splashing through the running little muddy streams, she came to the fork in the road, but on hearing voices she crept back round the bend until she was out of sight. She didn’t want anyone to know she was about and ruin Emilia’s horrified surprise as she forced her way over her doorstep.
She recognized one of the voices. It was Dolly Rowse, the horrid old hag who despised her so much. Why was she out in this weather? She prided herself on her good sense, so it was a strange thing to pop down to the village shop. Then she heard the giggle of a child. Lottie Harvey. Emilia’s precious brat! Selina’s heart turned to ice. Then it warmed over strangely and she didn’t view anything in a right and proper manner any more.
* * *
The Daimler wasn’t outside the house in Highertown and Emilia’s heart beat in fear that she had missed Perry. It was understandable that Perry would want to leave here today. Was she too late? Perhaps he or Selina were shopping or saying goodbye to Ernest Rule and one of them was still here, packing. Praying she wasn’t too late to see Perry, she knocked on the door. It was an awful risk to come here – if Selina was inside she would undoubtedly cause a dreadful scene – but she couldn’t just do nothing, to let Perry go away without trying to talk to him. She didn’t know what she’d say to him, what promises she could make, but he meant far too much to her to let him go without a word. With nothing. Although that was what Selina had left them with. Yesterday she had telephoned here several times but the phone had been engaged every time. If they were leaving, arrangements would have been made with Perry’s housekeeper and perhaps with others, but someone couldn’t have been using the line all night. Had Selina sabotaged the telephone this end? If she met Selina now, if she mocked her, insulted her, if she had done anything bad to Perry, Emilia felt she could actually cause her harm.
She knocked again. Silence. She was too late. She’d have to go. She might never see Perry again. All she would be left with was telephoning his London number tonight. Or she could go up to London herself. Now it was general knowledge, thanks to the spite of Ben, that she and Perry were, at least, attracted to each other, she could wait a while and travel up and see him. People liked Perry, and hopefully they wouldn’t hold on to any disapproval for too long. Tom didn’t mind about her and Perry. And her mother, usually so tartly outspoken about what she considered was right from wrong, had only said it was a shame that Perry had such an unfortunate relation. Lottie loved him and would miss him. Why care about what the others might think? It was none of their business. And she could only pity them if they had never known the love she and Perry shared. Perry was all that mattered. If it meant having a loving, secure future with him, she’d settle the farm on her sons, leave her father there as manager, and move away to be with Perry. She’d send a message on to London ahead of him.
She left the house for her own car. Then looked back at the house. Something made her feel she should try the door again. The house didn’t seem shut up. Some of the curtains had been thrown back, not left neatly for Reggie Rule’s return. It wasn’t Perry’s way to be slapdash. She ran back to the front door and tried it. It was unlocked. She went inside.
‘Perry! Are you here?’ There was warmth coming from the kitchen, so someone had cooked food in there recently. She went into the kitchen. Everything had been left neat and tidy.
She made her way to the dining room. And gasped to see Perry slumped in a chair. ‘Perry!’ She dashed to him and threw her arms round him. Her thudding heart slowed a little when she felt he was warm, breathing regularly and seemed only to be fast asleep. For one terrible moment she had thought he’d sunk into such deep despair he had harmed himself. She shook him. ‘Perry! Wake up. Wake up, darling!’
She had to shake him again and again, call down his ear before she got a response.
‘Mmm.’ He let his head loll on his chest. ‘Em…’
‘Yes, it’s me, darling. Why are you like this? Did you take some sleeping tablets? Where’s Selina?’
Perry tried to open his eyes, the lids were so heavy. ‘I… I don’t know. Em… why are you here?’
‘I had to see you. Perry, try to wake up. We have to find out what’s going on. Where Selina is
. Oh, my God, she’s done this to you. She wanted you out of the way for some reason and that could only be to cause trouble. Perry, do you think you could walk to my car? We have to get to the farm.’
* * *
Selina stepped out from her hiding place to meet Dolly and Lottie in the fork in the road. Better still! Alan Annear was with them. She could get her revenge on Jim Killigrew in the same way as she would Emilia, and Emilia’s suffering would make Perry suffer too. They all deserved it so much.
A chill ran down Dolly’s back which had nothing to do with the weather, a chill that had fear edged greatly round it. Instinctively, she drew the children back and got in front of them. ‘What are you doing here? Didn’t you understand what my daughter said to you yesterday? You’re not welcome. Go away!’
Selina kept coming towards her, with her hands stretched out in front of her. ‘No! You get away. Move away from those children.’
‘What? No! I won’t. Don’t you dare come near us. Children, run! Run to the village and get help. Scream! Scream at the top of your voices.’ Dolly pushed them hard in the direction they had come from.
Lottie teetered a few steps but stopped. ‘Granny!’ she cried.
‘Lottie, run!’ Dolly shrieked. Then she ran at Selina, her own arms out, aiming to push the woman in the chest.
Lottie grabbed a stunned Alan by the hand, but instead of running to the village, she thought – as a child would – that she would be safer at home, and she hared with the boy towards the ford with the intention of running up the hill. Selina stepped smartly to the side and seized hold of her. Lottie screamed and struggled. Alan fell to the ground, screaming in fear. Dolly screamed for her granddaughter.
