by Kate Hewitt
It sounded rather ridiculously romantic. “Good thing you didn’t swallow it by accident.”
“I know!” Anna giggled. “I wondered why Simon was looking so nervous as I unwrapped it!”
“I really didn’t want you to swallow it, because we’d have a rough time getting it back,” Simon joked. They shared a loved-up look, their hands sliding along the table and finding each other, fingers twining. Rachel kept smiling, determined not to look away. Not to seem as if she minded, because of course she didn’t. She’d have to be a complete shrew to begrudge her sister her happiness.
Her smile had started to turn into a rictus before Simon spoke again. “Fortunately she didn’t swallow the ring and she said yes. Wins all around.”
“Absolutely.” Rachel nodded, and then couldn’t seem to stop. “So have you set a date?”
Another one of those shared, silently meaningful looks. “Yes, Christmas. December twenty-second, actually, which is the day we met last year.”
“Oh, how perfect!” Rachel’s over-loud voice echoed through the kitchen. Everyone stared at her. She was acting as if she wasn’t handling this well, and really, she was. She was happy for Anna and Simon, and their marital bliss had no impact or effect on her own. She knew that. She felt it. And yet somehow she couldn’t seem to stop acting as if she were dying on the inside.
“Well, it’s getting late. I’d better go to bed.” She didn’t miss the look of relief on Anna’s face as she straightened. “But really, congratulations. I’m so happy for you both.” For good measure, she kissed Anna and Simon’s cheeks, and then Ruth and Roger’s as well, even though she didn’t usually do that sort of thing. Ruth pressed her hand, giving her a look of such sympathy that Rachel wanted to cringe—or scream. When was she going to stop being Thornthwaite’s pity case? Since it had only been a week since she’d been jilted, she had a feeling it would be a while.
The next morning she came downstairs to hear her parents’ hushed voices in the kitchen; it sounded as if they were arguing, which they never did.
Rachel hovered by the turn in the corridor, guiltily eavesdropping.
“Of course I understand your concerns, Ruth, and you must follow your own conscience in this—”
“Oh, Roger, don’t talk to me as if I’m one of your parishioners,” Ruth snapped. “I’m your wife, and these are your daughters, who are each, in their own way, going through a very challenging time—”
“I accept all that, of course. But they are also all adults, and I don’t think it would help any of them if we were to—”
“Not we.”
A heavy silence fell on the room, so oppressive that even Rachel could feel it, out in the hallway, smothering her.
“Oh,” Roger said after a moment, his voice quiet and sad. “I see.”
“Do you?” Ruth asked despairingly. “Because sometimes I think you don’t.”
“Perhaps you should enlighten me, then.”
“It just feels…hard,” Ruth explained haltingly, “to leave when everyone is in such an uncertain place.”
“Is everyone in an uncertain place? Anna is happily looking forward to her wedding, and Miriam is home now—”
“Something is going on with Miriam, surely you can see that? She’s been so silent, so closed-off—”
“Perhaps,” Roger allowed, “but if she doesn’t want to tell us—”
“She can’t tell us if we’re not here.”
A ripple of shock went through Rachel as she realised what her mother was implying. They were due to leave for Jinan in four days but Ruth sounded as if she now wanted to stay in Thornthwaite…without Roger.
“I don’t know if that’s true,” Roger said quietly. “But if you feel you need to be here…”
“Oh, Roger, I don’t know what I want.” Her mother sounded near tears. “Perhaps just for you to understand how difficult this is for me sometimes.”
“I do understand that,” Roger said, and Rachel heard him move across the kitchen as her mother gave a loud sniff. Feeling as if she were really intruding now, Rachel tiptoed away, her heart thudding.
Of course, she’d known her mother had some worries about moving to China after thirty years in a comfortable vicarage in the Lake District. Her four daughters certainly had had concerns—her mother fit here, bustling about, baking, making tea, always listening and offering advice. All skills that could translate, in one way or another, to her new life in China, but still. Rachel hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that her mother belonged here, and she knew her sisters felt the same way.
Yet it still jolted her with both fear and shock to think her mum might not actually go to China. Where would Ruth live? What would she do, without her vicar’s wife role that she wore like a second skin, or even a first one? And how would her father cope on his own? He was a wonderfully capable man, but he depended absolutely on his wife. They were a team, rock solid and inseparable. It was the only way Rachel could imagine them being. She didn’t like thinking of them being apart, even temporarily. It felt inherently, innately wrong, like something split or missing.
She went back upstairs, only to run into Miriam standing at the top, swathed in a dressing gown and looked bleary-eyed and tangle-haired.
“Are you still jet-lagged?” Rachel asked in surprise. Her sister had been home for more than two weeks, yet she’d barely been out of bed at lunchtime most days.
Miriam shrugged. “Something like that.”
“Are you okay?” Rachel asked in concern. She didn’t feel like getting her head bitten off again, but something was so obviously up with her little sister that she couldn’t not ask. To her surprise, Miriam’s eyes filled with tears and she shook her head.
“No, not really.”
“Oh, Miri.” The childhood nickname slipped out naturally and Rachel pulled her sister into a quick hug. “What’s happened?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“But you can still tell me. Look at my life,” Rachel only half-joked. “It’s all gone to pieces. Whatever is going on with you, Miriam, I’m sure I can take it. And you look as if you need to tell someone. A trouble shared is a trouble halved, isn’t that always what Mum says?”
But her sister just shook her head and stepped back, sniffing. “I’ll be okay.”
“You need to find a place to live, though, and so do I.” Rachel eyed her with growing worry; her sister really did look rough. What was she not saying? “We could let a place together, you know.”
“In Thornthwaite?” Miriam looked sceptical. “Is there anything?”
“There might be. Or we could be really daring, and live in the big city. Keswick.” That brought a smile to her sister’s face, but then she shook her head again.
“You’d have to commute to work every day.”
“I can manage—”
“I’ll be fine.” Miriam was clearly shutting the conversation down, and so Rachel could do nothing but gaze at her helplessly, wishing she could say or do something that would breach her sister’s brittle armour.
“What’s going on?” Anna came out of her bedroom, towel-drying her damp hair. For the first time Rachel noticed the small diamond glinting on her ring finger. She should have asked to see the ring last night, but she’d been so intent on acting as if she were fine, which she had been.
“I came upstairs because Mum and Dad are having a bit of a pagger downstairs,” Rachel whispered.
Miriam wrinkled her nose. “A what?”
“It’s Cumbrian,” Anna explained with a little laugh. “Have you been away that long? It means a fight.” She frowned as she glanced at Rachel. “Not seriously, though? Mum and Dad?”
Rachel shrugged. “They’re arguing. Mum wants to stay here.”
“What?” Anna looked shocked. “She’s been absolutely determined to go—”
“Well, I think she’s having a wobbly now, because of you getting engaged and me not getting married.” Rachel tried to smile. “She wants to be here for us.�
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“I knew we should have waited.” Anna looked distraught. “I told Simon we should have waited to announce our news until Mum and Dad were in China and—” She stopped abruptly, biting her lip.
“And I was a little less wounded?” Rachel filled in. “It’s okay, Anna. I understand. And I don’t think you should have waited, in any case. Mum and Dad would want to be here for your engagement, and I’m fine with it, honestly. I know I sounded a bit strange last night but it was just because everyone is always so worried about me and how I’m going to react. I’m absolutely a hundred per cent thrilled for you.”
“Thanks, Rachel. I know you are.”
“Good.”
“So Mum might just stay in Thornthwaite?” Miriam said. “And Dad will go to China alone?” She sounded shocked and not all that thrilled by this news.
“I don’t think she will, really,” Rachel answered slowly. “I think it’s just a knee-jerk reaction—and maybe a bit of cold feet.”
“Still.” Anna shook her head. “Mum and Dad never argue.”
“I know. That’s why I came upstairs. I don’t want to go down and walk in on them.”
“Well, I’m going to take a shower.” Miriam yawned and strolled off towards the bathroom; a few seconds later the vicarage’s ancient pipes began to creak and clank as the water started to heat up.
“Do you think she’s okay?” Rachel asked in a whisper. “Miriam? She seems a bit…”
“Yes, she does, doesn’t she? I don’t know.” Anna chewed her lip. “Maybe something happened out in Australia?”
“I asked her if she wanted to find a place to let together. As of next week, we’re both officially homeless.”
“Oh, Rachel. You don’t have to leave the vicarage—”
“We kind of do,” Rachel said as gently as she could. “I mean, it wouldn’t quite be fair to Simon, would it? To have a couple of squatters when he moved in?”
“He wouldn’t see it like that.”
“Still. New start and all that.” Rachel tried to sound chirpy about the prospect, and thought she probably failed. “What are you and Simon up to today?”
“We’re going to Keswick to look at some reception venues,” Anna said with a little, apologetic smile. “And register for gifts.”
“Get right on top of those things,” Rachel returned with a little nod of approval. “That’s the way to do it. Which reminds me, I need to box up about a hundred wedding gifts and send them back.”
“Rachel, I’m so sorry…”
“Please, Anna. Don’t be. And don’t let what happened to me spoil your plans. This is your moment. Enjoy it, for all it’s worth.” Rachel widened her smile. “Seriously. I’m okay.”
“We were thinking about going out for drinks tonight, to celebrate,” Anna said cautiously. “Nothing big…”
“That sounds great. Count me in.”
“Okay. As long as you’re sure…”
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” Rachel made herself sound as cheerful as possible, but as soon as she could she escaped to her room, closing the door behind her with a grateful click as she let out a heavy sigh. When would this get easier—for her family as well as for her?
She spent the rest of the day boxing up her wedding presents, which wasn’t as hard as she’d expected. In the end, they were only things, just as her mother had said, and Rachel knew she didn’t actually care that much about stuff. It had been about what it had represented—the waffle maker for lazy Saturday mornings making a big cooked breakfast for her children; the croquet set they’d all play with outside.
She didn’t need any of it anymore, and therefore she didn’t want it. As long as she kept herself from envisioning those wished-for scenarios, she was fine. Mostly.
Having boxed everything back up in its original packaging, which they’d thankfully kept, Rachel didn’t feel brave enough to lug all the boxes to Thornthwaite’s tiny post office, which was a hub of gossipy news for the village, and so she loaded up the car and drove to Keswick instead, returning everything by post even as she acknowledged how much easier it would have been if she and Dan had registered somewhere local, instead of the upscale online service she’d wanted. Hindsight was twenty-twenty, she reminded herself with a sigh.
Her spirits lifted a little as she drove back to Thornthwaite, the sky a hazy blue, the sun gilding the fells in gold, sheep contentedly munching grass on the steep slopes criss-crossed with drystone walls. She was glad she’d finished with that particular job; she’d been dreading it. It felt like one more important step towards a future she couldn’t quite envision, but it was slowly amassing an amorphous, uncertain shape.
Back at the vicarage the house was quiet; Anna had gone out with Simon, and Miriam was in the garden, lounging in the sunshine, a magazine over her face. Rachel peeked into the kitchen and saw her mother at the little table, a cup of tea forgotten by her elbow as she stared into space.
“Mum?”
Ruth started and then smiled. “Hello, darling. You managed with the gifts?” She’d offered to help but Rachel had kindly refused, feeling she needed to do it herself.
“Yes, thankfully. Everything’s been returned, down to the last toaster. Two of them, as it happened.”
“Your father and I received two blenders,” Ruth recalled with a smile. “And we argued about which one to keep. Isn’t that silly?”
It seemed like the perfect opening. “Is everything okay with you and Dad, Mum?”
Ruth looked surprised. “Why would you ask such a thing?”
“I overheard you this morning.” Rachel hunched her shoulders guiltily. “Sorry for eavesdropping.”
“Heard us…” Ruth sighed. “Oh, yes. That was only a moment, Rachel. Your father and I are fine. Please don’t worry about us.”
“So you’re both going to Jinan…?”
“Yes, I think that’s probably best.” Ruth smiled tiredly. “I admit, I feel torn at the moment, because you’re all here and you’re all going through such different things. I want to be here to support you, to help—”
“That’s understandable, but there would always be something to stay back for, wouldn’t there, Mum? And you will be back at Christmas.”
“Yes…”
“Of course we’ll all miss you. Terribly. You know that, don’t you?”
“Yes.” Ruth smiled, the curve of her lips just a little wobbly. “Yes, I know that.”
Rachel smiled back, and hers was just as wobbly. Ruth sniffed and then reached over and squeezed her hand.
“It will get better,” she said quietly, and Rachel had to work hard not to let the tears fall.
“I know.”
A few hours later everyone was heading out for celebratory drinks at Thornthwaite’s ‘rougher’ pub, The Bell.
“Why not The Queen’s Sorrow?” Miriam asked. She looked marginally better than she had that morning, her dark, wavy hair caught up in a messy bun, her lanky form encased in skinny jeans and a loose jumper, but there still seemed something pale and haunted about her, and Rachel’s attempt to ask her sister what was going on had been rebuffed again.
“Simon and I met at The Bell,” Anna explained. “Didn’t I tell you that story?”
“No, I don’t think you did.”
Rachel, having heard it all before, walked slightly behind Anna, Simon, and Miriam as they headed over to The Bell, across the little stone bridge that spanned St John’s Beck, and then up the street to the weathered Victorian building on the corner of Finkle Street that housed Thornthwaite’s other pub.
The sun was just starting to sink towards the jagged edge of the fells on the horizon, and the evening was still warm, the buildings and houses of Thornthwaite bathed in golden, syrupy light.
It was a beautiful scene, and yet it gave Rachel a little pang of melancholy. In her alternative reality, the one that was supposed to happen, she and Dan would be walking together, hand in hand, happy and secure in their newlywed status. Perhaps they would have
been teasing Simon and Anna, giving them well-meaning and jokey pointers.
As it was she stayed silent, only half-listening to Anna regale Miriam with how she’d met Simon at The Bell, but hadn’t realised who he was, and trying to stave off that pang of melancholy that threatened to swamp her completely. Behind her Will and Esther were chatting quietly, and her parents were holding hands. Everyone seemed happy except for her.
Rachel didn’t want to bring the evening down, but as she stepped into the crowded warmth of The Bell, she decided she could definitely use a drink…or three.
Chapter Six
ROGER SHOULDERED HIS way to the bar as they all sat around a few tables squeezed together in the back. Rachel had only been in The Bell a couple of times, for a friend’s hen do and another teacher’s birthday drink.
It was known as the village’s rougher pub, but it wasn’t that rough—not really. Admittedly a bunch of rowdy lads were standing in the front, slopping their pints all over the floor, but everyone else seemed quiet and friendly enough, and the pub had an old-fashioned feel to it, with plaster walls and a bar of old, scarred wood, a well-used dartboard on one wall and, refreshingly, no loud music, just the normal chatter and laughter that accompanied an evening in a pub.
The Bell did lack the gastro-pub décor of The Queen’s Sorrow, and the only food on offer was packets of crisps or pork scratchings. There were no micro-brewed ales or tapas plates, but that was fine by Rachel—and better yet, there was no one she knew here, besides her family. No sympathetic-looking teachers, parishioners, or friends, which was a huge relief.
“Here we are.” Roger came towards the table brandishing a bottle of the pub’s best champagne, which was more of the supermarket variety, but who cared? He uncorked it with a satisfyingly loud pop and then set to pouring glasses.
“To Simon and Anna!”
“To Simon and Anna,” everyone returned, and Rachel glugged half her glass in one go.
“Easy there,” Esther murmured, and Rachel smiled and ignored her.
The conversation wafted over and around her while Rachel tried discreetly to pour herself a second and then a third glass of champagne, hoping no one noticed how fast she was downing them. She deserved a little Dutch courage, surely, after everything she’d been through? Especially when everyone else was so happy?
