Chapter Twelve

Eccleshall, 1897

T he late morning’s bright sunlight has dimmed when Aaron steps out of the church with Mrs Ward’s address and a sketched map of how to find the house. A humid stillness silences the birds, drives the butterflies in the churchyard to shelter, and causes Aaron to sweat inside his summer wool jacket. He glances at the massing, swollen grey clouds and worries he will arrive at Mrs Ward’s home a sodden mess.

His destination is not far enough to warrant disturbing his horse, which he wishes to be well rested before the long journey to Barnley. It is, however, far enough for Aaron to worry if he will arrive before the rain. In what he recognises as a cowardly act of further procrastination, Aaron retreats to the Royal Oak’s bar. The low-ceilinged room is empty, and he sits on a bench by a window in order to assess the broiling clouds. Besides, he argues to himself, he must consider carefully what he will say since discovering Reverend Ward has passed. The reverend was the more tolerant of his daughter’s wild ways, and therefore of Aaron.

‘They’re children, my love,’ Aaron heard him tell his wife, ‘enjoying God’s bountiful nature, as they should.’

Aaron regards the foam on his light ale. Marianne had found him in a lane one spring day, prodding at the weeds growing at the base of a stone wall, watching insects scurry out of hiding. He was ten, eleven? And bored. Aaron never inquired, and was never told, how Marianne had come across Mother Lovell. She would have wandered the rough, lonely track, exploring, saw the cottage and invited herself in. And Aaron soon afterwards.

During the weeks Aaron spent at his second-rate public boarding school, Marianne received a superior education under the erratic tutelage of Mother Lovell, supplemented in the more regular curricula of art, needlework and housekeeping by a string of frustrated governesses. Mrs Ward turned a blind eye to the visits to Mother Lovell, keeping her fussing for when Aaron returned during school breaks.

In proportion to Marianne’s growth into young womanhood, Mrs Ward articulated her strict notions of appropriate behaviour for a vicar’s daughter with greater force.

‘Mother has that gleam in her eyes,’ Marianne would tell Aaron, rolling her own eyes and giggling. ‘Papa is a dear, however. You mustn’t force her into adulthood too soon, my love, ’ she would add in perfect mimicry of the reverend’s grave tones.

Later, Aaron understood the giggle was part of the playacting, of Marianne adopting the mannerisms of a child when she was far beyond childhood.

The day Marianne turned seventeen, Mrs Ward won her long battle. No more unaccompanied wanderings in the woods, by which she meant not accompanied solely by Aaron or ‘that witch’ Mother Lovell. Her husband was forced to agree, reluctantly. He liked Aaron, a bright boy from a good family, with a good education and a decent inheritance in his father’s small estate.

‘Mother Lovell is a witch,’ Marianne had told Aaron at the beginning. She used the same tone she might have pointed out a cow was brown.

Aaron had shushed her. ‘You mustn’t say such things,’ he whispered, with a nervous glance at the old crone bent over her bubbling, fragrant cauldron.

‘But she is.’ Marianne had continued to finger the chipped saucers and dirty jars littering the stained table. ‘She’s going to make me a spell to fly,’ and, with a sly sideways look at Aaron, ‘What spell do you want?’ in the neutral way she might offer him a choice of cake.

What spell should Aaron have requested? One to alter the past? A spell he would willingly use today, to give his ten-year-old self the fragments of wisdom he has painfully accrued to this point?

The rain arrives in a spitting, bouncing attack on the cobbled road. Men in suits hunch under umbrellas. Women throw shawls over their heads. A young mother hurries by, towing a child, both with rain-flattened hats. Aaron drinks his ale and puts his mind to the conversation he must have later today. Rain or shine.

***

The house is small, old, with one chimney, a black front door and a window either side with empty flower boxes.

Aaron’s throat tightens at the flower boxes. Mrs Ward, busy carrying out her endless duties as the vicar’s wife, declared herself unable to care for the garden as well as the house. The wide lawns and the beds where hydrangeas, lilac, blue-flowered ceanothus and summer displays of bearded iris needed frequent tending were Reverend Ward’s responsibility. Mrs Ward made an exception for the boxes which graced the wide sills of the ground floor bay windows. The gardener maintained these under Mrs Ward’s supervision – her precious moments of nature she would call the time spent deciding whether pansies, marigolds, geraniums or aubretia would soften the austere grey stone of the vicarage.

The rain has ceased with the suddenness with which it began. The windless air remains humid, and the clouds linger to admire their legacy in the temporary flooding and drenched inhabitants. The storm has not passed.

The weather is fitting, Aaron supposes, as he lifts the tarnished knocker and lets it drop to the black wood.

Quick footsteps sound on the other side of the door, which is opened by a middle-aged woman wearing a white apron and a plain cap.

‘Yes?’ she says.

Aaron removes his Derby, gives his name, and explains he wishes to speak with Mrs Ward, if she is at home.

The woman examines Aaron’s outward respectability, decides it is sufficient, and tells him to wait. She will see if her mistress is able to receive him.

‘Please tell her,’ Aaron says to the closing door, ‘I have news of Marianne.’

It’s a low trick as a means of gaining entry. Doubtless, the tempting sentence will create hope which he will then annihilate. He holds the woman’s gaze, hating himself. She sniffs, leaves the door ajar, walks briskly along the short passage and goes into a room on her right.

Aaron is not kept waiting more than a minute.

‘The mistress will see you.’ The woman’s eyes have hardened. A message is being relayed.

She does not offer to help him with his coat, nor does she take Aaron’s hat and hang it on the stand inside the door. Aaron keeps both on his person, acceding to his hostess’s apparent desire for this visit to be short.

‘I beg of you, sir,’ the woman adds, ‘not to tire her. Mrs Ward is in frail health.’

Aaron has no time to imagine the robust woman of his childhood as frail, for here she is, seated in a wingback chair in her dark, over-furnished parlour. A woollen blanket covers Mrs Ward’s knees despite the stifling mustiness of the room. According to the Holy Trinity vicar, Reverend Ward died several years ago, yet his widow remains in deep mourning. The high collar of her unadorned black bombazine gown conceals her throat. A simple white cap, similar to the housekeeper’s, covers her tightly pulled back hair, which has prematurely whitened, is less full than earlier years.

Aaron remains in the doorway, his mind scrambling to re-adjust the past to conform with this stiff, diminished figure staring at him from within deep wrinkles around her eyes. Mrs Ward presses one hand to her chest, a simple cotton handkerchief clasped in her twig-like fingers.

After an age, Aaron finds his manners and makes a small bow. ‘Mrs Ward. I must first offer my condolences.’

She scowls from her deep chair. ‘You,’ she says.

This welcome is colder than the one from his parents. The coldness is expected, however, hence his tardiness in bringing his pathetic explanations and apologies here. He wishes the reverend still lived, for Aaron would have found a shard of godly sympathy buried in the grieving father’s heart. Perhaps. He breathes out softly, opens his mouth to confirm, yes, it is him –

‘You have news of Marianne?’ Her voice at least has not changed. It carries the same quarrelsome tone. ‘Where is my daughter? Why is she not with you?’

Aaron cannot move from the doorway. His rehearsed speech is inadequate, too harsh. His mind scrambles to find words which will gently ease his questioner into the terrible truth.

‘Mrs Ward …’

She purses her mouth, waiting.

‘Marianne was happy,’ Aaron says. ‘We were happy together.’ This is a large portion of the truth. Aaron was happy, and Marianne content for days on end.

‘Happy?’ Mrs Ward rises. The rug falls to the floor. She grabs at a walking stick propped by the wing of the chair and waves it at Aaron. ‘Happy?’ Kicking aside the rug with a strength her apparent frailty denies, she says in the same petulant tone, ‘Whether happy or not, what do you mean by ‘were’?’

Her stare freezes Aaron’s soul. She knows. Yet she will force the words from him, as punishment. Her fury is justified, as is her desire to chasten the man who took her daughter from her.

Aaron tightens his grip on his hat. This is his cue.

‘I am sorry, Mrs Ward.’ He dips his eyes, lifts them to face her glare. ‘Marianne fell ill, a short illness, it was soon over, nothing doctors could do.’

Nothing Aaron could do, watching his love plummet to the burning, wind-whipped river with the screech of lost souls screaming their anguish into the frozen air. He shudders, returns his attention to the dark, stuffy parlour.

‘Dead?’ Mrs Ward’s thin lips tighten. ‘You killed her, as surely as you killed my husband.’ She steps forward, lifts the stick and presses the end to Aaron’s chest. ‘Grief, he died of grief, constantly blaming himself. I told him, didn’t I? You will remember despite you pretended not to hear.’ She taps the stick against Aaron’s ribs. ‘You killed him, Aaron Appleby, seducing our daughter, stealing her from her home.’

Aaron wants to step away from the stick, away from Mrs Ward’s bitterness, her hatred. He doesn’t. Let her express her emotion, let her blame him – for he is at fault – let her anguish break his heart.

‘You,’ she hisses, ‘and that evil witch in the woods.’ Mrs Ward twists about, too swiftly, stumbles to her chair and falls into its flattened cushions. Her hands go to her face. Her shoulders heave with sobs.

‘Madam?’ The housekeeper brushes past Aaron to bend over the weeping woman, her hand on Mrs Ward’s shoulder. She glowers at the visitor with an intensity a shade less accusing than her mistress. ‘I suggest, sir,’ she says stiffly, ‘you should leave.’

Aaron agrees this is best, for him and for Marianne’s mother. He retreats to the hall, hurries the short distance to the door and lets himself out into the humid afternoon. The roiling clouds match the churning of his stomach.

***

The landlord of the Royal Oak has seen sufficient odd behaviour in his guests to take Aaron’s change of mind about staying a second night with barely a raised eyebrow. He does comment, blandly, he trusts the storm will blow itself out and Mr Appleby will have a dry journey. He himself is leaving Eccleshall on the morrow, journeying to the south coast to begin a well-earned retirement, and he hopes the roads will not be mud and ruts. Aaron wishes the man well, and mud-free travelling.

He rides from the inn’s courtyard onto the High Street, past the pedestal-mounted cast iron clock, determined to put as much distance between himself and Eccleshall by sunset as daylight will allow.

The landlord’s hope of the storm blowing itself out is thwarted by the lack of wind. Thickening black clouds hover like the menace of war. Moisture hangs in the air, eager to transform into bullets of rain to attack the town in a repeat of the morning’s assault.

Coat buttoned, hat settled, Aaron rides on, turning south at the junction where The George rests quietly after last night’s merriment. Traffic is heavy with people taking advantage of the dry spell to complete their business for the day and hurry home. Aaron weaves between carts, other riders, men on bicycles, and pedestrians crossing from one pavement to the other until he is past the last of the straggle of houses and on the road to Stafford. The traffic is lighter, the road better than the one he travelled from Shrewsbury, albeit puddled here and there. He sets the horse at a canter, hoping the need to concentrate will ease the disquiet in his head and heart.

The tactic fails and thoughts tumble in a rush of emotion. What anguish he and Marianne have caused. His parents distant, unforgiving of their loss of reputation as much as the loss of their son. Her parents. Aaron clenches his jaw. The kind reverend dead, castigating himself for his tolerance to the end. Leaving a bitter, broken widow.

Aaron embarked on this journey seeking absolution, determined to find healing in confession if forgiveness proved unattainable. He has failed on both counts. Worse, he has re-awoken his parents’ humiliation and hurt and added a graver burden to Mrs Ward’s suffering. Is this Mother Lovell’s tragedy? Weariness descends on him, tugging him into despair.

Where is his redemption now? He will carry his sins to the grave, and to wherever they take him after death. He thinks of his letter to Hester saying more, much more, is required of him, and grasps the notion like it is a ladder held to the window of a burning house, the burning house being his tormented being.

Great drops of rain spatter the road. Thunder rumbles. Across the green and yellow fields, a far flash of lightning breaks the leaden sky. Aaron spurs the horse on. There must be a hamlet not far distant where he can wait out the deluge.

More drops fall, heavier, clustering like foot soldiers advancing on an enemy. In a few seconds, Aaron is riding into a sheet of hard rain which coalesces into hailstones. The road becomes a white-pebbled haze, the hedges a blur of green speckled with unseasonal white. He slows. Thunder booms, louder, and with it the sharp rifle crack of lightning.

His horse tosses its head, whinnies. Aaron presses his legs to the animal’s flanks, searching about for shelter. There is nothing but the hedge, and he tugs on the reins, trying to wheel the horse to the side of the road. Panic makes the creature obstinate. Another lightning streak and the horse rears. Aaron’s pulse races, praying the horse won’t bolt, struggling to bring the animal under control.

Which is why he at first fails to see the hay wagon exiting from a field a short distance ahead. Rather, it’s the pony and trap flying towards him along the road which catches his horrified gaze. The driver, a woman, is on her feet, hauling on the reins, loose red hair flying behind like a crazed warrior queen.

The great horses pulling the hay wagon trundle through the gate, the driver’s view obscured by the hedge, by the hail, the flashes of lightning.

The pony cart hurtles towards collision.

Aaron leans slightly back in the saddle, loosens the reins and claps his knees hard into his horse’s sides. The animal lowers its front legs to the ground, and before Aaron can think further, he urges it forward. He is closer to the wagon than the pony cart bearing down from the other side. He gallops past the great horses, swerving wide onto the verge among the battered grasses, praying the driver will be surprised into stopping.

Aaron races to meet the pony. The driver clings to the reins. As he nears the wide-eyed, snorting animal, Aaron bends to the side, reaches out and grabs for the harness bridle. He misses, and is past. He wheels about, and, thank the Lord, the wagon has stopped.

Aaron pushes forward, closing the gap between himself and the cart, his heart pounding. The driver has seated herself and attempts to steer the pony, which, despite its fright, has sense enough to alter its trajectory to safely pass the Clydesdales. They toss their heads at the flash of proximity and paw the wet ground.

Aaron spurs his horse, back past the disturbed horses, closing in on the pony. This time, when he shifts sideways, he is able to grab the bridle close to the bit. His arm jars with the impact. He clings on, pain searing his shoulder, grateful for his own horse which has rallied to the challenge and ignores the claps of thunder and crackle of lightning.

The pony slows … Aaron is winning … Relief floods his body.

Lightning and thunder burst right above the racing horses, a clap to herald Doomsday. The pony panics, front hooves flailing …

Aaron’s hand is wrenched from the bridle. His horse rears and the hedges are topsy turvy. He lands with a thump, his foot caught in a stirrup. Air whooshes from his lungs. He is dragged.

Blackness drops like a guillotine.