Chapter Eighteen

England, 1897

I n the jolting, hissing train, Ellen sleeps on Hester’s shoulder, exhausted by travel and heat.

Waking early, Hester had fed the chickens and the tabby, and Ellen gathered a thank you posy for the neighbour who would see to both until Hester’s return. They had walked the short distance to the train station through a village already busy with the day. Hester carried a carpetbag, grateful for summer which meant light clothing was all they needed. She used the hour wait at Gloucester to buy fruit to add to the bread, cheese and remaining biscuits she had packed in a cane basket and which they ate as they journeyed to Shrewsbury.

During the many delays they sat with other stoic passengers in the sweat scented fug of the carriage while the July sun cooked them like rabbits in a Dutch oven. The breezeless day outside rendered opened windows – those which could be juddered into revealing gaps – futile. Travellers alighted, others boarded, the carriage filled and emptied, and Hester wriggled on the wooden third class seat and wished she had brought cushions.

Now the train rattles along, shrieking its warning to any daring road users who might think about crossing the line to the danger steaming towards them. Ellen sleeps on. Hester, too, is weary, and glad for her own and Rose’s sake her less patient daughter is in the restful cool of Catherine’s comfortable house in Shiphaven.

When confronted with Hester’s decision to take them both to their grandparents, Rose had objected.

‘I hate the train, Mama. I get sick.’ Rose pulled a face and pretended to vomit

Hester allowed this truth, albeit the occasion had been once, two years earlier, when they travelled into Gloucester to a Christmas pantomime – a treat which had threatened to sour when Rose was ill.

‘Would it be better for Rose to stay with me?’ Catherine offered. ‘Won’t one granddaughter be sufficient to win over the hardest of hard-hearted grandparents?’ She had laughed, coaxing Hester into allowing her to pet and spoil Rose for a few days.

Rose sidled close to her idol in the shade under the oak, slipped her hand into Catherine’s. ‘Ellie too.’ She hopped from one bare foot to the other. ‘We can ride Molly every day and Aunt Catherine has the best food, we can eat and eat.’

‘The best food cooked by Mrs Bryce and plenty to spare.’ Catherine ruffled Rose’s hair. ‘I won’t promise Molly every day. I can promise swimming in the river, with picnics on the sand.’

Hester’s throat constricted. Just as the river had brought her baby Rose, she dreaded the goddess might one day change her mind on a whim and take her back. Like the river had taken the baby’s mother and father – one tragically willing, the other cursing and battling to his last drowned breath. She held Catherine’s eyes, shook her head, a tiny movement. Catherine acknowledged it with an apologetic dip of her head.

‘If Ellie prefers, she can stay too,’ Hester said, reluctantly wanting to be fair.

‘Ellie?’ Catherine bent to Ellen’s sombre face.

‘No thank you, Aunt Catherine.’ Ellen moved closer to Hester. ‘I want to see Papa.’

Hester stares through soot-smudged glass as the train crosses yellow fields divided by green hedgerows near to Shrewsbury. Harvesting has begun, and rows of men swing scythes while others, men and women, follow behind to bind the cut stalks into sheaves laid against each other. The steady rhythm of their labour sits at odds with the noisy steaming of the train, and Hester watches, recalling harvests on her father’s farm and the boisterous revelry of the labourers at the end of each scorching, wearying day.

Ellen stirs, murmurs in her sleep, and presses her damp head more firmly into Hester’s numb arm. Hester gazes at her dark-haired daughter. She has yet to explain to Ellen that Papa might no longer be with his own parents, and this is the first step in a journey to find him. She cannot bring herself to douse the girl’s excitement too early. Besides, Hester deludes herself, he could be there.

When the train squeals to a halt in Shrewsbury, the summer dusk is deepening to full night, and Hester is glad to find a friendly welcome at the nearby McGarva's Railway Hotel. She and Ellen eat a meagre meal, both needing sleep over food, and soon retire to their room. The sheets on the bed are clean, the washbasin jug full, and Ellen is soon tucked up and sleeping.

Hester sits in a wooden chair by the open window and contemplates the gaslit street. A handful of pedestrians pass by, a rider canters the empty road. A passengerless horse-drawn bus clatters over the stones. She and Ellen will ride the long wagon tomorrow, as the innkeeper explained when Hester asked how to get to Aaron’s parents’ small town, a few miles west.

Aaron’s parents. Hester’s mind roams the possible welcomes she and Ellen might receive. This was never how she wished to meet his family, unannounced, with a child. She is doubly glad for Rose’s absence – explaining two daughters close in age is a conversation for later. If there is a later.

Hester rises from the chair, undresses and hangs her gown on a hook by the door. Its creases might fall out by morning. She pulls a cotton nightgown over her head, washes her face and hands, and lifts the sheet to snuggle beside her daughter. It’s the darkest time of the night before tiredness overwhelms her racing brain.

***

‘This is it.’ Hester stands in the hot mid-morning sunshine, carpetbag in one hand, cane basket crooked over her other arm.

She and Ellen peer past the cast iron gate to the double-bay-windowed red brick house settled in its lush, green garden. Hester wants to brush at her travelling jacket, check her hair is neat under one of Catherine’s borrowed fashionable straw hats. She won’t. It would be too self-conscious a movement. Instead, she smiles at Ellen and hopes the girl can’t sense her uncertainty.

‘Are my grandparents rich, Mama?’ Ellen squeezes Hester’s arm. Excitement or nerves.

‘Not rich, exactly.’ Hester has no idea. ‘Comfortable,’ she says, repeating what little Aaron passed on. He is reluctant to share his family history. ‘Come on, let’s see if Papa is here, and if not, where we can find him.’

‘If not?’ Ellen looks up sharply.

Hester pretends not to see, fiddling with the gate latch, pushing it open and striding in with a show of confidence. The path to the door is interminable. Is there a figure at a window, watching? She lifts the gleaming brass lion head knocker, lets it fall. And offers Ellen another reassuring smile.

A middle-aged woman wearing a white apron and a housekeeper’s mop cap opens the door.

‘Yes?’ she says.

‘I wish to speak with Mr and Mrs Appleby, if they are at home.’ Hester is pleased her voice is steady.

‘May I say who’s calling?’

Hester draws a breath. ‘Mrs Aaron Appleby and her daughter Ellen.’ She must let the woman assume, and not give Ellen her baptised name of Ellen Williams, Hester’s maiden name. Too many difficult questions lie therein.

The housekeeper raises an eyebrow. She leaves the door ajar and retreats along the wide black-and-red tiled hall. When she returns, she is as straight-faced as when she departed.

‘Mr and Mrs Appleby ask me to say Mrs Aaron Appleby is deceased, their son has no daughter, and they would be grateful if you would leave their premises.’

Every word intoned with no emotion. The statement does not answer Hester’s unasked question whether Mr Aaron Appleby is within. It does, however, tell her Aaron’s parents are ignorant of her and the girls’ existence. Her spirits sag.

As the woman puts a hand to the door, Hester says, without stumbling, ‘You mean Miss Marianne Ward. I am not she. I am Hester, and I am Aaron Appleby’s wife.’

The housekeeper hesitates, and in the pause a male voice from inside calls, ‘Leave it, Mrs Cooper, I’ll deal with this.’

The male voice strides into view, chest puffed, head high, frowning above his heavy beard and shiny waxed moustache. The only likeness to Aaron’s tall, slim figure is in the remnants of dark hair not conquered by grey. Hester senses Ellen take a step back. She is tempted to do the same, holds her ground.

‘Can you explain yourself please, Madame?’ The gruff tone indicates any explanation will be treated with caution.

‘Mr Appleby, sir.’ Hester bobs a shallow curtsy. ‘I am Hester Appleby, and this is mine and Aaron’s daughter, Ellen.’

Mr Appleby glances at Ellen and frowns. The girl has her father’s shape of face, narrow, strong-jawed, his high cheekbones, dark hair and – most telling – eyes which in shape and black, gold-flecked colour announce fatherhood more clearly than any birth register

‘She is just like him.’ A woman appears behind Mr Appleby, staring at Ellen as she would a ghost. ‘A female version of Aaron at the same age.’ The woman steps around Mr Appleby, leans towards Ellen, who cannot move without falling down the stone steps. ‘How old are you, child?’

Ellen seeks and is given Hester’s approval.

‘Seven, ma’am.’ Ellen assesses her grandmother’s intent scrutiny. ‘I am pleased to meet you,’ she adds, and bobs her own curtsey, a prettier, deeper one than Hester’s.

A slightly hysterical laugh rises in Hester’s throat. She wants to hug Ellen, and Catherine too, for her friend must have coached the girl for this moment.

‘Pretty manners,’ Mrs Appleby says to Hester. ‘You’d best come in.’ She pushes past her wordless husband to lead the way into the house.

Hester places her carpetbag and basket by the umbrella stand, takes her daughter’s hand and follows her parents-in-law into a parlour darkened by drawn, pleated brown velvet curtains decorated with acanthus-patterned deep green swags and tails.

An aspidistra wilts in a corner among a collection of chinaware, the Chesterfield and the armchairs are protected by white antimacassars and heaped with tasselled cushions. The plain dark yellow papered walls are hung with hunting pictures and dull landscapes broken by a mahogany framed oval mirror over an elaborate wooden mantelpiece. The fireplace is empty, the grate blacked to a shine. Everything is brown, grey or a deep lustreless green, including the intricately patterned rug.

Hester curls within herself at the cheerlessness. Ellen pushes into her side, and Hester wraps an arm around her. They wait inside the doorway.

‘Sit down, sit down.’ Mrs Appleby gestures at a sofa beneath the curtains and Hester and Ellen obey.

Mr Appleby resumes the command he lost in the hallway. ‘We would appreciate it, Madam, if you would explain yourself.’

His frosty glare dares Hester to explain satisfactorily. She sits upright on the sofa, hands clasped on her lap. Ellen mirrors her, head bent. Hester meets her father-in-law’s glare, refusing to quail.

‘After Miss Marianne’s death,’ she says simply, ‘I met Aaron and we married.’ The prosaic statement fails to convey the least of her and Aaron’s past. Hester swallows a need to tell how she and Aaron saved each other after bitter struggles on both their parts. To explain how the ending which became their new beginning could have gone tragically wrong, could have mirrored Marianne’s fiery death. To confirm how they belong to each other, how Ellen is the living symbol of their belonging.

‘For years,’ she says into the silence, ‘I have begged my husband to visit here, or to write, to make you aware of his circumstances.’ Of me, of Ellen, and of Rose. A morsel of bitterness lodges in her throat. If Aaron had been honest with his parents, she and Ellen would not have had to endure this cold awkwardness.

Mr Appleby grunts. ‘His apologies for his neglect came too late.’

‘Apologies? He has been here?’ Hester unclasps and reclasps her fingers. She shifts forward on the sofa.

‘Midsummer.’ Mrs Appleby tears her gaze from Ellen to cast it upon Hester

The longing, the sorrow, she sees in Mrs Appleby’s eyes pierce Hester’s heart. Guilt tinges the bitterness.

‘And he did not speak of us,’ Hester says softly. Disappointment joins the tumble of emotions beating their way from Hester’s stomach into her throat. She wants to unstick herself from the sofa, to pace the dismal room or, better, grab Ellen and run from the house into the hot, cleansing sunshine.

‘My feeling is,’ Mrs Appleby says, and her voice holds compassion, love even. ‘My feeling is Aaron did not want to expose his wife and child to the anger he anticipated, rightly, we would display at his visit.’ She peers at her husband, who sits upright in a wing chair, hands on his knees, staring at the drawn curtains as if he too would escape this claustrophobic room. ‘We were wrong, husband –’ Mrs Appleby holds her hands to her chin like a child at prayer ‘– to be unforgiving, to not press him for his history of these last years, to not –’

‘Yes.’ Mr Appleby acknowledges his wife’s plea with a defeated sagging of his shoulders. ‘Yes, my dear, you are right. As Aaron himself said, what happened is old history.’ He twists to address Hester, eyebrows beetled. ‘And you and … and the child –’

‘Our grandchild,’ Mrs Appleby interrupts with awe in her tone.

‘– the child,’ her husband continues with a softened glare, ‘are here, having to explain yourselves when this should have been Aaron’s task, as he should be here with you today.’

Hester murmurs her assent, chokes back apologies on Aaron’s behalf. With Ellen by her side, ears pricked, she is reluctant to confess to Aaron’s ongoing absence and her concerns. He is not here, and the remainder of her mission is to find out where the Wards live and follow him there. She tightens her arm around Ellen who has lifted her head and gazes from one grandparent to the other, brow furrowed to comprehend what is being said here.

Mr Appleby is sensitive enough not to pursue his statement, and sufficiently insensitive to ask, ‘He spoke to you of Marianne? He told you how he and she brought shame on their families?’ The accusations extend to Hester.

Hester bridles, wishing she had not brought her seven-year-old daughter with her, except Ellen has been her admittance ticket. ‘He told me,’ she says, more primly than she would have liked, ‘all of it.’ Which he hasn’t told them, and Hester will not either.

Mr Appleby continues to assess Hester for truthfulness, decides at last what has been left unsaid best remains unsaid, and turns to his wife with a weary sigh. ‘Whatever fault lies with Aaron, we cannot with Christian virtue lay his blame on this woman.’ He waves one hand, a tired gesture of surrender. ‘Please ring for Mrs Cooper, dear, to bring tea, and a lemonade for the child, for … Ellen. Our guests must be parched after their journey from …?’

The ice in the room fractures.

‘Merely Shrewsbury this morning.’ Hester fills the gap, glad for the conversational tone. ‘We travelled by train from Gloucester yesterday, from our home near there.’

‘Ah. A beautiful cathedral.’ Mrs Appleby transforms into gracious hostess and the fractures widen. ‘Come here, child.’ She beckons to Ellen who, after a nod from Hester, moves to her grandmother.

Mrs Appleby takes Ellen gently by the arms and appraises her with a soft smile. ‘You are welcome here, granddaughter. After we have had our refreshment we will walk the garden together and you will tell me about your home near Gloucester.’

The ice splinters into shards which melt in the warmth when Ellen doesn’t wait for the refreshments or the walk in the garden. She launches into babbled chatter about bees and streams, hens and the tabby cat. Hester has a moment of panic that the child’s relief will lead her to talk also about her conversations with the tabby and with Molly. She had forgotten to warn her beforehand of revealing too much.

She is saved when Mrs Appleby interrupts the outpouring, standing with a chuckle. ‘A rural idyll, and I cannot wait to learn more.’ She holds out her hand for Ellen to take. ‘Let’s find Mrs Cooper and organise this tea, shall we?’ She leads her prattling granddaughter into the hallway.