Chapter Twenty Five

A s Mara hoped, there is more in Miss Griffiths’ article about the stolen baby. Stokes claimed it was his own lost child. However, a few days earlier a horrified witness had seen Stokes’ wife walking into the Severn, babe in arms, both swept downriver. The common belief was that grief turned the fisherman’s head. Hearing Hester had a new baby herself, Stokes’ craving for revenge led to the tragedy of his own death.

Mara’s heart goes out to the wife and the poor drowned mite. Whatever the state of her own mind, and however caused, what evil leads mothers to take their children with them when they are set on death? She cannot imagine it, is nauseated at the imagery playing in her mind.

The article sets a near enough date for the birth of Hester's new baby, who must be Rose, as midsummer 1891. Hester and Ellen were living in the cottage in 1891, so while Rose’s absence from the Census, taken earlier, is to be expected, why is her birth missing from the Barnley parish register?

Also, this is before Hester’s marriage to Aaron. Two illegitimate children? Close together too. Mara wriggles in the library chair. Was this why Kathryn hightailed it to London when she could? The stain of family history had driven her from home? Mara finds this concept difficult given the breezy, accepting Kathryn she loved.

She sets the photocopied article aside and rubs her temples. The more she finds, the more loose ends mock her with their unravelled edges. And none of this helps discover what happened to Aaron and why the women in his life don’t bear his name, even after he legitimised the girls by marrying their mother.

She startles when her phone blares a ringtone into the quiet of the library. Fumbling in her handbag, Mara finds the culprit, pulls it out, takes in the caller ID. Peter. How late is it there? She answers, heart pattering in fear of bad news.

‘Peter?’ she blurts, hurriedly leaving the room with the glares of her fellow library users searing her shoulders. She lowers her voice. ‘Is anything wrong? Josie?’

‘Josie? Absolutely fine, far as I’m aware.’

His words slur. Tiredness or alcohol? The sliding glass doors open and Mara walks into the small car park between the library and the road. The sun warms her hair and shoulders.

‘It must be late there. What’s happening?’

‘Nothing’s happening.’

Mara’s eyebrows arch at his abrupt defensiveness. Tiredness, not booze. ‘Good, just a call, thank you.’

Many years have passed since Mara received a late night call when Peter was away. They used to be regular occasions for her to tell what mischief young Josie had been up to, and for him to tell what mischief a client or a colleague had been up to. They had giggled like kids, whispered I love you and goodnight, sleep well.

Mara’s nostalgic flash is interrupted by Peter’s abrupt, ‘Have you made a decision about what I said the other day? About coming home?’

Defensiveness has shifted to brusqueness. Mara bridles. ‘There’s no decision to make,’ she says. ‘I don’t see any point flying ten thousand miles to say goodbye to my daughter when I can spend more useful time with her here.’

Peter huffs. ‘You should be at home,’ he says, ‘making the most of Josie before she disappears to the great motherland.’

Mara recoils from this new sarcasm. ‘What’s this about, Peter? You were happy enough to wave farewell in May. What’s changed?’ Her fingers tighten around the phone. Cold dread chills her gut in anticipation of honesty.

‘Nothing’s changed.’ The defensiveness is back. ‘Your place is here, Mara, as my wife and Josie’s mother. You can’t go gallivanting around England for months at a time –’

‘Don’t be stupid.’ Anger displaces the dread. ‘What year do you think you’re living in? 1997 last I looked, not 1897.’ She puts steel into her voice. ‘I’m not at your beck and call, Peter. I have a life to live too. Not everything is about you.’

‘That’s for bloody sure.’ He’s shouting.

‘Peter?’

A new voice, female. Mara’s eyes widen and she holds the phone in front of her, staring at it in the hope it might grow a tiny television screen and she could see where her husband is. And with whom.

‘Who’s that?’ she says.

‘No-one.’

Peter’s anger bleeds across the oceans. Anger with her or the woman?

‘Someone called your name.’ Mara’s tone is icy while her stomach roils a fever.

‘One of the client team. We’re finishing up dinner, about to leave.’

‘Oh.’ A nasty sprite invades Mara’s brain. ‘Where did you eat?’

‘Where …?’ It could be the abrupt switch from argument to polite inquiry which has Peter hesitating. ‘Founders, the Italian, you know it.’

‘Yes, of course.’ Once a favourite of both of them, and a great place to take Josie when she was young. Italians are highly tolerant of children. ‘And on this happier note,’ Mara says stiffly, ‘I believe we’re done here, and I need to get going.’ The sprite prods harder. ‘Entertaining a visitor this afternoon, must make sure the place is tidy, given he’s my landlord.’

Peter doesn’t take the bait. ‘Don’t brush off what I’ve said, Mara.’ His rebound is smooth. ‘Think about it.’ And the line goes dead.

Mara stands with her phone in her hand, arms loose at her sides. Traffic rumbles by beyond the red brick wall. Sunlight plays dark and light in the leaves of the trees at the end of the car park.

Today is Monday, both here and in Adelaide. Founders isn’t open on Mondays.

***

The drive along the winding Forest roads would normally have gladdened Mara’s soul. The old oaks throw shadows across the black tarmac where free-ranging sheep take their afternoon rest on the grassy verges. Traffic is light, the distance not far, and all the time her mind is in overdrive.

Her months’ long suspicions have taken on the substance of reality. Her robust denials melt like snow in summer. Why else would Peter lie about a woman calling his name at 11 o’clock at night? Why did he choose Founders out of the hat as the restaurant he purported to have eaten at? Because he connects Founders with Mara, pure word association. The restaurant is more a trattoria, casual, friendly, frequented by families and regulars. Not the normal client entertainment, which tends to the white linen and rows of glistening cutlery and glassware type of place.

Yet, if Peter is having an affair, wouldn’t having Mara on the other side of the world be convenient? Why this bullying to force her home early? A veiled threat? If you don’t come home, I’m running off with my lover … Perverse.

Mara stops the Fiesta behind a row of parked cars to allow oncoming traffic to pass on the narrow road. The drivers wave their thanks and she automatically lifts her hand in acknowledgement before pulling out and resuming her journey.

A huge chunk of her reason for coming to England was to give herself, and Peter, an opportunity to gain perspective on their marriage, a sort of absence makes the heart grow fonder gamble. While it was a dangerous game which could fall either way, Mara had taken the gamble, believing Peter’s real love was for her, and for Josie. She had believed he would come to his senses, appreciate how much his family meant to him. He would tire of this other woman and welcome Mara in September with his love restored.

She winces at her naivety in glossing over the potential downside, how her absence could backfire, throwing her husband more firmly into the arms of another woman, one actually present.

Mara pulls up beside Lavender Cottage and switches off the engine. She sits behind the wheel staring up the lane to where an elderly dog walker ambles along, his ancient labrador ambling beside him.

The potential downside isn’t everything Mara didn’t consider. What had never occurred to her when she planned her journey was how her own feelings might change. She squints through the windscreen, chewing her lip.

Change is too strong a word. It’s more that she’s become confused, uncertain what she herself wants, how she sees her future.

A good clue, Mara suspects, is how little she has missed Peter since their farewell kiss in May. And how much she hasn’t missed the constant gnawing over the old bone of where is he tonight? Yet she has no wish to throw away their shared history, the good times, the loving times. The sense of being a family, the three of them. The wrench of discarding the past would be a grief too deep.

With a huff and a vague promise to think things over and call Peter in the morning, she lets herself into the cottage to grab a quick sandwich before Jack arrives.

The idea of sharing her findings with Jack over a coffee under the oak tree bites a big chunk off the edge of Mara’s disquiet.

***

‘She drowned herself and the baby?’ Jack is horrified. ‘What in hell was going on with this Stokes fellow?’ He reaches for the coffee Mara has poured from the cafetière, spoons sugar into the hot, black liquid. ‘First Hester jilts him, then his wife is driven to suicide.’

‘And murder.’ A piece of Mara’s heart remains frozen from when she first read the article at the library table. The warmth of the day, the soft breeze which ruffles the ends of her hair … life, denied to this child. The sins of the fathers.

‘Must have been a real charmer.’ Jack takes a tentative taste of his drink. ‘Do you suppose there are descendants about?’

‘Doesn’t look like he had other children.’ Mara shrugs. ‘History, or at least the article, doesn’t record.’

‘He’s not the one you’re interested in though, is he? How does this help with the great Aaron mystery?’

Mara pushes her own coffee aside. She eyes the plate of biscuits on the table between them, decides her sandwich was too recent to justify the carbs. Her mind skips to the call with Peter. ‘Men and mysteries,’ she mutters. ‘Making women’s lives impossible.’

‘Whoa.’ Jack sits back in the wrought iron chair, throws up his palms. ‘Sounds rather bitter, if you don’t mind me saying.’

He leans forward, regarding Mara with gentle concern. She grows warm under his scrutiny.

‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘It’s nothing.’

The need to talk surges in Mara’s chest like a geyser about to burst. The months of holding in her imaginings, no one to share her wild worries with, to let loose her jumbled emotions to a sympathetic ear … She brings her mug of coffee to her lips, taking her time about swallowing. She can’t, mustn’t. Talking to Jack about Peter would be its own betrayal.

Jack twists his mug between his hands. ‘One of the things about being a pub landlord for twelve years,’ he says, matter-of-fact, ‘is how practised you become at being a good listener.’

Mara gives a soft laugh, which sounds nervous to her ears. ‘It’s nothing, really.’

Jack tilts his head to the side, sceptical.

Mara finds herself saying, ‘A call from home, earlier, when I was at the library.’

‘Everything all right?’

‘Mmm. Yes.’ She tries again, forcing conviction into her voice. ‘Peter, my husband …’ A glance at Jack’s face and Mara has to shift her gaze to the garden. She longs for Ellen to be there, silently telling her the right words to say.

‘He wants you home.’ It’s a statement, bald in its directness.

Mara examines it for tone, finds only neutrality. ‘Yes,’ she confesses.

‘Will you go?’

The sharp abruptness of the question with its suggestion a yes would be unwelcome, adds to the tension swirling in slow circles in the air under the oak tree. This titbit blunders into Mara’s mess of feelings to be pondered later. At the same time, it helps her to answer with the same bluntness.

‘No.’ She shifts in her chair to face Jack. ‘I’d intended from the start to stay until September, when Josie arrives.’

‘Yes.’ Jack settles in his chair. ‘Like you’ve told me, should have remembered. Make sure she’s happy.’

The tension drifts into smoky ribbons. Daughters getting settled are safer topics than demanding husbands.

‘No worries.’ Mara’s deliberate Aussie accent makes Jack laugh, and the smoky ribbons are puffed into ash by the breeze. ‘Besides,’ she says, ‘I can’t go anywhere until I’ve found out what happened to Mr Aaron Appleby.’

And the conversation yields, with a sigh of relief, to the missing ancestor.

‘What will you do next?’ Jack says.

Mara drinks coffee to fix her mind where it should be before answering. ‘We know Aaron existed, his date of birth and where he came from.’

She props her elbows on the wooden surface of the table and stares out to where bees and butterflies hover over Mr Gregory’s lovingly tended vegetables, shrubs and flowers. Mara wants to be among them, her hands in the crumbly soil or wielding secateurs to practise her new-found deadheading skills.

She brings her attention back to Aaron. ‘This Royal Oak, wherever it might be. It’s important because it’s where I can place him last, with his letter to Hester. And the fact she kept it, and that the journals finish in 1897 … that’s all important too.’

‘Any clues? There are a lot of Royal Oaks in England.’

‘This one needs to be a day’s ride, by horse, from Shrewsbury because Aaron says he met with his parents that morning.’ Mara grimaces. ‘Not a happy affair, from what can be gleaned from the scant detail.’

Jack grins. ‘Wait here,’ he instructs Mara, and strides to the cottage.

When he reappears a minute later, he’s carrying a small, thick book. He lays it on the table with the air of a hunter dragging a mammoth into a firelit cave. A painting of a beer garden, a large Tudor-style hotel, a church spire in the background, graces the cover. A red box in the left corner tells her this is the 1996 Good Pub Guide .

‘Put together for the public, pored over extensively by the trade,’ Jack says. ‘See what ideas we can steal to entice more customers. I have my own copy at the King’s Shilling. This one belongs here, for the renters.’

Mara turns the pages, frowning. ‘It’s hardly in alphabetical order,’ she complains.

Jack snorts. ‘All you need to do is look at the counties around Shrewsbury, find what’s there.’

‘All I have to do?’ Mara’s voice rises in horror. ‘You make a huge assumption thinking I have any clue what those counties are.’ She wags a finger at Jack. ‘I’m not from around here, remember.’ She continues to turn the pages, which are by county and then town or village. The same names jump out at her: the Saracen’s Head, the King’s Head, the Three Bells, the Royal Oak …

‘Ever heard of maps?’ Jack teases.

‘Of course, stupid me. There’s an AA Atlas in the car, courtesy of the rental company.’

Jack checks the time. ‘I need to get to the pub,’ he says. ‘Start with Shropshire, and work your way out. Have fun!’

‘Wait!’ Mara calls. ‘How far could a horse travel in a day, on those roads?’

‘Good question,’ Jack says. ‘And I know exactly who to ask.’ He pulls his mobile from his shirt pocket, scrolls the contacts and presses one. ‘Hi Emmy,’ he says. ‘Mara and I have an important question for you.’

Emmy, Jack explains when he has the answer, is horse mad.

‘Thank God for Emmy,’ Mara says. ‘I guess I better fetch the Atlas.’