Chapter Thirty Four

The Forest, 1917

O n a glorious autumn morning, with the sky a sheet of pastel blue and a light breeze setting Hester’s newly washed sheets swaying on the line, the postman brings two letters. Thanking him, Hester takes them into the kitchen to read at the table.

She opens the envelope with the loved and familiar handwriting first, reading the letter inside which offers comfort, of sorts. At least Rose was alive and well seven days ago. The news from the frontline continues to horrify and sadden Hester. Too many families locally have lost sons, husbands, nephews, grandsons.

Rose’s note is short, sparing her mother and sister the details of nursing men wounded at Passchendaele. This is not the hospital where Rose has worked the last two years, but any who can be more or less spared have been summoned there to deal with the enormity of this appalling battle. Rose’s letters have become briefer and more infrequent as the war and its atrocious human toll wears on, and on. Hester’s own household has not been spared.

She glances through the open kitchen door to where Ellen is on her knees, weeding the herb garden. Three-year-old Kitty – formally Kathryn and named for Hester’s dear friend Catherine – potters about in a puddle she created by ‘helping’ with the watering. The dented metal watering can lies on its side by the pump, waiting for Ellen to refill it and this time apply the contents to the garden. Hester smiles at the muted October sunlight glinting on her granddaughter’s black curls.

Tears well despite the smile. Here is another child to know her father only from told tales. The women of Hester’s line carry a curse when it comes to fathers, which leads her naturally to Aaron.

Hester unthinkingly rubs the calico bag of dried feverfew she wears around her neck. Well past the age for soldiering, she wonders for the hundredth time if Aaron has remained at the farm outside Eccleshall. Is he content, as he was ten years ago, as Dr Cooper assured Hester? She must trust the accident bequeaths Aaron the peace he could never attain before, his constant search for redemption, for atonement for failing to save Marianne from her fiery death above the river.

This truth is sacred. Should it prove to be a lie, the grief Hester has borne these last years is a black, bottomless lake of wasted emotion.

She drags her mind away before it can scuttle into that rabbit hole like a frenzied terrier. It will do her no good. Her responsibilities lie with Ellen and Kitty. She shifts her gaze again to the garden, over the prone shape of Pumpkin basking on the warm stone of the doorstep, avoiding water and Kitty’s tight cuddles. He is too old for the boisterousness of children, he complains to Hester.

With a sigh, Hester takes up the second letter. The address is written in an educated, flowery hand which carries a vague familiarity. The contents are slim. She slits the seal and retrieves a single sheet of good quality paper. A light scent of lily-of-the-valley drifts into the kitchen to merge with the drying lavender on the sun-drenched window ledge.

When Hester scans the few lines, her breath catches in her throat. So much for avoiding thoughts of Aaron. Here he has plunged into her life, unexpected and painful as Zeus’ bolt. And, as last time, his way is directed by others, not himself.

The war, Miss Judith Parry writes, this terrible war. Adam’s role – the blatant ignoring of Aaron’s given name both raises Hester’s hackles and deepens her grief –his gift with animals, with horses especially, sending him to the front line, happily accepted by the local regiment to assist the veterinarians given his reputation, and resisting Miss Parry’s most virulent objections … A terrible injury, and he is home – Hester bites her lip at the word home – and Dr Cooper believes he cannot have much time left on this earth.

Will Hester come to Eccleshall? Miss Parry believes it would greatly ease Adam’s last days.

Hester lifts her heavy head. The external world is as it was two minutes ago. Ellen weeds the herbs, Kitty makes mud pies by the pump. Pumpkin drowses on the warm stones. Hester’s inner world, however, has shifted, tips dangerously into potential darkness.

Why does Miss Parry believe this, all these years later? Hester’s eyes flick to the door into the parlour, where the dresser holds the other letter received from this woman, delivered to Hester at the Royal Oak the day after her visit to Castle Farm. The letter which caused anguish and the hardest decision of Hester’s life.

She steps over the sleeping cat and walks to Ellen. Her movements are stiff, like she is a wooden puppet dangled on strings, controlled by a less than benign force.

‘Mama?’ Ellen straightens to meet her. Her face pales, her dark eyes wide with fright. ‘Is it Rose?’

‘No, no.’ Hester places the expensive paper into her daughter’s dirt-covered fingers and waits for her to read it.

‘You will go?’ Ellen hands the letter back. ‘If he didn’t want to know us then, he won’t now, will he?’ They are the harshest words Ellen has spoken about her father’s decision not to search for his past. Even so, her tone is neutral. Ten years and the fading of childhood have smoothed her loss. Ellen’s own heartbreak is more real to her.

Hester folds the letter and pushes it into her apron pocket in a rough movement which crumples the thin paper. She drops her hands to her sides. A multitude of tasks await her attention – dough to mix, knead and put to rise, herbs to be crushed, a fireplace to clear of ash and a new fire laid, a meal to prepare. These tasks can wait an hour or so. There is somewhere she needs to be.

‘I won’t be long,’ she tells Ellen, and walks past her down the winding path to the stream and along to the river. Burbling water and birdsong accompany her without offering any comfort. The brightness of the day has dimmed, for Hester’s soul if not her body.

The tide is ebbing, stretches of sandbar emerging as solid islands between the silvered flow. Upstream, fishermen are busy alongside the wooden putchers, emptying the baskets of salmon. The distance is too great for Hester to recognise either of her brothers there. In any case, it is not her brothers whom she seeks. On the bank above the familiar cleft, she listens for the goddess’s whispers.

Sabrina is silent today, as she has been on many days and evenings recently when Hester has wished for solace. And it has been overlong since the river nymphs swam near the bank, their hanks of ropey hair tangled in the swirling waters, translucent arms outstretched. Have they taken themselves to the wide oceans to succour the dead and dying there? Today, Hester is the one in need of their presence.

She holds herself motionless, hands at her sides, eyes closed.

Twenty years. Over that time, Hester’s scars have hardened, the soft tissue beneath protected by the scab. This summons from Miss Parry threatens to rip the scab away, leaving her hurt raw, exposed. The girls too, albeit they are young women with their own joys and sorrows.

Aaron is rarely mentioned in Hester’s household. Speaking his name serves only to give his betrayal fresh pain. Hester has reverted to using her great grandmother’s maiden name, Haycroft, should anyone ask, although generally she’s known as Mrs Hester. At least her forename remains her own.

She’s glad, too, Aaron did not insist on giving Ellen and Rose his name when Hester and he married. Aaron has left no tangible mark, bar his journals, and these Hester has hidden in a box under her bed. She could not destroy their detailed beauty, but neither did she want their constant reminder of the shared life they represented – the years of her joyous, secret apprenticeship learning the skills of healing, and more.

Those times, and the six years she, Aaron, Ellen and Rose had as a family, have faded to a dream barely caught on waking, snatches vivid, the rest bleached by day to day reality.

Can Hester bear the dream to burst into vibrant life like a daffodil in spring? Does she have strength enough to suffer the inevitable anguish when the dream fades again?

The breeze which ruffles her hair carries no song. Gulls shriek above her and Hester wishes them silent. She needs to hear.

There. Her heart swells. The murmur weaves between the raucous cries of the birds: You are strong Hester. You must do what you must do.

She stands until the sandbanks rise proud of the waters, until the fishermen have left, until the gulls take their screeching elsewhere. Sabrina’s whispers merge with the purling of the river at her feet.

Hester accepts what she must do.

***

On the journey from Barnley into Gloucester, Hester squeezes against the grubby window of a third-class carriage with her threadbare carpetbag at her feet.

A young woman dressed in VAD nursing uniform presses into the same window on the opposite seat. Hester thinks of Rose in France.

She is tempted to ask if the woman knows her daughter, but conversation is impossible for boys in freshly starched and pressed new uniforms fill the remainder of the space. They are alike in their khaki, sporting regimental badges and polished boots, and travelling as a group. Friends from the same Forest village, Hester guesses. Likely they have been mates since they wrestled each other in the schoolyard, dared each other on night adventures poaching rabbits in the woods, fought the backbreaking pain of lugging a hundredweight of coal in hods out of mines their fathers, and their fathers before them, worked. Once, their futures would have seen them continuing the traditions, hacking at coalfaces together, raising overlarge families with boys to work the mines and girls to be sent into service the moment they had strength to lift wringing wet sheets from a tub and throw them over a sagging line.

Their conversation is overloud, teasing, boastful. Boosting each other’s courage. Three years in, they cannot view the war as the adventure their 1914 predecessors did. Too many lives have been brutally cut short, too much blood soaks the muddy trenches of France and Belgium.

Hester catches the eye of the VAD who offers a thin smile and a slight shake of the head. No doubt experience has left her with an intimate knowledge of the likely futures of the young braves she shares this carriage with. Hester shies from their nervous exuberance. It is one pain too many. She gazes instead at the river, a brown flow chopped into jagged waves by a cold wind. Boats ply up and downstream, low in the water, some with sails set, others trailing smoke from steam stacks, intent on their purpose of keeping fed the ravenous engines of war.

From Gloucester, there are two connections, at Birmingham and at Stafford, before Hester can carry on to Eccleshall. The stations and the carriages pulsate with drab uniforms, which far outnumber civilian clothing. Hester waits in long, stoic queues for tickets, and then it’s uncertain whether the train will be needed for troops, or will run at all. Engines clatter and hiss like impatient warhorses while guards’ whistles pierce the soot-laden air. The journey drags her into its chaos, sapping her will to do anything except let the tide carry her to its end. She wishes, recognising the futility, that quiet awaited her there.

At last, Hester alights at Eccleshall. Out of the station, she inhales the freshness of the cooling October early evening and tucks away the uncomfortable notion that in a day or two, maybe tomorrow, she will need to make the return journey. The street is not overly crowded, and she is able to hire a pony and trap to take her to Castle Farm on the outskirts of the town. Miss Parry should be expecting her, assuming the telegram Hester sent yesterday reached her.

The pony cart turns in at the gates and follows the long driveway between the beeches, their yellowing leaves harbingers of the season. In a field to one side, rows of dug over soil indicate the end of summer’s vegetable harvest. As the cart approaches the circular carriage drive, the windows of the house peer myopically at Hester from amidst thickly massed ivy. But their glass panes shine, as does the brass door knocker. War has not completely vanquished standards.

Hester alights with her carpetbag and lifts the knocker. Unlike her last visit, she must wait, and this time it is not Miss Parry who opens the door. A stranger, middle-aged, wearing an apron and cap. The young maid of ten years ago has left, perhaps to join the VADs along with Rose and the woman on the train, or to work in a factory helping manufacture the components which total the deadly arsenal of war.

‘Mrs Appleby?’

‘Yes, here to see Miss Parry and … ’ Hester trails off.

The housekeeper ignores the unfinished sentence. ‘I’ll inform the mistress you’ve arrived.’ She opens the door wide for Hester and her bag to enter.

As the housekeeper walks down the hall, Hester shrugs out of her coat, removes her hat and hangs both on the stand. She runs her fingers through her travel-tousled hair, wishing she had attempted a tidy up before leaving the train station.

The housekeeper returns to lead Hester into the parlour, where her memory tells her the room is unchanged, except the chrysanthemums have gone, replaced with a modest display of rowan branches, red berries shining like Christmas. The Chesterfield remains drowned in cushions, the green chaise longue reclines with its former elegance. A modest fire flares red and yellow in the cast iron grate. The gas lamps on the walls are unlit, and the room’s yellow light comes from a paraffin lamp set on a table by a wing chair.

Miss Parry sets aside a magazine and rises from the wing chair to greet her guest. The scent of lily-of-the-valley rises with her. Despite the good cut and quality material of her calf-length skirt and buttoned long cardigan, she shows more signs of the years gone by than her gracious parlour. The auburn hair swept up in the same high pile is faded and reveals streaks of silver. Her pale skin is dry, stretched too tightly across hollowed cheeks, the freckles paled. The green intensity of her eyes is the same, assessing Hester with no attempt at subtlety. Hester stiffens, stops her fingers from brushing at her less elegant, and crumpled, skirt.

The housekeeper is sent to make tea with a brusque ‘Thank you, Mrs Bennett,’ and Hester is motioned to the Chesterfield, where she sits, knees together, hands in her lap, perched among the cushions. She waits for Miss Parry to speak first, needing to get the measure of the mood of her hostess, the motivation behind the letter.

Miss Parry mirrors Hester’s upright position. She raises a hand, coughs, replaces the hand on her lap. ‘Thank you for coming,’ she says.

The polite coolness of her voice suggests she did not issue the invitation with eager warmth.

Hester bows her head in acknowledgement. ‘You say my hus … Aaron … has injuries, from the war, and may be dying. Of course I would come.’ She keeps her voice neutral.

‘Yes, yes.’ Miss Parry peers towards the window, where the blackout curtains will soon need to be drawn for the night.

The curtains are made of bombazine, rather than the usual layers of cotton. Hester randomly thinks she should have kept the bombazine gown her mother made her wear whenever the courting, lustful Jem Stokes visited the house in Shiphaven. In the days before she fled to Aaron’s empty cottage and left her unwelcome groom at the altar. Being courted by a brute, being threatened by enemies from the air – an appropriate use of the material. The fleeting notion is interrupted by Miss Parry, who has returned her scrutiny to Hester.

‘His gift with horses is why he went, and why they –’ her lips curl in contempt at the unnamed they ‘– were delighted to have him.’

Grief squeezes Hester’s heart, imagining what the fate of those horses would have meant to Aaron. Given the toll, Aaron must have struggled with the burden of futility, yet being there to soothe the creatures’ terror would have caused less anguish than daily living the nightmare in his head from the luxury of Castle Farm.

‘Yes,’ she says.

‘He’d been there a year when a horse fell on him, trapping him in mud for hours.’ Miss Parry bites her lip and seeks distraction once more through the crowding ivy. ‘When they found him, he was delirious from pain, dehydrated, with a broken leg and ribcage.’

Hester’s hand goes to her own ribs.

Miss Parry stands abruptly at the same instant the housekeeper enters the room carrying a tray which she sets on a low table. Miss Parry stares at the tea things, at the housekeeper. ‘Thank you,’ she murmurs, and the woman leaves, her mouth compressed.

Hester clears her throat, says, ‘Your letter indicates Aaron is gravely ill, dying.’

Miss Parry glares at this bluntness, plumps into the wing chair and buries her head in her hands. Any pretense at bravery is discarded. She sobs loudly, shoulders jerking at each gasped breath.

Should Hester offer sympathy at this display? She rebels at the idea. Isn’t it her husband who lays dying, despite twenty years of absence? Before she can decide what to do, Miss Parry lifts her face from her hands. Grief paints her pale, blotched skin red and white. The freckles have darkened, wet pebbles on a sandy beach.

And something else as well as grief, an emotion Hester doesn’t expect. Shame. Guilt. Eyes bleak with remorse.

Hester waits again.