Chapter Thirty Five

Eccleshall, 1997

A tall man, late 50s thereabouts, with faded auburn hair greying at the temples, friendly blue eyes, and wearing frayed jeans and a checked shirt, greets Mara at the door.

‘Mrs Ash?’

‘Yes. Thank you –’

‘My pleasure.’ He brushes off her gratitude. ‘Have a daughter keen on family history, on her mum’s side.’

Mara’s blip of excitement settles. How wonderful it would have been to have the whole mystery laid out for her.

‘Come in, come in. I’m Campbell Parry.’

He shakes Mara’s hand before ushering her into a hall. The highly polished wooden floor is covered by a flowery runner which manages to retain its elegance despite its obvious age. Side tables with vases of flowers guard the runner either side, and paintings, primarily landscapes, hang from a picture rail. Mara is led into a sitting room.

‘What a beautiful room,’ she says.

The green fingers of envy which curled about her ribcage when Mara admired the house squeeze more tightly.

A simple white marble fireplace, the fire laid ready in a cast iron grate, graces one wall. A maroon Chesterfield, tapestried cushions either end, sits between the two windows which are swathed in heavy fabric in muted autumn tones. There’s a green chaise longue, a more modern, more comfortable two-seater sofa and two wing chairs clustered around a Persian rug. A low, heavily carved wooden table sits in the middle of the rug, bearing a tray with a coffee pot, teapot, a plate of biscuits, milk, sugar and two mugs. The paintings here are lighter, more abstract than those in the hall, and the overall effect is of a room to sink into on a rainy afternoon, fire crackling, and read a book.

‘Yes, I guess it is beautiful.’ Campbell scratches his head. ‘My wife has lightened it over time, otherwise it’s much the same as sixty years ago when I was born and my family inherited the farm from Judith. My dad was her cousin.’

‘She had no family of her own?’

‘No.’ Campbell gestures for Mara to sit. She chooses the two seater sofa. Coffee spills on the chaise longue would be unforgivable.

‘Tea or coffee?’

Mara points to the coffee pot.

Campbell pushes the plunger in the cafetière and pours. ‘As far as I’m aware, she never married.’ He glances at Mara. ‘Near the end of the first war she locked herself away in this house, let the farm manager make the decisions, ignored her precious hothouse which went to ruin, and refused to see a single soul. Died a lonely woman. Not even a cat for company.’ He hands her the mug, says, ‘What’s your interest in Judith?’

Mara cradles the warm drink, noting the ‘near the end of the first war’, about 1917 when Aaron died. ‘I had none until a few hours ago,’ she confesses, ‘because I didn’t know she existed.’

When Campbell frowns, Mara is quick to add her interest is in Aaron Appleby, whose gravestone she discovered this morning identifies him also as Adam Parry, beloved companion of Judith. ‘Aaron was my great-grandfather,’ she tells him, ‘or I think he was.’

The tale takes some time to tell, while Campbell drinks coffee and nibbles at a biscuit, after offering the plate to Mara. He sets his mug on the tray and leans forward from his seat in one of the wing chairs, his big farmer’s hands flat on his knees.

‘That’s who he was,’ he murmurs.

Mara waits, pulse fluttering. This is the other side to the Aaron story and if she doesn’t hear it soon she might burst.

‘Given she never spoke to anyone, the family never knew what happened.’ Campbell shrugs. ‘And before, when he was alive, I gather the whole business was rather frowned upon, especially after Judith’s mother died.’ He rolls his eyes in mock horror. ‘The two of them here by themselves, unmarried, unrelated. The scandal!’ He places the tips of his fingers together. ‘Except for a bevy of staff, which didn’t count.’

‘Yes, it would have been.’ Mara cares nothing for local scandal. ‘How did he come into her life, and why was he known as Adam Parry?’

‘Ah! A story of heroism. Seems your great granddad saved Judith’s life, a bolting pony and cart. She was driving. He threw himself into its path, grabbed the pony’s harness and saved the day.’

‘Gosh.’ Mara shivers. Heroism indeed.

‘Sadly, the poor man hit his head and remembered nothing of who he was or why he was here.’

‘Amnesia?’ Mara’s eyes widen.

Light bulbs glitter into being in her head. Of course. Amnesia makes absolute sense. Aaron hadn’t intended to abandon his family, as Grant at the Royal Oak suggested. Mara can’t wait to disabuse him of the notion. ‘Which is why he vanished,’ she says.

‘Yes, they mustn’t have been able to trace his family.’ Campbell salutes her. ‘Not as clever as you’ve been, successfully chasing him down.’

Mara lets the compliment slide. ‘Poor Hester,’ she murmurs. Her whole life spent ignorant of what had happened. Had her husband deserted her? Was he dead? Never knowing. The girls too, believing their father had abandoned them. Her eyes well with the wrenching tragedy, and she rummages in her handbag for a tissue.

Campbell pretends not to notice. ‘There’s a couple of photos …’ He walks to a mahogany sideboard which has the air of having stood in the one place forever. He tugs open a drawer, muttering about how the damn thing has always stuck.

He delves about and pulls out two items with a grunt of triumph. One is an elaborate silver frame, tarnished from neglect. The other is a large sepia photograph, the type produced by turn of the century photographic studios. He hands both to Mara, who blinks in surprise.

‘This is him,’ Campbell says. ‘The framed picture was on the dresser when we moved in, I’m told, before being shoved in the drawer.’ He’s unapologetic. ‘The other was found in the drawer and left there, as one does.’

He reaches out to touch the unframed image. ‘Family lore says Adam had this photo on him when he saved Judith, and either she hid it, given her obsession with him, or they couldn’t find out who the people were.’

Mara ignores the framed photograph of a man in a fancy riding outfit with a dog at his feet. She lays it on the Chesterfield beside her and takes the loose one in her two hands. Her pulse throbs.

There are Hester, Ellen and Rose in their best outfits, the little girls primped and fluffed like Christmas fairies, Hester in her best bonnet. And the man in the smart suit can now definitely be identified as Aaron Appleby.

Mara holds in her hands the same photo Dorrie gave her, buried in Rose’s cardboard case of memories.

‘It explains why they never married, doesn’t it?’ Campbell’s voice cuts through the rampaging notions which swirl in Mara’s head like the murmuration of starlings above Lavender Cottage.

She turns the photograph over. The inscription here is different than on Rose’s copy, a more detailed notation, written in a more feminine, smaller hand.

Aaron Appleby, his wife Hester and their daughters, Ellen and Rose. 1895.

Hester had come here, brought the photograph as proof of their relationship. She had learned of the amnesia. Mara is certain. Hester had been as clever in finding Aaron. She takes in the room, which would have appeared much the same when Hester sat here – did she seat herself on the Chesterfield? The chaise longue? When did she come? How long did it take her to discover where Aaron was? And, simply, how?

‘Do you recognise them?’ Campbell asks.

‘Yes, indeed. I have a copy. Aaron’s family.’ Mara frowns. ‘I doubt if he carried a photograph this size around with him. It would have been expensive to have taken, a photo to be framed and displayed.’ She stares into his questioning eyes. ‘There’s also the fact that if they knew he was Aaron Appleby, they could have found out where he was from. No need to rename him Adam Parry. Then there’s the more formal notation about who they are, compared with the one I have.’

‘Meaning?’ Alistair is as engaged with the mystery as is Mara.

Mara gazes at the sepia images. ‘Hester was here, at some stage. She brought this with her to prove who he was, who she was. Hester found him.’

‘You believe she came here?’ Campbell equals her frown. ‘Makes sense, what you say about the photo. Hardly of a size to fit into a pocket or a wallet. And the name.’ He scratches his head again, bemusement clear in his blue eyes. ‘If that’s right, then …’

‘Yes.’ Mara exhales. ‘Why didn’t she take him home?’

***

When Mara leaves Eccleshall mid-morning the next day, she carries both a sense of achievement and a quiet frustration that the riddle is still unsolved.

There was little else Campbell could add to Mara’s quest, except to say when he was a child the older hands at Castle Farm referred to a cottage by the stables as Adam’s place.

‘I guess he lived there, rather than in the main house, helping unsuccessfully to forestall the gossips.’

In the ’70’s, Campbell’s father converted the cottage into a holiday let and formally named it Castle Farm Cottage.

‘Hardly original,’ Campbell said. ‘Gets the punters in though, booked solid.’

The previous occupants had left yesterday, the next due in two days, and Mara was given a tour. Creamy white walls, strikingly patterned curtains, a neat pine kitchen and of-its-time wood and leather furniture had banished any remnants of the cottage’s former character.

Campbell gazed around like a prospective tenant. ‘Nothing much of the old place left,’ he said.

Mara agreed. No point hoping for the essence of Aaron in this anonymous setting.

After profuse thanks, sharing of contact details and a promise to write if she discovered more, Mara had driven to the Royal Oak and slotted the car into a narrow gap between the wall and a black Mini.

Grant Barnaby, in the bar busy with his glass-polishing routine, had glanced up at her entry.

‘Any luck?’

‘Yes and sort of.’ Mara asked for a glass of white wine, perched on a stool, and told of the day’s events.

At the end, Grant lined up the last tumbler and rested his crossed arms on the towel protecting the wooden bar. ‘How terribly, terribly sad,’ he said. ‘Why did she leave him there, having found him?’

Mara took her first sip of the wine, forgotten during the tale-telling. ‘It doesn’t make any sense, does it? I can’t come up with a single reason.’

Grant had hmm’d, stared over Mara’s shoulder. ‘You said this woman, Judith, was known to be obsessed with her rescuer. What if …’ He brought his hands up to cup his chin, shifted his stare to Mara. ‘What if she lied, said Aaron wasn’t there, hid him from Hester?’

‘Hid him?’ Mara stroked the stem of the wine glass. ‘A cruel and inhumane act, if she did. Surely not?’

Grant had shrugged. ‘All fair in love and war.’

The question had nagged at Mara throughout the evening, with no other reason presenting itself for why Aaron didn’t go home to Barnley.

This morning, as she drives south in a misty drizzle which leaches the colour from the fields and hedgerows, it worries at her mind like a puppy with a rag doll. There is no way to discover the truth. Mara prays Aaron and Hester found resolution, at least contentment, in the end.

Given no one in the family had heard of Aaron Appleby, Mara strongly suspects resolution didn’t arrive until Aaron’s death in 1917, if then. Twenty wasted years. Her eyes prickle.

She has decided to leave the detours for another time, keen to get back to Lavender Cottage and think over her findings. Mara blows out a breath. She suspects she has come as far as possible in this search, has procrastinated long enough. The time has come to face her own marital issues, not those of her family nearly a hundred years ago.

A lorry passing the other way sends up a rainstorm of spray. Mara turns the windscreen wipers’ knob to increase their speed, squinting through the cascading water. This will be a long and difficult journey if the rain doesn’t ease. She needs to concentrate on the unfamiliar road.

Mara breaks her journey at the same inn where she lunched on her way to Eccleshall. A different waitress serves her, an older woman, efficient and cheerless. As she eats her sandwich, leaving the crisps, she watches the wind brush the rain clouds to the horizon, creating an opening for the sun to say hello.

In the Fiesta, Mara pulls her sunglasses from the glove compartment and takes to the road, squinting this time against the light reflecting off the puddles.

The car radio’s classical station plays old film scores, and Mara hums along to Moon River, a favourite of her dad’s. She has passed Gloucester, is on the last leg. The banished clouds have sent new invaders which loiter above the river, indecisive as to whether to unload their cargo. Mara imagines lighting the fire in the cottage’s living room, making a pot of coffee, settling with Aaron’s journals and her notepad …

Her phone, on the seat beside her, rings. She glances at it. Josie’s mobile.

It’s late in Adelaide, unlike Josie to be up, unlike her to use the mobile to call, given the cost.

Worry bubbling in her gut, Mara searches for a side road, takes a left narrow track which ends at a church. She pulls up, grabs the phone. The call has rung out, and now re-issues its demanding peal. Mara answers.

‘Josie, what –?’

‘Did you know, Mum?’ Her daughter’s sobbing fury is no less scalding for having travelled ten thousand miles.

‘Know what?’ But Mara does know.