Chapter Four

England, Midsummer 1897

W ith the sun emptying the remains of the day’s heat into the old stones of the Welsh bridge, Aaron steps to the lichen-stained balustrade. He is hesitant. Memories of the time he last grasped these stones tumble in his head. This evening, as then, his mood is melancholy.

His past poor humour was due to the death of a horse he had no chance to save despite hurrying to Shrewsbury at the merchant owner’s pleading. This midsummer evening, Aaron’s mood is the festering anticipation of what tomorrow will bring when he rides the short distance to his childhood home. He has been culpably tardy, having understood for six years he owes his parents this much, to tell them their son is alive and in what circumstances he lives. He rubs at his short beard and stifles speculation about the reception of his news. Tomorrow is soon enough to steel himself for duty.

He stands above the central arch between curling iron lamp posts decorated with bunting and flags to celebrate Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee. The gas lights remain dark, the lamplighter not having reached this stretch across the Severn River. The water flows with a summer lethargy, sunset ripples dimpling the surface. Aaron breathes in the cooling air. The taste is different here, far from the tidal flows downstream where he lives. Fresher, reminiscent of a friendly stream rather than the temperamental sea which the river mingles with on his stretch of these same waters. Where Hester and the little girls would be busy with their evening tasks.

Aaron reluctantly shifts his thinking to remind himself it was from here he last visited the quiet town of his boyhood, albeit with more urgency. He has returned by way of Shrewsbury because it is a practical route and – more, much more – he hopes closing the circle of his physical journey will encourage an end to the anguish he has wrestled this last decade.

Behind him, the dregs of the day’s traffic rumble past, wagon wheels bumping and horses’ hooves clopping on the cobbles. There is a murmur of conversation between two horsemen, too low for Aaron to make out the words, which must be amusing because deep chuckles override the wheels and hooves before the horsemen ride on. A farm labourer clatters an empty barrow which he will push, full, returning the way he has come in the early morning on his way to market. The labourer whistles tunelessly, likely anticipating his hamlet’s jubilee revels this evening.

Aaron peers upstream into the golden light reflected off the stately flow. Deep tree-shaped shadows hide the banks, yet even within the dark haze he senses the goddess’s presence.

Sabrina, goddess. He told Hester the river’s name the first time they met. A hot summer’s day like today, in the years before it all went wrong. Hester was a child, eight years old. She spent hours listening to the murmur of the water, watching the river nymphs ride the wild white horses of the fast-flowing tide rushing upstream in a curling wave.

‘You and I are not ordinary folk,’ he said to her. ‘We are wise. We call the river by her goddess name, Sabrina.’

Join us, learn with us.

Aaron startles. The high, ethereal voice lingers in the warm dusk, soft and clear. Is memory speaking out loud? He clutches the balustrade, searching. His pulse quickens at the unexpected, unwanted, call.

There. A tangle of ropey hanks of mud-coloured hair floats on the current towards the bridge. Sinuous arms extend through the ropes, inviting Aaron into their embrace.

Soon. The time is soon.

Aaron exhales, tries to calm his thudding heart. He glances along the bridge where a man and woman linger, her voice rising and falling with the excitement of whatever tale of her day she is telling her companion. Neither appears to have heard the siren call.

It is time. Soon, it will be time.

This is the repetition of the call which had him hurrying south to Hester six years ago. It is time . The words had shattered his fragile belief that without his constant presence, his eager, fey pupil would settle into being ‘ordinary folk’ and forget Sabrina’s whispered summons. Aaron had not only wanted the sacrifice of separation to save Hester. He wanted, needed it, to count towards his own redemption.

She has joined us, swims with us.

Aaron’s stomach grows heavy with resignation. Yes, he acknowledges. Hester was saved, yet Sabrina won what was owed.

His mind’s eye switches to the storm-lashed night on the wider, wilder stretch of river when the goddess joined their battle to overcome the vengeful fisherman. Briefly, Aaron closes his eyes to recall more clearly the faint red-gold haze which afterwards flared above the moonlit ripples and was gone. He had extolled her to be happy, wondering if his exhortation was for himself or Marianne.

Is his childhood friend, his first love, content? Has the goddess quenched her fire? Aaron would ask the river nymph below the bridge if he supposed the creature might answer. He is spared the humiliation of talking out loud into the dusk, for when he opens his eyes and leans over the stone, she has gone. He dodges a hay-laden cart to rush to the other side and search downstream. Nothing breaks the serenity of the water. The goddess is quiet, returned to disinterest.

Aaron would give a king’s ransom, if he had it, to be able to do the same.

Stretching his shoulders in their close-fitting jacket, he walks the winding road into the town, jostling citizens buzzing with cheer on this special day. He absent-mindedly tips his newly purchased Derby hat at the cheerful passersby, deliberately letting his thoughts go to Hester and their little girls, steering himself from the tumult of blame stirred by the shade of Marianne.

He smiles. Here is Ellen, seven years old today, serious and responsible, her glossy black hair bundled into a linen kerchief while she helps with the bees. The insects respond to her presence as they do to Hester’s, going about their business and ignoring mother and daughter stealing their hard-earned sweet gold. The bees are unsure of Rose. The younger girl doesn’t have the same calm gentleness despite her angelic face.

Aaron’s smile thins and he unconsciously quickens his pace. He is needed in the cottage by the stream where the bees feed off Hester’s well-tended herbs and flowers, where there are roots to be dug, dried and ground, petals to be plucked, potions to be mixed and grateful villagers, and their animals, to attend. His place is there, not gallivanting around the countryside in search of – what? The end of his searching?

Chiding himself for his selfish stupidity, for never learning the lessons of his own life, Aaron determines to write to Hester, tell her how much he misses her, and he will be home in Barnley within the week.

He has two duties to discharge first. His desperate wish is for both to bring a softening of the guilt which will not be banished. His salvation has eluded him for ten years, and he has no expectation of its capture. What he has craved in these recent weeks, what he should have done years ago, is bring a fragment of peace to both his family and hers. Despite her upbringing as the daughter of a vicar, Marianne was ever careless of family. Which does not mean Aaron has to be.

Hester has encouraged him, given more than her blessing to this venture. Since the night he told her his and Marianne’s shared history, her doomed ending, Hester has urged him to reach out to his and her parents, to confess and seek, if not forgiveness, mercy. Hester’s reconciliation with her own mother holds, albeit thinly, like old silk stretched too tight. Ellen, with her unlimited love, is their glue. Rose is the unspoken secret which threatens to shred the silken veil.

Aaron, finally yielding, is not convinced he can lay his demons to rest by mere explanations and apologies. Whatever the fruits of his plans over the next days, once his obligations are fulfilled he must choose for himself: to cling to his suffering or to accept the bounty the goddess has allowed him and banish the past deep into a locked cage where it can do no more damage.

He will go forward. The river nymph sang it was time, and Aaron will interpret this as time for him to clutch hold of the belief he has expiated his sins and squeeze it into gasping acceptance.

A self-deluding notion which suits him.

The decision brings a shallow lightening of his frustration and sweetens his melancholy. He reaches the inn door, pushes it open into a cool gloom and mounts the stairs two at a time. He will let his eagerness to put pen to paper, to assure his wife and daughters he loves them, override the heaviness of tomorrow’s duty.