Chapter Nine

N ight is settling its cloak over the countryside when Aaron rides slowly into Eccleshall. His horse’s head droops with tiredness, as does his own. The road ends at a junction with the High Street. Aaron halts, gazing around. An old hotel, The George, is to his right, a handsome establishment. Light and customers spill from the open doorway. The air of carousing about the customers – possible leftovers from yesterday’s queenly partying – leads Aaron to believe his needed sleep might well be disturbed there. He peers left, where bunting-clad gas lamps light the way for townspeople to take the cool night air, strolling the pavement past red brick houses lining a cobbled road.

A cast iron clock mounted on a pedestal tells him it’s ten o’clock. Opposite the clock stands a substantial inn with an arched colonnade covering the footpath and a row of flag-hung leadlight windows above. The sign says The Royal Oak, and Aaron heads towards this quieter and more solid hostelry rather than the pretty, frivolous George.

Twenty minutes later his horse is being tended in a clean stable with fresh hay and a bucket of oats, and Aaron is washing the dust off his face and hands, having ascertained there is food available in the dining room.

‘Cold cuts, sir, being it’s hot, and late,’ the landlord had said without apology. ‘And plenty of beer from hereabouts to cool a travel-parched throat.’

The dining room is empty at this hour and Aaron relaxes on a bench, his shoulders resting on the whitewashed, cool surface of the wall. The cold cuts have assuaged his hunger, and he lingers over his mug of local beer. The landlord was right – the beer is flavoursome as well as cooling. While his body yearns for sleep, Aaron’s mind dances with images of the day like thistledown in a breeze, and as hard to capture.

He begins with his parents in their claustrophobic parlour, his heart sore at their coldness, well-deserved though it is. He will take Hester and the girls in the autumn, and after he has written a humble, apologetic letter explaining what he can. His mother won’t refuse the idea of grandchildren, and Ellen’s sweetness will woo her, and his father too. Hester, with her caring manner, her dark-haired beauty and her easy way with people, will smooth the way for acceptance.

Aaron sets down the mug, taps the tabletop with his long fingers, moving on to the most difficult willow-the-wisp, Mother Lovell. Her puzzling farewell unsettles him. Is the warning for him, or to do with herself? She has always been ancient despite her occasional sparkling eyes and youthful voice. It may be she is ready at last to depart this earth for wherever her kind go, and was wishing him farewell on her own behalf.

Her caution about the outcome of him seeking out Marianne’s parents, of how it will bring tragedy ...

Shifting on the bench, Aaron sighs. Fate will deal whatever hand it has chosen for him. Futile to reflect too hard on such things, even when muttered by Mother Lovell. Her friendship has ever been a double-edged sword.

Aaron weighs the good and the not-so-good on a mental balance-scale. In one shiny brass pan lies the learning she instilled in him, the love of healing, the hints of magic, the means to help sufferers in body and mind, and soul when needed. This pan gleams with light and warmth, white-haloed.

The other pan – he lets out a ragged breath, tries, too late, to stifle the memory. The other pan buckles with red hot flames which scorch and destroy. This soot-smeared pan holds Marianne’s ambition, her foolhardiness, the death of her body in the white fire above the river.

‘Finished there, sir?’ The innkeeper hovers nearby, wiping his hands on a white linen towel. The pleasant lift of his lips belies the glint in his eye which tells Aaron the man wishes his guest would take himself off to bed to allow the host to finish up and seek his own rest.

Aaron drains the last of his beer and stands, thanking the innkeeper for his hospitality. There is an exchange of good evenings, and then Aaron asks, ‘You don’t happen to know if a Reverend and Mrs Ward live in Eccleshall? An elderly couple, retired from the church.’

The man considers for an instant, ceasing the movement of his hands, frowning. ‘Not say I do, sir, sorry.’ He peers at Aaron. ‘Old friends?’

‘Something like that.’ Nothing like that, in fact. Sadly.

‘Well, sir, if I was searching out a man of the cloth, I’d be starting at the church.’ The innkeeper gestures with his towel in what must be the direction of the church. ‘Might as well begin with our Holy Trinity, a few yards along. Can’t miss it. Reverend Allen’ll be in the vestry during the day, good man he is.’

Aaron acknowledges the wisdom of the suggestion and leaves the innkeeper to his end-of-day tasks. He climbs the narrow stairs and walks slowly to his room along a corridor lit by glass-shaded gas lamps at either end. No modern lamps in his room, only a lantern, which Aaron lights before undressing and washing his face and hands in the rose-decorated ewer on the pine dresser. Turning off the lantern, he slips between crisply welcome linen sheets. Faint sounds of mirth and fiddle music steal through the window, slightly ajar to allow in cool night air tinged with a sulphuric scent from the street lighting.

If Aaron had expected to fall immediately asleep, his mind denies him, insisting on resuming his mullings of the day which the landlord interrupted. Not to flames and the shrieking horror of the night above the river. No. Aaron wrenches his mind back to the white-haloed brass scale where the comforting healing nestles, which takes him to the child with the earache. Aaron smiles into the darkness. Three years old, with his mother’s brown hair. Not lustrous like hers, not today. Sweaty hanks straggled over his pillow, his plump cheeks were flushed, his damp forehead creased from the pain of his ear and the aches of the fever. He whimpered in a fretful doze, and Aaron’s chest ached for him.

Using his skills to alleviate the boy’s suffering was the high point of his day. Lying in his bed, Aaron nurtures the quiet fulfilment of watching the boy’s sleep relax, become restful, and the red cheeks dull to a healthy pink. And of seeing the mother’s eyes shift from distress to hope, to gratitude.

He rolls over. Elusive sleep is kept further at bay by a notion which Aaron must hold to the non-existent light and examine from every angle. Here could be true absolution, to be on the road tending those humans and animals who need his skills.

It’s all very well ministering to the Barnley villagers, yet there are few of them, and Hester herself offers more than they need. Her healing hands are equal to his own. Before he returned to her, six years ago, Hester had built her reputation. Yes, the occasional rich merchant or gentry will summon Aaron and pay him handsomely to cure a favourite horse’s limp which the London-trained veterinarian has been unable to mend, or to identify and prescribe a potion for an undiagnosed malaise in the family dog.

He recalls yesterday’s reflection about how he is needed in the cottage by the stream. In the noise-tainted darkness, it’s clear he was wrong.

He sits up in bed, pulls the pillow behind him and eases his body into it, eyes closed. His mind summons Hester and the girls in the well-tended, colourful garden where the bees drone their contentment. His imagination wanders inside to step on the clean flags of the floor and to examine the tall dresser with its neat rows of herbal creams and distilled wildflower potions in their stoppered glass and clay jars, lavender and rosemary hanging from a beam to dry, chickens wandering in and out.

And his journals sitting on the shelves he built in the room where the family gathers of an evening. Aaron has barely added to his carefully annotated sketches in the last years, preferring to smoke a pipe with his feet stretched to the fire while the elderly tabby silently rebukes him from Ellen’s lap.

He is blessed to have such bounty.

Yet … can he be content? Has he earned his happiness?

Instinctively, Aaron waits for Marianne’s spirit to whisper her teasing murmurs as she would argue with him in the days when he was Hester’s reluctant, and secret, teacher. There is nothing. Marianne’s voice has long been silent. He does not want her back, with her mischievous goading.

The carousing from The George has ceased, the merrymakers apparently wearied by drink and song and off to their sleep. Aaron wishes he, too, was slumbering and not wrestling with a cavorting brain. With a huff of annoyance, he throws off the sheet and lights the lantern. He rummages in his travel bag and draws out paper, his pen and ink, and sets them on the narrow table beneath the open window.

He will write to Hester, tonight, tell her briefly about his day, how he expects tomorrow to find the Wards and, if they will see him, seek their forgiveness. And to tell her this is not enough. He has been idling his time away. When he arrives home, there is a matter they must discuss. There is more he is bound to do, by his conscience and desire. More is expected of him, he demands more of himself. Will she be patient, as ever?

A cockerel heralds the early summer dawn as Aaron wipes clean the nib of his pen, pushes the rubber stopper firmly into the neck of the ink bottle and slips the letter into an envelope which he addresses to Hester. Despite the time it has taken to write, the missive is not long. He had hesitated many times, had begun to put the paper aside on one occasion. He had paused his hands, forced himself to continue. There will be no rest until he sets himself this possible new path, wherever it might lead.

Propping the stamped envelope against the doused lantern, Aaron returns to the crisp linen and sleeps until the raucous call of a fishmonger beneath his window wakes him.

***

The urgency of yesterday has deserted Aaron. He is nervy, on edge, imagining Reverend and Mrs Ward suffering the news he has come to tell them, suffering, too, the knowledge he delayed coming to them for so long. They will despise him. Mrs Ward will hate him. Contempt and hatred are what he deserves, which makes them no less easy to bear.

Telling himself this is not procrastination but manners, Aaron takes his time over his morning toilette, brushing his coat, cleaning the dust from his boots and his Derby hat, and neatening his hair and beard. In the Royal Oak’s dining room, he dawdles over an excellent hot breakfast. The few guests are all gentlemen alone like himself. The gentlemen eat quickly – the day outside is tapping its foot, impatient for them to embrace its pending heat.

When Aaron believes the hour is reached when Reverend Allen will have completed his morning prayers, or whatever vicars do to begin their days, he tells the innkeeper he will stay another night, checks his horse is being well-tended, and walks the short distance to Holy Trinity. On the way, he slips the letter to Hester into the narrow slot of a post box.

The large, square-towered church sits apart from the road at the end of an angled path crossing a grassy churchyard where butterflies frolic to the tune of birdsong. The ancient oak doors are open to entice stray worshippers this weekday morning. Aaron removes his hat, steps from the sunshine into the chill gloom of the interior, and gazes around. Seeing no vicar, he walks the aisle between the dark, polished pews and on past the choir stalls backed on one side by substantial organ pipes. This is a church which takes itself seriously. Aaron fears its presiding minister might be the same.

A cough behind him, and a strong, pleasant voice asks, ‘May I assist you, sir? Or are you here to admire this beautiful tribute to our Lord and give thanks for your blessings?’

Aaron turns. The man is short, sturdily built. He wears a light wool suit, his office as minister recognisable from his clerical collar.

‘Reverend Allen?’ Aaron walks forward.

‘Yes, can I help?’ The reverend tips his head.

Aaron explains about his old friends, Reverend and Mrs Ward, how he lost track of them and has recently heard they may now live in Eccleshall, their native town. Being a former man of the cloth, Reverend Ward may well be a worshipper at Holy Trinity. Is Reverend Allen acquainted with them?

The reverend’s open appraisal of Aaron suggests he believes his visitor far too young to have old friends. Aaron returns the appraisal, waits for a response. It seems the Wards are indeed familiar faces here. Whether this knowledge will be passed to Aaron is within the vicar’s gift.

‘Yes,’ the reverend confirms. His eyes shift from Aaron to the white daylight framed by the open door. ‘Mrs Ward worships here each Sabbath.’

Aaron frowns. ‘Mrs Ward?’

‘Reverend Ward passed … hmmm … six years ago? This time of year, a hot midsummer. A fever, hallucinating about fire and water …’

A deeper coldness invades Aaron’s bones than the chill of the church warrants. Six years, fire and water … the time he stood with Hester on the banks of the river, Marianne’s spirit urging them, Sabrina joining her goddess’s power to theirs to defeat the fisherman. And the red-gold haze which afterwards briefly lit the calmed waters, Aaron’s murmured farewell.

The vicar has stopped and searches Aaron’s face, his gaze more intent. Whatever he sees in his visitor’s eyes decides him not to trust Aaron with further intimacies. ‘How are you acquainted with the Wards, sir?’ he asks, his manner brusque.

‘A childhood friend of their daughter, Miss Marianne.’ If confidences are being withheld, Aaron will play the game.

‘Daughter?’ Reverend Allen stares once more into the light as if expecting Reverend Ward to rise from his grave and advise him how to proceed. He runs a finger casually around his collar, a habit Aaron decides, rather than an indication of discomfort. ‘I wonder …’ He blinks, turns back to Aaron with a veiled question in his pale eyes. ‘I understood there was some grief, trouble, which drove Reverend Ward from his last parish, and forced his retirement?’

Now Aaron has the upper hand. He lifts his shoulders, a minute demonstration of assent.

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘If Mrs Ward has not shared the difficulties of those times, I am sure you will appreciate I cannot break her trust.’

‘Of course, of course.’ The reverend waves away the suggestion, his own shoulders sagging.

‘And given the reverend has passed, you would do me a great kindness if I could offer his widow my deep condolences.’

When Reverend Allen remains reticent, Aaron gives a tight nod. ‘I have news of her daughter,’ he says gently, ‘which I believe will give Mrs Ward a level of peace.’ He shifts his hat from one hand to the other. ‘I regret I was unable to bring this news … earlier.’

With a last scrutinising appraisal, Reverend Allen presses his full lips together and mirrors Aaron’s nod. ‘The woman needs whatever comfort the Lord sees fit to send her way,’ he says, and Aaron is struck by the lack of piety in the remark. ‘You will find her at home for she rarely leaves the house except to worship.’ The vicar curls his fingers in a come-this-way gesture. ‘I have the address in the vestry. I will need to give you directions as it’s hard to find.’

Aaron breathes a soft sigh of relief and follows the man along the nave to the back of the church.