‘Oh, it’s you, Will. I thought . . .’
‘Aye, lass, it is.’ He eyed her shrewdly. ‘Expecting someone else, were ya?’
‘Yes – no, no of course not.’
His gaze dropped to the man’s shirt she was holding in her hands. His eyebrows rose fractionally. ‘Matthew home, is he?’
It was an odd question, and there was a peculiar tone in his voice, as if he already knew the answer. There was more behind his remark than the mere words implied.
Esther looked down at the garment she carried, and then she tried to hide it behind her back. ‘Er – no, but I’m just doing a bit of weshing, that’s all.’ Will was the only person, other than perhaps Ma Harris, whose opinion mattered to her. Suddenly she was angry for allowing herself to feel that way. In her own estimation it was weakness.
She overcame her moment of confusion and glared at him, her chin coming higher, defying him to question her further. She turned away and strode round to the front of the house again, her back rigid against his prying. Will followed her and stood watching whilst boldly she shook out the shirt and pegged it wide on the line.
‘There’s talk, lass,’ he said gently.
Esther whirled around to face him, a sharp retort on her lips. She met Wills steady gaze and read in his eyes not the malicious meddling of the Willoughby women, nor the gossipy tittering of the Harris family, but a genuine concern for her. The anger went out of her. She walked slowly towards him and put her hand on his arm.
‘Will,’ she whispered, as if sharing a secret, as indeed she was. ‘I am happier than I have ever been in me life – than I ever knew it was possible to be. Don’t begrudge me a little happiness, Will. Not you – of all people!’
She saw his old eyes water. ‘Eh, lass, Ah’d never do that, you should know that. But Ah can see you getting hurt. Real bad.’
She nodded. ‘I know – I know it can’t last for ever. One day, he’ll walk away from me down that lane and maybe I – I’ll never see him again. But for the moment . . .’ she shook her head almost in disbelief at herself – ‘I can’t help myself.’
‘We’ve all bin young, lass. An’ who am I to judge?’ A small smile quivered on Will’s mouth, then he was serious again. ‘Be careful, Esther lass, dun’t get hurt. And don’t give them vicious tongues the chance to wag all the more.’
She sighed. ‘I think it’s too late for that warning.’
They stood together for a moment and then Will repeated his initial question. ‘Where’s my little Katie?’
In the daytime, Esther met Jonathan on the seashore at his insistence. He was still hoping to protect her from the prying eyes of those at the Point.
‘I think they know anyway,’ Esther told him.
He sighed. ‘I was afraid of that.’
Esther didn’t care about the gossips, but she loved Jonathan all the more for his concern for her. Theirs was a love that would not – could not – be denied. Sometimes they walked quietly hand in hand at the water’s edge, sometimes they cavorted in the shallows like children, splashing each other, till their clothes were wet and clinging. Their eyes would meet and desire would flash between them and they would fly into each other’s arms, the salt water mingling with their kisses. Then they would run towards their own hollow in the dunes, pausing to kiss and running again, eager for the moment their bodies would entwine, their souls meet and they were the only two people in the world.
All through that summer of 1916 he stayed. She tried to keep the war news from him, clinging to the hope that if he was cut off from how things were, he would not be forced to go back by feelings of guilt. But he must have seen the newspapers at the Seagull for some days he would come to work on the farm silent and solemn. She would watch him at work, seeing deep in his eyes that he was reliving the horror.
Nineteen sixteen was a year of killing. Daily, terrible reports appeared in the papers and names that were to become synonymous with tragedy – Ypres, Verdun, the Somme and Passchendaele – were on everyone’s lips. The people of the little community of Fleethaven hardly knew where these places were and yet they became as familiar on their tongues as their own home town.
Still Jonathan stayed.
Through haymaking and into the corn harvest, he
worked on Brumbys’ Farm and at night they made love in the loft in the barn, warm and snug in a sweet-smelling bed of hay. Late at night they took reluctant leave of each other, lingering in the soft starlight, the sound of the sea music to their love, the salt air its perfume. Esther would creep back into the farmhouse whilst Jonathan sneaked in the back door of the Seagull.
One night as they lay in each other’s arms in the aftermath of their passion, Esther said, ‘You still haven’t told me about yourself. You know all about me. What you don’t see for yourself, I’ve told you.’ She ran her fingers across his chest. She revelled in the feel of him –his smooth, slightly bronzed skin, marred only by the bandage wrapped around his shoulder covering the wound he refused to let even her see.
‘What kind of house do you live in?’ Esther asked him. ‘I can’t imagine what it’s like to live in a big city.’
She felt the laughter rumble in his chest. ‘It’s in a little side street; what they call a terraced house. You know, all the houses in one long row, like the four cottages where the Harrises live, but a whole street of houses on either side. Three small bedrooms upstairs and two rooms down with a back scullery and a privy across the yard.’
‘No garden?’
‘No. No grass, no trees, no flowers. Just the back yard where my mother pegs out the washing and brings it in all covered with smuts from the works’ chimneys.’
‘Do you live with your parents?’
‘Yes – and my sister, Peggy.’
‘What does ya dad do?’
‘He’s a schoolmaster. He teaches at a boys’ school in
the city. And my mothers a dressmaker. The front parlour in our house is always littered with paper patterns and pins.’ But he was smiling fondly as he said it. It sounded to Esther a genteel sort of occupation for a woman. She imagined Jonathans mother would be a real lady with soft, smooth hands spending her days sewing fine garments. Not like Esther – out in all weathers with red and roughened hands.
It was obvious to Esther that Jonathan came from a warm and loving family and she felt envious. How she would love to belong to such a family – to Jonathans family. She was eager to hear all about them. ‘You said you have a sister. Tell me about her. How old is she?’
His eyes clouded as he murmured, ‘Almost twenty. Poor Peggy.’
Esther checked the question that sprang to her lips. Why ‘poor Peggy?’
‘She’s going through an awful time,’ Jonathan told her. ‘She was engaged to a young chap who worked with me. We were friends – that’s how Peggy met him. We volunteered together.’ He was silent, remembering. Memories in which Esther had no part. ‘He – he was killed only a month after we went out there. Poor Peggy,’ he murmured again. ‘She used to be so jolly, always laughing and teasing. Now she’s thin and so unhappy.’ He stroked Esther’s face with the tips of his fingers. ‘I wish you and she could meet. You’d be so good for her. You’re so strong . . .’
Esther kissed his cheek gently in a gesture of comfort. ‘I would love to meet her, too. And your mother and father – they sound wonderful.’
Jonathan drew her into his arms and as she leant her head against his shoulder, he stroked her hair, pulling out the pins and combs so that it tumbled down her back. Then he buried his face in the rich tresses. ‘You’ve such beautiful hair . . .’
Somewhere there was suddenly a loud banging and a shout, ‘Missus, missus!’
‘What is it?’ Esther whispered and scrambled to her feet, pulling the front of her blouse across her exposed breast. ‘Where’s me skirt? Quick!’
Jonathan too was buckling his trousers and reaching for his shirt.
‘No,’ she whispered urgently. ‘You stay here. I’ll – I’ll see who it is.’
She almost fell down the ladder from the hayloft and ran out of the barn.
‘Enid, what is it?’ She hurried across the yard, hastily brushing the tell-tale wisps of hay from her clothing.
Enid turned and, closer now, Esther heard the girl’s gasp of surprise. ‘Where’ve you – ?’ the girl began and then seemed to think better of it.
‘What’s the matter?’ Esther asked again.
‘Me dad sent me for yar ’osses. There’s a ship been sunk out at sea. He’s got to take the lifeboat out.’
‘Right,’ Esther said, ‘come on, we’ll . . .’
As they moved to go towards the stable, they both heard, thinly through the walls of the house, the wailing of Esther’s child.
Esther gave a click of exasperation through her teeth, ‘There now, your knocking has woken Kate.’
‘I’m sorry I’m sure,’ Enid said, her tone stiff with sarcasm. ‘But I heard her crying as I got to the door, afore I even knocked.’ She tossed her head and glared defiantly at Esther, as if to say ‘the fault’s not
mine
’.
Ignoring Enid’s attitude, Esther snapped, ‘You go in to Kate and I’ll see to the horses.’
Prince and Punch were reluctant to leave the warmth of their stable. They didn’t take kindly to a night shift as well. Punch let out a whinny which echoed through the night air then he kicked his huge hoof against the door as Esther struggled to harness them.
‘Whoa there, stand, damn you,’ she shouted, so unlike the gentle tones she normally reserved for the animals that the horse only kicked all the more.
‘Esther, here, let me.’ All at once Jonathan was beside her in the stable, stroking the animal’s mane and speaking in soothing tones to them. Silently, he harnessed Punch, whilst Esther dealt with Prince, the more docile of the two. Then they each led one out. At that moment Enid came out of the house carrying a lantern. She held it aloft and in its light Esther could see her glancing from one to the other.
‘I’ll stay with the bairn whilst you both take the ’osses,’ the girl said and added with an unmistakable note of censure, ‘She’s wet through and been crying for ages. But you go on,
I’ll
see to her.’
Esther pursed her lips. Their secret was well and truly out now. Not that she cared, but she was very afraid of the effect it would have on Jonathan. Already he felt guilty for seducing the wife of a soldier at the front, a man who was one of his comrades. And he liked and respected the Harrises. What would he do now?
They led the horses up the lane towards where the boat-house lay amongst the dunes. As if reading her thoughts, Jonathan said quietly, ‘She’ll tell her mother, won’t she?’
‘Aye, an’ anyone else who’ll listen. An’ they’ll all be only too willin’ to listen.’
‘Esther – I’m sorry . . .’
‘Don’t be,’ she retorted swiftly. ‘’Cos I’m not. And don’t let it spoil things between us.’
‘But your daughter, little Kate, we shouldn’t have left her alone.’
Even in the middle of all this, Esther was gratified to notice that he said ‘we’ and not ‘you’. How readily he shared the blame. She loved him all the more for it, if that were possible.
More gently, she said, ‘No, no, we won’t leave her any more. You’ll come into the house . . .’
‘No, Esther, I –’
‘Oh, I’m not asking you into me bed,’ she said swiftly, knowing that Jonathan would flatly refuse to go into the bed Esther had shared with her husband. She smiled in the darkness and there was coyness in her voice. ‘There’s a nice soft peg rug in front of me hearth.’
‘Oh, Esther, you’re the giddy limit!’ She heard the responding laughter in his voice and knew he could not resist her any more.
When Esther returned home a little while later she opened the back door to the sound of her child still crying.
‘Oh no!’ she breathed. Had Enid gone home and left
Kate alone again, even though she had promised to stay? Esther ran through the kitchen and up the stairs, Kate’s wails growing louder to her ears.
In the gentle glow from the night-light, Esther could see her child sitting up in the narrow bed, tears coursing down her red cheeks, her eyes tightly screwed up, her small hands balled into fists beating the patchwork counterpane. Enid was there, sitting on the bed, trying to take the child in her arms to comfort her. Kate was hysterical.
‘I can’t do nowt with her, missus. I’ve tried.’
‘It’s all right, Enid. It’s not your fault.’ Esther sighed. No, she thought, it’s all mine.
She sat down on the side of the bed and wrapped her arms around the child and rocked her and soothed away her night terrors. Kate was wet and frightened and lost. She had cried out and her mother had not come.
‘I haven’t even been able to change her bed, missus. She won’t let me . . .’
Esther nodded. ‘You run along home. Enid . . .’ she added as the girl paused at the door and looked back at her. In the dim light they faced each other. ‘Enid, thanks for staying.’
Enid nodded but said nothing and as Esther listened to the girl’s footsteps going down the stairs, she knew that by the morning, Ma Harris would be regaled with all the sordid details of the night’s events.
As she changed Kate’s nightgown and bedding, Esther felt the first real stab of guilt despite her brave words to Jonathan. Whilst she had been making love with Jonathan in the hayloft, her little girl had been crying for her. Anything could have happened, she told herself fiercely. Kate could have been sick, or choking to death – and you wouldn’t have known. Or cared. Yes, yes, I would. Of course, I care. I’m not that bad, I’m not wicked.
But, said a nagging little voice inside her, you left a small child alone in the house whilst you . . . Now you’ve been found out and you’ll have to take the consequences.
‘I can’t give him up,’ she whispered, as later she lay sleepless in her own lonely bed, ‘I just can’t.’
The following morning Ma Harris arrived as usual to collect the milk and eggs from Esther. But her manner was nothing like as usual.
‘Well, lass, this is a fine how d’ya do, ain’t it?’
Esther faced the older woman’s stare boldly. There was no point in feigning misunderstanding. Besides, Esther was never one to tell lies.
‘You don’t understand . . .’
Ma Harris nodded, her toothless mouth pursed to nothingness. There was no familiar cackle of laughter this morning. ‘Oh, yes, I do, lass. I understand only too well. I know you hadn’t the perfect marriage with young Matthew. But you made yar bed, lass. Ya shouldn’t be lyin’ in it with another, now should ya? Specially not when yar man’s away fighting the war.’