Norfolk Twilight

Table of Contents

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR3

  GET YOUR FREE BOOK4

  Dusk5

  The Time Before18

  An Unexpected Letter24

  The Eavesdropper30

  A Man of Business38

  The Dawning46

  THE MYSTERIOUS MARSH SERIES58

  THE FARAWAY LANDS SERIES60

  A taste of THE ELEPHANTS’ CHILD62

  NORFOLK TWILIGHT

  Copyright © 2014 M. L.Eaton

  A NOVELETTE

  A haunting tale of adventure, loss and love

  M. L. EATON

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Marion lives near the sea in the beautiful Sussex countryside with a long-suffering husband, a lazy Saluki and an urge to write into the small hours.

  More information can be found at: www.marioneaton.com

  FREE BOOK

  Join my New Releases mailing list (I promise no spam) and, as a thank you, download a free copy of Soliciting from Home, the fictionalised true story on which the Mysterious Marsh Series is based. Just enter, click or tap the link below to get started: eepurl.com/b9aPVf

  A message to you from Marion:

  Thank you very much for reading this book. I hope you enjoyed it. If so, do tell others about it.

  I’d really appreciate a review of the book on the site from which you purchased your copy — a line or two is more than enough, and I’ll be very grateful.

  If you’d like to contact me, [email protected] will find me. I’d love to hear from you.

  Thank you.

  GET YOUR FREE BOOK

  Soliciting from Home

  For a limited time you can get a FREE digital copy of Soliciting from Home, the fictionalised true story on which the Mysterious Marsh Series is based, direct from my website: www.marioneaton.com

  Just enter, click or tap the link below to get started:

  eepurl.com/b9aPVf

  Packed with authentic and endearing characters, unexpected romance and good old-fashioned country town drama, Soliciting from Home is an amusing, occasionally sad, but always warm-hearted account of a young woman setting up a legal practice in a small community in 1970s Kent.

  - 1 -

  Dusk

  DUSK CREPT IN early from beneath the lowering brow of a winter sky. Twilight suffused the corners of the room and painted with grey the dusty cobwebs in the corners of the small latticed windows. A lone lamp in one corner threw a pool of light onto the floor, silhouetting the features of the man and woman who, companionably silent, sat opposite each other at the table. The woman was writing feverishly in a notebook, while the man was absorbed in reading a leather-bound copy of David Copperfield.

  Rain sputtered across the window, hurled by a sudden gust of wind that howled down the chimney of the inglenook fireplace, scattering raindrops in the empty grate. Outside the cottage, rain swept across the bare, flat fields of Norfolk, in heavy February relentlessness, but inside, the people were oblivious of the worsening weather. Although it was barely three o’clock in the afternoon, the room had darkened, but neither the man nor the woman moved to draw the too-thin curtains.

  The silence deepened, growing heavier until it was almost tangible: then growing heavier still, until the soft scratching of pen on paper sounded like fingernails scraping on glass.

  In one sudden gesture, the woman underlined the last line she had written and threw down the pen. It skittered across the table and knocked into the man’s elbow. He raised his eyes in surprise and caught the look in hers. Marking his place with its ribbon, he closed his book. As their eyes locked, the atmosphere around them shifted slightly, and stilled. Silence extended, deepened. Now it seemed to harbour something different, something … almost … discernible.

  When the man spoke, his voice sounded slightly muffled.

  “A lot has happened here.”

  The woman’s eyes dropped.

  “Yes,” she agreed. She looked slowly round the room, suddenly aware of barely-perceptible shapes drifting like smoke. “I … I don’t know, but … is some momentous event still resonating here?”

  He smiled. “What do you feel?”

  The question was unnecessary: he already knew the answer, noting her brown eyes: wide open, moist and unfocussed. Her breath was coming fast. Very aware of the movement of her bosom, he tried not to look, but the beating of her heart was almost palpable.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve never felt anything like this before.”

  They had been friends for years. In the early days there had been something of an attraction between them, but it had not ripened into an affair of the heart. Nor had they lusted after each other. Instead, the frisson had matured into a friendship akin to sibling love, a kind of deep knowing of the other that was beyond words. She knew of no other person with whom she could sit so long in comfortable silence.

  He smiled. “I thought not.”

  “But you have.” She’d believed she knew him so well that there was nothing new to discover. But now she realised that he’d kept something of himself hidden from her.

  He inclined his head. “Yes, I have. Quite often, in fact. I glimpse things.”

  She frowned. “What sort of things?”

  “Things that others don’t expect … and so, don’t see.” Still he did not raise his head.

  “And now? Are you aware of things that others don’t see, now?” she demanded.

  “Perhaps I should throw the question back at you, Anne! You said something momentous had happened here, didn’t you?”

  “I said I felt something momentous was resonating here. There’s a difference, Clive. I don’t see anything. Occasionally, I have a sense of something other-worldly.”

  She shuddered. He watched the quiver shake her from head to foot like a dog shaking himself clear of water, and smiled reassuringly. “Some people see — or I should say, glimpse — like I do. It’s often so quick you wonder if your mind is deceiving you. Others have different antennae. It seems you feel. That’s the next most common perception.”

  Silence fell again and in that silence, smoke-like forms moved, came closer.

  Anne had closed her eyes. “There are several people here,” she said, speaking slowly, as if she were sleepwalking, or dreaming. Almost, she felt, she should hold her arms out in front of her to … what? Ward something … someone … off? Touch something?

  “Yes.”

  The man spoke softly, not wishing to alarm the woman, but she had already become aware of the shades that were gathered there. Again she shivered. While she’d been writing she had lost herself in the task, drowning in the words as she wrote them, unaware of the cold drabness of the room. But now, as the shadows shifted and filled out, became more substantial, ice-cold struck deep down in her bones. The two narrow bars of the electric fire were inadequate to combat the cold that permeated the room. She thought fleetingly how dismal the day had been, how miserable the winter weather — and yet she had written far more fluently than she had expected when Clive had suggested that they stay inside and follow their favourite pursuits. She touched the circular table on which she’d been working.

  “This table is different,” she said.

  “Different? How so?”

  “It should be a parlour table. Not round, but rectangular. Not flimsy like this one, but made of seasoned oak to match the dresser. ”

  He did not contradict her. Instead he asked: “Where is the dresser?”

  “Against the wall behind you. Smothered in plates and bowls, jugs and mugs.”

  Clive half-turned, caught himself looking at a bare wall, muttered ‘idiot’ under his breath, and nodded. “Blue and white pottery.”

  “There are seve
ral people here,” she said again, but with more certainty in her voice. “Sitting around the table. Like we are, but waiting for something.”

  “They are all men.”

  He could feel them filling up the space, shouldering him aside, unawares. He pushed his chair back from the table. The man whose shoulders had replaced Clive’s, shifted in his chair, pulling it closer to the table. Clive watched as the man’s back twitched. Remembering his army training of many years previously, he hurriedly lowered his eyes. He’d been taught that the area between the shoulder blades was very sensitive: so sensitive, in fact, that an enemy would sense your presence if you so much as looked at that point when approaching from behind.

  “Yes,” Anne agreed.

  He sought quickly for something else to say. “There’s a clock in this room.”

  At his words Anne knew he was right because she heard the clock’s comforting ticking from the wall behind her. That’s odd, she thought. She’d looked for a clock when she had entered the room. Finding none, she’d taken off her wristwatch and placed it on the table in front of her so that she could keep track of the time. Now she picked it up, running her thumb absent-mindedly across the glass.

  “It’s a wag-on-the wall, behind my right shoulder.”

  The man nodded. “What time does it show?” he asked.

  “Nearly a quarter past three,” she said, frowning. “Odd, it feels like summer! I can feel the breeze blowing across the field, rippling the barley like waves in the sea.”

  As one, they glanced towards the window, but outside it was dark: drops of rain glistened on black window panes which dimly reflected their own images. They turned again to face each other, and Anne shivered.

  “Maybe different events are layered on the atmosphere,” Clive suggested.

  A pause, as Anne digested this remark.

  “It’s possible,” she agreed. “Anyway, I think this house was different then from how it is now. This was the main parlour. The kitchen was across the passage, but bigger than the poky little room it is now. A long scullery ran beside it.”

  “I’m picking that up, too. And I’m sure the whole house was wider in the past, with more rooms on the ground floor.”

  “And so more above, too.”

  As she spoke, Anne caught a movement from the corner of her eye. An old man, vigorously rocking in a chair set inside the inglenook, was nodding delighted agreement. She smiled back.

  The delicious odour of pork roasting over a spit wafted into the room, apparently through the window. But the windows did not open, Anne knew, because she’d tried them. They’d been sealed beneath a thick layer of white paint.

  “There’s a lot of movement in the kitchen,” Clive said. “I’m sure I can smell boiling potatoes. Or perhaps a suet pudding steaming?”

  “Yes, I think it’s a mixture of both, and vegetables too.” She paused, with her head on one side, as though listening. “It seems to me that women are bustling about in the kitchen cooking a festive meal. Yes! The woman of the house is plump and flushed. She’s wrapped in a large hessian apron, and she’s wiping her hands on it before pushing a lock of her hair from her eyes.”

  “Is she old or young?”

  “Her hair is in a bun. It looks as though it once dark, but it’s greying now.”

  “Middle aged, then?”

  “Probably not! I’d guess she’s no more than forty, if that.”

  “Young then,” Clive teased. “But tell me — are there other women with her?”

  “Indeed there are!” she answered. “You know there are! They’re chattering and working and generally excited. Let me see….” She paused, then continued: “Yes, three daughters, all young women. They’re longing to know what’s going on in here. But they have women’s work to do. For some reason only the men are involved with whatever’s going on in this room.”

  Had she been asked, Anne could not have said how she knew all this. It was simply there, a translucent, transparent veil flung over the present, imprinted on the air, but so fresh, so obvious, that she could not ignore it. Although intangible, the colours, shapes, smells, sounds, the knowing were so clear it was as if she were living in that very scene. Yet she was not, for the people seemed unaware of her — apart from the old man. Perhaps he sensed her presence, and Clive’s, because he was closer to death than the youngsters, and thus able to transverse the time continuum.

  “And an old man is sitting in a rocking chair,” Anne went on, distinctly aware of the aged toothless man sitting in a rocking chair drawn up close to the log fire in the inglenook. The embers of the fire, glowing red as the wind eddied down the chimney, were dulled by grey ash. A half burned oak log rested beside them. She could smell the wood smoke but no warmth came from the hearth. Anne’s frown returned. Was it summer or winter? What was she perceiving? Was it one event? Two? A combination of several events? She shivered again, but slightly.

  She glanced towards the fireplace and two glittering black eyes twinkled back at her. Hunched with age, the thin old man was sucking on a long, curved, clay pipe held securely by his two remaining teeth, black in his otherwise toothless mouth.

  “I know,” Clive said.

  Suddenly she wanted to test him. “Where is he sitting?”

  “Behind me, in the inglenook.”

  “Which side?”

  “To my right.”

  The old man winked at her, as he removed his pipe from his mouth and stabbed the air with the mouthpiece. He was clearly aware of her.

  “He’s waving his pipe at you!” Clive had not turned round, but he knew. “It’s a churchwarden pipe.”

  Now she had him! Surely a churchwarden pipe was big round and hooked, dropping away from the mouth to below the chin before the bowl curved up again. This pipe had a long, thin, straight white stem and a small, blackened bowl shaped like a head. The old man was tamping the tobacco down with his middle right finger. She sensed he was amused, waiting to hear what she would say.

  Anne pounced triumphantly. “No, it’s not a churchwarden. It’s one of those long thin clay pipes that country people used to smoke.”

  “Yes! They’re called churchwardens.”

  Although no noise resonated through the silence that pervaded the room, she heard the old chap chuckle, and realised her companion was correct. Although mildly disappointed to know that she’d made a mistake about the name of the pipe, she was simultaneously filled with elation. In the past, she had run from her sense of the ‘other, convinced that she was peculiar, that sane people were not aware of such things. She had forced such apparitions to slip past her, her gift — if such it was, and not a curse — only half-acknowledged. But Clive’s acceptance that such things were normal for him, had allowed her to relax and to let her senses have full rein. Whatever they were — pictures, impressions, ghosts, shades — they’d seldom appeared to her as clearly as they did now.

  Defocussing her eyes, she allowed the images to adjust, come into her vision and settle. Her awareness expanded to encompass the man of business seated at the head of the table. Dressed in a black suit, collar, shirt and tie, he was leaning on the table peering through pince-nez at the papers before him.

  “There’s a man of business at this end of the table. He seems to be in charge,” she said. “He has a pile of papers in front of him and his hat, too.”

  The man of business was reading something. A will? A contract? Black gloves rested on an upturned black top hat which was placed on his left, a little behind the papers.

  “Yes,” Clive agreed at once. “But, tell me … what sort of hat is it?”

  “A top hat,” she replied unhesitatingly, “Set down close to me, here on the table. His gloves are in it. And there’s someone behind him — an assistant of some sort.” She stopped trying to understand what was happening. It was too absorbing, too exciting, too amazing to wonder. She gave herself up to her perception. “He’s shorter and darker, not so well dressed. Who can he be?”

  Clive o
pened his mouth but more words jumbled out of her mouth before he could speak.

  “I know! He’s a lawyer’s clerk. The older man — the one at the head of the table, with the top hat — is a solicitor, and he’s here to discuss something important. Look, all the family’s here! But it doesn’t feel as though it’s a Will, does it? What’s going on? Can you tell?”

  Again he smiled. “I don’t know, but they’re all in their Sunday best.”

  A short silence followed, and again the quietness was heavy, pregnant with things unsaid, or, more likely, with things once said — portentous words or events, surely, to leave so great an impression on the atmosphere.

  The old man stilled his rocking chair.

  The solicitor stopped speaking. He appeared to be waiting for an answer. The countrymen in the room stirred slightly, looking at each other, not wishing to be the first to speak, but the excitement, the dread, the sense of change was obvious. A log fell into the embers with a sudden burst of sparks.

  One of the men stood up. He was middle-aged but strong, his hands worn and rough. “Thank you, sir,” he said, “we will surely consider it.”

  His voice was deep, accented with the local burr and his words unclear, but the man and the woman both understood what he had said.

  - 2 -

  The Time Before

  “OPEN THE DOOR, Mary,” Mrs Shaw directed, wiping her hand on her pinafore before dabbing her sweating brow with the right hand corner of her apron. “And you, Eliza, open that window! It’s hot enough in here to roast a hog!”

  “Oh no, Ma, surely not! That’s John’s job. He’s built the fire already, outside in the yard.”

  “I know that, my girl!” Ma made a swipe at Jane’s legs with a towel, her accuracy with the weapon proved as Jane’s ‘ow’ echoed round the kitchen.

  Eliza and Mary exchanged knowing glances, smothering grins behind their hands. They knew it was not sensible to answer Ma back when she was in one of her moods, especially if that mood had been provoked by cooking, one of Ma’s most hated chores. Unfortunately for Jane, it seemed she would never learn this simple truth: words ran out of her mouth like water down the mill stream.

  Jane rubbed her leg, scowling in an effort not to cry. “Ouch! Ma, that hurt.”

  Ma smiled grimly. “I intended it to. No need to state the obvious.”

  “What’s obvious mean, Ma?”

  “You know full well, Jane. It means I can see with my own eyes.”

  “But …”

  “You keep that tongue in your head, my girl. Least said, soonest mended. That’s what I always say — and what you need to remember. Now, have you finished peeling those potatoes?”

  “Yes, Ma.” For once, it seemed that Jane might be quiet.

  “And the carrots?”

  “Nearly, Ma.”

  “Cabbage?”

  “No, Ma.”

  “Step to it, then, my girl! Mary, stop making cows’ eyes at Jem out of that door. Come here and stir this pot.”

  Mary was watching tousle-headed, dark-eyed Jem lead one of the shaggy-footed cart horses out of the traces and into the paddock. She threw a sudden kiss out of the open door, blushing to see Jem catch it and press his hand to his lips. He threw her one back, but she was already rushing to do her mother’s bidding.

  Jem smiled ruefully. The horse, one of two used for numerous purposes on this Norfolk farm, raised and shook its head as if to warn him that he was not supposed to so much as look at Mary, the farmer’s eldest daughter. It might be as much as his job was worth, but Jem found it impossible to resist Mary’s colourful loveliness. He liked them all, Eliza the clever one, Jane the sweet youngest, but he never noticed anyone else when Mary was nearby.

  “Eliza! Don’t just stand there smirking, girl. There’s work to do! No pie makes itself. I need your light hand with the pastry.”

  “Yes, Ma,” Eliza said. “I’ll do it as soon as I’ve washed my hands.” With the words, she stepped out into the courtyard, in the middle of which stood the pump.

  “Pump me some water, Walter,” she directed her younger brother who was standing by the pump, smirking at the girls’ discomfiture at their mother’s tongue. Her eyes followed Jem and she sighed. She wished he would turn his eyes from Mary and see how much she, Eliza, loved him. But she knew in her heart that Jem had eyes only for Mary: he simply did not notice anyone else.

  How hard it was to be the plainest of three daughters. Mary, the eldest was beautiful. She had the happy laugh of the most indulged child of the family. Combined with her red lips, perfect milkmaid complexion, brilliant blue eyes, chestnut curls, soft voice and curvaceous figure, she could have anyone she wanted. Jane was pretty, too, even if she seldom stopped talking. It was as though she had to make up for her paleness — light blue eyes, dark blond hair and pale pink mouth — by drawing attention to herself, and away from Mary, by the power of speech. As the youngest child, she was much favoured by her parents.

  ‘But I am nondescript,’ thought Eliza. ‘My brown locks wave, but that’s the best one can say of me.’ Others might have said that she was the most attractive of the three Misses Shaw with her ready laugh and obliging nature, but Eliza knew that young men were far more often attracted by a buxom bosom like Mary’s rather than by slender ankles like hers.

  Icy water poured over her hands as Walter worked the pump with a will, splashing the front of her dress.

  “Stop, Walter. That’s enough!”

  Her horrible little brother was spluttering with laughter, and she made a grab for him. He wriggled out of her hold knowing full well that she would dowse him with water if she could but get his head under the pump’s spout.

  “Eliza! What are you playing at?” Ma sounded grim.

  “I’m trying to give Walter a taste of his own medicine, Ma.”

  Walter kicked up his heels, running fleetly after Jem who had disappeared into the paddock. Putting one hand on the five-barred gate he vaulted it in spectacular fashion. He knew that would make Eliza envious and he was right. She scowled at his back.

  Why was it that all the most interesting, exciting things were forbidden to women? While she was small she’d been allowed to run wild with her brothers all over the countryside, but as soon as she reached menarche everything changed. Like Mary before her, she’d had to grow her hair long and to wear the long skirts and tight bodices which were the bane of her existence. She resented the loss of liberty and freedom, but there was nothing to be done about it. The way of the world did not suit her inclinations, that was all. But oh! How she wished she had been born a boy.

  “Eliza! I need you here. Come!” Ma was standing in the kitchen doorway, waving the rolling pin at her middle daughter.

  As she made her way back to the kitchen, Eliza threw an envious glance over her shoulder at Walter who, deep in conversation with Jem, was watching the latter remove the carthorse’s harness. She would far rather have been out riding on a horse (or even leading one) than to be indoors making pastry with flour up to her elbows.

  When she reached the kitchen door, Eliza cast one last look across the yard to where her older brother, John, had built a fire in the pit beneath the spit. In the open-sided building nearby, he and Dick were carefully threading the spindle through the body of the recently slaughtered pig. Although resigned and accustomed to the seasons of life and death on the farm, she felt a sudden prick of sorrow that the centrepiece of the coming evening’s celebration was the last of the parcel of hogs of the old sow’s final farrowing. She’d loved and fed each of the small, pink wrigglers from the time they were piglets until they were porkers ready for slaughter.

  ‘What does the future hold?’ she wondered. The only certainty was that it would be different from all that she and her siblings had ever known. Everything had begun to change a few months previously with the arrival of the letter.

  - 3 -

  An Unexpected Letter

  “PA! LOOK! A letter for you,” Eliza shouted. She rounde
d the corner into the farmyard, brought her sweating horse to a sudden stop and flung herself down from his back. More used to a gentle amble in front of the cart or plough than the rollicking canter to which she’d goaded him, the carthorse made straight for the trough next to the pump, and drank deeply.

  Eliza ignored him, so great was her excitement. As she ran towards the barn, her father came out from it, running a greasy rag between his hands. He’d been mending an axle on the haywain in readiness for the hay-making that was to start the following day, and Eliza noticed the anxious glance he cast at the sky even though it formed an arc of perfect blue above their heads.

  “Pa! A letter.”

  He took it from her in almost reverent silence.

  “A letter,” he said, turning it over in his hand. “Fancy that!”

  Letters were so few and far between that neither of them could remember ever receiving another. This one was written in an unknown hand and obviously much travelled, judging by its well thumbed and smudged appearance.

  “Give it to Ma,” Pa said, at last. “I’ll open it when I’m at leisure tonight.”

  Eliza’s face fell in disappointment.

  “But I rode so hard to bring it to you quickly,” she dared to remonstrate. “Won’t you open it now?”

  “Tonight,” he repeated. Thrusting the letter into her hand, he turned back into the barn. Disappointed though she was, she knew that he would not say another word until his task was completed, if then.

  Early in the cool of that morning at the beginning of August, the three girls had set out in the horse-drawn cart to take butter, cheese, eggs and summer vegetables to market. The world seemed hushed, pregnant with the promise of a perfect summer day. Dew-drops shone on the grass by the verges, and a pale mist, pierced here and there by a tall tree, shrouded the distant fields. The girls’ chatter was silenced by a sudden stillness in which the only sounds were the muffled hoofbeats of the horses, the creak of the harness, and the constant sibilance of the cart’s wheels rolling in the dust of the lane. The day seemed to hold its breath for a long moment … that stretched unbearably … until the sun’s fingers crested the barley field, turning it to shimmering gold. And the morning exhaled a golden breath full of the scent of herbs, flowers and the dewy earth itself. The barley rippled and waved: and the girls began to chatter like noisy sparrows.

  Soon, too soon, they’d arrived at the market town. Their stall was quickly set up and their wares sold and disposed of well before the sun had reached its zenith.

  “I have an errand to run for Ma,” said Mary, affecting not to notice a handsome young man lounging nearby. “I’m sure you two can dismantle the stall without my help.”

  With the words she was gone amongst the marketing throng before either Jane or Eliza had time to object.

  “I didn’t hear Ma give her an errand,” grumbled Jane. “I bet she means to buy something for herself.”

  Eliza smiled, but said nothing. She’d noticed that the young lounger had followed in Mary’s wake, but knew Jane’s busy tongue too well to mention the matter to her. No doubt Mary would return soon enough having purchased some item that would suit the excuse she’d made.

  At that moment, just as she and Jane were lifting the empty baskets into the cart, a little boy tugged at her skirt.

  “Are you Miss Shaw?” he asked. “’Cos if you are, I’ve a message for you.”

  “I’m Miss El …” she began. Then, intrigued and thinking quickly: “Yes, I’m Miss Shaw,” she said. What did it matter that she wasn’t Mary? She was the second-eldest after all.

  “There’s a letter for your pa at the Post Office,” said the young messenger, holding out a grimy hand for a tip.

  “Thank you.” Eliza gave him a ha’penny and the child skipped away.

  “A letter?” Jane was as surprised as her sister, but before she could say another word, Eliza had slipped away.

  She returned five minutes later flushed and excited, brandishing the letter like a sword.

  “I must take this to Pa right now!” she said, uncoupling the faster of the two horses. “I’ll ride home. You and Mary can come home at your own pace.”

  Turning a deaf ear to Jane’s loud complaints, and chucking propriety to the wind, she leapt up astride onto the horses back, and rode off bareback, her skirts round her thighs.

  She had made good speed in her excitement, only to be disappointed by her father’s reaction. There was nothing else for it, she would give the letter to her mother, but even as she turned to go indoors, she found herself surrounded by her brothers John, Dick and Walter. Each of them did their best to prise the letter from her hand, but Eliza was too quick for them. She twisted away, lifted her grubby skirts and ran helter-skelter for the kitchen.

  “Ma! A letter!” she yelled.

  As intrigued as Eliza, Ma turned the letter over in her hand several times like a mother hen clucking over her offspring, making comments on the handwriting — such a fine hand; the paper —such good quality; and the franking — she’d never seen such a stamp; and wondering who could be writing to Pa. Then she heaved a great sigh of resignation and put it behind the clock on the high mantelpiece in the parlour.

  “None of you dare touch it!” she warned her children, and there the letter stayed until the moon was well up in a sky of violet blue, and Pa had fixed the axle, eaten his dinner and smoked a pipe in preparation for the great event.

  “Take it down then, Peggy,” he commanded. And Ma reached up, plucked the letter from its hiding place and gave it into his hand.

  “Bring the candle close.” Pa inspected the letter, in his turn turning it this way and that and marvelling over it. His wife handed him a paring knife. He cut the string which bound it and spread the paper open upon his knee. He peered at it for a good minute and then made a throaty sound of disgust.

  “I can’t make it out,” he said. “You read it, Eliza.”

  These were precisely the words that the whole family had been expecting, for only Eliza had any facility with letters and reading.

  Eliza needed no encouragement: she fairly seized it from his hand. Nonetheless she found it difficult to read, for once the writer had reached the end of the sheet, he’d turned it round ninety degrees and continued writing across the words he’d already inscribed. In her excitement, Eliza stumbled a little, so when she had read it out loud once, she read it aloud again.

  The whole family stared wide-eyed at each other, speechless, hardly daring to believe what the letter contained. Eventually Pa humphed, coughed and commanded his children to their beds.

  “I will decide,” he said, “when we have heard what this ‘man of business’ has to say.”

  - 4 -

  The Eavesdropper

  “COME TO BED, Eliza!” Mary commanded.

  “Not yet.”

  “It’s cold here. Come and warm me.” Mary sounded petulant rather than cajoling.

  “Nonsense,” Eliza hissed, without taking her ear from the split in the floorboard. “It’s high summer.”

  “I’m here, Mary,” pouted Jane, weaving her arms tightly around her sister. “I’m warming you.”

  “You’re too hot!” Mary declared, throwing the thin bedcover back over Jane as she clambered out of the bed in a flurry of frills. She stood beside Eliza’s crouched figure, towering over her sister.

  Eliza pulled the hem of Mary’s nightdress. “Shush! Be quiet! I can’t hear.”

  Mary promptly fell to all fours beside her sister. “You shouldn’t eavesdrop.”

  “I know, Miss Mighty! But I’m not eavesdropping. I’m listening. Put your ear here, next to mine.” Eliza grinned sideways at Mary whose reproachful expression changed to one of mischief. As Eliza suggested, she put her ear to the crack in the floorboards, but all she could hear was a muffled sound like the buzzing of bees.

  “What are they saying?”

  “Shhhh! Listen!”

  Slowly the sound began to crystallise into words and Mary’s ey
es grew as round as Eliza’s. A creak from the bed and a warm weight fell on them.

  “Me too,” whispered Jane, as her small frame wedged itself between her elder sisters.

  In the bedroom above the parlour, the girls listened quietly as their parents argued. The floorboards rested directly on to the beams that crossed the ceiling below but it was seldom that they overheard their parents speaking together. In their sparse leisure times, Ma and Pa would usually sit in companionable silence, their mother spinning, darning or mending, and their father whittling or carving, while all the time their grandfather sat in the inglenook, contentedly smoking his clay pipe. What was there to speak about? In this agrarian community, task followed task, day followed day, season followed season. The wheel of the year turned, but work was never completed.

  Tonight was different: tonight, their parents were discussing the letter. In fact, they would speak together late into the darkness. Their father’s calm tones, difficult to decipher, were followed by their mother’s shrill complaints, much more easily heard, but soon stopped by Pa’s gruff command. There followed a long conversation in undulating voices punctuated by the occasional shrill denial from Ma.

  The drone of voices, only dimly heard, soon lulled Jane to sleep. Mary carted her back to bed, and, remarking that they would no doubt learn all on the morrow, she too climbed back into the bed, cuddling her little sister reassuringly. Only Eliza stayed hunched on the floor, her ear to the crack, shivering with a mixture of fear, anticipation and chill.

  Downstairs the discussion droned on. It was seldom indeed that Mrs Shaw opposed her husband in matters of importance. But this was a matter of such import for the lives of herself, her present family and her future descendants that she felt obliged to make her views known.

  The letter had come like a dart from the past, bringing with it all that Ma dreaded most. And yet it provided an opportunity: an opportunity that Pa had hankered after from the moment his younger brother had set sail for America. The Shaws had farmed this part of Norfolk for generations: they knew all there was to know about the four year rotation of crops from fallow to wheat through barley and peas. Over the past generation or two they had widened this knowledge, sowing and hoeing turnips instead of leaving the land unsown to be tilled twice by the plough; adding clover for fodder to the years when peas or beans had been the traditional crop. And so, they had helped to fend off the times of hunger and scarcity, but their land was a small holding and the times were difficult. All day and every day was a monotonous round of hard labour from sunrise to sunset and often beyond.

  Pa’s brother James had been a firebrand in his youth, taking up the Methodist cause, speaking out against the gentry and preaching the Bible at every possible occasion, so that in due course it became necessary for him to leave the country and make his way abroad. Pa well remembered the journey to the small port of Blakeney where James had boarded a frail barque with a small bag of his most treasured possessions: a Bible, a trowel, and a saw. Pa had shaken his brother’s hand, clapped him on the shoulder, turned and departed quickly lest his brother saw him weep. James had climbed up the gangplank alone. Since then, no news of him had ever been received. Pa had long feared that James had perished, for his enemies were many: storm, tempest, disease, accident, thievery and violence, to name but a few.

  Then, out of the blue, the letter had arrived. Pa had never had cause to learn his alphabet — for what use was book-learning to a son of the soil who read the weather in the signs of nature and wrote with the plough in straight furrows upon the earth? But James had learned his letters from the Bible with the Methodist minister. Almost immediately he saw it, however, Pa had deduced that the missive must have been penned by his long-lost brother. For who else would write to a farmer hidden deep in the wild flats of Norfolk?

  On returning to the barn, Pa had let his mind wander as he finished mending the axle. He had felt his brother James close by several times recently, although he would never admit such fancies to a mortal soul. For nearly eighteen years he had known nothing, indeed had almost forgotten the young man whom he had seen board a ship for America. But now James had come unbidden to his mind. At first, he had feared that James was truly dead and his shade was visiting his brother to say goodbye, but now the letter proved he was alive, or at least, had been alive when he penned it. Pa had pondered over the possibilities all afternoon, but he had still been unprepared for what the letter contained

  Eliza had read the letter out aloud, twice, although there had been no need. Pa might not have the skills to read or write but his mind was sharp and his understanding keen.

  ‘Dear brother Jack, I am settled in the land of Wyoming. I have made a homestead here and the land is rich. I had hoped to leave it to my children for their inheritance but my dear wife, Ann, is dead in childbirth and I have no heirs. Three children died in their cradle and two in the womb. There will be no more. A law is passed here that land may be granted by the government to all you brave the rigours of the journey and have the skill to make a homestead. Wyoming is open and land is for the taking. The wide plain is fertile and not unlike the soil you know. I well remember you wedding fair Peggy and I presume that you have sons and daughters of your own. Leave Norfolk and bring your labour and family here where there is room for us all.

  I am sending this letter by a friend of mine. He is a preacher who is returning to England to see his father for the last time. By way of showing my earnestness, I have entrusted him with money for your travel arrangements. He has agreed to lodge these funds with a lawyer in Kings Lynn with whom he has a family connection and assures me that such lawyer will do right by you in all respects.

  Come, my brother. Come to this new land where your conscience is your own. Come and share in my wealth. Here you can be free of want. Come.’

  When he had heard the invitation, — and that there were funds invested to enable the whole family to take passage — his heart, which had been resigned to beat its last in Norfolk on this patch of land that the Shaws had farmed for so many generations, had leapt in his chest and his pulse had raced for the first time in many a year. A strong effort on his part had schooled his features into their normal impassivity until the children had been despatched to bed, and Peggy’s old father dozed in the rocking chair.

  Then he had joyously opened his heart to his wife as he had in the days they were courting, before the children came along, before he inherited the farm and all its work. Expecting her to share in his excitement, he was disappointed to find that she was not of the same mind. How could he consider leaving all that they had ever known? How would their children fare? Not only during the weeks at sea, but during the land journey? There were savages there! All kinds of danger and privation to be faced! And for what? For whom? All on the word of a brother who could have been dead for eighteen years for all they knew? What would become of their land? How could she leave her father? He would not survive the crossing even if they did. How could he be so inconsiderate as to even think of such a thing? Did he not love her? Had she not been a good wife to him, patiently doing all that needed to be done about the farm, taking butter and bacon to market, bearing him children? Should he not put his wife and children first?

  He let her run on until her tongue was as heavy as her eyelids. Then he spoke again and this time his word was final.

  “I will go to Kings Lynn. I will find this lawyer.”

  - 5 -

  A Man of Business

  PA WAS AS good as his word. But, since the weather waited for no man, haymaking and harvest had to take precedence over all other matters. It was therefore some three months later that he finally set off for Kings Lynn, where, after making enquiries at the market place, he was directed to the firm of Gardine & Gardine, Solicitors and Commissioners for Oaths, in Beechers Street. Sure enough, he was shown into the office of the junior partner of that firm, who confirmed that he had been entrusted with a sum of money by his cousin Aloyious Gardine to be held on behalf of a Mr J
ames Shaw of Wyoming. Two conditions were attached to this gift. One, that the money was only to be made available to Mr Jack Shaw provided he applied personally for the same; and, two, that it was to be used solely for the purpose of paying for the passage for himself and his family to Wyoming. In addition, it had been made clear to Mr Gardine Junior that he was to take no measures to contact Mr Jack Shaw unless or until that gentleman applied to the Firm for information.

  As a result of this cordial meeting it was arranged that Mr Gardine Junior would attend at Mr Jack Shaw’s farm in order to explain the exigences of the arrangement to his family and, if appropriate, to obtain a Power of Attorney, which he would hold against the event that Mr Shaw should decide to sell his farm and its contents. Taking such a precaution would enable Gardine & Gardine to deal with the sale of the farm without the necessity for Jack Shaw to return to England for that purpose. If such was the case, the firm would transmit the proceeds in accordance with Mr Jack Shaw’s directions, presumably to Wyoming.

  Pa rode home slowly. His decision had been made in principle over that long night of discussion with Ma, but he was a man used to thinking deeply and not prone to unconsidered judgements. Once more he turned over in his mind the possibilities and probabilities of the choice before him.

  If he ignored the opportunity that had presented itself so unexpectedly, life would go on much as before. He owned a small farm, it was true, but it was not large enough to provide a living for his three sons and he had soon to make some sort of provision for his daughters. Things were changing in Norfolk, and not for the better. More and more land was being enclosed and people were moving away into cities. The large landowners were falling on hard times too, a legacy of the Napoleonic wars and heavy taxation. It was no longer easy for a young man to obtain employment as a farmhand, where there might originally have been a secure future, or as a hired labourer. The returns on Henshaw Farm were poor despite changes in agricultural practices and constant hard labour. What would befall the family if he were to become ill, crippled or to die early? The dreaded workhouse was not far from the door these days: many a previously hard-working family had fallen on hard times and been forced to seek admittance to its harsh brand of charity.

  On the other hand, he had been offered an escape, hope of a better future for his family and an adventure. He was under no illusions: the journey across the ocean would be difficult and dangerous, and that across the American continent would likely be more hazardous still, but he had confidence that it could be done. He was not destitute: there was money to defray the expenses of their passage and more to come later should the farm be sold. He was fortunate indeed that he could delay that final decision. He knew his neighbours well: had not their forbears and his lived, loved, fought and worked together for generations? Old Tom Wright was looking for more land for his sons to work. Perhaps that would be the perfect solution? They would work his land for him, keeping it well-husbanded and in good heart against his possible return.

  But he could not take this decision alone. He owed it to his sons, to Jem, to his old father-in-law that they should have some say in their future. Not the girls, of course, Ma and they would follow wherever he decided to lead them. But the youngsters were a different matter: for the little part of Norfolk that he farmed was their inheritance just as it has been his. They must reach a common decision.

  And so it was that one day in early November when the harvest had been finally gathered and garnered, bargained and sold, that Mr Gardine Junior, a legal man of business, braved the muddy roads to Shaw Farm. Accompanied by his clerk on a journey of some thirty miles that took most of the daylight hours, he rode into the tidy farmyard to a warm welcome from the Shaw menfolk. The man of law and his clerk, cold and almost frozen to the saddle, dismounted stiffly and were led into the warmth of the parlour, where they warmed themselves before the fire and took a dram or two of country spirits to warm the cockles of their hearts. Meanwhile, their horses, breath steaming from their nostrils, were led into the barn, rubbed down by willing hands and given a warm mash.

  In due course the men of the family gathered round the table. There were five of them — Pa, John, Dick, Walter, Jem — and Grandpa, who refused to budge from the rocking chair in the fireplace where he sat during the daytime and where he slept at night.

  If the younger men decided to go to America, the choice for him was stark: the workhouse or death. He knew that his old bones would never make the journey, and had already decided that death was preferable. His toothless grin cracked his face as he contemplated death and found that he was actually looking forward to it. Losing the pain in his back and limbs, and in the hands that were crippled with arthritis after a life of toil in all weathers, would be no hardship and he would remain here in the county of his forefathers where he belonged — but not before he had finished his pouch of tobacco. He filled his pipe, tamping down the tobacco with a gnarled finger before lighting it with a spill from the fire. He sucked contentedly until the bowl glowed and aromatic smoke filled the inglenook and flowed out into the room.

  The man of law had been given pride of place at the head of the table. Eliza had taken his cloak from him and spread it in front of the fire to dry.

  From the kitchen wafted an almost unbearably appetising smell of roasting pork. Mr Gardine’s stomach rumbled but he conscientiously dismissed the thought of sustenance. He turned his attention to the scents of fragrant woodsmoke and pungent tobacco: food would have to wait until their business was completed. He placed his hat and gloves on the table and took out his notes. His clerk hovered close by. The eyes of all the Shaw menfolk seated at the table turned towards the man of business.

  Mr Gardine studied those honest, open faces: Mr Shaw frowning with the weight of his office as head of the family; John the eldest, his features schooled to a look of concentration; Dick smiling in anticipation; Walter’s face alight with interest; Jem’s wide-eyed puzzlement. A movement in the fireplace drew his attention to old black eyes glittering with merriment. Fleetingly, the lawyer wondered what the old man found amusing, but, dismissing the thought as irrelevant, concentrated on his task.

  He set out his client’s proposition diligently. He made his points as clearly as he was able, prompted in an occasional particular by his clerk. He spoke fluently and with appropriate gravitas, watching as the faces before him changed, registering in turn expectancy, excitement and serious consideration.

  Questions were asked. Although he had no personal knowledge of the conditions of their proposed journey, Mr Gardine answered to the best of his ability.

  Pa sat at the end of the table, watching the faces of his sons and of Jem, who had become as dear to him as his own sons. He flicked a glance, too, at his father-in-law. The old man drew upon his pipe, eyes so hooded that they seemed closed.

  Slowly, slowly, Pa felt the change happening around him, felt the atmosphere thicken, become charged with emotion. He felt, rather than saw, the change in the young faces, felt them grow stronger, felt their raw excitement, and he knew that each in his own way endorsed the decision he himself had made.

  The walls drew closer as if to press upon them the enormity of the decision they would make, reminding them of all they would leave behind, their sweat and toil, their traditions, all that they held dear, including the land from which they had sprung, from whose soil they had been nurtured, the land that had given them life.

  Now they were to leave it: leave behind all that had been for generations, and set out on a grand adventure to a land whose vastness defied all attempt at comprehension. They would cross the ocean, sail for days before the wind, out of sight of land. What courage! How brave his sons were! But they were young and youth had no consideration for the privations of age. He would ride on the wings of their excitement, their hope, their strength.

  The old man opened his eyes. Pa saw that he, too, knew what would befall, but he was prepared. He would not say a word against the proposal.

  Now the house seemed to he
ave a great sigh, almost to shudder, a sort of despair settled around the corners of the room while at its centre a great excitement glowed. Pa allowed himself a smile and rose to his feet.

  “Thank you, Mr Gardine, sir,” he said. “We will surely consider what you have said. Before you leave us, we will give you our decision. But now, the food is ready. Jem, go tell Ma that we will eat.”

  - 6 -

  The Dawning

  WITH HIS WORDS, Anne realised the significance of what they were experiencing.

  “It wasn’t a Will — it was an invitation! A relative in America needs help to expand his homestead. The people who live here are weary. Weary of the toil here, of the death of children, the long, hard winters. They will go, all of them, and this place will be deserted.”

  Clive closed his eyes, but not before she had caught the sudden gleam of moisture in them. She felt her own eyes fill with tears as the walls of the room shouted silently of sadness, loss and the death of old country ways.

  Clive cleared the obstruction in his throat. “I see,” he said, “That’s why it’s imprinted on this room. A momentous decision, a sort of death for this old place.”

  Anne touched his hand, feeling a strange kinship with him. She allowed her eyes to take in the strong leanness of him, his patrician features, remembered the blueness of his downcast eyes. She heard his sharp intake of breath and, although he did not move, allowed herself to be enveloped in the smell of him — a manly smell of carbolic soap, a hint of leather and something else uniquely his — the scent of his skin. She was suddenly aware of the transience of life : Clive and she, too, would pass away.

  “The old man died, didn’t he? Just faded away before they left.”

  Clive clasped her lingering hand between his two warm ones. “He knew he could not make the journey. He made the decision to stay.”

  “It feels that he wanted to be buried here, to become the guardian of the place.”

  A long minute of silent communion. The dead with the living: the living with the dead: and ultimately, the living with the living. Her companion moved slightly, and Anne’s vision shifted back to the present. How long had he and she been watching? How long had they been watched? Time seemed to have no relevance. She gently removed her hand from his.

  The man’s voice sliced into her reverie. “I think they have gone now.”

  “Yes.”

  She glanced round the room, comfortably appointed for a holiday let, yet cold, un-lived in, unloved. The table was round and there was a teak sideboard where the dresser should be. But there was no sign, no feeling, no ambience even, of the scene they had just witnessed, that had been so real it had been as if she and Clive had been the ghosts and they, the menfolk of the farm, the warm, red-blooded living flesh.

  She shook her head to clear it of the last of the vision.

  “Are you all right?” Clive reached across the table and took her hand again. She felt it: big, warm and comforting, she wanted him to hold hers forever, but she could not speak. She smiled instead, a soft, warm, wavering smile full of tears, and squeezed his fingers.

  “I had an ulterior motive when I invited you here,” he admitted, looking deeply into her eyes. She dropped them, wondering if he still found her attractive. A long time ago they had kissed — only once, for they were each in relationships with other people. Although she had been glad when they had made an unspoken pact to be friends, not lovers, it had not stopped her thinking of him. She trusted him and he trusted her. Neither of them had spoken to anyone about their flirtation. Why would they? It had never happened, apart from the occasional flutter of an eyelid, a touch of the hand, or a double-entendre that set them laughing like conspirators.

  Now, in their silver years, they were both single again — a widow and a widower, and he had invited her to spend the weekend with him at a special cottage he had found in Norfolk. He had promised her a bedroom of her own, blazing log fires, red dawn skies, long drives through magnificent open countryside, walks by the sea on wide, sandy shores, a visit to Tree Henge, pub lunches with good local beer and dinner at a restaurant recommended by a good friend of his, and — his pièce de résistance — a place to read or to write in companionable silence.

  When they had arrived, she had not been convinced of the specialness of the cottage. It seemed ordinary, like many another former labourers’ cottage, apart from the fact that it was situated on the edge of the village with an uninterrupted view of ploughed fields and wild skies. But all he had promised had come to pass, with the one exception of log fires.

  She shivered, casting a glance into the empty grate and remembering the impression of a huge log burning there. Clive’s hand tightened on hers and she realised that all these thoughts had flashed through her mind in seconds.

  “Nothing like that,” he went on hastily, and she could not prevent a sigh of regret escaping her lips. “I have something to show you which may come as a surprise … or, in view of what we have just experienced, a partial explanation.”

  “Tell me!” Anne demanded, intrigued.

  “I think you know that I have been interested in family history for a long time?” he asked, and she raised her eyes heavenward with a half-smile. “I know, I tend to bore people with my discoveries! But I have some research here that I have to share with you.”

  Bending, he rifled through a bag he had stowed beneath the table and brought out a large sheet of paper rolled into a cylinder and secured with a rubber band. He flattened it out on the table.

  “This is a rough hand-scribbled version of my family tree. We start here in 1784 with Walter Shaw, a husbandman — what we would probably call a farmer today. Guess what? He lived here in this very village in Norfolk.” He ran his finger down and across the page to the right. “Two generations later we find John Shaw also in the village, also a husbandman, but now I have found an address, Henshaw Farm. I searched for the farm but I found no clues. Then one day, I was downing a pint in the White Hart and started talking to a man who was propping up the bar next to me. He said he had come all the way from Wyoming in the U S of A to research his forebears, the Shaws of Henshaw Farm. ‘Snap!’ I said and we were soon deep in conversation.”

  “What a coincidence!” Anne observed. “So — I presume you discovered some interesting information?”

  “I’m getting to that! It turned out that his name was James Thomas Shaw and he was tickled pink to find out that my name was Clive Shaw and that we were probably distant cousins. ‘Where are you staying?’ he asked, and when I told him he nearly fell off his bar stool. ‘But that cottage is what’s left of Henshaw Farm,’ he told me. You could have knocked me down with a feather!”

  “No wonder we had that strange experience, then. You must have a psychic link with your ancestors.”

  “Yes,” he said seriously. “But there’s more — and some of it has to do with you.”

  “Me?”

  “Let me go back a bit. See … here is Jack Shaw, born in 1837.”

  “Was that the man sitting over there?” Anne had gone as white as a summer cloud.

  “I believe so. James told me that Jack Shaw emigrated with his whole family in 1875. To Wyoming!”

  “So we saw true?”

  “Indeed, we did!”

  “But how does this concern me?” Anne’s brow wrinkled.

  “Your maiden name was Harris, I believe?”

  “Silly! You know that! Don’t tell me that you and I are related?”

  He raised his eyebrows knowingly.

  “But how?”

  “See here,” Clive said, running his finger down the left hand side of the family tree. Anne reached for the reading glasses she used for close work and put them on. “Eliza Shaw is Jack Shaw’s daughter. She emigrated with the family to Wyoming in 1875. She married Jeremy Harris there in 1878 and they had a son, John, in 1879.” He shifted in his seat and delved into his case once more. “I have some notes here that will interest you. It turns out that Jeremy was a foundling w
ho was taken in by the Shaw family and emigrated with them, but in the census of 1881, here are Jeremy, Eliza and their son, John, back in England and living in Norwich. I traced the ship they travelled on. But they do not stay in Norfolk long, because they move to the Isle of Grain in Kent and that is where we find them in the 1891 census — living there on a farm named Shawsden. The family had grown. There are now four daughters and another son.”

  “How fascinating! But are you sure they’re my relatives, too?”

  Clive grinned. “This son, Walter Harris, — why do families keep repeating the same names through the generations? It is so confusing! — was born in 1884. He was my great-grandfather on my mother’s side.” Once more he dived into the bottomless bag. “I have a present for you. Look at this chart here. Your own family tree. From which you will see that the same Walter was your great-grandfather, too, but on your father’s side!”

  “Goodness me!” Anne sounded as dazed as Clive looked delighted. “So we’re … let me see … third cousins?”

  “Right first time!” Clive squeezed her hand. “Which is probably why, together, we picked up so much about events that happened here all those years ago.”

  “Yes, I suppose so,” Anne said slowly, considering this revelation of their shared ancestry. “But presumably there must have been a marriage between cousins for your surname to be Shaw and not Harris?”

  “Quite right — you do have a sharp mind! Walter’s daughter Amy visited her relations in Wyoming and married one of them. I discovered that James Thomas was a second cousin of mine twice removed. We were both delighted, and I’m invited to visit him in Wyoming.” He paused: and the look in his eye made her blush, even at her advanced age. “I said I would go if you would come with me. Will you, Anne? Please?”

  Her first instinct was to demur. She knew she should refuse, but then she thought: ‘Why not?’

  “I’d love to,” she said and meant it.

  “Wonderful!” he cried, squeezing her hand hard and taking it to his lips. His eyes looked deeply into hers and she smiled. Her response encouraged him. ‘Should I ask now?’ he thought — and threw caution to the winds. “And will you marry me first, Anne?”

  She was taken aback by the suddenness of his proposal. But ‘why not?’ she thought recklessly.

  Hurriedly removing her spectacles from her nose, she looked up at him with love in her eyes. “I’d love to,” she said, and meant that, too.

  He stood up and pulled her into his arms, kissing her with the pent-up passion of years. Until she pulled away, red of cheek and breathless.

  “We should draw the curtains,” she said. “What would the neighbours think?”

  “What neighbours?” Clive asked. “There are none, my love, only the shades of the past.”

  “Actually, they’ve gone now,” she stated, her glance checking the whole room. “Our happiness has eclipsed their emotion.”

  “You are happy, my dear?” he questioned. But he gave her no chance to reply, kissing her again and again: most thoroughly and satisfactorily, depriving her of breath. He raised his head to ask a question, but she forestalled him.

  “Let’s go upstairs,” she whispered. Together they moved towards the door. A figure in the fireplace stabbed fretfully at Clive with his pipe and Clive stood stock still. His arms still around Anne, for whom he had waited so long, he smiled a rueful apology to the old man.

  “I almost forgot. This property is for sale. So what do you say, sweet cos, shall we buy this place and use it for holidays?”

  “What a marvellous idea!” she said, looking over Clive’s shoulder towards the fireplace where an old man rocked in the shadows. She thought he winked and her eyelid fluttered in return.

  They left the room wrapped in each other’s arms. Behind them, the room was filled with sudden light as if a log had flared in the fireplace. As the walls of the room rejoiced in the power of love, the last vestiges of the shades dissolved. Upstairs the bed creaked.

  But in the inglenook, an old, gnarled man rocked back and forth, back and forth, in the old oak chair, his eyes blissfully closed as he sucked on his old, clay, churchwarden pipe.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Marion lives near the sea in the beautiful Sussex countryside with a long-suffering husband, a lazy Saluki and an urge to write into the small hours.

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