Finding Home in Hartfell (Hartfell Village #1)

Chapter Fifteen

Pippa practically lived on soup for lunch, and she’d made some yesterday from the glut of plump local tomatoes Violet had in abundance in the village shop. A couple of hours after eating her own, she warmed up a generous portion and carried it upstairs for Gil. She knocked quietly and heard him mutter, ‘Come in.’ Taking a deep breath, she pushed the door open.

His hair was dishevelled, and he blinked blearily as he ran a hand through it and eased himself up on the pillows. ‘How long have I been asleep?’

‘About three hours, it’s almost five p.m. I thought you might be hungry.’

‘Is it vegetarian?’

She toyed with launching the tray onto his lap from where she stood until she saw his smile. ‘Tomato and Wensleydale soup and Violet’s finest sourdough. But you know, if you can’t eat a meal without meat, I can always take it away.’

‘Why are you cooking for me?’ He avoided her gaze as he rearranged the pillows again.

‘Technically I’m not, it was ready, and I just heated it up.’ She placed the tray on his lap, thinking he looked a little better. He turned away to cough, clutching the tray with one hand to keep it steady.

‘You’d be better keeping your distance.’ Gil straightened up and glanced at her, voice cracking. ‘This doesn’t feel very nice. I haven’t been ill for years.’

‘Lucky you. There’s ibuprofen too, to keep you topped up. And it’s probably too late to worry about that now, seeing as I’ve been in the caravan.’ She paused. ‘Where do you shower in that thing?’

‘I don’t, Dorothy lets me use hers. Does my washing too.’

‘Dorothy does?’ Pippa couldn’t have been more amazed if he’d said Lola did it. Dorothy seemed like the kind of woman who’d never met a household chore in all her life, much less took care of Gil’s.

‘She is my aunt,’ he said, eyeing the sourdough hungrily. ‘Well, great-aunt. Pretty much the only family I’ve got, apart from my boys.’

‘Oh! Your aunt? Right.’ Pippa backed away. That explained a few things. ‘Lola’s fine, if you were wondering. I thought I’d take her for a walk, I’ve brought her food over from the caravan.’

‘No point, I’ll be going back later.’

‘Actually, you won’t.’ She was at the door, ready to sprint down the stairs just in case. ‘I’ve staged a little intervention.’ Might as well get it over with.

‘What are you talking about?’ He put down the spoon to stare at her.

‘It’s for your own good,’ she babbled. ‘Sometimes you’re too stubborn to do what’s best.’

‘What have you done?’ Each word was delivered more slowly than the last.

‘I might have removed the mattresses, that’s all. Put them somewhere else.’ She was on the landing now, wondering if he’d catch her before she could reach her car.

‘Where have you put them, precisely?’

Oh well, she thought wildly. In for a penny, and all that. ‘The muck heap,’ she told Gil triumphantly, enjoying the disbelief filling his face.

‘You what?’ he roared, shoving the tray aside and slopping some of the soup. ‘The bloody muck heap?’

‘Yes,’ she shouted back, finding it very cathartic. ‘The bloody muck heap, where they belong! You’re staying in this house even if I have to chain you to the bed.’

Oh, that sounded a bit exotic and was way out of her remit here. Maybe another time. She shot down the stairs, grabbed Lola and her lead, and raced out of the door. Hopefully by the time she returned he would have calmed down.

During the walk this morning, Hazel had pointed out where she lived, next door to Edmund, the local historian, and Pippa was soon outside his picture-perfect cottage on a narrow lane just off the main street. A red front door was cheerful between white rendered walls and sash windows, a pair of matching pots stuffed with summer bedding plants either side. Her knock was answered a moment later by an elderly man with a thin but very upright frame, whose sharp eyes belied the tremble in his hands.

‘Ah, Pippa, my dear. Come in, I’ve been expecting you.’ He moved back to allow her to pass him.

‘Hello, it’s lovely to meet you. Thank you for seeing me.’ She glanced down at Lola, sitting patiently at her side. ‘I hadn’t planned to bring Lola with me. Is it okay if she comes in as well, please? I can drop her back if not.’

‘No need, the more the merrier. She’s very welcome.’

‘Thanks so much.’ Pippa stepped straight into a sitting room, and blinked. Every surface was laden with books, box files and teetering piles of paperwork. Cluttered didn’t do it justice and she wondered how he ever found anything in here.

‘I’m Edmund Osborne, and of course I know who you are. Hazel told me.’ Edmund nodded. ‘She sends her apologies, by the way. George is rather poorly this evening, and she didn’t feel she ought to leave him.’

‘I’m sorry to miss her. I hope he’s okay.’ Pippa thought she might pop some tomato soup round to Hazel; she had plenty left and it would be a way to thank her for the introduction to Edmund.

‘Well, he’s not too good, but they cope. Marvellous neighbours, we’ve been friends for nearly forty years.’

‘Wow. How lovely.’ She hovered with Lola as Edmund swept a heap of magazines from a wingback chair beside the fireplace and pointed to it. She thanked him and sat down, Lola at her feet, excitement tightening in her stomach. Might she find out Ivy’s story here, learn how it connected to her own life? The fire was lit and the room warm, so she slipped off her gilet, leaving it on the arm of her chair.

‘May I offer you some refreshment, Pippa? Earl Grey I’m afraid, it’s all I drink.’ Edmund chuckled. ‘That and the whisky to help me sleep.’

‘Earl Grey would be perfect, thank you. Can I help?’ She made to move out of her chair, trying not to be too impatient.

‘No, thank you. Why don’t you have a look at this whilst I make the tea?’ Edmund removed an A4 book, pale green and thick, resting on top of a box file on a coffee table. ‘I think you might find it helpful for the period you’re interested in. Hazel mentioned Nineteen Twenties.’

‘Thank you.’ Pippa accepted the book and opened it, realising it was a history of the village, beginning in 1918 after the end of the Great War and continuing to 1938, right before the Second World War. Pulse pattering a little faster, she carefully turned the pages, eventually pausing when she saw a wedding notice from May 1931, when a twenty-three-year-old Ivy Dixon had married twenty-five-year-old Albert Walker.

Pippa was transfixed by the accompanying black-and-white photograph, gulping at the sight of the young couple staring solemnly back. Who were these people and how might they be related? She hoped very much that Edmund would have the answer.

‘Ah, I see you’ve found who you are looking for. Ivy Walker, née Dixon.’ Edmund had returned with a tray and he set it down, with some difficulty, at one end of a square dining table. ‘She and Albert were well known and liked around these parts from what I’ve discovered. Lived here all their lives. Hatched, matched and dispatched, as the saying goes.’

‘I wondered if she and Albert may be my great-grandparents.’ Pippa was stroking Lola’s head resting on her knee, taken by surprise at the sudden catch in her voice. She’d been thinking about the possible connection, and this was the most obvious one.

‘They were indeed. Their daughter, Janet, was your grandmother, your mother’s mother. Milk or lemon?’

‘Oh!’ Pippa’s hand flew to her mouth. She’d been half expecting this news but still it startled, to have her suspicions confirmed. ‘Oh er, lemon please.’

Edmund poured two cups of tea and added lemon to both. He passed one across and she thanked him, itching to continue the conversation. But she sensed he would not hurry, that he was methodical and would find the details in his own time and in his own way.

‘I expect you’d like to learn more about them, Pippa? I take it you haven’t researched your family tree?’

‘I haven’t, but I’d love to know more. Thank you.’ Staring into the past meant confronting her family’s loss and until now she’d always preferred to look forward.

‘There are more photographs in the book. Why don’t I let you know what I’ve found so far, and you can ask questions as we go along.’

‘Perfect.’

‘Well, like many folks around here, Ivy and Albert both came from farming families. The estate in the village was considerable back then, although much of it has been sold now, and the farms are in private hands. They both went to church at the old Methodist chapel and attended Sunday School, and I expect they would have helped on their respective farms from an early age. Later in life, Ivy was known as an excellent cook and she baked for occasions like weddings and funerals, church events. Each farm would have had their own dairy and produced butter and cheese. All traditional skills which are almost lost today, sadly.’

‘And school?’ Pippa was slowly turning pages, finding Ivy and Albert’s names popping up in church notices and faded farming photographs. One depicted Albert leaning on a rake beside a trailer piled high with hay, the women in headscarves sitting with baskets, children at their feet. Ivy was at the back, and Pippa gasped as she stared, recognising something of Harriet in Ivy’s determined stance and dark hair.

‘She went to school in the village and would have left at fourteen. There was no high school then and she likely went straight to work on the farm. Her own family one, in those days. Perhaps she still helped out there after her marriage.’

‘Fourteen?’ Pippa couldn’t keep the surprise from her voice. Exactly the same age as Harriet now, and she couldn’t imagine launching her daughter into the world of such toil so young.

‘Yes. Ivy was a countrywoman, she would have known and understood that life. I can see how that might look regrettable to us now, but it was just how things were then.’ Edmund drew his cardigan more tightly around his narrow shoulders. ‘Ivy and Albert had three children but only Janet survived into adulthood.’

‘Survived?’ Her mind caught on that word, almost dreading the reply she expected to follow. Her family had eased further from their Yorkshire beginnings as her dad’s fame grew, and she remembered her grandparents, but only just. There was so much she didn’t know, so much she’d never thought to question.

‘I’m afraid so. Sadly, I found a record of two more births, both of which infants only lived for a few weeks, I’m sorry to say. I imagine your grandmother was especially precious to Ivy and Albert.’

‘I had no idea. How terribly sad,’ Pippa whispered, startled by the hurt she felt for family she’d never known, the immense pain Ivy and Albert would have carried for the loss of those tiny babies. They’d lived so long ago and yet they were connected to her, related by blood. Edmund was speaking again, and she refocused.

‘Have you visited the churchyard yet, my dear?’

‘I haven’t.’ It hadn’t occurred to her, though of course the church was a place where she might learn more.

‘You’ll find Ivy and Albert’s graves on the right-hand side, about halfway along the path. I believe your grandmother is buried somewhere else, with your grandfather.’

‘Yes, my grandparents lived in town, it’s where they had their furniture business.’ Pippa remembered the last time she’d seen them, after the loss of her mum. They’d been shocked and distraught, hollowed out by grief for their daughter and her family. Within two years they’d gone too.

‘Thank you, Edmund, I really appreciate everything you’ve shared with me. I knew my parents were born in Yorkshire but until I came here, I didn’t realise my dad was from Hartfell and my mum had a connection to it as well. Now I understand who Violet meant, when she said I had a look of Ivy. I think I can see Ivy in my daughter too.’

‘Yes, Violet would have been a very small girl, but she remembers some of those days, more clearly than recent ones, I fear. And of course your dad lived in the cottage next door to the shop.’

‘Next door? Wow.’ Pippa had barely touched her tea and she drank it quickly, impatient to visit the churchyard and check out the cottage. One day she’d ask if the owners would let her have a look inside – this was where having a famous dad would come in handy. And she’d thank Violet too, when she saw her. Hands reaching down through history, a person who’d met both Pippa and her great-grandmother. It was staggering.

‘Would you like to take that with you?’ Edmund nodded at the book on her lap. ‘It’s my only copy, though, it’s been out of print for some time.’

‘I’d love that, thank you so much. And of course I’ll look after it.’

Edmund seemed a little tired and she didn’t want to keep him. She stood up, placing the precious book on her chair as she slipped the gilet back on, and he handed her a card with his telephone number and email address. Lola looked expectant, so Pippa gave her a cuddle for being so patient and good.

‘There is one more thing about Ivy I think you might find interesting, Pippa.’ Edmund reached past her to open the door. ‘I understand that she was a very gifted artist. Watercolours, I believe. Apparently she loved the landscape around Hartfell and painted it extensively.’ He patted Pippa’s arm kindly. ‘I see I have shocked you again, my dear.’

‘Do you know what happened to her paintings?’ Pippa’s palms were clammy, and her heart was racing.

‘I’m afraid I don’t. I doubt that she ever showed her work and there’s no trace of what happened to them. They may never have been sold as they probably had little commercial value. Perhaps she kept them, or gifted them to friends and family, and they’ve been lost down the years. There would have been no thought of her pursuing art in a professional or educational sense. We’ll never know if Ivy ever questioned her life on the farm or whether she wanted a different one. We can only hope that she found fulfilment in the life she led, with her husband and family, and the paintings she created.’

Pippa thanked Edmund again as she left, the book tucked carefully under one arm, Lola’s lead in her other hand. She wandered on through the village, unseeing of anything other than a woman from the past, painting the landscape Ivy loved, and which must have been such a part of her soul. Eventually, she returned to the shop and stared at the narrow and neat cottage next door, trying to picture her dad living in there and running these lanes with Gil’s dad. She’d come back another time and knock on the door.

She walked on to the church, running up the steps to open the gate, knowing she wouldn’t be able to settle until she’d found where Ivy lay and could acknowledge her in some way. Neat pots of brightly flowering plants lined the uneven stone path and some of the headstones were faded and leaning, names and details of lives blanked from all but the memory of those who’d come after them. Pippa checked each in turn until she found the right one.

A plain and simple headstone marked the resting place of the Walker family. Albert, who’d died nine years before Ivy, passed away at seventy-nine; both parents lying with their two tiny babies, gone before their time. Standing in this place, staring at the past, Pippa felt connected to the village and these people in a way she’d never imagined. This couple had spent their lives in Hartfell and all she wanted was to escape and return to the city. Who, other than a few friends and perhaps a couple of colleagues, she was shocked to realise, would really notice if she never went back?

She took a photo of the headstone with her phone and walked slowly back to the house, thinking about Ivy’s life and her art. Had it sustained her through troubled times, the loss of her babies, in the same way painting had lifted Pippa from the depths of grief for her mum and the worry over her brother and sister? She drew because it was necessary to her, because she simply couldn’t not. Had it been that way for Ivy, too?

She fed Lola, who devoured her dinner and settled in her bed after a quick trip into the garden. Thankfully being parted from Gil for a few hours hadn’t put the dog off her food, and it was an unpleasant reminder for Pippa to realise that as far as Lola was concerned, this house was home. She was ready to eat too, and decided she’d better check on Gil and see if he was hungry. Upstairs his door was partly open, so she tapped and peeped around it, letting out a shriek when he spoke behind her.

‘I am decent, you can turn around.’

Decent wasn’t the word she’d have chosen. Magnificent, with just a towel wrapped around his waist, was more like it, and her voice was a croak. ‘I’m not sure you should’ve showered with a temperature.’

‘Too late to worry about that now. I felt like my skin was crawling off me. Were you looking for me, seeing as you were in my bedroom? Again.’ Amusement was glinting in his gaze. ‘Are you after stealing another mattress? And what have you done with my grandfather clock?’

‘I wondered if you’d like something to eat. I’ve made chilli, I’m going to heat some up for me. And the clock is quite safe, it’s in the workshop. I have no idea how anyone slept with it in the house.’

‘Right. So, is this when you tell me you’ve taken the hob from the caravan as well, so I can’t cook?’ He walked past her to the bedroom, leaving the door open.

‘Not yet. But, you know, if you have any crazy ideas about going back in that thing… So do you want me to bring you some up or not?’

‘Is this chilli vegetarian as well?’ He caught sight of her face and his laughter turned into a bout of coughing. ‘Sorry, I was kidding. Right now, I’d eat anything and would appreciate it. Thanks.’

‘You’re welcome.’ She couldn’t get used to having a conversation with Gil that was polite and him mostly naked. ‘You should get dressed before you catch a chill.’

‘Well, I would if I was alone.’ He raised a brow, and she backed out hastily before he did anything silly, like dropping that towel. ‘Unless…’

‘No thank you,’ she squeaked, catching her heel on that blasted rug, and nearly going over backwards.

‘Pippa, what did you think I meant?’ His eyes were dancing with laughter as he approached the door. ‘But, hey…’

‘Still a no.’ She charged down the stairs and into the kitchen before she did anything silly, like shoving him onto the bed. A startled Lola leaped up and barked when Pippa burst in, apparently believing that she must be in mortal and immediate danger. Pippa patted her, trying to reassure both of them that she really wasn’t. At least not the kind that could easily be fought off by a sturdy dog.