Chapter 19
19
1915
They’d all seen the telegram arrive, the boy on his bicycle coming all the way from Pickering to deliver it. This was one of the worst things – nobody knew what to do. Should they go round, offer some comfort? Or pretend not to know yet, let Lilian break the news as she saw fit?
‘Let the poor girl be,’ Mrs Dobson said, settling her arms comfortably on the top of the pigsty. ‘We all know what it’ll be, her young man, that one from York as she was courting, he’s been shot down over France or somewhere. She’ll need a bit of time.’
But when Nell saw Lilian setting out to walk up onto the moor, she knew where she would be going.
‘Lil!’ Nell ran to catch her up but Lilian didn’t slow down. ‘Lil!’
‘I’m going up to the stone.’ Lilian didn’t sound herself at all. Her voice was broken and strange, as though she were an old woman now. ‘I have to go and tell them.’
Nell ran faster. ‘Lil!’
‘I have to tell them he’s gone.’
‘What, them as is under the stone?’
Lilian stopped and turned. Nell took a step back. She’d never seen her friend look like that before, red-rimmed eyes and a face so white that her freckles stood out like pebbles. ‘I have to tell them.’
‘That’s bees, Lil. You tells the bees when someone is… when something happens.’
‘He was going to marry me, Nell. He really was. He said so before he went away, he said, when he got leave first thing he’d do was find me and marry me.’
‘I know.’
‘And I have to go to the Stone and tell them he won’t be coming.’ Lilian stumbled and then crumpled to the ground. ‘He won’t be coming, Nell. Not ever.’
Nell sat down on the damp tussocky grass and put her arms around her friend, while she sobbed and sobbed herself into blank-faced acceptance.
Now
We unpacked, cooked and ate whilst chatting about weather and childhood pets, nothing meaningful, and went to bed. I lay in my chilly room, listening to the water run past over the ford in the quiet air, and tried not to think about Connor, lying similarly quietly in his room, a wall’s thickness away.
He’s not Elliot.
But Elliot’s gone.
I like him. He’s rather sweet, in a peculiar way. Great cook. And his conversations aren’t that bad.
But he’s not Elliot.
Am I so lonely that I’d fall for any man that was nice to me? Any man that made the nights feel a little less dark and long?
Elliot wouldn’t mind. He wouldn’t want me moping and weeping forever. After all, if I had died, would he be still living alone? Or would he have kept my memory but moved on in the real world? He was pragmatic, he worked with wood. He saw how life didn’t have to come to a dead stop just because of death – it might take a different shape from that moment, but it went on.
Am I so lonely that I’m seeing something that isn’t there? He’s kind, he didn’t want me spending Christmas alone, that’s why he invited me to Dublin. He’s never so much as put a toe over the landlady/tenant line. He’s been nothing but friendly, and I’m mooning over him.
And he’s not Elliot.
But Elliot’s gone…
I fell asleep and woke late to a chill grey light and a sense of relief that Connor was flying to Dublin, and I’d got at least a week to get my sensible head back on. By the time he got back I’d be deep into the book, I’d be busy and casual and dismissive. I’d have fixed that damp patch over the door, and he could be as friendly and cook as many meals as he liked, but I’d be looking forward to his eventual removal back to Ireland.
Besides, he still wanted to lift my stone.
I stretched and yawned into the quiet. Maybe Connor had already gone? A late flight didn’t mean he might not have wanted an early start. I pulled on my dressing gown and padded down the stairs to the kitchen for tea, with a sense of relief.
Connor hadn’t gone. He was sitting glumly at the table, staring alternately out of the window and at his phone. He hadn’t even put the kettle on yet.
‘What’s up?’ I asked cautiously.
In answer, he waved at the window. A duck perched on the ledge, waiting for crusts.
‘Yes? They can’t get in, you know.’
‘No, beyond the duck.’
I crouched to see past the feathery bulk and saw the snow. It lined the river edges, so that the water cut through its deep whiteness like a black thread. Further back the hills wore a uniform white. The track was invisible and the trees that overhung it had branches so heaped with snow that they bent beneath its weight as though the wind had become visible.
‘Oh, bugger,’ I said.
‘Bugger is right. I’ve rung every taxi company for twenty miles, and nobody is moving today anywhere off the main road.’ He stared at his phone screen again as though a miracle might be about to burst forth. ‘The amount of snow seems to have caught everyone by surprise,’ he said, glumly.
‘What are you going to do?’
‘Well, I’ve had a shout at the Met Office so that was therapeutic.’
I stared at him, kettle suspended halfway to the tap. ‘You rang the Met Office to tell them off because it snowed more than you thought it would?’
A half-laugh. ‘No, no, of course not. It’s not their fault. I shouted at the app. Then I checked the news and the forecast, and it’s set to freeze. Looks like we’ve got another Beast from the East.’ Another mirthless laugh. ‘All the planes are grounded anyway, so I might get my money back for the missed flight.’
‘Urgh.’ I filled the kettle, glad that I’d closed the office now and didn’t have to even pretend to try to struggle up the hill out of the little valley. ‘Chess did say they were forecasting a white Christmas.’
‘So, anyway, I rang home and cancelled myself.’
The kettle wobbled as I had a momentary panic. He had to go! I needed to get my thoughts in order and my equilibrium back. ‘Can’t you go tomorrow? Or the day after?’
Connor gave his phone another resentful look, as though it were responsible for the sudden change of plan, and then put it firmly down on the table. ‘Tomorrow doesn’t look much better, and the day after is Christmas Eve,’ he said.
‘Yes, but things still move.’ My voice had a slight note of terror, it was high and a bit strained. ‘People travel on Christmas Eve. They’re noted for it, in fact. I think there’s even a film about it.’
He looked at me curiously. ‘I know. But it’s hardly fair to Mam and the family, to have them all on edge about whether or not I’m going to come walking in like the return of the prodigal, is it, now? Better for their planning to say I’m not going to be there, than to have them panicking about the number of sprouts and puddings they need.’
‘Oh.’ This sensible and considerate thought hadn’t occurred to me.
‘But I won’t be a nuisance. I won’t interfere with your Christmas plans; I can make myself a cheese sandwich and get some work done.’
‘I don’t have any Christmas plans.’
‘You were going to Chess’s open house, I thought. Cocktails, wasn’t it, now?’ He put his head on one side and looked at me from under a flap of hair.
‘I only said I might,’ I said defensively, aware that I knew as well as he did that the chances were high that inertia would have kept me in the cottage. I might have intended to drive the twenty miles to Chess’s place, and throw myself into partying and playing daft games, but, ultimately, would I have really done it? Or would I have walked the silent lanes and come back to wrap myself in a blanket and remember past Christmases, as I’d done for the last three years, because it was easier? Easier to live with memories than make new ones.
‘Ah, well. If all this melts tomorrow I can take myself off to York or somewhere. I’ve a few of the lecturers who have offered me Christmas dinner and a sofa if I want, if I couldn’t make it back to Dublin.’
‘That’s… nice of them.’ I didn’t know what I wanted in that moment. The snow to instantly vanish, and Connor miraculously to be able to go back to Dublin? Or a forecast thaw, with him heading to a Christmas lunch in York, where they would discuss current historical theories over a turkey and drink thick red wine with pudding and talk about Romans?
Or him, here? Captive, in the cottage over Christmas, which sounded disturbingly like the title of a Hallmark Christmas movie – that, or a Stephen King book.
I became aware that I was staring at him, blankly. ‘You can stay here,’ I said. ‘There’s food.’
‘I know. I put most of it in the cupboard last night.’
My confused thoughts were interrupted by a peremptory rapping on the window. An orange eye was angling in, and feet paddled on the ledge.
‘The ducks are waiting for their toast,’ Connor observed neutrally. He didn’t seem upset by my seeming lack of enthusiasm at probably being stuck with him, snowed up for Christmas.
‘Yes, yes, we ought to have breakfast. Of course.’
He stood up. I thought he was going straight for the toaster, but he came across to me and touched my shoulder gently. ‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘It really is.’ Then he scuffled over to the bread bin and began making toast and tea, without elaborating on what it was that was okay.
Did he mean that it was all right that we hadn’t exactly got a complement of Christmas foods? Or was he reassuring me that his family wouldn’t mind this sudden change of plan? Or that his presence wouldn’t disrupt my own Christmas festivities?
Or was he telling me that this Christmas was going to be different? Which, of course, it was, obviously. I was trapped in my own house with a man who… well, he was still my adversary in the matter of folklore versus history, but apart from that… I didn’t quite know how I was meant to be reacting to him.
‘I’ll probably be up in my room for most of the day today,’ Connor said eventually, bringing the toast over to the table. ‘I’ve got a little bit of work to do – I was going to sort it out over in Ireland, but I can do it here as well as anywhere. So you don’t need to worry about amusing me.’
‘I wasn’t in the least worried about amusing you,’ I said briskly. ‘You’re stuck here, you can amuse yourself.’
He laughed. ‘Ah, go on, a little bit of amusement between us wouldn’t be a bad thing!’
I wondered what form he thought this amusement would take, and concentrated very hard on my toast.
‘I might need you too. I’m looking into the Evercey Manor thing,’ he went on, not even the slightest bit abashed by the fact that my cheeks were beginning to heat up. He might not even have noticed, hopefully. ‘Big Catholic house, all the workers in the faith too. You know that a lot came over from Ireland in the 1840s?’
‘Makes sense.’ I swallowed a painful crust. ‘Fleeing the famine, freedom of worship, all that.’
‘It’s made me think.’ Carelessly he opened the window and flung out a crust. ‘Your Fairy Stane stories, would they have begun around then?’
I thought. ‘Early to mid-nineteenth century, so, yes, I suppose so. That’s about as far back as I can trace a lot of the stories, because that’s when people started to write them down rather than pass them purely through word of mouth. It’s when folklore began to gain some traction – people could see the rural ways of life being lost to industrialisation so they started recording some of the tales.’
Connor nodded. ‘Well, I’m thinking there may be a crossover with some Irish stories and legends, y’see.’
I boggled. ‘I thought you thought folklore was a waste of time?’
He gave me a level look. ‘I never said that.’
‘No, but you… you’re a historian !’
Connor stood up. ‘I’m a Roman historian by training but I’m an Irish boy by birth, and my granda was one with the songs and the stories. I’ve got Irish legends in my blood, the fairies and the bean sidhe and all.’
‘But you want to lift my stone!’
He stood for a moment, staring out of the window at the white acres that stretched off into the distance. ‘I’ve got an idea about the Fairy Stane,’ he said. ‘Not so sure about my Roman settlement but it could link Evercey Manor to your folk tales. I need to do some reading, and possibly talk to Eamonn first. And then , well, then I think we might need a wee look at what’s underneath.’
‘The land of the Little People,’ I said grimly. ‘Fairyland. The otherworld.’
‘But don’t you want to know ?’
‘No!’ I snapped, slamming my plate down onto the table. ‘No, I don’t. There has to be mystery and the unknown – that’s why the supernatural is so popular! People need their fairies and their ghosts, because if we discover everything – then what have we got to be curious about?’
Then I turned and stormed out of the kitchen and stomped up the stairs to shut myself in my bedroom.