CHAPTER 62
Joanna
New Year’s Eve
Joanna was enjoying the drive. Although it was still cold, the sky was an edgy winter blue and the sun hazy in the sky. She was wearing a warm coat and scarf, so she put the soft top down on the Mazda, and her music on shuffle. She checked her mirror, indicated, moved into the fast lane.
‘Born to be wild . . .’ she sang. Well, not wild perhaps, but at least free.
Free to do what she wanted – within reason; free of guilt at leaving Mother and Harriet behind in Dorset – thanks to Henry who was more than happy to take over where she and Harriet left off.
But Mother seemed to have regained the joy in her days – the losses she’d been mourning: of a son she’d never known, of a husband who had never fully forgiven her earlier transgressions, of the attention that could make her forget just how much she had given up .
. . Tradesmen therapy indeed. Joanna chuckled.
All seemed to have faded in the light of that son having come back into her life.
Joanna thought back to what she had discovered in the Dorset History Centre just before Christmas.
She’d had a hunch – well, it was more than a hunch.
She kept seeing that face, those tears – Emmy in the paddle steamer travelling up the Thames and looking up towards Waterloo Bridge.
And she remembered the dark family secret.
Supposing it wasn’t the liaison between Emmy and Rufus that was the secret? Supposing it was something else?
She’d asked the research assistant at the Centre if she could see the microfiches for local newspaper records and she handed over the card that had been given to her on her first visit.
Emmy’s last known painting dated from 1913 – a year before war broke out.
Would Rufus have gone to war? Could that explain why there were no photographs of him with his wife and children after those early ones when the children were young?
Maybe, but she wasn’t so sure. Joanna inserted the first microfiche into the machine.
She had another theory. She’d assumed he had ended the relationship because of Emmy’s bleak last letter and the decision she’d implied Rufus was about to make.
But . . . supposing he’d regretted that decision; bitterly regretted it?
Supposing he couldn’t imagine life without her?
Or . . . And this had made her stop in her tracks and stare unseeing at the screen.
Supposing Emmy had been the one who made the decision – knowing that she couldn’t take her lover away from his wife and family and live with herself afterwards? Supposing Emmy had broken it off?
Sweetest love I do not go
For weariness of thee,
Nor in hope the world can show
A fitter love for me . . .
This made perfect sense and somehow Joanna knew she was right. Emmy had ended it. Rufus was heartbroken and planted the mulberry tree in memory of their love. He’d even changed the name of the cottage he lived in. But it wasn’t enough, was it? The truth was, he couldn’t go on without her.
*
Three hours later Joanna found what she was looking for. Local landowner at the centre of scandal and mystery, she read. It was him. William Shepherd. Rufus. She scanned the column. And yes, it had been as she’d imagined, exactly as she had seen.
A shiver ran down her back. John of Nepomuk.
He had replayed it for her. But how could she have seen?
Unless she was there – in that time. Or they were here – in her time.
Or time . . . well, or time didn’t run on in quite the way she’d always thought.
It was all so confusing. She thought of the sands of time, the shape of Emmy’s journey, that hourglass that she had first noticed when she’d had the idea of following in Emmy’s footsteps for the bridge walks.
Was that a coincidence too? Or was it a touch of magic?
Joanna took the microfiches back to the research assistant.
She was ready now. Ready to visit Emmy’s grave.
For some reason, she’d been directed along this path.
Fate or some spirit guide or a force she didn’t understand .
. . Someone had brought her to this point.
The least she could do was visit the place where Emmy had lived, lay flowers on her gravestone.
And that was where she was heading now.
Because Joanna knew what had happened to Rufus.
And she knew that what she’d seen in London – Emmy sobbing her heart out as she travelled up the River Thames in a paddle steamer – had been Emmy’s pilgrimage to mourn her dead lover.
In fact, Joanna knew the whole story. She had, in some way, been shown it all – in Venice, Lisbon and Prague.
The only things that she didn’t understand were why and how.
Joanna was, though, a descendant of William Rufus.
And she was certain that this meant she had a part to play.
Perhaps because Emmy didn’t want their love to die?
Joanna hummed and sang along to her playlist as the winter countryside, the honey and thatch of Devon flashed past. She thought of Harriet and Owen and smiled.
She’d seen them outside in the moonlight on Christmas night standing under the mulberry tree, his arm around her sister as if he meant never to let her go, Harriet’s head resting on his shoulder as if she was quite happy about that. It was about time.
Joanna had always guessed that Owen was in love with her sister – why else would he have done so much to help their family? He was a kind man but what he had done was way over the call of a dutiful neighbour. Harriet, though – sometimes her sister couldn’t see what was right in front of her.
Things were beginning to assume a twist of synchronicity that was pleasing. Joanna eased the MX-5 back into the middle lane. It seemed pretty safe to assume that at some point in the future, Henry would be moving into Mulberry Farm Cottage and Harriet would be moving next door. Sorted.
The music changed. The Cure. Ah, now this would be on Joanna’s Desert Island Discs.
‘Just Like Heaven’. She accelerated – the Cure always got her that way.
Joanna hadn’t yet decided where she was going to make her base.
It needed to be somewhere tranquil where she had the space to think and she needed to be able to get to London and airports too.
It might be Dorset. Somehow, Joanna knew that she and Harriet would become even closer now.
So much had been laid bare over the past few weeks, so much resolved between them.
They’d probably always clash. Neither of them had had personality transplants.
But beneath the clashes would be understanding, sisterhood, love.
She let her shoulders relax. She even understood a bit more about her relationship with her father now.
Joanna must have reminded him of his wife – often somewhere else in her head, always hard to pin down.
Whereas Harriet . . . Harriet was serious and loyal and would follow him to the end of the earth, no questions asked.
Harriet, his older daughter, belonged to him completely.
She would never let him down. She never had.
There was a high mist now on the hills – one of those shimmering, winter mists that made the landscape seem almost other-worldly.
As she drove, Joanna noted the way the light was creeping under the mist, seeping and spreading over the hilltops in front of her, turning the grey into silver as if with the touch of a magic wand.
She could understand why artists liked to come here to paint and maybe Emmy had been inspired by living here too? The quality of the light was unique.
The song ended on a wistful note. But Joanna felt hopeful.
What would she find when she reached her destination?
Just a gravestone, or something more besides?
It felt like a pilgrimage. In the bag on the passenger seat beside her she had Emmy’s letters tucked into a small metal box.
She had thought carefully about this, and decided that she wanted Emmy to be reunited with them at last. Emmy had brought so much to Joanna’s life – not only a new way of seeing; she had helped Joanna discover the part of herself she had lost. In the end, she supposed, you might find the magic anywhere.
A place or a person might light the blue touchpaper that turned to a flame.
That’s how it seemed. But perhaps, all the time, the spark of the magic was inside you. Just waiting for the moment.
There were banks of rough granite and dry-stone walls visible now, as the landscape changed again.
She could see open fields too and a wind farm on a distant hill.
She drove on towards them. Maybe she’d never find out more about Emmy, maybe this truly was the end of the journey.
But in some ways, despite the winter air that was cool on her face, despite the fact that this year was soon to end, Joanna’s journey felt more like a beginning.
*
A couple of hours later – including a break for a sandwich for lunch – and she was there.
She found the village easily and spotted the pretty weathered stone church with four spires which stood next to the church hall.
She parked the Mazda, got out and walked through the black, wooden gate.
There were graves to both sides of the path, a few scrappy winter wild flowers sprinkled in the long grass and undergrowth.
Where to begin? The wind was sighing through the trees and Joanna was conscious of a feeling of desolation that made her shiver.
There was a little porch with hydrangea bushes guarding the entrance of the church and a small bench.
A notice on the old wooden door cautioned people to shut it in order to prevent swallows getting trapped in the church.
And up in the beams above the porch she thought she could see where they were nesting.
Back in the graveyard, she peered at the names on the gravestones, some of them barely legible. But no Emily Selleck.
It took her ten minutes to find Emmy’s gravestone, which was half hidden, tucked in the corner round the side of the church.
She ducked under the tree beside it, ran her fingers over the headstone, tracing out the lettering .
. . Emily Selleck 1895–1991, kind and beloved, may she sleep in peace.
Who were her beloved, Joanna wondered? Did they know anything of Emmy’s story?
She hadn’t married – Selleck was her maiden name.
But she must have had family and friends here in this village where she’d lived most of her life.
There were flowers on her grave, wilting now and past their best. Someone had laid them.
So perhaps after all, Emmy had descendants of her own.
She cleared her throat. ‘I want you to know,’ she said, ‘that Rufus kept your letters.’ She tucked the little box gently under the gravestone, where the gravel and the worn grass seemed to be making a hollow for it.
She pushed the gravel closer around it so that it was nestling and secure.
‘And he planted a tree for you – a mulberry tree. You know what that means . . .’ She would know, wouldn’t she?
‘And he renamed the cottage where he lived. For you. He cared’ – her voice broke – ‘very much, Emmy.’
Joanna was relieved the place was deserted. She took a step back. That was it then. But . . . she was conscious of a feeling of anti-climax. As if once again she was missing something. As if there must be more.