Ten
Verity thanked the driver of the rattling old coach, stuffy in the hot murky day, as she got off at the stop just past the Olde Plough. She had been to Wadebridge where she had been window-shopping, just for something to do. She had to be careful with her money. She had enough to last the summer then she must look for a job. She might find a secretary’s post or something in the town that she could travel to daily. One thing she was certain about, while still weighed down under the hurt of her parents’ unjust rejection and with her confidence taken a battering over Julius Urquart’s mocking remarks: she needed the security of living with her doting aunt and uncle. The soothing experience of living in what she now considered her home was wearing off a little, however, and doubts as to whether she could make something of her future were sticking uneasily in her mind. She also had less to occupy herself with now the Templetons had moved back into Merrivale.
Fiona had insisted on returning there before all the finishing touches were done, saying she would not impose on Dorrie and Greg any longer than need be. After her husband’s cruelly blunt letter, everyone had expected her to plunge again into the dark murk of depression, but while there were times Fiona had cried wretchedly for hours, she had risen every morning and dressed well from her small collection of stylish clothes. She shunned make-up and pinned her hair back in a simple bun. She was, in Greg’s words, ‘Valiantly soldiering on, and good for her.’ She tended to Eloise quietly and with little emotion, willingly relinquishing her to others, but she took her for long walks along the lanes in her pram, avoiding the village. Until she had moved out of Sunny Corner she had shared in the cooking and housework and in the evenings read a wide selection from the eclectic study-library. Guy had now supplied her with a bookcase crammed with books of every subject.
Having agreed to Guy’s generous suggestion that she become Merrivale’s housekeeper and receive a wage for the care of his (further clever suggestion) country retreat, she had selected the curtain material and bed linen for the cottage and made a list of the furniture she thought would suit its more charming new look. Fiona insisted her wage would be modest, enough to live on without her relying on Finn to bring money in. ‘He must lead his own life,’ she had remarked without emotion. ‘I won’t be responsible for dragging him down.’
Finn was still working on Merrivale and he spent his earnings on Eloise and things for his room. Sometimes he helped with the labouring of the village hall. When it was reported he had been in Newton Stores ordering art pencils and a sketch pad, Esther Mitchelmore had stumped up for him a box of artist’s requisites, including an easel, palettes, oils and watercolours and brushes. ‘Here boy, with the silly name,’ she had called, and thrust the box at him while arriving on the building site, in a siren suit, to ‘put her hand’s turn’ in on the building. ‘My late husband fancied himself a bit of a dabbler but he was not very good at it. You’re welcome to it. I’ll give you your first commission, landscapes of Nanviscoe for the village hall. They’ll only be on display if I consider them good enough, of course.’ She had smartly killed off Finn’s effusive thanks. ‘One thank you is sufficient. No good to me gathering dust. When this building is up and running, call at Petherton; I have a job for a pair of strong arms like yours, clearing out my cellars.’
The awful thing was, although Fiona had apologized to Finn for hitting him so fiercely, marking his cheek for days, they were barely communicating, avoiding looking each other in the eye. Neither would reveal what they were thinking despite Dorrie’s gentle probing. Dorrie was worried. ‘This isn’t good for them or the baby. Eloise isn’t quite so settled now. Babies pick up on a bad atmosphere. Merrivale has lost its old gloom but Fiona and Finn will create a new one. It’s such a shame. Aidan Templeton-Barr has a lot to answer for.’
‘They have Guy,’ Greg had pointed out. ‘He’s a constant in their lives, and so are we. Fiona and Finn are going through a time of painful adjustment. With all our help they’ll come through.’
Fiona may have given up moping in her bed all day but someone else had taken to hers: Delia Newton. The day she had yelled out in Faith’s Fare she would make the women there sorry for making jibes at her – wholly warranted jibes, the village as one had agreed – she had stormed home in hysterical tears and summoned the doctor. Soames had announced she was suffering a complete nervous breakdown, but by the cheery way he was now running the shop on his own he didn’t seem particularly concerned about his wife. Delia’s put-upon cousin, Lorna Barbary, had the unfortunate task of scurrying about to Delia’s whims and demands, no doubt, and listening to her constant whingeing. Few customers in the shop bothered to ask how Delia was faring and those who did were told by a shoulder-shrugging Soames, ‘Just the same. Now what can I get you?’
Verity had heard nothing from Julius Urquart and was glad about it. If she ever saw his smug horsey face again she thought she might sink an axe in it. Sometimes she even thought she understood the need to murder, and she would go on to ponder the reason why a paid killer had been sent to slaughter Neville Stevens and Mary Rawling. The Stevens family had moved out of Nanviscoe but Mary Rawling’s widowed mother remained, mostly shut away in her tiny cottage further along By The Way lane. Verity had been struck at how her forays along the lane always stopped at the Vercoes. Did Mrs Rawling feel shunned, isolated and forgotten? Even Aunt Dorrie, who never left anyone out of her field of kindness, rarely mentioned her. As far as Verity was aware, if Mrs Rawling wasn’t seen out for a while no one bothered to wonder why. That wasn’t right, and Verity resolved to talk to Dorrie about it. If strangers like the Templetons could readily be given committed help then why not a villager whose family had dwelt there for generations?
Verity set off for home, using a hand to fan her face and the bare skin above her dusty pink, short-sleeve V-neck cotton blouse. She longed to take off her ankle socks and canvas shoes and cool down her overheated feet. Once in Newton Road, she would soon pass the hall building, its foundation stone laid last month by Honoria Sanders. She would take a look at it and say good afternoon to the workers, a different batch with various skills. The road had a slight incline and the hall was being erected behind a hedge topped with elm trees. A break had been made in the hedge and the road was muddy with tractor tracks and cart ruts bringing building supplies. There were water splashes from the buckets and cans that had been filled at the village pump that stood near the school, and taken to the site by whatever means were available each day, usually wheelbarrows and handcarts.
Carefully negotiating the entrance in case a vehicle was about to be driven out, she found a miscellany of villagers hard and happily at work. The older men were wearing caps or hats as their habit dictated.
‘Hey there, darling!’ Greg called out and waved, halting in sawing a long length of timber.
‘Don’t stop for me, Uncle Greg,’ Verity called back. ‘I’ve just come to take a quick look.’
Finn was pouring water into a pool he had made in a pile of sand and cement and he began mixing it with a Cornish shovel to the right consistency for laying block. His movements were deft. He impressed everyone that a boy from a posh background was up to menial jobs, working at back-breaking speed and never complaining. He had accumulated a following of dreamy-eyed girls. Now the long summer holiday had begun they brought him drinks of lemonade, sherbet and tea, willingly sacrificing their precious sweet ration by offering him squares of chocolate and toffees. The fact that Finn kindly refused to take their offerings made them idolize him all the more. But Finn was apt to gaze far into space and stay silently in his own thoughts, and the men ribbed him that he was ‘sweet on some young maid’. Finn did not bother to deny it and flatly refused to be drawn on it, and Verity and Dorrie wondered if the girl concerned was Jenna Vercoe, although Finn took little notice of her and actually seemed to feed her in Sam Lawry’s direction, but that could be a ruse.
Verity exchanged greetings with Finn and the other workers. Hector Evans, an erudite, sharp-witted little man racing up to his sixty-eighth birthday, stooped and pale from his decades spent down the coal pits of his birthplace, was laying blocks for the front wall with methodical skill. It had been his dream to settle in the Cornish countryside on his retirement, and as he had never married or smoked and was a light drinker, he had managed to save for the move to rent one of Jack Newton’s cottages. His good heart and generous hand had seen him accepted as a Nanviscan. He had a miner’s troublesome cough and joked that bronchitis or pneumonia could ‘put me in me box as quick as lightning’. ‘Hello, cariad, you’re a lovely sight to gladden an old man’s eyes, as usual,’ he said, his wise hooded eyes twinkling. Verity loved to listen to his soft, melodic Welsh lilt.
‘And it’s lovely to see you again, Mr Evans,’ she laughed in return. At that moment Verity knew for certain that she belonged in this village. Her parents didn’t want her but her aunt and uncle did, as did all the other inhabitants, with perhaps the exception of Delia Newton.
Mr Walters, the middle-aged headmaster, was also there with his sleeves rolled up above his bony elbows, and with him was a willing line of his older pupils scything and hacking down a hedge and some younger ones clearing up after them. Verity knew that the children, including all the rough-and-tumble Vercoe youngsters, were excited about the village hall and eager for the sweets Mr Walters shared out to them.
‘Ah, more help on the way.’ Greg pointed to the entrance behind Verity.
Glancing round, she saw Belle Lawry clutching four large Thermos flasks against her shapely chest with effortless grace in her posture. Belle must have come from Faith’s Fare. Her shining jet-black hair was swept back with combs at her temples and the rest swayed luxuriously on her graceful shoulders. ‘The ravishing gypsy girl,’ Greg called her, adding, ‘I could see her living contentedly in the wild.’ Turning back, Verity saw Finn become board-still and stare at Belle with total admiration and longing. Verity smiled to herself. So it was Belle who he had a crush on. Then she was alarmed to see Finn’s face fall in undisguised disappointment and anger. Verity glanced round again. Charlie had joined Belle and he had slipped an arm round his wife’s trim waist. Oh dear, Verity thought, possible complications.
‘I’ve brought another willing pair of hands for a couple of hours,’ Charlie said, holding up his hefty mitts. Toned in the body and well muscled in the shoulders, his features reflected his cheerful nature. His tow hair was thick and wavy, his masculine attraction set for the rest of his life. His adoration for Belle shouted out of every inch of him. ‘Sam will do a stint tomorrow morning. Weather’s set fair for a couple days then we’re in for some rain, so the forecaster on the wireless said, but we can see that for ourselves. I hear Mrs Mitchelmore wants all work to stop here at the end of next week and all hands to be put to setting up for the Summer Fair.’
‘That’s right. I don’t suppose we’ll have any choice but to obey the Mistress of the Manor,’ Greg laughed.
Verity took her leave and continued the walk to Sunny Corner, believing that if Finn didn’t keep his feelings for Belle in check he would make a dreadful fool of himself.
A minute later she heard the familiar roar of a fast engine: Jack Newton’s Triumph Roadster. It paid to be cautious when he was bombing along the lanes and she squeezed in tightly with her back against the hedge.
Driving with the top down, he slowed down and stopped next to her without his usual flamboyant skid of stones and dust. ‘Hop in, Verity, I’ll drop you home.’ He flashed the whitest teeth in the locality.
Since arriving at her aunt and uncle’s she had only seen him at the meeting at The Orchards. He had winked at her and she had smiled back. She liked the farmer, who had allowed her as a child to ride his ponies and play in his farmyard. She had sighed wistfully over him with her teenaged girl cousins for his outrageously handsome rugged looks and powerful physique. A few years on it had struck her that he was only ten years older than she. She laughed aside his wanton ways with a never-ending string of women, and in fact admired him, as her aunt and uncle did, for employing more ex-servicemen than his farm needed, saying they deserved every help and opportunity, the men who made the real sacrifices and endured, in his words, ‘the most bloody awful experiences’ while he had been refused entry to military service and been forced to work the land during the war. He considered he had had it cushy and felt guilty about it, the mark of a good man. Verity was curious about his personal life. His marriage had been ill fated; after a few months his reclusive young bride had hung herself in his gardens. He never mentioned it and there was hell to pay if anyone else did. Dorrie, one of the two locals who had met Lucinda Newton, had confided that she had seemed to live life on a different plane to everyone else. In the end it seemed the mysterious young woman had not been suited to life at all. Jack Newton now lived partly as a gentleman farmer and spent his copious spare time driving fast cars, shooting game, playing golf around the county and pursuing women.
‘Thank you, Mr Newton,’ Verity replied. ‘I’ll be grateful to get home and freshen up.’
With his deep-set eyes he slowly looked her up and down. ‘I can see you’re overheated but you are prettily pink. Call me Jack. We’re on the same par.’
Verity was flattered he no longer saw her as a child and had now taken notice of her. It broke the chains Julius Urquart had clamped on her soul. Why shouldn’t men want her? She did not need to flirt to attract men. While in Wadebridge many a man had lifted his hat to her and glanced back at her, and a father and son cleaning shop windows had both wolf whistled at her.
‘I’ve just taken a peek at the hall. It’s going up nicely apace. Aunt Dorrie and I are going to help Jean and Jenna Vercoe to run up the curtains for the windows and the stage. There’s been a generous donation of blackout material. Jean is going to add some appliqué to brighten them so it won’t seem so dark.’
‘The hall is the best thing ever for the village,’ Jack said, slowing at a bend as if suddenly mindful of his passenger’s safety. ‘And with my second cousin’s ridiculous wife playing melodramatics it’s great not to have opposition. The vicar won’t bother to continue with his objections without Delia stirring him up.’
‘You think Delia is crying wolf? Aunt Dorrie sent her some flowers and Delia thanked her with a shakily written note. We were beginning to feel sorry for her and rather guilty for upsetting her that day.’
‘Don’t ever feel sorry for that woman!’ Jack’s handsome features radiated loathing with a passion, but it made him look empty and sad. Verity sensed he was recalling a personal slight to him. ‘She’s an out-and-out bitch. She’s feigning illness to make the rest of you suffer. She’s very good at that. Sorry.’ He shook his head to dislodge the negative rage, and smiled warmly again. ‘She has that effect on me. I was sorry to hear your engagement failed.’
‘I’m not sorry at all,’ Verity replied. ‘I would have had a miserable life. Lucky escape and all that, it’s in the past. Now I’m looking towards the future.’ She wondered if his harsh statements perhaps referred to the bitter, jealous Delia making life miserable for his tragic late wife. Delia delighted in that sort of thing; one only had to look at how she treated her own cousin, Lorna, a drab woman of humble circumstances, taken into Delia’s kitchen and wash house when Lorna had become homeless after her parents’ deaths.
‘Any idea what you’d like to do, Verity? I know you’ve done important office work.’
They were driving up to the crossroads. ‘I don’t mind really as long as it’s a bit of a challenge.’
‘A challenge? I can’t exactly promise you that, Verity, but I might have the very thing for you.’