Memories of the Storm (24 page)

PS. I can't get over the horror of Lucy living
with this ghastly thing for all these years.

In the cathedral, outside the chapel of St John
the Baptist, Lucy stood staring up at the Chagall
window with its vivid jewel colours and strange
animals and the winged people playing all kinds of
instruments. She glanced at the plaque below the
window which proclaims, 'O praise God in his
holiness . . . let everything that has breath praise
the Lord', and indeed it looked as if all the oddlooking
creatures were rejoicing in some way. She
wished that she too could rejoice: she knew that it
was incumbent upon her to rejoice, to be grateful
and happy now that she knew that a lifetime's truth
had all been a terrible mistake and that Eleanor
had lied.

Staring up at the window, Lucy steadily swallowed
down the bitter-tasting bile of resentment and
anger – and guilt. Why, she asked herself, why was
it not possible simply to accept the truth and be
glad? After all, she
was
glad – of
course
she was glad
to know that her father was not guilty of killing his
friend and running away. Here was the relief for
which she'd longed; that she could think about him
again, freely and lovingly. And she wanted to – oh,
how she wanted to – and yet, following fast on
the heels of the shame and misery she'd nursed
in secret for so long, had come a huge wave of
bitterness and terrible rage that was steadily filling
the great space where once the secret horror had
greenly flourished, and was cramming itself into
every little corner so that there was no room left for
joy.

Fiercely Lucy stared away the tears that brimmed
in her eyes, blurring the glorious colours and the
happy, dancing creatures. Her tears of bitterness
distorted the joyful scene and she blinked them
away, touching the back of her hand to her eyes,
setting her lips more tightly together.

'Why didn't you tell me before?' Jerry had asked,
shocked. She'd seen at once that he was terribly
hurt to know that she had never shared with him
something that had been such an integral part of
her. She could almost see him thinking: What else
might she be hiding? and she'd been filled with new
anxiety and despair. To damage Jerry's trust was
unthinkable.

'Listen,' she'd said urgently, kneeling beside
his chair, holding his hands, 'just listen for a minute
. . .' and she'd told him the whole story properly,
trying to show that, even by the time they'd met,
she'd buried her knowledge so deeply that it was
impossible to disinter it. Even as she talked she
could see the pitfalls looming ahead of her: if she'd
buried it so deeply then why had it continued to
affect her so much? If she hadn't needed to confide
because it wasn't important then why was she now so
adversely affected by this new discovery?

She'd thought: I can't win with this one. He's
simply got to trust me. He must understand that
this doesn't reflect on him in any way.

'I knew there was something,' he'd said at last,
'but I always put it down to the fact that you'd lost
both your parents so traumatically.'

'And part of it was,' she'd cried, hoping to lessen
the importance of the other thing in his eyes and so
preserve his confidence in her need of him. 'And
you helped me to deal with it, Jerry. You know you
did.'

They'd talked for hours, until they were both
exhausted, and Jerry – true to form – was already
beginning to think less about his own shock at her
secrecy and more about her reaction to Jonah's
discovery.

'But you can be happy now?' he'd said hopefully,
making it more a statement than a question –
almost willing her to accept the joy – and she'd
responded quickly that she could, of
course
she
could, relieved that he seemed to be ready to accept
that no harm to their relationship had been done.

'Poor old Luce,' he'd said. 'Poor Luce. What a
terrible thing to live with. But now you'll be free of
it. Thank goodness Jonah got to the truth of it.'

She longed to repay this generosity, to be
happy simply because it would delight him to
see her step free. Consciously she concentrated
on the wonderful news – Edward had not died –
reliving the nightmare scene in the light of this
information, seeing how everything fell into
place. There
was
joy here, and relief, but at the
same time it seemed that some great emotion
against which she'd pitted herself for so long had
been unexpectedly removed; as if she'd leaned all
her life against a restricting wall that had been
suddenly toppled, and now she was kneeling
helplessly amongst the rubble rather than standing
upright, gazing out at a new and glorious view. This
was crazy, she told herself anxiously. Surely she
hadn't been actually
dependent
on the fear and
horror and guilt? Yet it felt as if she had been; as if,
in somemacabre way, it had sustained her, and now
that it was gone she felt exposed and confused
amongst the ruins of the carefully constructed
lie.

Occasionally, her hatred of Eleanor threatened to
overwhelm her and she prayed for deliverance
from such a destructive emotion. Yet it seemed
unbearably cruel that those few words should have
had the ability to poison her life: to make her
unable to think happily of her father whom she'd
loved so much. And then there was Hester . . .

'She'd love to see you,' Jonah had said, 'only she
thinks you might need time to adjust. She sends her
love.'

That had been several weeks ago and still Lucy
was unable to make the necessary gesture of friendliness.

After all, she never wrote to me: the thought
rose childishly in her mind and Lucy dismissed it
with an impatient exclamation of self-contempt.
Hester's behaviour too must be seen in the brighter
light of the truth. Here was the chance to make all
things new, the real opportunity to change for
which she'd strived, and she seemed incapable of
taking it. Turning from the window she made her
way through the cathedral, back to Jerry; past
the Lambert Barnard paintings of the Bishops of
Chichester where they'd first met, and back home
to his hopeful, watchful gaze that longed to see her
set free at last.

Coming out of All Saints' church, Clio paused for a
moment to look out over the trees and roofs of
Dulverton with a sense of pleasure. She loved this
little town, and the prospect of living in it excited
her. In her bag were the details of a flat for rent: a
small piece of an old house, high on an attic floor,
from which she would have a view much like this
one.

Clio was seized with a tremor of excitement and
apprehension at the prospect of this further step
towards complete independence. She'd driven
Hester into Dulverton this morning, to do some
shopping and go to the library, whilst she collected
the details of the flat from the estate agent's office.
Having made an appointment to view she'd
come out into the street, passing around the double
flight of steps outside the town hall, still clutching
the details in her hand and glancing at it now and
then as if she could hardly believe her luck.
Collecting her chaotic thoughts, she'd folded up
the paper and pushed it into her bag, determined
not to allow herself to become too hopeful. That's
when she'd decided to spend a few minutes in the
church.

Ever since Christmas she'd fallen into a habit of
taking a few moments out of the rush of her newly
expanding life; going into All Saints' to sit in the
corner of a pew, to spend time in meditation. Very
occasionally she recaptured a fleeting sense of the
peace and joy she'd experienced at the convent,
though most of the time she'd find that she was
simply allowing plans and anxieties to crowd out
any quietness of mind.

Nevertheless, she clung firmly to Blaise's advice:
'Never forget what you've experienced but don't
come to rely on it.' She didn't rely on it but
gradually she was coming to value these moments,
and now, standing below the medieval tower that
watched over the town, she felt a tiny echo of
that peaceful detachment from stress bringing her
strength. She took in a deep breath, noticing the
daffodils fluttering in the sharp, cold April breeze,
listening to the bustle of the town drifting upwards,
before she set off down the path. Passing under
the lich-gate, through Bank Square and into Fore
Street, she saw Hester emerging from the library
and hailed her.

'I've got an appointment for tomorrow afternoon,'
she told her triumphantly. 'It looks good,
Hes. It's very small but it's all newly done up. Three
flights of stairs, though! I'll be thin as a rake. I was
hoping you'd come with me to view it. Will you be
able to manage them, d'you think?'

'As long as I'm allowed a breather on the way up,'
said Hester cheerfully. 'Of course I shall come.
Time to go home?'

'I'm afraid so,' answered Clio regretfully. 'I wish we
could stop for coffee but I've got to dash over to the
Coles to meet someone delivering furniture. We'll
stop off and have tea and delicious cake in Lewis's
tomorrow after we've viewed the flat. I asked the
agents if they had anything new that might interest
you but nothing has come in that you haven't already
seen. I wish you could find something, Hes.'

'So do I,' said Hester, waiting for Clio to unlock
the car doors. 'The difficulty is that I don't know
quite what it is that I want, which makes it rather
complicated.'

As they drove out of the town Hester quelled a
twinge of uneasiness, determined to trust this sense
of waiting that had grown so strong: it was a gift,
knowing how to wait, and she was trying to accept it
patiently.

'Something will turn up,' Clio said confidently,
buoyed up by her own good fortune. 'I just know it
will. I'm sorry I can't stop, Hes. I should be back
about four o'clock if all goes well but I'll phone you
if I get held up.'

They crossed the little bridge and then Clio
reversed the car, turning so as to be ready to drive
out again. Hester climbed out, clutching her library
books and her shopping, and waved her off. It was
only after she'd found her key and unlocked the
door that she saw the parcel leaning in the corner
of the porch. Clearly the postman had been unable
to fit it through the letter-box earlier and she
hadn't heard him ring the bell.

She carried her things in and then returned for
the parcel, a medium-sized Jiffy bag, reused and
with Blaise's familiar writing. It was with a sense
of anticipation that Hester went through to the
kitchen, pushed the kettle onto the hotplate and
then hurried back into the breakfast-room to open
the parcel. St Francis came pacing to meet her,
jumping up onto the table and pressing himself
beneath her arm, purring a welcome. She stroked
him with one hand, holding the letter with the
other, waiting for the kettle to boil.

Darling Hes,

I'm sorry it's taken a little while to answer your
letter. There was so much in it to think about and
I've spent a great deal of time trying to take it all
in. Yes, I did suspect that Eleanor might be at
the root of the problem but I had no idea of the
extent to which she might have harmed Lucy. No
wonder that she didn't want to talk about the past
to Jonah or that she had tried to wipe us all from
her memory. At one point, in a previous letter,
you wrote that Jonah said she had decided
that the time had come to confront the past in
order to deal with new difficulties in her life; she
needed to change in order to cope. Well, we can
only be grateful that she was courageous enough
to go through with it. I fully agree with you that
the thought of her carrying this weight for so
long is appalling but what worries me now is that
she might buckle under new pressures. To keep
this secret hidden for so long will have required
energy and determination, and their sudden
removal might allow other adverse feelings to
flourish in their place. Imagine the temptation
she's under now to put all that energy into hating
Eleanor and feeling bitter about the damage
she's suffered! I'm sure that she will want to
embrace this opportunity for change but it might
prove surprisingly difficult. I remember writing
to you about something like this back last autumn
and reminding you about the enclosed book on
the teachings of St John of the Cross, which I
know you've read. It just might help if you read it
again in regard to Lucy. I admit to feeling fearful
for her, Hes. She'll need help, and who better to
give it than St John of the Cross? Of course I
might be quite wrong but I send it because it feels
right of this moment when you are both very
vivid with me. I've marked some pages relating
to the
desire
for change and the importance of
remembering
that desire when one feels incapable
of any effort and overwhelmed by failure. I wish
you could get her to Bridge House – I feel that
it's important.

Anyway, enough of this for the present. There
is something else I want to 'talk' to you about,
Hes. I've been feeling for a while now that I
should retire from the chaplaincy at St Bede's
although I hope to remain available for the
sisters and the Abbey, should they require my
assistance at any time. A younger man, just
retiring from parish life but looking for a house
for duty, is very willing to take my place at St
Bede's and I've decided to move into Hexham.
Would you consider joining me, Hes? Do you
think we could share a house together as we once
did all those years ago? I have some savings and
you should get a reasonable share when you sell.
Shall we buy a small cottage or a flat together? I
know how much you love this part of the world
and how attached you are to the sisters. I think
we could be happy, Hes. Let me know what you
think.

The rest of his writing blurred and swam as she
stared down at the page and she was conscious of
a high whistling noise that had been going on
for some time in the background. The kettle
was boiling. Hester put the letter down and
briefly buried her face in St Francis' warm fur
before hurrying through to the kitchen. Happy,
grateful tears poured down her small face as she
made coffee and took it back with her to the table,
settling down to read part of the letter again and
again.