The Fleethaven Trilogy (144 page)

Ella leant forward and whispered something in her
grandfather’s ear. The old man’s eyes watered and he
clasped her hand in his and held it to his cheek, before he
sank back against the pillows with a huge sigh, closed his
eyes and slept.

‘What did you say to him?’ Rob asked as they crept
downstairs.

‘Never you mind,’ Ella answered, but she was smiling
as she said it.

Rob grinned back. ‘Well, whatever it was, it seemed to
work.’

‘Yes,’ Ella whispered, and her smile was pensive for a
moment. ‘It did, didn’t it?

In the tiny bedroom with its sloping ceiling only inches
above her head, Ella lay awake. Though she was tired and
every limb ached from a day spent cooking, cleaning and
washing, she found sleep elusive. She was aware, so
vibrantly aware, of Rob sleeping downstairs, only feet
away.

She stared into the blackness, listening to the creaking
of the timbers in the roof, the wind rattling the loose catch
on the small window. Had she imagined that special look
in his eyes because she
wanted to see it there
? Oh, how she
wanted Rob to look at her like he looked at other girls,
like young men looked at the girl they were falling in love
with. With a groan she buried her face in her pillow. No,
it wasn’t possible. She must stop being so foolish, building
up her hopes. He was here to help her because it was her
gran
he’d always admired and loved. Soon, she told herself
fiercely, he’d be off again on his motorbike with Janice,
not her, on the pillion.

In the grey light of early morning, when Ella emerged,
yawning, from her tiny bedroom into the larger room
where her grandmother was sleeping, she stopped and
stared at the bed. The rumpled covers were pushed back
and the bed was empty.

She gave a click of exasperation and, crossing the landing, poked her head round the door of the bedroom
where, for the moment, her grandpa was alone. He was
still asleep, his mouth slightly open.

Ella hurried downstairs: there was no one in the kitchen
and the back door stood wide open, the late October
morning blowing coolly into the house. Her glance raked
the yard and she listened.

There was neither sight nor sound of her grandmother.

Ella sped back through the house and almost fell
through the door into the front parlour where Rob was
sleeping. Dragging open the curtains to let in the pale light,
she turned to see Rob sprawled on the couch, his arms
flung wide, snoring gently.

‘Rob! Rob! Wake up. Gran’s gone from her bed . . .’

‘Eh? What?’ He was awake in an instant and throwing
back the covers. Startled, Ella gave a shriek and turned
away. Rob was completely naked. As she hurried from the
room she heard his low chuckle.

In the kitchen she shook the fire into a glow.

‘Where d’you think she’s gone?’ Rob asked, buckling
his belt as he came up behind her. He grabbed his boots
from under the scullery table and began pulling them on.

‘I don’t know.’ Ella bit her lip. ‘You go and look in all
the sheds and the barn. I’ll go round the front of the
house.’

Checking first that Esther was not in the lavatory, Ella
ran round the corner of the house, past the pond, through
the orchard and squeezed through the hole in the hedge.
Early-morning mist clung to the hedges and shrouded the
fields.

‘Gran,’ she called, and her voice echoed in the stillness.

She ran back into the yard to see Rob emerging from
the barn. ‘She’s not here.’

‘Did you check the loft?’

When he nodded, Ella bit her lip. ‘Where can she be?
Where would she go?’

They stared at each other and then together said, ‘The
Spit!’

They were running side by side, over the westerly dunes,
across the marsh to the eastern dunes, along the beach and
out to the promontory, Rob’s long legs taking him ahead
of Ella. He called back, ‘She’s there! I can see her.’

Breathless, dragging cold air into her lungs, Ella looked
up to see the solitary figure, standing at the very end of the
sand-bank jutting out into the sea, the water lapping all
around her. Her white night-gown flapping round her bare
feet, a shawl pulled around her shoulders, Esther stood
there motionless, just staring at the water. Rob had slowed
his pace so that he did not come upon her suddenly and
startle her and Ella was able to catch up with him.

‘Gran,’ she said gently, but the breeze whipped away
her words and tossed them into the sea. Nearer, she said
again, ‘Gran . . .’ but it wasn’t until she touched the old
woman’s shoulder, making her jump, that Esther was
aware of their presence.

‘Gran, whatever . . .?’ Ella began, but Rob touched
Ella’s arm and said softly, ‘Be gentle with her Ella. Summat’s
caused this. Go easy.’

Ella put her arm about the thin body and turned Esther
round, gently steering her away from the water’s edge and
back along the Spit. Still Esther’s gaze was upon the
lapping waves, mesmerized by the water.

‘He drowned here, y’know,’ she said suddenly and,
turning, gripped Rob’s arm in a surprisingly strong grasp
for one who had become so frail. ‘Then Kate drowned too.
They’ve all gone now. I don’t want to live. I don’t want to
go on wi’out him. There’s no one left now he’s gone an all.
And Ella too – gone, all gone. I’ve lived too long . . .’ She was staring up at Rob, seemingly oblivious to the fact that
Ella was there too.

‘Come on, Missus,’ Rob said kindly. ‘Let’s get you
home. Ya’ll catch ya death out here.’

She tried to pull away, tried to turn back towards the
water and, afraid she meant to plunge into its depths, the
two youngsters clung on to her. Struggling, swaying from
side to side on the narrow bank of sand and shingle, in
danger any minute of toppling into the water, the three of
them staggered back towards the beach. When the sand
bank widened out and they reached safety, Ella and Rob
glanced at each other with relief.

‘Oh, Gran, your feet are bleeding!’

‘Come on, Missus,’ Rob said again firmly and, putting
one arm under hers and around her back, the other under
her knees, he swung her up into his arms and carried her.

‘I’ll run ahead and get some bricks into her bed. I keep
some in the oven all the time now, for Grandpa . . .’ Her
eyes widened. ‘Oh, heck! I didn’t go back in to see to him
this morning, what with all this . . .’

She was running ahead of them, like the wind across
the marsh, panting up the dunes, slipping and sliding down
amongst the elder trees, sobbing now with relief at having
found her gran, but weeping too with the sadness of it all.

Poor Gran. She had lost her reason. To remember her
as she had been and to see her now, like this, was breaking
Ella’s heart.

Wrapping three hot bricks from the oven in the range
in pieces of blanket she staggered upstairs with them and
put them into Esther’s bed. Downstairs again, she put the
kettle on the fire and found, at the back of the cupboard, a
bottle of whisky. Vividly, the memory came back of how
her grandmother had put whisky in some hot milk to warm her, chilled as she had been when the cold waters of the
North Sea had invaded their home.

At that moment, Rob manoeuvred his way through the
door and, without stopping, carried Esther straight upstairs
and laid her in the bed. Esther closed her eyes and lay back
against the pillows.

From the other room, they heard Jonathan’s voice.
‘Ella? That you Ella, lass?’

Ella hurried to the other bedroom and lifted the latch.
‘I’m sorry, Grandpa. It’s all right now, but Gran—’

‘Ella! Come here!’ It was Rob shouting from the other
room and, fear rising in her throat, Ella rushed back again
to see her grandmother struggling to get out of the bed
again and Rob valiantly trying to stop her.

‘Oh dear. What is the matter with her?’

‘Let – me – go,’ Esther was shouting, suddenly amazingly
strong again. ‘It’s him – I want to see . . .’

‘I think she wants to see your grandpa,’ Rob said, and
released his hold. ‘We’d better let her.’

Ella put her arm about her grandmother. ‘Come on
then, Gran. Let’s take you.’

They went out of the room, across the tiny landing and
into the bedroom where Jonathan lay, his eyes turned
towards the door. Her white hair dishevelled, her eyes
wide, Esther peered, almost fearfully, round the door.
Then she stood just staring at him and Ella felt a shudder
run through the frail body.

‘Esther, my dear. There you are.’ He held out his hand
to her.

Trembling Esther reached out with her own. ‘I thought
you were – dead!’ she whispered.

Ella gasped and above her grandmother’s head she
stared back at Rob who had followed them.

‘That explains what she was rambling on about,’ he
muttered.

‘Come on, get in here with me,’ Jonathan was saying,
pulling back the bedclothes. ‘This is where you belong.’
With a whimper, like a lost, frightened child, Esther
scrambled into the bed and snuggled up to him. She laid
her head on his chest and he wrapped his arms about her
and stroked her hair. ‘There, there. It’s all right,’ he said,
and though he still sounded tired, he was smiling happily.

Ella, tears blurring her vision, stumbled from the room
and quietly pulled the door closed behind her.

‘Come on, I reckon I need a drink more than she does.’

Downstairs in the kitchen, Ella sat at the table, resting
her arms on the scrubbed surface, staring into the distance,
whilst Rob mashed a cup of tea and tipped a measure of
whisky into it.

‘I shouldn’t have separated them,’ she said, contrite. ‘I
shouldn’t have put her in the other room. She thought I’d
done it because he’d died.’

Rob nodded. ‘Well, he’s a lot better now, isn’t he?
Surely, she could move back into her own bed now.’

Ella nodded, and murmured, ‘It’s the only place she
wants to be.’

When Ella told him what had happened, the doctor said,
‘It must have preyed on her mind as to why you’d moved
her. Perhaps she’d been dreaming that he was dead and
woke up believing it, became disorientated and wandered
off. It wasn’t your fault, my dear. You were only trying to
do what you thought was best to give them both some
rest.’ The kindly man’s eyes were comforting rather than
reproachful. Then he added, ‘I understand the Spit has had
special significance for Esther all her life?’

Rob, standing beside Ella, said, ‘Me dad says she often
went out to stand at the very end of it, specially when she
was unhappy. It was where her first husband’s body was
washed up when he was drowned.’

‘Poor woman,’ the doctor murmured as, carrying his
medical bag, he followed Ella up the stairs. When she
opened the bedroom door and they stepped into the room,
it was to see the two old people, still wrapped in each
other’s arms, soundly asleep.

The doctor stood watching them for several moments,
observing with his trained, experienced eyes. ‘Tender
loving care,’ he murmured softly. ‘I don’t think I’ve anything
in here,’ he tapped his bag, ‘to beat that, Ella. Let’s
leave them be.’

Downstairs, he said, ‘I think you should get your
grandfather up each day, just into a chair in the bedroom
at first. I’ll call again tomorrow and give them both a
thorough check. He looks more himself already. He’s a
much better colour.’

‘And Gran? Will she be all right? I mean . . .’ Ella asked
anxiously, ‘. . . her mind?’

The doctor smiled. ‘I’m sure your grandmother will be
fine. She’s still weak and exhausted. Once her husband’s
well again, you’ll see, she’ll be back to her old self, ordering
everyone about.’

Ella smiled, wanting desperately to believe him. ‘I never
thought I’d be saying it, but I hope so. Oh, I do hope so.’

With each day, Ella could see her grandparents improving
steadily and, reassured by the kindly doctor who still
visited every other day, without being asked to do so, Ella
took time to write a long and loving letter to her father
and her grandmother in York to explain how things were at home – her pen hesitated over the word but she left it
as her first instinct had written it – home at Fleethaven
Point.

Grandpa Godfrey is very ill and weak and Gran
cannot cope alone. I rather think she is ill too,
possibly just exhausted, but they do need my help.

She paused in her writing and looked out of the kitchen
window across the fields, seeing not, as there should have
been, row upon row of neat brown furrows, but uncut
corn left to rot, or stubble where Uncle Danny had
managed to harvest the field for Esther.

As soon as they’re better, I’ll make a start, she promised
silently, as she bent her head again to begin another letter,
this time to her former employers in Lincoln. She wrote
apologizing for the swiftness of her departure, explaining
the reason, and was surprised to receive by return of post
a courteous letter from the man she had thought rather
cold and pompous.

If you should decide to return to office work,
please do not hesitate to contact us, when we should
be happy to reconsider your employment with
ourselves.

Ella smiled wryly, wondering whether the condescending
tone was deliberate or not. Perhaps he could not help
writing in that vein. Ella folded away the letter and went
out to clean out the grate under the copper in the washhouse.

‘Bit late in the day to be starting washing, ain’t it?’

Ella looked up, her face grey with ash. ‘Hello, Gran,
what are you doing out here?’ Esther was still in her night-gown, with a shawl around her shoulders and her feet
stuffed into her wellingtons.

The old woman sniffed. ‘Grannie,’ she said automatically.
‘I’ve spent long enough in me bed. Time I was up
and doin’.’

Ella stood up. ‘About time an’ all!’ She grinned back.