Whisper on the Wind (53 page)

‘We will, Paul.’ She lifted his hand, touching his upturned palm with her lips, closing his fingers around it. ‘Keep that kiss for your next take-off, to bring you luck. Where should you have been going tonight – or can’t you tell me?’

‘I shouldn’t, but tonight would have been a piece of cake; a milk run. We were going razzling, as a matter of fact.’

‘Going
what
?’

‘Razzling. Dropping nasty little strips that ignite when they’ve dried out – set fire to big areas of woodland and fields of almost-ripe corn. Right out in the German countryside, away from guns and night-fighters we’d have been. Like I said, an easy one, but it would have counted.’

‘Never mind, darling. I think Someone up there knew I needed you with me tonight – and I did, Paul. I’m glad you’re here. Just think – a week from now we might even be married.’

‘We
will
be.’ He rose to his feet, taking her hands, drawing her close. ‘Walk with me through the orchard, Roz? Best I get back, just in case there’s a flap about Sugar. I’ll talk to the padre again, first thing tomorrow. And try to eat something. Promise me you’ll take care.’

They said goodnight at the little gate, standing close, not wanting to part.

‘I love you, Paul Rennie.’

‘And I love you, my lovely girl. Fifty years from now, I’ll still be loving you.’

She stood in the half light, watching him walk away from her, wrapping him round with her love.

Take care, my darling
…

Arnie walked to school the long way round; along the narrow road and around the big, sweeping bend that led to the village. That way he didn’t have to turn his face away as he passed Ridings, and didn’t have to walk past St Mary’s and see the deep, dark hole in the churchyard. He didn’t want to look at where they would put Mrs Fairchild, but when it was all over and the flowers were there to keep her company, he’d go and stand beside her, have a big, long think about her. Not today, but soon …

Today, Aunty Poll had packed sandwiches for him to eat at school at dinnertime and an orange she had stood in a queue for at Helpsley. He usually came home for his dinner, but not today because Aunty Poll would be at Ridings and busy with the funeral and funerals were no place for a little lad, she’d said.

It was funny, he frowned, that when he was expected not to cry he was a big boy, nearly ten, and when Aunty Poll wanted him
not
to do something he was no more than a nine-year-old tiddler. He wished she would make up her mind. And he wished Mrs Fairchild was still here. She’d been his special friend and she’d promised to teach him to play chess when he was ten. He missed her already. Almost always in summer when he walked to school by way of the farmyard and the apple orchard, he’d see her there in the ruins. She’d always been pleased to see him and always found time for a talk.

Last night, he’d gone to Home Farm because Aunty Poll had said it would be a kindness to help Mrs Ramsden and that maybe, if she had someone with her, she wouldn’t burst out crying so much. Very inclined to tears was Grace Ramsden – at the weepy age, Aunty Poll said – and if she had a small boy to chat to, maybe it would take her mind off things and that would be doing something for Mrs Fairchild, in a roundabout way.

So they had spread a newspaper on the table at Home Farm and he’d cleaned all the horse brasses that Duke would wear to the funeral. He’d polished them really hard because Mrs Ramsden said they wanted old Duke to do Mrs Fairchild proud. When he’d made them shine so much that Mrs Ramsden said she’d never seen them looking better, he’d gone out to pick long trails of ivy and young, fresh sprays from the yew trees for the cart they’d be taking her to church on.

But he didn’t want her to go and he didn’t like what those Germans had done to her. All at once it didn’t seem such fun to fly in a bomber or be a pilot; not when you had to kill people. Maybe after all, he’d set his mind on being a bank clerk; maybe a bank was the best place to be.

His bottom lip began to tremble again and the funny little croaky bit in his throat got worse, all the hurt he’d felt since it happened welled up inside him and burst out in tears – big, warm salty ones and not even to think about his orange would stop them.

This morning he was a nine-year-old tiddler and he didn’t care if the whole village saw him crying.

Roz decided to wear her grey costume and white blouse because all black, Polly said, was too stark for so young a lass, though if Roz hadn’t looked so peaky and frail she’d have dug her heels in over the business of the hat.

‘But I don’t have a black hat, Polly. The only one I’ve got is my summer straw.’ And even with the rosebuds removed and a black ribbon sewn around the crown, it still wouldn’t have looked right, she’d urged. Nor would she wear one of Gran’s black hats, she said, fixing Polly with a Fairchild stare.

‘I’ll tie my hair back with a black ribbon,’ she muttered mutinously, ‘and if the vicar doesn’t like it, then hard luck!’

‘You may please yourself,’ Polly retorted primly, conceding defeat, acknowledging that the lass had grown into a fine Fairchild. Once this dreadful day was over, she could turn her mind to her young man and to fixing a date for the wedding; she’d settle down and care for Ridings as she’d been reared to do. Aye, and do it well.

‘Have you thought which way we’ll all walk to the church?’ she demanded of Roz, determined things should be done correctly. ‘Will you walk alone, or shall Mr Dunston be with you?’

‘I think it’s best if someone is with me, Polly – one of you, anyway.’

‘Nay’ Poll Appleby knew her place. ‘I’ll follow behind you.’

But in front of Grace and Jonty, mind, her being an official guardian. ‘Mat will be leading the horse, then? You’ve got it all settled?’

‘Mat and Duke will take her there, Polly.’

‘Aye.’ On a farm cart, the way she’d have wanted it. No fancy motor-hearse for Hester Fairchild. She’d made that plain more than once. A shire horse had more dignity than ten men in top hats and when her time came, she’d said, she hoped Polly would remember it. ‘And Kath?’

‘She’ll be there, with Flora. She’s gone to the hostel to pick up her best uniform. Marco will see to the farm. There’s a relief landgirl there for a couple more days. He’ll be all right.’

‘Your young man isn’t coming, then?’

‘No. Gran never met him – well, not officially – and we haven’t made our engagement public, yet, so it wouldn’t be right. And anyway, he can’t come. He was on standby last night and they didn’t go, so it’s almost certain he’ll be flying tonight, he said.’

‘That was him on the phone, I suppose?’ As if she’d needed to ask, Polly sniffed.

It was Paul,’ Roz whispered and for the fleeting of a second the pain left her eyes and the corners of her mouth shaped themselves into a smile.

He’d phoned to tell her he loved her; phoned early because soon all outside lines would be dead.

‘I love you,’ he whispered as he put the phone down. ‘Fifty years from now, I’ll still love you.’

‘Take care tonight, Paul. And I love you – so very much.’

No one but you, my darling. As long as I live, only you …

‘I’m glad I kept these ribbons, Mat. Must’ve known, when I put them away that we’d be in need of them again.’ And she must somehow have known, Grace frowned, that five years after they’d been used for Grandma Ramsden, there would be such a shortage of everything as to make black funeral ribbons non-existent.

‘Didn’t we use them for Mother?’ Mat watched their careful ironing intently. ‘Didn’t I plait them into Duke’s mane?’

‘You did, love; and Duke not long broken-in to harness, then, and a bit mettlesome, still …’

‘But he did the old lady proud.’ And would do Mrs Fairchild proud, an’ all. Duke knew what was expected of him.

‘I’ll be glad when this day is over, Mat. How I’m to get through the afternoon, I don’t know.’

‘You’ll be all right, lass. There’s no shame in honest tears. And I’ll be beside you in the church.’

The farmer on the Helpsley road was to walk the Shire horse back to Home Farm and stable him. Once they had carried Mrs Fairchild into church, Duke’s work would be done.

‘I’m grateful, Mat. How you put up with my moods and tears, I don’t know. I weep so easily, these days. Must be my age.’

‘Whatever it is, I love you Grace. You know that, don’t you?’

‘I know it.’ She’d wanted to tell him she loved him too, but he didn’t often say such things and when he did it seemed to make her go all soft inside and tears fill her eyes. ‘Don’t ever leave me, love,’ she whispered, dabbing her eyes, taking deep, steadying breaths. ‘I couldn’t abide it, if you did.’

‘I won’t leave you, and you know it,’ he said softly, pulling her into the shelter of his arms, hushing her and kissing her tear-wet eyelids, just as he’d done when they were courting. ‘Oh, you silly woman – just who would I leave you for, will you tell me? And whilst we’re about it, don’t you ever leave me, for neither could I abide it, if you did.’

She had smiled, blinked away her tears and was comforted, for a while.

At a little after one o’clock, Hester Fairchild returned briefly to Ridings. They brought her coffin in a Red Cross ambulance, driven by a wartime volunteer and accompanied by a nurse who looked younger, even, than Roz.

Mat Ramsden waited at the head of the great grey horse, proud in full harness, its mane and tail entwined with ribbons of black, the bright brasses glinting in the afternoon sun with every toss of its head.

With gentle, capable hands, four young men from farms around placed the oak coffin on the low waggon covered in greenery and trailed with loops of ivy. Mat, wearing his sad suit for the second time that month, fondled the horse’s neck with slow, steady strokes. Then he clicked his tongue in his cheek and said softly, ‘Walk on, lad. Take her proudly.’

Slowly they circuited the house then swung left to the carriage drive. It had to be the long, agonizing way, for hadn’t she loved those trees of oak and beech and wasn’t it right that she should leave by the great, ornate gates through which she had come as a bride, more than forty years ago?

Roz walked alone, a bunch of pink roses in her hands. Behind her, though she had not wanted it that way, walked the two people Hester had chosen to guide her grandchild through the remaining years of her youth: a middle-aged solicitor from York and a Helpsley-born servant.

At the gates of Home Farm, Jonty offered his arm to his pale-faced mother and her eyes sought those of her husband, needing the reassurance of his smile and the love that was never far from his gaze. Her hand clasped that of her son and she leaned against him for support then took her place in the procession, her chin tilted stubbornly.

The cart moved slowly on. From the stackyard gateway Flora and Kath moved to take their place and Marco held wide the gate, lowering his head, crossing himself as the woman who had died in his arms passed through it, asking his God that her soul might rest in peace.

By the gate lodges, where once estate workers had waited cap in hand for her coming and their wives in starched white pinafores had bobbed a curtsy to Hester Fairchild, the Manchester lady placed her tribute of flowers on the cart beside the coffin. From cottages along the way came men and women in sober suits, black coats and hats to join those who followed the mistress of Ridings to the little church in Alderby.

Roz walked dry-eyed, the roses picked that morning clasped tightly to hide the trembling of her hands. Yet she walked with the dignity her grandmother would have wished, shoulders straight, head high; walked in slow time to the clopping of the horse’s hooves, to the jingle of harness, the clinking of brasses and the rotund grind of the wheels of the cart. Her eyes did not waver; her heart cried out to her lover to help each sad step that took her nearer to the place of parting.

At the churchyard she paused beside the newly-dug grave. She did it deliberately to accustom herself to it and not come on it later, with shock. Leaning against the hedge was Martin Fairchild’s stone. When it was in place again it would bear two names and Gran would rest beneath his memory. They had taken down a span of the railings that encircled the Fairchild graves, that the gravediggers might work the more easily. Those railings must not be put back. As a small child they had saddened her and she had demanded to know why those who lay there should be set apart from the rest. Gran said that one day she would understand, but she did not understand. She only knew that the railings were wrong and that the verger should be told she did not want them replaced.

At the church porch, the bearers waited. She must go. She must listen to intonations and sad psalms; must join in the singing of hymns chosen long ago by her grandmother.

This day should be cold and grey, wet with December fog, but it was June and the sun high in a sky of brilliant blue. For that at least she was grateful.

Polly removed her pearl-ended hatpin, took off her hat and hung it on the door peg, sighing with relief that it was over.

‘Tea?’ she asked of no one in particular. ‘Think we could all do with a cup.’

And thanks be that the war had put paid to funeral teas, she thought grimly. She didn’t like funeral teas – she never had, with everyone standing about not knowing what to say and saying the wrong thing every time they opened their mouths, like as not. The rationing of food had settled the matter and with a bit of luck it would never return.