Wait For the Dawn (8 page)

The doctor stayed some time longer at the house. At one time he spoke of Mrs Halley being moved to the cottage hospital at Hurstleigh but she would have none of it. She would remain where she was, she insisted, and rely on the care of her husband and daughters.

After he had done what he could for her, and given her a little chloral to deaden the pain and help her to sleep, the doctor said he would leave, but would return in the morning. Mr Halley saw him to the door, where he asked him quietly how he judged his wife’s injuries.

The doctor looked grave. They were very serious, he said, and it would aid her greatly if she could be persuaded to go into the hospital.

When he returned just after eleven the next morning to see his patient he found that she had died less than an hour before.

It had not rained in several days, but on the morning of the funeral the clouds, which had gathered during the night, opened and let fall the threatened downpour.

Lydia and Ryllis, the tears streaming from their eyes, stood at the low-curtained window of the parlour and watched as the small funeral cortège moved away from the house, the umbrellas of the mourners opened up against the falling rain.

Even after the short procession had passed along the lane out of sight, they remained at the window. Victorian manners generally frowned on females being present at a funeral graveside, and so the sisters remained behind. Never having been to a funeral, they had to rely on magazine illustrations and paintings and verbal accounts to have any idea of what went on. Certainly they had their imaginations, and in Lydia’s mind’s eye she saw her father standing at the graveside along with the other mourners, and could almost hear the raindrops drumming on the black domes of their umbrellas. Would the sound drown out the words of the Reverend Hepthaw as he delivered his melancholy address over their mother’s coffin? Lydia could see her father as clearly as if he were beside her, standing with straight back and head bent, the muscle in his jaw working in a steady, rhythmic movement, his eyes swimming with tears behind his steel-rimmed spectacles. What would go through his mind? Would he be focused solely on the loss of his wife or was a part of him judging and criticising the words of the Reverend Hepthaw?

Lydia could scarcely believe that it was all happening. Was it only just over a week ago that she and Ryllis and her mother had been sitting over their teacups while Ryllis had so amused them with anecdotes from her life with the Lucases? Surely it wasn’t possible. Surely the whole horrific story could not be real.

When their father and the handful of mourners returned to the house after the funeral Lydia and Ryllis served them tea and sandwiches and cake. Then, when the platters were
empty and the visitors had gone, the two sisters changed back into their everyday dresses and pinafores and carried the dishes into the scullery where they washed and dried them. In the meantime their father sat in the front parlour, warming himself over the remains of the fire.

‘Well,’ Ryllis said as she wiped her hands, ‘I suppose tomorrow I’ll have to set off back for Barford again.’

‘I wish you didn’t have to go,’ Lydia said.

‘Yes, I too wish that I didn’t have to go, but there’s nothing for it. Now that the funeral’s done I’ve no reason for staying away. Mind you, even though it was for a funeral I’m sure the Lucases resent my absence.’

Lydia gave a sigh. ‘I wish I were leaving here as well.’

‘You mustn’t think about that,’ Ryllis said. ‘You’ll be needed here at home even more now. You won’t be able to think about getting a job in Redbury or anyplace. Not now. Father won’t be able to manage without you.’

‘Maybe he’ll have to.’ Lydia lowered her voice with her words and looked towards the door. ‘While you were upstairs changing,’ she said, ‘Mother said something to me.’

‘When I was upstairs? What are you talking about?’

‘On the night when she was so badly burned. Father went for the doctor and you and I were here with her. You went upstairs to change out of your nightdress –’

‘Yes . . . what about it?’

‘While you were gone Mother said something.’

‘What? Said what?’

Lydia took a deep breath and looked again towards the door. Then, her voice falling to little more than a whisper, she said, ‘She couldn’t speak very well, but she said to me, “
He didn’t mean it
.” She was talking about Father, of course.’

‘But what – what did she mean by that?’

‘I don’t know, but it was to do with Father and the lamp.’

Ryllis put her hands to her cheeks, her blue eyes wide. ‘Oh, Lyddy . . .’

Lydia stood for a moment or two in silence, then said firmly, ‘But it does no good to guess at things, to conjecture. We have to put it behind us. Whatever happened, it must have been a – it must have been an accident.’

Ryllis returned to Barford the day after the funeral, and following her departure Lydia felt that she was going around in a daze. Not only was there her grief over her mother, but she also had to face her father, at which times she could not help but wonder what had been behind her mother’s words.

Nothing, however, was said between them for some days, until one evening when he came into the kitchen to find her sitting silent and alone, her head bowed, the tears damp on her cheeks.

‘I know how you’re feeling,’ he said gruffly. Then a long pause went by and he added, ‘We must . . . help one another.’

She could not bring herself to speak, nor to look at him, and, gazing down at the floor, merely gave a brief nod.

‘I came to find you,’ he said after a moment. ‘I wanted to give you this.’

She looked at him now, opening her eyes and raising her glance to him. He was standing before her, holding something. Lying on his palm she saw her mother’s watch, a little gold half-hunter that she had rarely carried, but had always treasured.

‘You must have it,’ he said. ‘She’d want you to have it.’

‘Oh, Father . . .’

As she moved to take it he drew his hand back again and held the watch up before his eyes. For a moment Lydia could see it reflected in the lenses of his spectacles.

‘I gave her this,’ he said. ‘The day after she promised to marry me. We went into Redbury together and bought it. She was so thrilled, so excited.’ He carefully opened the
watch, looked closely at the face for a second or two, then held it to his ear, cocking his head slightly as he listened. ‘It has a whispering little tick,’ he said. He held it out again at arm’s length. ‘Yes, take it. She would want you to have it. I too.’

He laid the watch on the open palm of her hand and then bent her fingers over it. Lydia felt the pressure of his fingers on hers for a moment, then lowered her hand. As she did so he turned away, and she saw the slump of his shoulders, the drooping of his head.

‘Father,’ she said, ‘are you all right?’

He did not turn to her, and she could not see his face, but she heard his quick, indrawn breath, and then his words, gruff in his throat:

‘
I
did it.’

‘Father –’

‘
I
did it,’ he said again. ‘I threw the lamp. She didn’t drop it. I threw it.’

Lydia could feel her heart beating in her chest. She did not speak. She did not know what to say. Then he turned to face her, and she could see the glisten of tears in his eyes as he gazed into her own.

‘It hit the table,’ he said. ‘It hit the table and – and just – just exploded. I didn’t mean it.’ He put his hands up to his face and bent his head. ‘I was in such a temper – such a rage. It happened in a second. Like a coward I – I led the doctor to think that she’d – dropped it, the lamp, but she didn’t.’

Lydia said, ‘Oh, but – but it was an accident.’

‘Yes,’ he said hoarsely. ‘It was an accident.’ He lowered his hands and added, looking off towards the darkened window, ‘I can see the images in my mind all the time. I can’t get rid of them.’

He turned away from her then, and without another word went from the room. Lydia watched him go, the little watch clasped warm in her hand.

*

The May morning was pleasant and warm, and Ryllis had enjoyed an errand to the village post office. Not only had it given her the opportunity to be out in the spring air, but it had also taken her away from the house for a while. Now, however, she was on her way back to The Laurels, and her little time of freedom would soon be over.

A part of her way took her beside a small thicket where rooks nested in great numbers, and suddenly, as she passed beneath a tree, she was startled by something falling close to her shoulder. She jumped back a little in shock, thinking that perhaps something had been thrown at her. She looked down to see what it was, and there on the ground near the tree’s roots she saw a baby bird. After looking at it for a moment, she bent, peering closer. The bird was a rook, obviously having come from one of the many nests above.

‘What’s wrong? Is anything the matter?’

She started at the voice, and turned to see a young man standing a couple of yards away. She had not heard his approach. He was of middle height, with brown hair and dark eyes, and looked to be around eighteen or nineteen. He wore a cap, with a tweed jacket and dark corduroy trousers.

‘It’s a baby rook,’ she said to him, and added, ‘It gave me a bit of a start. It fell down right beside me as I was walking along.’

The young man stooped, looking at the bird. It lay on its back, its half-feathered wings trembling.

‘It’s been chucked out of the nest,’ he said.

‘But why?’

‘The parent birds will do this to their young – if there’s something wrong with’ em.’

She had heard of such things but had never been close to it before. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘it seems too cruel.’

‘Well, that’s nature’s way. What’s the point of the parent
birds spending all their energy getting food for a chick if it’s not going to live? So that’s what they do. I guess they can tell right enough if there’s something really wrong – and they get rid of it. Push it out. All the food has to go on the ones that are healthy. Makes sense, really, if you think about it.’

Ryllis nodded. ‘Yes – but at the same time it does seem very cruel.’

‘Like I said, it’s nature’s way.’ He bent closer still to the bird. ‘Look at it, its legs are all deformed.’

Ryllis stooped, bending closer, and now she could see clearly what the young man indicated. The chick’s legs were twisted up to its body, its claws clenched in tight little knots.

‘That would never survive a day,’ the young man said, ‘even if it got so far as getting out of the nest.’

‘No – I suppose not.’ She frowned. ‘So there’s no way of – of saving it, is there?’

‘Not a chance.’ He shook his head. ‘For a start you wouldn’t know what to feed it on. They don’t eat just any old thing, you know. They have special foods at different times in their rearing. The parents know what to bring’ em, but you don’t and I don’t. No, you can’t save this little creature. It’ll die whatever you try to do for it.’

‘Oh, but – can’t we do anything at all? I hate to see it just lying there. Trembling like that.’

He said without hesitation, ‘Best thing to do would be to put it out of its misery. Put an end to its suffering.’

‘We should – kill it?’ she said.

‘It’d be the best thing, the kindest thing.’

She shook her head, giving a little shudder. ‘I couldn’t do it. Oh, I couldn’t do it.’

‘I’ll do it, don’t worry.’

She stood there then, while he stepped away, bending over the ground, and watched as he selected a large stone.
He came back to her side and stood over the stricken bird.

‘You don’t have to look,’ he said.

‘No.’ She had already turned her face away.

She closed her eyes tightly and then heard a slight thud as the stone struck.

‘It’s all right,’ she heard him say. ‘It’s done.’

Still she could not open her eyes.

‘It’s all right,’ he said again. ‘It’s dead.’

May gave way to June, and the summer months came blazing in. During the days Lydia saw little of her father, for at Cremson’s he was down on the factory floor while she was in the office with her two male colleagues, surrounded by ledgers, receipts and bills and other paperwork. In the evenings, however, it was a different matter. Unless she was visiting Evie, or he was out in connection with his preaching, they were thrown together.

Lydia washed and cooked for the two of them, but as they sat over the meals she prepared she could barely think of words to keep a conversation going. They had never had a lot to say to one another, and now, with the loss of her mother, Lydia became more and more aware of her restlessness and the need in her to change her scene.

It could not last, and as she sat with Evie in her little kitchen one Sunday afternoon she confided that she had taken steps to change her situation.

‘I’ve written off to Seager’s,’ Lydia said. ‘I posted the letter yesterday afternoon.’

‘Well,’ Evie said, ‘you threatened to, and that was before you lost your mam.’

In their conversation the two young women were keeping their voices low, for Hennie lay curled up on the sofa, sleeping under the cover of a small rug. Evie sat beside her.

‘Yes, well, now I’m even more determined to go,’ Lydia
said. ‘I need to get away, and now that Mother’s gone there’s no reason for me to stay on.’

‘But why d’you have to move out of the village? Surely you could find something close by.’

‘I have to move away. I just don’t want to stay here.’

‘Have you told your dad?’

‘No, not yet.’

‘When will you tell him?’

‘I don’t know, but he has to know soon.’

A letter came from Seager’s a week later, arriving on a Friday, and was waiting for Lydia when she got in from work that evening. Her father, who was working late at the factory, knew nothing of it.

Lydia sat in the kitchen and read it through. A brief letter, it thanked her for her application and invited her for an interview.

At once she got pen and ink and paper, and sat down to write back that she would be pleased to be there at the appointed time. After that she wrote a letter to her sister: