CHAPTER SIX

“I shouldn’t have given you the silver coin, should I?” David said. “You see I thought Rose was Harry’s special name for your grandmother.”

Rachel shivered but said nothing. In the misty distance the hills looked pale. Nearer at hand the grass was beginning to show deep green. She moved her position slightly against the drystone wall.

“Do you think Harry and Sarah got married afterwards?”

“Does it matter? You can believe anything you want, and it doesn’t hurt anybody.”

“Because they’re dead? But it hurts me if I don’t know.”

Her hair fell forward as she bent her head.

“Rose and Harry had a son, Zachary. Simon said he was a bad lot. D’you think it spread down to Zachary’s daughter, and then to Brian?”

David looked at her closely.

“Brian been trying it on?”

“Not really.”

“He’d better not.”

“I didn’t mean that. He’s rotten to Julie, that’s what I meant. I think he hits her sometimes. It’s a shock, knowing Brian and I are related.”

“Does he know that?”

She shuddered.

“No way. I mean . . . I hope not. He’s horrible. I wanted to find out things about the past, but now I wish I hadn’t.”

David’s bushy hair shone fair in the sunshine, and his eyes were bright.

“We have to know about the past to make sense of the present.”

Rachel said nothing. The present made no sense, either. When Mrs Woodfield had phoned Mr Felpham yesterday evening he had asked to speak to her. For a moment, hearing his deep, familiar voice, tears had sprung to her eyes. He was a link with Aunt Sophie who had relied on him for advice. He had sounded hurt at first, and she couldn’t blame him. It was hard to explain why she had run off to take up a job in the North of England but in the end he had seemed to understand. Then he had blamed himself for giving her the diary in the first place when she was still so vulnerable.

“What’s wrong, Rachel?” David said. “You’re not going to give up, are you?”

She shrugged and then shivered. Give up what — this feeling that she didn’t belong anywhere? In any case, Mrs Woodfield’s back was so much better, and she fully expected the doctor to endorse her belief that her heart was no problem. She had Julie, and Nerissa was home every now and again. Mrs Woodfield didn’t need anyone else now so her own days here were numbered. There’d be no time to unearth anything else even if she wanted to, and she didn’t.

“Come on, let’s go. You still want to visit Garth Scar?” David said suddenly.

She hesitated, and then nodded. David had gone to a lot of trouble to arrange for the two of them to deviate from the planned route today and to join the rest of the group at a certain point later. He had done it in such a way through Ken that no-one made any funny remarks. If she changed her mind now the explanations could be embarrassing.

She followed him to the summit. The path was gone, but David knew where to go.

“It’s so wild up here,” she said on the way up. “And it all looks the same with all this heather. I’m glad you’re here, too, David. I’d have got lost.”

He flushed, looking pleased.

“It’s OK today, but wait till the cloud comes down. That’s the time to get worried.”

She could believe it. Today she could see the top of the land against the sky. How would she feel if it was all blotted out and she was the only person for miles around? A faint smell of burning wafted across the hillside as they neared the edge of the brow and looked down on the sheet of calm water. Rachel stopped suddenly.

“What’s going on?”

David waved his hand.

“Over there, look!”

To their right two men were climbing on a tractor which set off with a roar across the blackened ground to a track at the bottom.

“Firing the heather,” David said. “No wonder we smelled burning.”

“But why?”

“Keeps the heather low-growing. You’re not worried? It grows again.”

She gave a shaky smile, reminded suddenly of the burning of Alderbeck Court. The same bitter smell would have filled the air then, but more than this, much more. The whole valley would have been thick with it, and the crackling flames would have leaped in the air.

David caught hold of her hand briefly and gave it a comforting squeeze.

“Don’t worry about it, Rachel. Burning off the heather happens all the time, in one place or the other. D’you want to go over to see the barn?”

She nodded.The stone barn stood beneath the belt of blackened heather, and by the time they reached it their jeans were crisscrossed in wavy black lines.

“It’s a drystone barn,” David said. “No cement or putty. Clever, don’t you think?”

Rachel gazed at it. The stones used in the building of the barn were rectangular and even. To think they were taken from the ruins of Sarah Swinbank’s house! Some were slightly blackened. She ran her hand over the rough wall and felt a thrill of discovery shoot up her arm. The stone seemed alive, but it couldn’t be. She moved her hand away and then put it back again. The warmth was still there, as if the stone had taken on a life of its own. She gasped.

“What is it?”

“Feel it, David.”

He put his hand where hers had been.

“What does it feel like to you?”

“Warm, from the sun.”

“More than that.”

Her voice quivered.

“Try again.”

“The sun’s been on it for hours. Of course it’s warm. Come away, Rachel.”

She felt shaky, and very odd. He moved towards her, a soft look in his eyes she found disturbing. She sprang away from him, suddenly breathless.

“I don’t believe it.”

She clenched and unclenched her hands, not knowing what she believed or who she was. And she couldn’t account for the frightening guilt that filled her when she rested her hand on the stone barn. Suddenly she ran down the hillside to stand at the water’s edge. Breathing deeply, she stared across the glassy water to where she thought the house should be. David followed.

“Rachel,” he said gently, “you wanted to come, but we don’t have to come again.”

She let out a long breath, and her commonsense rose to the surface. No, she needn’t come again. There wouldn’t be time anyway. David wasn’t to blame.

“I’m scared of what Arthur Snaithe’s going to tell me. He works at High Hob. It’s been arranged for me to go and see him.”

“That’s great!”

“But I don’t want to any more.”

She quivered, knowing she was caught up in all of this now whether she liked it or not.

“I’m glad we came today to see the place again, but I don’t want to know any more about the people.”

And she didn’t want to see Simon at home now, either. The pain was too great. David looked surprised.

“But you can’t separate place and people. What can this chap say anyway to scare you? Only that the dale was flooded half a century ago. He’d only have been a young lad then.”

“I keep forgetting it all happened fifty years ago. It all seems like yesterday.”

“Get it in perspective, Rachel. Fifty years is a long time. Half a century.”

But she couldn’t get it in perspective. She couldn’t get her feeling about Simon into perspective either. She thought of the first time she had seen the reservoirs on the way from the station with Simon. Different reservoirs, but all supplying much-needed water to the cities. Other homes, besides Alderbeck Court, were lost beneath the water. The knowledge was as horrifying to her now as it had been then. She couldn’t get it out of her mind.

Later, as they joined the others at a bridge over the river to eat their lunch, Rachel picked up a pebble and held it in her hand so that warmth seemed to spread into it. The stone was prettily marked with darker grey threads on the pale background. She gazed at it, suddenly filled with wonder. The stone had lain here for years and years. Her fingers moved gently over the surface, and brought a sense of peace. It was weak and stupid to be afraid of what Arthur Snaithe could tell her.

It was all in the past anyway, as David said. And why should Brian know anything about them being distantly related? If he’d known already he’d have come out with it for sure. So he had no idea, and she wasn’t about to tell him.

“Arthur’s in the barn,” Simon said. “You’ll want to talk to him.”

Rachel’s mouth felt dry. Simon looked so alive and vital standing there with the sunlight on his hair and an expression of deep understanding in his eyes. She longed to take a step towards him, to be enfolded in his strong arms and to press her flushed face against his chest. Fly stood at his side, tongue lolling, as if he wouldn’t be surprised by anything.

She swung her loose hair away from her face, and blinked in the bright sunlight. High Hob farm was high on the fells, sheltered from the north by a belt of ash trees not yet in leaf. They had heard the bleating of lambs filling the clear air as Mrs Woodfield drove her car through the open gateway.

“I thought the lambs would be inside,” she said for something to say as she walked beside Simon across the cobbled yard.

“Soon they’ll be up on the fells for the summer,” he said. “We’ve done well this year. Cross breeding has paid off. Take as long as you like, Rachel.”

He stood aside for Rachel to go into the barn on her own and at once she felt abandoned. There was something so trustworthy and loving about Simon that hurt her to think about. She took a deep breath and concentrated on the reason for her being here. And yet it wasn’t, not any more. She wanted to be with Simon with an intensity that shook her.

As her eyes became used to the gloomy interior of the barn she was conscious of space that dwarfed the bales of hay and the tarpaulins that lay on the ground. A faint, musty smell hung in the air. She saw the old man bending over something in the corner. He was almost invisible in his rough brown clothes until he came forward to be introduced. Then she saw a pair of twinkling eyes set deep in his ruddy face. He put down his metal pail with a clatter.

“Aye,” he said. “It’s a grand day.”

Rachel agreed, then hesitated. He seemed not to know why she was here, and she hardly knew how to begin. Arthur scratched his grey head.

“Happen you’ve seen the lambs?”

Rachel said she had.

“Aye, Mrs Woodfield likes to come each year. She’s a grand lady.”

“She’s looking at them now.”

“We’ve a fine lot this year. Aye, a fine lot. Simon likes to show people, but now he’s got no-one since his wife left. Aye, I’d like to see him suited.”

“You used to work near my grandmother’s home, Alderbeck Court, didn’t you?”

She thought he wouldn’t admit it. He scratched his head again and looked at the straw at his feet.

“Aye, lass,” he said slowly.

He took a pipe from his pocket, looked at it and put it back again. Rachel sat down on a bale of straw and tried to look as if she wasn’t desperately interested.

“Aye,” he said again. “Your grandmother.”

“It was a long time ago.”

“A grand valley, where the big house was. There were a mill, too, closed long since. Folk moved out. The cottages were left empty. Aye, they were.”

“And the people in the house? Did you know them?”

“Aye, I did that. My dad said there was nowt anyone could do for the poor lady when her daughter fled with a man old enough to be her dad. She never lived to see the house burned down, and when they came to move her she weren’t there.”

“Move her?”

“Aye, move her grave with the rest.”

Rachel had thought about the headstones being moved from the churchyard, but not the graves themselves. She could see now that they couldn’t be left beneath the waters of the reservoir. She looked at him in horror.

“You mean her coffin wasn’t there to be moved with the others?”

A sweet, pungent smell from the straw beneath his feet reached her.

“Aye, tragic,” he said. “I were only a little lad, but I remember the men coming with their spades and shovels. They buried the coffins at Beckthorpe, but they never found the mother’s coffin. And then the dale were flooded. I were at the last service in church before that happened. When the water’s low in the reservoir you can see the tower sticking up in the air.”

Rachel, imagining the shimmering ripple of the church tower near the surface as the water level dropped, shuddered. The church again, sticking up through the innocent sheet of water. Did Sarah’s mother know about Harry Brent being married when Sarah ran off with him? Of course she did. Harry was a local man, and Rose would be left behind with her son, Zachary, who grew up to become Brian’s grandfather.

She thanked Arthur and left. All of a sudden a feeling of dizziness came over her and she put out a hand on the door jamb to steady herself. Then moving slowly as if in a dream she came out into the sunshine of the yard. The cobbles seemed to dissolve in front of her and the next moment Simon was there.

For a long wonderful moment he held her in his arms, supporting her. Sighing, she rested her head against him and he bent and kissed her gently. She had never before felt this deep certainty that his presence gave her but to him it was nothing. She sighed, not wanting to move away from his side, ever. But she knew she must though it was agony to feel him withdraw.

He looked at her anxiously as she stood in the sunlit yard, her hands clenched at her side.

“Rest for a while,” he said, his voice gruff. “You’ve had a shock, Rachel. We won’t go indoors until you feel better.”

He led her towards the field gate at the side of the yard. They leaned there side by side, watching the lambs wobbling about near their mothers in the field. Suddenly tears filled her eyes. She knew how it felt to love someone it didn’t seem possible could love you. The anguish of being near Simon and yet feeling the pain of that was unbearable. It took all her concentration to remember the woman in Rawthwaite. Simon was kind. He would never hurt anyone intentionally, neither must she.

Harry had been years older than Sarah Swinbank. Simon was years older that herself. But she wasn’t going to hurt anybody so why did she feel guilty as if it was all her fault?

Garth Scar reservoir filled Rachel’s dreams that night as well as Simon. The two seemed connected in a way that made her tremble. Simon’s slow smile had illuminated his face as he helped her towards the support of the gate and there had been an expression in his eyes she hadn’t seen before.

She tried to put it all out of her mind next morning as she helped Mrs Woodfield pick some daffodils for the house, but she couldn’t help thinking of Simon’s interest in what she had learned from Arthur Snaithe. His smile had faded at once when she told him what Arthur Snaithe had said about the missing coffin.

“Don’t think about it,” he had advised.

But in her dream it was mixed up with her feelings for Simon which she must keep buried, dead hopes that she should never have entertained from the beginning. Yet Arthur had said he would like to see Simon suited, that he had no-one since Nerissa left. But was that true? No-one had mentioned the woman she had seen him with. Perhaps she was just a friend he had bumped into in Rawthwaite and meant nothing more to him than that. But she dared not hope.

Now, in the sunny garden with the mist hanging round the tops of the hills, Rachel sighed.

“You’re looking sad, my dear,” Mrs Wood- field said.

She straightened, rubbed her back and looked at Rachel in concern.

“I’m not sure all this delving into the past is good for you. I thought finding your grandfather’s workshop in the museum was a breakthrough. Don’t you want to go there again, and question the curator, or the library? They might be able to help you there, Rachel. Had you thought of that? You’re not a prisoner here, you know. Why not get that nice young lad to go with you?”

“David?”

“Yes, David. It’s grand that you’ve made friends. One day you’ll look back on this period of your life and see that things have a way of working out for the best. They have for me, through you, my dear.”

“Me?”

Her employer smiled.

“Had I not accompanied you to the museum I might never have realised that what I imagined were heart pains were nothing more than strained muscles. The doctor agrees with me. I have a slight heart murmur, but nothing much, and nothing like as bad as I thought. It was sitting on that wall afterwards that made me realise. And now look at me, as fit as a fiddle.”

Not quite, Rachel thought. Mrs Woodfield still had that pallor about her cheeks. She was a brave lady, able to cope with things without complaining. She was glad for her sake that she was no longer worried about her heart even though it meant that she, herself, wasn’t really needed now. Her usefulness was over, and soon Mrs Woodfield would realise it for herself.

“Julie will run you down to Rawthwaite this afternoon. It’s her shopping day so there’ll be plenty of time.”

Mrs Woodfield looked so anxious that Rachel smiled.

“I’ll phone and see if David’s free,” she said.

The museum, or the library — no! But David wanted to know what Arthur Snaithe had to say and she owed him that at least.

What did it matter what Sarah and Harry had done? The present mattered but that was all. Her aunt had been wiser than she knew.

Later, in the carpark in Rawthwaite, David looked so cheerful that Rachel’s spirits began to lift.

“So where’s it to be then, Rachel? The museum, or would you rather walk by the River Alder instead, and talk?”

“The river, please.”

Surprisingly, he began to talk about the Craven Walk and brushed aside her tentative remarks about Garth Scar as if it had no importance for either of them.

“You’re going to help out at the check point at Alderbeck House tomorrow, aren’t you, Rachel? Lucky it’s on the route. Brian planned it that way.”

“Brian?”

“Brian Hepinstall, one of the organisers. His wife, Julie, does the food for the party tomorrow night. She said you’d help.”

“I didn’t know Brian was involved.”

“Does it make any difference?”

She hesitated, then shook her head. They came at last to where the path left the river and wound up to the top of a low hill.

“Race you to the top,” David said suddenly.

They got there together, and sank to the ground, laughing. For a moment there was silence as they gazed back to the grey houses of the town and the hills beyond. He picked a piece of grass, and began to chew it. He looked serious.

“I don’t want Garth Scar to frighten you,” he said, “or the warmth from that barn on the hill.”

“There’s something else now,” she said quickly. “I found it out yesterday, and it’s horrible. When the coffins were dug up in the churchyard one of them wasn’t there.”

“Arthur Snaithe told you that?”

She shuddered.

“It was my great grandmother’s coffin. I can’t stop thinking about it.”

“The county archivist will have all the records. Do you want me to find out more about it?”

“Please, David, no. I can’t bear to know any more. I wish I’d never started all this.”

David grunted and turned away to pick another piece of grass, and she didn’t know whether he agreed with her or not. She had made a terrible mistake. She should bury the past, forget it, and concentrate on the present. She gazed down at the river which looked shadowy and remote to her now as it wound its way between the trees.

“Don’t look so sad,” David said turning back to her and smiling. “It’s all right for you. Think of me slogging away on the Craven Walk tomorrow.”

Back to that again. Perhaps it was just as well.

As they stood up he made a sudden move towards her. Surprised, she hesitated and the next moment was in his arms. He smelled faintly of crushed grass as he held her close.

“No, David, no! This is wrong.”

She pulled away from him, her face flaming. Immediately he released her. He looked perplexed and hurt, but she couldn’t help it. She had to make him understand. She had thought they were friends, not that he would begin to think there could ever be anything else between them.

“Please, David.”

“There’s someone else?”

“Yes, no. David, I can’t.”

“There’s someone else?”

She turned away, hating herself.

“I can’t explain.”

But she must try. David had gone out of his way to help her, to find things out for her and to take her to see the place she most wanted to see. She was grateful, but that was all it could ever be.

“Maybe it’s too soon,” he said. “I should have waited.”

She turned back to him.

“No, no. It’s no use, David. I’m sorry.”

He looked at her strangely for a moment. Then he took her hand and they began to go down the hill together to the river path. He said nothing more as they walked back along the path to the town. But he looked perplexed and downcast.

The sky was a mass of lowering grey as Rachel took up her position at the table near the front of the house next morning. She looked anxiously at the clouds. David had told her they could cope with anything, but the ground would be slippery and the becks icy cold.

Later she had promised to go down to Rawthwaite with Julie and help get everything ready for the evening get-together. Mrs Woodfield, looking better this morning, would be out later to see how she was getting on at her post.

There were shouts, and the sound of feet on gravel. Rachel jotted down the numbers on the disks the men held out to her. No sooner had they gone than more people arrived, and she was kept so busy she found an hour had passed. Using the disks was a good idea, she thought. If anything happened and someone went missing people would know where the disk had been checked. Rachel shivered. Simon had told her about a man drowning in the slime of Flitstone Bog. In her mind she suddenly heard his voice teasing her with his talk of hobgoblins and telling her how his home, High Hob, got its name.

There was more activity after that, but the last of the participants didn’t arrive until much later.

After being out in the fresh air most of the day Rachel felt her eyelids begin to droop when she and Julie got down to the hall in Rawthwaite with their boxes of goodies Julie had prepared. Ken from the Outdoor Shop came soon after, and then there was a rush of people all bright-eyed and tanned. The food looked good spread out on the tables. There were huge piles of filled rolls, meat pies, salads. The heavy aroma rising from the tureens of soup Julie carried in made Rachel’s eyes water.

The outside door clattered. A man came running into the hall, his jeans covered in mud.

“There’s been an accident,” he cried.

Then he spoke quietly to Ken who turned to face the girls. He moved his lips, but no sound came out.

“It’s Brian,” Julie shrieked. “Where’s Brian?”

“Aye,” the man gasped out, “and David, up in Shutt Hob. The ambulance is there. It’ll be on its way to hospital by now.”

Rachel gripped the edge of the table. Beside her Julie made little moaning noises.

“I’ll drive you, Julie,” Ken said. “Rachel, too. Come on.”

Afterwards Rachel wondered how she had managed to keep outwardly calm on the long drive to the hospital when inside she was a turmoil of panic that made her dizzy. The wide hospital door stood open like a giant trap. They were given cups of tea as they waited, and then Julie was called away. When she had gone Rachel sat still, thinking of nothing, until she was conscious that Ken was standing in front of her.

“I’m to take you home now, Rachel,” he said. “David’s mum and dad are with him. We’ll do no good here.”

“Is he all right?” she whispered, standing up.

“Aye, lass, he’ll do. Brian, too. Julie’s going to stay with him, but you and I’ll get gone.”

She allowed herself to be led out to Ken’s car, not daring to think what might happen if David had hurt himself badly. Arriving at last at Alderbeck House, Mrs Woodfield met them in the hall, and took charge. Strong, sweet tea was produced and Ken made to drink some before he left. No-one spoke of the cause of the accident, or what David and Brian were doing in Shutt Hob Gorge which wasn’t on the route of the Craven Walk.

“Julie’s just phoned,” Mrs Woodfield said. “She’ll be home tomorrow, Brian, too. He’s being kept in for observation. A sprained wrist, that’s all, so they say. But we’ll see.”

The hot tea slid down Rachel’s throat. She looked up bleakly.

“Come now,” Mrs Woodfield said briskly. “Bed for you, Rachel.”

She had no recollection of how she got there, only of raucous violin music coming from the sitting-room as they passed. She had a sudden vision of David running towards her in his blue jersey and brown cords as she sat at the checkpoint table only hours before.

Even after Mrs Woodfield rang the hospital and was told that David was going to be all right, Rachel couldn’t settle to anything next day. She tried phoning his home, but there was no answer. Then she tried the Outdoor Shop. Ken’s voice, though reassuring, could only tell her what she already knew.

“It’s a right mystery, lass,” Ken said. “You’ll have to ask Brian why they were there in the gorge when he gets back today. Tell him I’ll be up to see him this evening. Aye, there’s plenty to talk about.”

She couldn’t even get down to Rawthwaite to get David a get-well card because Nerissa had gone off to Harrogate in her mother’s car. The best she could do was write him a quick letter and run down the lane to post it in the nearest postbox half a mile away. She walked slowly back up the hill, deep in thought. David had left the planned route yesterday, but why?

A car drew up beside her, Mrs Woodfield’s car. Nerissa wound down the window from her side.

“Get in.”

Rachel did as she was told. Nerissa, in her white jersey and skirt, looked younger today. The dark hair was tied back from her smiling face with a red ribbon. Nerissa smiling! What could have happened?

“I’ve just been to the post,” Rachel said, feeling the need to explain herself. “I’m to do the ironing when I get back.”

Nerissa put the car into gear.

“Ironing?” she said as they moved off. “That’s Julie’s job. Let her do it.You’ve got other things to do. The flowers in the sitting-room look messy. Get them sorted. And there’s a letter to type.”

“The flowers are done already,” Rachel said quickly. “I promised I’d do the ironing today for Julie, and that’s what I’m going to do. She’s got today off because of Brian.”

Nerissa’s smile faded for a moment.

“Ah, yes, Brian. Home today so I’ve been told. This very afternoon. He looks his usual self.”

“You’ve seen him?”

“And why not? But what’s that to you?”

The glance Nerissa flashed her was a warning. Then she smiled again as if at some delightful secret. Rachel couldn’t begin to think what it could mean. In any case they were arriving at the house now. The tyres crunched on the gravel, and she was reminded vividly of the feet that had pounded it only yesterday. Weeks seemed to have passed since she took her place at the table yesterday morning ready to mark off the participants of the Craven Walk as they came running towards her.

She went inside. Julie wasn’t back yet from the hospital. The best thing she could do for her at the moment was to get the ironing out of the way, but first she checked that Mrs Woodfield didn’t need her.

Back in the kitchen again she set to work. Deep in thought she moved the iron backwards and forwards across the pillowcase on the ironing board. Soon the blouses hanging on the back of a kitchen chair and the sweet-smelling cotton sheets on the table bore witness to her hard work, but all she could think about was the accident.