They say hope springs eternal; and so it does.
A chill March wind was blustering its way along Towngate as Lacey ushered one of her most prestigious clients out of the dress shop to the car waiting at the kerb. Idly, she watched it drive off, and was fishing for the keys in her pocket to lock up for lunch when a scruffy young lad hurtled across the street, coming to a breathless standstill in front of her.
‘Are you Mrs Lacey Brearley?’ he gasped. Lacey confirming she was, the lad gabbled, ‘you’ve to go to Cuckoo Hill at two o’clock. You’ve to meet him there.’
Lacey stared. ‘Meet who?’
‘The fellow what told me to tell you to meet him at Cuckoo Hill at two o’clock. He said you’d give me a couple o’ bob if I delivered the message.’
‘Did he now?’ Lacey’s mind whirled. Why Cuckoo Hill? And who would presume she’d pay for the privilege of meeting him there? A flame of hope sparked inside her only to be quenched instantly by doubt.
‘Where did you meet this man, an’ what did he look like?’ Lacey’s anxiety was such that the lad jumped back.
‘In Townend. He wa’ tall an’ thin an’ he must have a bad leg, ‘cos he wa’ limpin’.’
Exasperated, Lacey begged, ‘I mean his face. What did he look like?’
The lad shrugged. ‘I don’t really know. He had this big, long coat on wi’ t’collar turned up. I din’t get a good look at him. Are you goin’ to give me a couple o’ bob or what?’ he asked impatiently.
Lacey crossed to the cashbox and withdrew a florin. ‘I hope this isn’t some sort of trick on your part, ‘cos if it is I’ll set the bobby on you.’
‘Honest missis, it’s true. I’d not make summat like that up.’ Clutching the money, he turned tail and ran.
‘No, I don’t imagine you would,’ Lacey said to the shop door.
She hurried through to the workroom, and taking Joan to one side whispered the details of the strange incident. ‘It must be Nathan. Who else could it be?’ Joan insisted. ‘Who else knows Cuckoo Hill is your special place?’
Bemused, Lacey shook her head. ‘But why wouldn’t he come straight here? Why make a mystery of it? It’s not the sort of thing Nathan would do.’
Joan looked thoughtful. ‘Maybe you’re right. It could be a trick.’ Her eyes reflecting a mixture of fear and excitement she said, ‘Perhaps it’s somebody who wants to get you up there on your own so they can demand money. Maybe they’re plannin’ to kidnap you till we pay up.’
Lacey laughed outright. ‘Joan Micklethwaite, I mean Haigh,’ she exclaimed, correcting herself to give Joan her married title, ‘you are the most ridiculous fantasist I’ve ever come across. You read too many tuppenny novels. Kidnap indeed!’
‘Well then, if you don’t believe that you must believe it’s Nathan. So what are you waiting for? Go an’ meet him.’
Lacey dashed through to the house. ‘Susan, dress Richard in a warm coat and leggings; we’re going out.’
Wearing a warm, dark blue coat with a fur collar and a little fur hat, Lacey took the pushchair from under the stairs and wheeled it to the door. ‘Come on, darling; climb in. We have someone to meet.’
Richard jutted out his bottom lip and shook his head. He strongly objected to this mode of transport, but Lacey knew his legs would tire long before they reached Cuckoo Hill. She wondered if she should leave him with Susan, but somehow it didn’t seem right. Nathan would want to see his son.
Then why didn’t he come straight home, she asked herself for the umpteenth time, strapping a recalcitrant Richard into the pushchair.
Lacey ignored his pleas and hurried to find Joan. ‘If I’m not back in an hour send out a search party.’ Joan grinned.
Lacey collected the now squawking Richard and, the wind whipping at her heels, she hurried along Towngate pushing the chair with one hand and holding on to her hat with the other. Why did it have to be so blustery today of all days?
The pushchair wheels skimming the pavement, Richard soon forgot to protest, the speed at which he was travelling making him laugh. On the edge of the town, away from the narrow streets that channelled the gusting wind, there was a sudden lull. Lacey slowed her pace and began the ascent to Cuckoo Hill. Unbidden, Joan’s ridiculous scenario planted itself in Lacey’s mind.
What if it was a ploy to harm her? All at once the memory of Alice’s attack surged back. For one fleeting moment Lacey recalled the slimy Frederick Lynch and wondered if he was waiting for her at the top of the hill. She shook her head impatiently. You daft ha’porth, she told herself, you’re as bad as Joan.
*
Sheltered in the lee of the cairn on Cuckoo Hill, Nathan Brearley gazed across the moor, watching the hypnotic sway of drifting heather. It looked like a vast ocean rippling towards the horizon, the rocky escarpments of millstone grit little islands washed by a verdant tide. He tugged the collar of his greatcoat up round his ears as he limped to the other side of the cairn, his eyes smarting in the bracing wind.
Nathan had chosen this place and this time because it was here, at two o’clock one summer’s day, that his most beautiful memories had taken root. In the long, dark, fearful night hours in the trenches and then in a hard, narrow bunk in a prison camp hut he had often traced the course of his life, his reminiscences taking the same route each night, the starting point of his journey Cuckoo Hill. It was here Lacey had stolen his heart. This is where it will begin again, Nathan told himself stepping forward to watch Lacey’s approach.
At the bend near the top of the hill Lacey paused, her heart beating more with trepidation than the exertion of the climb. Richard, wearied by the excitement of his speedy journey and the fresh air, had fallen asleep.
Lacey rounded the bend.
‘Nathan! Nathan!’ Her cry floated on the wind like that of a bird winging its way over the moor. She quickened her pace but Nathan made no attempt to run to meet her.
He stood with his back to the wind, his body rigid, no movement at all save for his overly long hair, blown against his cheeks by the stiff breeze. Lacey’s eager footsteps faltered, something in his stance making her afraid to rush and hold him as she had intended. Her next steps tentative, she stumbled to a halt, gazing at him across the distance. No more than six feet separated them, but to Lacey it felt like a hundred miles and a hundred years. The joy at seeing him evaporated, an icy dread replacing it.
‘Nathan?’ She heard the fear in her voice as she struggled to understand what was happening. On the way to Cuckoo Hill, she had imagined him running to meet her then taking her in his arms, kissing her and she kissing him back. ‘Nathan,’ she cried.
Nathan stayed where he was, his gaze riveted on Lacey and the child in the pushchair, his eyes absorbing every detail and his lips moving soundlessly. Lacey returned his gaze, looking deeply into the grey-blue eyes that were so like Richard’s. But whereas Richard’s eyes shone with happiness and mischief, Nathan’s reflected torment and the fear of rejection.
‘Oh, my love,’ breathed Lacey, ‘my poor, poor love.’ Steps uncertain, she crossed the chasm and placed her arms around him crying, ‘You’re home now; home and safe.’ The tremors coursing through Nathan’s body threatening to unbalance them, she tightened her grip.
‘Lacey. Lacey.’ The words sounded as though they were stuck in his throat.
Releasing her hold, Lacey stepped back to gaze into Nathan’s face. His eyes had lost some of the fear and uncertainty she had seen earlier, but his gaunt features were etched with unspeakable suffering.
Nathan returned her gaze, his lips trembling as though he was afraid to speak. Without a word he stepped away from her and limped over to the pushchair. Only then did Lacey notice he leaned heavily on a slim cane.
Nathan stooped and gazed into Richard’s sleeping face. ‘My son, my son,’ he sobbed. His eyes brimming with tears he turned his face to Lacey, and in a voice shaking with wonderment, he said, ‘He’s beautiful, and so big. The photographs you sent don’t do him justice.’ With his forefinger he gently stroked Richard’s cheek.
Richard frowned and slept on.
Then, his steps unsteady, Nathan wheeled the pushchair behind the cairn, into the lee of the wind. Lacey followed. ‘Why did you send the strange message with the young lad,’ she asked softly. ‘Why did you not come straight home?’
‘Because I thought the cairn on Cuckoo Hill would bring me the same luck as it did when first we met.’
Lacey stared at him.
Nathan’s eyes begged understanding. ‘I want us to start all over again in the same place where it began. I have to be sure you can love me again. I’m not the same man you fell in love with and married, Lacey.’ He turned away, gazing into the distance, Lacey suspecting he did not see miles of beautiful Yorkshire moorland but some other scene; a place straight from hell.
She turned him gently back to face her. ‘It’s over, love. Put it behind you, and,’ she gave a little laugh, ‘whatever do you mean, love you again? I’ve never stopped loving you. I never will. You’re my Nathan, just as you’ve always been.’ Her voice rang with conviction.
Nathan shook his head. ‘Look at me, Lacey. I’ll never be the same.’ He tapped his left leg with the cane. ‘This will never function again as it should and…’ his eyes clouded, his face twisting in unconcealed rage, ‘then there’s this.’ Pulling aside the collar of his greatcoat he pushed back his hair.
His left ear was missing, and in its place an ugly red knot of flesh. Below it, an attenuation of livid scars spread under his chin and down his neck. ‘Shrapnel,’ he said.
Lacey stood on tiptoes, her lips tracing the scars before coming to rest on his mouth, the sense of taste and touch rekindling a love they had both thought was lost forever. In between kisses, Lacey whispered, ‘I didn’t marry you for your looks, Nathan Brearley. I married you because I fell in love with your beautiful mind.’
Nathan averted his head. ‘I’m sorry, Lacey. You’ll have to say that again. I’m deaf in that ear.’
Lacey giggled and gently cupping his face in both hands she repeated the words in his good ear, adding, ‘An’ don’t think you can use that as an excuse to ignore what I say in future.’
Nathan visibly sagged, the fear of rejection that knotted every muscle in his body dissipating. His laughter woke Richard, Lacey releasing him from the pushchair and into Nathan’s arms. ‘This is your Daddy, come home to love us again.’
Richard gazed solemnly into Nathan’s haggard face. ‘He doesn’t know who I am,’ said Nathan, looking as though his heart would break.
Suddenly, as though a light had been switched on in a dark chamber, Richard threw back his head, a huge smile curving his rosy lips. Pointing a stubby finger at Nathan’s face, he crowed, ‘Daddy! Daddy! My Daddy.’
Nathan held Richard closer, Lacey embracing them both as she cried tears of relief on Cuckoo Hill. Here they had fallen in love and together they had overcome his mother’s harsh objection to their marriage. Then, torn apart by the war, they had struggled for survival each in their own way, their love for one another giving them strength to carry on. No matter the hardships, they had won through.
Lacey released her hold and stepped back, smiling. ‘I think maybe we should attach our own plaque to this cairn. It will say ‘Here, on Cuckoo Hill, love was born; and love conquers all adversity.’
We hope you enjoyed this book.
Chrissie Walsh’s next book is coming in winter 2019
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