‘John, lad: and don’t you know your own father?’ With a child in the crook of each arm, the Reverend William Ransome reached out to cuff Naomi kindly on the shoulder, and nodded at Cracknell, who said, ‘And a sight for sore eyes you represent as ever, Parson; and if I could suggest the littl’uns be taken home and kept there, I’ll bid each a goodnight.’ Bowing to them all – and most deeply to John – the old man retreated into World’s End and slammed shut the door.
‘And why are you all out so late, might I ask? We shall all of us answer to your mother for this; and as for you, Miss Banks, what will I tell your father?’ He tweaked Naomi’s cheek, and propelled her home towards a grey stone cottage that overlooked the quay. The girl looked once over her shoulder at her friends, then hurried inside, and they heard the door bolted.
‘Yes – but Daddy, where have you been? What have you done to your face? Do you need a stitch?’ (This said eagerly, since Joanna had a private longing to wield the surgeon’s knife.)
‘Never mind that: why is John crying, and he as old as the hills!’ Will tightened his hold on the boy, who swallowed the last of his sobs. ‘As for me: I have been out rescuing sheep, and frightening ladies, and I must say’ – they’d reached the chequered garden path, and the borders where snowdrops gleamed in the dark – ‘that I haven’t enjoyed myself so much in a long time. Stella! We’re home, and we need you!’
MARCH
Stella Ransome
All Saints Rectory
Aldwinter
11th March
My dear Mrs Seaborne –
I write in the hope that a note from me won’t seem a note from a stranger, since Charles Ambrose assures me you’re expecting to hear from the Ransome family, of Aldwinter, Essex – and behold: here we are!
But first, I hope you will accept the most sincere condolences from my husband and myself on your recent bereavement. We hear little of London, and yet Mr Seaborne’s name reached us via Charles, and sometimes even in The Times! We know him to have been a man greatly admired, and I’m sure greatly loved. You have been in our prayers, and most of all mine, as I think I can imagine best a wife’s grief at her husband’s loss.
And now: to the matter at hand. Charles and Katherine Ambrose will be here next Saturday for supper, and we would be delighted beyond measure if you would join us. I understand you are accompanied by your son, and by a companion of whom Charles speaks very fondly, and we would be pleased to meet them also. There is no occasion to be marked, only the chance to see old friends and make new ones.
Our address is as you see it, and we are easily reached from Colchester: I’m afraid there’s no train, but it’s a pleasant enough journey by cab. You must stay with us, of course: we have room, and you will not want to travel home so late. I will await your response, and in the meantime plan what dainty dishes I can set before a woman with London tastes!
Yours very sincerely,
STELLA RANSOME
PS – As you see, I could not resist sending you a primrose, though I was too impatient to press it well, and it has stained the page. I never could learn to bide my time! – S.
1
Dr Luke Garrett surveyed his room at the George Hotel, Colchester, with grudging pleasure: it was clear that Spencer had spared no expense. His fingertip, having been swept across each surface, remained spotless. ‘I could perform an appendectomy in here,’ Luke said, with what his friend rightly took to be an air of wishing disease on passers-by. The cleanliness of the room established, Garrett flicked open the brass fastenings of his suitcase and withdrew a pair of crumpled shirts, several books with pages folded down, and a sheaf of paper. This he set on the dressing-table, reverently surmounted with a white envelope on which his name was written in a neat decisive hand.
‘She’s expecting us?’ Spencer nodded at the envelope: he knew Cora’s handwriting well, since his friend had lately been in the habit of passing him each of her letters, the better to examine the meaning behind each phrase.
‘Expecting? Expecting! I wouldn’t have come, left to my own devices – I’ve far too much to do. Not to put too fine a point on it, Spencer, the woman begged. “I miss you, dear” she said’ – he gave his wolfish grin, and above it his black eyes shone – ‘“I miss you, dear”!’
‘Will we see her tonight?’ Spencer said this carelessly. He had motives of his own for this display of impatience, but having successfully concealed them even from Garrett’s forensic gaze was unwilling to show them. Too absorbed in re-reading Cora’s letter (mouthing dear! to himself twice), his friend noticed nothing, only said, ‘Yes: they’re at the Red Lion; we’ll see them at eight – at eight on the dot, if I know Cora, which I do.’
‘Then I will go for a walk. It’s too fine a day to be cooped up, and I want to see the castle. They say you can still see ruins from the Essex earthquake – will you come?’
‘Certainly not. I hate walking. Besides, I have here a report of a Scottish surgeon who is convinced he can relieve paralysis by the exertion of pressure on the spinal column – I think often, you know, that I would have been better off in Edinburgh than in London: there is such courage there among medical men, and the miserable climate suits me …’ Spencer and the castle already forgotten, Garrett sat cross-legged on the bed and spread before him a dozen sheets of fine black type punctuated with drawings of vertebrae. Spencer, a little relieved to be granted an afternoon’s solitude, buttoned up his coat, and left.
The George Hotel was a fine white inn that overlooked the broad High Street. The proprietors plainly fancied their position as the best establishment in town, and displayed these credentials by means of a thicket of hanging-baskets in which daffodils and primroses jostled bad-temperedly for space. The day was fine, as if the sky regretted the slow release of winter’s grip: the high clouds hurried on to pressing business in another town. Ahead, the spire of St Nicholas glittered, and there was a great deal of birdsong. Spencer, who could differentiate between a sparrow and a magpie only if pressed, found himself bewildered and delighted by it, and by the whole merry town with bright striped awnings above the pavements and cherry blossom speckling the sleeve of his coat. When he encountered a ruined house, and at its threshold a crippled man seated like a sentinel off-guard, this too seemed to him a charming sight: the house displayed an interior gone over to ivy and saplings of oak, and the cripple had taken off his coat to bask like a cat in eddies of light.