Hope. Part 41

All she wanted now was to go home. To sit with Nell and talk through all the things that had happened to them in the last seven years. She couldn't wait to see Matt's and Ruth's children. To walk in fields and woods, to sit by streams and smell flowers. And wait for her baby to arrive.

If the strength of his kicks was anything to go by, he would be a real Renton, tough and strong. But she hoped he'd also inherit his father's sensitivity and intelligence.

As the ship came in closer to berth, Hope scanned the waiting crowd for Uncle Abel. Excited as she was, she was also nervous because she realized that he was, to all intents and purposes, a stranger. In his letters to Bennett he always asked after her with warmth and interest, but she couldn't quite forget that for a very long time he'd disapproved of her.

All at once she spotted him, looking the picture of a tubby English gentleman in a grey top hat, tail coat and a high wing-collar. But as she waved, she saw him incline his head to a woman beside him and point towards the ship.

Hope's heart leapt, for it was not Alice beside him but Nell, wearing a white bonnet trimmed with blue flowers.

She forgot the ladylike demeanour she'd taken such pains to preserve on the voyage and jumped up and down, waving with both hands.

A band on the quay struck up a lively welcoming tune, and now she could only see the waiting crowd through a mist of emotional tears.

Hope was one of the first to go down the gangplank. She had pushed and elbowed her way to the front of the queue in a way that would have appalled Bennett. But it thrilled her to see Nell was every bit as eager, dodging through the crowd like a street urchin.

Hope was almost blinded by her tears now, and Nell's round, sweet face was just a blur, but she saw the outstretched arms and ran full tilt to them. She was home at last!

'Are you two going to stop that caterwauling and come and get in the carriage?' Abel said gruffly.

Hope and Nell released each other from their tight embrace and dabbed at their eyes. 'I'm so sorry, Dr Cunningham,' Hope said. 'It's just been so long.'

'I understand that,' he said with a smile. 'But I'd like to embrace you too, you know! And I think it's high time you addressed me as Uncle Abel.'

As the carriage bowled along through the countryside towards Bristol, Hope tried to remember to keep to topics which would not exclude Uncle Abel, but her excitement at being with Nell again made it almost impossible. She was very aware that they sounded like a pair of chattering monkeys, leaping from one subject to another, gasping, giggling, and often crying too.

Nell had changed a great deal from how she'd been when Hope last sawher. Even though Angus had reported she was far more confident, in both her dress and her manner, Hope had still expected to find her greying, slower and stouter. She did have a peppering of grey hair, but she moved as fast as she ever did, she was shapely, not fat, and her face was as unlined as when she was a bride. But it wasn't the physical changes that were so notable.

Nell had been so biddable before, a sweet and pliant person who never stepped out of what she considered to be 'her place'. Hope couldn't imagine her allowing anyone to order her around now. She had an air of authority, and she seemed far sharper and more worldly. Some of her remarks about people had been quite caustic. Her clothes, too, ill.u.s.trated her knowledge of self-worth. She wore an elegant blue and white striped dress which enhanced her curvy body rather than concealing it. Her white bonnet with its blue tr.i.m.m.i.n.g was youthful, not matronly. In all, Hope thought her sister had steered exactly the right path. She wasn't aping gentry, but nor was she defining herself as a servant.

When they stopped to water the horses, Hope felt she must apologize to Uncle Abel for her and Nell's constant prattle. She explained that they were overexcited and that it must be very dull and wearing for him.

'Not a bit of it, my dear,' he chuckled, and patted her hand. 'But maybe I'll take my revenge when Bennett comes home!'

It wasn't until the evening of the following day, when Hope and Nell were finally alone at Willow End, that calm settled. They had stayed overnight at a coaching inn, and as they had to share a bed, which Nell was convinced was full of bugs, they had talked nearly all night.

Hope had dozed off for the last few miles of the journey and it was a surprise to have Nell wake her and tell her they were there.

The sun was setting, turning the grey stone walls of the cottage pink as they walked to the front door. Hope brushed against the lavender bushes, and the sweet, pungent smell took her straight back to her childhood, when she used to pick lavender from the garden and tie it into bunches for her mother to hang from the cottage beams.

It was something of a surprise to find Angus lived so simply. The picture she'd had of Willow End in her head while out in the Crimea was of something grander. Yet she was pleased rather than disappointed, for it was yet more evidence that Angus had a soul.

She loved the low-beamed ceilings and the comfortable, slightly battered old furniture. It was a real home, and she could see Nell's hand everywhere, from the smell of polish and the sparkling windows to a large vase of Michaelmas daisies on the hall table.

'I often think that a woman who had the Captain's love and this house to live in would be the happiest woman in the world,' Nell said as Hope darted around, inspecting everything with exclamations of glee.

Hope looked at her sharply, suspecting her sister of wishing for his love. But Nell laughed at her expression. 'You misunderstand me. I only meant that this is what most women hope for. I count my blessings every day, Hope. I have his respect, and this house to live in. And now you back too! That's more than enough for me.'

As Nell got cold meat, pickles and bread from the pantry for their supper she explained that she had a maid who came in each day. 'I really couldn't imagine what I'd give her to do each day when the Captain first said I must have help,' she said. 'But Dora is a good girl, and I'm glad of her company and the hard work she does. She is looking forward to meeting you tomorrowbecause I've told her so much about you.'

After supper, they sat in the two chairs by the stove and it was only then that Hope asked what news there was of Albert.

'None,' Nell said, and a flicker of anxiety crossed her face. 'I'm sure he'll return to Briargate one day, but Matt says I'm foolish to think such things.'

Hope privately thought that neither of them would have complete peace of mind until he was caught and tried for his crimes. But she didn't voice this and asked about Lady Harvey and Rufus instead.

'Rufus is doing well with the farm, he had a real good harvest this year,' Nell said with some pride. 'But Lady Harvey!'

Nell had mentioned her several times in the last two days, but always with a kind of exclamation mark, as people did when mentioning a wayward child.

'She hasn't settled at the gatehouse then?'

'I don't think she'll ever settle anywhere,' Nell sighed. 'And she's so full of regrets.'

'I suppose she would be bitter at losing her home,' Hope said, a little surprised that Nell seemed so impatient with the woman she'd once adored.

'She's not bitter,' Nell frowned. 'Oh, but you must go and see it for yourself. I can't explain. But both she and Rufus were so happy to hear you were coming home and so impressed by that piece about you in The Times The Times. Did I tell you that Matt said Reverend Gosling read it out in church?'

Hope suppressed a giggle, for Nell had not only told her this several times already, but carried the newspaper cutting around with her. It was mainly about her getting shot at while rescuing Robbie, but also about her work at the hospital in Balaclava. The crumpled state of the cutting suggested Nell had been showing it to everyone for several weeks.

'I'd better go and see Rufus soon,' Hope replied, looking down at her large belly. 'While I still can.'

'On Sunday everyone's coming here,' Nell said excitedly. 'Alice and Toby are coming over from Bath with Ruth, John and their family. Matt and Amy with their little ones, and Joe and Henry will be here too. We'll have a full house then and no mistake. It's a pity it's too far for James to come as well.'

'So we'll be busy cooking for the next few days?'

'That we will,' Nell chuckled. 'I just hope the weather holds; it's easier when the children can be outside for there's so many of them now.'

For the first two days at Willow End, Hope felt she was wrapped in a beautiful dream from which she didn't ever want to wake. Apart from her honeymoon, she'd never had the kind of comfort and ease she was experiencing now. A s.p.a.cious, pretty bedroom with a soft bed, leisurely meals, and her clothes washed and pressed for her. She could watch carriages going past the cottage, or amble down to the river at Saltford and revel in the tranquillity and beauty of the countryside.

All the anxiety about her family during the long years of separation had been wiped out the moment Nell had embraced her at Portsmouth harbour, and as a result of their talks together Hope had a clear picture of everything that had happened to all of them during these years.

It wasn't until Sunday, when the rest of the family arrived to see her, that Hope experienced an awakening from the blissful coc.o.o.n she felt she'd been wrapped in since her arrival.

Everything began so well. It was a warm, sunny day, Nell and Dora had produced a veritable feast, and the family arrived with what seemed a flock of children. It was glorious to be enveloped by their excitement and love. She marvelled how Joe and Henry had grown into men while she'd been away; that Matt was now a replica of her father, and there was a sense of comradeship in sharing Amy's and Ruth's childbirth stories. Yet even as they all milled around her, faces glowing with delight at having her back in their midst, Hope found herself feeling strangely isolated and different.

She couldn't work out why this was, for apart from Matt, Joe and Henry who still led a very similar life to the one she'd grown up in, they'd all changed. Ruth and her family were relatively well-off and living in Bath. Alice and Toby were still in service and could talk of little else but the goings-on in their household. And Nell, too, had gone up in the world. Yet changed or not, they all reacted with one another just the same as they always had. Only she was different, as if she didn't belong.

Later, when everyone had gone home, Hope tried to talk about how she felt to Nell, but she'd just got cross and impatient. 'Of course you belong,' she snapped. 'I don't want to hear any more of this foolishness.'

Two weeks after her arrival home, Hope set off in the morning with Mr Tremble, the local carter, to see Rufus and Lady Harvey at the gatehouse. It had been something she'd wanted to do since she'd first returned, but although Nell had seemed keen for her to go at first, today she appeared to have had second thoughts about it.

Hope could quite understand Nell's sudden change of heart. The gatehouse had bad memories for both of them, and it was terrible to think of Albert burning Briargate down and killing Sir William. But Hope knew she had to go back there; she had ghosts to put to rest.

Matt had told her how worried Rufus had been after she left, how he'd helped on the farm during his holidays, and what a fine young man he'd turned into. Hope felt she owed it to him to show she valued their childhood friendship still.

But perhaps Nell's fears about this visit were because she was afraid her younger sister would forget her place and say something disrespectful to Lady Harvey?

That riled Hope, for she didn't have 'a place' any longer. She was neither a servant nor gentry. She was just an army surgeon's wife who knew far more about Sir William and Lady Harvey's personal lives than she felt comfortable with, and far more about Albert than Nell knew. Sometimes she wished she could tell Nell it all, then perhaps she'd stop treating her as if she were a child.

'So you'll be the Renton what ran off?'

Hope looked askance at Mr Tremble. He hadn't said a word since she climbed on the cart beside him, and then had suddenly come out with this very pointed question. With his small head, long nose and no neck to speak of, just a thick m.u.f.fler where it should have been, the man made her think of a mole.

'Yes, I am,' she admitted. 'But I'd rather not talk about that.'

'They said that Albert killed you,' he said, totally ignoring her reply. 'But my missus reckoned he done sommat else to you.'

Hope gulped. She could guess what that was!

'Mr Tremble,' she said in the stern voice she had always used with patients, 'it was all a long time ago and I wish to forget I ever met Albert Scott. Now, that is all I'm going to say on the subject.'

The carter was quiet for some little while. 'Rum do that they can't find him though,' he suddenly burst out. ''E could've joined the army, 'e might have been out where you was.'

'Possibly,' Hope agreed. Several people had put forward that same suggestion already, and she wondered what she would have done if he'd been brought into the hospital wounded. She quite liked the idea of strapping him down to have a limb amputated without chloroform.

'When's the little 'un due?'

Hope smiled, relieved to be asked something she didn't mind talking about. 'Two weeks or so,' she said. 'So don't go hitting any ruts in the road or I might have it today.'

Strangely, that shut him up, and Hope was able to sit back and enjoy the ride.

She had almost forgotten how beautiful England was in September. The sun was no longer too hot, the harvest was in, and the leaves on the trees were just beginning to change colour. She loved the undulating quality of the landscape and the small fields surrounded by hedging, which from her view point high up on the cart looked like a plump patchwork quilt. How good it was to see cows and sheep grazing, and the neat rows of vegetables in gardens! She would have given a king's ransom last winter for a carrot or a cabbage.

'What's the Crimea like then?' Mr Tremble asked, almost as if he'd read her thoughts.

'Barren and bleak,' she said. 'Nothing like this.'

He nodded, seemingly satisfied with that spa.r.s.e description. 'D'you want me to pick you up on me way back?' he asked.

'No, that won't be necessary, but thank you for offering. I'll walk down to my brother's farm in Woolard and get him to take me home,' she said.

Mr Tremble had barely helped her down from the cart before Rufus came haring down the drive to meet her. 'Hope! How good to see you!' he exclaimed, arms outstretched to hug her as he always did as a small boy. But he stopped short just a few feet from her, looking faintly embarra.s.sed.

Hope understood. The last time she'd seen him he had been just a small boy several inches shorter than her. Now he towered over her, a grown man with a deep voice and broad shoulders.

'I know there's an awful lot of me to hug,' she laughed. 'Or are you shy because we're all grown-up?'

He laughed and hugged her anyway, but the mere size of her belly made it difficult.

Hope took both his hands. 'Let me look at you, Sir Rufus Harvey. My, but you've grown into a handsome chap.'

He still had the best of his parents' blond, blue-eyed looks, but there was strength in his features that had been lacking in theirs. In plain workingmen's clothes, he looked more like a farmer than a knight.

'And you've grown from the prettiest girl in the village to the most beautiful woman in the county,' he said.

'You've spent too long on the farm,' she joked. 'Have you ever seen anyone other than a sow quite so huge?'

'I think I have spent too long on a farm,' he laughed. 'Mother would be appalled that a gentleman even noticed such a "condition".'

'We'd better go in and see her,' Hope said, glancing nervously at the small cottage that held so many bad memories. It looked less stark now, for Virginia creeper had grown all over it, and its leaves were just starting to turn red.

'A word of warning,' Rufus said, his face tensing. 'Mother isn't the way she used to be. At times she's distinctly odd. If you feel uncomfortable with her, just make the excuse that you've got to go and I'll walk you down to Matt's. I sawhim last night; he told me he would be taking you home.'

'Does that mean we can play hide-and-seek in the woods?' she grinned.

'You couldn't hide from me now,' he laughed. 'Remember what good times we had?'

'Some of the very best,' she sighed. 'I haven't forgotten any of them.' She could feel that time hadn't weakened the old bond between them, and even if Lady Harvey should prove difficult, she was very glad she'd come today.

Yet everything else was different. The drive was full of weeds now, and rutted by farm carts. At the end, where the big house once stood, was nothing but a flat ploughed field. Almost all trace of the beautiful garden was gone, apart from a few lovely old trees.

The stables were still intact, but as the arch which connected them to the house was gone, they looked like farm buildings.

'Does it shock you?' Rufus said.

Hope nodded, remembering how often she'd sat at the back door of the gatehouse looking up at the house and thinking it was the finest in all England.

'Does it hurt you? I mean, that it's gone?'

He smiled wryly. 'No, not really. Of course I still feel savage that Albert could do such a thing, and if he ever came here I think I'd tear him apart with my bare hands. But my sorrowis about not being able to say goodbye to Father, and of course what it's done to Mother, not about the house. In a strange way I often feel that it never belonged there. That this was meant to be farmland. Do you know what I mean?'

Hope looked thoughtfully over the land. It didn't look as if anything was missing at all. 'Yes, I think I do,' she agreed. 'And Nell says you are happier farming than you were studying. Is that true?'

His wide smile came back. 'Yes, Nell's right, I am much happier. I feel a sense of purpose, a belonging that I never felt before.'

'Then you are lucky.' She reached out and touched his cheek affectionately. 'I felt that way when I was nursing. It's a good feeling.'

'I want to know everything about the Crimea,' he said eagerly. 'But we'd better go and see Mother first.'

It was the strangest sensation to go into the gatehouse again. Hope glanced up the stairs, remembering in a flash what she'd seen there. She could almost feel Albert's blows raining down on her, and her terror that he would kill her.

But it didn't look the same now. The rough old table and chairs were gone; it seemed bigger, softer and warmer, almost gracious, with a carpet on the floor, comfortable armchairs and a polished wood table. It was a minute or two before she realized that part of the reason for this was because another room had been added, presumably a new kitchen, beyond where the back door used to be.

'How good of you to call, Hope.' Lady Harvey rose rather stiffly from a velvet armchair by the fireplace to greet her. 'You look well, and the happy event will be soon, I understand?'

Lady Harvey had aged dramatically. Her hair was white now, her face was almost skeletal, and the flesh appeared so thin that it was as if her sharp cheekbones could pierce through it at any time. Her mouth was sunken too, and Hope guessed she'd lost a good many teeth. Her black dress drained any colour there might have been in her face; even her blue eyes seemed to have faded.

Hope realized this change must have come about gradually over a long period or Nell would have warned her, but coming upon it so unexpectedly, she felt suddenly tongue-tied.

'I am so very sorry about Sir William,' she said in a rush. 'I didn't hear of it because I had just got married.'

'Don't let's dwell on that,' Lady Harvey said, and smiled, which brought back a glimmer of the beautiful woman she'd once been. 'I was so pleased when Nell told me you were found, and that you'd married a doctor. And now a baby!'

'Yes,' Hope said. 'Only a couple more weeks now, but I'm hoping it will wait until Bennett arrives home.'

She'd had a letter soon after she got home saying he thought he would be allowed to go on the next ship. That letter had arrived with nearly a dozen he'd written prior to it, and it was dated 1 August. As no more had come since, she was sure that meant he had got on the ship almost immediately, and that he would be home any day now.

'I do hope you won't have to have the child alone,' Lady Harvey said, and to Hope's astonishment she began to cry.