A Whisper of Life Read online

  A Whisper of Life

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Copyright

  A Whisper of Life

  Gloria Cook

  To Ron and Jenny Cook. The very best of friends.

  Chapter One

  Her shoulders down, her eyes misted over, Kate Viant trudged along the lane. How could they do this to her? How could her family be so low, so rotten; so heartless? Because they had always hated her, that was why. For years they had called her useless and ugly and stupid. They were ashamed of her because she walked with a limp. Throwing her chin up she punched the air. It wasn’t her fault she had caught polio at the age of five and had ended up with one leg half an inch shorter than the other. Her parents had complained every time they’d forked out for the cobbler to build up her shoes – hand-me-down shoes. She had never had anything new. Her moment of fury crumbled into torment, her affront disintegrated into defeat. For her family to be this cruel to her, as they had been a short while ago, was beyond her worst imagination.

  Tears flooded down her washed-out face and she pressed the backs of her hands, reddened by much scrubbing of floors and doorsteps, against her eyes. In her blinded state she stumbled to a nearby field entrance and rested her arms on a lower bar of the wooden gate. She sobbed out her pain, her heart ripped to shreds. She had been staying in Hennaford for the last few weeks, caring for her grandmother who had taken a tumble and broken her wrist. A few days ago her grandmother had died suddenly, a tragic accident, but this didn’t figure in Kate’s misery. Granny Moses had been a sour, malicious woman loathed and feared by her family, and Kate had been the one forced to look after her. She had said many spiteful personal things to Kate, all designed to cause maximum hurt. Everything Kate had done for her had brought only biting criticism. The old woman had complained about her cooking, how she had made her bed, every cup of tea she had brewed. Although Kate had brought her ration cards with her, Granny Moses had accused her of eating her out of house and home. She had accused the family of neglecting her, particularly Kate’s mother, Biddy. She had declared she would never forgive Biddy for deserting her on her marriage to live with her husband at Tregony. The accusation of neglect was not true. Biddy would do that at her peril. She was also greedy in the hope of getting her hands on her mother’s savings, convinced that her mean lifestyle pointed to her having a considerable sum of money hidden away.

  Hurtful words from the rest of her family taunted Kate as she wept. An hour ago her two older brothers had come with a borrowed horse and cart to pick up Granny Moses’ possessions. Kate had helped carry the austere furniture to the cart, as well as the rest of the dreary stuff which, except for a few select items Biddy had taken away, she had been left to pack up by herself after the funeral for a whole lonely day and night. Then she had fetched her little cloth bag of belongings, sad to be going home, for despite her grandmother’s constant harping there had been something good about her stay. The few neighbours she had encountered while pumping water in the nearby concrete village court seemed to have taken to her. They had congratulated her for her quiet, polite ways, saying she was a good girl to care so tirelessly for Mrs Moses – their expressions making it clear that they felt sorry for her and that the old woman was despised by all.

  Her grandmother’s cottage was tucked in behind a privet hedge, at the foot of the village hill. As she’d scurried to and from the court, where the cart had pulled in off the road, a couple of passers-by had called out goodbye. She had dared not linger for a word or two or it would have angered her brothers. It had been nice to be among friendly people for a while. She was kept in at home to do all the housework, and denied the opportunity of getting a job and doing the usual things girls of her age did, like making eyes at the young men. Not that anyone would want her. She was a cripple, and although sixteen years old she looked much younger. She had nothing but drudgery, ridicule and loneliness to look forward to.

  As she’d made to climb up in the back of the cart, to seek a comfortable spot amid the jumble of her grandmother’s things, her eldest brother, Sidney, had barred her way. ‘You’re not coming back with us, maid.’

  ‘When am I then? Have I got to catch the bus?’ Surely her tight-fisted mother hadn’t sent her the bus fare to Truro, and then for the eight-mile journey to Tregony? That didn’t make sense.

  ‘No,’ Sidney scowled. Short, testy and bull-necked, he’d glared at her with contempt. ‘You’re not coming back at all.’

  Kate had blinked into his steely narrowed eyes. Her other brother, Tony, had sprung up on the cart seat and picked up the reins. ‘What do you mean? Do you know about this, Tony?’ Tony Viant kept his back to her.

  ‘Me and Delia’s getting married,’ Sidney said. ‘We’ll need mine and Tony’s room, so he’s moving into yours.’

  Kate’s large grey-green eyes grew wide with horror. ‘You just can’t leave me behind!’ She grabbed the back of the cart to scrabble up on it but Sidney wrenched her away by the wrist, squeezing brutally tight.

  ‘No? Just watch us,’ he sneered. ‘You’re not wanted any more.’

  ‘But where am I to go? I don’t understand.’ She’d felt the strength seeping out of her body. Part of her brain told her this couldn’t be happening, a bigger part said her family was fully capable of abandoning her as if she was so much rubbish.

  The Viant readiness to mock showed in Sidney’s every dispassionate inch. ‘Rent’s paid up till the end of the week so you can stay here. Should give you time enough to find yourself a job. Rich people are always looking for live-in domestics. Someone’ll be glad to take on even a little runt like you.’ There was no point in arguing or pleading with Sidney or Tony. She was nothing more than a disposable asset to the family. She could even imagine her acid-tongued mother making hard-done-by remarks that she was lazy and ungrateful, that she had sponged off them long enough and it was time she made her own way in the world. Her mother wouldn’t miss her unpaid service. She would make her new daughter-in-law do all the housework from now on. Kate knew Sidney was about to leave without even saying goodbye. ‘But there’s nothing left in the cottage! You’re even taking the food and I’ve got no money to buy anything.’

  He’d glanced at her, swung round to the cart, located the box containing the meagre contents of the larder, then thrust them into her arms. Then he’d plonked a battered old shoe box on top of the food as if making some magnificent gesture. ‘Don’t forget to hand the keys back to the landlady, Mrs Bosweld, of Ford Farm. ’Tis down Church Lane, round the corner, by the pub.’ He and Tony left.

  For some bewildered moments she had watched them clip-clop up the village hill, her two brothers who had inherited their grandmother’s selfish and malevolent ways, while all she had got was what was in her arms.

  For ages she had perched on the bottom step of the cottage stairs, her elbows on her knees and her hands supporti
ng her face, gazing at, but not seeing the box of food, the shoe box and her little cloth bag where she had dumped them. It was frightening to be suddenly pitched all alone into the world and she fought back panic with every breath, but it was even worse to be so ruthlessly forsaken. The walls of the small gloomy dwelling had seemed to be folding in on her and she felt she couldn’t breathe any more and she’d hurried outside. Without knowing why she’d started walking, branching off beside the pub, down Church Lane. She was pleased there was no one about to witness her distress.

  The bar of the gate was hurting her arms. Taking her hanky out of her skirt pocket she dried her eyes. The skirt was a cut-down. The faded print blouse on her willowy form had come from a jumble sale. She looked hard up and pathetic – a beggar girl with the urchin haircut her mother insisted on giving her. She had never looked nice, although some people had said she had pretty red hair. She had nothing. She was nothing. She gazed into the field. Sheep grazed contentedly and lambs frolicked. She would never spring about like the lambs, never be that carefree. The field sloped away steeply to a stream. She might as well drown herself in it. Life had never had anything to offer her and it never would. No one wanted her or was ever likely to. She lifted the scrap of rope that kept the gate shut, pushed on the gate, which juddered over deep tractor tracks, then closed it after her, careful to secure the rope in place.

  * * *

  Jonny Harvey closed in on the outskirts of Hennaford. Strange, he was suddenly feeling emotional. He had not lived in the village since a boy, leaving when his father had remarried, but he’d always considered it his home. Although his father was back living here, in a different house, Jonny thought more fondly of another property, Ford Farm, where he had been raised for a while under the guardianship of a beloved late uncle. The farm was where he wished he could stay for this leave, with his sensitive Aunt Emilia. There would be a warm welcome at Tremore House, where he was expected, but his father had filled it with noisy adopted young children, while Ford Farm, the largest property in Hennaford, had few inhabitants nowadays and was cosy and peaceful. He needed peace right now, and time and space to think, for he was in a quandary about his future. More than that, he was unhappy, how desperately he had only just realized. When he had alighted at Truro railway station the need to be alone a while longer had overwhelmed him. That was why he was making the six-and-a-half-mile journey on foot.

  From early days he had planned out his life, which had gone mostly as he’d wanted. After achieving a physics degree at Oxford, he had gone on to a brilliant career in the RAF as a flyer. His intention was to serve until pensioned off. Then he’d travel the world and explore new challenges, while keeping contact with former veterans at reunion dinners. The war, which had ended three years ago, had shown him things couldn’t be taken for granted. His plane had been shot down by enemy fire over the Channel a few days after D-Day. He was thankful to be alive and not badly maimed, of course, but burns had fused together the fingers of his left hand; no longer able, as a squadron leader, to fly operations, he had been forced to become a senior training officer. The small amount of scarring to his face had added to his envied dark good looks that were so appealing to women, but his relentless pursuit of women was less satisfying now. More and more there seemed to be no particular purpose to his life. Outside of training he had nothing in common with the younger pilots. Most of his peers were married and had families, they now spoke a different language to him, they had moved on with their lives and he felt the odd one out. He viewed matrimony as dull and dreary, but even though some of his friends grumbled about their wives and the duties of domesticity none of them were lonely. As he was, and miserable, and suddenly weary. He was thirty-four years old, strong and healthy, but felt past it and valueless, and he was vaguely afraid without knowing why or what of.

  He reached the first outlying little whitewashed cottage, and shortly afterwards the garage and filling station, owned by his father; resolute black lettering spelled out ‘T. Harvey’ on its frontage. The business was quiet with petrol rationing still in force; anyway, few round here could afford a motor car. Trade came by way of the A30 running through the village. He knew the two mechanics, a middle-aged man and a fresh-faced apprentice. They were easy-going, average, quiet plodders, as most of the indigenous people were. He’d stop and have a natter with them. News of others from Hennaford, people he was so familiar with, would ease some of his strange emptiness, he hoped.

  The local bus, jarring and heaving on its ancient chassis, lumbered towards the garage. On board, a young woman sitting next to a dusty window was watching Jonny turn in towards the wooden building. Abbie Rothwell liked to pick out details and form opinions about others. There was something striking about this tall RAF officer, striding along powerfully, a canvas holdall slung over his wide shoulder, his hand reaching out in greeting to the man and boy who hurried in greasy overalls, wiping their hands on rags, to greet him in return. The officer might be a Harvey, one of the bigwigs who resided round here. Her mother had tried to tell her something about the family she was about to stay with, and although Abbie had barely listened, for her mother tended to ramble on, she recalled something about a pilot war hero. So the officer was likely the son of the chap who owned the garage. There was nothing subservient in the workers’ approach to him. There was mutual respect between him and the two.

  The Harveys were, apparently, good sorts. Her stay among them – although not with the branch the RAF officer came from, if he indeed was a Harvey – should be pleasant enough and hopefully non-invasive; Abbie liked to go her own way. Her hostess Emilia Bosweld, formerly wife to the late squire, now remarried, had been her mother’s childhood friend. ‘If you’re going down to Cornwall to find inspiration for your artwork, darling, you could do no better than to stay at Ford Farm,’ Honor Rothwell had enthused. ‘It’s huge, so you won’t feel squeezed in. I’m sure Em would be delighted to have you.’

  ‘I’d rather be on my own, Mummy.’ Abbie had screwed up her nose, glancing away in an attempt to cut the conversation short.

  ‘Yes, I know you would, but I don’t want you to be all alone and fretting over Rupert.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be doing that.’ Abbie had employed her melodious voice softly to soothe her mother. She was an only child born many years after her parents’ marriage and both of them worried over her for the slightest thing. Abbie felt this strongly, particularly as her father was often bed-bound with weak lungs. ‘I mean, Rupert wouldn’t want me to do that. Honestly, Mummy, I’ll be fine. Actually,’ she frowned, ‘perhaps I should postpone the trip. Father had a bit of a cough on him over breakfast.’ Now that she no longer had a husband and household of her own to consider there was no reason for her mother to bear the burden of nursing her father alone.

  ‘There’s nothing to worry about. Your father’s toast simply went down the wrong way.’ Her mother sounded confident and she should know. She diligently watched over former naval commander Archie Rothwell, badly injured from the torpedoing of his ship in the Great War. They had met and fallen in love at Ford Farm. Abbie suddenly thought it would be a poignant place to visit. ‘But we don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be on your own yet,’ Honor had persisted. ‘Rupert has only been dead for six weeks.’

  ‘I know. But you’ll feel better, won’t you, if I go to your friend’s? I’d intended to call on Emilia Bosweld anyway. You’ve spoken a lot about her over the years and I feel I know her.’

  ‘Good. Em and I always intended to visit each other but neither of us have got round to it.’ Honor had sped to the telephone and made the arrangements.

  Abbie was on her way to Ford Farm, free to be herself again, free from Rupert and his dreary ancestral home, and his surname, Goodyear, which she would never use again. It was dreadful that Rupert had died though. She would have divorced him eventually, not least because he was tenaciously unfaithful. She had loved him at the beginning, or rather loved him as she’d thought he was, a strong-minded high ac
hiever, honest and good-humoured. She had been right only about the last thing and that had quickly disappeared. Rupert had been shallow, fluffy and irritating, and given to tremendous sulks if things didn’t go his way. He had been useless with his family business of publishing. He would have brought it down if not brought down himself first, literally, over the edge of a bridge into a swollen river by the drunken female driver he was with. It seemed inevitable that he’d suffer some sort of tragic end. Perhaps it was better that he’d died young, instead of lingering to become, in all probability, a lonely, bitter, ageing failure.

  She would always have a link with Rupert. She had met him at a book launch. She was a watercolour artist but also worked as an illustrator of children’s books for the Goodyear publishing house. She had come down to this county of popular holiday resorts to paint beach scenes for a series of adventure stories. She’d paint the countryside too. There was countryside enough back up in Lincolnshire, but what she saw here through the rattling window was just as lush and green and charmingly broken up into smaller fields and shorter hedgerows. There was never far to travel before arriving at a hill to be scaled or descended, and the engine of the antiquated bus chugged valiantly to reach each summit. She got the impression that the driver, a chuckling sort in sagging jacket and well-worn flat cap, and smoking a pipe, enjoyed each challenge. The two other passengers were housewives, wearing dull scarves over swept-back hair, chattering about everyday matters like how best to stretch a few ounces of meat ration to feed their families. Ordinary people living ordinary lives. They made Abbie feel secure, assured her that everything was normal. She lit a cigarette, leaned back against the worn, marked leather upholstery and relaxed. She was free and her life uncomplicated. All she had to do was enjoy it.

  * * *

  As Kate made her way down the slope, Jill Harvey entered the field from one adjoining it. She had come to check if any more ewes had lambed or were lambing. Yesterday she had carried home an abandoned lamb, the weakest of a pair of twins, to be bottle fed and nurtured in the farm kitchen. No other nursing ewe could be coaxed to foster the lamb. The lamb wasn’t sick, its mother had merely rejected it in favour of the stronger sibling. It should grow to be healthy. Saving this lamb had been more than a normal job for a farmer’s wife. It had taken on a new significance for Jill. She was twelve weeks pregnant. She and her husband Tom had been longing to have a baby. They had been married nearly four years, and although tests had revealed nothing was apparently wrong with either of them it had taken all this time for her to conceive. Now she was blissfully wrapped up in plans to knit baby clothes, choosing names for the baby – a boy would definitely be named Thomas after his daddy. Should they buy a new pram or use the huge, ivory-handled carriage affair that had transported Harvey babies for at least four generations? A smaller pram would allow easier passage along the narrow winding lanes. She would be sure to follow the district nurse’s advice to the letter and take plenty of vitamins, get lots of rest and have no late nights. Nothing foolhardy would she attempt, she would keep her baby safe and well. This evening she and Tom were going to draw up the colour scheme and decide on the furniture for the nursery.