The Linden Walk

‘I know. And I wasn’t glad about what happened to her. When she died, all I could think was that it could have been Daisy or me, in the Liverpool Blitz. It was damn awful luck. I tried not to think about you and how terrible it would be when you got to know.

‘But I was sad about Kitty. I had to bottle everything up because Daisy was in such a state, kept weeping and wanting Keth, but there was only my shoulder for her to cry on.’

‘There’s a seat a bit further down – I think we’ve got to talk, Lyn.’ He took her hand and they walked to the new wooden memorial bench. ‘When I came back from Australia and got my demob, I didn’t go straight home to Rowangarth.’

‘I know you didn’t. We ran into each other, in Liverpool. Remember? It was blowing, and raining icicles. You seemed lost, as if you were looking for something.’

‘I was. Or maybe I was convincing myself that Kitty really wasn’t there and never would be again. So I stayed the night, then caught the first train out next morning. But she wasn’t at Rowangarth either, nor in the conservatory nor the wild garden. All I could find of her was a wooden grave-marker with her name on it. It was like a last goodbye.’

‘It must have torn you apart, Drew. Are you ever going to forget her?’

‘No. She happened and I can’t begin to pretend she didn’t. But at least I’ve accepted the way it is. Mother told me she wasted too many years raging against the world after her husband Andrew died. She begged me to try not to do the same.

‘When finally she went to France to his grave, she had to accept he was dead, she told me. So I was luckier than she was. At least I was spared the bitterness. All I have to contend with now is the loneliness.’

‘And I’ve just made a right mess of it, haven’t I?’ Lyn whispered. ‘My performance in the wood must have shocked you. Sorry if I embarrassed you.’

‘You shocked me, yes, because I’d never really realized how you felt. Even after the war was over and you started visiting Daisy and Keth and we met up again and –’

‘And walked, and talked!’

‘And walked,’ he laughed, ‘and talked like old friends.’

‘All very nice and chummy, till I put the cat among the pigeons.’

‘Among the rooks! But are you really thinking of going to Kenya?’

‘Thinking, yes, but I won’t go. And Drew – before the soul-searching stops, this is your chance to cut and run; give me a wide berth next time I come to Foxgloves. Because I won’t change.’

‘You must have loved me a lot,’ he said softly.

‘I did. I do. I always will. And if you can still bear to have me around after tonight – well, you don’t have to marry me. If sometimes we could be closer, sort of. It’s just that I’m sick to the back teeth of being a virgin, still.’

‘Lyndis Carmichael.’ He laid an arm across her shoulders and pulled her closer. ‘What on earth am I to do with you?’

‘Like I said, you don’t have to marry me …’

‘Oh, but I do! You can love twice, Mother said, but differently. So shall we give it a try, you and me? Knowing that Kitty will always be there and that sometimes people will talk about her just because she was Kitty and a part of how it used to be, at Rowangarth?

‘Knowing that every time you and I walk through the churchyard or down Holdenby main street, we shall see her there? And can you accept that every June, Catchpole will take white orchids to her grave and that she was my first love? Knowing all that, will you be my last love, Lyn?’

For a moment she said nothing, because all at once there were tears again, ready to spill over, and she wouldn’t weep; she wouldn’t!

‘That really was the most peculiar proposal I ever had.’ She blew her nose, noisily. ‘Come to think of it, it’s the only proposal I ever had! It – er – was a proposal?’

‘It was, but I think I’d better start again. I want you with me always, Lyn. Will you marry me?’

He still hadn’t said he loved her, she thought wonderingly, as a star began to shine low in the sky, and bright. But he would say it. She could wait, because now tomorrows were fashionable, and people could say the word without crossing their fingers.

Their lips touched; gently at first and then more urgently, and as she pulled away to catch her breath she looked over his shoulder at the star; first star – wishing star. So she closed her eyes, searching with her lips for his, wishing with all her heart for a child with clinging fingers that was little and warm and smelled of baby soap. Two children. Maybe three.

‘I think,’ she said shakily, ‘that if you were to kiss me again as in properly and passionately, I’d say, “Thanks, Drew. I will.”’

It seemed right, somehow, and very comforting that as they kissed again, a pale crescent moon should slip from behind a cloud to hang over Rowangarth’s old, enduring roof as new moons always had, and that from the top of the tallest oak in Brattocks Wood, a blackbird began to sing Sunset.

As it always would.

TWO (#ulink_964f4ecd-c6fa-58b6-a69d-4937ecfc2884)

At the house called Foxgloves where Keth and Daisy lived off the Creesby road, all was quiet. Bemused, Lyndis gazed into the fire. It had really happened, Drew asking her to marry him and she saying yes. A very calm yes, considering she had been dry-mouthed and shaking all over. She still couldn’t quite believe it. The wayward little pulse behind her nose still did a pitty-pat whenever she thought about it and to bring herself down to earth, she would close her eyes and cross her fingers and pray with all her heart that nothing would happen to prevent it. Because it had happened before, though lightning didn’t strike twice in the same place – well, did it? Fate couldn’t do it again to Drew. Not when Kitty had been killed by a lousy flying bomb when everyone thought the war – in Europe at least – was all but over.

Kitty had been one of the Clan. Special, that Clan. Still was. Before, when they’d met up twice a year, it was as if they had never been apart. Bas and Kitty, the cousins from Kentucky, were Pendenys Suttons, really, though drawn always to Rowangarth and Drew and Daisy and Keth. And Tatty, of course. Half Pendenys Sutton, half Russian, she had been the awkward one, the defiant one. Kitty, the naughty one, had been beautiful and headstrong and a show-off. No wonder Drew had been completely besotted by her. Poor Drew. Thousands of miles away with the Pacific Fleet when it happened, and not even able to say one last goodbye at her graveside.

But that war was over, now. Six damn-awful years it had lasted and she and Drew two of the lucky ones. Kitty had not been, though she would never be dead. Not completely.

‘Right!’ The door flew open. ‘That’s the baby fed and in bed so give, Carmichael. Tell all!’

‘Daisy – surely not at this hour? You’ve had a big day. You must be asleep on your feet.’

‘Blow the hour! Mary is asleep, Keth is marking homework in his cubbyhole upstairs so he’ll hear if she cries. No excuses. This is Wren Purvis-from-the-bottom-bunk. Remember our heart-to-hearts, Lyn?’

She dropped to her knees to stir the fire and lay another log on it.

‘Mm. Good ones and bad ones …’

‘Yes, and I put up with all your bad ones which makes me entitled to hear the best bit of all, so let’s be having it. From the beginning.’

‘But you know about it. Drew and I are going to be married. You were right. “Do something,” you said. “Go in at the deep end and if it comes to nothing, then at least you tried.” And the deep end it was – feet first. I can hardly bear to think of it. Hands on hips in Brattocks Wood, yelling my head off at those rooks!’

‘Lyn – will you never learn? You don’t yell at the rooks. You don’t even talk to them. You put your hands on the tree trunk – connect yourself to it, sort of – then you send them your thoughts.’

‘Thoughts? It was for Drew’s benefit, don’t forget. He isn’t a mind-reader. Poor love. I yelled like a fishwife.’

‘He needed a shove. My brother has always been a tad too placid.’

‘Well, he got the message in the end.’ She clucked impatiently then went to sit at Daisy’s side on the sofa opposite because it would help, she all at once realized, if she didn’t have to look her in the eye when she told all.

And tell all she did; was glad to. Told every word, gesture and sniff. What she had said; what Drew had said.

‘And Drew so serious and kind about it. Yes, kind, actually. Me offering it on a plate – again! Telling him I was sick of being a virgin, still; that he didn’t have to marry me. I must’ve sounded desperate. But it worked. I got what I wanted, what I’ve always wanted since the day I met him.’

‘What we all wanted, love. I wanted it, Mam wanted it and Aunt Julia wanted it, too. She most of all. So what did she and Nathan say when you arrived at Rowangarth with the news?’

‘Drew’s mother let out one yell then hugged me and hugged Drew, and Nathan beamed all over and raised his eyes to the ceiling and said, “Thank God for that!” And Drew’s mother said she would go to the bank first thing in the morning and get the jewels out so I could choose a ring, but I had to tell her I was going back to Llangollen in the morning.

‘And Drew said, “She’ll be back on Friday. Get them out for then. And no, Mother! No champagne! We’ve got to go and tell Lady and Tom – and Keth and Daisy. Save the champagne till I’ve got the ring on her finger!”’

‘You’d think there was still a war on. I mean, you can’t get anything half decent at the jeweller’s. Best you have a family ring, Lyn.’