The Drowned Village. Kathleen McGurl

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СКАЧАТЬ are a few of them on this route, and then the final one in the lych-gate of the Glydesdale church.’

      Stella shuddered. ‘Are there ghosts up here, then? If so many dead bodies were carried along this path?’

      Jed smiled sadly at her. ‘Who knows, lass? Perhaps there are. Well, we need to walk a bit faster if we’re to get to Glydesdale in time to meet your ma’s coffin there. Can you manage it?’

      She nodded solemnly, and quickened her pace. Jed matched it, and the crowd behind did too. So many from the village were coming to the funeral. Everyone except Janie Earnshaw, Maggie’s mother, who’d offered to stay behind and take care of little Jessie as she had to stay to look after her sister Susie anyway. A funeral was no place for someone like poor Susie.

      The sun was climbing higher and the day was warming up from its frosty start. Jed checked his pocket watch – the one that his father, Isaac, had passed on to him. They would be on time, as long as they didn’t slow up at all. In any case, the vicar would surely not start the service without them. Jed was still glad he had chosen to walk rather than ride in the hearse with Edie, or in a motorcar following it. The fresh air and exercise after the days stuck indoors at Edie’s sickbed were doing him good, helping him to realise that life would still go on and it was up to him, for the sake of the girls, to make the best of it. Though how he would manage it he didn’t know. He’d lost his wife and soon he would lose his home, his workshop, his business as a mechanic, and indeed his whole community, the village where he was born and had lived all his life. Times were tough. But he’d promised Edie, as she lay dying, that he would give the girls a good life. They’d want for nothing, if it was within his power to provide it.

      Stella tugged on his hand. ‘Look!’ She was pointing high above them, where a skylark was singing its heart out. ‘It’s Ma. She’s telling us she’s all right, and that it doesn’t hurt any more, and that she wants us to be happy.’

      Jed looked up, and blinked against the bright sunlight. ‘Yes, lass, perhaps it is your ma. We’ll do our best to be happy, eh, after today at any rate.’ His voice broke a little as he spoke. He hadn’t yet told Stella that they would have to move out of their home in a year. She knew about the dam, of course – she’d seen the land where it was to be sited being prepared, the new road being built for the workmen to use. And it had been impossible to prevent her from hearing the talk in the village. It had been almost the only topic of conversation for months, ever since that first meeting when officials from the water board had called the villagers together in the Lost Sheep and told them their valley was to be flooded to build a reservoir. The water would be piped all the way to Manchester. So Stella knew, but whether she had worked out that they would not have long left in the village Jed didn’t know. And now was not the time to talk about it.

      They were descending now, into the Glydesdale valley. The familiar mountains surrounding Brackendale were out of sight, and instead there was a new vista – steep screes tumbling down to meet the lush fields of Glydesdale, a few farms dotted through the valley and a little cluster of cottages surrounding the church. Soon they would join the road at the bottom that followed the stream through the dale to the village and the church where Jed would be reunited with Edie’s coffin, before it was put into the ground. He’d be walking this route many more times over the next year, he knew, coming to visit her grave. And after that, when Brackendale was evacuated, who knew where he’d be living. He could only hope that he would still be within easy reach of the Glydesdale church so he’d be able to continue paying his respects.

      Edie’s older sister, Winnie, a spinster who lived in the nearby town of Penrith, met them by the church lych-gate. Her eyes were red-rimmed. ‘One so young as Edie should never have to be buried,’ she said, between her sobs, and Jed nodded in reply, swallowing hard, not trusting himself to say anything. He did not want to break down in front of Stella, whose hand he held tightly throughout the quiet and sombre service. The girl was so brave, he thought. Only a few gentle sniffs gave away the fact that she was weeping. She held her head high throughout, and stepped forward to throw a handful of dirt into the grave when he nudged her. Only then did she have to dash away a tear.

      As they walked away from the grave and people started heading back up the track that led over the fells and back to Brackendale, Jed began to regret his decision to walk. Poor Stella – the child had had enough. How could he have expected her to walk all the way here and back again? She was exhausted. He looked around for someone who might have driven the long way round from Brackendale. Perhaps someone would be able to give her a lift. But almost the whole village had walked with him, as a sign of solidarity. He had welcomed it, but right now he could do with someone who had a motor car, or at least a pony and trap. Winnie had travelled by bus, and hurried off after the service to catch the one back to Penrith, after pressing Jed’s hand and urging him to stay in touch.

      ‘Jed Walker, isn’t it? I am sorry for your loss.’

      He spun around to see who was speaking. She was a well-dressed woman of perhaps forty, wearing a tailored black coat and a neat hat, and carrying a shiny black handbag.

      ‘Aye, I’m Jed Walker,’ he answered.

      She held out a black-gloved hand. ‘Alexandria Pendleton. Your wife used to be my housemaid, before she married. I live up at the manor.’

      Of course, he recognised her now. She was from the ‘big house’ as the village folk liked to call it. In days gone by, before the Great War, the Pendletons had owned most of the land around here. But now there was just the manor house and one farm. The current squire of the manor worked in government and spent most of the week in London, travelling up and down the country each week by rail. Jed shook her hand, ashamed of his rough workman’s hands against her soft leather. ‘Pleased to meet you, ma’am.’

      ‘Edie was a good worker. We missed her when she left us to get married. So tragic that she has died so young. Oh, is this your daughter?’

      Stella had sidled up to Jed and once again slipped her hand into his.

      ‘Aye, this is my eldest. Stella, say hello to the lady.’

      Stella bent her knees in an approximation of a curtsey, then stepped back so she was partly behind Jed. She was hiding her tear-stained face, he realised.

      ‘Sorry about the lass. It’s been a hard time for her, and we had a long walk over the fells from Brackendale.’

      ‘Surely you’re not going to make her walk back as well?’ Mrs Pendleton looked shocked. ‘Wait there a moment.’ She trotted off across the churchyard in her high-heeled shoes, and caught the arm of a man in a chauffeur’s cap and jacket. Jed watched as she spoke to him; he nodded, and then she returned to Jed and Stella.

      ‘You shall ride back to Brackendale in my motorcar. Thomas will take me home first for I have much to do, and then he will return here to take you and the child home.’ She nodded curtly, a woman who was clearly used to being obeyed.

      ‘Thank you. That is very kind,’ Jed replied.

      ‘It is nothing. You can wait by the lych-gate.’ Mrs Pendleton took her leave, and walked over to the front of the church where her Bentley was waiting.

      ‘Come on, lass. We’ll wait where she said, and then we’ll get a ride in a big, powerful motorcar.’ Jed took Stella’s hand and began to walk over to the lych-gate. But before they had got very far, Maggie approached.

      ‘What was all that about? Hobnobbing with the gentry now, are you?’ She gave him a quirky smile as if to show she was teasing. Jed felt irritated. Why couldn’t the woman see that today, the day he buried his wife, was no time to be fending СКАЧАТЬ