The Letter Read online

  “I should imagine so, yes. I wouldn’t like to pay for it today! Still, his family weren’t short of money. They owned Rosecraddick Manor and were the major landowners in the area back then. Real Downton Abbey stuff with servants and horses and all that jazz. Kit was the only son and heir, so the line died out with him. From what little I know, the place fell into disrepair during the last century.”

  The viper’s fangs take hold once again. I carry Neil’s name and still wear his rings, but I won’t be passing his name on now. I push the rising misery down into the deep place where the dark things hide and focus all my attention on the window. It’s a remarkable piece of art but there’s something impersonal and idealised about it. Kit Rivers looks like a saint rather than a young man. And Sue’s right: in my experience, young men don’t tend to have their noses buried in Bibles and spend their time contemplating heaven. They’re too busy pulling girls, getting drunk or having fights – and I can’t believe that Kit Rivers, war-hero poet or not, would have been any different.

  “So his family commissioned the window?”

  “I think Kit’s mother did in the 1920s, although you’d be better off asking one of the local Kit Rivers Society bods about all that. You could try Matt Enys up at the Manor. He’s with the Kernow Heritage Foundation, who’ve recently acquired the place. He’s bound to know about the family history. The Foundation are planning an exhibition about the Great War; Kit’s going to feature and Matt’s the history expert on the team. Profile raising was how they put it at the last parish council meeting. What they actually mean is they want to get the tourists flocking here – and good on ’em.”

  “Are tourists interested in poetry?” I would have thought the beach, ice creams and pasties were bigger draws.

  Sue shrugs her plump shoulders. “No idea. I think the Kernow Heritage Foundation are hoping to have a tea room and do tours, tie it in with the war and the whole Downton Abbey end-of-an-era thing. Anything that encourages tourism can only be good for the village. You can see how dead it is here in the winter, and the more money locals make in the summer the better.”

  Sue has a point. When I visited Rosecraddick in August, the village was so busy that my car could only get through it at a crawl. The narrow street had been thick with holidaymakers meandering along carrying beach paraphernalia or stopping abruptly to peer into shop windows or buy pasties. Every business had been open, the cafés had been bulging at the seams and the pub’s beer garden had bristled with drinkers enjoying the sunshine. This week I drove through in minutes without seeing a soul and most of the shops were shuttered up for the winter. Making a living from seasonal work must be tough.

  “So what’s the daisy all about?” I ask, pointing at the brave white flower floating amid flames and seraphim. “It’s a bit out of place, isn’t it?”

  The vicar frowns. “I hadn’t really noticed that before, but now you’ve pointed it out I can’t believe I ever missed it. It sticks out like a sore thumb.”

  “It looks as though it’s been added at a later date,” I say thoughtfully. “The style’s different, cruder almost. It really jolts against the colour scheme and the design. Poppies make sense, but a daisy? I wouldn’t have expected that. Certainly not in the sky.”

  “I can tell you’re an artist. What an eye for detail,” says Sue, with such admiration that I feel rather embarrassed. I’m only looking at a stained-glass window; I’m not splitting an atom.

  I shrug. “It’s a bit of a puzzle and I enjoy those.”

  “In that case you should definitely ask the history bods at the Foundation. They’ll probably be able to tell you straight away and, if not, you’ll have a mystery to solve just like in The Da Vinci Code!” she grins.

  Channelling my inner Dan Brown wasn’t on the top of my list when I arrived in the village, but as we make our way through the nave and back into the churchyard I’m turning the riddle of the daisy around and around. No matter which direction my mind takes, I can’t make sense of it. I’m intrigued now. Maybe I will do some research – or at the very least read some of Kit Rivers’ poetry.

  I think you should! High time you dragged yourself away from celebrity magazines and read something challenging!

  It’s Neil, laughing and teasing me as he leans against the churchyard gate. He’s wearing his favourite blue fisherman’s sweater, together with faded fraying jeans with scuffed Timberland boots. Wrapped loosely around his neck is the Hugo Boss scarf I bought him when we visited New York one magical Christmas. I threw those dreadful jeans out long ago, but I guess you can wear whatever you want in the afterlife. The sun behind him dazzles me, so I blink. Of course, he’s gone when my eyes adjust once again, but that’s OK. Neil’s in Rosecraddick: that’s the main thing. I haven’t made a mistake coming here. He was waiting for me and he wants me to put my brain to use.

  And if I’m only imagining things? Maybe that doesn’t matter. Either way, perhaps I was supposed to come here and discover more about Kit Rivers. For the first time in longer than I care to remember, it feels like I have a purpose.

  Chapter 4

  Chloe

  Although the morning sun’s streaming into the Rectory, my return finds the old house no warmer and I’m grateful to Sue for managing to arrange a swift log delivery. My trusty fan heater’s all very well in a small flat, but it can’t heat a place this size. Short of holing up in the bedroom with my electric blanket cranked up and my hat and coat on, I can’t imagine how I’d manage to stay warm otherwise. It’s something that didn’t cross my mind in the summer. I wasn’t thinking very far ahead then; I was still chunking time into sections and ticking off the minutes, hours and days that had passed since Neil died.

  If I’m honest, I’d very nearly got to the stage of chalking tally marks on my wall – what I was counting down to I daren’t contemplate. I longed for oblivion, but I dreaded falling asleep because waking up meant losing Neil all over again. For a moment everything would feel normal, before the realisation hit me with the force of a wrecking ball and my world splintered once more. I’d wondered how long the loss would shock me anew before it felt real, and how long it would take for coffee and pills to seem like a normal diet. I got through those long, colourless days by barricading myself in my bedroom, burrowing beneath the duvet and only surfacing when I absolutely had no choice. I’ve got no desire to revisit those days spent languishing in bed, even if I’m only trying to avoid frostbite. I need to move and do something.

  I have to keep busy.

  It’s late morning now and my log delivery’s still a few hours away. I head for the kitchen but I can’t boil the kettle until the range is lit. I should have brought my electric one with me; in the turmoil of the move I’ve forgotten it. I’m not hungry enough to make anything to eat either. There never feels like there’s much point cooking without Neil to hoover it up and wolf down my leftovers too. If he was here now, he’d be sitting at the table shovelling in a sandwich. I can see him vividly, munching through a doorstep of cheese and pickle and scattering crumbs everywhere. It drove me crazy at the time, but now I’d do anything to fetch my dustpan and brush and sweep them up. I’d sweep all day if I could only have five more minutes with him.

  My eyes blur and the room trembles. Funny how it’s the little things that hurt the most.

  Feeling rather lost and dangerously close to crumpling, I sit down at the refectory table and fish out my phone. I’ll Google Kit Rivers and distract myself that way. I have to focus on something; drifting with the tide is dangerous. At times, the Internet can become a lifebelt.

  The brief Wikipedia entry doesn’t really tell me any more than I’d already gleaned from chatting to Sue. I compare it to the entries for Brooke and Owen and feel saddened that in contrast Kit’s entry feels bald. An upper-class young man from a military family enlisted, went to France and died. If it wasn’t for his poems there’d be little to set Kit apart from thousands of others like him. I sigh and close the page. There must be so much about Kit Rivers �
�� and all the men who died, for that matter – that we’ll never know. Details lost in time and that will never be unearthed. What was Kit’s favourite food? Did he want to fight, or did he enlist under the weight of duty and family expectation? Was he light-hearted or serious? Did he want to be a poet? Who were his friends? Did he have a sweetheart? Was he afraid? I could ask endless questions but there are no answers to be found online except these few lines and the poems, which are all that remain of his brief life.

  Will it be the same for Neil? Or myself, come to that? Who will remember us once I’ve gone? The nursery remained empty and neither of us have written poems – unless I count a rude Valentine’s limerick he once scribbled into a card. I wouldn’t want that published!

  I rub my eyes until I see a burst of stars. Everything feels transient and terrifyingly meaningless. Knowing where these spirals of negative thinking can take me, I shake my head as though physical movement can scatter my thoughts, but no matter how hard I try my mind insists on drifting back to the sad story of the young poet and the heartbreaking loss of young life. The faces of those whose names feature on the stained-glass window might be long forgotten, but I can feel the despair of the people they left behind. Their grief wasn’t any different from my own.

  Dwelling on this won’t do me any favours, I know that much from bitter experience, so I tug my thoughts back to the mystery of the daisy in the window. My Internet trawl hasn’t unearthed anything about it, but I can’t believe the flower was placed there at random or as a quirky repair. It has to mean something, surely?

  I dig out my wellington boots, grab my bag and venture outside. A good walk will clear my head and keep me warm. I’ll stomp up to the war memorial and then follow the path back across the fields to Rosecraddick. This route should take me onto the cliffs and then up across the headland, past Rosecraddick Manor and back into the village. I’ve been surfing the Net for long enough as it is, and I don’t want to waste an entire day in front of a screen. I’ve even forgotten about lunch.

  You can’t keep skipping meals, Chloe! You need to eat healthily and look after yourself. Don’t think you can live on toast or the odd biscuit either!

  Neil’s standing in the hall, his backside perched on one of the ancient cast-iron radiators, and shaking his head at me. He shimmers in the sunlight streaming through the big window halfway up the stairs. Then, as the light makes my eyes water, he fades away.

  He might have vanished but his words make me smile. An exercise junkie who lived for his running and cycling, Neil would always tell me off for my poor diet, although I know for a fact that if he was with me now he would have been looking forward to loading up on pie and chips at the local pub, and promising to start healthy living tomorrow. As it turned out, I’m glad he enjoyed every carb-filled mouthful. All the grilled fish and salad in the world couldn’t have made any difference to his diagnosis.

  It’s a beautiful day. The sun’s tickling the waves and the sky is ink blue. I start off feeling cold but by the time I’ve climbed to the headland I’m sweating and doing my best to tie my coat around my waist so that I don’t cook. The path to the war memorial’s far steeper than it looks but the ascent is worth the effort. Endless water stretches out before me, domed by a vast arc of sky. Distance and freedom merge and as I crest the final twist of the cliff path I understand why a memorial would be placed here. Under these shifting skies and racing clouds, and with the water crashing relentlessly below, there’s a sense of timelessness and of my own insignificance. I realise that what seems to matter so much to us in the here and now is nothing in comparison to the sea and the rocks and the turning of the tides; we’re just tiny grains in the sands of time. Rather than filling me with despair, I find that there’s peace in this thought.

  There’s a simple bench opposite the memorial and I sit on it to catch my breath and drink in the view. Then I turn my attention to the names listed in neat columns. I read them all, struck by how the same surnames are repeated among the fallen of the next generation. There’s my surname again, with Gem Pencarrow in the First World War followed by three other Pencarrows lost in World War Two. Sue wasn’t kidding when she said they weren’t a lucky bunch. It seems that another seventy or so years hasn’t improved our fortunes either. Maybe it’s just as well Neil and I never had a family.

  Not wanting to dwell on this thought, I turn inland and follow the well-worn route back to Rosecraddick. The coastal path’s a popular choice on a sunny Saturday afternoon, and I pass serious walkers armed with poles and kitted out in gaiters, plus families with dogs and red-wellied children, as well as several runners. They’re all heading in the opposite direction to me, so by the time the path drops into the woods I’m alone again with just my rasping breath for company.

  It’s cooler under the trees and the earth is dank. As I walk, I wonder whether Kit Rivers ever came this way. It’s odd to think that he could have trodden the same track and seen the same views. Give or take some National Trust steps on the path and gangly trees that must have sprung up over the past century, I can’t imagine much has changed.

  The footpath wiggles through the woods, shaves through fields of bristly stubble and then ends abruptly with a stile into a sunken lane. Even in midwinter the limbs of trees embracing overhead plunge the narrow byway into shade, and I find myself enclosed in a tunnel of branches and knotty roots. Deep ruts either side suggest this is a popular route with green-laners, keen to test their four-by-fours somewhere other than on the school run, but apart from these and the occasional horse I don’t suppose much traffic passes. This half-forgotten byway is as silent now as it must have been in Kit’s day, a time before growling engines and the throb of traffic were commonplace. When I emerge onto the road leading into the village, it’s a shock to see a car pass by.

  I laugh out loud. What was I expecting? A pony and trap? Honestly, Chloe Pencarrow! You’ve been following the South West Coast Path – not passing through some magical time tunnel. Still, I can’t help wishing this was a time-slip movie, rather than real life. If only I could bump into a villager from the turn of the last century, or even Kit Rivers himself. I’d ask him about the daisy in the window and I have a feeling he’d be able to tell me exactly what it means.

  I really would love to know why the window was altered to incorporate it. My mother would worry that this is one of my strange obsessions to deflect the agony of losing Neil. (It isn’t and nothing could do that anyway.) She’d mutter about seeing my doctor again (no thanks) and then ask if I should start the pills again too (absolutely not; things might hurt now, but at least I can feel). Anyway, none of this really matters. I’m relieved to feel a fizz of interest in anything other than making it through another twenty-four hours. Since I lost Neil, it’s as though time’s been wearing concrete boots; I’d forgotten what it feels like for a day to fly by like this.

  It’s been a long time since life felt like a joy rather than a feat of endurance.

  As I turn a corner, the gates of Rosecraddick Manor stop me in my tracks. I’ve driven past before, of course, but only on the way to the Rectory and without having taken the time to stop. Now though, knowing this is the childhood home of the young man honoured in the window, I pause for a proper look.

  Two weathered pillars topped by balls of stone and velveted with moss flank a pair of ornate wrought-iron gates. Once upon a time these would have been glossy and imposing, but today one lists drunkenly on its hinges, clinging to its twin with a piece of rusty chain. I allow myself to step right up to the gates, and my fingers curl around the metal. I hardly notice the flakes of paint that flutter down to the sparse gravel drive. Despite its dilapidated state, the sight of the Manor surrounded by specimen trees and lawns takes my breath away. The house is set at the end of a short drive, with a green turning circle just before the crumbling steps to the front door. Shuttered windows give the impression that the place is slumbering in the pallid winter sunshine, waiting for the spring to arrive in a haze of bluebells and brigh
t splashes of rhododendrons and kiss it awake. As I gaze through the gate, I can imagine moonlit nights with carriages rumbling up the drive to deposit bare-shouldered beauties in ballgowns. I picture their white-gloved hands resting upon the suited arms of handsome gentlemen. Music plays, torches throw leaping shadows and voices rise and fall. Or maybe the hunt meets outside, hoofs stamping and hounds waiting for the command as side-saddle ladies and men in pink coats sip from stirrup cups? All this is long-gone now, of course.

  I shiver even though the low sun spills onto the road. My imagination’s running away with me. My artist’s eye is suddenly painting pictures that my hand longs to trace. That’s a good thing, I think? Not something to fear or shy away from.

  Is my need to paint, once as essential as my need to breathe, returning?

  I’d like to wander down the weed-pocked drive and explore, but the gates are padlocked with a heavy chain. Sue Perry mentioned that the Manor had been purchased by the Kernow Heritage Foundation, but maybe they don’t open at the weekend? I make a mental note to find out more the next time I see her. Then, with one last look over my shoulder, I continue on my way back. The sun’s starting to slip lower in the sky; soon twilight will fall, and I’d like to be back at the Rectory before it’s dark. My logs should have arrived too. I suppose I’ll need to figure out how to light the range. I’ve no idea how long it will take the house to heat up, but it would be nice to think that by bedtime I could take my coat off.

  The village is deserted, the light spilling from cottage windows being the only evidence that anyone lives here at all, and by the time I arrive at the Rectory the first stars are freckling the sky. After a lifetime lived in London, it’s a shock how dark the world still is away from streetlamps and permanently lit offices. Graveyards and bats and pools of darkness bring all kinds of fears to mind. Remind me again why I thought a house next to a graveyard was a good idea?