Fragrance of Violets (5 page)

How could she have been so insensitive? His fiancée had been killed on an American freeway.

Her cheeks burned with mortification as she continued to the village. She couldn’t blame him if he never spoke to her again.

CHAPTER 5

During the next week, Abbey was aware of a constant tension inside her. It lessened slightly when she was at the shop since Jack was unlikely to come in there, but whenever she was in the village, at the grocery store or the post office, her nerves tightened at the prospect of bumping into him.

“This is ridiculous,” she told herself countless times.

Every time she relived their encounter on the valley road, her cheeks burned, and she dreaded having to face him again. She even made an excuse not to go to the pub quiz on Sunday evening in case he was there, although she was annoyed with herself, and also with him, for upsetting her normal routine. Her mood matched the grey, dismal, and rainy weather they had during the week.

The rain teemed down as she headed to the Old School on Tuesday evening for her drama club meeting.

After she’d unlocked the door of the white washed stone building, and shaken the water from her umbrella, she glanced around the wood-panelled entrance hall. It was nearly twenty years since she was at school here, but sometimes it felt like yesterday.

Rusthwaite had seemed such a strange place after the first nine years of her life in a large house in London. Everything changed the day her father walked out without saying goodbye. When her mother said they were going to move up to the Lake District, to her own home village, she put on a brave face because she thought it would help her mother, and hid all her anguish.

It was Mrs. Stewart, her first teacher here, who understood when Abbey told her about the phone call from a husky-voiced woman asking for her father.

“Daddy’s in Edinburgh all this week for a conference,” she’d said.

“How strange,” the woman replied. “He told me he was going to Geneva and would be back today.” She said something else about playing stupid games, which Abbey hadn’t understood, and gave a short laugh. “I suppose it goes to show that men are all the same. They can’t be trusted.”

Puzzled and worried, she told her mother about the phone call and was alarmed when Mummy’s face turned red with anger.

“Did I do something wrong?” she asked.

Mummy hugged her. “No, love, you did absolutely the right thing to tell me.”

When Daddy came home on Friday evening, she crouched on the landing, and trembled as she listened to the angry, bitter words her parents exchanged. When her mother hissed, “How
dare
you give this phone number to that woman?” she froze. All this was her fault.

The next morning, Mummy told them Daddy had left and wouldn’t be coming home again. Abbey knew from her mother’s red eyes that she’d been crying and, even at nine years old, felt an agonising sense of guilt.

Mrs. Stewart talked to her for a long time and told her she wasn’t responsible for her parents’ break-up. She explained that Mummy and Daddy had decided they couldn’t live together any more, and tried to reassure her that Daddy still loved her and her two sisters.

Much later, she learnt about her father’s many affairs, but in those early days, the kindly round-faced Mrs. Stewart had helped her to work through her initial turmoil.

She gave a nostalgic smile. Mrs. Stewart had retired, and this nineteenth century stone building was no longer the village school. Children were now bussed to a modern school in the nearby town, and the Old School was used by various groups, including her junior drama club.

She headed for the door of the room which had been her first classroom, but stopped as another memory assailed her.

She’d been sitting outside this door one morning at break time and was wiping her eyes with a tissue the teacher had given her. Mrs. Stewart looked up as a tall boy with blond hair crossed the hallway.

“Jack, would you take Abbey to the tuck shop, please? I think she needs some chocolate right now.”

“Yes, ’course I will, Mrs. Stewart,” he said, with a grin that dimpled his cheeks.

Abbey stood and followed him along the corridor.

“You been crying?” he asked. When she shook her head fiercely, he stopped and turned to her. “It’s okay if you have, you know. I cry sometimes.”

She stared at him with wide eyes. This tall eleven year old cried? “Honestly?”

“Yeah, we all do when we’re upset. It’s no big deal.”

That had been the beginning of her friendship with Jack.

Smiling at the memory, she pushed open the classroom door, and halted in bewilderment. Instead of the normal room she’d expected, with tables and red plastic chairs stacked tidily at the far end, a scene of devastation greeted her. Dozens of white ceiling tiles floated on a couple of inches of dirty water.

“Oh, my God,” she gasped as she looked up.

Part of the suspended ceiling framework had come down, revealing the wooden rafters of the single storey building. Above them, through several holes in the slate roof, the rain seeped in, trickling down the walls or dripping onto the flooded floor.

She made a quick investigation of the other rooms. A small one at the corner of the building seemed to be unaffected, but the rest were in the same state as the one they used for their meetings.

When her drama club members started to arrive, she went back to the hallway to greet them. “Sorry, no meeting tonight. The ceiling’s come down in most of the rooms. This place is a disaster area at the moment.”

“Should we stay and help clear up the mess?” Sam Dixon, Sally’s fifteen year old brother, looked around from the doorway where he’d been surveying the chaotic scene.

“I’m not sure it’s safe, Sam,” Abbey replied. “I’ll ask Tom to come and take a look at it.”

She pulled her phone from her pocket and rang Tom Williams, the chairman of the Parish Council. Briefly, she explained the situation, and turned back to the waiting teenagers.

“Okay, Tom’s on his way.”

“Let’s rescue some of the chairs and tables,” Sam said. “We can pile them all in the end room, the one that’s still dry.”

The young people worked quickly, and moved a lot of the plastic chairs and tables out of the flooded rooms. When an ominous creak echoed from the rafters and several more tiles cascaded to the floor, Abbey pulled the teenagers out.

“That’s it,” she said. “I don’t want any of you getting knocked out or buried under a roof collapse.”

“Isn’t there an old fable about the ceiling falling down?” one of the girls asked as they waited in the hallway. “Except it was an acorn and not the ceiling?”

“It was the sky,” another girl replied. “Henny Penny thought the sky was falling down.”

“No, it was Chicken Licken.”

Abbey smiled as the youngsters continued their discussion about the other animals in the story. She tried to conceal her underlying anxiety about the roof and how long it would take to repair. There was no other place in the village where youth groups could meet.

Tom Williams, the grey-haired owner of one of the cafés in the village, arrived ten minutes later, accompanied by Kevin Layton, the local odd job man. Abbey waited with the teenagers while the two men went from room to room, inspecting the damage.

When they came back into the hallway, the expressions on their faces told her it was bad news.

Kevin shook his head. “Too big a job for me. A lot of the slates on this side of the building have crumbled. The water’s probably been seeping in for weeks, if not months. The downpours we’ve had this past week have been the final death knell, and I’m worried about the state of some of the roof beams.”

“What should we do?” Tom asked.

“The building should be closed. It’s dangerous. I can cover the roof with sheeting to stop any more water getting in, but you need to call in the professionals. Elliott’s from Kendal, for example.”

Tom nodded and turned to Abbey. “I think you’d better get these kids out of here, Abbey.” He handed her a key. “Take them up to the church. They can wait in the vestry until their parents collect them.”

“Thanks, Tom.”

She led the way up the steep path through the graveyard to the stone church which stood on the small hill overlooking the village. The teenagers crowded into the vestry, plying her with questions about the Old School and where they could meet while the roof was being repaired.

She held up her hands to quieten them. “I don’t know where we can meet, but I’ll see what I can find out and let you know. Meantime, keep thinking about what we can do for the drama festival.”

By the time Tom Williams came up to the vestry, the teens who lived in the village had left the church to walk home in small groups. Others, who lived further afield, had rung their parents to collect them, and only two sisters were still waiting.

Tom ran his hand through his thinning grey hair. “It’s not good, Abbey. Kevin thinks the whole roof is beyond repair. It’ll have to be replaced, not only the slates, but a lot of the beams, too.”

“How long before we can use it again?”

“The job itself will probably only take a couple of months. Finding the money to pay for it could take much longer.”

“Won’t the county council pay?”

“The Old School isn’t owned by the council now,” Tom began, and stopped as the last of the mothers arrived to collect her daughters. When they left, he gave Abbey a bleak smile. “Come on, let’s go down to the White Lion. I need a drink tonight.”

Abbey hesitated. She’d avoided the pub for the past week, but now she saw Tom’s worried expression. “Okay, but only on condition you let me buy you that drink.”

The rain had eased, and they walked down the path to the lychgate. “So who owns the Old School now?” she asked.

“We do. The Parish Council bought the building from the county council for a nominal fee when the school closed, and it’s now administered by a board of trustees. I’ll have to call an emergency meeting.” He gave a short laugh. “Not sure where we’re going to meet though.”

“I’d started to wonder about that, too. For the drama club, I mean.”

Tom nodded. “Yes, a lot of groups are dependent on the Old School.”

They crossed the market square toward the White Lion, and Abbey tensed as Tom held open the pub door. Only when she ascertained that Jack wasn’t there did she start to breathe normally again.

News had travelled fast, and several people crowded around Tom, asking questions. Abbey bought him a pint, but stayed near the bar where Sally was serving.

“Sounds bad,” Sally commiserated.

“It is. The whole place is in an awful mess, and Tom’s worrying about how much the roof replacement is going to cost.”

“Do I sense a marathon fundraising campaign coming up?”

Abbey grinned. “Dolly Garside will be in her element.”

“Anyway, where’ve you been, stranger? We missed you as part of the quiz team last Sunday.”

“Sorry, Sal, I should have rung you. It’s just that—oh, I know it sounds stupid, but I didn’t want to meet Jack again.”

“He’s not been in since you were here last week. In fact, I don’t think anyone’s seen him around the village. No one’s even mentioned him.”

“Oh.” Momentarily embarrassed because of her efforts to avoid him, Abbey frowned as another thought occurred to her. “D’you suppose he’s okay? I mean, if he was ill, no one would know, would they?”

“You could always go up to Fir Garth to find out.”

“No, I don’t think—no, I couldn’t—”

“I’m joking, Abbey. I know things aren’t easy between you. How about I ask Mum to pop up there to check? I’m sure she’ll be able to think of an excuse. Oh, and you
will
come here on Saturday, won’t you?”

“Saturday?”

“Sam’s birthday?”

“Oh, yes, of course. It’s his sixteenth, isn’t it? Thanks for reminding me, Sal.”

“And you’ve remembered we’re having a meal in the restaurant?”

“That’s for family, isn’t it?”

Sally laughed. “Family means everyone Sam knows, and he’s adopted you as his honorary big sister ever since you started the drama club. He hero worships you.”

Abbey smiled. She had a soft spot for young Sam, who was one of the best actors in the group. “What time on Saturday?”

“Seven-thirty onwards. We’ll eat about eight o’clock.”

“All right, I’ll be there.”

She didn’t stay long at the pub although she knew full well that her excuse of needing to go home to tell her mother about the Old School was exactly that—an excuse. Her glance strayed to the door every time it opened, and her nerves grated in case Jack came in.

As she walked along the main street, she let out a few frustrated sighs. Until Jack had come back to the village, her life had been calm. Now she seemed to be living on a knife’s edge.

Back at home, she and mother discussed the problems that would be caused by even a temporary closure of the Old School. The adult groups, they decided, could meet in the side chapel at the church, but that wouldn’t be suitable for any children’s or youth groups, and neither of them could come up with any alternative.

Two days later, Sally rang her. “Mum’s been up to Fir Garth a couple of times. No car there either yesterday or today, and no one answering the door.”