Kathleen McGurl - The Drowned Village

‘Do you realise I’ve been living here with you for two months now?’ Laura said, as she gave Jasper a stroke and sat down.

‘Nearly three months, dear. You arrived on June the sixth – I remember because it was the D-Day anniversary – and now it is August the twenty-eighth. Are you fed up with your old gran yet?’

‘Not at all – I love being here!’ Laura wasn’t lying. It had all worked out better than she could have hoped. Gran had offered a sympathetic ear, some gently given advice, a comfortable room to sleep in, and was great company when Laura wasn’t working. No matter that her parents lived in Australia – when you had a gran like Stella! And although Laura had not yet done much about rebuilding her life, she knew that her sojourn with Gran had at least given her time to get over Stuart. Was she over him? She hoped so, but did still find herself crying herself to sleep sometimes, even though she knew he wasn’t worth it.

‘But you do need a holiday,’ prompted Stella, with a questioning glance at Laura.

Laura smiled. ‘Yes, I am owed loads of leave, and it would be lovely to see where you lived. I’ll call round to the flat tomorrow and try to retrieve my tent and sleeping bag that I left there, and I’ll talk to Ewan in the office about booking the time off, and getting someone to cover your care. Ewan’s a mate of mine. He’ll sort it out for me, even though it’s short notice. Thanks for the suggestion, Gran!’ And while she was away she’d have a good long think about her future and make sure she was fully over Stuart, she decided.

She held up her wine glass and Stella clinked it with her knitting needles. The old lady’s expression held something that Laura couldn’t quite read. She seemed pleased Laura had decided to go to Brackendale Green but at the same time, it was as though she was fighting an internal battle. She was definitely hiding something.

Chapter 2

JED, APRIL 1935

Jed held tightly to his daughter Stella’s hand as they walked up the steep track that led up on to the fells behind the village. Three dozen mourners followed behind them. The coffin containing his beloved Edie had been taken by road, in the hearse, to Glydesdale in the next valley where she would be buried, but Jed had chosen to walk the old way, the traditional route over the hills, to reach the church.

‘All right, lass?’ he asked Stella, and received a mute nod in reply. The poor mite, of course she was missing her ma. No child of ten years old ought to be left motherless. No child of two, either, Jed thought, thinking of little Jessie whom he’d left behind in Brackendale Green being cared for by a neighbour. But Edie had died, of cancer, leaving Jed and the two girls alone.

It broke his heart that they could not bury her in St Isidore’s Church in Brackendale Green, where generations of his family had been buried. But the dam-building had begun, there were compulsory purchase orders on every house in Brackendale, and the village’s days were numbered. In another year or maybe even less everyone would have to move out. Where he, Stella and Jessie would go or what he would do for a living Jed had no idea. He could not think that far ahead. The last year had been taken up with caring for Edie, and now she was gone he would need to figure out how he could manage to look after the girls and still work. And then there was his father, Isaac, who was increasingly frail and also dependent on Jed for support.

Well, all those worries would have to wait until Edie was safe underground in Glydesdale churchyard. He took a deep breath. At least the weather was fine for her burial. It was the kind of day Edie had always loved – springtime, with blue skies, clear air, bright green foliage on the trees and bushes, and down in the valleys, an abundance of fluffy black Herdwick lambs on their spindly legs. A time of rebirth and hope for the future. But not this year. This year it was a time of death and fear of what was to come.

‘Is it much further?’ Stella asked. She was usually a good little walker, but the past few weeks had been hard on her. Jed had relied on her to prepare food and look after her sister, while he sat at Edie’s side.

‘Not so far now,’ he replied with a reassuring smile. They walked on in silence, but a moment later when Stella stumbled on a rough section of the track, he scooped her up onto his broad shoulders. ‘I’ll carry you for a bit, lass, to give you a rest.’

‘Thanks, Pa,’ she said, as she tucked her feet under his arms and held his upraised hands for balance. He gritted his teeth with the effort of walking uphill with her weight on his shoulders. He’d not carried her like this since she was smaller, and it was tough going, but she was his daughter so she could not be a burden. He could do this.

‘Stella, get down, you’re a big enough girl to walk it yourself without making your father carry you.’ It was Maggie, Jed’s neighbour, who’d caught up alongside them.

‘Ah, she’s all right up there, Maggie. The poor lass is exhausted so I don’t mind carrying her a while.’ Maggie had been a good friend throughout Edie’s illness. She’d helped nurse her, she’d brought in pots of mutton stew for their dinner, and once, she’d cared for Jessie while Stella was at school, to allow Jed to stay with Edie.

‘She looks so heavy, such a burden for you. Well, we’re almost at the top – then perhaps she can walk by herself. You can’t be carried all the way to your own mother’s funeral, now can you?’

‘Pa, I’ll walk now,’ Stella said wearily, and Jed hoisted her down again. The child hung back behind him with some of the other mourners, as Maggie fell into step alongside him. Stella didn’t much like Maggie, he knew.

‘That’s better,’ Maggie said. ‘Now we can talk as adults. Jed, you’ll need help managing the girls, won’t you? I mean, I’ll do what I can for you, but long term, you’ll need someone living in. You’ll need to take another wife.’

‘For the Lord’s sake, Maggie, I’ve not yet buried my first wife!’ Jed could not help blurting out the words. ‘Give me a chance, woman.’

Maggie had the grace to hang her head. ‘I’m sorry. You know me, Jed. Sometimes I speak my mind before I think it through properly.’ She reached out to touch his arm. ‘I want only the best for you, never forget that.’

Jed softened his expression. ‘Aye, Maggie, I know that.’

They walked on. Maggie paused to flick a stone out of her shoe, and Stella then ran up to take her place beside Jed once more, slipping her little hand into his roughened one.

‘I was thinking, Pa, that Ma would have liked this walk, and with all the village coming too. Perhaps we should have carried her over this way to the church.’

‘It’d have been a struggle, lass. But you know, a hundred years ago that’s what the people of Brackendale did with their dead. Before St Isidore’s graveyard was consecrated, coffins were carried over here all the way to Glydesdale for burial. That’s why it’s called the Old Corpse Road. See that flat stone, there?’

Stella looked where he was pointing, at a large flat-topped stone just off the path.

‘It’s a lych-stone. The men would have placed the coffin there for a rest. There 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.