Author's Note
There are a couple of things I wanted to say before I get started on this fic. First of all, I've taken a small liberty with the timescale. In Rilla of Ingleside it's stated that Faith was sailing to England in the spring of 1917, two weeks after Vimy Ridge (April). I've brought her departure forward to two months earlier, for reasons which I hope will soon become apparent.
Secondly, this prologue is, as you may have gathered, not the beginning. I wanted to start in the middle of the story, because I'm unconventional ;-) I will be coming back to everything referred to in this chapter in the proper order.
I hope you enjoy reading, and don't forget to leave a review telling me what you think:)
The Grey House
Prologue
The Cross Of Grief
There was a little golden stone cottage on Vinner's Hill which the villagers called The Grey House. It was a very unromantic name for a cottage that looked as though it ought to have fallen straight out of fairyland from a passing cloud, coming to rest neatly on the tree-scattered hill. Silver Castle or Elf's Haven would have been a better name, but it was no good trying to change tradition. A village was a village, no matter where in the world you were, and villagers were villagers.
One balmy August evening found Faith Meredith sitting on the step on the front patio, watching the sunlight dance on the river at the foot of the hill, and listening to the birds in Echo Wood. Or rather, she was appreciating the sunlight and the birds at the same time as she pored over a batch of letters which had arrived that morning.
It wasn't often Faith got to enjoy her letters in peace and quiet, especially at such a glorious time of day, and she was perfectly determined that nothing and nobody should disturb her little reverie until every word had been tasted and savoured. She saw Una's straight writing and Carl's familiar scrawl, and an address in a hand that looked very much like Nan Blythe's. Each one would contain exquisite words of comfort and familiar homeness, and Faith had practically pounced on the postman before breakfast that morning in her eagerness to read them.
Her first, instinctive action was to rummage through the pile in the faint hope that she would glimpse one very familiar style of writing that always made her heart speed up a little. It had been weeks since she had last had the thrill of seeing it, and her spirits sank a little more that morning when she did not spot it among all the other beloved hands. Would she ever see it again?
Faith gave herself a little shake. The day was so lovely and the determination of her brave little heart so great that she refused to give way. Sunny days were meant to be enjoyed, and every one of the letters she did have in her hand would bring balm to her stricken soul.
She was halfway through Una's cheery epistle full of the Glen doings when something caught her eye at the bottom of the garden. A figure was striding up the cobbled lane from the village, wearing an expression on her face that Faith could make out only too well. Beside her she dragged a small boy, who was filthier than any child had a right to be and tugging desperately to free himself from the formidable grip of his captor.
Faith couldn't suppress a groan.
"Caroline!" she called. "We seem to have company!"
A tall, dark-haired girl with dancing eyes came bustling out of the kitchen door, drying her hands on a teatowel. She was absolutely covered in flour.
"Oh, what in heck have we done now?" she demanded, sorely.
"What have you been doing?" asked Faith, eyeing the flour marks.
"Attempting to create a culinary masterpiece to take to the Big House tomorrow, but I fear you know me well enough to guess the rest. That's Mrs Hurst, unless my eyes deceive me."
"She has an unmistakable presence," agreed Faith, with dancing smile, "and she appears to be returning our small fugitive."
Caroline gave an unladylike snort and dusted her floury hands on her even more floury apron. "I bet you any money he's been rooting in her apple orchard again. Blast the boy - I've told him a hundred times!"
"All children should root around in apple orchards," Faith declared, dreamily. "It should be an essential part of growing up. I rooted in several when I was a little girl, and it did me the world of good."
"I heartily agree to the philosophy," said Caroline, "but I do object to being nagged by narrow-minded old women who seem to think one can keep a child on a leash like a dog. If only he'd try to behave once in a while."
She sounded so despairing that Faith laughed. Reluctantly she stowed her precious letters away in the pocket of her skirt and stood up, arranging a smile of beatific welcome on her face as Mrs Hurst strode towards them dragging the boy behind. She was a vast figure of a woman, with a loud, imposing voice and arms as strong as a man's.
"Well, you girls have certainly crossed the line this time!" she bellowed, angry spots of colour making her round face seem even more ruddy than usual. "You just wait until I tell Dr Stone about this!"
"Good morning, Mrs Hurst," said Faith, brightly. "Isn't it a lovely day? We were just about to make tea, will you join us?"
"Don't you flaunt your foreign manners at me, miss!" cried Mrs Hurst. "I've had enough of all your shenanigans, and I don't mind telling you so. I warned Dr Stone about you the very week you arrived, but clearly the man can't see what's happening under his nose! It's a disgrace, it really is!"
"Won't you tell us what the trouble is, Mrs Hurst?" suggested Faith, with a patience born of over a year of experience.
"First it was my petunias, ransacked by those revolting pigs of yours," Mrs Hurst went on, as if Faith hadn't spoken, "then you turned the village hall into a den of disgusting frivolity and destroyed years of respectable tradition. Now you let this little varmint run wild on my property until my chickens won't lay and my cats are terrified out of their wits. I've had enough if it, I tell you, and if you can't keep the little monster under control I shall move heaven and earth to get it taken away where it can do no more harm!"
The boy was still struggling wildly - a useless action, since Mrs Hurst could hold a grown man down with ease while she bullied him.
"Peter, stop it!" said Faith, taking him by the arms and pulling him towards her. "It's all right."
"All right!" blustered Mrs Hurst with indignation. "You haven't seen what he's done to my summer roses! It's worse than wild dogs."
"Thankyou for bringing him back, Mrs Hurst," said Caroline, with smooth politeness. "We're very sorry about your roses, but you must understand that we can't keep the child locked up."
"You should teach him some manners, that's what. Poking and messing about in my garden! And others, or so I'm told. What he's doing here I can't understand!"
"He's Emma Eastleigh's stepson," explained Faith, who knew that Mrs Hurst and all the village had been gossiping about this fact for weeks. "We're taking care of him for a few weeks while she's visiting her fiance in Paris."
Mrs Hurst made a disparaging sound. "That might well be so, but you girls seem to be making quite a collection of lost waifs up here. It isn't decent."
"If you're referring to Annie Morris - " Faith began, with rising temper. Next to her Caroline tensed and bit her tongue.
"I'm referring to nothing, young miss," said Mrs Hurst, "but mark my words your carryings on in this great house is nothing short of scandalous."
"Annie had nowhere else to go!" cried Faith. "Her aunt turned her out on the street and we took her in because she's a dear friend and she's been very unhappy. It's Christian charity to look after the unfortunate, Mrs Hurst, and perhaps you'd do well to remember it."
Mrs Hurst turned even redder. "How dare you, girl? Do you cast up my Christian character when you have done nothing but bring chaos to this village since you arrived? Living up here all along, three young girls, taking in little hussies that are no better than they should be, collecting stray children, and - " She narrowed her eyes and pointed a finger at Faith. "And letting soldiers stay here - don't think you haven't been spotted. The whole village has seen them coming and going, and them not patients either! It's wickedness, is what it is!"
"If you're talking about my brother," stammered Faith, shaking with barely controlled fury.
"He's one of them, though I daresay it's better he's here to keep an eye on you than none at all. I meant the others - that Lieutenant that was here in the spring, for one."
For a moment Faith felt as though her wits had deserted her. The inference was clear as crystal, and the dig would have rankled at any time - but now, just when all her energies were being centred on just getting through every dreadful, awful day, this atrocious woman had to some and twist the knife in her side.
"Leave," Faith heard herself saying, as though from far, far away. "Now."
"I'm going, my girl, but you mind what I'm saying. I don't think any of you are completely bad, but there's no call for slack morals just because there's a war on. You behave yourselves, and remember that there are decent folk in this village."
It wasn't until Mrs Hurst's sprawling figure was halfway down the path that Faith realised she still held Peter in a firm grip. His knees were digging into her ribs and he had transferred most of the dirt that covered him onto her nice clean shirt.
"Faith, Faith," he entreated. "Play in the garden!"
Caroline intervened, taking the little thing from her with a masterful air and directing him into the house under the pretext of looking for biscuits. He tumbled in with a shriek of glee.
"Are you all right?" asked Caroline, patting Faith on the shoulder softly. "It was a wicked thing to say, and you mustn't pay her any mind. She's a poisonous old cat!"
Faith felt a sudden need to sit down, and only afterwards realised her legs must have given way beneath her. Arms went about her, keeping her upright and guiding her to the nearest bench on the patio, under a shady acer with viridian leaves. Voices spoke to each other - she couldn't hear what they said. Then someone thrust a glass of a pungent smelling spirit under her nose, and the world came slowly back into focus.
The first thing she became aware of was a familiar pair of dancing blue eyes and a steady smile.
"You all right, old girl?" asked Jerry, anxiously. "Don't scare me like that!"
"It was that old witch Anthea Hurst!" cried Caroline, crossly. "Oh, you just wait till I get hold of her. I'll give her a piece of my mind to feast upon!"
Faith looked down at her lap to where Jerry had taken her white hands in his strong ones, holding them with a firmness that helped bring her back to the moment. They clung onto her, as though they'd never let her go. She wouldn't float away into the depths of a dark abyss while he held them. He would keep her with him, and she wouldn't get lost in the dark again.
"I'm all right," she said, after a little while. "Really, I am."
Annie had come out too, she found when she looked up, and was standing close by with baby Lucy on her hip.
"Let me make you some tea, Faith," she said, kindly. "You've had a shock."
"I can't think why," said Faith, with a little laugh. "She didn't say anything that was shocking."
"Oh, I don't know," muttered Caroline, seething.
"No, really, I'm all right," Faith insisted.
They were all kind, all of them, and she loved each of them with all her soul, but she wanted to be alone. A gap had opened up in her heart which she had been trying for weeks to fill with other things - her work at the hospital, Annie and the baby, Peter, Jerry, and a hundred other tasks and distractions that helped her keep together. If she stopped, even if only for a moment, she would fall down, down, into that bottomless chasm of despair that yawned at her feet. She mustn't think about it. She mustn't. She had to keep going, for all of them. They depended on her so. One by one each of them had suffered, and they needed her to keep going for them. Jem had told her they did.
"Faith, if I - if I don't come back, you won't give up, will you?"
"Don't say things like that."
"No, I mean it. You wouldn't, would you? You mustn't, you know. There are so many people who need you, and you have to look after them. If I can't be here, you need to do the best you can without me."
"Jem, stop it!"
"No, I won't stop it. You know and I know that it could happen that way, and I need to know that if it does you'll be all right. Promise me!"
"How could I possibly be all right? Without you, it would - it - "
"Don't cry! I didn't mean to make you cry. Stop it at once, you know I can't stand it. Look at me, and tell me you'll be all right. Tell me you'll never give up!"
"I - I'll try not to. It would be like living a ghost-life, with only half of me walking around inside my body, but I will try."
Faith had cried herself out weeks ago, and there were no more tears left in her to shed. She smiled at Jerry and Caroline and Annie, and gently put their anxious arms away. They watched her go falteringly to the stairs, but they each knew not to stop her. She walked up, each step feeling like a marathon run, coming at last to an old oak door at the back of the house, whose windows opened out upon the loveliest panorama of English countryside Faith had ever seen.
But it was not the view she'd come for. Nor was it the rustic Edwardian architecture or furniture which had so charmed her they'd first come to The Grey House, with all its fascinating little nooks and crannies and explorable hideaways.
She closed the door behind her, and silence fell. Blissful silence. It was just her and the room, and all the memories it held. They flooded over her as she looked about her, at the Queen Anne nightstand, the great bed with its four posters, the delicate curtains at the window that blew gently in the breeze. She could smell lavender from the garden outside.
Faith walked slowly to the chest of drawers and opened the topmost one. It contained spare bedsheets and towels, but hidden away amongst them all was something else that no-one knew of, not even Caroline. Faith drew out the white shirt, still creased and crinkled from the last time he'd worn it. It felt soft to her touch, and his scent still lingered on it even after all these months.
She sat on the edge of the bed, holding it to her face and breathing - just breathing. It was so hard to even breathe these days.
He wasn't dead. He wasn't. Something in her just refused to believe it. He was out there somewhere, maybe battling for his life, fighting to stay alive long enough to come home to her. Everyone else had that lingering sense of doubt, but not her. If he was dead she would know. It wasn't fear of that which had kept her living on a knife's edge all these weeks - it was the agonising wait, the not knowing anything at all, not even where he might have been taken to.
"It's not too late," Caroline had said, the day after the news came. "He may still be found."
"I know. But - "
Caroline had taken both Faith's hands in hers and gave them a shake. "But what? If you believe he's alive, what else matters?"
"But I can't help him!" Faith had cried, choking on an uncontrollable sob. "There's nothing I can do! He's so far away, and I'm here, and there's a whole battleground out there that I can't cross and - and - I don't know where he is, or how hurt he is, and there's nothing I can do but sit here and wait! It's going to kill me!"
Caroline's response to that had been sharp and bracing - exactly what Faith had needed to pull herself together. She reminded her how far they had come since the day they met at the Red Cross Headquarters in London, in their very first week as VADs. They had battled Matrons and sat through operations and cared for bodies torn apart by shrapnel and gunfire. They had fought to belong in an insular community which had treated them as aliens when they first arrived, and had won more hearts than they could count since that day. They had laughed and cried and suffered together, and found many kindred spirits to share the days of waiting.
They had fought their own war in their little corner of England, and as Faith sat on the bed where Jem had slept she thought of what he had said at the very beginning:
"You're the bravest person I know, and you can do anything you put your mind to. I'm only as strong as you make me, and I need you. Lots of people need you, so you have to keep on being brave, right to very end of everything."
The words cheered her, as they had been meant to. Faith wrapped them around her like a protective cocoon and straightened her back in renewed resolution.
"I will," she said to the empty room with fire in her eyes. "I won't give up!"
