***chapter 28***
***Memories***
Oh, how the wind whistled and blustered around Follyfoot Farm that day! Although it was May and the early sun had been tentatively warm, petals were torn away from spring flowers, shutters rattled furiously and small silver clouds raced each other over hills and dales as the wind determinedly gathered all its might. The small knot of people caught in its cruel breath shivered with cold.
They had brought with them down to the lightning tree but a single wreath, for the one so loved hated fuss and never stood on grand ceremonies. But something more had to be done. Something more than a minister reading a long eulogy in a church where he never worshipped, quoting passages from a Bible he never read, putting faith in a God he never believed in.
And so, days after the end of war and shortly after the official funeral, those who knew him best came to remember him here at Follyfoot Farm, the place, man and boy, he had loved most. Davey would never come home; his footfall would never again dint the soil nor his cheery voice call out in greeting, but long ago Follyfoot, as only Follyfoot can, had stolen and kept his heart.
There were few to attend the tender tribute. Ironically, Davey had been killed in action only a week before the signing of the Armistice and his many friends were still scattered among the Military or still working in posts far away. His large family were drinkers, fighters, gamblers and thieves, and they had long since washed their hands of their only "black sheep" law-abiding citizen. Although they turned out in force for the no-expense-spared after-funeral function held at Ashtree's grandest hotel (Whistledown and nearer villages not being grand enough even to own one) and paid for by the Maddocks, and three or four of Davey's relatives managing to get themselves arrested for being drunk and disorderly in the process.
But his estranged family was of no concern to the group who stood by the lightning tree in a fitting and unique tribute to their friend. Nobody wore black, as they had in church. Davey always said life should be celebrated, not mourned, and then folk move on; why should the dead stop the living from living? Nobody said any prayers, at least not aloud. Davey always said prayers were invented to control the brainwashed masses; why must folk mumble to themselves like madmen?
Instead they shared, with laughter and tears, the memories they held so dear.
His heartbroken widow, thin, pale and beautiful, kissed a rose and laid it gently on top of the garland. And then, wiping her eyes, Beth smiled a tremulous smile and told of their very first kiss.
It was shortly before Christmas, Beth recalled. She had trudged through ankle deep snow from Loppington, where she worked as shop girl for an exclusive dressmaker, with a selection of fancy ribbons for Lady Prudence Maddocks, to choose which she would prefer for the new Christmas ball gown she was having made. Protocol dictated she walk round to the back door, but, cold and tired, Beth dared take the front. She had heard on the grapevine that the Maddocks were kindly employers and she hoped the housemaid would simply overlook the transgression.
Before she could ring the bell, however, the door burst suddenly open, the "stable boy", as first she knew him, winked at the mistletoe above, planted a hasty kiss on her lips, and hurried on by, immediately followed by, rather curiously, a black cat with a kipper in its mouth, a man's boot, a scowling, limping, one-shoed man carrying a bunch of keys, and a frantic kitchen maid begging him "not to hurt the boy".
But the kiss tasted sweet as honey, Beth recollected, and small wonder, she continued, smiling nostalgically, it turned out Davey had helped himself to a thick slice of honey on toast from the silver breakfast tray and treated Sally the cat to the best slice of fish. Young Miss Harris, however, had a sweetheart and firm morals, and, despite the sweet kiss, remained unimpressed…