Chapter 36

Let Us Love One Another

 

 

After Ken had gone she went back to the office to make the checks on the paperwork for the wedding she was conducting tomorrow. It was dusk as she walked back up the yard, past Windrush cottage with a quick wave to Skye who was looking out of the window as she passed. The snow was worn away in the middle of the alleys now and the paving stones showed through but the edges were still white. Each door had several sets of footprints leading up to it, all the holiday cottages were occupied over Christmas and every chimney was smoking. This must have been what it was like in those olden days, when every cottage was lived in by one of the old families – Brands and Randalls and Allinsons - and Thorburns. She was idly wondering if those folk from long ago would still recognise their old homes when she saw someone in the upstairs window of Maidensbower Cottage, the one with the small panes of glass where the hearts were carved. For a moment she thought it was Hal and she waved to him, smiling – the figure raised a hand, and then a seagull distracted her for a moment and when she looked back there was no-one there. Somehow, she felt uneasy. Something was wrong: it was more like a farewell than a cheerful greeting. Was it Hal waiting with bad news? Had something gone wrong?

She hurried up the path and went to open the door, but it was still locked – strange if Hal was there. She turned her key in the lock and went in. The only light in the living room came from the glowing red globe in the window and the fire had burnt away to ashes. Something was wrong, she knew it.

‘Hal? Hal! Are you there?’

Silence, except for Twiggy who appeared immediately and started rubbing round her legs, hoping for tuna. Hal wasn’t in the living room or the kitchen, perhaps he was upstairs …

No, he wasn’t there.

There was a knock on the door and Cass ran downstairs to open it – there stood Hal. She must have looked at him strangely, because instantly he looked concerned.

‘What is it?’

‘You weren’t in the cottage just now?’

He came inside stamping the slushy snow from his feet.

‘No, I saw you coming down the hill when you went past my flat.’

‘There was somebody in the cottage. He waved to me from the landing window, I’ve looked but there’s no-one here.’

He had taken off his coat and hugged her.

‘I’ll have a look for you. Just to make sure.’

He looked all round, but there was nobody there.

‘A reflection? A trick of the light?’ he suggested.

‘It must have been,’ Cass said with a shrug. But there was another explanation … much as she didn’t want to admit it, there was another explanation. If it hadn’t been her Henry Thorburn that she had seen in the window, was it a reflection of another Henry Thorburn altogether? Because that voice she had heard in her dream, the one that had told her not to let go, hadn’t been a woman’s voice, it had been a man’s voice, and she had seen someone on the ramp to the beach the day Anna went into the sea. What if there had been a ghost all along, but it hadn’t been Polly Allinson trying to tempt Anna to her doom in the sea – it had been Henry Thorburn trying to stop her?

But Cass didn’t believe in ghosts, she told herself. No such thing as ghosts …

 

There was a small congregation at the wedding that Cass was conducting on New Year’s Eve in the little church of St. Stephen high up on the clifftop.  The bride was wearing a sweeping ivory cloak held at the throat with an ivy-leaf clasp, the hood edged all around with ivory fur, and the groom looked proud and anxious at the same time, glancing around as his wife-to-be came down the aisle towards him, to the accompaniment of the squeaky old harmonium. She smiled up at him as he stepped towards her, and the way he looked at her turned Cass’s heart over in her chest. It was the way Hal looked at her.

The bride handed her bouquet of deep red roses and ivy to her bridesmaid and the service began.

Let us love one another, for love is from God.

Her words rang round the little old church, to the holly and ivy clad pews and the bunch of mistletoe that hung from the chandelier, the greenery that June had used to decorate the church for Christmas still in place. Cass wondered if, when June had placed the mistletoe there, that she had known it would bless two couples.

Anyone who doesn’t love does not know God.

Cass thought about the text, about the bishop, about Hal and about her father as the harmonium led the congregation in singing God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen. There were some good singers in the congregation, the sound was rich and full, the little choir providing a descant with which she joined in. How different she felt today to the last time she had stood at this altar, swearing at the Almighty! It was as if she had been stumbling through the darkness, through the choppy waters of the sea and she had finally come out of the waves onto the beach where she could understand clearly, at last, what she wanted from her life. She didn’t want to be alone in her vicarage on the cliff top any more, she wasn’t happy to watch life going on below her. She wanted to be part of life, she wanted to love and she wanted to be loved, like this couple that stood before her now in the flickering candlelight.

God is love.

The phrase ran round and round in her head as, the service concluded, the bride and groom stood under the mistletoe, unaware of anything but each other as they kissed so deeply and passionately that Cass felt almost like an intruder to be watching them. He murmured something secret in her ear and brushed a strand of hair away from her face so tenderly that Cass felt tears prickling her eyes. Then they were away down the aisle, the harmonium creaking out Oh Come, All Ye Faithful at top volume, and above her in the belfry, her scratch bell-ringing team of Graham, Charles and June let the triple bells of the little church peal out over the village, the cliffs, and out over the sea.

This little church was filled with all the love of the passing years. Weddings and baptisms and funerals, all the rituals of loving families for generations. Hearts entwined carved into the pews, maiden’s garlands dripping with tears.

Love.

And when the church was finally empty and she was left on her own, she knelt down again before the altar and breathed out an experimental prayer of thanks. She prayed for Anna and Charles, for Ken, for Jack, for June and Graham and for her parents. But most of all for Hal.

Surrounded by love in this timeless place, as she tried to pray, the realisation came to her that she had been wrong about something. She had allowed her faith in God to set her apart when it should have brought her closer to those around her. Love and faith were intertwined, the same soul-searching, the same reaching out for the touch of human or Divine love. The search was the same but the answers were different and they were here, all around her, in the church.

Love, Faith, Community.

She felt the calm warmth all around her and knew that God had brought her safely home from the storm.