Chapter Text
4th September, 1910
Plymouth
MY DEAR SIR,
It is my duty to inform you of the unfortunate passing of your uncle, the late John Leslie Lawrence, on the third of this month and to offer to you my condolences. As I have been given to understand, the gentleman and yourself, though related, were not well acquainted and it may therefore be of some surprise to you that, according to the last will and testament of Mr Lawrence, the sum of five thousand pounds and a small farmstead in Morwellham Quay, Devonshire, have been left in your possession. The farm has not been managed for some years now and is in a state of some disrepair; though it is my understanding that you presently live some distance from Devonshire, it would be of use for you to visit your property, that your assets might be better managed. If this should not be at all amenable or possible at the present time, I render my services unto you to manage or sell the property by proxy, as the executor of your late uncle’s will.
My condolences once again for your loss. I remain
Yours, faithfully,
William M. Westford, Esq.
Westford and Sons Solicitors
A great gush of steam obscures the platform, swathing people, porters and packages alike in curlicues of white, almost thick and heavy enough to grasp in one’s hand. Through this, one hand clasping his hat to his head against the onslaught of wind and rain and the other clutching a large suitcase and a tweed carpetbag, a young man battles his way into the dry warmth of the train, a ticket caught between his teeth and a much-read envelope tucked into an inside pocket of his jacket. He stows his cases on the rack above his seat, dropping his damp hat with an air of resignation atop the bag, and opens the window.
An austere old lady glares up at him, large black brolly keeping her far drier than the gentleman. “You’ll sort this mess out quickly, won’t you, and come straight back.”
“Yes, Aunt Edwina,” he replies, with the tone of one who has been informed of this several times before.
“What your uncle was doing, leaving the whole sorry mess to you, I can’t imagine,” the aunt tuts. Her emphasis makes it rather unclear which part she find less explicable: the bequest, or the recipient. “But the man always was rather odd. Always reading, or digging up a field on some contrived excuse.” Aunt Edwina levels her nephew with a rather pointed glare and he looks quickly away.
“I’m sure it won’t take long,” the nephew sidesteps cautiously.
Aunt Edwina maintains her glare for a beat, and then huffs. “It had better not, Alex. You know I’ve a mind to introduce you to the Bexleigh girl in November, and it would do well for you to charm her. You could do much worse than her, and you can’t sponge off me forever.”
Alex opens his mouth, as if he might like to point out that he has just inherited a not inconsiderable sum of money and a small property, but thinks better of it. The engine shrieks and there is a tug at Alex’s feet as the locomotive takes the strain and begins to pull out of the station. “A few weeks, Aunt Edwina, that’s all.”
“See that it is!” Aunt Edwina barks as she disappears behind a thick grey curtain of heavy rain and coal smoke.
Alex pulls his head back in, running a hand over his wet hair as he secures the window closed and drops into his seat, slumping inelegantly. The train rocks and rumbles, not quite able to drown out the heavy drumming of rain against the roof, building speed as it gets further and further from Alex’s home, and family, and life up to this point. Raindrops chase each other down the window panes like quicksilver as they catch the light from within the empty compartment against the dark fog and rain without. The darkness outside the compartment’s walls give the effect of total isolation, as if a young man might find himself entirely alone here, without friends or family to guide him.
Alex removes the letter from his pocket, turning it over and over idly in his hands. A young man of some means, completely without instruction and outside the influence of his family.
Alex presses the letter to his lips to hide the wide, wild, triumphant grin which he cannot seem, at present, to shake.
Mr Westford is, as promised, present to meet him off the train and is also armed with a stout black umbrella, which he is fortunately willing to share. “You’ll have taken rooms in town?” he inquires in a loud local brogue over the noise of the rain.
“I had thought I might take residence on the farm,” Alex replies, not filled with confidence at the look on his solicitor’s face.
“You might,” the man grudgingly concedes, rubbing his round jaw thoughtfully. “It won’t be looking the best, mind, in this weather and it’s not entirely habitable at present, but there’re rooms enough for a short stay. Might be something of an adventure, if you’re up for that sort of thing.”
Alex tries not to show too much enthusiasm. “That sounds perfectly adequate, Mr Westford, thank you.” By the man’s chuckling, he may not have been entirely successful.
The trip up the Tamar is largely uneventful; the steep sides are bright and verdant, even under the grey skies, and there’s a fabulous mystery to the fog hanging thick over the water, like a veil between worlds or the souls of the damned trapped on earth. The effect is somewhat spoiled by the locals, who insist upon very earnestly telling the nice young man from Sussex how much nicer it will all look once it’s stopped raining, even when Alex tries to tell them that he really doesn’t mind it at all.
Morwellham rises through the mist like a spectre, people moving to and fro and losing their dreamlike quality as the boat gets closer. Mooring seems to happen so fast that Alex is being handed out onto the shore before he can quite believe they’ve stopped moving. Westford glances at his face and chuckles again. “You get used to it, lad,” he says, clapping a hand to Alex’s shoulder. “Not quite a bustling metropolis, but folks do their best down here. Now, let me show you your farm.”
Come straight back, echoes Aunt Edwina’s voice. Alex puts it firmly from his mind, and strides uphill after Mr Westford.
The farm is, as promised, in a state of some disrepair. It’s been uninhabited these ten years at least, the late Mr Lawrence content to let the hedges grow wild and the house collect dust, and it will take a great deal of work before it can be run as an operating farm once more. Alex hasn’t the first idea where to even begin with such work, nor how to manage a farm once the work has been undertaken, and besides, he is to be back in Sussex and wooing the fair Elsie Bexleigh in just two months. It is an impossible undertaking and one he is neither qualified or able to even consider; the farm will have to be sold.
But.
Alex’s hand closes around the heavy iron key to the farmhouse, feels its cold weight in his palm and the icy rain on his face where it whips up under the umbrella on the wicked, twisting wind. He looks at Mr Westford, looking earnestly back at him and saying how nice it would be to get the old farmstead on its feet again - why, when he was a boy, the tenants used to let the young lads of the village weed the fields in return for a ha’penny and a stroke of the draft horses, and he’d dearly like to think of his own lads doing the like. He thinks of the journey here, and how far from his aunt and his terrible cousins and the lovely Miss Bexleigh he is, and the echoes of Aunt Edwina are suddenly not quite so loud, nor so pressing. Mr A. Langlands is a young man of means and some small property, and-
“I intend to stay,” he says, before he can think any better of it, and a smile suffuses over Mr Westford’s round, friendly face. “At least for a while,” the part of him still subservient to his various aunts compels him to add.
Westford nods. “If nothing else, sir, it’ll be easier to sell or let if it’s in a better state.”
“Yes! Yes, quite,” Alex agrees, seizing upon the excuse with delight. “Well, come in, Mr Westford, and we shall see if we can’t manage some tea.”
Tea cannot, as it turns out, be managed. Any attempt to use the stove, despite the enthusiastic efforts of two men allowed to play at building fires and making some kind of camp, merely fills the entire room with smoke and sends them coughing out into the rain.
Westford frowns back in at the kitchen, filled with acrid coal smoke. “Chimney needs clearing, that’s all,” he says bracingly, as if concerned that Alex might at any moment rescind his decision to take on the farm.
Alex squints up at the roof, rain biting on his face and running down his cheeks. “Perhaps I shall have a cold dinner tonight,” he says thoughtfully. “When is the earliest that you suppose I could get the chimney cleared? Tomorrow?”
His solicitor does not respond right away, and Alex looks over to see him staring rather incredulously back. “You’re coming home with me,” he says, before remembering himself and tacking on a rather belated “sir.” Alex frowns - the man has the air of one who has come across something rather wild and a little worrying, like a lost dog or escaped asylum inmate. “You can’t possibly stay here overnight, without any heat, and I was foolish to think you might. In light of that, I should like to invite you to stay in my home until such a time as further acceptable accommodation can be found for you.”
Alex looks back at the dissipating smoke in the kitchen, choking and solid on the cold, damp air. A large icy drop of water rolls off the brim of his hat and slides slowly down the back of his neck. “Thank you, Mr Westford,” he says, putting his precious key into his bag and hefting his cases before turning to grin rather sheepishly at his solicitor. “I should like that very much.”
The Westfords keep a very pleasant home in a cottage in the village, of similar size to Alex’s own on the farm but inhabited by a great deal more people. Mrs Westford is a tall, sturdy woman with a mass of auburn curls that were doubtless once neatly pinned to her head but now escape in long ringlets about her cheerful, friendly face to be held in the chubby fists of the baby almost permanently affixed to her right hip. The arrangement, though appearing rather constraining to Alex, seems to suit both; Mrs Westford cooks with an aptitude Alex could only dream of, even without the use of one arm, and her baby can stare at everything and everyone with large, calf-like dark eyes. A boy of about six is recruited to haul Alex’s bags up to the spare room while his four-year-old brother hides behind his mother’s skirts until the stranger has been safely relegated to an armchair with his afternoon’s acquisition from the bookseller: The Book of the Farm. Thus ensconced, Alex occupies himself while his hosts make supper and the children construct castles and cities with wooden blocks on the rug.
“A letter came this morning, dear, from Ruth,” Mrs Westford tells her husband, once they’ve sat down to eat.
“How is she?” Alex cannot help but notice rather more genuine concern than such a pleasantry usually warrants in Mr Westford’s tone, and busies himself with his food as to not appear overly interested in their affairs.
Mrs Westford sighs. “Putting a tremendously brave face on it, I think. She writes of finding new accommodation, and I worry that she’s not got the money for her present rooms. It’s been three years, Bill, without any money coming in, and I’m sure her husband didn’t leave her so very much in the first place.”
Alex keeps his head down. Financial concerns are not discussed at the tables to which he is accustomed due to their extreme gaucheness, and listening in to the troubles of a woman with whom he is not even acquainted seems exceptionally rude.
Mr Westford pulls a face, unbothered by the guest or subject matter. “I’d say she could come and stay here, love, you know I would, but she ought to be trying for a place in a grand house-”
“Oh, you know she’d hate that!” his wife interrupts, tutting, and Mr Westford heaves a put-upon sigh. Alex gets the impression that this discussion has been had before. “Never out of doors, never seen or heard? Bill,” she chides.
Mr Westford nods unhappily. “I know, you’re right. But she won’t find work elsewhere and she’s not the type to marry again for the sake of it, neither.” Mrs Westford makes an incredulous noise at the thought. “Dare say no one around here needs a housekeeper, else you know I’d recommend her.”
Alex looks at the plate before him. He’s eaten almost all of the food - good, hearty stuff that would keep a man going through hard labour and harsh weather. Nothing on the table is new to him, thanks to the rich dinners of his aunt, and with Henry Stephens’ book by his side he has a fair idea of how to produce at least half of it, but Alex hasn’t ever cooked anything more complicated than scrambled egg on toast. Mrs Westford keeps her cottage brilliantly clean on a budget with which Alex is going to become very familiar, if he really means to stick this out on his five thousand pounds even if only until the farm is on its feet, and he doesn’t really know where to begin.
And. Well.
He’s always been a social creature, even if the society of his life until now has not exactly been to his taste. He’s not cut out for the life of his uncle, hidden away renting rooms on Dartmoor and scarcely seeing a soul the whole year round.
Alex puts down his cutlery neatly and raises his head. “I think I may have a solution.”
Mrs Goodman resembles her cousin most in the hue of her hair and the line of her nose, but in all other respects the woman who steps off the train appears to be a more concentrated form of Mrs Westford; smaller and more slight, but with an air of intensity and confidence that does little to make Alex’s already rather nervous hat raise any more certain.
She grins brightly upon spotting him and strides down the platform, cases in one hand to extend the other to him in greeting. “Good morning - you must be Mr Langlands.”
“Mrs Goodman.” Her handshake is almost comfortingly firm; Alex has the immediate impression that he could certainly have picked a less capable woman to help him get the farm on its feet. “I trust your journey was no trouble?”
“None at all; I dearly love a good train ride. Shall we see this farm of yours?” she says, smiling.
“Of course,” Alex says. “It’s not far to the dock. Let me take your cases.”
“I thought you were employing me,” she says tartly, and Alex is briefly filled with his usual terror at having unwittingly committed some horrendous faux pas - until he looks at her face and sees her lips twist, eyes dancing and bright with mirth, and relaxes with a small sigh. Mrs Goodman laughs merrily and proffers one case. “There - you may take one, and I’m sorry for teasing you. But really, you could stand to laugh a little more. The dock’s this way, isn’t it?”
Alex blinks in some confusion at her departing form, entirely wrongfooted by the entire exchange. He cannot, however, as he adjusts his grip on her case and sets out at a jog to catch up, seem to shake his smile.
“What state is this place in, then?” Ruth asks as they head up the hill from the river to reach the farmhouse. “Maggie - Mrs Westford - said it needed some work.”
“Ah, yes,” Alex says hesitantly, and Mrs Goodman grins. “Well, it’s not exactly a farm, yet. And I won’t necessarily be staying much past October - Mrs Westford did mention, did she not?”
“She did,” Mrs Goodman says. “I understand you have family to return to.”
“Yes,” Alex says, with little enthusiasm. He’s been three days in Morwellham, with freedom to roam the green landscape and get his hands dirty working on a farm that is entirely his own, and every hour renders Sussex less appealing. “The chimney’s been cleared, and the house deemed habitable, though it will need a clean, I’m afraid.”
“A bachelor living in it alone? Yes, I imagine not much cleaning was done,” Mrs Goodman tuts.
Alex frowns, riled, and then - yes, she’s smiling, and he’s being teased, and he smiles almost reluctantly, huffing in now-pretend irritation. “Well, once it’s clean we ought to be able to move in this evening.”
“And then you’ll be seeing about a crop and livestock, I suppose?” Mrs Goodman asks. Alex hums his agreement as the lane turns and there, before them, is the farmhouse. “Oh, this is rather nice,” she says, and Alex is pleased to note that her appreciation appears entirely genuine. A little niggling knot of worry in his stomach that she might, in the end, not want to help him untangles and dissipates.
“You’ve your own room upstairs, and - oh, your key,” Alex says, fishing in a pocket to produce a spare. “You can come and go as you please, and you may name your day off, and you shall be paid monthly.” Mrs Goodman looks rather incredulously at the proffered key, a hint of amusement in her eyes. “Weekly?” Alex tries hesitantly.
“You haven’t employed help before, have you, Mr Langlands?” she says, definitely amused now.
“No,” Alex admits, rubbing the back of his neck in embarrassment. This, and all other domestic matters, had been affairs taught to and attended by his aunts and female cousins; Alex had been left to more academic schooling, and Plato had left the realm of housekeeper employment sadly neglected.
Mrs Goodman laughs, taking the key. “Monthly pay shall do just fine. I thank you for the key, but I’m not such a social butterfly to be coming and going at all hours, and we’ll see about a day off when I’m sure you can actually manage a meal of your own.”
Alex blinks. He has a feeling he should be somehow exerting some authority, but her proposal is entirely sensible. To be entirely fair, he can’t cook all that well, and - and he’s being wound up again, and it’s taken him just too long to notice, and Mrs Goodman is raising an eyebrow at him in some consternation. “Yes, quite,” he manages, cursing his inability to provide much more than stilted agreements.
“You’ve really not been teased much, have you?” Mrs Goodman says, only now she doesn’t seem so entertained - Alex is almost tempted to say she seems concerned.
“Not for some time, no,” Alex says, before he can think any better of it.
Mrs Goodman appears to mull this over for a moment, and then nods. “Let’s see about some tea.”
She lets Alex into his own home and directs him to sit at the table while she unpacks the crate of equipment and hamper of food enough to set a kettle whistling merrily on the stove, still going from being lit before Alex left. “You’re sure you don’t want any help?” Alex asks as she stores the pots and pans Alex had sent for from town.
She waves a hand. “No, I’ll only do it over again so that everything’s where I think it ought to be,” she says, presenting Alex with a tea cup and a smile. He returns it in thanks as she sits opposite him, sipping from her own cup. “You inherited this farm from your uncle, Maggie tells me.”
“Yes,” Alex says, turning the saucer on the table before him. “No-one knows why, really. We weren’t well acquainted. My aunt supposes it was because he - wasn’t fond of her.”
“And so he bequeathed property to her nephew?” she says, eyebrow raised. “I can think of more direct methods to show disapprobation.”
Alex half-smiles without much amusement to himself. “I think he was hoping I would follow in his footsteps and live like a hermit in darkest Devon. My aunt would very much like the opposite.”
“What would your parents like?”
The question is an innocent one, asked without any particular weight or note and based upon a perfectly normal assumption. It hits Alex like a punch to the chest.
“My parents - ah, they-” he stammers, hearing his aunt’s admonishments: just spit it out, Alex. No-one wants to hear half-syllables for half an hour.
Mrs Goodman’s hand wraps around his unexpectedly. “Oh, I am sorry.” Alex sighs in relief, shooting her a grateful smile before covering the unexpected display of emotion with a sip of tea. “Well, I suppose I’ll forgive you for not being teased.”
Alex huffs a laugh and she smiles encouragingly back. He feels like he ought to reclaim his fingers from her grasp, but finds he doesn’t want to. Perhaps he’ll leave them for a little longer. “I was teased at university,” he offers. Mrs Goodman laughs, bright eyes dancing, and he continues, unable to help himself. “Mercilessly, by my flatmate. But after we graduated he went - somewhere. I thought he joined the navy, but next I heard he was in the Middle East escaping - slavers, or something.”
“Sounds like your aunt’s dream nephew,” Mrs Goodman grins, and Alex laughs. It’s easier to find her funny now, at this distance, rather than a forbidding force with which to be reckoned, and easier still with a companion determined to see the amusing side, if she possibly can.
She squeezes his hand and lets him go, standing. Alex tries not to miss the contact, because he is a Man, as she begins to consider the half-unpacked hamper. “Thank you, Mrs Goodman,” he says. “For the tea, and - the talk,” he clarifies, when she looks up at him, curious.
She pauses, and then smiles softly. “You are welcome, Mr Langlands. But please, call me Ruth.”
“If you’ll call me Alex,” he returns. It’s been a long time since anyone called him Alex without an air of disapproval, and he finds he’s quite excited about the prospect.
Ruth nods, pleased. “Alex. Now, beef or lamb for supper?”
It’s just gone Michaelmas, and Alex is in Plymouth just before dawn, leaning against a wall and yawning into the morning mist. He’s waiting on a shipment from Bristol which should come in with the warmth of the morning, so he’d been forced out of bed far earlier than he should have liked to catch the tide down to the coast in the inky pre-dawn dark. There’s something a little enchanting about a world that’s yet to wake and contains, if only for the moment, no-one but oneself. The sky is pinkening above the spires of creaking, snoring ships and the bricks he leans against are transforming slowly from purple to maroon to red; he can hear gulls calling on the breeze, and it’s all Alex’s, just for now.
He breathes in a great lungful of salt-sea-air and tosses an apple idly from one hand to the other. Ruth, looking as half-asleep as he was and hair escaping from last night’s braid, had tossed it at his head before he left, promising greater culinary delights on his return but drawing the line at cooking before half past three in the morning. A week before, he’d not have known where to put his face when confronted by a woman not yet entirely dressed, hair unpinned and still in a nightgown and housecoat - well, he still wouldn’t, were it anyone but Ruth. It’s hard to stand on ceremony when she simply hasn’t the time for it, too busy cooking and cleaning and fussing over his new cows and trying to help him, too, when he’s struggling with jobs that really need four hands, but she’s got half a hundred other things to be getting on with-
Alex reins in that wildly spiralling train of thought in favour of almost dropping his apple in his distraction. In truth, it’s becoming rather difficult for two people of limited experience to manage a family-sized farm, albeit a small one, and Alex is beginning to consider hiring help. The other farms in the area are run by families, who have both lifetimes of experience and a range of family members to rope into chasing rogue sheep and weeding the market garden. But hired hands are hard to come by, these days; too many young people seeking their futures in cities rather than spend a lifetime in the ruts dug by their fathers and grandfathers. Alex can relate: he’s almost doing the same thing in reverse.
It also doesn’t seem fair to employ any more people and then have to turf them out when he goes back to Sussex. Which he’s going to do. Any week now.
Alex thinks guiltily of the letter folded inside the Book of the Farm on the kitchen table. His aunt’s looping, curling lettering belies the pointed, sharpened words within, inquiring with cutting politeness exactly how much longer he intends to keep up this nonsense. He’d written a few lines after employing Ruth to explain that he intended to stay a little longer and received in return two letters in quick succession to remind him of his obligation to return to his aunt’s house and, preferably, marry an appropriate young lady. He’s currently keeping them hidden from Ruth, lest she say something sensible like you did promise to go home for November and she’s trying to do what’s best for you, Alex. He’ll have to write back, of course, and set a date to return, but for now he’s folded his aunt away and is feeling much the better for it.
Light crawls, golden, over the horizon and flows syrupy-slow across the decks of the moored boats and renders the grubby flagstones oddly beautiful. It feels as if the collected world takes in a deep breath before stretching and yawning, and Alex stands very still and listens to the world awake. And then-
On the breeze. A half-hum, and then faint words that he can’t quite make out set to a tune he doesn’t know, and Alex frowns. He’s pushed himself off the wall before the thought has fully run through his head, feet following the sound that’s oddly familiar, but that he just can’t quite pinpoint. He twists and turns down alleyways, the voice getting nearer and then abruptly further away as the walls force Alex away from his goal and he half-wonders if Plymouth is secretly a hotbed of bastardised mythology wherein one is not only doomed by sirens but forced to suffer the indignity of a minotaur’s labyrinth first.
And then, abruptly, Alex turns one last corner and there, edges gilded by the newborn sun, is a man sitting on the floor, legs dangled over the dock’s edge. Now that he’s near enough, Alex recognises the tune as something he’s heard sailors singing as they pull in to the dock; a going-home, work’s-done song. More importantly, he recognises the figure, the voice, the broad shoulders and untidy wayward curls.
“Peter?” he blurts out in astonishment, and the singing breaks off as he turns his head.
“Alright Alex,” Peter says, grinning and offering a small wave. “What are you doing loose in Devon?”
“I could ask the same of you,” Alex manages, grinning despite himself. Seeing Peter again so unexpectedly has somewhat thrown him.
“Yes, but I ran away to sea and you have a controlling aunt in Sussex. Which one of us is more likely to be on a dock in Devon at six o’clock in the morning?” Peter points out rather smugly, and Alex has to laugh. The man’s hardly changed a bit - a little weather- and care-worn, perhaps, but in fundamentals: laugh, grin, easy teasing - and Alex is suddenly transported back to their rooms at university with cracked leather armchairs and precarious stacks of books topped by an abandoned tea cup. “Sit down,” Peter says, patting the sun-warmed stone beside him, “and tell me all about it.”
Alex takes a step forward, and then stops, checking his watch and wincing. “I have to pick up a flock of chickens,” he says apologetically, gesturing over his shoulder.
Peter bursts into laughter, shaking his head. “Of course you do. A flock of chickens.” Alex grins, warmed by Peter’s easy amusement and falling immediately back into the simple, strong friendship he’d missed so much.
The warmth makes it easier. “Come with me,” he says without thinking, and Peter raises an eyebrow at him. “I’ll tell you all about it.”
There’s a pause as Peter looks at him, assessing, and Alex is suddenly worried that he’s going to get Peter back, only to lose him almost immediately. He’s missed him in the years they’ve been apart, and he feels like he’s only just realised quite how much since seeing Peter again and hearing his gently amused teasing.
But then Peter grins at him and swings his legs back onto dry land. “If this story is half as much fun as it sounds your aunt must be having conniptions.”
Alex shrugs helplessly and Peter slings an arm about his shoulders. With the return of that comforting weight and a bright new dawn on the horizon, Aunt Edwina can have as many conniptions as she pleases.
The story of Alex’s life between their last meeting and the present lasts them all the way back to Morwellham, chickens clucking in indignation in their cages. Ruth’s there at the dock to greet them, and Alex suddenly realises that an unexpected guest around a mealtime is actually rather unfair - his aunt’s house was always full of guests, but he’d not stopped to think about the cooks who were forced to deal with that.
She doesn’t seem tremendously cross, though, smiling warmly instead. “Ooh, pretty chickens. I’m ready for a glut of eggs, Alex; I’ve a book of cake recipes I’ve hardly touched.”
“As you command,” Alex grins, and she nods in approval of his obedience. “Ruth, this is Peter Ginn; we were at university together. Peter, this is Mrs Goodman.”
“Ah, the rogue naval man,” Ruth says, shaking Peter’s hand warmly. “Alex says you’ve been adventuring abroad.”
Peter gives Alex a look. “It really isn’t as exciting as all that.”
“Put the chickens away and I’ll see about some breakfast in exchange for a good story or two,” Ruth suggests, by now long accustomed to Alex peaceably following her instructions, and turns to head back up to the farm.
Alex rolls his eyes fondly at her back, hefting his chicken cage to bewildered croaking. Peter, when Alex looks up to tilt his head after Ruth in invitation, is looking at him oddly - a mix of bemusement and long-postponed friendliness, but perhaps something else, too, that Alex cannot quite put his finger on. He raises an eyebrow and Peter shakes his head, huffing a laugh. “Rogue naval man, indeed,” he mutters goodnaturedly, and sets out up the hill.
“So you can climb a pyramid near Cairo, but a hay rick is beyond you?”
“Oi,” Peter says, kneeling rather precariously on the stack of hay, and Alex grins. He has to squint up against the bright sky, looking up under his palm at Peter in the last throes of summer. “And if you’ll recall, Mr Langlands, I was forced off the pyramid due to perilous circumstances.”
Alex nods, attempting to appear contrite. “My apologies, Mr Ginn. Though I fear you must concede that armed Egyptian nationalists are slightly more threatening than a wobbly haystack.”
“Those, Alex, are the words of a man with his feet firmly upon the ground.” Peter shuffles a bit more, eventually ending up sitting atop the rick rather like a large gnome. “Alright, then; we’re ready to thatch,” he says, stalwartly ignoring Alex’s giggles.
Alex lobs him the thatched sheet of straw they’d obtained with the help of some charitable neighbours, grateful for the extra pair of hands. How he’d have managed half the jobs he’s done this past month without Peter’s help he really couldn’t say; more than that, Ruth’s had the chance to do the odd jobs she’s not had the time or energy to manage whilst running about after Alex, like mend the curtains or ferret out and block the draft in the kitchen. She looks that little bit less worn, these days, and Alex feels just rotten about how much work he’s accidentally forced upon her. He feels a little bad about how much work he’s making Peter do, too; he’d agreed, after all, to stay while he finds his next job onboard and help out in return for food and board, but Alex is growing concerned that fairly Ritz-like accomodation ought to be provided in order to make the exchange fair. Peter is adamant, of course, that he wants for nothing and that sleeping on solid ground and being fed on Ruth’s cooking is vastly superior to anything that some paltry London restaurant could procure, but Alex still worries, even though Peter hasn’t gone to look for shipwork for almost two weeks now.
“Alex, letter for you,” Ruth calls, striding across the yard. Peter raises his head to smile at her, but Alex is already frowning about the letter and its mystery contents. “And,” she says, pressing the paper into his hands, “there’s luncheon on the table, if you’ve the time to spare.”
“Thanks awfully, Mrs Goodman,” Peter says politely, immediately giving up on his task to scramble back down the rick.
Ruth gives him a fondly exasperated look. “Really, Ruth is fine.” Alex hides his smile behind the letter as Peter ducks his head, mumbling something about manners or some other such nonsense. It almost hadn’t occurred to him to be worried about how well Ruth and Peter would get on until it was fairly obviously apparent that they did; even this little disagreement is just misplaced chivalry and charm, and either or both of them could put their foot down on the matter and decide it, if only-
His aunt’s looping letters stare back at him, stark and irritable against the white page. Ruth and Peter’s continued conversation deadens oddly, as if a door between them had been suddenly closed, and a ball of ice settles in his belly. You are expected, the letter reads. Tenth of November, his aunt says. A dinner. The whistle sounds, the finger is crooked, and Alex goes crawling back, tail between his legs. He’s surprised it’s taken so long as it has, honestly.
“-ex? Alex,” Peter’s voice sounds oddly distant, until Alex looks up to see them both looking worriedly at him. Peter looks half-inclined to reach out and prod him to make sure he’s still awake and Ruth’s frowning like she did when she’d thought he was coming down with something.
To ward off another well-meant remedy made from nasturtiums and vinegar, Alex offers a weak smile and folds the letter neatly, tucking it into a pocket. “Sorry, rather dropped off there. Lunch, then?”
“Lunch,” Ruth agrees, not entirely convinced. She seems happy to let it go for now, though, for which Alex is grateful. Peter, too, continues to look oddly at him, but he knows better than to pry and Alex thinks he might just have got away without interrogation.
Until he’s halfway through his soup, when he comes to a realisation. His return to Sussex, however dreaded, will have as much, if not more impact upon Ruth and Peter than it will upon Alex himself - to refuse to tell them is beyond selfish, and quite possibly downright unwise. Peter will need to find another job, or Alex will have to start paying him properly - but only if Ruth is happy to have him in the house with her alone - and the farm will have to be maintained without him, and his aunt will say he ought to find a buyer, anyhow, and-
He’s stopped again, and his soup is getting cold. So instead of doing all of that, right now, in his head, he takes the letter out of his pocket and drops it in the middle of the table. Peter and Ruth stop their light conversation, carried on over and around Alex, and turn to him; he should have known better than to think they wouldn’t ask questions. Ruth raises an eyebrow, and Alex sighs.
“My aunt has written to me,” he says. He keeps his eyes on the parchment of the hour, but he can hear Peter shift slightly in his chair. He had never cared for Alex’s aunt, and years do not seem to have softened his views at all. “She expects my return by the tenth - there’s a dinner I’m to attend, you see, and she wants me to meet - some people.”
“Right,” Ruth says, and her tone sounds oddly - contained, as if there’s meaning in that word which she is attempting not to express. “Well, that’s not awfully far from now.”
“No,” Alex says, trying not to sound too miserable.
“You’ll have to go on Thursday, I suppose, if you’re to make it back with plenty of time,” she continues, buttering a slice of bread with rather more savagery than Alex is used to but with a perfectly level tone of voice.
“Yes,” Alex almost whispers, as if just a letter from his aunt has returned him to his usual cowed silence. How desperately he wishes one of them would say something, anything, that would let him stay here a little longer. Anything that could hold him away from his aunt in his tiny scrappy Eden.
“Well, if Peter will stay then I suppose the farm could be managed, though I’ll be working twice as hard again,” Ruth says. Her careful blankness sounds almost like anger, now, but Alex couldn’t possibly explain to his aunt that he has to stay to make the staff’s life easier. But if Peter cannot stay, then - perhaps - Peter, say something, Alex silently begs.
“Of course I’ll stay,” Peter says, and Alex closes his eyes momentarily, flinching as his last hope dies. “Though we should try to finish the rick, then, before you head on home.”
Alex nods and fills his mouth with soup to avoid saying anything more. After all, there’s nothing more to be said.
Smoke like lost souls swirl around Alex’s carriage as he slips away on All Saint’s Eve. Ruth and Peter walked him to the station, but he couldn’t bear to lean out, to say goodbye. He has instead ensconced himself on the far side of the train, where the ghostly fog is thickest. All Saint’s, Ruth says, is a time between worlds, when the veil is thin and a crossing is possible. When the world loses its shape, briefly, to baffle travellers and loose the wailing spectres of the past. A night to be at home.
Alex looks at the thick, billowing steam and tries to convince himself that crossings go two ways, that the people of his past cannot hurt him, and that he will be at home tonight, with his aunt.
None of it rings quite true.
10th November, 1910
Morwellham
ALEX,
Mrs Goodman insists upon checking you reached Sussex in good time, even though you were with us only last week. I tried to reassure her that very few people go missing on trains along the south coast, but she would have none of it. Well, think of us as you sup on wine and fowl; we’ll be clearing the mess made by said fowl and probably eating potatoes. Mrs Goodman wants an account of the best dresses - she’s convinced that the latest London fashions make it impossible to walk, and wishes dearly to be proven correct.
The lame cow looks a little better today. She has energy enough to try to kick me, so I’ve faith in her recovery. Mrs Goodman has some cheese on the go, but we’re already pressed for time and this might be all we get. Your chickens started laying exactly one day too late for you to have any eggs - we boiled one in your honour. Perhaps it is your presence that delayed them so long.
I shall write you when there are more developments. Have you spoken to an estate agent yet?
Yours, etc.,
Peter
12th November, 1910
Netherfield, Sussex
PETER AND RUTH,
Your letter was a pleasant surprise on what is a sadly dreary morning. I reached my aunt’s home in more than enough time and she’s had me playing gooseberry to her countless bridge games ever since. I haven’t the skill and have therefore been relegated to the role of surplus fifth on a permanent basis. I’m afraid I’ve similar ability to describe fashions to you, Ruth; walking appears to be possible, though I cannot honestly fathom how anyone can even breathe in such contraptions as corsets. One certainly couldn’t do any sort of work. Miss Bexleigh tells me they aren’t so terribly bad, once one has become accustomed to them.
I’m glad to hear such things of the cow and chickens, but I’m sorry to leave you so short-handed. You might speak to Mr Mudge about conjuring up some help - I’ll foot the bill. A boiled egg sounds glorious; I fear my stomach has gone off the rich fare my aunt is providing, and I can hardly think about going outdoors without some indoors occupation being found for me.
Despairing of seeing the sun again. Yours, etc.,
Alex
15th November
Morwellham
ALEX,
You didn’t really discuss undergarments with a nice young lady, did you? Honestly, one despairs. Who is this Miss Bexleigh, anyhow? A new acquaintance, perhaps? None of this excuses the discussion of corsets with an unmarried lady, Alex, though the expression of your aunt if she found out entertained Peter and I for quite some time. Bridge is a ridiculous game - get them all betting their inheritances on whist until you are forcibly removed from the house. Peter tells me whist simply is not played in nice houses; I think the fresh air will do you good.
The cow succeeded at last in kicking Peter, and has therefore been branded healthy and thrown out with the others. Peter’s whole leg has gone gloriously purple and he’s sulking something awful. Mr Mudge can spare one of his sons for an afternoon a week, but this is only really of any use once Peter’s given up limping. We are, however, practically swimming in eggs with which to pay Mudge the Younger; he’s a proclivity for pickled eggs, and will accept them in lieu of shillings and sixpence.
Peter thinks some pigs could be usefully put in near the privy without much more work required, but he needs to know if you’ve spoken with an estate agent and are likely to sell soon. Mr Westford says he’s not heard from you either.
Let us know, would you? Yours, etc.,
Ruth
17th November
Netherfield
PETER AND RUTH,
I talk to you about corsets, and you’re not married. Elsie seemed not to mind terribly much, either. We’ve managed to escape the house now by taking constitutionals around the grounds, but I’ve lifted nothing heavier than this pen for weeks and I half fancy my arms are about to become entirely useless. I feel like I’ve been half asleep since coming here - waking at eight feels as if I’ve spent the better part of the day in bed, and I’ve simply nothing to do. I find myself staring out of the window more often than not feeling utterly useless - my apologies. This is hardly important; you’ve no desire, I’m sure, to hear my whining when you two are both so busy.
I’m terribly sorry about your leg, Peter, even though I am pleased to hear the herd is back to its full complement. I’m sure Ruth has some kind of balm that she’s desperate to try on someone; she’ll have you walking in no time, even if only to avoid repeat treatment. I don’t suppose hands could be brought in from further afield? Perhaps Mr Westford knows of other lost souls in desperate need of employment and pickled eggs - Ruth, after all, has turned out to be an excellent investment.
Pigs sound excellent. Install as many as you like, as long as that amount is manageable and not horrendously expensive.
Yours, etc.,
Alex
19th November
Morwellham
ALEX,
Ruth claims that, on the matter of corsets, she does not count. Elsie, is it now? Getting on well, are we? Ruth says I’m to stop gossiping, because it doesn’t suit me. We don’t mind your rambling, Alex - are you quite well? Truthfully, you sound desperately unhappy. Are we fretting for nothing? Can you not escape in the dead of night to weed the ornamental rose garden, or something?
The leg is fine, really. It’s gone a fascinating shade of green, which Ruth says is disgusting, but I’ve given up on limping and am well on the mend without too much medical experimentation. We are, therefore, getting much more done, though Mr Westford says he will keep his ear to the ground. He also says he’s written to you, but received no response; would you drop him a line or two when you’ve a minute?
Two pigs will be in situ by St Andrew’s at the latest, according to the gentleman in Calstock. I nodded authoritatively at the time, but fear not - Ruth knows her saint’s days, and has therefore adequately prepared me for their arrival before the 30th. Alex, really; have you seen an estate agent at all? Ruth and I have to know if you’re about to sell up under our feet. If you aren’t likely to, then we’ll need to prepare for that, too. Please write and tell us something.
Yours, etc.,
Peter
25th November
Morwellham
ALEX,
It’s possible our last letter got lost in the post somewhere, or arrived late. But we’ve not heard anything of you for almost a week now and Mr Westford cannot raise you either. Sorry if Peter was a little snippy with you, but he is right. We shan’t take it personally if you are selling - we knew you would - but we should like to know about it before we are dispossessed.
Sorry; that was snippy, too.
We’re worried about you, Alex. Write us back, please.
With affection and concern, we remain
Yours, etc.,
Ruth and Peter
6th December
Morwellham
ALEX,
Fairly sure you’re ignoring us now. I know you have your life in Sussex to manage, but you could at least spare three minutes to pen a letter letting us know. Is it this Elsie Bexleigh? I understand you’ve taken a shine to this girl, but really, Alex, this is treating us very ill. At least as our employer, you owe us an explanation, but I thought you were our frien
“PETER,” Ruth yells over one shoulder, eyes fixed on the figure approaching up the road to the farm. There’s an air of suspicion in her squint, as if she knows already that this is no ordinary visitor and simply requires Peter to help her decide whether or not he is a welcome one.
Peter appears behind her at fairly record speed, frowning with some concern; Ruth is not much inclined to shout under ordinary circumstances. He spots the oncoming figure not long after and turns his frown upon him, until-
“Alex?” he says hesitantly, and the squint clears instantly from Ruth’s face.
“Oh, Lord, it is,” she says, hitching up her skirt and striding down the road.
It’s hard to read in her expression and tone what, exactly, she intends to do when she reaches him. Alex is half minded to turn tail and flee just in case, but he isn’t quite sure what he thinks he deserves, yet, and besides. He’s come an awfully long way to not see them.
Ruth bears down on him, Peter jogging after - by his expression, quite possibly in order to rescue him from the worst of Ruth’s wrath. “Alex Langlands,” she says, voice trembling with the strain of containing her feelings into two innocuous words. Alex stays still, and prepares to take the punishment he deserves.
It is, therefore, something of a world-tilting surprise when she steps up onto her tiptoes and wraps her strong arms around his shoulders in the tightest embrace Alex can remember ever having. Peter, over her shoulder, looks as surprised as he does. Alex makes an effort and manages to bring his arms up to hug her in return, rather more gently.
“Honestly, Alex, I half thought you’d died,” she says crossly, clinging to his shoulders without any sign that she might at some point let go. “You simply - fell off the face of the earth for more than a fortnight! Don’t ever do it again.”
“I won’t,” Alex mumbles through a throat that is suddenly and rather suspiciously tight. “I won’t, I promise.”
“Good,” Ruth pronounces, finally letting him go and nodding firmly at him. She sniffs. “I’m still quite cross with you, mind,” she adds, pointing at him accusingly.
Alex flushes. “Yes, I rather deserve that.”
“Well,” Ruth says. “I’ll - put a kettle on.”
There is a long pause, in which everyone tries to remember what to do with themselves. Peter ducks his head, but cannot hide his grin before it spreads to Alex, and then Ruth. “It is good to see you again,” Peter says, and Alex holds those little genuine words tightly to his heart.
The farmhouse is not much changed in the time he’s been away; Ruth has, of course, kept it immaculately clean despite having a list of jobs as long as her arm, but she still hasn’t finished the rag rug she’d started not long before he left. One of Peter’s waistcoats, torn, is draped over the back of a chair; there is a stack of letters on the table and an unfinished one beside them; dinner is bubbling on the stove. He could have stepped out for just an afternoon, not little over a month.
Alex leaves his cases by the door and assumes his usual seat at the table while Ruth and Peter dance carefully around each other finding the tea set with ease. He spares a moment’s smile for the practised movements, before his eye falls upon the letters and, despite his best attempts, stays there. The stack is all his own work, neatly kept within reach in the heart of the house, and the unfinished paper beside him is-
“Oh,” Peter says, and the dance stills. The ticking of the clock on the mantle is almost unnaturally loud in the sudden stillness, but Alex can’t take his eyes off the letter held limply between his fingers. “I didn’t mean - I don’t-” Peter cuts himself off with a hum of irritation.
“No,” Alex says softly. “No, you’re right. I did treat you very ill, and I’m sorry for it. I didn’t - I wasn’t thinking straight; it’s almost impossible in that house. I’m so sorry. I should have written, but I was too - cowardly. I couldn’t - I couldn’t bear to say what my aunt wanted me to, so I didn’t say anything at all. I’ve been perfectly horrid to you both and I am so sorry.”
Peter snatches the paper from Alex’s grip before he can react, scrunching it in his hands and lobbing it into the stove. “No such need,” he says. “I know your aunt’s an awful old cow-”
“Peter,” Ruth chides mildly.
“-so we’ll forgive you your actions as influenced by said awful old cow.”
Ruth gives Peter a disapproving look, but Alex manages a smile. “No, he’s right: she really is awful. I had to escape out of a window just to get here.”
Ruth puts down her teapot. “You did not.” He offers her a sheepish grin, and she laughs. It washes over him, warm and golden, and he can’t help smiling properly. He’s missed that noise more than he had realised. “Honestly, you boys.”
The tea is poured and they sit for a moment in peaceful silence.
“It’s hard, in her house, to remember that other people exist.” Ruth and Peter give him curious looks. Alex is rather surprised himself that he’s saying it, but it’s true. “She - my aunt - doesn’t think, often, about anyone else except to make them do what she wants. And it became difficult to remember that I owe you things, and that my actions might hurt you, and I’m so sorry for that. There’s no excuse for it. My aunt insisted that I sell the farm and remain in Sussex, but I couldn’t do it. I thought that, perhaps, if I didn’t mention my decision over the sale I wouldn’t have to make it, and I did not think of how that would hurt you, and I am truly sorry.”
Alex can’t peel his eyes off his tea, hands loosely fisted upon the table beside it. In consequence, he startles rather a lot when two other hands wrap around his fingers; firm and small on his right, broad and calloused on his left. “Thank you,” Ruth says gently.
“And you’re forgiven,” Peter adds, squeezing his fingers. Alex squeezes back, grateful.
“Does that mean you’re staying, then?” Ruth says.
Alex’s breath catches. He wants to - Lord above, does he want to - but he will be exceptionally lucky if Ruth and Peter deign to have him back after the treatment he’s given them. He’s nowhere else to go, however; to return to his aunt is entirely unthinkable, not least because of his daring midnight flight. “If you would find it - amenable-”
Peter and Ruth sigh hugely in relief. “Thank heaven,” Ruth says emphatically.
“It’s your farm, you daft sod,” Peter says, grinning.
“It’s been a nightmare, dear, to run this farm without you,” Ruth says, and Alex grips their fingers tightly, beaming, and doing his best to laugh rather than cry in sheer relief.
Andrew snuffles at his hand expectantly, waiting for him to sling his bucket over the wall and into the trough. “Merry Christmas to you, too,” Alex says as the pig snorts in delight and makes her way over to the double serving. Peter had insisted that his pregnant sow be named after what he refers to as “her” saint’s day - hence, Andrew the sow. Alex had made a great show of finding this entirely ridiculous, but it makes him smile fondly every time.
Ruth smiles at him as she returns from the chickens and he offers her a tiny wave in response. It’s so much vastly better than being back with his aunt, even though the air is below freezing now and it’s barely even light outside: here, he smiles at pigs and breathes in great lungfuls of fresh air and is greeted every morning by people who are really, genuinely pleased to see him. He’s received a handful of angry letters from her, which are immediately forwarded to Mr Westford to deal with, in case she’s of a mind to do anything that might actually require his attention - Alex himself has not had to deal with her personally since his return to Devon, and he’s found it remarkably freeing.
Christmas is a quiet affair, and Alex likes it better than he has any Christmas for a long time. There are no great artificial decorations, there is no huge, opulent meal, and he receives two presents: a scarf and a book about chickens. They’re the best presents he’s had in a while, too. The church is colder and the Methodist service unfamiliar to his High Anglican ears, but he’s not trapped in his aunt’s family box, crammed in instead on the end of the Williams family pew, and if he looks around just a little he can see Ruth with the Westfords and Peter squashed between two Mudge boys.
The afternoon sees them betting chores and walnuts on hands and hands of whist and rummy, and going hoarse playing pit and howling with laughter. Ruth produces sloe gin to aid in the recovery of their voices and Alex is quite happily drowsily drunk all evening.
Peter steps out to shut the chickens in, swaying slightly on his feet, and Ruth extends her foot to gently kick Alex’s ankle where they are both stretched out in chairs in front of the stove. “Can I help you?” he says, aiming for imperious and ending up a little wobbly.
Ruth scrunches her face up, giggling adorably, and Alex relaxes into a grin. She kicks his ankle again. “It’s nice to have you here,” she says, head tipping to one side and making her smile terribly lopsided.
“It is good to be home,” Alex replies and yawns expansively. “Nice to be here. With you two.”
Ruth hums her agreement, tugging her new shawl around her shoulders and tapping her toes against the sole of his foot. The fire crackles in the stove, wind whistling around the house, and Alex closes his eyes to better enjoy the peace and quiet.
Ruth’s laughter makes him crack them open again, and some time must have passed because now Peter is standing over her with a small sprig of greenery in his hand and mischief in his eye. “You are just - dreadful,” Ruth manages around giggles, but this is opportunity enough - Peter swoops in and presses a kiss to her cheek, carefully dangling the mistletoe above their heads.
Alex grins at the nonsense before him as Ruth squeaks in surprise before dissolving into further laughter. Peter, beaming, presses another quick kiss to her hair in a gesture that looks like it could almost be familiar to him, before turning to Alex. There’s a look in his eye that Alex recognises: a cat about to pounce has the same glint, or a Peter in their second year of university about to whale upon him with a new feather pillow.
“No,” Alex says preemptively, stumbling to his feet and holding his arms out to keep Peter a distance from him. Alas, Peter has had the benefit of a little fresh air to give him the slightest sober edge and the resulting chase is extremely short. Peter catches him up in a bear hug, feet lifted ever so slightly off the floor so that Alex is powerless to do aught but offer giggling pleas for mercy. Ruth, unsympathetically, is howling with laughter. Peter’s lips against his cheek are soft, slightly chapped, and accompanied by the odd tickle of stubble; it’s all entirely alien to him, but not exactly unwelcome. Alex is too busy giggling and putting up the slightest token resistance to worry about it, especially since Peter lets him go, beaming, almost as soon as it’s begun.
“There,” Peter says, sounding satisfied and with one arm still slung around Alex’s waist. “Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas,” Alex echoes with a grin, fighting loose to return to his chair and the warmth of the fire.
“Merry Christmas, dear hearts,” Ruth says fondly, smiling softly up at Peter and knocking her ankle against Alex’s foot.
It’s only in the cold light of Boxing Day morn that Alex comes to the sudden and terrible conclusion that, somewhere between Peter saying Ruth rather than Mrs Goodman and the fond, familiar kisses of the night before, Peter and Ruth have grown fond of each other. Andrew snuffles crossly, her food unacceptably delayed, and Alex struggles to breathe against the realisation that hits him like a hammer to the centre of his ribcage for reasons he cannot quite understand: Ruth and Peter like each other, and this hurts Alex like nothing else can.