Abbeyford Remembered Read online

  Bello:

  hidden talent rediscovered

  Bello is a digital-only imprint of Pan Macmillan, established to breathe life into previously published, classic books.

  At Bello we believe in the timeless power of the imagination, of good story, narrative and entertainment and we want to use digital technology to ensure that many more readers can enjoy these books into the future.

  We publish in ebook and print-on-demand formats to bring these wonderful books to new audiences.

  www.panmacmillan.co.uk/bello

  Contents

  Margaret Dickinson

  Author’s Note

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chpater Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Margaret Dickinson

  Abbeyford Remembered

  Born in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, Margaret Dickinson moved to the coast at the age of seven and so began her love for the sea and the Lincolnshire landscape.

  Her ambition to be a writer began early and she had her first novel published at the age of twenty-five. This was followed by twenty-seven further titles including Plough the Furrow, Sow the Seed and Reap the Harvest, which make up her Lincolnshire Fleethaven trilogy.

  Many of her novels are set in the heart of her home county, but in Tangled Threads and Twisted Strands the stories include not only Lincolnshire but also the framework knitting and lace industries of Nottingham.

  Her 2012 and 2013 novels, Jenny’s War and The Clippie Girls, were both top twenty bestsellers and her 2014 novel, Fairfield Hall, went to number nine on the Sunday Times bestseller list.

  My writing career falls into two ‘eras’. I had my first novel published at the age of twenty-five, and between 1968 and 1984 I had a total of nine novels published by Robert Hale Ltd. These were a mixture of light, historical romance, an action-suspense and one thriller, originally published under a pseudonym. Because of family commitments I then had a seven-year gap, but began writing again in the early nineties. Then occurred that little piece of luck that we all need at some time in our lives: I found a wonderful agent, Darley Anderson, and on his advice began to write saga fiction; stories with a strong woman as the main character and with a vivid and realistic background as the setting. Darley found me a happy home with Pan Macmillan, for whom I have now written twenty-one novels since 1994. Older, and with a maturity those seven ‘ fallow’ years brought me, I recognize that I am now writing with greater depth and daring.

  But I am by no means ashamed of those early works: they have been my early learning curve – and I am still learning! Originally, the first nine novels were published in hardback and subsequently in Large Print, but have never previously been issued in paperback or, of course, in ebook. So, I am thrilled that Macmillan, under their Bello imprint, has decided to reissue all nine titles.

  Abbeyford, Abbeyford Inheritance and Abbeyford Remembered form a trilogy with a chequered history, which took four years to complete. It began life as a long, rambling 150,000 word novel, Adelina. On advice, this was cut drastically to about 60,000 words but it still failed to find a publisher. I started a sequel, Carrie, and this seemed to work much better. It was then suggested that this book should be submitted instead of Adelina, but to me that would have been wasting the first part of the story. I decided to put the two novels together and to write an earlier piece to start it all off, thereby forming one long novel again, but in three separate parts. This was then sent out to publishers and found acceptance. But – wait for it – the publishers wanted it split into three separate books. So, all three were published in 1981 by Robert Hale Ltd. as Sarah, Adelina and Carrie. At a later date, these were reissued by Severn House Publishers, again in hardback, under new titles and became The Abbeyford Trilogy.

  Chapter One

  Abbeyford, England, 1841

  “What’s this place called, then?”

  Carrie Smithson stood at the top of the hill, looking down upon the village nestling in the valley below. The breeze blew her long black hair into a tangle of curls. Her arms akimbo, she stood with her feet, in their wooden clogs, planted slightly apart. Her thin blouse and coarse-woven skirt were flattened by the breeze against her young, firm body. She was slim, almost to the point of thinness, and yet there was a wiry strength about her and a determination about the set of her chin and in her eyes. It was her eyes which were her most striking feature. They were a most unusual colour – a deep violet.

  She glanced towards her father standing beside her. His arms were folded across his broad chest. His eyes, as he gazed down into the valley, seemed far away, hazy with memories. He was small and stocky, yet immensely strong. He was dressed in a shirt with the sleeves rolled up above his elbows, a spotted neckcloth knotted carelessly about his throat. His feet were encased in boots with leather leggings buttoned each side as far as the knee. He wore breeches, worn and faded.

  “I said, ‘ What’s this place called’, Pa?” Carrie prompted.

  “Abbeyford.”

  “Are we going down?”

  “I suppose so,” he murmured.

  “Why have we come here?”

  “I’ve someone to see.”

  “Who? Someone you know? Have you been here before?”

  “Aye. Twenty years ago ’n more, I lived here.”

  “Lived here?”

  “I was born here.”

  “Really?” Eagerly her eyes scanned the valley. “ Where? Which house?” She glanced at him and saw his gaze upon a square house just below them, standing halfway up the western hillside of the valley.

  Innocently she asked, “Is that the house you were born in?”

  Evan Smithson’s laugh was more bitter than humorous. “Nay, child. The likes of us aren’t born into Manor Houses. No,” his eyes swivelled and dropped to the cottages nestling in the bottom of the valley. “We’re born into hovels!”

  “What about your parents? Are they still here?”

  His eyes were on her, angry and resentful. Inwardly Carrie shrank a little but she gave no outward sign of fear and faced her father squarely.

  “How the devil should I know?” he muttered. Carrie was shocked, but her questions ran on.

  “Would you ever have come back, if it hadn’t been for the railway coming this way?”

  Carrie had never known any way of life other than the one they lived now. Her father – as far as she knew – had always been a ganger, the man in charge of the gangs of navvies building the new railways, his family moving after him wherever his work took him. As the railway lines extended slowly forward throughout the countryside, the Smithson family shifted once more, always moving a few miles in front of the line, living there until the line caught up with them and passed them by and then moving on once more. Home was a derelict cottage, a shack or even a farmer’s barn. Sometimes their shelter was a mere tent of boughs and a tarpaulin, or a hastily constructed hut of stone and turf. Their possessions were few and loaded with monotonous regularity on to the pony and trap – their one means of removal.

  “Aye, I’d have come back, some time, some day. I’ve unfinished business hereabouts.”

  “What?”

  “You ask too many questions, girl,” Evan growled and began to walk briskly down the hill towards the village. As she followed him Carrie’s eyes still took in the scene before her. She pointed to the house she had imagined might have been her father’s home. It was a square, solid house, with stables to one side and farm buildings to the rear.

  “What’s that place called, then?” Carrie asked, refusing to
be cowed by his sharpness.

  “Abbeyford Manor.”

  “Who lives there?”

  “How should I know?” he replied testily, but she had the distinct feeling that he knew very well. That house had drawn his gaze and there had been a glint of bitterness in his eyes as he remembered – memories he had no intention of sharing with his daughter.

  “What are those ruins? Right on top of the hill – above the Manor?”

  “The abbey ruins. That’s how the village gets its name. We’re coming to the ford now.”

  The stream ran right across the lane down which they were walking towards the village. They crossed over by means of a small footbridge.

  Carrie’s restless eyes now turned to the eastern slope of the valley, where a half-timbered mansion – far grander than the Manor – stood just below the brow of the hill.

  “What about that ’un? Who lives there?” Carrie’s ceaseless curiosity continued.

  “Abbeyford Grange. Used to be a Lord Royston live there. I ’spect he’s dead now.”

  They were walking along the winding village street now. They passed the church in the centre of the village with the Vicarage close beside it and crossed the village green. Skirting the duck pond, they approached the line of small, squat cottages huddled around the green.

  Carrie’s sharp eyes darted about her. How quiet it seemed. How deserted almost. Many of the cottages were dilapidated. Broken windows were stuffed with sackcloth to keep out the cold and yet she could see that people still lived in them. Smoke curled from one or two chimneys and a scrawny black cat sprawled on a stone step, idly washing its face.

  Evan stopped in front of one of the cottages facing the green and paused before reaching the door. This dwelling seemed in a better state of repair than the others. Bright flowers grew in the garden and pretty curtains blew at the windows. Carrie glanced back towards the next door cottage. Their window pane was broken, the remaining glass dirty and no curtains hung at the window. The garden was neglected and overgrown.

  Evan knocked upon the door and Carrie stood on tiptoe, peering over his shoulder to see who would answer the door. When it opened, an old woman stood there, her eyes watering as she squinted up at them. Her hair was white and she stooped, her shoulders hunched, her thin, claw-like hand clasping her shawl about her.

  “Who is it?” she asked in a quavering voice. “I can’t see so well.”

  “Don’t you know your own son, Mother?”

  Carrie gasped to hear her father’s tone of voice. There was no affection but a kind of belligerence in his words of greeting. The old woman’s toothless mouth sagged open and she swayed slightly. Shading her eyes, she peered closely at him. “Evan? Is it – Evan?”

  “Who else might it be? You have no other son, have you?”

  A peculiar kind of choking sound escaped her thin lips. Again she seemed about to topple over. Carrie darted forward and caught hold of the woman’s arm.

  “Here, Grandmother, let me help you.” She led the old lady back into the cottage and helped her to sit beside a blazing log fire. “There. We’ve given you a shock, coming unexpectedly like this.”

  She turned her brilliant eyes upon her father. “How can you be so unfeeling,” she hissed at him, but Evan Smithson merely shrugged his shoulders and glanced about the cottage. “ Been some changes here, I see.”

  Carrie, too, glanced around and then she jumped as she realised there was someone else in the tiny room. In a corner by the fire, sitting huddled in a chair, a rug over his knees was an old man. His eyes glowered towards Evan and his thin hands, lined with purple veins, plucked restlessly at the rug on his knee.

  “Well, well, well,” Evan, too, had seen him and moved towards the old man. “You’re still here then?”

  “No thanks to you if I am. Crippled, I am, because of what you did …”

  “Hush, Henry,” the old woman murmured worriedly.

  “… Crippled ever since that night you led the whole village against the Trents, just because …”

  “No, Henry,” her voice rose, shrill with fear, and his faded away to incoherent mutterings, and though Carrie strained to hear his words she could learn no more.

  Evan’s glance was still roving about the small room – the singing kettle on the hob, a rug covering the floor, two comfortable chairs and a blazing fire.

  “Very cosy! Very comfortable!” Sarcasm lined his tone. “Put his hand in his pocket at last, did he?”

  The old woman glanced at her son, her eyes pleading, her shrivelled mouth working but she uttered no sound. Evan’s eyes, full of resentment, were upon his mother.

  Intuitively, Carrie knew her father was not referring to Henry Smithson, huddled in the corner, a broken, pitiful figure. There was some mystery surrounding this household, events from the past which overshadowed the present and perhaps all their lives. She shuddered, and then to try to relieve the tense atmosphere, she said brightly, “I’m so happy to meet you, Grandma – and Grandpa, of course,” she added hastily.

  The old man’s frown deepened and beneath his breath he still muttered darkly. Sarah Smithson tried, valiantly, to smile, but all the while her eyes, anxious and watchful, were upon her son.

  “He’s still alive, then?” Evan said.

  Before his mother could answer, Henry Smithson’s voice rose, more strongly, from the corner. “Aye, God rot his soul! Still up to his wicked ways – gambling and drunk most o’ the time. Keeps selling land off to pay his debts.”

  Evan’s interest sharpened visibly. He moved closer to the old man. “What d’you say? Selling land? How can he – he dunna own it?”

  Henry Smithson sniggered. “A lot’s happened since you left. That night – when you led the village men against the Trents – caused a lot of trouble and we’ve had to live with it ever since.”

  Evan brought his fist down upon the table with a thump. “We had every reason to rebel – the whole country was up in arms against the Corn Law. Remember Peterloo? How the magistrates called out the yeomanry to charge upon a peaceful meeting, killing and maiming innocent men, women and children?”

  “Aye an’ Wallis Trent did the same, didn’t he? Called out the yeomanry against his own employees. Killed three and injured several – including me,” Henry Smithson said bitterly. “I nearly died – wish to God I had. But I didn’t, I’ve had to sit here the last twenty years – useless – and curse your name!”

  Carrie gasped, shocked by the venom in the old man’s tone. There was positive hatred in his attitude towards Evan, who, she believed, was his own son.

  “Evan,” Sarah’s voice was hesitant, “did you know – Wallis Trent was killed that night?”

  Evan turned sharply to look at his mother, surprise on his face. “No – no, I didn’t. How? In the fire?”

  “No – well, not exactly. He tried to rescue his horse from the burning stable,” Sarah’s eyes were downcast. “ But the animal was wild with fear, reared and came down upon him, breaking his neck.”

  There was silence in the room whilst Carrie’s eyes darted from one to another, trying to piece together the snippets of information she was hearing. She longed to ask for explanations but bit her lip to keep the ready questions in check.

  Now was not the time.

  “Adelina – what happened to his wife, Adelina?”

  “She married Lord Lynwood.”

  Evan grinned suddenly. “Adelina – Lady Lynwood! Aye, an’ it’ll suit her, too.”

  Carrie’s eyes widened. All these people her father seemed to know so well, she’d never heard of them, never heard him even speak of them. But then, she thought she had not even known before today that his own mother and father were still alive. She sat down on a low stool, resting her chin on her hands, her elbows on her knees and listened to their conversation, her sharp ears missing nothing, her violet eyes darting from one to another, but, for once, her tongue was still.

  “What’s this about him selling land?” her father was asking again.


  “Lord Royston died and split his estate between Francesca, Adelina’s daughter, and Jamie Trent. He left Abbeyford Grange and land to the north to her and the Manor and about five hundred acres to Jamie Trent,” Henry explained.

  “That was Wallis Trent’s boy,” Evan murmured.

  “Squire Trent,” Sarah spoke softly, “has control until Jamie reaches the age of twenty-five.”

  “And in the meantime,” Henry added with malicious delight, “the old man has sold more than half of it off already!”

  “Has he, b’God?” There was satisfaction in Evan’s tone.

  Within minutes Evan had taken his leave of his parents and hustled Carrie out of the door, scarcely giving her time to make her polite farewells. It was as if the sole purpose of his visit had been to find out about the Trents and having done so, he left.

  He was striding up the village street towards the hill with Carrie taking little running steps to keep pace with him.

  He seemed, now, a man with a purpose, as if the information he had learned had injected new life into his blood.

  “Pa – Pa – what was all that about? What happened here? What was that about you and the villagers and the Trents? Pa …?”

  “Hold your tongue, girl. ’Tis none of your business.”

  Carrie fell silent, pouting her lips and wrinkling her nose moodily, but she knew better than to push her father or she would feel the weight of his hand.

  Halfway up the hill, a horseman came galloping towards them. Drawing level, he reined in beside them. Carrie gazed up at the man on horseback towering above them. He was a young man of twenty or so, very tall and already broad-shouldered. His hair was dark brown with reddish highlights glinting in the sun. His face tanned and his eyes a deep brown, his chin was firm and resolute and his mouth set in a hard line. “Good-day.”

  Evan folded his arms across his chest and stood looking up at the young man. “Good-day – sir!” There was an unnecessary accent upon the salutation.