But in a short time Reggie had it chugging rhythmically and, after equipping it with a Klaxon horn, he drove all hours of the night through the quiet town. Two A M. he’d chug past our front, the Klaxon tootling, “Pom-pom-poom-pah.” I’d turn over in bed and laugh. Earl, he’d sit up and yelclass="underline" “I’ll fire that kid first thing in the morning.” He never did, for if there was one person who loved Reggie — that is, apart from his parents, yes, both of them, and Nora — it was Earl.
Then came Hitler, and the war. And Reggie went “over there.” The atmosphere of Longvalley changed overnight: our town was suddenly a peaceful place, and sad. Only then did many recall the helpful hand of Reggie Crossland in day to day affairs. Along with Nora, Earl and I wept.
The jalopy stood forlorn in our back yard, for Lionel Crossland wouldn’t allow it on their premises. Once in a while I went out and sat in it. Nora came over and sat in it, too. And no doubt wherever Reggie was his ears were burning hot. He wrote long letters to us, telling us to how to run the market. “He’ll be putting the generals straight as to how that war will best be won,” Earl said. He’d met an Australian fellow, Reggie said: “A real guy. Arthur Train his name is. He’s a lot like me. When this war’s over I’m going sheep farming with him in Australia. My dad won’t like it, but then I’ve always told him I’ll never, never be a teacher. I think he’ll not mind too much if I make lots of money, which Arthur and I surely will.”
Earl laughed. “Two of ’em, mind you, Em, over there cooking up the mischief. War’s good as over right now. That Hitler feller might just as well pack it up.”
The war over, Reggie did not come back. Nor did he come to very much harm. He and the Australian went sheep farming together in Australia. “Wait for me,” he wrote Nora. “I shall have enough money soon to set up my own farm back there.” But Nora, a nurse by then, hearing that Reggie had no intention of coming back for three years, feeling sure that someone else had claimed him, did not wait. Her father saw to that. She married Charlie Fitzmaurice. And ten years went by, happily as it turned out, for Nora.
After completing her nursing course, Nora had worked in a hospital for a short while, then had come back to Longvalley. Her first private case being the care of Mrs. Fitzmaurice, Charlie’s mother, she ailing for some time. The Fitzmaurice farm is about a mile outside town along the North Road; its pastures and meadow lands run to the wide river at the foot of the town.
Mrs. Fitzmaurice had taken to Nora from the start. As for Charlie, he’d fallen in love with her right away. They were married that fall, he fifteen years older than she. It was Nora herself who told me: “Emma, he’s a kind and wonderful man. I truly love him. It’s impossible not to. If you’re wondering about Reggie, well, I’ve accepted the fact that by now there is someone else for him. Why not? So long as he’s happy that’s all I should really wish for him.” I had thought I detected a wistful note; but perhaps I read into her voice something that was not there, only the vague disappointment in my own mind. And happy we were for Nora, for no better marriage could have been arranged. The Fitzmaurices were well off, and a good, steady family, too. Charlie and Nora had ten very special years, a rare devotion between the two, for there were no children of the union. And a delight and comfort to the old lady Nora had been, those two years before she died.
Then Charlie Fitzmaurice had a heart attack, leaving Nora floundering, alone on the farm except for Rory O’Brien, the hired man. We’d had no real knowledge of the lonely grief that Nora endured, she with no way to fill the void, for she and Charlie had come upon that kind of peace together that few people find. So Nora had married Bagley thinking, mistakenly, that for her he’d changed his ways; that the two of them could aid each other, for Harry had straightened himself out surprisingly for six consecutive months. A goodlooking fellow, no doubt about that, and but three years older than Nora. And he could turn on the charm when he’d a mind to. Sneaky Harry was past master at that. Making a play for Nora, knowing her loneliness, he’d been available constantly in a useful capacity on the farm, impressing her as he meant to. It was all greed on his part, for he was bent on securing the Fitzmaurice farm and any fortune that Charlie had left. We all knew that what Charlie and his mother had was considerable. And Nora no longer had her dad to advise her.
Nora married him in spite of pleas and warnings. And almost at once found out what that rascal was after. Rory told in town about the beatings when Nora refused him the money he demanded, about the liquor he had hid in the barn. Prize stock Harry sold without Nora’s knowledge, as well as fine and valuable antiques from the house. A heartbreaking year she had endured with him.
If only Charlie Fitzmaurice hadn’t died! If only Reggie hadn’t gone away. If only — no, not a bit of use wishing. But this past year has been a sad one in Longvalley, for we’re not indifferent to the suffering of neighbors and friends. And one could hardly think of Charlie without thinking also of George Banner. George with but months to live, dying of cancer, Charlie’s lifelong friend, and our vet for years. The best in his work, and a fine, kind man besides. And all along there was wastrel Harry Bagley flourishing like the green bay tree. I wouldn’t be exaggerating if I said that, to a man, the people of our community would have wasted no time, had it been possible, in reversing roles for George and Harry. Outspoken they were on the subject, thinking of George.
Rachel Banner’s farm is across the river from the Fitzmaurice place, the two farms backing on each other. The Fitzmaurice place fronts on North Road, the Banner farm faces South Valley Road. We never think of one without the other, for Charlie Fitzmaurice and George Banner grew up together, close friends since they played together as boys. Rachel Banner had farmed her place for years with her son George, he also having had the veterinary practice for a good number of years. The terrible thing happening to George took us back to what his mother had been through. Widowed young, with three children to raise, faced with the prospect of losing the farm, Rachel had battled on with only the help of a youthful hired hand, and eventually what her own two boys could do. The farm prospered, but when trouble should have been letting up, Rachel’s younger son Alvin ran away after getting Elsie Parker into trouble. Elsie’s parents, overly religious, and poor, put Elsie out of their home with no place to go. It had been Rachel who took Elsie in and cared for her and the baby. Then, Rachel’s own daughter, Penny, had an affair with a married man, causing the breakup of his marriage. The two of them had left Longvalley. Elsie’s eventual departure with the child, a boy she’d called Hiram, was a new grief for Rachel, so attached had she become to both.
“I have to let them go, of course,” Rachel said. “Elsie’s marrying a good man.” He was a butcher in a town some distance away. I don’t recall how Elsie met him, but I think he’d come to the farm buying spring lambs on different occasions. The years set Rachel and Elsie apart, but Christmas always brought a letter and pictures showing how well Hiram was doing with his new brothers and sisters. Still, it was in George that Rachel felt vindicated, he compensating for the way Alvin and Penny had turned out. (But for all that she’d have welcomed them back without reservations.)
The amazing thing was that now Harry was dead and George was up and at work, still enjoying his evening horseback rides about the farm. No taking to bed for him. George’s surprising resilience was bolstered, of course, by Rachel’s good care of him; she gained time for him. If George had a passion for any one thing it was horses. For years he had bred and raised them. To see George seated on one of his fine animals was to see man and beast at their best together. A joy it was, like the best poetry. Try as I might I couldn’t banish the sensation of awe that the mood of the community had been taken note of by a higher authority.