The sky here was wide and pale in the late afternoon sun which flooded down, glancing between the acres of beech trees. It was beautiful. It was exactly as David had described it.
The train pulled in to the station, he had to start getting himself up, there was the tedious business of crutches and doors and luggage. A man and a woman helped him, and then a porter came down the tiny platform.
‘Excuse me – Mr Hilliard?’
Who was this? One of them? A young man, in a cap.
‘Dr Barton sent me down to meet you – he’s been called out with his own car. He was expected back but it was easiest for me to come down rather than risk your waiting about. I’m George Bennett – my father farms the land adjoining the Doctor’s house.’
He had picked up Hilliard’s case, they were walking slowly down the platform and out into the sunshine.
Hilliard said, ‘David told me about you.’
‘Oh yes. Yes. We’ve known one another since boys, of course.’ He came up to the open car. ‘I put the hood down. It’s been warm here today – a bit too warm, bad sign for so early, but you can’t help making the most of it. If it’s too cold for you…’
‘No. I shall like it. It’s fine.’
The air smelled sweet and dry. It was very quiet here. Hilliard felt as if he were going through the pages of a book, following a map to a country he had always known.
Bennett put his things on to the back seat. He said, ‘They’ll all be waiting for you. Everyone’s there, you know. Dick’s home on leave. Had they told you?’
The car started, drove very slowly out of the station yard down a slope, turned into a lane.
‘Hob Lane,’ Hilliard said. George Bennett looked surprised.
‘That’s it.’
‘Leading to Woodman’s Lane.’
‘You’ve been here before then?’
‘No.’ But then he thought that that was not true, he had been here, he had spent hours here with Barton, as they had talked in the apple loft and the tents and dugouts and billets, he could walk down the lane and paths for miles around. He knew it.
‘No. I haven’t been here before.’
The car turned up the lane and then they were driving into the sun.
‘This is all my father’s land, on either side of here. You can’t see our farmhouse, it lies in the dip beyond the beeches there.’
The engine was grinding slowly up the hill. Then, they came out between the trees and saw the whole valley, sloping up gently to east and west. The sky was vast, darkening behind them.
‘There’s the house.’
Hilliard looked up, and ahead.
About the Author
Susan Hill was born in Scarborough, Yorkshire, was educated there and at King’s College, University of London, of which she is an Honorary Fellow. She now lives in a 16th century farmhouse in a North Norfolk village, delighted to have returned to be near the sea.
She is married to the Shakespeare scholar Stanley Wells, and as well as her now grown-up daughters, she has one grand-daughter. Susan was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Honours, 2012.
Copyright
Long Barn Books
Kindle Edition
Copyright © 2013, Susan Hill