Right in the middle of the heap were two round domes of stone carved with curly patterns and covered in moss and lichen. Carvings! With a terrible sense that he was going to discover some unforeseen tragedy, Freddie climbed over the blocks to investigate. Gingerly he cleared a space around one of the domes until he could see a face glaring out at him with blind stone eyes and snarling lips. Shocked, he sat down on a chunk of sandstone, reached out his hands and touched the stone lion’s curly head. It was warm from the August sunshine, but under its chin it was cold as a tomb. Silently he uncovered both the carvings and sat studying them, not wanting to believe the thought that hammered insistently at his mind.
‘Mornin’, Freddie!’ Herbie came padding into the yard in his leather apron and dust-covered overalls. ‘’Tis hot,’ he remarked, taking his cap off to let the top of his bald head dry in the sun.
‘Mornin’,’ said Freddie.
‘You’re looking uncommonly serious,’ observed Herbie. ‘Has your mother been at you again?’
‘No,’ said Freddie. He looked at Herbie’s challenging grey eyes. ‘Where did this lot come from, Herb?’
‘Hilbegut.’
Something swept over Freddie like a gust of hot air, charged with emotion. He rubbed the backs of his hands over his eyes, brushing away the tears that prickled in there.
The stone lions from Hilbegut Farm.
Something had happened to Kate.
‘Haven’t you heard?’ said Herbie. ‘The Squire of Hilbegut died weeks ago. And he didn’t have an heir. So his place is just left empty, that great big place with the turrets. And all his tenants in the farms and cottages have got to move. Tragic, ain’t it? Those poor families. Got nowhere to go.’
‘So who’s done this?’ asked Freddie. ‘These two stone lions were on the gateposts to Hilbegut Farm.’
Herbie’s prominent eyebrows drew together in a frown, and he shook his head. ‘Can’t say I know that,’ he said, ‘I only knows what I hears, see? Maybe ’tis gossip, but they say his sister and her family have come over from Canada, and they don’t care nothing about the place. They’re stripping out the carvings and the stone and anything they can sell. They just want the money, see. Then they’ll go off back to Canada and leave Hilbegut to go to rack and ruin. That’s all I know, and ’tis none of my business.’
Freddie began to shake inside. He made an instant decision. He would unload the stone he’d brought down from the quarry for Herbie, then drive out to Hilbegut and find out for himself. But first . . .
‘What about the stone lions?’ he asked.
‘Oh – I’ve not really looked at them properly yet,’ said Herbie, ‘but they’ll fetch a lot of money. Rich folks with money to burn buy that sort of stuff.’
‘I’d like to buy them,’ said Freddie.
‘You couldn’t afford them, Freddie. Come on. What d’you want ’em for anyway? Stick one on the front of your lorry!’ Herbie gave one of his wheezy laughs that went on and on until it ended in a coughing fit.
Freddie thought about his savings. He’d done well with the haulage business and was planning to buy a second lorry. To blow it all on two stone lions would be foolish.
Herbie was leaning forward, his eyes looking curiously into Freddie’s soul. ‘So tell me – why do you want them?’
‘I’m interested in carving. I’ve watched you a lot,’ said Freddie. ‘I’d like to do it myself.’
‘’Tis hard,’ said Herbie, ‘a hard, dusty old job. Makes me cough. And look at me hands. You don’t want to do that, Freddie. You stick to your lorry, if you take my advice. Anyway, I doubt whether you could do a decent stone carving; it’s not as easy as you think.’
‘I could,’ said Freddie with unexpected passion. ‘I know I could.’
‘So what do you want to carve?’
‘An angel.’
‘That’s about the hardest thing you could choose.’
‘I know I could,’ insisted Freddie, thinking of Kate’s beautiful bewitching young face. ‘I can see it in my mind exactly.’
Herbie’s eyes looked thoughtful under the bushy brows. He began moving the blocks of stone around as if searching, and heaved out a big lump of sandstone from the Hilbegut gateposts.
‘I’ll tell you what, Freddie. This here, this is Bath stone, and it’s easy to carve. If you like, I’ll give you this block, and I’ll bet you can’t carve an angel out of that ’cause I couldn’t.’
Freddie’s eyes lit up. The angel inside the stone shone out at him. He could see its curved wings, its praying hands and flowing hair, and the tranquillity of its gaze.
‘How much d’you bet then, Herbie?’
‘A pound.’
‘Right. You’re on.’
The two men shook hands, their eyes glinting at each other. Together they heaved the block of Bath stone into the back of Freddie’s lorry.
‘You got any tools?’ asked Herbie.
‘A few.’
‘Chisels?’
‘No.’
‘I’d better lend you some.’ Herbie rummaged in his workshop and came out with a wooden box full of chisels. ‘I don’t want ’em back, Freddie. I got plenty.’
‘Thanks,’ said Freddie. He itched to take the chisel out and begin to carve the angel still shining in his mind. He had another job to do, hauling timber, and then he would go to Hilbegut.
‘For goodness’ sake, Kate, stop that crying,’ said Sally briskly. She stood very upright, dressed in her best navy blue dress and hat, the breeze ruffling a few wisps of grey hair that had escaped from her tightly coiled bun. ‘We’ve got to make the best of it.’
‘I’m trying to stop,’ said Kate.
‘That’s my girl.’ Bertie gave his daughter a fatherly pat on her proud young shoulders.
‘I’m not crying,’ gloated Ethie. But she was. Inside her mind, a weather front was coiling itself into a hurricane with storm force winds and rain, just waiting to come sweeping across her new life.
Together the Loxley family stood on the jetty, watching the ferry boat chugging towards them with its load of passengers. The brown waters of the Severn Estuary swirled with fierce energy, the tide sweeping the boat sideways as it reached the middle of the river. And Bertie said what he always said when they were in the queue at Aust Ferry.
‘Fastest tide in the world, they say, except for one in South Africa,’ he said. ‘I’ll warn you girls now. Never, ever go swimming in the Severn. If the mud doesn’t get you, the tide will.’
‘Look at that boat,’ cried Ethie. ‘It’s having a real fight to get out of the current.’
‘Now it has,’ said Sally, seeing the boat turn and head for the jetty, sending a wide creamy brown wave fanning across the calmer water. ‘Come on now, Kate, you usually enjoy the trip.’
Kate nodded. Her throat felt dry and sore from unaccustomed crying. She couldn’t believe they were leaving Hilbegut. Everything there was so dear to her. The swing in the barn door, the happy chickens, the sweet-smelling haystacks and the shady elm trees. The beautiful avenue of copper beeches where she’d skipped and played on her trips to deliver milk to the Squire. The home paddock where white Aylesbury ducks, geese, sheep and chickens pottered happily under the branches of the walnut tree. Her lovely bedroom with its window peering out under a brow of thatch where swallows and sparrows nested under the eaves.
She’d been used to leaving home and going to boarding school, but home had always been there for her to come back to. Now, unexpectedly and with merciless speed, it was gone. Her father was suddenly jobless, homeless and in poor health, her mother stoically trying to hold them all together. The only person who seemed intact was Ethie. But Ethie, Kate thought, hadn’t got a boyfriend to leave behind.