Two weeks had passed since Tovey had been forcibly evicted from Butterkeld by whoever (or whatever) it was that didn't want him there, and since then, his fortunes, to say the least, had been somewhat mixed. Yet now he was in his car, heading up the M6- his purpose- to be reunited with his wife at Butterkeld!
Dawn had quickly followed his flight from the old house, and the advent of daylight grey and bleak as it had seemed, at least endowed Tovey with the courage and fortitude to return to the Butterkeld, lock the doors, get the car going and to waste no time in haring off to the relative security of his mother's house in Oldham. Safe in his old stomping grounds Tovey had set about searching for his wife- quite fruitlesly as it had turned out. Her parents informed him that although she had stayed with them a couple of days, she had, in her typically resolute and headstrong manner, wasted no time in packing her things and heading off for parts unknown. She had, they said, left them no forwarding address. Tovey found all this a bit hard to swallow, then it had occurred to him that even if they did know anything as to Susan's location, his in-laws obviously weren't going to tell him!
So Tovey had dug out his old dog-eared address book and tactfully rang round his list of old friends and acquaintances- without success. Susan's old friend Sheila informed him that she had been visited by Susan some time ago, but she had heard nothing since, assuming that Susan had simply returned home.
Back home! to that place! Susan had hated it- he should have trusted her intuition in the first place. His wife had been right- John Tovey, the man with the dream of rural tranquillity- he had been the fool! His thoughts turned to Butterkeld, that old, sad, house, now once more left alone to rot with its memories. Tovey had already made his plans. First priority- to patch things up with his wife- then they'd go house hunting around Oldham and put the dreadful place on the market- wellhouse, ghosts and all!!
So now Tovey was driving up the M6. His head in a whirl. The 'phone had rung at eight o clock the previous night. He had snatched at it- thinking it might be Susan- but no...the voice on the other end of the line had been a mans- a familiar voice.
" Hello.... is that Mr. John Tovey?"
" Yes.... who's that speaking please?"
A laugh. "Why it's Bluto old son!"
"Bluto?"
Another Laugh. "Oh come on....Paul Cooke? Vicar of Chipping Welburn? Famous cartoon character? Surely you've not forgotten me already!"
Tovey smiled to himself. "Of course! I'm sorry. I'm not very good on 'phone voices. I have been known to fail to recognise the voice of my own mother you know! Anyway, what inspires you to ring me up at this time of night?"
Cooke replied with a brief fit of coughing. "Sorry about that old son. Got a bit of a bad chest you know- two many Park Drives. Actually, I've rung you because I've acquired some information that I think you'll find interesting."
"Information?"
"Yes... if you recall you asked me if I would get in touch with my friend in Lancaster to see if he had any information about the Caldwells of Butterkeld. Well he had- in fact, without bragging too much, I think I managed to hit the jackpot! I got all the bumph from him in this morning's post- it's interesting old son.... very interesting."
"So what did you find out?"
"Well remember how we thought that the Caldwells might have been recusants? Well they were. According to the info I have here they were repeatedly fined throughout the seventeenth century for non-attendance at church, and for expressing 'seditious & popish' opinions. The most interesting thing though is the family well dressing tradition they used to observe."
"You mean like they do in Derbyshire- garland the well with flowers?"
"Exactly. But the Butterkeld tradition was unusual in that it was a family affair. According to Greene- "Families and Traditions of N W Lancashire" the Caldwells only dressed the well about once every fifty years- on the fourteenth birthday of the eldest daughter. It seems that when she reached puberty she became 'St Helen's Handmaiden' and became responsible for the protection and upkeep of the healing waters! In effect she was appointed custodian of the well.... until the next generation of Caldwells produced someone to take her place."
"How strange!"
"Very. It seems that the Caldwell family observed this odd tradition right down to this century when the line finally died out."
"And what about Eliza Caldwell? She was the last of the line?"
"Oh yes- I didn't have to look any further than my parish registers to check up on her. Hang about... I'll give you her dates. Now let's see....
"Ah yes! 'Eliza Helen Caldwell- born March 12th 1865, died January 15th 1941. Beloved daughter of Jeremiah Caldwell, farmer of this parish.' I'm sure you'll not be surprised if I tell you that her headstone was located in the churchyard, right beside the old yew tree with the seat around it."
"So that's where she was buried?"
"Yes- and there's more about the Caldwells- and Butterkeld. I dug out loads of information. I left most of it up at Butterkeld- with your wife!"
Tovey almost dropped the phone.
"My wife? You saw my wife at Butterkeld?" He said in an astonished voice. "Are you sure?"
The vicar sounded surprised."Why er... yes. I met her this morning. I'd got all the info you wanted together so I decided I'd drive out there and see if you were in, which of course you weren't. She told me you were at your parents, and gave me the phone number so I could ring you up. She seemed very happy. We had quite a pleasant chat. There's a surprise for you, when you get back- but you're not to know what it is until you arrive at Butterkeld. She asked me to ring you and let you know"
Tovey scratched his head. "So what is this surprise then?"
The vicar laughed, at the same time stifling a cough. "No can tell old son! Your missus swore me to silence. I can assure you that it's a pleasant one though. As for the rest.... well you'll have to find out for yourself......................
Tovey drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and swore. Bloody motorway roadworks! Lost in a sea of red cones, he had been stuck nose to tail in this traffic snarl up for the past half hour- getting nowhere! As he had left Greater Manchester the depressing mizzle had stopped, and now, as he inched his way northwards up the M6 the sun was beginning to peek out from behind the lowering clouds. Time passed. Mercifully, the Lancaster slip road appeared around the next bend, and Tovey found himself driving freely on the open road once more.
Soon he had passed through Chipping Welburn and was ascending the narrow, winding road which led up into the bare windswept, Bowland hills. On reaching its junction with rough access track which led down to Butterkeld, Tovey pulled over to the side of the road and switched off the engine.
He sat there alone for some time, his car buffeted by a howling wind blowing in off the Irish sea. Now, more than ever before Tovey felt afraid. He thought of Eliza Caldwell, with her cold, dead eyes, of the Wellhouse with its all pervading miasma of damp and decay. And most of all he thought of his wife, alone down there with nothing but those dark memories for company. He shuddered. The whole business chilled him to the soul. It had seemed to him that the Wellhouse, for whatever reason, had wanted his wife, and now it looked like it had finally got its own way. But why? He dare not consider the possibilities- all he felt was an all pervading sense of dread.
Tovey restarted the engine and bumped down the rough forest rack that led to Butterkeld's green dell. Rounding the bend at the bottom, he passed the stream with its mossy cascade, and soon the house itself came into view, its mullioned windows and ancient stone heads basking in the warm sunshine.
As he stepped from the car Tovey instantly realised that something had changed- somehow his idyll, that gentle, warm tranquillity which had bound him to Butterkeld in the first place had suddenly and mysteriously returned, like the pleasant scent of a newly baited trap. Birds were twittering in the trees and he could hear once more the hum of the insects in the wood. It seemed almost as if the events of the past few weeks had never taken place.
"Tovey! Oh Tovey!" He spun round. Straight into the arms of his wife.
"Oh John! I'm sorry... I'm sorry I've had you running around- but so much has happened. Just wait until you hear the news!"
"News? I've got some for you too. And what's this surprise that the vicar told me about?"
"Father Cooke? So he didn't tell you what it was?"
Tovey smiled "No. He said I'd have to hear it from you."
His wife led him into the house. "Sit down on the settee in the lounge while I make you a cup of tea. Believe me... you're going to need it!"
Tovey crossed the lounge and immediately noticed his wife's 'female touch'. Gone were the rumpled clothes and the soggy duvet. He gazed at the walls- their normal pastel pink! What on earth had happened to the staining, the mildew and that vile creeping damp??
Susan returned with the tray and handed him a mug of scalding hot coffee.
"Right love," she grinned. "Now sit down and brace yourself!"
Tovey esconced himself impatiently on the settee, fidgeting like a restrained child.
"Ok. So what's this news then?"
Susan smiled. "Oh Tovey....Oh love....you're never going to believe this! The fact is..... I'm pregnant!!"
"You're what??!"
"I'm expecting love. I knew you'd be gobsmacked. Fact is... you're going to be a dad!"
Tovey sprang to his feet and hugged her, then suddenly, half afraid of what he saw as his wife's 'delicate condition' hastily pulled back.
Susan laughed. "Oh Tovey! I won't break you know. Besides the baby's not much bigger than your thumbnail at the moment! We've got a long way to go yet!"
Tovey put his arm around her and sat her down beside him on the settee. He smiled wryly.
"Well I'm stunned. It's incredible. But how did we....... you know what Doctor Wishart said?"
"I know. He said I was wasting time bothering with a pregnancy test, but when he got back the result he was as gobsmacked as me! He was quite lost for an explanation! The best he could do was put it down to living here- you know, country air and all that!!"
"What? In this place? You've hated it!"
Susan smiled. "I thought there was something odd when my period didn't start. As soon as I realised what it was I came back to tell you the good news, but when I got here you'd upped and gone- and the place was in a right bloody mess!"
Tovey nodded. "I know love. I'm afraid I had to leave the place in rather a hurry. In fact when I found out that you were back here on your own I was worried sick."
His wife looked perplexed. "Worried? Why? I can look after myself you know!"
Tovey changed the subject. For some strange reason he could still not bring himself to relate the full story to his wife. Perhaps he feared she would doubt his reason and think he was going loopy. Whatever the cause of his reluctance Tovey knew that discretion was undoubtedly the better part of valour.
"Well, anyway love, it's academic. I'm sure you'll be pleased to know that I'm putting the house on the market. We're moving back home to Oldham as soon as we can."
His wife frowned. "Back to Oldham? What on earth for? We're only just settling in here!"
Tovey gazed at her with a mixture of astonishment and wonderment. Oh the contrariness of womankind! What was he to make of this?
".....But you've always told me that you hate this bloody place!!"
"Well I did.... but that was before the baby. It was only because I felt lonely... but now with children to look after... well I want them to grow up in a nice environment... not with all those urban thugs in Oldham!"
Tovey was taken aback by this sudden use of the plural.
"Children? Why children? Are we expecting triplets or something?"
Susan laughed. "Oh no love! Leastways I don't think we are. It's just that I think that well.... if we can make one......."
"We can make another.....?? Good God woman aren't you being a bit over optimistic? You're lucky to be expecting one!!"
"I suppose so love. It's just this place....the atmosphere. I don't know. I suppose it's just a gut feeling, but my instincts tell me that not only are we going to stay here, but we're also going to start a big family. Don't ask me why... I just know!"
Tovey shook his head. "But we can't stay here love. It's unhealthy. The water's gone bad, and the house is damp as well."
Susan looked perplexed "Damp? What on earth do you mean? And you say the water's foul? That red was only iron- you said so yourself, anyway... it's all gone now. The water's clear as crystal. You're drinking it in your coffee. What on earth's the matter?"
Tovey realised he had turned pale. He got to his feet.
"Look love.... I'm going out to the wellhouse to check the water supply. The last time I saw it it was positively foul. It seems to me that there's something very strange going on here."
Tovey crossed the yard and flung open the door of the wellhouse. As he did so a light breeze, gentle and fresh, ruffled his hair. Inside it was much as he had seen it the first time, when he had emerged from that strange lapse of time and space into its fresh and frothing reality. The clean spring waters gurgled noisily and happily along the central channel in the middle of the tiled floor. Inside the stone cisterns the water was ice cold and crystal clear. As he looked into the well at his own reflection, he saw a smiling face beside his.... Eliza Caldwell! Tovey felt the urge to spring back in terror, but something about the face held him. He realised it was the eyes... no longer cold and dead, but benign and smiling. Tovey felt a hand on his shoulder and spun round to face his wife.
She grinned at him.
"See love! I told you the water was OK. It's totally pure. Father Cooke says it's consecrated you know... a healing well, dedicated to St. Helen. The water's supposed to be good for you!" She laughed. "Perhaps it was the water that made me fertile! It was certainly some sort of miracle!"
Tovey gazed back at the well, then upwards to the little pieces of cloth fastened to the branches of the rowan tree, where a shaft of light pierced the mossy cleft in the rock to reflect upon the rippling surface of the well. He gazed at the cascade issuing from the gargoyle's mouth. 'Some sort of miracle' Suddenly it began to make sense... Eliza, the wellhouse and a centuries old tradition so sadly curtailed. A forgotten way of life had been sealed in the wellhouse, suspended in time like a dormant seed, and Tovey now realised that in opening it, he had released and set in motion the strange train of events which had brought him to this moment.
Yet Tovey felt there was something else. One more scene to be played out in this strange drama, one more piece to complete the complex puzzle. But what? Tovey looked his much missed wife in the eyes and smiled.
"Well I'm going to have to ring up my parents and tell them the good news. I'll have to tell mam to start making baby clothes. She'll be thrilled to bits when she finds out she's going to be a granny, and if I know my dad... well he'll have him riding a bike before he can walk!"
"Him?"
"Yes my love.... our son!"
His wife smiled thoughtfully.
"Not our son love, we're going to have a little girl!"
"Oh? Says who?"
"I say! Don't ask me how I know, but I just know it's going to be a girl! And anyway... you're not the son producing type!"
Tovey grinned. "Oh I don't know how you can say that!"
"Well you're such a docile man aren't you? You're such a bloody old woman!"
Tovey offered her a playful swipe but she dodged out of the way. He took her arm and they strolled out into the bright sunlight.
They sat out on the garden seat, the waning evening sunlight casting a warm glow on the stonework and mullions of the old house. Clouds of midges swarmed by the beck, pipistrelles flitted among the trees yet none of them came near the house. It was as if the environs of Butterkeld were sacrosanct- inviolable and pure. An intense peace seemed to have settled over the green dell- a sense of warmth and well being.
Tovey sat there on the swinging, upholstered seat, Susan's head resting contentedly in his lap. Here was his idyll returned and the disturbing events of the recent past a half forgotten dream. He was pleased- yet also perplexed. He rocked gently until he uttered the first thought that entered his mind.
"Sue....?"
"Hmmm......"
"Have you thought about what we're going to call him?"
"You mean her?... It's going to be a girl John."
"OK... her! I was thinking of calling it Jack after my dad, but if it's a girl we could call her 'Jacqueline' perhaps!!
Susan opened her eyes and beamed up at him.
"No love. I've already thought about it. A nice old fashioned name. When I was a kid my Grandmother used to talk about her half sister... my great aunt Caldwell. They both came from this area, you know. My gran moved to Rochdale to find work- and when she got established in the cotton mills she invited her sister to join her, but she wouldn't come. Then she met my grandad and settled in Rochdale for good. As for her half- sister, well I never met her of course, she died before I was born. But she had a lovely name- and it's the name I want for my daughter."
Tovey raised his head. "Well come on... out with it!"
His wife smiled. "A sweet name for a sweet little girl:- Eliza Helen Tovey!"
Tovey gazed across the garden, lost in his thoughts. Gone was the dark figure flitting through the woodland, the old woman, the child waving on the driveway, the sad dark stain of the wellhouse. All these things had become air and the past, unlocked and freed, had finally given way to the present. The wounded waters had been healed and would heal again, for now St Helen had a handmaiden and the Caldwells had returned to Butterkeld. Tovey glanced at the old stones mellowing in the evening sunlight, he smiled at his sleeping wife, her head resting serenely in his lap. It was good to be home.