A Woman of Consequence

Illustrated by Samantha Fulton. 

Harriet Crane was a woman of consequence. In the north-western town of Ealey Hill there was no woman more respected, no woman more instructive in the arms of community activity, no woman so well considered a friend by so many. She had been a schoolteacher in the primary but upon retirement continued her service as head of the local Guides, alongside becoming an involved member of the school board and chairmen of the team who organised the annual Whitsun festival. In her day she’d been the Ealey Hill Queen, and after her two of her daughters had continued the legacy. For the past few years, the Cranes had kept up places in the retinue; there was no doubt that when they were of age, they’d be queens too. The Crane farm was one of the oldest in the area and she’d been its occupant since her marriage, not long after her own girlhood festival coronation. They were an established family: almost half the beds in the town’s graveyard were taken up by Cranes. 

Emily Warren was not so established: her grandmother had moved to the town years before, and now, with no feasible alternative, Emily had followed her to the blue reaches of the Ealey marsh. She brought in tow no husband, but a five-year-old daughter. With her reputation in the town for nurturing, Harriet Crane felt the necessity of being the one to reach out to the new town stranger. This took a while to do, for Emily worked in a larger local town and as such was difficult to catch. Harriet succeeded quite by chance on a day she was collecting her grandchildren from the school and found Emily, rather than her grandmother, there for her daughter. 

“You must be Charlotte’s mum, how lovely to meet you. I’m a good friend of your grandmother’s.”

“Nice to meet you. The kids are out late today.”

“There’ll be some sort of mischief. Now, it is good to finally meet you, you’ve been so elusive.”

 “I — work, in a care home, in West Humley.”

Harriet recognised a simpleness about the woman – or girl, she almost felt inclined to call her. “Well, it’s no good being a stranger. Some of the other mums and I are getting together to start work on the Whitsun Festival. Have you heard about it? It’s a lot of fun. You should come along, we’re having a meeting —”

“You’re very kind, but I’m so busy.”

“I see. Well, it’s no harm.”

But the snub lingered. At the meeting, she felt compelled to say: “That little Charlotte Warren’s mum is a strange creature. Have any of you had the chance to meet her?” Negative. “No fellow. But I suppose that’s the way nowadays. All the same, I think a mother has a duty to see her child fits in with the place.”

Harriet’s prediction came to fruition in her next meeting with the young Warren mother: little Charlotte had been struggling to settle in, for none of the other children would come near her. Or her near them, so they said. There had to be a meeting. Emily was quite upset.

“Isn’t there anything you can do, at the school, to make her more involved?”

“Without wanting to be too forward, surely you could ask that of yourself. You’ve done very little to make friends. We’re only a small town, so the children here grow up close. It’s not just school. We care a lot about neighbourly feeling — we’re almost a family, if that doesn’t sound too mad. What I mean is, our lives are very involved. Things like the Whitsun Festival, you see.”

“But I’m so busy. I never meant to upset people. I just thought Charlotte would meet people at school. Isn’t there any way she could get involved in the festival without me? I’d ask my granny but she’s not so well — she gets so tired —”

“Emily, I know your grandmother very well, I’d never expect that of her. And I understand not everyone has the time for festivals. There are bills, and things. If you like, I could help Emily get more involved — find a place for her in the parade. There are some lovely older girls who can take her under their wing. Don’t you worry, my dear, we look after each other in this town.”

And so little Charlotte Warren was taken out from her mother’s hands and into the cradle of the community. This meant getting lifts to other mothers’ houses to help with decorations, or for costume fittings, or just to play with the other children. The additional childcare was a relief to Emily; so much that she became quite appreciative of the little town spirit. Her life outside the town kept its net of occupants still a foreign thing, a kind of beast from the past — they seemed to function more as a single, many armed, large smiling amalgam than as individuals, in the way that people from normal places are individual. But she did not think them malicious. 

That was, until the teeth came down. They caught Charlotte Warren by the neck: she was gone two days, until they found her in the marsh. 

It had been an accident and all of Ealey Hill were so very sorry for the Warrens. It was an awful thing to have happened — but at least — no, it could not be said, nor did it need to be. Now there was only the wait for the Warrens to leave and take with them that silent charge they seemed to hold against the town. Only negligence, not cruelty — only — if only they would move on. 

Harriet Crane took it upon herself to say so much. When she called, the older Warren was in bed. Emily didn’t make tea.

“It’s kind of you to see how we’re getting on.”

“Of course, dear —”

“You’re looking after us.”

A pause. “It must be so hard. Our town is so small, it’s inevitable that the people here will all remind you of — well — Charlotte.” No answer. “Of course, we’re reminded of her too. It’s been such a shock. We’ve never had anything like it. I hope you don’t mind, we’ve made her a central part of the festival. She enjoyed being involved so much. And it will help the community grieve.”

The festival. “You’re very kind, but I’m afraid it’s unlikely we’ll be here to see it. We’re moving, at the end of the month. Like you say, everything here reminds us of her.”

Harriet needn’t say it was for the best. It said itself. She felt a grim triumph in it being her visit which had unveiled their departure: it felt as though they had been waiting for her recommendation to go. It was the best thing for the family and for the town. Only she had been the one trusted enough, responsible enough to orchestrate such an exit. All those years protecting the town had not come without a weight of authority. It was the burden of motherhood: it meant intervention, management – not the negligence of Emily Warren. 

The Warrens were gone before Whitsun. The parade detoured from its usual circuit to the grave of Little Charlotte Warren — as she had since been canonised — and flowers were put down. There were flowers all over in May, but these made a mourning of the rest. The spectacle moved the spectators such that Harriet Crane, who had choreographed it, felt the same dark pride in her management of the whole affair. This was the power of the Whitsun Festival; it was a movement together. 

Her responsibility was not lost on the people of Ealey Hill. As the flowers came down on the dead child the mood moved — to unity, yes — but not to contentment. Here was a queen for a different parade. Her death bore the weight of some sort of negligence - not her mother’s, but the town’s. And there was the town’s self-proclaimed mother, who had brought the child in and driven its own mothers out. Their mother, smug with a depraved satisfaction — their mother, so she thought, head of the Guides, and this little child beneath their flowers, was her death not theirs too? 

Harriet Crane was the woman of consequence. The more distant Emily Warren became to Ealey Hill, the further she went, the longer her shadow drew over the woman who’d welcomed her and in its shade Harriet Crane felt the cooling of all regard, no summer queen anymore.