Luckpenny Land

by Freda Lightfoot

  ‘You let the lads do whatever they like, why not me?’ She knew the answer so why did she torture herself by asking?

  ‘I thought I’d made that clear.’

  ‘It’s clear you’d have liked me a lot better if I’d been a lad too.’ Tears were standing proud in her eyes but she would not let them fall.

  ‘Happen you’d’ve been easier to manage if you were. Just take a good look at yourself, madam. Eyes mad as fury. Hair all round your neck like a wild woman.’

  ‘Would you prefer it if I had it all cut off? Then I’d look like a boy too.’ She tossed back the wayward locks with a defiant twist of her lovely head.

  ‘I’d prefer thee to act with proper decency.’

  ‘If that is the only way to make you see me as a real person, and not simply as your serving wench then so be it.’

  Snatching up the shearing scissors from the dresser Meg pulled her tangled hair down over one shoulder and began to hack recklessly with the sharp blades. Glittering golden tresses rained upon the scrubbed table top, curling and bouncing about with a life of their own.

  Joe Turner reached for the shears but she danced away, evading him, and continued with her relentless massacre, forcing him to remain a helpless onlooker.

  She might have continued on this self-desecration had he not slammed those same fists down upon the table, seeming to make the whole room quake.

  ‘Enough! What would thy mother say if she saw thee acting so wantonly?’

  Meg froze, tears brimming over at last from her clear grey eyes, making the room swim dizzily before her. What had she done? She stared at the bright curls falling away in her hand. He’d driven her to it. It was his fault. But she wouldn’t let him see her distress. Against the greater tragedy of a desolate life, ruined hair seemed of small importance.

  Meg gathered up the cut tendrils into her palm, and tossed them into the fire where they crackled and fired up. A lump came into her throat. She couldn’t go to the supper looking like this, with half her hair cut off. What would Jack think of her now?

  ‘Now thee will have to stop in,’ Joe said with satisfaction, clearly reading her thoughts, and walked, spine rigid, from the room, his whole bearing making it clear that he’d had his say and won. As was only right and proper.

  It took Meg the best part of an hour in her distress to finish the washing up, tidy the room and replenish the fire which had sulked itself black. When she had done, she refilled the big black kettle and set it back on the hob, so there’d be hot water for a mug of strong tea for her brothers when they got in. Then she took off her floral apron and hung it on the peg behind the pantry door before climbing dejectedly up the stairs to her room.

  Hardly bigger than a cupboard tucked beneath the eaves right at the top of the house, it was at least her own. The only place where she could be sure of privacy.

  Ashlea had been built some time during the early part of the eighteenth century. New by Lakeland standards, it was a typical, unprepossessing yeoman type building of grey stone with a slate roof and the traditional cylindrical chimneys. For all its plainness it had

  seemed warm and alive when her mother had lived in it, its homely rooms muddled and untidy with Annie’s tapestry work, bottles for the lambs, and the usual boots and buckets of farming life.

  Once the house had smelled of beeswax and lavender, overlaid by the strong tones of woodsmoke from the fire that burned constantly in the kitchen range. But Meg found she did not have the heart to reach these same standards. She could never rid her mouth of the taste of dust and unhappiness, as she coped with the cleaning of the five bedroom house all alone, and the endless washing, ironing and cooking for four people.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t try. Meg longed to recapture the scents of those lovingly remembered days. Of home-baked bread, the sharpness of bilberry jam and the tangy aroma of her mother’s blackberry and apple pie. But her own efforts seemed poor by comparison.

  So she loved her tiny hideway high in the attic, the only place where no demands were made and she could be herself. From the window cut in the farmhouse roof she could see right over the stand of ash and rowan behind the farm to the heather-carpeted turf of the high fell, clotted with broom and juniper and punctuated with the grey rocks that resolutely burst out of the thin soil at every opportunity.

  Now the rain and wind robbed her of the solace of this much loved view and she fell upon the bed and lay on her back, determined not to cry. But despite her best intentions great fat tears rolled out of the corners of her eyes and ran down into her ears. She had chosen the wrong moment. Why had she risked spoiling the dance for an impossible concession? What had possessed her to be so reckless?

  The thought of dancing with Jack Lawson made her stomach quiver with excitement. Now she wouldn’t see him at all and he’d chat up some other girl.

  She got off the bed to stand in front of the speckled mirror and confront the horror of her hair. One side was long as ever, rippling in waves over her shoulder. The other side was short, sticking out in a madcap sort of way like a halo. The oddness of it suddenly appealed to her sense of humour and she felt a giggle start deep inside. What would everyone say if she left it like this? They’d think she’d gone mad. The shortness of it seemed to exaggerate the devilish gleam of hot rebellion that still burned in her grey eyes.

  The laughter started then, bubbling up and spilling over in great spurts of glee. And suddenly it didn’t matter what her father did. She was young, wasn’t she? Soon the dull days of winter and a cold spring would lighten into summer. There was still time to find some other way of escape. And she would, too. However much she might feel that she belonged here, at Ashlea, she wouldn’t stay as anyone’s skivvy.

  What’s more, if there was some way for her to go to the lambing supper, then she would find it. She must see Jack, she must. But first the hair. Meg opened a dressing table drawer and took out a pair of scissors. Short hair, Kath said, was all the rage.

  It was Charlie who championed her, as always. He came in on a bluster of cold wind, banging all the doors.

  Dan and her father were upstairs getting washed and changed ready to go out and Meg was drying her hair in front of the fire. She had cut and washed it and now it sprang in short bouncy curls, a wild mass of golden colour about her head. She rather thought it suited her but was still self-conscious about it. Charlie sank wearily into a chair, telling her about the latest lambs to be born and put with their ewes in the barn for the night. It was a moment before he noticed her hair. When at last he did, an explanation had to be given and his young face darkened.

  ‘He treats you as if it were still the dark ages instead of the twentieth century. Don’t let him get away with it.’

  Meg gave a rueful smile as she brewed tea and set a steaming mug in his hands. ‘I think I already said more than I should. We had a real ding-dong.’

  ‘He’ll not keep me locked up. There’s a war coming, you know. Hitler won’t stop till he’s got what he’s after. All of Europe no less. While we fuss over the cost of building aeroplanes, German forces have taken over Austria. Where next? France? Poland?’ His blue eyes came alight with fervour and he ran one grubby hand through hair only a shade paler than her own. ‘I’ll be one of the first to join up if war comes. You just see.’

  ‘You’re too young,’ she laughed, rumpling his tangled curls affectionately, but he snatched himself away from her.

  ‘Don’t say that. You sound like Father.’

  She was at once contrite. Charlie was not a natural farmer, being better with machines than the blood and gore that was an unavoidable part of country life. And Joe never let an opportunity pass to taunt his younger son about his squeamishness which hurt Meg as much as it did Charlie, for they were close.

  ‘Come on, love, have a piece of gingerbread while I go and shut the hens up. It’ll warm you. There might be more to lamb tonight and you’ll need to cope alone with Father and Dan both going out.’

  The hens were making
those warm, contented chutterings as Meg slid down the door over the pop hole to keep them safe from unwelcome night visitors. She loved looking after the hens, sliding her hands under their soft bodies to capture warm eggs for breakfast, tickling them under their wings with powder to keep them free of mites. She loved talking to them as they scratched about, telling them her secrets, letting the peace of the night soak into her.

  ‘Stay safe,’ she warned them, hearing in the distance the bark of a lone dog fox.

  The small animals were her province. Looking after the hens, and turkeys in season, feeding the pigs, milking the two cows that provided the family with milk, Meg enjoyed all of that. The animals made her life bearable. But she was not permitted to work with the sheep.

  ‘Not women’s work,’ Joe said, when once she had asked if she might help. In such a way that she had not mentioned it again. The desire for purposeful work, an identity of her own, was challenged only by the greater need now to see Jack Lawson. Meg clasped her hands together and stared about her. The black mountains seemed to shield her, crouching closer as her eyes grew accustomed to the dark, attempting to pick out the familiar detail that scarred their smooth surface. ‘Please help me to find the words to persuade Father to let me go to the dance.’ She couldn’t believe she had been so stupid as to risk missing it. ‘I must see Jack, I must. And don’t let there be a war.’

  She’d heard talk of war a lot lately but never taken it seriously. ‘Charlie’s sixteen, young and headstrong. He thinks only of aeroplanes and adventure, do you see? Not the danger.’

  Would Jack? If there was another war, then he too might be called up. Worry swamped her. Oh, she couldn’t bear it if either of them went away. They might be wounded or killed. It made her go all sick and funny inside to think of it, and her own problems seem small by comparison.

  Back in the kitchen she made a fresh pot of tea to warm herself, trying not to listen as Charlie chattered on about the latest aeroplane that would blast the enemy from the skies.

  Her father came in, looking uncharacteristically smart in his setting-off suit smelling faintly of mothballs, firmly buttoned over his best waistcoat. But then nothing looked more polished than a farmer dressed in his finest. A man’s pride would see to that. He wore his best flat cap, as he did for every occasion whether a birthing or a chapel function, the neb curling downwards from long wear, following the line of his thinned lips.

  ‘I hear you and Meg have been having a bit of a set-to,’ said Charlie, somewhat recklessly in her opinion.

  ‘Aye, you could say that.’

  ‘If you don’t let her go tonight, everyone will want to know why. There’ll be gossip. This dale is famous for it.’

  ‘Pity folks have nowt better to do then,’ he said tersely. But the point had been made. Joe Turner could not bear to lose face. There was a long pause while he considered, then he turned upon Meg. ‘See you’re quick about it then, if thee’s coming. We haven’t got all night. And splash thee face with cold water.’ He indicated Meg’s cheeks, hot from the fire. ‘We don’t want folks to know we’ve been having a few words.’

  The remnants of her pride in tatters, her life in ruins, but the façade of family unity must be kept up. A tearing row passed off as a ‘few words’. But Meg didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was that she was to be allowed to go. She could fight her battles another night.

  Chapter Two

  The silence of the Lakeland night was profound as Meg followed her father and brother along the rutted lane to the school where the social was to be held. There was nothing to break the silence but the suck of moist earth at her heels, and the fast beating of her heart. Would Jack be there, as he had promised? She heard a rustling in the undergrowth and paused to watch the fleeting glimpse of the white rump of a roe deer, still clothed in its winter grey, as it blundered away from her.

  ‘I’m so sorry to disturb you,’ she whispered, moving more quietly still, afraid to disturb any other night creature.

  There was no sign of Jack as she took one of the hard wooden chairs lined up around the walls of the main room in the school hall. A group of farmers’ wives exchanged gossip at one end as they slapped margarine and potted meat on bread rolls, interrupted from time to time by the need to reprimand one of the younger children who were practising sliding on the candle-greased floor.

  Her father and some of the other men had gone in to the meeting room next door to listen to a speaker, but in this hall a special licence had been obtained so there could be dancing.

  Meg spotted ‘Lanky’ Lawson, Jack’s father, so called because his stature was anything but. He was working the old wind-up gramophone and later, if pressed, she knew he would play his fiddle and they would all dance the old steps, the Cumberland Square Eight or the Ninepins Reel. Meg acknowledged his wave with a smile. He was a dear friend but this evening she was more interested in a modern waltz with his son. The kind of dance which meant Jack must hold her close.

  Everyone seemed to be dancing. She looked about the room with a casual air, trying not to let it show that she felt conspicuous sitting all alone, or that she was looking for anyone in particular. Where was Kath? She had faithfully promised to come.

  And then she saw them, dancing together, so carefree and good looking.

  They were dancing a quick step, a Tommy Dorsey number, and Kath seemed to be clinging just a little too closely to Jack’s broad shoulders and he was laughing just a bit too much at something her friend had said. Then Kath looked across and saw Meg and at once abandoned her partner to come swooping across the polished floor on fashionable two-tone high heels.

  She was wearing a little white embroidered jacket over a silk flared skirt in pillbox red. Nipped in at the waist with a narrow red belt, the jacket was trimmed with a row of tiny pearl buttons. She looked wonderful, a million dollars, and knew it.

  ‘What have you done to your hair?’ she cried, hugging Meg in delight. ‘I love it. Oh, I shall have to cut mine too. Where did you get it done?’

  ‘Where did you get those shoes?’

  ‘Fun, aren’t they?’

  Kath swung her own sleek bob about as she talked and Meg had to laugh as her friend prattled on, happily recounting her own latest encounters with hairdressers, which were numerous. Kath was constantly changing her appearance. One week she was a redhead, the next a brunette. For the moment she was blonde and it suited her.

  Meg felt herself relax, enjoying as she always did Kath’s lively company. They chattered easily together with the familiarity of old friends, laughing at nothing in particular and understanding far more than was actually said.

  ‘What happened about the job?’ Kath asked, innocently recalling the tensions of the day.

  Fortunately Meg was saved from answering this loaded question by the arrival of Jack himself who looked less enamoured of her new hair style. A frown drew two lines of displeasure above his straight nose.

  ‘Don’t you like it?’

  ‘Not much,’ he said bluntly.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, disappointment blocking her throat with a rush of emotion. This was proving to be the most awful day of her life. ‘Wouldn’t you say that it makes me look more alluring and sophisticated?’ she asked, daringly teasing, but he only shook his head.

  ‘Personally I like long hair on a woman, more feminine.’

  He was shocked by the change the hairstyle had made to her. With her hair long, never tidy, often dragged together with a bit of baling twine, she’d seemed like a young girl still. Now she looked like a woman. A sensual, mature woman. Long aware of her fancy for him, but also of his easy success with women, he’d thought he had plenty of time to play the field before he did anything about his feelings for Meg Turner. Now he wasn’t so sure. Something had changed in her today, and if he was any judge, it wasn’t just because of the new hair style.

  ‘Jack and I have been showing the old biddies how it’s done. But you can have him now,’ whispered Kath, winking outrageously, and
to her horror, Meg blushed.

  But when he asked her for a dance she accepted eagerly, melting against him, unable to disguise her pleasure at feeling his arms about her. Pulling her close, he tucked her hand into his chest where she could feel the fast beat of his heart. Was he excited by her as she was by him? Meg longed to look up into his face, lean and hungry with teasing violet eyes, but dared not.

  She had known Jack Lawson ever since their early schooldays together and had wanted him almost as long. He’d always seemed to favour the more feminine sort of girl, the kind who wore broad satin ribbons and didn’t spend all their time climbing trees and damming up becks. He had never shown any interest in Meg Turner with her scruffy pigtails and scraped knees.

  She hadn’t seen him for some time after they left school. She’d heard he’d gone off to work in Preston for a while, on the docks. And then last backend at a shepherds meet, there he was, more handsome than ever with the same old wickedly teasing smile.

  Since then she had come across him surprisingly often on the lanes and fields about her home when she was out walking. Though his father’s land adjoined theirs, the houses themselves were a good mile apart. For a long time she had struggled hard not to read anything into these accidental meetings. Now hope rose hot and piercingly sweet in her breast.

  They swayed together to the rhythm of the music. It was a Bing Crosby number, When the blue of the Night, and Jack crooned it softly against her ear, making little b-b-boom noises in imitation of the singer’s style. The warmth of his breath tickled her lobes, making her shiver with a new awareness.

  ‘Been on any interesting walks lately?’ he asked, his voice no more than a velvet purr.

  ‘Some. How about you?’

  He grinned and pulled her away from him so he could look down into her face. ‘Tend to leave the walking to the dogs, but maybe I should take it up again. Where do you go to get away from that lout of a brother of yours? Wouldn’t care to cross him on a dark night.’