by Jean Chapman
The lunchtime train from Great Yarmouth was due to reach the Midlands in six and a half hours, but the single-line track was prone to delays. They spent up to twenty minutes at a time stationary in sidings waiting for other trains to go in the opposite direction. There were several stops in the larger stations en route, which gave time for passengers to run to rest-rooms, or buy drinks and sandwiches to take on the train.
For a long time the three sat stiffly, but the continual teedle-de-dum, teedle-de-dum, teedle-de-dee rhythm of wheels on rails seemed to sedate the animosity between them. Silence being the safest retreat, the only time anything that could have been labelled a conversation came when Belle, tired of seeing Cato with the stick he had brought for Meg Silver, first examining it minutely, then leaning on it as it stood between his knees, then tossing the handle idly from one hand to the other, asked: ‘Why have you brought that?’
‘I didn’t want it to get lost,’ he answered. ‘The old gipsy woman always had it with her, so I know she would want her daughter, Meg, to have it.’
‘Meg …’ Belle said derisively, ‘Meg Silver. It’s a pity she doesn’t get lost.’ She looked sharply at her father, saw him surprised into interest, and noted his glance at the stick, then the way he quickly closed his eyes, the added tension of his jaw as he clenched his teeth. Then, not many moments later, with equal disdain, she noticed that his jaw had relaxed as he slipped into sleep, and his mouth dropped open.
Cato too saw he slept, and moved across the compartment to sit by her side. They held hands and looked out at the countryside. Smoke rose from cottage chimneys, cows were being taken home for evening milking; the gloom would make it dark early. Soon it was the light from remote cottages that caught their gaze, a few lights together told of a hamlet or village, little islands of close communities, and all between was darkness.
When Sam finally stirred Cato stepped discreetly back to his original scat.
‘We’re running into the station,’ Cato commented.
‘And you’ve made a wasted journey,’ Sam said, amazed to realise how long he had slept, giving the pair opportunities for more secret scheming.
‘I don’t think so.’ The same words from both, together, seemed a final irritation after Sam’s double journey in the last eighteen weary hours, and he still faced the problem of making the last part of the journey from city station to Hall Farm before morning.
All three were to feel nonplussed once they had stepped down from the wooden running-board of the train and, when the first escape of excess steam from under the carriages had cleared a little, they saw Joe and Ruth Abbott, and Mabel, and Levi Adams standing together. There was a certain look of cohesion to the group that gave the feeling they had certainly all been talking to each other.
Belle felt a surge of hope; could there after all be agreement between the families? She felt it seemed really likely as the two parties moved to meet each other. ‘Mother…’ she began, but as she came near enough to see her mother’s eyes, she was unprepared for the anguish, the hurt, she saw in them. Belle’s lips parted in shock – surely she had not been so wicked, so thoughtless as to cause such a look of heartbreak. She was really in love, but her mother would never understand. She bit her lip and swallowed hard. ‘Mother… I’m sorry… but you don’t understand.’
‘Don’t I.’ It was not a question, and Belle felt her mother all her actions, all her guilt, from her eyes. She wanted to run to her, hide her face against the homely figure, as she had done as a child, when the platitudes and the homemade slaves had cured every wound — but the arms were not open and the two words stood as an accusation of the worst crime as unwed daughter could commit.
Levi and Ruth Abbott were both trying to lessen the tension by busying themselves taking bags, making mundane remarks about how late the train was. In the general rearrangement of burdens, Cato dropped the old walking-cane. His mother bent to pick it up. ‘Why,’ she exclaimed, ‘this belonged to my uncle. I’d know it anywhere. Identical sticks were made for my father and his brother one Christmas.’ She was obviously completely diverted for a moment by this object which brought back memories of her girlhood. ‘But where did it come from? Why have you got it, Cato?’
Belle was aware of her father standing near her shoulder, was aware too of the implications of what had been said. It seemed it was not Joe Abbott’s side of the family that had strayed, but Ruth’s. It answered a lot of questions particularly why the Silvers had come in for more help than anyone else in a small village, perhaps even why Ruth’s father had allowed her to marry Joe. Had the price been Joe’s silence to keep the name of the gentry of Oakholm Hall beyond public ridicule and scorn? So Ruth Abbott and Meg Silver were…? Belle was puzzling this out as her father put it into words:
‘It’s from an old gipsy woman, Meg Silver’s mother, she wanted her daughter to have it. It seems,’ he paused to look pointedly from Ruth to Joe, ‘that your uncle had the same earthy taste as you have.’
15
In the anger and confusion her father’s scornful explanation created, all was movement and shouting, but for Belle the emotions revealed on faces were like stark, frozen images. As Joe had whirled round on her father, it was the face of Ruth Abbott she would remember, for she saw mirrored there full realisation of many things Mrs Abbott had only half understood before. The same realisation was on Cato’s face - but more, and there was the same anger she had seen when he had pulled her from beneath the wheel of the advancing steam-engine. The detestation of her father, for his carelessness with other people’s feelings, had hardened, intensified. She was sure there would never be any agreement between them on any level, or about anything. The words that were shouted, the arms and fists raised, seemed of little import compared with the emotions her father had evoked by his remark.
‘You just had to, didn’t you!’ she exclaimed to her father as Levi drove them home.
Seated next to her, Levi muttered: ‘Don’t push your luck, girl.’
His cautionary remark had been too late, and her mother, who had been tensely silent, now unleashed a stream of recriminations: her running away; all the trouble she had caused; and heavens knows what trouble she had brought home with her. Finally Mabel burst into tears. ‘How could you do this to us?’
When they arrived home, her father opened the door, gestured her in front of them and said: ‘Get upstairs out of my sight!’
She opened her mouth to retaliate once more, but, seeing his face gaunt with tiredness, did as she was told. Being once more back in her own bedroom was, she thought, the strangest thing of all. There was the pillow she had put into the bed (it seemed two years, not two days, ago), half pulled out and left, there was the case she should have packed to go to Derbyshire.
Everything the same, except herself- she would never be the same again. She wrapped her own arms around herself and thought of Cato. In the final moments of the two families separating she had sought Cato’s face, sought reassurance that the new bitterness that darkened and twisted Joe Abbott’s face against the Greenaughs did not touch Cato’s. His brief nod had held a certainty that lifted her heart, making her see a purity in their love-making. It was the parents, with their complexities of hate, that made it seem something unclean.
Finally getting into bed, she slept only in snatches until nearly dawn, then fell into a deep sleep and woke late. Her watch had stopped and the farmhouse seemed to hold the silence that told of emptiness. She poured water from jug to basin, washed and dressed, then went downstairs, the long hours of wakefulness having strengthened her resolve as to what she did not intend to do. Her only problem, she felt, was when and where she could next see Cato.
She started as she entered the kitchen and found her mother sitting at the table. She saw that the midday meal was over, the washing-up done, but Belle’s place was still set with knife and fork.
Her mother pressed her hands on the table before her and rose heavily, but with a short sharp jerk of one hand indicated that Belle s
hould sit down. She set a cup of tea before her daughter and began to fry bacon over the hob. Belle did not object; she was hungry, and sat going over every detail she remembered of Cato frying breakfast for her.
Perhaps her mother caught the slightest softening of her lips as she remembered, for she banged the plate before her daughter then sat down opposite. ‘Now my girl, we’re going to have some plain speaking.’ She sat for a moment looking down at the cup of tea she had poured for herself, then looking up quickly demanded: ‘Could you be pregnant?’
Belle felt the bacon in her mouth threaten to choke her. She had to make several attempts before she could swallow.
‘Pregnant …?’
‘Yes!’ Her mother was determined, even though she sounded as if she had difficulty in making the words come, to talk to an unmarried daughter about such things. ‘Have you… did you … did Cato Abbott do anything to make that possible?’
Belle did not answer, could not answer. She had not cared at the time, and the real possibility of such an event had until that moment never occurred to her. Before she could compose herself and reply, her mother had rapped the table sharply with her knuckles, exclaiming, ‘Because, believe me, there is no way you will stay here if you are going to have a baby. I am not going to have my daughter making a matching pigeon-pair with Tweeny Alsopp – we’d look well!’
‘Tweeny?’ Belle repeated, only half grasping this new development.
‘Yes, Tweeny.’ Mabel nodded deprecating but ironic confirmation. ‘I had her mother here yesterday crying her eyes out, with tales of some neighbour taking advantage – just the day I needed her, with my own daughter goodness knows where … So if I’m likely to be in the same boat as Mrs Alsopp, and you the same as Tweeny, the sooner we know about it the better!’
‘No, of course I’m not!’ The denial came automatically from the desire definitely not to be in the same way as Tweeny. ‘Boyfriend’ the girl had boasted. But it had been true - boyfriend she had certainly had. ‘Do you think I’ve no more sense?’ Fear made her attack back, but her mother was not to be so easily diverted.
‘Well, where did you spend the two nights you were away? Don’t tell me in that van - and nothing happened?’
‘No, of course not. The first night I went to the public house, where the landlord had spare rooms, and the next night I was with the people who ran the china stall, Mr and Mrs Long.’ She added the names to give respectability, and after all it was all true, every word, as far as it went.
‘Don’t tell me any lies, Belle. This is something you can’t cheat about - time will tell, and quickly. I shall soon find out when the monthly body cloths aren’t in soak in their bucket!’
Belle was offended by her mother’s crudity, and tossed her nose in the air. ‘Don’t class me with Tweeny Alsopp.’ She began to eat her breakfast again, for she was quite determined that no matter what, she was not going to be pregnant. She had one concern in common with her mother: she had no wish to share that same platform of shame with Tweeny. When Belle Greenaugh - no, Belle Abbott - had a baby, it was going to be a matter for general rejoicings. Her mind skipped off for a moment to the vision of relations crocheting shawls, knitting bootees, Cato anxious and adoring - and was brought back to reality as she heard her mother repeat a sentence.
‘Belle, you’re not listening. I said if you have any fears - there are things we could try …’
‘Try?’
‘I could mix you some strong camomile tea, it could bring your monthly cycle forward, help prevent a pregnancy.’
She was aware of her mother watching her even more closely, waiting for her to fall into the trap. ‘You should be telling Mrs Alsopp this. Has she tried it with Tweeny?’
‘Yes, and making the girl sit in hot baths, but she’s too far gone. She’s too round for anyone to have paid any mind to or ask any questions.’ Belle felt her mother glance at her daughter’s slender figure.
‘Don’t worry, Mother. I won’t disgrace you!’ She slammed down her knife and fork and would have run back to her bedroom, but her mother still had more to say.
‘No, you won’t disgrace me, because you won’t be here. Your father and I have decided that you should spend the next twelve to eighteen months at least with your aunt Lucy … long enough for this affair to cool down.’
‘Oh, no.’ Belle came back towards the table. This was the one issue she had decided in the night. ‘I am not going to Derbyshire. I hate Ben … I don’t trust him … and he set …’
‘We’re going to ask your uncle to let Ben come here,’ Mabel interrupted. ‘He can have your room, and he’d be a help on the farm.’
For a moment Belle was too stunned to speak. ‘Ben? You’d rather have him here?’ She shook her head in disbelief, but then returned to her own intentions. ‘If you send me to Derbyshire - if you take me to my aunt’s very door- I shall run away. Every chance I get, I’ll run away. I shan’t care where or when, or what happens to me. You’ll need to lock me up to keep me there!’
‘You’re just talking rubbish now.’ But the vehemence of Belle’s reaction had taken her mother by surprise, and she fell back on the kind of retaliation Belle so despised. ‘We’ll see what your father has to say about all that!’
Belle gave a loud and dismissive exclamation of disdain. But, for all her bravado, she retreated back to her bedroom, her mind spinning with questions, and fearful of some of the answers.
She pressed her hands over her stomach. Could she be pregnant? Should she make and take some camomile tea, have some hot baths - it all seemed a bit mild, half-hearted. She needed much stronger, much surer remedies. Then she knew whose help she needed … Her heart beat faster at the thought, and she sat on the edge of her bed to consider. If Meg Silver dared take on a wound such as Mordichi Evans had suffered, surely giving a potion to someone who only might be pregnant should be no problem. She remembered the offer of the bryony berries, when she had been with Cato. Had there been, as she suspected, some such meaning in that offer?
It was a pity she had shouted when she had seen her father watching the gipsy, a pity she had dropped the clothes into the wash-tub, but she was sure Meg would have a price. She lifted one of the string bags on to the bed, found the blouse she had worn, unpinned the gold fob-watch and weighed it in her hand.
Sam walked the boundary path. This patrol, ensuring no further infringement, was the only thing that gave any case, for his mind was in a ferment. What to do about Belle? Why did he resist Mabel’s idea that she should be sent straight to her aunt’s? Was it Belle’s notion that Ben had set the trap, and his own knowledge that the boy was sly - and sadistic, as long as his own safety was assured? He scornfully recalled the skittering panic of his three nephews when his bull had so inexplicably broken out. Of course if Belle was … in trouble … Bile rose in his throat, and he spat, as if it was venom he had drawn from his thoughts.
He paused to look down over his land, seeing the worn appearance of acres sown and harvested, the soil hard-packed by the passage of men and horses, and all with the forlorn colours of late autumn - scared yellow, dark rusted brown, the black of branches showing through thinning foliage, like the bones of the very old through failing flesh. He had not reached the part of the path devastated by fire and gravel; here he could tor a moment imagine the Abbotts did not exist. He should be ploughing, sowing his wheat now the rain had finally come, but the startling probability that Ruth Abbott and Meg Silver, even though on the wrong side of the blanket, were cousins, came again and again to his mind. His own thoughts were traitors; it should be his own family who totally concerned him, but it was the mutual height, and the same dark eyes, of the two women that plagued him, the breeding that showed, and the upbringing that betrayed.
Joe Abbott, it seemed, had taken on the responsibilities of the gipsy bastard of his wife’s uncle, while Sam had been abandoned by his uncle - left on a market stall for hire. It had been in the slant of Joe Abbott’s back as he had half turned, as if to cover his
wife’s naive remarks, that Sam had seen his own rejection, his own uncle’s retreating figure so many years before - and had needed to hurt back.
The similarities, the relationship, was so obvious once you guessed, he thought, though he estimated Meg would be some ten years the younger. Then with a new effort he again tried to obliterate the aggravating picture of Ruth Abbott’s eyes across the moaning form of Mordichi Evans, and the sensual movements of Meg before the old basket-maker’s cottage.
He walked on quickly. He had decisions to make about Belle. But then something caught his attention, something standing in the centre of the bridle-path stopped him mid-stride. A stick had been worked into the softened ground so it stood upright, demanding attention as a brief glimpse of afternoon sun caught the silver band. It was not any stick, Sam immediately realised, it was the walking-cane. He stood absolutely still, his senses reaching out, exploring, trying to feel from which side he was being watched. The stick had been put there for him to find, he had no doubt; nor did he have any doubt who had put it there.
His breath came faster, and when there was no movement anywhere near, no sound other than his own breathing, he grasped the cane and wrenched it from the ground, feeling like a man who had accepted some kind of challenge. He walked cautiously forward, watchful, and yet still starting as Meg Silver suddenly appeared from behind a great ash tree. She stood regarding him, without comment, without expression.
