‘Not by a long chalk, Mr Burgess, not by a long chalk. The sky’s laden with it again.’
‘Come over to the fire.’ Tilly beckoned him further into the room, but he hesitated, saying, ‘I’m mucky, Tilly; I’ll mess up the floor.’
‘Well, it won’t be the first time it’s been messed up. Sit yourself down, Arthur.’ There was a command in her voice. ‘I’ll make you a drink.’
She put the sack on the table, then looked at him and said, ‘How did you manage to get this out?’
‘She’s gone, Tilly. Madam God Almighty went just afore the heavy fall. I tried to get in to tell you afore but I had to turn back. You’ll never guess what.’
‘Matthew’s come?’
‘Oh no! no! not Master Matthew but Master John. He came back from Scarborough; he had gone on there to get away from her; he had only been gone a week or so. Apparently he had had a letter from Master Matthew, it had been sent on to him from here, saying he’d like him to look after things until he could get back, never mentioned his sister. Of course, you would likely know that Master Luke couldn’t do anything about it, him being in the army. Anyway, the young ’un was simply over the moon. Katie said she heard him letting the young madam havin’t hot and strong with hardly a flicker to his tongue. Oh, and how she went on. An’ you know what? She was goin’ to have her husband down and her sister-in-law, and she wasn’t going to take any notice of the letter Master John had until, so Katie said, the solicitor had been informed. Well, Master John said he had, and that he was coming out to confirm things like. Eeh! me ma did laugh. As she said, the little madam went round the house as if she had been stung in the backside by a bee. I didn’t know she hadn’t a proper home of her own, Tilly, but lived with her in-laws, and that was why she wanted to play the madam back at the house . . . Did you know that, Tilly?’
‘Yes, I knew she lived with her . . . her husband’s people.’
‘It makes things clear, doesn’t it?’ Arthur looked towards Mr Burgess. ‘I mean, why she wanted to stay on here.’
Mr Burgess smiled widely as he nodded and said, ‘Yes, it certainly makes things clear. In-laws are noted for their inability to hand over power to either their sons or their daughters. Man’s ego is not entirely man’s alone, woman has a share of it, and with her she used it as a weapon.’
‘Aye. Aye.’ Arthur nodded at the old man, his face slightly blank, being unable, as usual, to follow his way of talking and reasoning, yet at the same time aware that the old man was in entire agreement with what he himself had been saying. He turned now and, looking at Tilly, said, ‘Me ma wants to know how you’re feelin’, Tilly.’
‘Oh, tell her I’m very well. Here—’ She handed him a bowl of hot soup and a shive of bread, saying, ‘Get off your feet and drink that.’
Arthur lowered his stubby form down on to the wooden stool at the other side of the hearth, and as he gulped at the soup and chewed on the crusty bread he talked, giving snippets about the goings-on during the past weeks in the house. And then, as he reached forward and put the bowl down on the corner of the table, he said, ‘You could be coming back now, Tilly. Me ma says there could be every chance of you coming back.’
She was standing some way behind Mr Burgess’ chair and she made a quick jerking movement with her head towards Arthur as she answered, ‘Oh, I don’t think that will be possible, Arthur; it would only cause more dissent among the family, and there’s been enough of that already.’
Arthur, holding her gaze and taking the message indicated by her shaking head rather than what she had said, nodded at her as he got to his feet, muttering, ‘Aye. Aye, I suppose you’re right, Tilly. I suppose you’re right. Well, I’ll be off. Mr Burgess.’ He bent stiffly forward, and Mr Burgess, as if coming out of a doze, said, ‘Oh. Oh, yes, Arthur. It’s been very nice seeing you. Give my regards to your mother.’
‘I . . . I will, Mr Burgess. Yes, I will.’
Tilly walked with him to the door and when, pulling his cap tight down about his ears and turning the collar of his coat up to meet it, he said, ‘Sorry, Tilly. I put me foot in it somehow, didn’t I?’ she answered, ‘It’s all right. Arthur.’ Her voice was low. ‘I think he would worry if he thought he was going to be left on his own. He’s . . . he’s a sick man, and he knows it. No matter if I had the opportunity of returning, I couldn’t do it at present. In any case, I don’t think it would be wise for me to go back there, not under the circumstances.’ Her hand went involuntarily to her stomach, and he lowered his eyes from hers as he said, ‘Perhaps you’re right, Tilly. Perhaps you’re right. But . . . but we miss you. Me ma misses you a lot. The house isn’t the same. The work’s bein’ done but, as me ma said yesterday, not with good grace. You know—’ His straight lips slipped into a wide smile and he added, ‘I remember what me da used to say. I was only a little bairn at the time, but he created a very strange picture in me mind about God and the devil ’cos he used to say if he had the option of working for God who would say, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant,” or the devil who’d slap him on the back and say, “By lad! you’ve done a good job there,” he knew for which one he’d work.’
As he went to turn away from her on a laugh he turned as quickly again towards her, his hand across his mouth, saying, ‘Not that I’m likin’ you to the devil, Tilly.’
She was smiling widely herself now as she said, ‘Well, if you’re not, Arthur, you’re having a very good try.’
‘Aw, Tilly!’ He flapped his hand towards her. ‘So long. I’ll see you again soon, that’s if that holds up.’ He pointed away into the distance to where the sky seemed to be hovering just above the hills.
She watched him until he had gone some way down the road before going in and closing the door. Oh, it was nice to see one of them again. Each one of the Drews seemed to belong to her, like a member of her family, the only family she had.
When she turned towards the fire and Mr Burgess, he was sitting up straight in his chair. Putting his hand out towards her, he said, ‘Come here, my dear.’ And when she stood in front of him, he blinked up at her through his watery eyes as he said, ‘Now you must not consider me. If Master John asks you to go back you must do so. I’m all right. I’m not in my dotage yet and it’s about time I took a hand in looking after myself.’
‘Yes, it is.’ She nodded her head towards him; then leaning forward, she pulled the shawl around his shoulders before pressing him back in the chair and adding, ‘So get yourself well and on to your feet and trotting round again, and then we’ll talk about where I’m going to go.’
‘Oh, Trotter.’ His head drooped towards his chest and there was a break in his voice as he murmured, ‘I don’t deserve you. I don’t. I’m a selfish old man. I’ve been selfish all my life. All I’ve thought about are these.’ He waved his hand slackly over the books on the little table to his side. ‘You can say I’ve given them my life, and what use are they to me now? Inanimate things. All my life I have called them my companions but do they speak to me now and bring me comfort? All the knowledge I have garnered from them is not going to help me to die in peace. All they say to me is, don’t go yet, enjoy me more. In the night they talk to me, Trotter, and ask what will happen to us when you’re gone? Don’t go, they say; we can keep you happy for years yet. And when I tell them I cannot stay much longer, they look at me blankly and not one of them says, “Here, take my hand for comfort.” There is only you, Trotter, who has ever held out a hand to me in comfort. The master, he was good and kind to me, but his goodness was of the mind, while yours comes from the heart.’
‘Oh, my dear! My dear!’ They were the only words she could speak as she pressed the white head against her waist. Presently releasing her hold on him, she dropped down on to her knees by his side and, gripping his blue-veined hands, she said, ‘You’re not going to die for a long time. You’re going to get better; you’re going to be the first to hear my child cry. You’re going to nurse him . . . her . . . whatever, on your knee while I get on
with my work. And another thing’ – she shook the hands within her grasp – ‘your books have been your true friends, don’t desert them now.’
‘My dear, dear, Trotter.’ The tears were welling from the corner of his eyes and dropping slowly down the furrows of his cheeks. ‘I once prophesied that you’d come into your own, didn’t I?’
When she nodded at him he said, ‘Well, I shall repeat that. One day you’ll be a lady in your own right, Tilly Trotter. You are indeed a lady now, and that is true; but one day you’ll be a lady in your own right.’
Six
There was the promise of spring, the sun was shining and the air had lost its bitterness, although the snow still lay in brown-capped moulds against the hedges and the sides of the roads and there was time yet for other falls. Tilly remembered that two years ago they had been snowed up all over the Easter, but today was bright and warm and Mr Burgess was on his feet walking about the room, picking up this book and that and looking as if the spring was also bringing renewed life into his old bones.
She turned from putting the last of the logs from the wicker basket on to the fire and saw him standing gazing out of the window. ‘Good to see the sun,’ she said.
‘Yes, yes, isn’t it, my dear, the life-giving sun. And it has brought the children out.’
‘Children?’ She came to his side and, looking through one of the small panes, she saw three boys coming down the road. They were jumping and pushing each other and Mr Burgess remarked, ‘Like lambs, the spring has got into their legs.’
She smiled as she turned away, went back to the fireplace, picked up the wicker basket and went down the room, through the small scullery, took her cloak from behind the door and went into the yard.
There were only two small outhouses and they were placed at the bottom of the yard. One was a closet which had a modern touch in that it had a wooden seat with a hole which was placed directly above the bucket. The other was a woodshed, only large enough to hold a sawing block and with space for a single stack of logs around its walls. The walls were now two-thirds bare and they told her that before long she must get them covered again, because soon she would not be able to hump wood or saw. Arthur was kind but it was only at odd times he could get away, apart from his monthly leave.
She had half filled her skip when her body became still, and it was still bent when she turned her head and cocked her ear towards the door. And now she felt the colour draining from her face, in fact seeming to drain from her whole body as the word floated over the cottage towards her: ‘Witch! Witch!’
Aw no! not again. She closed her eyes for a moment before hurrying towards the back of the house. But she hesitated at the door, then went swiftly round the side, there to see the three young boys standing on the roadway. They had their eyes riveted on the front door, and so they did not at first notice her as she stood between the corner of the cottage and the privet hedge that marked the boundary of the small piece of adjoining land, and she listened to them chanting:
‘Witch, witch, witch,
Come out without a stitch;
’Tis time you learned
You’re going to be burned,
Witch, witch, witch.’
The two smaller boys had snowballs in their hands and they pelted them towards the door. It was the biggest of the three who, finding a large stone in the snow, threw it with perfect aim towards the window.
At the sound of the breaking glass she ran forward and the boys, expecting the front door to open, were for the moment petrified at the sight of her, for they saw an extremely tall creature flying towards them, her head hooded and the sides of her black cloak spread wide.
The biggest boy was the first to turn and run, but the other two, springing out of their fear-filled, almost petrified state, turned to each other as they made to scamper away, and so collided. As they stumbled, Tilly’s hands grabbed at their collars; and it would have been no surprise if they had there and then died from fright.
Her arms were thin but still extremely strong, the result of the saw bench and the manual work she had undertaken in the mine, and so she shook them, staring as she did so from one face to the other.
It was the bigger one who found his tongue, and he spluttered, ‘’Twa . . . ’twasn’t me, missis. I . . . I never broke your window. ’Twas Billy.’
‘What is your name?’
‘T . . . Taylor, missis.’
‘Where are you from?’ But need she ask, for she knew the answer before he spluttered, ‘Th . . . the village.’
‘And you?’ She now shook the smaller boy until his head wobbled on his shoulders. ‘What is your name?’
‘Pear . . . Pearson, missis, Tommy Pearson.’
Pearson. There was only one Pearson in the village, at least there had been only one twelve years ago, and his name was Tom Pearson and he’d been a friend to her.
‘Is your father called Tom?’ she demanded.
‘Yes, missis.’
‘Well now’ – she bent her head over him – ‘you are to go back now and tell him what you have done. Do you hear me?’
‘Ye . . . yes, missis.’
‘I shall know whether you have or not. You understand?’
‘Yes, missis.’
‘Tell him he has to give you a good thrashing.’
The ‘Yes, missis’ did not come as promptly now but the boy gulped, then muttered on a whisper, ‘Aye. Yes, missis.’
‘As for you’ – she now shook the other boy – ‘tell me this: Who sent you along here? Who told you to come?’
‘Billy McGrath, him.’ He jerked his head backwards as his arm swung outwards towards the boy standing some way down the road, and Tilly lifted her head and stared over the distance. A McGrath . . . a McGrath again, the son of one of the remaining brothers. It couldn’t be Steve’s boy because Steve had left the district years ago, and Steve, too, had been her friend. The trouble with Steve had been he’d wanted to be more than a friend, as Hal had. That was the reason he had killed Hal; well, part of it, for he had been bullied and ill-treated by his elder brother from when he was a child. And now here was another generation of McGraths starting on her. Surely it wasn’t going to begin all over again. Aw no!
As if in answer to her question, the young McGrath yelled now as he danced from one side of the road to the other, ‘Witch! Witch! you’re an old witch an’ a murderer. You killed me Uncle Hal, you did, you did. But me granny’ll get you. She says she will an’ she will. Witch! Witch!’
It was on the last ‘witch’ delivered by the boy at the pitch of his lungs that the rider came round the bend in the road and reined up behind him, and the boy turned and jumped into the ditch, and there stood looking up at the man on the horse.
‘What’s your game, boy?’
‘Getting at the witch, Mr Bentwood.’
The rider lifted his eyes and looked along the road to where Tilly still stood holding the younger boys by their collars and, taking in the scene, he bent down towards the young McGrath and, his whip cracking over the lad’s head, he said, ‘Now get back, you young scoundrel, to where you belong, and if I catch you along this road again I’ll skin you. Do you hear me? And tell that to your father, and your granny. Understand?’
The boy made no answer but he sidled along the ditch away from the rider as Simon Bentwood walked his horse towards Tilly.
Tilly did not raise her head, but she looked at the boys and she said, ‘Remember what I told you!’ and on this she brought their heads together with a crack that could have been much harder had she cared. Then releasing them and pushing them from her, she watched them turn and run down the road, their palms to their foreheads, before she herself looked up at the man on the horse. And what she said now was, ‘I am quite capable, Mr Bentwood, of managing my own affairs. I will thank you not to take any part in this.’
‘Aw, Tilly!’ He put the whip into the hand that was holding the reins, then shaded his eyes for a moment with his free palm, and when he looked at her again it
was some seconds before he said, ‘Can’t you let bygones be bygones, for after all there’s neither of us turned out to be a saint?’
What he said was quite true. He had had an affair with a married woman, and she had had an affair with a married man.
It could be said that she was worse than him, for her affair had lasted for twelve years whereas his had quickly fizzled out. The man-crazy Lady Myton had tired of him, and that, she understood, hadn’t been long after the day she had found them naked in the barn together.
She had often wondered why that discovery should have hit her so hard. Perhaps it was the shattering of an ideal, a dream, her first love. And he had been her first love, for she had loved Simon Bentwood from the moment she had set eyes on him when she was five years old. On the day he broke the news that he was going to be married and that he wished her to come and dance at his wedding she told herself her heart was broken. But she had been given proof on his wedding night that she still meant something to him, for on that night he left his bride and came to her rescue and saved her from being raped by Hal McGrath. When the McGraths burned down her granny’s cottage and he took both her and her granny into the shelter of his home, her love for him increased, if that were possible, and this had not escaped his wife.
When he later found out that he had married the wrong woman he had wanted to set her up in a house in Shields, but she was having none of that. She had even preferred working down the mine rather than being known as his kept woman.
She was already established on the staff in the Manor when she heard of his wife’s death and was amazed to know that this had happened some weeks previously. The reason for his non-appearance she had put down to his sense of decency. But no sense of decency had needed to be considered on her part when she decided to go and commiserate with him on his loss, while at the same time knowing that she was a hypocrite and was only hoping that she would be strong enough to contain her joy. But what did she find when she reached the farm? She found him in the act of love, or so called, with the very lady who had been the means of ruining the master.
Tilly Trotter Wed (The Tilly Trotter Trilogy) Page 6
