Friendship's Bond

by Meg Hutchinson

  ‘Be no queedlin’ needs doin’ tonight nor none tomorrow night and to save you the askin’ I’ll tell you it don’t be no fault of the “girls”, they’ve given good a yield as they always does.’

  The cows were giving their usual amount of milk! The whey he had seen Betsy and the piglets nose deep in! No queedling pointed to one thing: no queedling so no cheese-making. Anxiety flicked along Edward’s veins. Had today proved the work of dairying too much? Had it caused Leah to admit to herself what she would not admit even to him? That she had been given no help since early morning when he had loaded trays of butter and cheese on to the cart, that she alone had done all the rest needed no putting into words; lines of fatigue etched on her face expressed the fact clearly enough. So his ears might ring! He pushed away from the table, but if he said nothing, if he let things continue as today then conscience would clang louder.

  He took the tray and carried it into the scullery, saying as Leah followed, ‘You say the “girls” have produced their normal amount of milk which if my eyes haven’t deceived me Betsy and her brood have enjoyed the majority of and if there are no curds to be queedled then it seems likely the milk from Hill Rise has also gone into the trough. I’ve never known you to waste a single drop, yet here you are feeding gallons to the pigs. Why? It can’t be a couple of days being down on sales is the cause.’

  ‘Ain’t no use to mek what don’t be like to sell.’

  The exasperated bang of the tray on to the wooden board by the shallow brownstone sink took her by surprise. It seemed in that moment Leah looked into the face of her husband, heard the chiding tone his voice held whenever he feared she had worked too long.

  ‘That’s an excuse and you know it!’

  ‘Joseph,’ she reached out a hand, ‘no cause to fret.’

  ‘Leah!’

  ‘Joseph.’ Her reply came as a murmur. With a smile soft on her lips Leah stepped into gentle shadow, into the arms of the man she loved.

  Had he come this way? Ann stared across the heath, its wide spaces falling captive to the dusky vanguard of night, imprisoning it in its own dark secretive world.

  Had Alec crossed the heath despite Leah’s warnings that the whole area was riddled with disused gin pits, shafts dug into the ground by men mining coal only to be left unmarked and uncovered when they became too deep for a man to work alone? ‘Nobody knows how many be sunk nor the places they lies, it only be known they waits ’neath a coverin’ of bracken, waits for any poor soul steppin’ in the wrong place.’

  Leah’s warning echoed in Ann’s mind. Had Alec fallen into one of those gin pits, was he lying out there injured, terrified?

  Sheer desperation blinded her to danger as Ann forced her aching legs to move, forced herself to run until a straggle of bramble caught at her foot and tripped her to the ground.

  This was not the way to search. The force of the fall cleared her mind, making Ann look at the foolishness of what she was doing. She had no more knowledge of the heath than Alec; she was just as likely to fall victim to a concealed gin pit and if that happened!

  But it would not happen. After scrambling to her feet, brushing at skirts she could hardly see in the weakening light, Ann turned determinedly back the way she had come.

  Alec was no more welcome to the people of Wednesbury than was she but however great their distrust they would not leave him frightened and alone. An organised search was required: she would knock on every door, ask every man, beg if that was what it took; somehow she would get them to scour the heath.

  Chapter 20

  ‘How can you deny it? How can you deny you used Leah for your own ends, that you came here for one reason only. Miss Ann Spencer has concern only for one person: herself.’

  ‘I had no intention . . .’

  ‘Exactly!’ Edward Langley banged a closed fist against the wall, setting an assortment of dishes and cups rattling in their places on Leah’s plain wood dresser. ‘The only purpose you had in mind . . . that you ever had in mind . . . was that of finding someone to take that lad off your hands, somewhere to leave him so you could go your own way; it didn’t matter to you the woman you found was already burdened down with work that had her on her feet from sunrise ’til the early hours of the next day.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ Ann broke in on the tirade, ‘Leah knew . . .’

  ‘Oh yes, Leah knew.’ His clenched jaw stemmed emotions blazing in the depths of him. Edward turned, the very slowness of the action emphasising the effort it took to speak quietly. ‘She knew you would not settle for life here, for the hard work that goes with running a farm and a dairy, but having that knowledge did not prevent her taking you into her home, nor has it prevented her risking the loss of her living: huh!’ He shook his head in condemnation. ‘Now you have the gall to come back after sneaking off without so much as a word. Why is that? Your next victim not so easy to find as you had thought?’

  ‘I did not—’

  ‘Enough! I don’t want to hear! Your lies don’t impress me.’

  Ann’s whole body stiffened. Head high, eyes like blue ice, she looked across at her accuser, her freezing reply cracking like hailstones.

  ‘And your attitude, Mr Langley, does not impress me. I have no reason to explain my behaviour to you and I have a deal less reason to excuse it; I would ask you to remember what I do is my own business, it has nothing whatsoever to do with you.’

  Edward stepped closer to the table. Leaning both hands on it he stared at the girl who aroused emotions in him he would not admit, his answer when it came spat from tight lips.

  ‘Nor would I desire it to have. You, Miss Spencer, mean nothing to me where Leah Marshall means everything.’

  ‘I love her too.’

  ‘Love!’ snapped Edward. ‘If what you have displayed today is love then God save us from it.’

  Ann hid the hurt she felt at his harsh words. She returned quietly, ‘God is merciful Mr Langley, He hears all our prayers; but the one you make now will not require heaven’s intervention for you will never be the recipient of Ann Spencer’s love.’

  The tension vibrating along Ann’s every nerve quickened further as she caught his brief frown saw the shadow darken his bronze eyes almost to black, heard the swift intake of breath as though from a man in pain. Then as quickly as they had come each reaction was gone, leaving Edward Langley’s features once more cold and impassive as he straightened up from the table then turned away to cross the small room to stand at the fireplace. The slight limp which marked his gait seemed more pronounced as though the pain she had imagined briefly etched on his face was somehow transferred to his wounded leg, and as he rested a hand on the mantelshelf, his head lowered to stare into the drowsy fire, Ann felt guilt twine with the fear which that encounter in the street had knotted about her stomach. If she had called at Hill Rise, told him she was searching for the missing Alec, explained it was with Leah’s full knowledge and approval, then he would not have been subjected to even more concern for the woman he loved, or perhaps not been so angry with one he did not.

  ‘Mr Langley.’ Ann saw the hand touching the mantelshelf clench, the shoulders stiffen. Edward Langley was already rejecting any explanation, yet she went on, ‘I left the house this morning . . .’

  ‘Of course you did!’ Edward’s quiet intervention dripped condemnation. ‘You left regardless of anyone or anything, you had no thought for Leah, or the fact she might need help.’ He stared a moment longer into the fire then turned as he added, ‘You can leave now with no further thought. Leah Marshall won’t be needing your help any more.’

  ‘The wounds of sorrow cut deep, they lay their scar across the heart . . . shadows lie along the path, sadness and fear wait in their depths.’

  Words murmured by an old woman then interpreted by a priest crept silently back from the past into Ann’s mind as she looked at the still figure lying beneath the smooth unruffled counterpane, the grey head barely denting the brilliant white pillow.

  ‘. . . sadness
and fear . . .’

  How right those words had proved. The heartbreak of her mother’s death, the misery of rejection by her father, the devastation on learning of her grandmother’s death, the utter desolation which had come with being totally without family: all had laid their scars and now a new one cut its jagged path.

  Ann dropped to her knees beside the bed. ‘I wanted only to find him,’ she murmured, ‘but I didn’t, I searched but there was no sign and now he is . . .’ A sob caught in her throat as she covered her face with her hands, an almost silent whisper squeezing between her fingers. ‘So many failures . . . Father, Alec, and now you; each put trust in me but I couldn’t live up to it, I let everyone down and especially you, Leah; no wonder Edward is so angry with me. He is right to be but he is wrong in saying I care only for myself.’

  Ann knelt a moment longer then pushed to her feet. She looked at the woman she had come to care deeply for, at the face time and unhappiness had painted with lines.

  ‘The wounds of sorrow cut deep, they lay their scars across the heart.’

  Ann listened to the echo in her mind. Leah Marshall’s heart bore many scars; would Ann Spencer inflict one more?

  ‘No . . . please, not that! I love you Leah, I never wanted to hurt you.’

  The door opening on to the stairs was flung wide and Edward Langley heard in the stillness of the tiny living room Ann’s heartfelt ‘I love you Leah’, words immediately followed by others which cut to the soul of him: ‘You will never be the recipient of Ann Spencer’s love.’

  At the sound of footsteps on the stairs he turned again to the fireplace, his own words silent in his heart. You will never know you have Edward Langley’s love.

  She had thought he had left for Hill Rise so could not prevent her quick gasp which she realised must have sounded more one of fear than of surprise. Edward Langley had noted the same; had that been the reason for the look in his eyes as he swung to face her?

  Sitting fully clothed in the bedroom Leah had allowed her to use Ann stared blindly into blackness, the only sound in which was that of words spoken in her mind.

  ‘You best stay here; Leah wouldn’t want you walking the streets at night.’

  ‘Leah wouldn’t want . . .’

  In a stillness so intense it seemed the whole world had somehow disappeared, leaving her in a void of silence, the words rang in Ann’s brain and behind them the sting of his apparent lack of concern.

  ‘Things over at Hill Rise will take no harm ’til morning so I’ll stay on; I’ll milk Leah’s cows then go see to my own.’

  He had dropped into the chair Leah kept drawn alongside the hearth, his eyes closing in dismissal, obviously wanting no more to do with the woman who had betrayed the trust of a friend.

  But I didn’t! Ann’s heart cried its misery. I didn’t betray Leah’s trust, she knew the reason.

  He could have known it too. Logic spoke coldly. She could have explained to Edward Langley, told him she had left to search for Alec.

  ‘. . . your lies don’t impress me . . .’

  Was that why she had made no further attempt to explain? From fear of hearing that same rebuke?

  In the shadows of the room it seemed to Ann she saw the face of an old woman regarding her across a bed in which Alec lay trying desperately not to cry out in pain.

  Her body taut, her hands clenched tightly together, Ann tried to ward off the spectres of memory. A hand grasping her arm; an urgent ‘the promise of my friend’; the crack of a pistol shot; then another followed by the plop of something heavy dropped into the sea; the disparagement of the officer who had brushed aside her protest at being told she must leave the ferry; the indifference of the sailor pushing her roughly on to a rowing boat; the cry of the boy at her side being snatched back then dropped into the boat as the same sailor knocked aside the hand grasping Alec’s coat sleeve.

  There had been no time to ask if the man reaching for Alec was a relative, someone who had been meant to meet him at the port. No time even to glimpse the face of the figure being swallowed by darkness.

  Alec had landed in the boat, only her own swift action preventing him falling overboard into the freezing water.

  They had huddled together, her arms holding him close, his face pressed to her shoulder as she leaned across him trying to protect him from wind-whipped spray flung like daggers of ice against the skin. It had seemed the crossing would never end, that waves tossing the boat like a cork must surely overturn it, throwing its occupants into the black depths. Then at last with the firmness of land beneath her feet she had thought the ordeal was ended, only to realise as each of the people ordered from the ferry melted rapidly into the darkness one more trial had been replaced by another.

  Beyond the bedroom window a shaft of moonlight flashed its splendour across the room endowing it with silver brilliance, and in its glow Ann seemed to see two figures each barely able to stand against a wind screaming demonic fury, while others hurried away intent on escaping the savage frenzy.

  Not one of those erstwhile passengers answered the query regarding lodgings, a place of safety for the remainder of the night.

  They stumbled together up the steep incline leading from the water’s edge. Ann watched them struggle against the force threatening to throw them back into pounding waves, watched as they came one by one to the dense shapes etched on its summit, unlit buildings where she got no reply to repeated knocks.

  Ann lived again the horror of a night spent in the lee of what had proved a church, hours which had seen her slowly lapse into semi-consciousness, numbed into stupor by the freezing cold.

  An old woman had saved her life. Transferred by memory to a room lit by a single oil lamp, the warmth of a wood-burning stove seeping into her bones, Ann listened to a bearded black-robed figure, a distinctive hat and heavy gold cross worn about his neck marking him as a priest such as many she had seen in St Petersburg.

  ‘You were both almost dead from cold . . .’

  The quietly spoken heavily accented words had been difficult to understand but the priest had been patient.

  ‘. . . praise to God Maija found you.’ He lifted a finger to head and breast. ‘It is her practice to come each dawn to the church to give thanks for the life of her sons and pray for their safety while they are away fishing; it is her house you are in.’

  ‘I . . we . . . were going to England.’

  ‘England!’ He frowned then listened without interruption to the explanation of how she and Alec had boarded the wrong ship, then to her query as to why they had been forced off it and put ashore in darkness. He shook his head, his reply itself half questioning.

  ‘The ferry had many people, too many I think for safety; the captain he is responsible, he would be fined heavily also maybe his licence it is taken away so he avoids by putting people off ship. But this must not be seen. He must not use the ferry ports nor land them in places such as Hamina or Porvoo right on the coast that . . .’ He nodded as though confirming to himself. ‘Yes, that is the reason of rowing boats, they can come up the river Kyma, leave people here in Ruotsinpyhtää . . . then the ferry continues its journey without problems.’

  Without problems! Momentarily drawn back to the present Ann sighed deeply. It had not been that way for Alec or herself. He had been in so much pain and not knowing the language she had virtually been unable to help.

  ‘Maija understands, she says you wash dishes very clean, that is enough of help and for the boy you should try not to worry; Maija she is skilled in the use of herbs, she trusts God will permit the child will be healed, we must also trust.’

  The gentle words brushed away the darkened bedroom replacing it with soft gleams of evening sunlight shimmering on the surface of a river, its banks rimmed by a forest of tall trees sheltering a scatter of buildings. A forge, its timbers blackened by the smoke of its fire, stood in sharp contrast to houses and farm buildings, the rust red and white of their painted walls reflecting brilliant as gemstones on the velvet blue o
f water. In the centre of the tiny village as though cradled at its heart stood an ancient octagonal wooden church, outside of which a young woman removed a shawl from her head shaking loose a pale sherry-gold fall of hair. Then she draped the brightly knitted shawl about her slender shoulders as she began to walk away.

  Ann watched the slight figure pass beyond the cluster of houses, watched as a breeze off the river lifted the hair in a silken cloud; watched the taller heavier figure of a man glance around then moving quickly follow in the same direction.

  Muffled by the soft grass of the river bank, whisked away by a gathering wind, no sound of footsteps alerted the woman as she stood smiling at caps of silver cresting waves washing gently to the river’s edge. But as callused fingers grabbed at her shoulder Ann cried a fear real as it had been that evening, a cry drowned beneath the beer-soaked breath of a mouth closing over her own. Her hands pressed hard against her knees as if she pushed again at the man. He had released her mouth. She had not understood one word of what he had said but the look in those bleary eyes, the press of a hand to her breast had needed no interpretation.

  ‘Da . . . Da.’

  Hoarse, guttural, the words sounded in her mind, leering laughing words seeming to imply she agreed with the man’s intention. But she had not agreed. She had cried out, a scream coinciding with the man’s loud, almost bestial howl, carrying it out across the river away from the village, away from any help.

  He had held her for a moment at arm’s length, beer-fogged eyes playing over her face before one hand clasped the back of her neck in the grip of a vice and the other threw away the shawl and ripped open her dress to paw at her body.

  ‘Da.’

  He had laughed that strange word again then as she tried to twist free had slapped her hard across her face, his own features now a dark mask of lechery. Releasing her neck he caught her arm in the same vicious grip.