Bitter Inheritance

by Ann Cliff

  ‘Exactly. And my father’s been good to me, we get on well enough. I run the Colsterdale estate and he has Nidd.’

  ‘You live alone?’ Sally wanted to know more about this man.

  ‘With a couple to look after me. I’ve been away from Nidd for years and have my own way of thinking by now! I don’t hate the Masons, Sally dear. Far from it. But when I found out who you were and then asked Father about you, his reaction was extreme. “Keep away!”’

  Looking along the battered shafts to Jed’s shoulders Sally said, ‘But he’s never met me.’

  ‘He was probably thinking of Grandmother. His mother is still alive, in her eighties, and she is the widow of the man who died, you see.’

  A little wind got up and whipped round them. Sally shivered and Marcus pulled the cape closely round her with his free arm. Sally was trying to imagine how it would be if a Radford had been involved in the death of her relation.

  ‘But Grandfather Mason was a good man, I believe. None of our family history has anything violent in it. I think the chief fault of the Masons has been a lack of proper interest in making money.’

  ‘Oh, Sally, I’m sure you’re from a good family.’ Marcus looked down at her with a smile. He added in a lower tone, ‘I’m afraid, you see, that I could get too fond of you, my lass, which would cause problems for us both. And these days you can’t just gallop off into the future in a haze of romance!’ He stopped and looked at her earnestly. Jed, left to himself, wandered into the side of the road and had to be corrected.

  ‘When Father said he didn’t want me to see you,’ Marcus continued, ‘I thought that perhaps you wouldn’t care to see me anyway. I’d been thinking about you quite often, but we hardly know each other. It should not be too sad a parting if we don’t get any closer. Tell me, what do you think?’

  Sally looked up into the dark, eager face. Should she make it easy for him and pretend indifference? I’ve been thinking about you too, Marcus, but I can’t say so. I think I’m falling in love with you. Sally decided to be honest. And she tried to speak lightly to ease the pain. ‘What should a modest young woman say? I can’t think of anybody I’d rather gallop off with! I wish we didn’t have this feud, Marcus.’

  ‘That makes it worse, of course. We both regret it.’ The grim look on Marcus’s face reminded Sally of that glimpse she’d had of his father.

  ‘I wonder,’ said Sally quietly, as they clopped into Thorpe, ‘If the truth could ever be known?’

  Marcus shook his head. ‘My family went through the wood, the police investigated, nothing could be found. And it’s fifty years ago, Sally. Any clues would have disappeared long ago.’

  ‘And what did Samuel Mason say? My grandfather?’

  ‘He couldn’t remember anything. That was the odd part. But there’s something else.’

  Sally sighed. ‘What, another reason to hate each other?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ Marcus spoke slowly, as though unwilling. ‘There’s something else troubling Father about the Masons, but I don’t know what it is.’

  They arrived at Badger’s Gill and Marcus unyoked and led the horse into the stable. It was getting dark. Joe could be heard in the cowshed, whistling as he worked. Sally went into the loose-box to take off the harness and Marcus followed her to help. She hung the harness up in its place and they looked at each other. Marcus and Sally moved towards each other and she was scooped into a hungry embrace. In her own stable, in the winter twilight Sally Mason had her first real kiss. A gentle, loving kiss – a firm and honest one. Marcus was warm, vital. She knew then, what she wanted: the love of Marcus Radford. But it could never be. Just for a moment, Sally clung to Marcus wordlessly. Then she looked up at him, peering through the darkness of the stable while Jed tried to chew her coat.

  ‘You were right, of course. We’ll have to forget about each other.’ With a quick change of mood, Sally took Marcus by the hand. ‘But just so that you can correct your father’s impression of me, please come for a quick look round before you go.’

  Marcus was led round the cowshed, where Joe looked up from feeding the cows and smiled. ‘Evening, miss, glad to see you’re home safe!’ Emma came in to collect a jug of milk. She smiled a greeting to them on her way through. The shed was clean, fragrant with the smell of hay and new milk. The farm yard was swept clean and not a straw could be seen on the cobbles. The poultry clucked drowsily from their wooden house. In the evening light the hedges stretched away, neatly cut back and beyond, the winter pastures slept.

  ‘It’s a neat little farm, Sally. You look after it well, I can see.’ He turned away to lead out his horse. ‘I – I certainly do hope to talk to you again one day.’ Marcus jumped on his horse and was gone.

  TEN

  ‘The baby’s on the way!’ Sally had run across the green to fetch Martha, feeling almost as scared as Emma herself.

  Martha, steady as ever, made her sit down and catch her breath. ‘Now don’t go getting too excited, it will never do. The mother must be kept calm,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s nine in the morning, ’twill probably take all day. No call to panic.’

  ‘But I’ve no experience….’

  ‘You’ve plenty,’ Martha assured her. ‘Think of all the cows you’ve helped to calve and the lambs you’ve seen into the world! There’s not a load of difference in the end. Baby comes when it’s ready and that’s that.’

  Emma would not be flattered by the comparison, but … if cows knew what to do instinctively, maybe humans did, too? ‘But she’s very young. The doctor said so.’ Sally was not convinced.

  ‘Aye, that’s true, but she’s healthy – you’ve seen to that. You’ve done the best for her, Sally. You’ve given her plenty of raspberry leaf tea. The rest is up to Emma and maybe to God. Now I’ll go and find George.’

  God and Dr Bishop, thought Sally, as George yoked up and trundled off to Kirkby to tell the doctor. High Side folk thought that Dr Bishop was looked after by God because his patients often actually lived, whereas the drunken doctors before him had managed to kill a lot of people. Including, Sally believed, her poor mother.

  The bed was ready, the water was boiled, the towels were in a sterile bag. Emma paced up and down the dining-room, pale as a ghost. ‘Keep moving, that’s right,’ advised Martha. ‘Now, Sally why don’t you go and do your morning jobs? Feed the hens and such? I’ll stay here with Emma.’

  It was early December; all the animals were on winter rations and feeding was a much bigger job than it was in summer. Thorpe winters were long and cattle were in the sheds for most of the time. Sally put some turnips through the chopper to help Joe, gave some hay to the sheep and scattered grain for the fowls, but she was thinking about Emma as she worked and what she was going through. It was one thing to undergo this ordeal of childbirth and to be rewarded by a healthy baby, a little newcomer to the family and someone to love. Sally could imagine how the dream of a child of one’s own would carry a woman through the nine months of discomfort, the pain of birthing and even the indignity of having a doctor there.

  Emma, poor girl, had nothing to look forward to. She had not mentioned the baby, so perhaps she was reconciled to its loss. And then, the father was a man she had hated and the baby would remind her of him and his cruelty. Sally now remembered that it would fall to herself to take the baby away. How would Emma feel when it came to the parting? They would all be relieved when it was over. They’d prepared the minimum of clothes for the little creature. The rule laid down by the Bellamys was that the baby should be taken from the mother immediately after birth. But Martha, when she heard of this had said firmly that first it must be fed by the mother. ‘There’s special things in the first milk that a baby needs,’ she told Emma.

  Sally, thinking once more of cows, agreed. Was it so bad, she wondered, to compare human beings with animals? ‘We are all mammals, after all!’

  It was a difficult birth as the doctor had foreseen. He came as soon as he heard that Emma’s pains had started and set up the eth
er apparatus with Martha’s help. ‘Done this before?’ he asked Martha.

  ‘Of course, doctor!’ Martha was quite composed. ‘I used to work in the hospital at Ripon before I was married. Not exactly a nurse, just to clean up the wards and help with the patients. And the ether, sometimes in the middle of the night.’

  Dr Bishop looked relieved, Sally thought. And she was very glad that she didn’t have to take the responsibility. Martha had told her once that too much ether could kill the patient and too little would leave her in pain. Sally’s role, they told her, was to hold Emma’s hand, to give her something to push against if she needed it and to try to keep her calm, because a nervous woman had a harder time of it. The muscles needed to relax, the canal had to dilate to let the baby through. But she was so young and so small….

  It was a strange day. The cold winter winds blew round the old stone house and Sally kept up the fires, including one in the big bedroom where Emma lay. The minutes ticked away, became hours, but nothing much happened except that Emma’s pain increased. Sally was once more impressed by Emma’s courage. Her body was immature, but she seemed to have the mind and will of an older woman. She’ll be a force to be reckoned with in a few years’ time, Sally thought. A determined woman with great self-control.

  At long last as the evening shadows fell, the baby appeared. Martha bathed it expertly while Sally helped the doctor with Emma.

  ‘She did well. She’s a brave girl!’ The doctor was approving and Sally was pleased that Emma woke in time to hear it. She’d only had the ether in the end, to make the doctor’s job easier.

  ‘Emma has a lot of character,’ agreed Sally.

  Emma was propped up in bed, still rather limp and the little boy was placed in her arms. Martha showed her how to give him the breast. And Sally felt like crying as she saw Emma gently kiss the baby’s head. The maternal instinct was there, in spite of the recent ordeal and in spite of the horror of the baby’s conception. Nature had triumphed over reason.

  Downstairs in the kitchen, Sally turned to Martha with a worried expression. ‘Letting her hold the baby may have been a mistake, after all. She’ll want to keep it.’ Perhaps the Bellamys had been right. Sally felt maternal herself when she held the little scrap. How would his mother feel?

  ‘I know.’ Martha, too, was sad. ‘Oh Sally, what devils men are to use a young girl like this! But I suppose least said, soonest mended. Let’s have a cup of tea.’

  If you carry a baby inside you all those months, there must be a strong bond. It’s natural for Emma to grieve, Sally thought. We must give her time to recover. A telegram had been sent to the people who were to adopt the baby, telling them to meet Sally at Ripon station the next day. That night Sally sat with Emma, both of them watching the sleeping baby. And both had tears in their eyes.

  ‘I’d better go to bed, and you should sleep, Emma. It’s been a very hard day for you.’ And she put her arm around the girl’s shoulders.

  Emma gave Sally a tired smile. ‘It’s over, thank goodness. But, I never expected to love him. I don’t want him to go!’

  George drove Sally to Ripon the next day in her own trap, now repaired by the Thorpe carpenter. It was a subdued parting. Emma gave the little mite a last feed, remarking that he was a good feeder. He would thrive with his adopted family if he went on as he’d begun. She wrapped him warmly against the cold air and turned away, weeping.

  Sally held the baby to her inside her cloak as they clopped down the road, feeling almost as sad as his mother. How hard life was! There was some consolation in the fact that the servant who had come to collect the baby arrived in a first class railway carriage and was a pleasant middle-aged woman. ‘I’ve had bairns of my own!’ she said, taking him gently from Sally. ‘I’ll be his nurse. Madam is so looking forward to having him! She’s been longing for a little one and she can’t have children, you see.’

  It looked as though he would be welcomed, and going to a well-off family at that. As he was handed over to the woman the little thing grasped at Sally’s hand. He was far too young to have any idea of what was happening, but it was as though he knew. Sally saw two porters watching them. ‘Another High Side bairn goes down road!’ one said. This must have happened before.

  As they watched the Leeds train roll out of the station, carrying the little boy to a new life, George looked at Sally. ‘Now lass, don’t upset yourself. It’s all for the best, you know.’ He shook the reins and they turned for home with heavy hearts.

  Sally herself felt that her arms were empty on that cold return journey without the little warm body to hold. How easily one could get attached to a small child and want to care for him, to protect him. It was only natural, of course. She wiped away a tear and George coughed discreetly, keeping his eyes fixed straight ahead between the horse’s ears. ‘Don’t take on, lass.’ He grinned. ‘You’ll have bairns of your own before too long! And then you’ll have your hands full!’

  For a few days after the birth Emma kept to her room, as the doctor had dictated. She was sad and exhausted, and needed time to recover. Sally had thought hard about what might happen next and she planned an outing to Studley Park, for when Emma was well enough to go out. The Bellamys would expect her to go back to Sheffield, but there was no hurry. Sally found herself dreading the day when she would lose her paying guest, now her ally.

  They had written to tell the Bellamys of the birth and were surprised when a packet from them came almost immediately. Sally took the letter with the Sheffield postmark up to Emma with her breakfast tray. She looked at the patient critically. ‘You’re looking better, Emma, not quite so pale. But do you feel like reading this letter? It’s from Sheffield, the Bellamys I suppose.’ It was quite possible that it contained another sermon about her wicked ways. And that was the last thing that Emma needed just now.

  Emma drank some tea and held out her hand. ‘They can’t get any worse, can they?’ She opened the letter and Sally turned to go. She picked up a jug of water from the side table and went out on to the landing. Then Emma called her back. Her face was even whiter than usual and she was shaking. ‘Oh Sally, they’ve turned me out! They don’t want me to go back – ever! And they’ve sent some money, saying – saying— and the girl broke down, sobbing. She held out the letter. ‘Read it!’

  Sally went hot with rage when she read what Mrs Bellamy had said. It was to the effect that they had decided to end their guardianship of Emma, feeling it was better for her to make her own way from now on: ‘We had been hoping that your infirmity might eventually prove to be a tumour, and that you would be proved to have been innocent. But now we know that our worst fears have been realized and that you had indeed sunk to the depths of lust and depravity.’

  Sally’s hands shook as she held the letter. The words seemed to scorch into her brain: ‘You betrayed our trust in you and dragged our name in the dirt. Your behaviour can never be forgiven and so we have decided to end the connection. You are no longer welcome in this house.’

  The enclosed money was all that was left of her father’s estate. The valuables, her mother’s jewellery, had been placed in the bank for safe-keeping. They did not want to hear from Emma again: ‘Any further communication should be through our solicitors. Their address is enclosed and they will be your legal guardians until you come of age. They will contact you and also advise you of where the jewellery has been stored. The rest of your belongings will be sent by rail or given to charity. We want no trace of you to be left in our home.’

  It was the coldest piece of writing that Sally had ever seen. And it was deceptive.

  ‘What do you think, Emma love?’

  Emma swallowed and struggled for words. ‘I am quite sure that my parent’s estate was worth much more than this. They have sent me … let me see … three hundred pounds. But my father owned property, shops in Sheffield and so on.’ Her voice was getting stronger. ‘I think I will need to ask someone about this.’

  ‘Robin’s father, Mr Scott, knows about law. We can
ask him to help, you know.’ Sally thought that while Emma was concentrating on the money side of the story she wouldn’t hurt so much. How could she love people who treated her so cruelly? It was probably a good thing that she was not returning to Sheffield, Sally thought. She might be so angry that it would be easier for her. But as time went by Sally could see that Emma was deeply hurt, although she never mentioned the Bellamys again.

  This was the start of a decline in Emma’s spirits. The baby was gone, the Bellamys were out of reach and she was quite alone in the world, with no idea what to do next. At least they had given some structure to her life; now there was none.

  ‘Don’t let her run about too much for a while,’ Dr Bishop had told Sally firmly. ‘She’s got some healing to do.’ But Emma showed no intention of running, or walking either. Emma listened politely to what was said and was just as friendly, but she was quieter, sadder than before.

  ‘Low spirits are quite common, after a baby,’ Martha advised. ‘And in this case it was more like a bereavement.’

  Sally found it was impossible to talk about the future. When she mentioned future plans, Emma shrank back into herself. With something like her old manner she said quietly, ‘There’s enough money to pay for my keep for quite a while. If you don’t mind my staying here, that is.’

  On Christmas Day, Sally and Emma were both invited to the Scotts’ and Robin did his cheerful best to make Emma smile. Sally flew through the farm chores, singing as she went. They all went to church in the morning and then back for a huge midday dinner. The log fire burned brightly, the twins were bouncing as usual and everybody had a glass of sherry before dinner.

  ‘It reminds me of when I lived at home,’ Emma volunteered. It reminded Sally too of happy days when she was young. As they were leaving Robin whispered to Sally, ‘I’ll come over to see you both soon. I want to tell you about Australia – it’s so exciting!’