Proud Harvest

by Anne Mather

  Marion’s freckled features turned pink, and sensing her husband’s silent fury, Lesley turned back to the car. ‘Don’t you think we ought to be getting on, Carne?’ she suggested. ‘I’m sure your mother’s simply dying to see Jeremy.’

  The little group broke up with Marion climbing back on to her hunter and Jeremy coming to scramble into his seat in the front of the station wagon. Lesley resumed her position in the back, and after waving farewell to Marion, Carne got behind the wheel. But he didn’t immediately start the engine. Instead, he looked round at Lesley, and she quivered at the look in his eyes.

  ‘Don’t you ever make that kind of comment again!’ he snapped, his eyes dangerous, but Lesley refused to be intimidated.

  ‘Why not? Wasn’t what she said insulting enough to me?’ she demanded. ‘What’s the matter? Were you jealous she chose that old man rather than you? I’m sorry, I didn’t know I was treading on any toes!’

  Carne swung round, refusing to argue with her further, and noticing Jeremy’s anxious face, Lesley was contrite. She had no real cause to be rude to Marion. After all, she had left Carne. Marion was welcome to him, if that was what she wanted. So why did she feel this hateful resentment every time she saw them together?

  The gravelled track led up and over a slight rise and there ahead of them was Raventhorpe. Built of grey Yorkshire stone, its barns and outbuildings circling the house like ramparts, it looked exactly the same as Lesley remembered it. And why shouldn’t it? she thought wryly. If it had hardly changed in two hundred years, how could she expect it to change in a mere half decade?

  Yet it was different, she acknowledged silently. Carne had installed the most modern kind of milking machinery, and the money he had made had been ploughed back into the land. The house itself had been extensively modernised, and despite his mother’s parsimony central heating had been installed, but Lesley knew only too well that in the cold winter months that seemed to last so long in this part of the country, Mrs Radley had only allowed the radiators to be switched on after dark. When Carne came home, Lesley had realised, and she had been too proud to complain.

  The station wagon turned into the courtyard before the house and Jeremy jumped up and down in his seat as a pair of old English sheepdogs came bounding round the corner of a barn to meet them.

  ‘Watch they don’t knock you over,’ Lesley implored anxiously, as her son thrust open the car door and got out, but Carne was out, too, and the dogs only sniffed at Jeremy before welcoming their master.

  Lesley gathered her handbag and Carne’s jacket, and got out of the station wagon. Well, she thought, looking up at the blank windows of the house, they were here. So where was her mother-in-law?

  ‘Carne!’

  The strident voice was familiar and Lesley turned reluctantly towards the door of the house. But the figure leaning heavily on a stick in the aperture was much different from the tall, strong-willed woman she remembered. Mrs Radley had been taller than Lesley, who was not a small girl, and easily twelve stones in weight, with hair only lightly tinged with grey. She had been vigorous and active, belying her fifty-odd years with the power of her personality, contemptuous of anyone who depended too much on other people. The woman now standing in the doorway was thin, almost emaciated, and her dependence on the stick was considerable. Her dark hair had lost most of its colour, and her face was sallow and lined with pain. On a day when Lesley would have expected her to be outside, tending her vegetable garden, she had obviously been indoors, indifferent to the healing rays of the sun. How old was she now? Lesley tried to think. Sixty-three, sixty-four? Something like that. Yet she looked nearer seventy.

  Jeremy had looked up from petting the animals and seeing his grandmother, came to stand close to his mother. But Carne beckoned him and reluctantly he followed, with Lesley trailing a little behind.

  ‘Jeremy!’ Mrs Radley’s voice had softened dramatically. ‘So you’re Jeremy! Do you remember me?’

  Jeremy shook his head, and Carne said: ‘He was only a baby, Mother. He didn’t even remember me.’

  Mrs Radley’s eyes moved beyond her son and grandson to rest on Lesley, and the girl had to steel herself to meet that sharp gaze.

  ‘Lesley!’ It was a bare acknowledgment, and her daughter-in-law knew in those first few seconds that so far as she was concerned, Mrs Radley would never change.

  But something was expected of her, and she moved nearer to say: ‘How are you, Mrs Radley?’

  Carne’s mother’s lips thinned. ‘I’m well,’ she declared shortly, which plainly was not true, but Lesley would not presume to contradict her. ‘Shall we go inside?’

  Shepherding Jeremy before her, Mrs Radley led the way through the wood-blocked hall into the drawing room. This was a room which had been seldom used when Lesley lived at Raventhorpe, but judging from the newspapers strewn carelessly on the lid of the baby grand piano and the lingering smell of the cheroots Carne sometimes smoked in the evening, this was no longer the case. Which was far more sensible, thought Lesley, exchanging a challenging look with her husband before moving to look out of the window. From here, the sweep of the river was visible, and the whole panorama of the valley spread out before her eyes. It was beautiful, she thought with a curious pang, and then determinedly turned her back on such foolish sentimentality.

  Mrs Radley had settled herself on a plum-coloured sofa, one leg supported on a footstool, her stick disposed conveniently beside her. She patted the cushion beside her, indicating that Jeremy should join her, but he chose to return to his mother’s side, fidgeting, and staring mutely out of the window.

  Mrs Radley accepted the arrangement without comment, and then said shortly: ‘I’ve told Mary to make the tea. She’ll bring it in presently. Well? Did you have a good journey?’

  Carne, who had been standing inside the door, noticed that Lesley was carrying his jacket. Moving to take it from her, he said: ‘The journey was fine!’ but meeting his eyes, Lesley saw the flicker of derision that entered them. ‘Did Stockley phone about those rams?’

  ‘Yes, yes. I told him you’d gone to London, and he said he’d ring you back tomorrow.’ Mrs Radley beckoned Jeremy. ‘Come and see your grandmother, child. Let me feast my eyes upon you. You don’t know how much we’ve missed you here.’

  Jeremy hesitated. ‘He …’ He glanced towards his father. ‘He … said I might ride a horse tomorrow …’

  ‘He?’ Mrs Radley sniffed impatiently. ‘That’s your father, child. Can’t you call him that—or Daddy, or something other than he?’

  ‘Jeremy hasn’t had time to get to know his father yet,’ put in Lesley defensively, and bore the brunt of her mother-in-law’s scornful stare yet again.

  ‘What time does a child need to get to know his father?’ she demanded. ‘Unless his mother’s filled his head with lies about him?’

  ‘Mother!’ Carne spoke sharply. ‘Give the boy a chance! This is all new to him, and strange.’

  ‘It shouldn’t be,’ declared Mrs Radley. ‘If he’d been allowed to grow up where he belongs, instead of in some stuffy little flat in London!’

  ‘That stuffy little flat in London is our home!’ retorted Lesley hotly, and then, seeing that Jeremy was looking upset, added: ‘Anyway, he’s here now. And—and Carne will have plenty of time to get to know him.’

  The entry of Mary with the tea was a blessed respite. Lesley remembered the girl who had been at Raventhorpe since she left school. She must be about thirty now, and judging from her ringless fingers, still unmarried. She smiled at Lesley, however, and at the boy, and he responded with a tentative lifting of the corners of his mouth.

  The tea tray was placed on a low table before Mrs Radley, and Lesley was obliged to sit on the armchair opposite and to accept a cup of the strong brown brew, and one of Mary’s parkin biscuits. Jeremy perched on the arm of his mother’s chair, nibbling a biscuit, still rather in awe of this old lady who was his grandmother, but who spoke to his mother with such anger in her voice. Carne, Lesle
y saw with some relief, also accepted a cup of tea, but she guessed he was impatient to go and find Worsley, his head cowman, and the man he left in charge when he was away. She dreaded the moment he would leave her alone with his mother, and then chided herself for the craven coward she was.

  Jeremy finished his biscuit and then looked round. ‘Where are the dogs?’ he asked his father, but it was Mrs Radley who answered him.

  ‘They don’t come into the house,’ she explained. ‘They’re farm animals, just like the cows and the sheep. Only Mrs Pepperpot and her brood are allowed to come into the house.’

  ‘Mrs Pepperpot!’ It was Lesley who repeated the words, although Jeremy had responded to the name, too.

  ‘I’ve got a book about Mrs Pepperpot,’ he said proudly, and Carne explained that his mother had named the tortoiseshell tabby after Alf Proysen’s famous children’s character.

  ‘Mrs Pepperpot!’ exclaimed Lesley again, amazed to find a lump in her throat. ‘I thought she’d be gone by now.’

  ‘She’s only seven years old,’ observed Carne crushingly. ‘Most things last longer than that.’

  Lesley’s eyes sparkled with unshed tears. ‘I thought you might have—have disposed of her after—after I left,’ she retorted, unevenly, but Carne shook his head.

  ‘I couldn’t wring an animal’s neck!’ he countered. ‘Much as I might have liked to.’

  Jeremy frowned, losing the thread of their double-talk, and turning to his grandmother, he said: ‘You said Mrs Pepperpot and—and her—her—–’

  ‘Brood,’ supplied Mrs Radley nodding. ‘That’s right—kittens. Mrs Pepperpot is rather a naughty pussy. She’s always producing lots of little Mr and Mrs Pepperpots, and she brings them into the house and finds homes for them in drawers and linen cupboards.’

  ‘Oh, kittens!’ Jeremy’s eyes were alight. ‘I’d love to see them.’

  Mrs Radley got to her feet with difficulty. ‘Come along then,’ she said. ‘I’ll show you.’

  Jeremy looked dubious then, but his grandmother had taken hold of his hand, and was leading him from the room. He looked up at his father as he passed, as if appealing for direction, and Carne gave him a reassuring nod.

  ‘Go along,’ he said. ‘I think there are six of them around somewhere at the moment. Mary said she’d left a basket for them by the stove in the kitchen. She’ll know where they are.’

  Mention of Mary and the possibility of more biscuits in the kitchen brightened Jeremy’s anxious little face, and he went happily out of the room.

  Alone with Carne, Lesley rose to her feet and faced him. He had not sat down to drink his tea, and stood near the doorway, staring at the painting of the brood mare and her foal which occupied the wall above the fireplace.

  ‘What’s wrong with your mother?’ she demanded without preamble, and his eyes moved to her as if resenting her interruption of his preoccupation.

  ‘She had a fall—about eighteen months ago,’ he replied dispassionately. ‘She broke her hip.’

  ‘But—–’ Lesley spread her hands, ‘surely it should have healed by now.’

  Carne flexed his shoulder muscles, unknowingly straining the buttons of his shirt across his chest. ‘It has,’ he stated shortly. ‘But there were complications.’

  ‘What kind of complications?’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘What’s it to you? Don’t pretend you care. That would be entirely out of character.’

  Lesley caught her breath. ‘You’re a cruel devil, aren’t you?’

  ‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘Just honest.’ He turned abruptly towards the door. ‘By the way,’ he looked back at her, ‘you will try and behave civilly towards her, won’t you? She suffers a lot of pain, I know, and being confined as she is after the freedom she was used to …’

  Lesley pursed her lips. ‘She hasn’t changed that much, Carne. She still detests me.’

  His expression darkened ominously. ‘Why should you expect anything else? Your behaviour was hardly that of a dutiful daughter-in-law, was it?’

  ‘And what about your behaviour?’ Lesley retaliated. ‘What would you call that?’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘Do you mean my past or most recent behaviour?’

  She stared at him. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I think you should consider more carefully before jumping in with provocative statements about our relationship. All right. Maybe what happened this morning did shock that petrified little organ you call a heart, but call it retribution if you like. You deserved to be shaken out of that selfish image you’ve carved for yourself, made to face life as it really is, and not like you would like it to be!’

  ‘How comforting for you to be able to excuse yourself like that,’ exclaimed Lesley tremulously, but Carne was unperturbed.

  ‘I don’t need excuses,’ he retorted coldly. ‘What I need is absolution. But not from you. From myself!’ and he left her.

  The house seemed uncannily quiet after his footsteps had died away. Private though the flat was, they were never out of sight or sound of the roar of London’s traffic, while here one could hear the chickens squawking in the yard and the rustle of the breeze that moved the curtains at the open window. A bee was trying to find its way out again, but its humming was hardly a distraction, and the sound of the cows from the byres indicated that afternoon milking would soon be in progress. It was all so peaceful, thought Lesley bitterly, so close to anyone’s idea of paradise. If only she could find a similar kind of peace, but so long as she continued to fight Carne she never would …

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  MARY reappeared as Lesley was pacing abstractedly about the room, trying to find some measure of composure. She stood in the doorway watching her employer’s wife for a few moments, and then she said quietly: ‘Do you know where you’re going to sleep, Mrs Radley? Or would you like me to show you?’

  Lesley turned abruptly, pushing back an errant strand of hair with a nervous hand. ‘Mary!’ she exclaimed with some relief. ‘It is nice to see you again.’

  ‘And to see you, Mrs Radley,’ replied Mary sincerely. ‘My, but that young man of yours is a regular little monkey, isn’t he?’

  ‘Why?’ Lesley was anxious. ‘What’s he doing?’

  ‘Oh, nothing much,’ Mary was quick to reassure her. ‘Just wanted to see those dogs again, he did, so he’s got old Mrs Radley chasing after him across stackyard.’

  ‘Mary!’ Lesley looked troubled, but the other girl just laughed.

  ‘Don’t worry, Mrs Radley won’t come to no harm. She’s tougher than she looks.’ She grinned. ‘I should know.’

  ‘Oh, Mary!’ Lesley thought how wonderful it was to speak to someone who had no axe to grind against her. ‘You’re still here anyway. Not married yet?’

  ‘Married? Me?’ Mary folded her buxom arms. ‘Who’d have me?’

  ‘Now, Mary …’

  ‘No, I mean it. Never was one for the men. Too impatient, I was. Couldn’t do with all that mucking around.’ She paused. ‘Found a bloke once, about three years ago, but he was married, so …’ She shrugged. ‘I’m too fat now. Too many scones and potato cakes, that’s what it is. And butter, and cream. Always liked good cooking, I did.’

  Lesley had to smile. ‘Well, I think any man would be lucky to marry you,’ she declared. ‘I’ve never tasted better pies than the ones you make, and they say the way to a man’s heart is—–’

  ‘—through his stomach, I know. But it doesn’t follow, does it? I mean, I reckon, he uses his eyes first and his mouth second.’

  Lesley was actually laughing now, and it was good to feel the tension dispersing. Accompanying Mary across the panelled hall and up the carpeted treads of the staircase, she found herself looking about her with unwilling affection, realising that some things, like her liking for Mary and her fondness for the house, could still bring her pleasure.

  The house was large and rambling, with four bedrooms on the first floor, and a further three rooms on the floor above. There were two ba
throoms, one which had been used exclusively by Mrs Radley, and the other which Lesley had shared with Carne. Only the three of them had actually lived in the house, the farm workers and Mary and her mother occupying the tied cottages on the estate.

  The room which Mary showed her into now was one of the spare bedrooms, overlooking the back of the house; unlike the master bedroom, which Mrs Radley had reluctantly conceded when Carne got married and the room she now occupied, both of which overlooked the front.

  For all that, it was an attractive room, decorated with a green and lilac striped wallpaper, and a hand-embroidered satin quilt instead of a bedspread. Someone had thoughtfully placed a bowl of pink and white roses on the chest of drawers by the window, and the incoming draught was conveying their perfume around the room.

  Dismissing Lesley’s grateful smile, Mary bustled about, flicking a speck of dust from the dressing table here or adjusting a cushion on a bedside chair to her liking. ‘It seems to me you could do with a bit of my baking yourself,’ she declared, straightening to regard the younger girl with critical eyes. ‘Proper skinny, you are. That lass of Harveys’ would make two of you!’

  ‘Who?’ But Lesley knew. ‘Marion? Don’t you mean—Mrs Bowland?’

  ‘I know who I mean,’ retorted Mary, with the familiarity of long service. ‘Harveys’ lass, she was, and Harveys’ lass she’ll remain. Mrs Bowland, indeed. What’s that they say? Married she may be, but never a wife?’ She snorted impatiently. ‘Only did it out of pique, she did. Regretted it ever since, that’s my opinion.’

  ‘Out of pique?’ Lesley was intrigued. She knew she shouldn’t be gossiping like this, but she couldn’t help it. ‘What do you mean?’

  But now Mary seemed loathe to continue. ‘Oh, nowt,’ she said, with characteristic brusqueness, and Lesley knew better than to pursue the matter.

  Instead she moved to the window, staring out across the stable yard and the hay barn to the rising fells beyond. Sheep were dotted about the green slopes, patches of grey against the landscape, and she could see a Landrover bumping its way across a field, making for some buildings in the distance. Was that Carne? she wondered tautly. All Landrovers looked the same, she couldn’t be sure. Although she guessed he had wanted to put as much distance between them as possible.