Larkrigg Fell

by Freda Lightfoot

‘That’s William Barton, Andrew’s father. Everyone calls him Billy. Was a champion himself in his time.’ Lots of other people crowded round to congratulate the boy. He grinned at them all before grabbing a towel and started to vigorously rub his head with it.

  Then Tessa was weaving her way through the crowd towards him. ‘Hi, Andrew. Congratulations. Good contest.’ She planted a kiss on his sweating cheek and laughed. ‘You look in good shape.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ he said, his gaze shifting to Beth, and then on to Sarah. Beth stifled a sigh as she saw his eyes widen slightly as he recognised the full impact of her beauty. Wasn’t it always so?

  Tessa was busy introducing them both and didn’t see. Andrew nodded his head slowly as he’d done before, by way of acknowledgement. ‘If you wait while I get changed, I’ll buy you all a beer.’

  ‘You’re on,’ Sarah purred, managing to insinuate herself closer to his side, lifting her smiling face to his. He looked down at her for a long moment then smiled. ‘Give me one minute.’

  Before he disappeared into the nearby tent he again lifted his gaze across to Beth. There was interest in the glance, and a shrewd speculation. Not that she noticed. Her own eyes were fastened on the ground and she was telling herself sternly that it was entirely unreasonable to be troubled because no man ever looked at her in that way. Sarah and Tessa were welcome to fight over him, if it made them happy. She was done with men, wasn’t she? Larkrigg Hall was all that mattered now. She resolved to broach the subject with Meg at the very first opportunity.

  It was the Monday following the sports day and the family were assembled at Ashlea for a celebratory meal. Lemonade was found for the children and Sally Ann opened a couple of dusty bottles of home-made elderflower wine for the adults. There was much relaxing laughter amidst the fetching and filling of glasses and when each held a glass of wine, Sarah and Beth, Tam, Meg and Sally Ann, her son Nick and his wife Jan, a toast was made to the Queen and to their own happy reunion. Glasses were clinked and smiles exchanged. As they sipped the wine and watched pictures of the Silver Jubilee celebrations in Windsor Great Park on the tiny television set in Sally Ann’s front parlour they planned how they would light the beacon fire on Dundale Knot that evening, to link up with the hundreds of others lit the length and breadth of the land to celebrate this momentous day.

  Later, the family all sat down to one of Sally Ann’s famous tatie pots, rich with mutton gravy, followed by thick slices of apple pie and homemade crumbly cheese. A feast to warm any heart.

  Staggering under the weight of full stomachs, Tam, Nick, Jan, and the children went off laughing to see to the bonfire and the women thankfully relaxed to talk about family and farming matters.

  Meg and Sally Ann recalled the tough days of the war, of Effie, their ragged evacuee, who was terrified of cows. They recalled how Lissa had come to them and how she had stayed on at Broombank and come to terms, eventually, with her lack of proper parents. Then they moved on to the twins.

  ‘You were no more than bairns when you left for America. You won’t remember my father, Joe?’

  The twins shook their heads.

  ‘He died shortly after you left in 1965. Cantankerous to the end he was. He did have a heart but you had to work hard to find it.’ Meg gave a wry smile. ‘Funny how things change. Just when you imagine everything is calm and settled, all problems solved, something goes wrong and you have to find the strength to fight all over again. As I fought Kath for Lissa, and Jack Lawson for Broombank.’ Her eyes clouded and even Sarah held her silence, troubled by her grandmother’s bleak expression as she gazed into her wine for an endless moment. Then she lifted her head and gave them all her most dazzling smile. ‘That’s life, I suppose. And we shouldn’t dwell in the past. We must look to the next generation to bring us the future. Nick’s children, and you two, my lovely twins. What are your plans then? What are you going to do with your lives? Have you decided?’

  ‘Nothing definite.’

  ‘No, not yet.’

  ‘A good holiday.’

  ‘We do have one or two dreams,’ Beth admitted, wondering if it was too soon to mention them.

  ‘I’m sure you do. I remember the glorious optimism of youth, when you feel so strong you think you can do anything, fulfil every dream.’ Meg gave a little laugh. ‘It’s a pity it fades so quickly.’

  ‘You should never let dreams fade,’ Beth said, quite vehemently, and Meg regarded her usually quiet granddaughter with some surprise.

  ‘You’re right, Beth. They’re too precious to lose. Well, I’ll let you into a secret. Tam and I do still have a dream. We’d love to visit Lissa in America but I don’t suppose anything will ever come of it.’

  ‘Oh, but you should. Mom would love to have you,’ Beth was all eagerness.

  ‘But I wouldn’t want to go for a week or two. I’d like to stay for months to make up for all the lost years, and who’d look after the farm?’

  ‘We would.’ And everyone laughed.

  ‘You know about sheep, do you?’

  Beth grinned. ‘Not a thing.’

  Then Meg asked lots of questions, wanting to hear all about Lissa, Derry, and the two younger children, Thomas and David. They talked contentedly for an hour or more while Sally Ann nodded off to sleep over her knitting which she always seemed to have in hand. Meg lapsed into silence once again, her mind slipping away on to private thoughts.

  Beth heard Sarah sigh, could almost feel her sister’s boredom yet didn’t quite know how to deal with it. She so much wanted her to like it here, in Lakeland. Then to her great surprise Sarah leaned forward, violet eyes vivid with a sudden gleam of excitement.

  ‘Right now we’d just love to see inside Larkrigg Hall. We’ve been here a week and not yet seen inside it and we’re burning up with curiosity. Do you have a key?’

  Beth stared at Sarah in surprise and whispered under her breath. ‘I didn’t know you were so keen.’

  ‘Sure.’ To Sarah, Larkrigg Hall offered the only possibility of excitement in this quiet dale. It was her last hope. ‘Please do say that you have, Gran.’

  Beth added her own plea. ‘We walked up there when we first arrived and saw it from the end of the drive. It looks every bit as wonderful as I’d imagined. Only dreadfully neglected of course, and so sad and forlorn.’

  ‘I dare say it is.’ Meg’s mind had slipped back to the past and difficult confrontations with old Rosemary Ellis, Lissa’s grandmother. What a dreadful woman she’d been, rejecting Lissa like that just because she was illegitimate.

  ‘It has such a magnificent setting,’ Beth was saying.

  ‘The setting is splendid,’ Meg politely agreed, ‘but I’ve always thought it a rather gloomy house with very little by way of character. I do have a key somewhere.’ She glanced about the room in a vague sort of way, as if wondering where it might be but made no move to look for it.

  ‘Can you find it? Please,’ Sarah begged and Meg frowned.

  ‘Don’t expect too much. I doubt it will live up to your expectations. Your mother visited once or twice and every occasion proved a most unhappy experience.’

  ‘But that was a long time ago,’ Sarah protested.

  ‘True. Oh dear, is it seven o’clock already? We really ought to be getting out to that bonfire. Nick will wonder where we are.’ She got up and went in search of her coat.

  But Sarah persisted. ‘Mom would never talk about it, which only made us want to see the house all the more.’

  Meg smiled at that. ‘I expect it did. Darling Lissa. Feels things so keenly but then we are all vulnerable at times. I didn’t much care for the house myself. It’s never seemed to me as warm or comforting as Broombank.’ Meg’s thoughts seemed to shift to some private memory and the twins were forced to subside into frustrated, respectful silence.

  Only this time it was Beth who broke it, her voice all excited and breathless. ‘We’ve quite fallen in love with it, and we thought if we liked the inside as much as the outside, we might restore it.’
She didn’t dare glance at Sarah, knowing they hadn’t even discussed the idea, which was entirely her own. She blundered on, her voice rising with enthusiasm. ‘We feel we’d like to make Larkrigg beautiful again.’

  Sarah was staring at her, mouth open in stunned surprise, then she raised a speculative eyebrow and added her own point of view. ‘We’d sell it afterwards, of course, and make a vast profit.’

  ‘Or live in it ourselves.’

  ‘It’s only an idea.’

  ‘We’re seriously considering it.’

  ‘But we need to see inside first.’

  Sally Ann had woken with a start, her knitting falling to the floor as she and Meg gazed in open astonishment first at one twin and then the other, as in their turn they glared furiously upon each other.

  After several minutes Meg reached for her hat. ‘The bonfire. Her Majesty’s Jubilee celebrations must be given priority to family matters tonight.’

  So Beth and Sarah had to bite their tongues and dutifully follow their grandmother out on to Dundale Knot where the rosy glow of a bonfire already lit the sapphire blue of the short Lakeland night. Sparks flew like fireflies and the tangy scent of woodsmoke filled their nostrils. It made Beth sigh with contentment and inside her grew such a yearning she felt almost breathless with the wonder of it.

  Beth was in despair. No further mention had been made of Larkrigg Hall that day or the next as everyone struggled to get back to work after all the fun. And neither of the twins dared pursue the subject again. The hot days of June were drawing to a close and soon it would be July. Time for them to leave with nothing at all resolved.

  She sat by the tarn, bare toes curled on a cushion of emerald green sphagnum moss, eyes watching the tufts of silky cotton grass which floated like flakes of white as if they were a summer snowstorm. They caught on tall thistles, bounced off rocky knolls and attached themselves to the fast growing bracken.

  These last weeks had passed by in a whirl. They’d been introduced to various neighbours including Hetty Davies, a grand old lady who used to look after their mother, Lissa, when she was a baby. She’d invited them for tea as a matter of fact, and they’d promised to attend the Women’s Institute meeting with her in the evening to see a demonstration on soap sculpture. Sarah said she could hardly wait. Beth giggled. But her sister had behaved rather better recently.

  The holiday had been wonderful, no doubt about that. Meg had driven them around half the county, proudly showing them the sights. They’d enjoyed a steamer ride across Lake Windermere, exclaimed over pretty Lakeland villages, shopped in the nearby market town of Kendal and walked for miles over rough fell country, up mountain and down dale so that the names, Hardknott, Skiddaw, III Bell, Longsleddale, gradually became real places in their mind, instead of names on a map.

  On two or three occasions Andrew Barton had come with them, encouraged by Sarah of course, who declared she liked to have a man around, as if he were some sort of trophy. He certainly didn’t seem to object, Beth thought, rather ruefully. But she’d made a point of keeping well out of his way. There was enough tension between Sarah and Tessa, without adding more.

  Meg had even taken them to their old home in Carreckwater and the twins had exclaimed in delight over the lake, and the tiny park where they’d used to play, which were exactly as they remembered. The shop was still there, though now a gift shop rather than the children’s clothes their mother had sold in it.

  Sally Ann was making clover wine when the twins called at Ashlea the following afternoon.

  ‘Now then, what can I do for you two?’ Her hands were deftly chopping and she didn’t look up.

  They watched as she put flowers, water and sugar into a large pan, then added lemon and orange rinds, cut into strips with the pith removed, followed by a sprinkling of ginger. The small kitchen was at once filled with the most heavenly scents. Even the cat leapt softly from the rocking chair and began to rub itself ecstatically against the back of Beth’s legs.

  ‘Soft old lump. Only got one eye, hence the name, Nelson. Meg’s a dog person. Usually has two or three about her. I still remember old Rust. Now there was a dog. Never had one like it since.’

  Beth was anxious to get to the point so did nothing to encourage these reminiscences. ‘We want to ask you about Larkrigg Hall.’

  ‘Larkrigg? Eeh, your mother hated that place. Didn’t hit it off with her grandmother one bit. Old Rosemary Ellis blamed her for being born the wrong side o’ the blanket, d’you see?’

  The twins knew all of this and had no wish to dwell on the past today. It was the future which concerned them.

  ‘Do you know anything about it? The hall I mean,’ Beth pressed. She couldn’t quite decide how to broach the subject of Meg’s reluctance to part with the key, not without seeming rude and ungrateful. But desperation was making her brave. And reckless.

  ‘What sort of thing?’

  She half glanced at Sarah. ‘We don’t know. Whatever there is to tell.’

  Sally Ann was stirring gently, staring into the pan as it came to the boil. ‘Curious, are you?’

  ‘It’s our inheritance.’ Sarah said.

  ‘Is the land any good?’ Beth put in.

  ‘Does the house have dry rot?

  The questions poured out and Sally Ann put back her head and laughed. It made her plump chin wobble delightfully. ‘Eeh, I don’t know. All I know is that it’s never been a happy house. Built by Rosemary Ellis’s great grandfather beginning of last century. Charles Barnabas Ellis. Fancy me remembering his name. Right old tartar he was, apparently. He passed it on to his son, and his son after that. My dad worked for the family, at the quarry, till he had his accident. Told me all about the Ellises my dad did. Rosemary was definitely a chip off the old block.’ She set the pan to simmer then eased herself into the chair by the fire. The cat at once jumped onto her lap and she stroked it idly with her plump fingers, giving a rich chortle of laughter, always content to chat and recall days past. ‘Old Charles Barnabas was the one who moved the stones, of course.’

  ‘Stones?’

  ‘Aye, them what stands by the gate. The Gemini Stones.’

  Both girls glanced at each other, then curled up at her feet, all attention.

  ‘Tell us, Sally Ann, about the stones.’

  ‘Apparently the old chap had a load of stones shifted that he shouldn’t. Standing stones, cairns, that sort of thing. Been there for centuries they had. Upset the locals no end. Then no sooner was the house completed than there was a terrible storm and one huge stone which stood by the entrance to the drive and had been too big to move was struck by lightning and split in two. So it stands to this day. Well, of course everyone said it was a bad omen and no two people of the same blood would ever be able to live in harmony within Larkrigg’s four walls, not ever again.’

  The twins stared at her in astonished silence.

  ‘Do you believe all of that nonsense?’ Beth asked at last, her voice soft, hoping she would pooh pooh it.

  Sarah only said, ‘What absolute tosh.’

  ‘Not for me to say.’ Sally Ann shook her head. ‘What would I know about such things? Trouble is, the prophecy would seem to be holding up. The Ellis family has never done aught but bicker and fall out ever since. As your own mother, and her mother in turn, would testify.’

  ‘They probably let the superstition bother them,’ Beth jauntily remarked, wanting to sound scornful but not quite succeeding.

  ‘Aye, happen.’

  ‘Anyway,’ Sarah continued. ‘Beth and I are sisters, so naturally have never got on. Sisters don’t, do they? So how could an old house make us any worse? And we do so want to see inside.’

  Beth dropped her voice, trying to disguise the enthusiasm that pulsated through her. ‘We’ve almost decided, you see, to stay, for a little while longer, and do it up. But we worry about Meg’s reaction. She won’t even lend us the key to take a proper look inside.’

  ‘Adventurous types, are you?’

  Sarah said,
‘We’d sell it and make a vast profit.’ There, said the fierce glance she shot in Beth’s direction, that should set the record straight. Beth went bright red.

  ‘She mebbe has her reasons,’ Sally Ann quietly remarked. ‘Upsetting time she had there once. But she’d enjoy having you two close by, I know that. I’ll happen have a word with her.’

  ‘Oh, would you?’

  Sally Ann stood up, brushing the cat from her lap. ‘Now then, are you going to help me strain this wine, or sit there like a pair of book ends?’

  ‘So why won’t you give them that key then?’ Sally Ann faced Meg with a wry smile on her homely face.

  Meg glared down at her from the seat of the tractor, her own face darkly silhouetted against a cloud-flecked blue sky.

  ‘I’ve work to do, Sal. Several acres to cut before it rains. Can we discuss this some other time?’

  Sally Ann chuckled. ‘I’ve fetched your dinner. You’ll be coming to eat that, I dare swear. It’s cold pork today.’

  ‘I’m not hungry.’

  ‘Don’t talk so daft. You can’t work on an empty stomach. Anyroad, those lasses have every right to see Larkrigg, if they wants. It belongs to them, or so I’ve been told.’

  Meg tightened her lips. ‘Rosemary Ellis hurt their mother beyond endurance.’

  ‘Rosemary Ellis is dead, Meg.’

  ‘She only left it to them to spite Lissa.’

  ‘But it is theirs, like it or not.’

  ‘It’s a miserable inheritance.’

  ‘That’s for them to decide, not you.’ For a second Meg’s grey eyes blazed, but Sally Ann continued, unperturbed. ‘Aye, you know in your heart that it is. You never took notice of what your own father said, so why should these two bairns listen to you? Let them be, Meg. It’s their life, not yours.’

  ‘I suppose you’ll grumble at me for ever if I don’t agree.’

  ‘Aye, I suppose I will.’

  Beth and Sarah turned the key in the lock and pushed open the door. It creaked so loudly that they both jumped, then clutched at each other in a fit of the giggles. They’d almost given up hope when Sally Ann brought them the key, her soft face shining with triumph. ‘Don’t expect too much, that’s all, Meg says.’