Larkrigg Fell

by Freda Lightfoot

  The first of Billy’s brothers arrived before midday enquiring, without any preamble, as to the provisions in the will.

  ‘He did make a will, I suppose?’

  ‘Eeh, I wouldn’t know.’

  ‘Then hadn’t you best find out?’

  But Billy was still searching by the time the second arrived. By early afternoon the small house was crowded with members of Seth’s prolific family. Nieces, nephews and cousins arrived by the score it seemed, parked their bottoms on every chair, completely comman-deered Beth’s kitchen and made baby Will cry with their loud voices and general turmoil.

  Beth thought she might go mad with the uproar that went on around her. As Billy continued his frantic search upstairs, several of the more impatient got going on the parlour and in no time at all had turned the house upside down. They were desperate to find one scrap of paper which might outline Seth’s wishes for the disposal of his effects. As the fruitlessness of this search began to frustrate and irritate, voices became raised in anger, accusations made.

  Only Andrew took no part. He came in for his noonday meal at the usual time, and again for his tea and in answer to Beth’s long-suffering expression and half raised eyebrow, he merely shook his head and went on his way again.

  It fell to Billy to confirm finally what they had all feared. Seth had left no will, no instructions of any kind as to how he wished his home, his farm or his land to be disposed of. And it didn’t take a genius, Beth thought, to recognise that this meant trouble.

  With laudable tact, Andrew finally persuaded every one of his relatives to leave, though not without difficulty.

  ‘It’s too late to discuss it now. I’m tired. Dad’s tired. We’re all tired. I’ve been working all day and want my tea. My child has to be put to bed. My wife has had enough. Right?’

  It was only a reprieve. The next morning, bright and early, they were back. Every last one of them. And Beth was almost certain they had brought reinforcements. They all squeezed round the big kitchen table, elbow to elbow and fixed poor Billy with their corporate stare. Beth scurried into the back kitchen and started to brew endless pots of tea.

  ‘Bit careless of him not to make a will.’

  ‘He must have been ill-advised.’

  ‘I wouldn’t like to count the number of times we suggested it.’ Billy mourned.

  ‘You should have made him.’

  ‘You try making Dad do aught he didn’t want to.’

  ‘I heard he had some money stashed away.’

  ‘Not in this house.’

  ‘Happen you’ve spent it.’

  ‘Happen you’ll take that back, our Jim,’ Billy said, bridling.

  ‘Couldn’t he see there’d be trouble if he didn’t?’

  ‘He never considered anything of the sort,’ Andrew put in, the only calm voice in the overstuffed room. ‘He was afraid of dying, that’s all. He thought if he made his will, his number would be up. Daft, I know, but it’s how he felt and I’m sure he’s not the only one with such a notion.’

  A few red faces confirmed this.

  ‘Right then,’ said Cedric, the middle brother, and as a clerk in a building society considered by the rest to understand about such matters as legal documents and wills. ‘There’s only one answer. Everything will have to be sold.’

  ‘What?’ Billy sat bolt upright in his chair. ‘What are you talking about? This is our home. Our livelihood.’

  Beth felt herself go cold, and one glance at her husband’s frozen face offered little consolation. She sent a silent prayer that William would stay asleep in his cot upstairs. She didn’t want to miss any of this.

  ‘Not any more it’s not.’ This from Agnes, Cedric’s wife, and a woman, Beth decided, who obviously spent a good deal of time telling others what to do, when she wasn’t sucking lemons. ‘It was your home,’ Agnes explained, rather sanctimoniously, hitching up her bosom as she looked down her long nose upon them all. ‘It was your livelihood. Once. But it belonged to Dad, not you two, and now he’s gone. So everything’s changed.’

  ‘But I’m his eldest son,’ Billy protested, not able to believe his ears. ‘What am I supposed to do?’

  ‘You’ll get a good slice of whatever it cuts up for,’ said Cedric. ‘How many acres are there?’

  ‘Never mind how many bloody acres. It’s not for sale.’

  ‘If there’s no will, the estate belongs to each and every one of us. We have a claim too. That’s the law. There’s no reason why you should have it all. We’re his sons too, remember. You’ve had the benefit of rent-free accommodation for years, now it’s over.’

  Billy’s mouth dropped right open.

  ‘Time you retired anyroad,’ Agnes concluded, nodding her head like one of those silly dogs found on the back seat of cars. Several voices rose in agreement.

  ‘You’d make my family homeless?’ Andrew asked, his face expressing the horror he felt.

  Beth’s heart went out to him. It seemed that the goodwill expressed at the old man’s funeral had been buried with him. Today they only wanted to divide his spoils.

  ‘Billy could get a bungalow in Kendal. Or a flat in one of them new sheltered schemes, couldn’t you Billy?’ his other brother Jim put in.

  ‘I suppose so,’ he conceded, looking uncomfortable. ‘I wouldn’t mind that too much.’ He half glanced at his son’s face, still tight with anger, and felt guilty because he’d be happy enough to retire and live an easier life. ‘Only Andrew would be left with no farm, no home, nothing at all.’

  This consideration didn’t trouble the rest of the family one little bit. ‘You’re young enough to get a job anywhere. Start summat new, or get taken on at some other farm,’ Agnes tartly informed him.

  ‘Which other farm? There’s more work for machinery than men these days, and such jobs as there are, pay little. I’ve a family to think of now. What am I supposed to live on? Fresh air?’

  ‘That’s for you to sort out. We’ve had to find us own jobs, and our sons and daughters too. Why shouldn’t you? It’s a tough world. None knows better than me the pain and suffering it can bring.’ Agnes pulled a large handkerchief from her bag, smelling strongly of the mints she sucked, and blew her nose into it with voluble mortification.

  Any moment now, Andrew thought, she’d say she’d been a martyr to ill health all her life and he’d reach out and flatten her where she sat, like a great black beetle on his grandfather’s chair.

  ‘Buy a farm of your own, dear,’ Cousin Alice suggested, kindly patting his hand.

  ‘With the paltry sum I might get out of this when you’ve all taken your pound of flesh?’

  Cedric politely cleared his throat. ‘There’s no reason for you to get anything, as a matter of fact, unless your father gives you a share of his bit.’

  Giving a tightly suppressed explosion of fury, Andrew flew up from his chair and began to pace back and forth on the new hearth rug. ‘This is my home, my living. Dad and me have put our lives into this farm, our blood, sweat and tears.’ He hated this unsavoury disagreement over Seth’s money, but his alarm for the future mounted as he saw the resolution in all their faces.

  Beth came to stand by his side and slid her hand in to his. ‘It’s all right,’ she whispered, wanting him to know it would make no difference. ‘We’ll manage.’

  ‘How?’ he snapped back. ‘Once these vultures have finished there’ll be nowt but bare bones left for us to pick over.’

  She could see his point.

  The arguments raged back and forth throughout the morning and long into the afternoon while she cut sandwiches and brewed tea and no one paid her the slightest attention. Only Ellen’s timely arrival saved her from complete collapse.

  ‘Sit down,’ Ellen instructed, sizing the situation up at a glance and at once taking charge in her bossy way. ‘I’ll feed the vultures for a bit. I’m good with wild animals.’

  Beth sat in the back kitchen, crying her eyes out with William on her lap, listening to the arguments rag
ing back and forth in the other room. In the end the discussion came to a halt, but only because they were all exhausted. Their decision was irrefutable.

  ‘We’ll go and see our solicitor first thing in the morning,’ Cedric said.

  ‘Aye, you do that. And we’ll see ours.’

  Andrew closed the door on the last protesting relative. Ellen kissed Beth, scolding her firmly to keep her feet up, brushing aside her thanks as she went quietly off into the night.

  ‘By heck, they’d have stripped the place bare if they’d stayed another minute,’ said Billy. ‘Now what do we do?’

  ‘Don’t ask me.’ Andrew stood in the centre of the kitchen looking as if he’d been smacked in the face by one of the big stones off Larkrigg Fell.

  ‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ Beth offered yet again. ‘Then we can talk, and start to work things out.’

  But no matter how much they talked, and they did, long into the night, there seemed no solution. Seth’s superstitions had left them vulnerable and unprotected. There was nothing to stop the farm being put on the market, nothing to stop them from being evicted from their own home.

  The very next day their worst fears were confirmed. Their solicitor told them that if indeed old Mr Barton had not made a will, and there was certainly no record of one, then the three brothers were each entitled to a fair share of the estate.

  The good news was that the nieces and nephews were entitled to nothing. But that also included Andrew who, it seemed, had no rights either.

  ‘But I work on the farm. It’s my living.’

  ‘You were employed by your grandfather? He paid you a wage each week. Is that correct?’

  ‘Yes. We both of us got a wage. Dad and me did most of the work.’

  ‘That is not at issue here,’ said the solicitor, kindly but firmly. ‘The point is that you took no share in the farm’s profits. Neither of you.’

  ‘No. I doubt there were any, not much anyroad.’

  ‘Whether there were or not, Mr Seth Barton owned and ran Cathra Crag, officially, until the day of his death?’

  Aye,’ agreed Billy. ‘He did the accounts, told us what he wanted doing, though we didn’t allus take any notice, and we got on with it. Never would let go of the reins wouldn’t the old fool, though he’s done less himself in this last year or so.’

  The solicitor sadly shook his head. ‘Then I’m afraid there’s no way out. The farm must be broken up and sold, and the resulting sum equally divided between the three brothers. The only way of saving the farm for yourself, Mr Barton, would be if you were prepared to buy the other two out of their share.’

  ‘How could I do that?’

  ‘By taking on a mortgage, if you’ve no ready cash available.’ Billy’s face took on an expression of panic. ‘Eeh, no. I’m happy enough to retire. It’s my son here who it most affects.’

  ‘Then he would have to buy all three of you out.’

  ‘I couldn’t afford to do that. The farm couldn’t cover the payments,’

  ‘As I say, the end is inevitable. I extend my sympathies but this happens more often than you might think. Small farms are being sold up every week. It’s the modem way, I’m afraid. Cash in hand being considered more important than land. It’s very sad.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Andrew tightly. ‘It is.’

  Andrew gazed on his wife, her sweet face scrubbed as clean as a child’s, snuggled beside him in the big feather bed and his heart ached. How he loved her. He’d known all along that she didn’t feel the same way about him but he’d felt that he had something to offer. A home, a farm, a good way of life. Now he had nothing.

  ‘It won’t make any difference to us,’ she said, reading his mind, and he heard the telling struggle to hide her fears in the quaver of her voice. ‘We’ll manage, same as we’ve always done.’

  ‘You’ll not fancy starving, I reckon.’

  ‘Don’t exaggerate, Andrew. You’ll find a job somewhere. And I too can work.’ Then she remembered the new life starting in her womb. ‘Well, soon as the baby’s born.’

  ‘Oh, stop it.’ He leapt from the bed and started to pace the small bedroom, feeling his anger rise hot and tight in his chest as he stormed back and forth, desperately seeking a solution. ‘I’ll not have a wife of mine with two bairns to take care of, working her guts out. What would you do? Take in washing?’

  She giggled. ‘I could always go begging in the streets.’ But he wasn’t in the mood for joking tonight.

  ‘Don’t talk so damned stupid.’

  ‘Hush, keep your voice down. You’ll wake Will.’ She crept to the bottom of the bed, trying to catch his hand as he passed by on his endless pacing but he wouldn’t let himself be won over, kept twitching it out of her reach, pushing his fingers through his hair in restless agitation. Fear was hot in him. He’d lose her. Why should she sit in the gutter with him?

  ‘Seems to me you might decide you’ve got yourself a pretty poor bargain and pack your bags and go,’ he said, hating the bitterness in his own voice.

  ‘Go? Go where? Why would I do that?’

  ‘You might wish you’d married that fancy Italian instead.’ It was the first time either of them had mentioned Pietro in years, and only the very extreme distress Andrew was feeling had driven him to do so now.

  Beth didn’t even flinch, though she was far too stunned to find a swift response.

  He could feel her eyes upon him, yet nothing in her expression gave away what she was thinking. It came to her then on a rush of startling revelation, that whatever happened she would indeed stand by him. Life away from the farm would be hard enough, life without Andrew seemed too dreadful to contemplate. He was her husband, the father of her children. She’d grown used to his little ways, his stolid patience and painful pride. His need for her never failed to excite her, and she needed him. She got off the bed and went to him, laying her head on his shoulder.

  ‘Andrew.’ She always addressed him by his name, never darling, or love, or sweetheart. Yet there was real affection in her voice, and in the soft touch of her hand upon his cheek. ‘I’m going nowhere without you. Don’t tear yourself apart in this way. Haven’t we gone beyond such taunts?’

  ‘I don’t want your pity.’

  ‘I’m not offering any. Where you are, I must be. That’s what marriage is all about. I’m your wife, and proud to be so.’

  Words with a ring of sincerity in them, yet to Andrew they were not enough. The image of Pietro lay between them still, like a sore rubbing against the bud of their happiness. Even Beth, sensing their inadequacy, stumbled on, making matters worse. ‘Whatever life throws at us, we must take with a smile, eh?’

  ‘And you got me, the booby prize.’

  She kissed his chin, rough against her mouth as he hadn’t yet shaved. ‘You’re getting touchy again. I need you, Andrew.’

  ‘Do you?’ He stared fiercely down at her, and she laughed.

  ‘Of course I do. I can’t have this baby on my own, now can I?’

  ‘Happen that’s all you want me for, babies. All you ever wanted.’ Understanding that he was hurting, and desperate not to rise to this latest cruel barb, Beth rubbed her cheek against his, breathing in the familiar scent of him. ‘Happen I enjoy the getting of them,’ and was pleased to feel him relax against her, hear at last his soft chuckle.

  After a moment he summoned up the courage to ask, ‘So you’ll stop on with me then?’

  ‘I reckon I might,’ she agreed, and he knew she was teasing him now, gently mocking his Cumbrian twang. But he could hear something more in her voice, a note which caused the blood to pound deep in his belly. He wanted her, needed her so much it hurt. Sometimes he woke in the night in a cold sweat, terrified she might have packed her bags and left him. He pulled her roughly to him, desperate to curb the ache in his groin as he cupped the hardening mound of her stomach with one gentle hand. ‘You might change your mind and leave me one day.’

  ‘I won’t. Not ever.’

  ‘Are you sure?�
�

  ‘Absolutely certain.’

  And as he kissed her, then carried her back to bed with a trembling urgency to make love to her until she cried out in ecstasy, in that moment of supreme fulfilment, Beth believed every word of that promise, with all her heart.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  In no time at all a notice had appeared in the local paper announcing the coming sale of all stock and farming equipment at Cathra Crag, to be followed in due course, date to be announced, by the auction of the farm itself.

  Billy put his head in his hands and groaned. ‘How will we face it?’

  Beth waited for Andrew to say something, to make a decision as he usually did. But he remained silent, seated in Seth’s old rush chair by the fire, his hands hanging loose between his knees. He was the picture of a man in complete dejection, mourning for a way of life, not simply the loss of his job. She brushed back a lock of his hair with the tips of her fingers. What should she do? Beth had a sudden urge to turn to Sarah for comfort. But even a twin could let you down.

  ‘We’ll face this together,’ Beth said, lifting her chin and feeling a rush of adrenalin flow into her veins, knowing this was no time for weakness. ‘I’ll make a start on the house. You’d best begin by clearing out all those barns and sheds.’

  Two pairs of eyes swivelled to hers.

  ‘Aye,’ Billy said, voice doleful. ‘I reckon you’re right but it won’t be easy. There’s stuff in there that’s not seen the light of day for generations. Anyroad, clearing out barns isn’t going to solve anything.’

  ‘It’s a start,’ Beth said brightly. ‘We’ll take it one day at a time, right?’

  When Billy had gone she turned to her husband. ‘You can start by looking through the situations vacant, and I’ll go and talk to gran. She might know of a cottage we could rent.’

  It was a surprise to them all, no less Beth herself, the strength she developed and pumped into her menfolk during the following weeks. Was this the same girl who had been left devastated at the altar, who dithered and succumbed to her sister’s every whim? Was this the girl who was so concerned with offending said sister, that she’d sacrificed the man she loved for her sake?