‘Oh, don’t delude yourself on that point, Emma. We all disdain somebody; there’s always somebody lower than ourselves. You would have to have your nose in the mud before you could say to yourself, there is no-one I look down on. ’Tis a natural feeling, not conscious all the time. Take Henry for instance. He appears to the outsider to be the humblest fellow on God’s earth, whereas half his time he is scorning this one and that one. His saving grace is that he knows it. By the way, I don’t think we’ll have Henry with us much longer. Did you know he’s applying for another parish?’
The constriction in her throat impeded the words that she would have used in polite astonishment and so she just stared at him as he nodded quietly at her, saying, ‘He’s had it in mind for some time. Of course it all depends on the bishop, and the bishop may find it difficult to fill an uninteresting little hole-in-the-earth like Fellburn village and hereabouts. Then again the bishop might think him too good to lose in this quarter, for although some of the diehards have transferred their allegiance to Gateshead Fell, he’s brought in a number of the villagers who had never been inside the church, except when they were christened. Unfortunately though, these haven’t any money, and the plate is barely covered at the weekends.’
Ralph rose from the chair now and, walking to the window, he looked out of it as he said, ‘If my persuasion will carry any weight he’ll remain here. He’s the only friend I’ve got, the only friend I want. He’s a good man, is Henry.’ He turned and was looking at her again. She had put on her shawl and had lifted the baby from the chair and he slowly walked towards her, saying, ‘What he’s always needed is a wife, someone on whom he could lavish that mountain of affection that is within him; but I doubt that’ll ever come about now. You know what I believe, Emma? I believe that everybody in this life is offered one chance of happiness, real happiness, and if they let it slip by they can never hope for anything to fill its place.’
He was being cruel, and he knew he was being cruel, but that in a way he was not intending it for her, he was explaining something to her, and she knew what it was. She said, ‘I came down to say I’ll be startin’ next week, that’s if you want me.’
‘Thank God for that.’ His manner changing, he now grinned at her and pushed at her shoulder with the flat of his hand, saying, ‘If I want you? How do you put up with Mary’s chatter, she never stops?’
‘Well, likely she’s given you all the village news.’
‘Yes, she has that.’ He laughed again. ‘And the latest is, Miss Wilkinson slapped Miss Bonney’s niece. Apparently the dressmaker’s had the young miss staying with her. Eighteen she is and buxom, and she acquired the habit of visiting the vicarage at night, about eight o’clock and it on dark, saying she wanted some advice from the parson. And when it was the third time within a week, Miss Wilkinson apparently administered advice with a clout across the lug…Oh, the things that go on in that village! Since Mary’s been coming here I’ve never bothered to read the Newcastle newspapers. As she said yesterday, love runs through that village every spring like a dose of senna. Anyway, Miss Bonney’s niece has now taken her departure.’
As Emma went out the door she turned and with a small smile playing round her lips, she said, ‘Miss Bonney’s niece, I understand, paid you a couple of visits too. What a pity you hadn’t a housekeeper to slap her across the lug.’
She went down the path to the sound of Ralph’s laughter, and then his voice came to her: ‘The poor girl was only wanting practice, she’ll be scared stiff of the proof.’
The painter did her good. She was fully aware now of how he felt about her as she was of Henry’s feelings for her. She could and she did call him Henry to herself, and her mind sometimes sang his name, but she had to be careful that she didn’t think about it while in bed in case she called it out. But in bed she felt comforted: if she had to have a compensation for love in this life then God had been good to her and given her Barney.
‘What the hell does he mean by it! Going to stop us renting the land come Michaelmas.’ Jake Yorkless appealed to his three sons who were standing round the kitchen table. ‘Sending Pearson the steward, and out of the blue, no reason or rhyme, just to say his master says come Michaelmas he wants the land. And where does that leave us? Thirty bloody acres. Back to where we started, all me grandfather had almost a century ago. Why? Why?’ He spread out his hands before them.
No-one spoke for a moment until Luke, thumbing over his shoulder to where Emma was stirring the fire, said, ‘Better ask her.’
‘What’s she got to do with it?’
Luke thrust out his chin at his father, saying, ‘Ask her, or ask her husband there.’ He thumbed towards his brother now and Barney, his face grim, said, ‘What do you mean? What are you up to?’
‘Well, didn’t I hear her tell you that she had seen Fordyke riding across the barley and she had told him he shouldn’t do it?’
Jake Yorkless now brought his gaze on Emma, where she had turned from the fire and his voice was quiet as he asked, ‘You told him he shouldn’t ride through the barley?’
‘Yes, I did. You go mad if one of the bullocks gets into the field, and you were going to shoot Pearson’s dog, you said yourself, if it cut across that way to the river again.’
‘But Mr Fordyke, he wouldn’t have gone ridin’ through it.’
‘Go down and see it, Da.’ Jake now turned and looked at Barney, and Barney went on, ‘One corner’s flat and there’s a path wider than this table right through the middle of it. I was waiting for you to find out for yourself.’
Of a sudden Jake Yorkless dropped onto a wooden chair and, again looking round him, he said, ‘But surely he wouldn’t take the land off us for that?’
‘You’ve got his answer.’ It was Luke speaking again. ‘It’s known he’s a vindictive bugger, and anybody with any sense would have gone carefully, but no, somebody has to ride him, so much so that he must have been in a blazing temper to send his steward straight over here.’
‘I’ll fight him. I’ll go to the justices.’
‘A hell of a lot of good that’ll do, he’s one of the justices. What you want to do is make her go and apologise to him.’
‘She’ll do no such thing.’
The twin brothers were facing each other now like enemies, which they had become. Then Barney spoke again: ‘As Da says, we can fight him in court. But she’s not going on her knees to him or anybody else.’
‘You’ll lose in court.’ They all turned and looked at Pete. Pete rarely had an opinion about anything, at least that’s what they thought, but now he went on, ‘It’s a waste of time, land’s his, just let to us, waste of money going to court. There’s nowt you can do about it. Better to make the best of what’s left.’
It was a long speech for Pete, and for a moment it seemed to take their minds off the issue. Then Barney said, ‘I’ll go and see him.’
‘Why should you go?’
Barney glared at Luke.
‘Because Da there doesn’t want to go. Do you?’ He looked at his father and Jake, staring down at the table now, muttered, ‘Likely lose me temper.’
Turning and confronting Luke, Barney said harshly, ‘And I’m the next in charge.’
‘Aye, by a few minutes. That’s another thing I’d like to air: we should be equal, twins should be equal.’
‘God in heaven! shut up will you at this time.’ Jake had sprung to his feet. ‘If Fordyke gets his way there’ll be nowt left to be equal about. Go on you Barney, and see what you can do. And as she won’t apologise for herself, apologise for her.’
Emma was about to make some retort but Barney gripped her arm and led her from the room.
Up in the bedroom, as she watched him change into his Sunday suit, she said to him, ‘You…you don’t blame me for goin’ at him for crossing the field?’ And looking at her, he said soberly, ‘No, I don’t blame you; but it would have been better if you hadn’t met up with him and we never knew who did it, ’cos he’s vindictive, he’s
known to be vindictive.’
‘I’m sorry, Barney.
He smiled weakly at her now, saying, ‘I’ll have to tell him that, although the lie’ll stick in me teeth. But don’t worry.’ Putting his arms about her he kissed her on the lips, then said, ‘If the worst comes to the worst we’ll have to pull our horns in some way and do different planning. But still, we won’t go into that until I come back. Be a good lass.’ He patted her cheek, then went out; and she sat down on the edge of the bed and bowed her head over the solid wooden footboard and chastised herself for having such a ready tongue.
Barney came back and they knew what the answer was before he spoke. His father followed him into the kitchen, and he had just begun to speak when Luke came bursting through the door, saying, ‘Well, what happened?’
‘I didn’t see him. I got no further than the steward who had delivered the message. His master, he said, had gone into town, but it would be no use seein’ him for he was firm on the point that he was taking over the land. And what’s more, he’s fencing in Openwood and the last of the common beyond.’
‘He can’t do that.’
Barney looked at his father saying, quietly now, ‘He can; there’s been a law or some such passed: if common land lies within a man’s boundary he can fence it in.’
‘There’ll be murder done if he does that.’
Barney now looked at Luke and said, ‘And where will that get them? Anyway’—he unloosened the narrow white neckerchief that showed above the top of his grey collarless coat and, pulling it from his neck, he turned to his father and said, ‘The sheep will have to go, but not before the back end. We’ll get a better price for them then. In the meantime, I think it would be wise to try and clear the stone fields.’
‘Don’t talk so bloody soft.’
Barney rounded on Luke now, crying, ‘What else is there for it? You tell me.’
‘Those fields are full of boulders and stones for two foot down.’
‘So was the bottom field at one time, and the dip paddock, but I can remember seeing Granda clearing those.’ His father’s voice cut in between the two of them now, saying, ‘Aye yes, but it took all of two years, workin’ every odd hour of the day and night, moonlight nights, until we dropped.’
‘Well—’ Barney’s voice was calmer too now as he leaned across the table and, looking into his father’s face, said, ‘There’s four of us now, hale and hearty, an’ Emma there can lend a hand; Billy will do most of what’s to be done in the yard.’
‘I’ve said it afore, Billy’ll have to go at the end of the year, can’t afford to keep him on eight shillings a week. Anyway, he’s past a good day’s work, he’ll have to be put out.’
‘But he’s not bein’ put out.’ It was the first time Emma had spoken and they all turned and looked at her.
‘Well, what plans have you got for him, missis?’ Jake’s tone was sarcastic.
‘Well, as I said afore an’ all, he can have my cottage, and it is my cottage, and as I’ll be workin’ as good as any man, I should deserve some kind of wage an’ I’ll take it in the form of grub for him.’
They were all looking at her with open mouths. Even Barney was stunned by the fact that a woman…no, a chit of a lass after all, should expect pay for being a wife instead of being thankful to God He had seen fit to place her in such an advantageous position. It was beyond even him. He turned away and walked up the kitchen, through the door into the hall and he could hear his father’s heavy hobnailed boots screwing round on the stone floor and making a screeching sound as he cried, ‘Let me get out of this an’ all.’
But Luke remained for a moment, glaring at her with a look of such ferocity that she turned from him and, going to the basket that lay to the side of the hearth, she picked up the child, although it was still asleep, and pressed it to her.
When the kitchen door smashed closed, it seemed a signal for Mary to come out of the long larder where she had been washing down the shelves. She said nothing, but she opened the back door and threw the bucket of dirty water into the yard where it trickled towards the channel that took the slush from the byres at the other side. Then having closed the door, she thrust the bucket noisily under the shallow stone sink before turning to Emma and saying, ‘Some how-d’you-do! Might as well try to move mountains as clear those two fields, I would say. Talkin’ of getting rid of Billy, they’ll be gettin’ rid of me next, eh?’
‘Not if I can help it, Mary. If I’m to be in the fields I’ll need someone in the house to see to her’—she patted, the child’s back—‘and the meals and such.’
‘You’re right there, they’ll still want feedin’. But I’ll tell you what. You can put it to the mister if you like. I’ve got three youngsters, six, seven and nine. Dickie, he’s the nine-year-old, he was down the pit till recently, till all the stink started about bringing the bairns up. Some of them are still down sayin’ they’re twelve, but they have still two years to go. But Dickie’s small. He was on the bogies, pulling through the low drifts you know. They like the little ’uns in there. Well anyway, he’s out now. Bird scaring, a penny a day when he can get it. The other two have been stone pickin’ for Mr Rice, down at Gateshead Fell, but that’s finished.’
Emma looked at Mary. ‘I…I thought there was a school starting and they had to go to school,’ she said. ‘The…the parson…’
‘Aw, school! I ask you, what good is schoolin’ gona do for them? It’s not gona put any bread into their mouths. Besides, they know how many beans make five. And what’s more, they can tell every coin up to a pound. Nobody’s going to dupe them. Not that they’ll ever earn a pound a week in their lives. But what I’m gettin’ at is, they’re sturdy, the three of ’em, an’ used to bendin’ their backs all day, and I’d like to bet, atween them, they’d do the work of two men, but they’ll be worth more than a penny a day. My Dickie could get as much as five shillings a week doing overtime, but there’d be nowt like that here, I know. Billy was telling me he’s never had more than eight shillings a week in his life. And there’s my Ned grumblin’ ’cos he only picks up twelve, unless he does a bit on the side, an’ who’s to blame him? Anyway, ask the mister for tuppence a day each. How’s that? Do you think he’ll rise to it?’
Emma knew her father-in-law would not rise to tuppence a day for the young six-year-old boy, but she would. Even after burying her granny decent, she still had quite a bit left of the painter’s money in the bag under the rafters in the cottage. And along with that there were her granny’s savings which she had discovered after her death in a little locked box at the back of the cupboard bed. She had always imagined her granny spent all she earned on the smuggled liquor when she could get it, but it hadn’t been so, and the painter must have been generous to her an’all, for in the box she had found an assortment of coins, mostly silver. But there were four sovereigns among them and the whole amount had come to nine pounds. She felt guilty about her hoard at times because she had not even mentioned it to Barney. So she now said to Mary, ‘I’ll ask him for a penny a day for each of them and I’ll supply the rest, but keep it to yourself.’
Mary’s eyebrows moved up; her eyes became circles of amused light and there was admiration in her tone when she said, ‘You’re young but you’ve got your head screwed on the right way. I wish I’d been as wise at your age. Aye, I do. ’Tis well to have friends.’
Mary had gone down the kitchen and through the door before the implication in her tone dawned on Emma.
Almost dropping the child into the basket, Emma ran the length of the room, thrust open the door and caught hold of Mary as she was about to mount the stairs and, pulling her roughly round, she said, ‘I don’t know what you think, not really, but let me put this straight to you, Mary: the money I have, which is very little, was—’ She was going to say, ‘was given me by the painter for sitting for his pictures,’ but someone like Mary would not believe that, because sitting for a picture wouldn’t be classed in the light of work to her, so she ended, ‘I fou
nd in my granny’s box, she had saved bits and pieces over the years. I used some of it to bury her decent. There’s a little left.’
‘Oh. Oh well, lass, but I meant nothin’. Well, I wouldn’t, would I? I wouldn’t think bad of you. But I can understand your granny havin’ a bit put by. Oh aye, yes I can, workin’ for the painter all those years.’
She withdrew her arm from Emma’s grip, saying now, ‘I’m sorry if you mistook me meanin’, and I wouldn’t upset you, not for the world I wouldn’t, ’cos you’ve been decent to me. No, I wouldn’t upset you.’ She stepped backwards up one stair and stared down at her mistress who was but a chit of a girl, yet a woman in so many ways, and she thought, astonishing it was that she should defend her honour with such spirit, it wasn’t usual in one her age. ’Twas her foreign blood, she supposed; they always said in the village she was different because of her foreign blood.
She turned and went quickly up the stairs, and Emma returned as quickly into the kitchen.
What were they saying in the village now? Her granny had gone and she was continuing to go to the painter’s…that she had taken her granny’s place in his bed? That’s what had been in Mary’s eyes.
The world was a dirty place.
She stood for a moment shaking her head. No; no, it wasn’t. The world was beautiful, it was this thing that went under the heading of love that was dirty. And yet it wasn’t, it wasn’t. Her mind was at war within her. You could have love without it. Deep within her there was a spring brimming over with love. It was strong and at times ran fierce, but it could never rise to the surface. But oh, oh, how she wished it could…This was bad thinking, but it was the only comfort she derived from this spring.
But this was no time to dwell on such things, what she must think about at the present was stones. Strangely, somehow the two things seemed connected, for the spring at the moment was assuming that weight of a boulder inside her.
The Whip (The Spaniard's Gift) Page 24
