Little Mims saw past the dark curly hair and twinkling blue eyes. ‘Why has he got crooked legs?’ It was an innocent utterance but earned her a ticking off.
Seeing Vincent’s cheeks turn pink, and fearing that he had overheard, Augusta reddened in sympathy. But as they came together any unpleasantness was forgotten.
Seating themselves on the grass amid the ruins, for a short time they just chatted, but it was difficult to have any intimate conversation with all these onlookers, and so Augusta suggested an early tea.
Once they had devoured the sandwiches, however, Augusta bade her sisters, ‘You stay here, me and Vincent are just going for a walk.’
‘I want to go too!’ Mims clambered to her feet.
‘Then go the other way! We won’t be long.’ Augusta set off with her beau.
Mims opened her mouth to wail, but Maddie clamped a hand over the maw. ‘Shush! You can go in a minute, when it’s safe.’ And she peered around the ruined wall to spy on Augusta who, thinking she was unobserved, slipped her hand through the arm Vincent offered.
The instant the courting couple had disappeared behind some bushes, Maddie led the sortie, putting her finger to her lips as they crept up to watch.
Vincent was holding Augusta in his arms, her head upon his chest.
The watchers fought to suppress their giggles, Doris clamping a hand over her mouth as Augusta looked around sharply. Then, satisfied that they were alone she lifted her face to that of the young man, who applied his lips to hers.
After watching in awe for a while, Maddie thought it expedient to move away before they exploded with laughter, and at her signal the girls pelted back to the ruins.
‘Don’t you say owt,’ she warned Mims.
‘I won’t!’
‘Good job George isn’t here or he would, though,’ opined Beata.
‘Isn’t he lovely?’ breathed Maddie.
‘Who, George?’ Doris made vomiting noises.
‘No, you soft ’a’p’orth, Vincent! I love his curly hair. That’s the sort I want to marry.’
‘Is our Gus going to marry him?’ asked Beata.
‘Looks like it.’
At this precise moment the couple chose to reappear, Augusta blushing furiously upon overhearing.
Vincent blushed too, but was more forthcoming. ‘If she’ll have me.’
‘Aw, our Gussie’s getting wed!’ Mims threw herself in the air, landing on her back in a patch of clover.
‘Not yet!’ But Augusta radiated happiness, her cheeks pink and her eyes sparkling. ‘So you’re not to say anything at home.’
‘That’s what I’ve told them,’ said Maddie. ‘Your secret’s safe with us.’ And she whispered, ‘We all like your choice.’
How soon the afternoon ended. ‘Can we meet tomorrow?’ asked Vincent as his sweetheart prepared to set off back over the Crags.
‘I can’t.’ She projected disappointment. ‘I’ll have to go back to York after Sunday tea. But I’ll be at early Mass tomorrow morning.’ Vincent grinned and said in that case he would be there too.
* * *
Alas, there was little chance for the lovers to exchange anything more than a moonstruck glance across the pews before Augusta, a punctilious girl, devoted her attention to the Lord. A swift smile upon bumping into Vincent on leaving, and then it was all over until the next time.
Still, there was much to be enjoyed at home, for whilst she had been at church the joint of beef had been sizzling in the oven and, at midday was served to them with Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes and vegetables.
It had always been Father’s habit, when doling out the carved slices, to give everyone a piece of fat to go with it and so he did today. Normally, Beata would cut this unpalatable item into bits and help it down by wrapping it in mashed potato, but on this occasion her happiness at having Gussie here had caused her to daydream and suddenly she found herself with no potato left. Hoping that her parents would not notice, she discreetly placed her knife and fork over the last bit of fat, then sat quietly, hands upon lap. And to her relief, there was no reprimand as the crockery was taken away to be washed.
However, at teatime, when everyone else was given an empty plate off which to eat their bread-and-butter, she was alarmed to see on hers a lump of cold fat.
Casting a dismayed look at her father, she was given the instruction to, ‘Eat that first before you start on anything else.’ Probyn had no time for trivial moans after what deprivations other youngsters had suffered on the battlefield.
She took a sip from her glass of water. Mother had often given them tea but from the beginning Eliza had announced that tea was too expensive for children. Then she stared at the lump of fat, deciding how to go about this. Cutting it into tiny pieces would make it go down easier but would take far longer. Better to get it over in one go … though the very idea made her feel nauseated. She took a deep breath.
It was no good. In a tiny voice, she said, ‘I’m sorry, Father, I’d eat it if I could, but I’ll be sick if I do.’
‘Well, I’m sure we don’t want any mess.’ Probyn looked enquiringly at Eliza.
His wife pursed her lips. ‘Everyone else ate it, why should she be given priority? You’ll just make her into a pernickety eater and I’ve no time for those. Beata, get it down you now.’
Using her most pleading expression, Beata looked at her father, but it did no good. ‘Your mother’s spoken,’ was all he said.
Everyone was observing. Holding her breath, Beata forced herself to swallow the piece of fat in one go, balking as the hard lump filled her throat – and in seconds was on its way up again, along with everything else in her stomach.
Confronted with her vomit-splattered carpet, Eliza jumped up with an angry yell. ‘You spiteful little – Father, deal with her! She’s done it on purpose.’
Probyn was angry too. ‘Beata, you can go get a cloth and wipe that up! What a song and dance over a bit of fat. Good Lord, all I want is a quiet life. Why can’t you all just behave?’
Even though Father had not laid a hand on her, his words were just as hurtful. Already on the brink of tears, when Beata was rinsing out the soiled cloth under the tap in the yard and in doing so spotted the ducklings ravaging the patch of seedlings she had so carefully nurtured, it served to push her over the edge.
Hearing her sobs, Augusta was about to go and comfort her, but her stepmother interrupted, ‘Leave her! She just wants attention. If you want something to do here’s the pots want washing.’
Beata’s loud lament was reduced to shuddering sniffles by the time Augusta was free to tend her. Crouching nearby, she handed Beata a handkerchief. ‘Your face is all snotty.’
Beata gave a wet laugh, as her sister had intended. Now Augusta put an arm around her shoulders and squeezed. ‘Are you feeling better?’
‘Your pizzocking ducks have eaten my Virginia stock,’ came the sulky accusation.
‘Aw, that’s a shame.’ Then Augusta grinned. ‘But never mind, you’ll be able to get your own back and eat them at Christmas.’
Beata remained miserable, wanting to ask something but unsure if she would like the answer. Tears sprang to her eyes at the thought of it and she dashed them away several times before finally being able to ask, ‘Gussie…’ a strand of cotton dangled from her hem; she twined it round her finger, ‘does … does Father love Eliza more than us?’ Her vision blurred again.
Augusta wanted to cry too. Instead she fought it, saying tenderly, ‘No, what makes you ask that?’
Beata shuddered and swallowed. ‘He always tells us off when she asks him to.’
‘That doesn’t mean he loves her more.’
‘But he married her so he must do!’
‘Yes, but, it’s just … a different kind of love.’ Thinking of Vincent, she blushed. ‘He still loves you just the same as he always did.’
Only half reassured, Beata allowed herself to be led back into the house.
19
Despite Augusta’s so
othing words, under the strict regime Beata continued to feel that her father’s love was slipping away, that others were in greater receipt of it, not just Eliza but her own siblings.
Recently, in an act that would surely have earned Beata a slap, Mims had lifted the lid of the piano and started to finger the keys, making not an infantile din but a considered attempt to form a tune. Only by reason of it being a Saturday evening, when the restrictive atmosphere was somewhat lightened and Father indulged them in conversation, did Mims escape a rebuke. Under his approving eye Mims was allowed to continue, showing a genuine keenness to play. Even Eliza, unable to perform herself but enjoying listening to music, agreed that this gift should be nurtured with lessons.
‘Isn’t she a bit young?’ grinned Clem. Mims had only just turned five.
‘The younger the better, from what I hear,’ replied Eliza. ‘By the time she’s six she should be able to put that thing to good use. What’s the point of having a piano if nobody can play it?’
A nostalgic image leaped into Probyn’s mind of a laughing Grace tinkling out some joyous melody on the ivory keys; since her death they had lain dormant.
Eliza continued. ‘There’s a teacher in Conisbrough. Beat can take her.’
Beata jumped in to ask, ‘Can I have lessons too?’
Having heard previous experiments, Probyn smiled. ‘I don’t think you’re cut out for it, dear.’
‘Neither is our Doris,’ agreed Eliza. ‘But we might get the lessons cheaper if there are two of them. Let’s hear your effort, Madeleine.’
Madeleine lacked enthusiasm. ‘Do I have to?’
‘Pardon me for thinking I was being generous,’ sniped her stepmother. ‘Nobody’s forcing you. Beata, you can take Millicent over this Saturday.’
And so, denied the pleasure herself, Beata was forced to watch her youngest sister become the talented player that she would have liked to be, taking her every week across the Crags to Conisbrough. Not every moment was enjoyable for Mims. The teacher was highly strung and would rap her pupil over the knuckles with a ruler if she so much as played one wrong note, but it must have been an efficient method for in no time at all it seemed that Mims could perform any exercise that she was given, thus earning praise at home. Whilst the only attention poor Beata attracted was if she inadvertently picked up a pen with her left hand, so invoking Father’s denunciation.
What with all the scolding and hard work that went on at home, it was a pleasure to return to school. But Beata had only been back a week when morning lessons were interrupted by an excruciating pain in her leg and by midday it had swollen to twice its size. Hobbling home for lunch, one sock around her ankle, she sought advice from her stepmother.
Chastising Beata for arriving later than everyone else, Eliza hardly glanced at the limb.
‘It’s probably because you don’t get enough exercise. Here, you can eat your dinner on the hoof and take your father’s to him at the same time.’ She thrust a wad of bread and cheese at the child, along with a basket containing Probyn’s lunch. ‘And on your way call in at the Picture Palace and book two seats for tonight. I want the best, D2 and D4. Here’s two shillings and I expect to see sixpence change so don’t be pulling a fast one.’
This hurtful comment adding to the pain of her leg, Beata turned and limped from the house.
By the time she reached the colliery yard she was almost in tears.
Quick to spot her distress, Probyn swung her onto a chair in his office then bent to examine her inflated limb, frowning in concern. ‘By that doesn’t look too good, Beat. You haven’t had the bicycle pump to it, have you?’ In kindly fashion he ruffled her hair. Enjoying his attention, Beata smiled despite her pain.
Probyn straightened. ‘Tell your mother you’re not to go back to school this afternoon.’
Beata knew that if she did this Eliza would find her more work to do. ‘I’ll be all right, Father.’
‘I insist. Tell your mother I’ve said it needs resting.’ He had learned how uncompromising Eliza could be. ‘I’ll take you to the doctor’s when I come home from work. You go ahead and save us a place so we don’t have to wait so long.’
‘All right. Enjoy your dinner, Father.’ Delighting in his solicitude, yet racked by pain, Beata limped home, rehearsing what she would say to Eliza.
In the event, her stepmother was reasonably affable, the cinema tickets seeming to put her in better mood. ‘Oh well, if that’s what your father’s said, you must do as he ordered. Sit in that chair and put your leg up.’ And to Beata’s amazement she even helped by placing two cushions between the swollen limb and the footstool. But what was even more surprising, Eliza indicated the row of books on the sideboard. ‘You can look at one of these if you like.’
Thanking her, Beata said she should love to read one of the Shakespeare plays.
Eliza gave a scoffing chuckle. ‘I doubt you’ll understand it but here you are.’ She was about to place a leather volume on Beata’s lap when she drew back. ‘Your hands aren’t mucky, are they?’ At the presentation of clean digits, she looked satisfied and handed over the book, which Beata was to devour for the next few hours, the pleasure it brought helping to take her mind from her discomfort.
* * *
Towards mid-afternoon when her father was due home from his shift, she thanked her stepmother for the loan of the precious tome, handed it back and said she should be going along to the doctor’s surgery.
Upon her entry here, she was given a number by the receptionist and hobbled into the waiting room. Quite a few people were here already, miners in cloth caps and mufflers, coughing and wheezing and sighing, shoulders hunched by emphysema. Other children might have sat apart, but this little girl chose to sit next to an old man, chatting in friendly manner whilst she waited for her father, enquiring after the other’s health in such an old-fashioned manner that it brought a smile of amusement to the wrinkled lips. ‘Eh, I feel better already for sitting next to thee,’ remarked the oldster.
One by one, the queue was reduced. With only one person ahead of her Beata became concerned that her father was going to be late but then he appeared, and, after another short wait she found herself in Dr Hannah’s surgery, surrounded by shelves filled with bottles and enveloped in the sharp smell of ether that she found wonderfully intoxicating.
Dr Hannah, a hunchback, pressed a thumb to the swollen leg and uttered one word. ‘Dropsy.’
Beata stared in worried fascination at the deep, thumb-shaped depression in her leg.
‘But from what source, heart or kidneys?’ Asking himself the question, Dr Hannah inserted the ends of his stethoscope to his ears. ‘Unbutton your clothes, child.’
Faced with his own heart condition, Probyn felt an air of doom as he helped his daughter unfasten her many buttons. ‘I thought it might be whiteleg like her mother used to suffer, Doctor.’
The physician shook his head and, with his stethoscope to Beata’s chest, went on to pose several questions. ‘Is her face swollen after lying in bed overnight?’
‘Well, a bit – but isn’t everybody puffy on a morning?’
‘Does the swelling in her leg subside after a night’s rest?’
‘We don’t know, she only got it today.’
Dr Hannah took the stethoscope away from her chest. ‘Have you got a headache, Beata?’
‘No, Doctor.’ She had been studying his deformed spine whilst he examined her, wondering if it was as painful as it looked.
The physician remained grave. ‘Well, whether or not it be faulty kidneys or faulty heart, either way there’s nothing much to be done, I’m afraid, Mr Kilmaster. Just keep her rested and her bowels regular to get rid of the excess fluid. I’ll give her some Blue Buttons for the discomfort.’
Probyn accepted the offering without confidence, for over the years it had been prescribed to him as a cure-all for headache to arseache. Obsessed with the thought that Beata had been condemned to an early grave, he fought to hide his concern as he thanked the d
octor and hurried the child along with her dressing, responding to Beata’s anxious face with a fatherly smile, which seemed instantly to assure her. There seemed none of the fear he himself was feeling, merely calm inquisition. It was as if she could read his mind.
* * *
Told about Beata’s affliction, Eliza was unusually kind, allowing her access to the books whilst she rested her leg until it reverted to its normal size.
Once this happened, though, it was back to school and daily chores, the books being consigned to a rare treat. But despite the fear that she might soon die, and the awful pain she suffered, pain that was to recur many times hence, Beata would remember this as a comforting time, in the fact that it had brought reassurance of her father’s love.
From Eliza’s standpoint, the fatherly concern that Beata should not be given too many heavy assignments looked more like pandering. ‘She’s been ill, yes, but she’s better now.’ Her tone was brusque. ‘Spoiling isn’t going to make her live any longer, you know. That’s half the trouble with your lot, Grace was too soft on them.’
At this slur on one so tender, one so beloved, Probyn felt a surge of annoyance. Eliza was generous with her sexual favours and could also be relied upon for a laugh, but tenderness was not amongst her attributes. But for the sake of expediency he bit his tongue. ‘Anything to keep the peace,’ he sighed, burying his head in the newspaper.
Peace. Was there any such thing? Every day came fresh reports of soldiers being murdered by Irish savages in the civil war that raged there. He was glad his soldiering days were over, for the way things were going at home the troops could be brought into his own district before very long.
Disputes between colliers and owners were typical in a mining community. If not a full-blown strike or lockout then there was always some threat of industrial action rumbling in the background. Since the war such wrangling over wages had become even more commonplace, but the latest deadlock looked set to obscure anything that had preceded it, for the miners had formed an alliance with the railwaymen and transport workers and the strike debate had naturally extended to them. If they were to support the motion, the whole country could be brought to its knees.
A Different Kind of Love Page 39
