Late Harvest

by FIONA BUCKLEY

  I picked up a small bag that had travelled between my feet. ‘I have some medicines here,’ I said.

  I climbed out of the trap, and knew as I put my feet on the ground that I was not as strong as I had thought, for my legs were shaking again. But this was no time to concern myself with such things. I was in the house ahead of the others, stepping tremulously in at the kitchen door, to be confronted at once with Annie, older, heavier, and with a look of misery on the face that had once been so waiflike and was now so broad.

  ‘Annie! How is he? How is James?’

  ‘It’s you, missus! I hardly knew ’ee – so many years! The master’s still with us, missus, still fighting back. But Mrs Bright, you do be exhausted, I can see it. And this liddle maid’ll be your daughter. She do look wore out, too. Best sit down a minute. I’ve water on the boil, I’ll have a cup of tea for ’ee in two seconds …’

  Dear Annie! But I shook my head. ‘No, Annie. I mean, thank you, and presently I’d love some tea and please make some for William and Charlotte here. William, please look after Charlotte. I must see James. Which room is he in?’

  ‘Same one as ever, missus, same one as ever.’

  I was already halfway out of the door and making for the stairs, my bag in my hand. I made straight for my husband’s room, which had once been mine too, thrusting the door open and entering without ceremony. I then stopped short, because James had company and I had startled her. The flaxen-haired young woman who was in the act of pouring water from a jug into a glass spilt some of it in her surprise. And then stared at me with hard blue eyes. Marble-blue eyes. She was glaring at me.

  I took her in, slowly, startled in my turn at the changes wrought by the years. Then: ‘Good day, Rose,’ I said. ‘How are you?’ She was my daughter and I wanted to add my dear but the hard blue stare wouldn’t let me.

  ‘You shouldn’t be here!’ Rose snapped. ‘Annie sent Ned Webster to fetch me this mornin’; it were all gettin’ impossible, she said, doin’ the work of the house and seeing to Susie. She told me William had gone to get you so I supposed you’d come but you shouldn’t have come. You shouldn’t ever be showin’ your face here again. Father said it when he could still talk.’

  I moved over to the bed. James was propped up on a pillow, presumably to ease his breathing, for he crackled and bubbled with every breath he took. His face, dewed with sweat, seemed already to have the waxy look of death. The room was warm, perhaps too much so. There was a fire in the grate and the window was tightly closed. James’ eyes, so like those of Rose, stared at me inimically. He tried to speak, but could only manage a husky growl, which plainly hurt him.

  ‘Go away!’ said Rose furiously. ‘I’m here now. He doesn’t want you.’

  ‘I may be able to help him,’ I said coolly. I put my bag down on the end of the bed and opened it. ‘What has been done for him?’ I asked Rose. ‘Has a doctor seen him?’

  ‘Ned Webster went to Porlock for one, three days back, they tell me,’ said Rose, grudgingly. ‘But he couldn’t bring ’un here. Doctor said he were run off his feet. He’d got a dozen folk in his care in Porlock, couldn’t take time to come out here. Said keep ’un warm, give ’un plenty of water, say our prayers. Mattie Webster makes a horehound brew for coughs; she’s always got some handy and Ned says it’s doin’ her and Fred good; gettin’ better, they are. We’ve given him that as well. But it hasn’t helped.’

  ‘I’ve had the illness,’ I said. ‘I didn’t use all my medicines and I’ve brought some with me.’ I pulled two bottles out of my bag. About half of the contents had been used from each. ‘This one, with the white medicine in it, is for bringing fever down,’ I said, placing it on the bedside table. ‘This one, with the dark brown medicine,’ I held up the second, ‘is to help breathing. Rose, go down to the kitchen and boil a kettle of water. Bring it up here, and bring a pudding basin and a little spoon. No, two little spoons. And a couple of towels. And hurry.’

  ‘What’s all this?’ Rose was sullen.

  ‘I told you. Medicines. They helped me and they may help him. And let’s prop him up a bit more. That’ll ease his breathing too.’

  ‘Can’t you leave him alone? Would you like to be heaved about when you’re that ill?’

  ‘If it made me more comfortable then yes I would! Please do as I ask!’ I snapped. ‘And fetch another pillow so that we can put two of them behind him. Yes, and an extra blanket. I’m going to open a window. There’s not enough air in this room.’

  ‘Doctor said keep ’un warm and you want to open a window and let in a draught …’

  ‘That’s why I said bring another blanket. Will you do as you’re told?’

  ‘You played my father false. How ’ee could dare show your face here …’

  ‘None of that has any bearing on whether or not I can nurse a man with influenza. Now, get that blanket and the pillow and hurry! And then, please, the hot water, the spoons, the towel and the basin!’

  Rose scowled furiously but I glared back and in the end she did as I wanted.

  Opening the window let a cool airstream into the room. He tried to mouth something but his eyes still stared angrily and whatever he was trying to say, I preferred not to hear it. ‘Don’t try to talk,’ I said gently.

  There must have been water on the hob in the kitchen, for Rose was back with everything in a very short time. ‘Give your father two spoonfuls of the white medicine while I get the inhalant ready,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’

  I filled two-thirds of the basin with steaming water from the kettle, and put a spoonful of the dark medicine in it. It was thick and sticky but it had a pleasant, aromatic smell which now filled the room. I told Rose to steady her father while I held the basin under his nose and put a towel over his head to keep the steam in. I used the second towel to protect my hands because the basin was so hot to hold. ‘We stay like this for five minutes,’ I said.

  James mumbled something as we positioned him with his head over the steam, but made no protest. Rose watched anxiously. James must have done his best to see that my character was well and truly blackened in her eyes and she was still unfriendly but she was cooperating. Probably she had seen that his needs had to come before her dislike of me and perhaps she was finding hope in my new treatment, since nothing had succeeded so far.

  We waited in silence until five minutes had passed. Then I took away basin and towel, and set them aside. James promptly had a fit of coughing, which brought up some phlegm; all to the good, I said cheerfully. I turned to Rose. ‘Can you find some warm chicken broth for him? It will give him strength,’ I said.

  It took four days. I despatched Ned Webster to Porlock again, this time with small samples of my two medicines, and although the doctor there still couldn’t find time to ride out to us, he sent new supplies of both back with Ned. We gave two spoonfuls of the white one to James every few hours, and three times a day we made him inhale the aromatic steam. We kept him propped up during the day and recruited his strength with chicken broth, bread chopped small and soaked in hot milk and honey, and apples stewed soft. There were still some cooking apples left over from the last harvest.

  It was a battle. One night, I was sure we were going to lose him. But somehow he held on until dawn and with the light, a trace of strength seemed to trickle back into him. His fever abated at last. And then the horrible crackling in his chest faded away and his voice came back.

  ‘I s’pose I’ve got to be grateful and take ’ee back,’ were the first words I heard him say, as I was straightening his bed on that fifth morning. ‘Seein’ as ’ee’s likely saved my life for me.’

  ‘I’ll come back gladly,’ I said. In a careful voice. His had been laden with resentment.

  ‘Dare say ’ee would. So who’s been keepin’ ’ee, all these years? William let out to us as you was livin’ in a nice cottage in Taunton. So who’s been paying the rent? Other men, I take it. Brought a brat back with ’ee, so Rose says. Been sellin’ thyself, have ’ee?’

  I
strangled a surge of fury and said quietly: ‘No. I have an allowance from Charlotte’s father …’ James almost snarled but I went calmly on ‘… but I haven’t seen him, or had anything to do with any man since that night. My daughter Charlotte is Ralph’s, yes, the result of that one night. She’s eleven now. She is a lovely child and not to be called a brat.’

  ‘I’ll call her what I want. William told me about her. So ’ee takes money from him, do ’ee! As for all this “only one night” stuff – expect me to believe ’ee, do ’ee?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter whether you believe me or not,’ I said. ‘I have a home, a life, to return to if need be.’

  But I didn’t want to leave Foxwell. Now that I was here, I knew I didn’t want to go away again. Only I dare not plead. That would simply encourage to James to reject me again, even if he did owe his life to me. I said: ‘I have lived honestly. I can’t prove it, of course. But it is true.’

  ‘Bah!’ said James.

  ‘It’s time for your inhalation,’ I said, and set about it.

  Later, I sat in the parlour and wept. This was a bitter reunion if ever there was one, bitter with both James and Rose. She would not forgive me. She never has. While she was at Foxwell, she made it clear that she savagely resented my presence there and Charlotte she ignored altogether. She left Foxwell as soon as James was out of bed. I have never seen her since.

  I had kept carefully away from my daughter-in-law Susie, fearing that I might carry infection to her from James’ room. When I did feel it would be all right to visit her, she at least was pleased to see me, and I took great joy in cuddling my new grandson. She and William had decided to call him Michael, after Susie’s father.

  But time was passing. James was out of bed and almost himself again. No more had been said about my future, and I was afraid to raise the matter. I had missed the rhythms of the farm, the world of crops and animals, more than I knew, and I had missed the moors.

  At the end of his first week of convalescence, James announced that he must start work again. He began going out on to the farm, first for an hour, then for two, then half a day, then all day, though I thought he was driving himself. I was myself perfectly well again by then but I remembered how weak I had felt at first and how long it lasted. I noticed that James still had a cough. He gave up the inhalations and refused to resume them. Another two weeks passed. I saw little either of him or William during those days, for the spring sowing and the lambing were under way.

  It was as well that I saw James rarely, for when he was in the house, the atmosphere was unhealthy. James didn’t repeat his first angry outburst. He was essentially a decent man and I suppose he knew he owed me something, and knew too that a little girl like Charlotte was not responsible for her own birth. What he did instead was to ignore Charlotte as Rose had done, and in my presence, be very quiet.

  It was difficult for me and very bad for Charlotte. She had been aware of Rose’s attitude and when James was once more on his feet and about the house, she noticed his as well.

  Once she asked me: ‘Mamma, why did my sister Rose not like me? And … the master’ – she never worked out what she ought to call James – ‘he doesn’t, either. He walks past me as if I wasn’t there. But what have I done?’

  ‘Nothing, love,’ I told her. ‘It’s all a bit too complicated for you, at your age. You’ll understand better later on. It’s a grown-up thing but I can tell you this; it’s no fault of yours.’

  But she felt it; I could see that. Sometimes she tried to approach James, in simple ways, by saying good morning to him at breakfast, by making tea for him or if she heard him ask someone to find something for him, finding whatever it was herself. He never answered her greetings, never said thank you for any little services. Again and again she tried and again and again I saw her flinch from his obduracy.

  After I had been at the farm for four weeks, I came to the painful conclusion that after all, I would have to return to Claypit. I could not let Charlotte be subjected to this much longer.

  The day after I reached that unhappy decision, James came in from the fields earlier than usual. I was in the kitchen, helping Jenny to prepare the supper. Skinny, dark Jenny, who was only fifteen, was handy in both kitchen and dairy, though not as useful with the new baby as I hoped she would be. She said frankly that she had come from a household with a lot of children in it and it hadn’t made her like them much. She was very helpful in other ways, though, and when James sat down in his basket chair, she went to pull his boots off for him. He sighed with relief and sat back and it struck me that he looked very tired. That he looked ill.

  ‘James?’ I said. ‘Are you all right? The wind’s cold today.’

  ‘I b’ain’t all right,’ he said. ‘I think I’ve got it back again. What I had afore.’ His voice was husky. ‘I bin feelin’ funny since midday, and out there with the cows just now, it come over me all of a sudden, like. My legs don’t belong to me. I’m going to bed. Likely I’ll be on ’ee’s hands again for a day or two.’

  For a moment, I saw a gleam of the old James, the James I had lived with before the night I went to warn Ralph, the James I had known in the days when we called ourselves happy. ‘If you’ve been thinking to go back to Taunton, I reckon it can’t be yet awhile,’ he said.

  So once again, I must fight for him. Susie was up and about now, so I despatched her and the baby to stay with the Websters, who were also quite restored and free of infection, while William sensibly arranged for his elder boy, Harry, to join them there. ‘We can’t go on burdening Annie’s sister with him and at least he’ll be here at Foxwell if not in the house.’

  This time Annie and I shared the task of nursing James. Ned Webster fetched further supplies of medicine from Porlock. We did all we could.

  But the first bout of illness had weakened him and he was no longer young, and perhaps he was tired in more than physical ways, drained by the years of bitterness. He lost his voice again and his breath became more and more difficult, while his fever soared and nothing we did could make it drop. James seemed grateful for the care he was given. He even smiled at me once or twice.

  I am glad that I was the one who was sitting with him when the last crisis came, awful though it was. It happened at midnight. He had a fit of coughing that wouldn’t stop but grew worse and worse, until at last, he began to cough up blood, a little at first, and then a flood.

  His eyes were terrified. I told him soothingly that this was a good thing and he would be better when it was over. He wanted to believe me. He clung to me with the very last of his strength and I held him fast. I was crying and covered in his blood and still holding him when his grasp slackened and he died.

  The Sailor Comes Home

  ‘You’ll stay here now, won’t you?’ William said to me, when the funeral was over.

  I still hesitated, wondering if Susie would really want her mother-in-law in the house, but Susie echoed him. The difficult birth had exhausted her, and from the first, we had had a rapport. Also, Harry had now come back home from the Websters, who were candidly glad to be relieved of him, for reasons that were all too clear. Susie, making excuses, said that he had been different before the epidemic broke out.

  ‘All that upset when everyone seemed to be ill, and then being sent away to stay with strangers, and he’s so little, even the Websters would seem like that; it’s no wonder he’s a bit nervy now.’

  Susie was naturally bound to defend her son, but whatever the cause, Harry was now a handful. A noisier and frankly more disobedient four-year-old I had never met. ‘I want ’ee to stay,’ Susie said to me. ‘And help with Harry.’

  ‘Charlotte and I must go back to Taunton to get the rest of our things and vacate the cottage,’ I said. ‘But we won’t be longer than we can help.’

  We went back by coach from Minehead and in the event, we needed to stay only a week in Taunton. Then I hired a driver and a cart in which to transport the rest of our possessions. They didn’t amount to much for the fu
rniture belonged to the cottage. On the way, I posted a letter to Ralph and Harriet, thanking them for all that they had done for me. A reply reached me at Foxwell two days later. There was a stiff little letter from Harriet, saying that my Standing Stone rents and Charlotte’s money would be sent to Foxwell in future, formally regretting the death of James and civilly pleased to hear that I and my family had all weathered the epidemic. I sighed a little. I could have liked Harriet so much, and in another world we could have been such good friends.

  The actual moment of my return to Foxwell was stormy. The cart drove into the farmyard to find Fred Webster marching across it towards the kitchen door, dragging a bellowing Harry by the ear, while the hens in the yard squawked and darted about in wild agitation and within the kitchen a baby howled in a tantrum. Annie’s voice, with an exasperated edge on it, was trying to quieten the child and I could hear Susie crying and between sobs, appealing for peace, in vain.

  ‘For goodness’ sake!’ I said, scrambling down from the cart, and giving the driver a rueful look. ‘We must give you something to eat and drink but I must calm this uproar first. Charlotte, go inside and go straight up to your room.’

  ‘I’ll see to the hoss,’ said my driver placidly. ‘Trough over there, I see.’

  ‘I’ll help.’ Ned Webster had appeared from somewhere and my driver jumped down to meet him. I left them to it and hurried after Fred and Harry. Fred, over his shoulder, said: ‘This young limb were chasing the hens. Laughed when I told ’un not to. If it isn’t one thing it’s another with this lad. Sets us all by the ears, he does. His dad’s out on the farm or he’d give you what for, young Harry – and stop that yowling, you disobedient brat!’