The Fleethaven Trilogy

by Margaret Dickinson

  She prodded his bony shoulder. ‘Don’t ya care if I go away?’

  He looked up quickly then. ‘Of course I care. Ya know I do!’ He leaned forward and bumped his nose against her cheek in a clumsy attempt at a kiss. ‘I’ll always care for you, Katie Hilton.’

  Kate wasn’t quite sure why he whispered it when there was only a lone black-headed gull soaring above them to hear. She giggled, embarrassed, but his gesture had banished her tears.

  ‘Here, ya can have this.’ He held out the whelk.

  ‘Are ya sure?’ Kate knew the huge shell would have taken pride of place in his collection.

  ‘Yeah, go on, I want you to have it. Just – just so’s . . .’ A faint redness crept up the boy’s neck. He thrust it into her hand and then stood up suddenly, pushing his hands into the pockets of his trousers. Embarrassed, he scuffed at the sand with the toe of his sturdy boot. ‘So ya dun’t forget me when – if – ya go away.’

  She held the whelk to her ear and heard the sound of the sea. ‘I’d never forget you anyway,’ she said softly, slipping the shell into her pocket. ‘Not as long as I live, I won’t.’

  He sat down again and resumed his sand-sifting. ‘Why does yar mam want to send you to boarding school anyway? T’ain’t for the likes of us.’

  Kate sighed. ‘She says she dun’t want me staying on the farm all me life – that she wants something better for me. But I reckon—’ She hesitated and then plunged on. ‘I reckon she – she wants me away from here. Away from Fleethaven Point altogether.’

  He looked at her hard now. ‘Why?’ came the blunt question.

  She smoothed her white pinafore over her knees drawn up under her chin. ‘Ever since the baby came, she dun’t – want me any more.’ Her mouth trembled dangerously again.

  ‘Don’t be daft, Katie, ’course she does.’

  ‘Well, it dun’t feel like it.’ She paused, then with a note of belligerence added, ‘How would you know anyway, Danny Eland? You’ve no brothers or sisters.’ She tossed her long auburn hair which fell in shining waves down her back to below her waist.

  ‘No,’ he mumbled in reply. ‘But I wish I had.’

  ‘Ya can have our squealing Lilian then – and welcome!’

  They sat in silence for several moments while Danny sifted sand into little heaps and then flattened them with the palm of his hand, only to begin the process over again. ‘Does . . .?’ he began and then stopped.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Does Mester Godfrey want you to go?’

  ‘Me dad?’

  ‘He’s yar stepdad,’ Danny reminded her pointedly.

  ‘I know, but he’s like a proper dad.’

  Danny looked up. ‘But ya remember yar real dad, dun’t ya?’

  Kate wrinkled her smooth forehead. ‘Sort of. In – bits.’

  They sat in silence, each trying to remember Kate’s father. But their memories were fragmented, like a jigsaw with pieces missing.

  ‘I can just remember him coming back from the war,’ Danny said. ‘He was in a terrible state, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Can’t remember that. But I do remember him tekin’ us to town in his motor car to buy a big Christmas tree off the market.’

  Danny was laughing. ‘Oh, yes – we could hardly get it in your back door. I’d forgotten.’

  There was another silence before Danny said softly, ‘I remember his funeral though – after he drowned.’

  ‘You held my hand when we stood at the side of the hole.’ She shuddered. ‘I remember that all right. Wish I could forget it, sometimes.’ She frowned. ‘We threw something on top of the coffin, didn’t we? What was it – flowers?’

  Danny shook his head. ‘Just earth.’

  Another silence.

  Kate hugged her knees. ‘Then Mr Godfrey came and married me mam and we all lived happily ever after.’ She pulled a wry face. ‘At least, till Lilian was born.’

  ‘Came back, ya mean,’ Danny muttered.

  ‘Who came back? Me dad?’

  ‘Mr Godfrey – yeah.’

  ‘What d’ya mean – came back?’

  ‘It was just – summat I heard me dad say once.’

  ‘What?’

  Danny said nothing.

  ‘Come on, Danny, tell me,’ Kate insisted. She scrambled up and grasped his shoulders, shaking him. ‘Tell me or I’ll . . .’

  He caught hold of her arms and they struggled with each other like a pair of playful puppies, just as they always had throughout their childhood. Kate shrieked with laughter, her anguish forgotten for the moment as they rolled over and over, her petticoat flying, her black stockings wrinkling around her ankles. Danny was on top of her, pinning her arms back against the sand. They stared into each other’s eyes, panting hard, their breath mingling.

  Faintly, borne on the wind, there came the sound of a whistle. Immediately, Kate began to struggle. ‘Let me up, Danny. That’s me grandad coming. I’ll go and meet him. He’ll not let me mam send me away. He’ll tell her!’

  Danny released her and stood up. He held out his hands to pull her up from the sand, but before he had regained his breath, she was up and out of the sheltered sandy hollow racing down the slope of the eastern dunes. Across the flat marsh she ran, jumping the winding creeks, squelching through the mud, her long hair flying free.

  ‘Katie – Katie, wait for me,’ she heard him calling behind her. But as always she was darting ahead of him. He was still splashing through the streams as she was climbing the line of sand-dunes which ran parallel to the road leading from the town of Lynthorpe to Fleethaven Point. Then she was beneath the elder trees, slithering down into the lane.

  ‘Grandad – Grandad!’

  The rattling wheels of Will Benson’s carrier’s cart came to a halt. ‘Why, Katie, me little lass, what are you doin’ at home? Ah thought you’d be in school.’

  He leaned down from his high seat on the front of the cart above the broad backs of his two horses and held out his hand to her. ‘Up you come then, me lass.’

  ‘It’s still the Easter holidays, Grandad.’ Kate settled herself on the narrow seat at his side and smiled up at him, tossing back the strands of hair which fluttered across her face.

  ‘O’ course it is. Ah’d forgotten. Why, here’s Danny an’ all,’ Will said, as the boy came crashing down the wooded slope of the dunes and into the lane. ‘Come on, lad, climb up. There’s no room on the seat, but you can stand on the shaft. Hang on, mind.’

  Danny grinned up at the carrier, caught hold of the side of the cart and pulled himself up. ‘Thanks, Mester Benson. Just as far as the gate. I’d best be off home mesen.’

  ’Ow’s it feel to be a working man, then, eh, Danny?’ Will Benson laughed wheezily. There wasn’t much that escaped the carrier. News travelled on his cart alongside the pots, pans and provisions.

  ‘He dun’t start till Monday, Grandad,’ Kate said.

  ‘Holiday, is it, lad, ’afore you even start? Eh, but Ah dun’t know what things is coming to. Why, in my day . . .’

  ‘Oh, Grandad!’ Kate giggled and wriggled her fingers against the old man’s ribs to tickle him, but she could not feel his body beneath the thick coat he wore. Although spring had arrived, it was still cold riding on the front of his cart in all weathers when the wind whipped across the flat Lincolnshire fenland. Kate loved her grandfather. As long as she could remember, he had spoilt her and could be relied upon to take her side, even against her mother. He always looked so smart, Kate thought looking up at him now, with his black trousers and pin-striped jacket and matching waistcoat, a gold watch-chain looped across his narrow chest. She only had to ask for him to pull the watch out of his pocket and hold it to her ear to listen to its tiny tick-tick-tick. And his boots, resting on the foot-board, shone so that she could almost see her face in their hard, rounded toe-caps. She liked it in summer when he wore a rakish boater-shaped hat, but today he still wore his winter cap against the cold. His smooth hair was almost completely white with only a few strands of
the ginger colour it had once been still showing. Will Benson’s old eyes twinkled down at her and he wiggled his white moustache. ‘You’ll be losing yar playmate then, eh, Katie?’

  Remembering suddenly, the smile fled from her face.

  ‘Grandad – ya’ve got to speak to me mam. She’s going to send me away. To boarding school. Ya won’t let her, will ya, Grandad?’

  Will Benson slapped the two horses with the reins and above the rattle of the cart’s wheels he asked, ‘What? What’s that you say?’

  Raising her voice, Kate repeated, ‘Me mam’s sending me to boarding school in Lincoln, come September. I dun’t want to go, Grandad. I’ll hate it!’

  ‘Huh!’ Will made a disapproving noise and muttered something that sounded like ‘We’ll see about this’. Above the noise of the cart-wheels, however, Kate could not be sure exactly what he had said.

  But she was sure the moment he opened the back door of the farmhouse and stepped into the back scullery.

  ‘Esther,’ he bellowed. ‘You here, Esther?’

  ‘In here, Dad,’ came her mother’s voice. Kate followed her grandfather into the kitchen.

  Esther Godfrey was standing at the large kitchen table. A thick blanket was spread upon it and an old sheet, worn to transparent thinness, on top of that. Two flat irons were heating on the range while she worked with a third ironing the previous morning’s wash. From the wicker cradle in the far corner came the baby’s mewling.

  ‘Oh, there you are, Missy! And just where did you disappear to?’ her mother began and Kate was sure she added under her breath, ‘As if I need to ask!’

  Peeping round the comforting figure of her grandfather and using his presence as a buffer against her mother’s wrath, Kate said, ‘I’ve been on the beach with Danny.’

  She saw her mother’s mouth tighten. ‘I thought as much. Into the scullery and wash yar hands. Dinner’s in ten minutes, now yar grandad’s here.’

  Kate obeyed, but left the door ajar so that she could peep through the crack and listen to their conversation.

  In a tone that Kate could not remember having heard him use before, Will said, ‘What’s this Katie tells me about you sending her away to school?’

  She saw her mother glance up in surprise, the iron suspended in mid-air before it thudded down on to one of the baby’s white frocks.

  ‘Well?’ Will Benson’s tone was sharp.

  The iron came up again, the tiny dress was flicked over and the iron thudded down once more. In the grate of the huge black range a log fell, sending a shower of sparks up the flue.

  ‘I’m thinking about it – that’s all.’ Her mother’s tone was terse. ‘Nothing’s settled – yet.’

  ‘Ya shouldn’t be even thinking about sending the bairn away. A country bairn in a city! Lass’ll pine away. Besides, how can you afford the fees them fancy schools charge?’

  ‘I’ve scrimped and saved – that’s how. I’ve still got me box under the bed and there’s not a week goes by but I don’t add a shillin’ or two. I can afford it, Dad, I’ve minded that.’

  Will grunted, casting about for another objection now that one had been foiled. ‘Ya trying to turn her into something she’s not . . .’

  ‘Dad – I’ve got to get her away from here. Now she’s growing older. You know why. It’s for her own good.’

  And although Kate strained her ears, it seemed as if her grandad made no reply to her mother’s puzzling statement.

  Two

  ‘Kate. Kate, where are you?’

  ‘Here, Dad, in the wash-house.’

  Jonathan Godfrey appeared in the doorway. ‘Samphire’s about to calve. Do you want to watch?’

  ‘Me mam’s set me to mash these ’tates for the little pigs. Then she said I’d to go to bed.’

  ‘Bed? This early?’ His blue eyes sparked with mischief, the tanned skin around them wrinkling with laughter-lines. He brushed back the lock of fair hair that fell in a gentle flick over his forehead. ‘What have you been doing to deserve such dire punishment?’

  Kate breathed in the smell of steaming potatoes, just out of the copper in the corner of the wash-house. As she thumped the wooden masher down, splitting open the brown skins and releasing the creamy potato, her hair fell forward like a curtain, hiding her face. ‘I was late back from the beach,’ she muttered.

  ‘And?’ he prompted. ‘There’s got to be more than that.’

  ‘I forgot to feed the hens ’afore I went to play with Danny.’

  ‘Ah – with Danny.’ She thought she heard him sigh softly, but his eyes were twinkling at her as he added, teasing gently, ‘And forgetting the hens. Dear me, that explains it.’

  She smiled ruefully and continued mashing the potatoes with a steady, easy motion.

  ‘Well,’ he was saying, ‘I could do with a little help . . .’

  She tossed back her hair, her eyes shining. ‘Aw, thanks, Dad.’

  He put his forefinger to his lips. ‘Not a word to your mother.’ He turned to go. ‘Samphire’s in the little barn, Kate. There’s more room there than in the cowshed.’

  The girl nodded, understanding immediately. This particular cow out of their small herd of four was temperamental at the best of times. She had to be hoppled sometimes just to be milked; calving, she’d be even more difficult. They’d need plenty of space to avoid her kicking hooves.

  A little later Kate crossed the yard to the small barn lying between the cowshed and the stables. As she stepped into the dim interior and pulled the door closed behind her, a rat scuttled along a rafter above her head. She glanced up and smiled briefly.

  ‘I ain’t time to be chasing you, Mester Rat. You’re safe from me big stick just now!’ she murmured, thinking of all the times she and Danny had made a game of chasing rats. As her eyes became accustomed to the gloom, Kate moved softly across the thick carpet of straw towards where her stepfather stood beside the cow. Samphire was making a dreadful noise, bellowing and stamping. Suddenly she pushed sideways towards Jonathan Godfrey, pinning him against the brick wall.

  ‘Dad!’

  ‘Keep back, Kate,’ he gasped. ‘Don’t get near her back legs – whatever you do.’

  With all his strength he shoved at the cow and, gaining a little space, moved swiftly out of the way.

  ‘You all right, Dad?’

  ‘She’s winded me a bit, that’s all,’ he said, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. ‘I can’t seem to pacify her, Kate. Your mother’s the only one who can quieten Samphire.’

  After a moment’s hesitation, for it would mean she would be banished from the barn, the girl asked, ‘Shall I fetch me mam?’

  ‘You can’t. She’s gone to the Grange to see Squire Marshall. It’s rent day.’ He glanced down at her and for a moment the worried expression on his face lightened as they exchanged an amused glance.

  Esther Godfrey was meticulous in money matters. Her quarterly rent for the tenancy of Brumbys’ Farm, which was solely in her name, must be paid exactly on the day it was due.

  Turning back to watch the restless cow pulling at the rope which tethered her to the wall, Jonathan’s face sobered again as he said, ‘I’m rather afraid the calf is breech.’

  ‘Ya’ll have to turn it, Dad.’

  She saw the beads of sweat standing out on his forehead. Again he swept his hand across his brow. He took a tentative step towards the cow and stopped. Kate watched him. It was obvious that her stepfather was unsure what he needed to do. After all, she thought, with sudden sympathy for him, he had only been involved in farmwork since marrying her mother four years earlier. His trade had been building traction engines in Lincoln.

  Kate touched his arm. ‘Ya need to put yar arm inside her and . . .’

  The sweat was running down the side of his face now at the mere thought.

  ‘I’ve watched your mother – but . . .’ His anxious glance flitted towards the cow and back again to Kate. His anxiety was becoming almost fear.

  ‘Wait
, Dad, just wait here and watch her. Dun’t do anything . . .’ Kate turned and ran towards the door.

  ‘Kate – wait! Where . . .?’

  But she was out of the door and running round the corner of the building and out of the yard gate.

  Danny – she must fetch Danny. He would know what to do. In the lane she turned to the right and sped towards the Point. Arriving at the top of the steep incline, known as the Hump, over a natural bank in the road, she paused to catch her breath and survey the scene below her. To her right the setting sun slanted golden streaks across the fields harrowed smooth and flat after the recent spring sowing. The River Lynn meandered through the fields to the Point where it joined the sea. To her left was the pub and beyond it, the marsh and then the sea. Directly in front of her was a stretch of grass between the river bank and the line of four cottages where Danny lived.

  The three Harris brothers, Peter, Luke and Georgie, were playing cricket on the grass, but Kate could not see Danny among them.

  She plunged down the bank and, lifting her skirt to her knees, sprinted across the grass. ‘Georgie – Georgie! Where’s Danny?’

  ‘Hello, young Kate. Come to play cricket, ’ave ya?’

  ‘Dun’t let her play again, Georgie,’ shouted Peter, though he was grinning as he said it. ‘She batted our ball into the river last time,’ They were all older than Kate and Danny; fine, strapping young men with broad, muscular shoulders and faces tanned a healthy bronze from working out in all weathers. None of them had married as yet and still lived at home with their parents in the end cottage. ‘Can’t find a lass to match me mam’s cooking’ was their unanimous verdict, but if the snatches of conversation Kate overheard sometimes were true, they all three had ‘an eye for the lasses’ but preferred to stay fancy-free, at least for the present.

  ‘Where’s Danny?’ she demanded.

  The young man clasped his hands over the place where he believed his heart to be and dropped to his knees on the grass. ‘Danny – always Danny! And here am I pining for one little kiss . . .’