by Ruth Sutton
A gust of wind moaned in the chimney and the fire sparked suddenly. A burning coal tumbled onto the rug and Jessie scooped it up with the shovel, but not before a smell of burning wool escaped, acrid, into the tension of the room.
‘After all these years,’ Agnes’s voice burst out again, unnaturally loud, accusatory. ‘I thought I knew you. I thought we were friends. And all the time you were thinking about … that. I thought we would grow old together, you and I. Maybe even share a house when we needed to help each other, later. I never knew you. I never imagined –’
She got up suddenly, knocking the small table in front of her.
‘I have to go. I can’t stay here. I should have known. You’ve always had something about you. It was sex, that’s what it was. I should have known.’
Jessie started to get up.
Agnes raised her hand again.
‘No, don’t touch me. I’m going. Leave me alone. Stay with your filthy lover. Don’t speak to me.’
Agnes stumbled out of the room. Jessie heard the back door slam behind her.
Anger came first. Jessie sat and cried for a few minutes, not a sad, quiet crying but fierce and breathless. She could not believe that Agnes had spoken to her in that way, used words like ‘disgust’, and ‘filthy’. How could she?
‘You think you know someone, that they like and respect you,’ she thought, ‘and then something happens and all that is lost in an instant. Not just lost but replaced by such hatred. I’m the same person I was before.’
She got up to deal with the sputtering fire, and when that small distraction was over, more thoughts flooded in, more disturbing thoughts. Maybe Agnes’s reaction was truly the way the world, or at least this world, would judge her. Maybe going to bed with a younger man, doing what she and Andrew did and enjoying it, maybe that was just unacceptable to everyone else. There were things she found difficult. The way Andrew talked to her when they were alone excited her, she had to admit that, but it was crude and shameful even, when she looked back on it. Sometimes his lovemaking was rougher than she wanted. Many women would find it impossible, but she wasn’t ‘many women’. She loved the manliness of Andrew, the lust and the strength, as she had loved it in Clive, too.
She had to admit that Agnes was right about something: there was huge risk for Jessie in what she was doing. No one would censure Andrew, or even be surprised. She knew he already had a reputation as a ladies’ man, and was admired for it. But for her it was different. As a headteacher, even being female was a problem these days. To have any chance of keeping the job she loved, she had to be seen to be beyond reproach. What were the chances, realistically, of keeping this secret? She could trust herself. She doubted that Agnes would ever bring herself to mention anything about it to anyone. But Andrew? Could he keep quiet about it? Sometimes she felt as if he had pursued her because of what she was, not who she was. Could that be? Something he was trying to prove, to himself, or to his father? Would he blurt it out in a rage, or after a drink?
Andrew wanted to get away, that was clear. Maybe he sincerely wanted or expected that Jessie would go with him, and that would be the end of the problem. But her instinct had said from the start that they did not have a long future together. If she was going to start again, it would be on her own, not tied to a man who would still be in his prime when she was old and needing care more than passion. Was that how it would be, she wondered. If she ended this with Andrew, would there ever be a chance of love again, real physical love not some dry cerebral friendship?
Some clear thoughts were emerging. She would not talk to Agnes for a while, to let her calm down. Maybe Agnes would apologise for the outburst. Maybe they could be friends again, but certainly not yet. And she would have to talk to Andrew, to make him understand. She had to decide what to say to him. She would take a few days and then give him the signal by closing the curtains in the spare room, which he could see from the road. Until then, she hoped he would stay away and give her time to think. Her mind was clearer, but now the sadness came. This time she cried for lost youth, and lost love and lost friends, overwhelmed by loneliness.
Chapter 19
The following week passed in a haze of work, routine, distraction. Every night Jessie stayed at school as long as she could to avoid the emptiness of her own home, the beloved home that had been invaded by fear and anxiety. She could lose it all, the job, the house, her reputation and respect in the village, and for what? Did he love her, really love her, not just the lust that was so obvious and so inexplicable? Could she trust him to keep quiet about it, and for how long?
The weekend, when it finally arrived, stretched before her like a prison sentence. It was dark early, and by the time she walked the few yards from the school to her house on Friday afternoon the rain was slanting in from the south-east, cold and hard against her face. Even if she’d had anywhere to go, leaving the house again was a daunting prospect. She would rely on a good meal, a warm fire and the radio to distract and comfort her during the evening ahead. Tomorrow, with any luck, she could get out into the air and be able to think more clearly.
Food and warmth certainly helped, as did a couple of glasses of sloe gin, the remnants of last year’s crop that would be replenished by the new vintage maturing in the dark recesses of her kitchen cupboard. At least for a short while she didn’t have to talk to anyone, to explain or even defend herself. By nine o’clock Jessie had almost convinced herself that Andrew was serious about going to Canada and taking her with him to start a new life there. He would settle down away from the pub and the hunt and young girls who brought out the worst in him. She would find a job in a Canadian school and be appreciated for what she could offer. They would be happy for a while, until the age difference between them became more of a problem and after that, who knew what might happen? But at least she would have known what it was like to love and be loved for the first time in decades. She deserved that. The prospect of a new life and love, made more attractive by the impact of the sweet scarlet contents of her third glass, lulled her into welcome sleep.
But it was a false prospect. With the damp dawn came disappointment and the same depression that had weighed on her all the previous week. Agnes’s reaction had been extreme, but her caution was well founded. Jessie’s rational being knew that she had more to lose than to gain from her association with Andrew, however exciting it might be. Her life and her future were here in this community, if not in this village. Her heart might yearn for adventure and romance like a love-struck teenager, but her strong head recognized the siren’s call for what it was, an invitation to disaster. Jessie accepted her headache as a necessary punishment for foolishness and determined to treat it not with liver salts but with a good brisk walk.
Dealing with Agnes would clearly have to wait. For the time being she would seek company elsewhere, up the valley, and take advantage of the offer that had been made at the hunt ball, before Andrew’s intervention had changed everything. It was a good step up to Boot to visit the Porters at Mill Cottage but if she set off early and strode out it would occupy her for most of the daylight hours, which was exactly what she wanted.
As it happened, Jessie didn’t need to walk all the way to Boot that morning. The fish cart was going as far as Ganthwaite and Mr Mulholland was grateful for the company as he and his horse made their way up there. It meant a few stops along the road, and a slight odour that lingered on Jessie’s coat for a while, but it cut her walk down to a couple of miles and brought her by around noon to the end of the lane running up to the mill and the cottage. If no one was in, it didn’t really matter, she thought to herself: the walk would do her good with or without the company.
Nevertheless as she crested the little bridge Jessie was pleased to see the front door of the cottage open. On a summer’s day it might be left open even if the house was empty but not today, when the wind was still strong and smelled of rain. Without sunlight to brighten it the brown bracken on the hillsides all around was dull, much of it already f
lattened by the weather. It would be months before the new growth struggled through. To her right she could hear the great water wheel turning but it was hidden from view behind the low slate buildings of the mill.
The steps up to the cottage door were greasy from the overnight rain and required some concentration. She heard Fred Porter’s voice before she saw him, standing just inside the doorway, holding on to the door rather than his stick, which he rarely used in the house.
‘Why it’s the schoolteacher come to visit,’ he cried. ‘Come in, lass, and let’s get this door shut. Hannah’s been sweeping but the wind’s blowing dust in, not out.’
Jessie looked up at Fred and they smiled at each other. There was something about this man that was reassuring, so unlike the unsettling affect that Andrew had on her. Fred was about Jessie’s age, she guessed, maybe a little older but he seemed wise and comfortable with himself and with his wife, who appeared from upstairs wiping her hands on a red pinafore that reached almost to the ground.
‘Well Miss Whelan, good to see ye,’ said Hannah. ‘I said to Fred, it’s time we met Miss Whelan proper, after all these years of knowing her face but nowt else.’
‘I was thinking exactly the same,’ said Jessie. ‘I know all the children and their families of course, but sometimes miss out on other good people who live around me.’
‘Well we’re reet glad you came to see us, aren’t we love,’ said Fred, taking Jessie’s big coat from her to hang up behind the door which was now firmly shut against the wind and the coming rain.
‘So, sit thisen down and gi’us all the crack,’ said Hannah, taking off her pinafore to reveal a long patchwork skirt and green woolen cardigan.
‘Not much to tell,’ Jessie said. ‘Just a plain old country schoolteacher, you know.’
‘That’s rubbish for a start, eh Fred,’ Hannah retorted. ‘Plain old, my eye! We saw you dancing t’other night, showing those young ’uns a thing or two. Where did ye larn to dance like that I wonder?’
Jessie smiled at the memory. ‘Actually, it was in the war, now I come to think of it. I was working in an aircraft parts place down in Chorley, and the girls I lodged with taught me to dance. And we practised too, every Saturday night when we weren’t working.’
‘So ’ow did ye get to be a schoolteacher then?’ Fred asked as he leaned against the back door, filling the kettle from a large jug.
‘After it was all over and the factory was stood down I got a place at a college near Liverpool and used the money I’d saved. It was hard, but worth it. When I was qualified I could come back to my roots, or closer anyway.’ Jessie hesitated. The habit of secrecy was strong but she could tell that secrecy would be challenged in this house. Time to change the subject.
‘But what about you two? What a bonus to have electricity up here while the rest of us are still doing without. Sometimes the west coast feels like the land that time forgot.’
‘That’s what comes of finding a very clever man and marrying ’im before anyone else snaps ’im up,’ said Hannah, turning to laugh at Fred. ’E may have lost a leg but ’e’s got a reet good brain. Dad never understood that.’
‘He thought having one eye made ye stupid as well, love,’ Fred’s quiet voice came from the dark side of the room. ‘We’ve neither of us ’ad much schooling, Miss Whelan, but we can still work things out.’
‘Oh call me Jessie, please,’ said Jessie. ‘Unless you want me to call you Mr and Mrs Porter.’
Fred sat down heavily on a wooden chair at the table. ‘I’ve a story for you Miss – Jessie, about how keen she was to be wed,’ He pointed at Hannah, who laughed as she knew what was coming. ‘We had to sign t’register like, when we were wed, and Hannah was supposed to sign ’er unmarried name, but she were in that much of an ’urry she started to sign ’erself Hannah Porter instead of Hannah Tyson. She’d to cross it out and start again. We laughed, didn’t we, love?’
Jessie looked at them. ‘When did you two meet?’ she asked.
‘Well it was Dad’s sister Mattie,’ said Hannah. ‘She always told me dad to go easier on me, and to stop blaming me for Mam’s death. Mam died having me ye see, and ’e never really got ower it. Given a choice, ’e’d have taken ’er over me any time. Anyway, I must have been mid-twenties, summat around that, and ’e were getting worse, ’ardly let me do anything except look after ’im and ’ouse. I were ground down by it.’
‘You were that, love,’ Fred chipped in. ‘She were a lovely lass, Jessie, and treated bad. ’E didn’t mean it I reckon, just didn’t think of anyone save himself and his own troubles.’
‘And ’e worked ’ard,’ said Hannah, ‘too ’ard, looking back on it now.’
Hannah broke off to find some gingerbread in one of the tins on the shelf, leaving the story hanging. Jessie took a piece of the proffered gingerbread and waited.
‘Where was I?’ said Hannah.
‘Mattie,’ said Fred.
‘Oh, aye. Well, Dad’s sister Mattie lived in Broughton. She came to visit and gave me dad a right rocket about the way ’e were treating me. I were upstairs but I could ’ear them going at it ’ammer and tongs.’
‘She were fierce, that Mattie,’ Fred added. So ’e didn’t stand a chance.’
‘Well it ended up that Mattie got one of ’er lasses, a bit younger than me she were, to swap with me for a full month to give me a break from looking after me dad.’
‘And to get the lass away from that lad she was seeing, the big lad, Hewer, they called ’im. ‘
‘That’s it!’ cried Hannah. ‘I’d forgotten that bit. Dan Hewer. They married in the end but didn’t last. She ran off with that bugger from Gawthwaite, what’s ’is name? Doesn’t matter anyway. Gertie they called her. She came over ’ere, and I went there, to Broughton. It were market day that first week I were there, and I was watching all t’folk and I saw this man, ’andsome as auld Nick, sitting on the steps by the cross in the square, whittling or summat, just sitting there, and that was it. Saw him smile, cornflower eyes, lovely hands, curly hair, that was it. Smitten. When ’e stood up ’e only had one leg, but too late. I’d ’ad it by then.’
‘What did your father say?’
‘Didn’t tell ’im, did I. Me and Fred kept it dark as long as we could. It were that stupid Gertie, blurted out summat to me Dad about me man only having one leg and there were ’ell on. ’E gollered and radged. No way we could wed with that going on, so we ’ad to wait. Wait to wed, not for anything else, eh, Fred.’
‘Give ower love, in front of company.’
‘Anyway, ’e died, me dad, God rest ’im, and ’ere we are, ’appy as pigs in you know what. It were meant to be, no question, so we just ’ad to take the chance when we got it.’
‘And you never found someone?’ Fred asked, looking across at Jessie. ‘Handsome clever woman like you. How did that ’appen?’
‘War, was it?’ said Hannah.
‘Me and a million others,’ said Jessie, glad to have such a simple explanation offered to her. ‘Not in France, but in the shipyard of all places. He was helping build an airship and he fell. Banged his head on the side of the dock and that was that.’
They shook their heads at the injustice of it all. Jessie let the silence swallow any further explanation.
Hannah reached for her pinafore. ‘Looks like lunchtime already and ’ere we are raking over auld times and no sign of our John. Where did ’e say ’e were going, Fred?’
‘Just up to Hardknott, he said, and straight back. Should be ’ere soon.’
‘I’ll get food on table and he’ll walk in, you watch. Needs his food, that’s for sure. Much better than ’e was, but still not reet. Too thin for ’is own good, and broods a lot. Spends too much time on ’is own, ’appen. Young people need company.’
‘Is he back at work yet, after his time in hospital?’
‘Doc says no, not yet. He were really bad, nearly died, they said. Lucky that doctor was up there at the Wasdale Head that night and got ’him straight
into hospital. Says he might go and see his aunt and uncle in Ulverston, something to do with his mam’s death. Dinna know what’ll ’appen about the quarry job. ’E doesn’t tell us much.’
Fred glanced out of the window at the front of the house.
‘Looks like ’im coming over bridge now. You were right Hannah, he must’ve smelled that cheese.’
Jessie got up to help Hannah put plates and knives on the table. The sound of the door opening made her turn towards it. The young man’s shape was outlined against the light, bending his head in the low doorway, and she couldn’t yet see him clearly. He was wearing a hat pulled down low over his eyes, and a woollen jacket with the collar turned up against the wind.
As she watched, the man stood up straight and pulled off his hat. Jessie caught sight of the dark hair, the face, the shape of the shoulders. She gasped, put a hand to her open mouth and then fell heavily, straight down onto the flagged floor and a rug the colour of blood. For a moment three people stared at the woman lying on the floor, watching as she stirred slightly. It was John who moved first, holding his arm out to keep Fred away before he too lost his balance.
‘Who is it?’ John asked, as he pushed away a chair and knelt down beside Jessie.
‘Miss Whelan, schoolteacher from Newton,’ said Hannah. ‘We saw ’er at the hunt ball and she walked up to visit.’
‘Is she ill?’ asked John, and then turned his attention to Jessie as she struggled to raise her head. ‘Get us some water, Hannah. She’s just fainted.’
Hannah poured some water into a big mug and brought it across.
John helped Jessie to sit up, and supported her while she drank from the proffered mug. He took the mug from her but Jessie kept her head down.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she murmured. ‘I don’t know what happened. I was getting up and then everything went round and blurred and down I went. I’m fine, really. If you could let me lean …’
John took her elbow and helped her as she got slowly to her feet, then guided her back into a chair. Still Jessie did not look up.
