Forever Yours

by Rita Bradshaw

  Her legs were aching with battling against the snow when Appleby Cottage finally came into sight, nestling amidst trees and with blue smoke curling from the chimney. Rebecca had passed by the cottage in the summer and then the rustic porch had been smothered in honeysuckle and the small front garden a mass of flowers. She had stood and gazed in wonder at the wallflowers, lavender and sweet william, pinks and roses of every hue, until her father had urged her on in the Sunday-afternoon walk they were taking. It was then he’d reminisced about the Colonel and his wife, telling her about the orchard at the back of the house which led to a little field where the Colonel kept his horse and a cow. There was a yew hedge closer to the cottage, he’d said, as solid as a wall, which sheltered the Colonel’s wife’s beehives, and another separate enclosed piece of ground where they grew vegetables and had fruit-bushes. But of course the Colonel was old now, the couple had been much more sprightly when he was a boy although sadly they’d never had bairns of their own.

  It had only been a few months after that, just before Christmas, that they’d heard the Colonel and his wife had died within days of each other and the cottage was up for sale.

  The diamond-paned windows twinkled at her as she opened the rickety gate. Someone had brushed the path leading to the cottage free of snow and the brass knocker on the front door was gleaming bright. Now the moment had come to confront the woman she had heard so much about, Rebecca found she was nervous. What if Constance refused to visit her grandma now she was a grand lady? Worse, she might take offence at her interference and complain about her. Not only would she get into trouble with her da for disobeying him, but Mr and Mrs Turner could get to hear of what she’d been about when she was supposed to be in bed with an attack of the skitters.

  She stood hesitating on the doorstep for a few moments, and then a picture of her grandma’s face the way it had been when Mrs Mullen had left came to mind. Her heart beating in her throat, she lifted her hand and grasped the knocker.

  The sound it made seemed to echo in her head and it increased the feeling that she shouldn’t have come. She heard a dog bark inside the cottage and took a nervous step backwards, half-inclined to retreat to the lane and close the gate. But then the door opened.

  She knew immediately this must be Constance because the woman staring at her was quite, quite beautiful, fair and delicate-looking, with the biggest blue eyes she had ever seen in a human face. Quickly, she gabbled, ‘I’m sorry to bother you and I shouldn’t have come, I know that, but I wanted to ask you to visit my grandma. She knows you’re here and—’

  ‘You are Tilly’s daughter.’

  The warm northern voice was reassuring. Rebecca took a breath. ‘Aye, yes I am.’

  ‘You’re very like her.’ Constance smiled. ‘Come in, do.’ She opened the door wider and as she did so Rebecca saw a great, lanky dog standing behind her. It was skeletal, just skin and bone, and as Constance followed her gaze, she said, ‘This is Jake, at least that’s what I’ve called him. He was scrounging around in the outbuildings when I arrived. I think he must have been the previous owners’ dog and everyone forgot about him when the old couple died. We’ve adopted each other. As you can see, I need to feed him up.’

  ‘Is he friendly?’ Rebecca liked dogs but this one was huge.

  Constance nodded. ‘I think he’s one of those dogs whose bark is worse than his bite, although he doesn’t seem to like men much.’

  Tentatively Rebecca edged into the hall and as she passed Jake a long pink tongue came out and licked her hand.

  The hall was small but when Constance opened a door which led into an oak-beamed sitting room, Rebecca involuntarily murmured,‘Oh, it’s bonny,’ as she gazed around her, open-mouthed.

  The room was a perfect snuggery and lovely and warm thanks to a large fireplace in which a good fire blazed. This was framed by a carved wooden mantelpiece which would have graced a far bigger residence. Rebecca knew nothing about furniture but she could see that every piece in the room was vastly superior to anything she had seen before, and the thick red curtains at the window and fine shop-bought rugs on the polished floor – shop-bought, mind, and not clippy mats – emphasised the feeling of expensive comfort. The whole of the downstairs of their house could have fitted into this one room.

  ‘It is bonny,’ Constance agreed quietly, ‘but I’m afraid I can’t take credit for it. Everything was left as it was when the Colonel and his wife died and is included in the price of the cottage. Would you like to see the rest of it?’

  Rebecca would like, and the cottage’s dining room, study and kitchen, along with the four large bedrooms, were equally well furnished and opulent. There was even a bathroom upstairs with a cast-iron bath on little legs in the middle of it and two hand basins on stands with enormous copper watering cans at the side.

  In a small room leading off the kitchen, which Constance said she thought might have been a scullery at one time, the Colonel had installed an indoor privy, the drain of which led under the gardens at the back of the house right past the field where the cow and horse had lived in the summer to a soakaway which disappeared at the edge of the old quarry. This innovation had Rebecca awe-struck. She had heard of indoor privies but never thought to see one. Not in Sacriston.

  The Colonel had even provided a flow of water into the house by means of a pump and piping from the stream which ran along the bottom of the garden, but that was frozen over at the moment, Constance told her. But the well at the back of the outhouses and stable yielded water, winter and summer. A wash-house with a boiler and big stone sink and mangle completed the tour, after which Constance left her in the sitting room while she went to make a pot of tea. Rebecca was acutely aware that Constance hadn’t referred to what she had said when she’d arrived on her doorstep, but had kept the conversation friendly but impersonal.

  She sat nervously fondling Jake’s silky ears as she waited for Constance to return with the tea-tray and practised what she was going to say. The dog nuzzled her hand now and again, as if he sensed her agitation. Which he probably did. Dogs were intuitive that way, she thought.

  When the sitting-room door opened again she didn’t know whether to stand up or remain sitting, and something of her state of mind must have communicated itself to the graceful young woman in front of her because Constance said softly, ‘Don’t be fearful, Rebecca. I hope you know you’re among friends.’

  ‘I’m not fearful, not really. It’s just that . . .’

  ‘No one knows you’ve come to see me?’ Constance finished for her.

  Rebecca’s eyes widened. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘I put two and two together. I doubt your father would have been happy for you to take a walk on such a day if he had known.’ Constance put the tea-tray on one of the small occasional tables dotted about the room and drew a chair closer to Rebecca’s. ‘Now, tell me what’s worrying you.’

  ‘It’s not me.’ Rebecca found that after all her thinking she still didn’t know where to start. ‘It’s my grandma and Mrs Mullen.’

  ‘Oh, I remember Mrs Mullen. We used to call her Meddling Mullen when I was a bairn.’

  ‘Did you? Well, she still is. Meddling, I mean. You see, it’s like this . . .’

  Constance sat looking at Tilly’s daughter as she talked. She liked her, she thought with a dart of surprise. Somehow she hadn’t expected to. But Rebecca was a lovely lass, warm and sweet with a natural kindness which shone out of her pretty face. And Matt was her father. She waited for the ache which always came with the knowledge that he had fathered a child with someone else, and although it was there it wasn’t so painful now she had met Rebecca.

  ‘. . . and so I wondered if you’d mind calling to see her as soon as you can. Just so she knows the two of you are still friends,’ Rebecca finished.

  ‘Of course I will. I fully intended to call once I’d settled in over the weekend, but then with the weather being so inclement I’m afraid I haven’t budged from the fireside. I’ll walk back with y
ou now if you like . . . Oh no, no, that won’t do, will it? Not if your visit needs to be kept between the two of us. I’ll go tomorrow morning, whatever the weather. How’s that?’

  Rebecca smiled. This had all gone far better than she could have hoped. Now all she had to do was get home without anyone seeing her. She could say to her da once he came in from the pit that she’d been in bed all afternoon but felt much better.

  They sat having tea and cake and Constance told Rebecca all about the Ashtons’ estate and life in the big house until the rapidly deepening twilight reminded Rebecca that she had to leave. Constance insisted she and Jake would accompany Rebecca to the end of the lane and along the main road until the lights of the village were in sight, and the three set off together. Jake bounded ahead of them, cavorting in the snow like a puppy and making them laugh as he flung great mouthfuls of snow in the air.

  It was dark by the time they reached the place where they had to part but Rebecca didn’t mind this. She was less likely to be spotted by someone. As Constance called Jake to heel, Rebecca touched her arm. ‘Thank you,’ she said awkwardly, suddenly shy again. ‘I hope you didn’t mind me intruding.’

  ‘You didn’t.’ Constance smiled at her. ‘You were my first visitor and I can’t think of a nicer one. I hope we see each other again now I’m back in the area. You must come for tea one day and bring your Larry, and – and your da, of course. Once you and I have met officially, that is.’

  Rebecca grinned. ‘I’ll have to remember I don’t know you, won’t I? But once you’ve seen Gran I’ll get Da to come and say hello. Perhaps on Sunday afternoon? I could bring Larry too.’

  Constance’s heart bounded in her chest. ‘Please do.’ She and Jake stood watching Rebecca until the girl turned and waved just before a bend in the road hid her from view.

  Constance looked down at the big dog who gazed back at her with soulful eyes before giving a soft whine. ‘I know, she’s nice, isn’t she, and the last thing we expected was a visitor out of the blue.’ She ruffled the wiry hair on the long head. ‘I think this is a good omen, lad. Don’t you?’ Her gaze returned to the dark road. ‘Please, God, please let it be a good omen,’ she whispered. ‘Please let him want me. I don’t mind waiting. I’ve waited years as it is.’

  Jake whined again, louder, bringing her attention back to him. ‘You’re nothing but a cupboard love,’ she said softly. ‘You want your dinner, don’t you, and who can blame you after what you’ve been through? Come on then, let’s go home.’

  Rebecca was humming to herself as she approached the house via the back lane. The snow had held off and Constance had agreed to see her grandma tomorrow. And she was lovely. Not a bit uppity as she’d half-expected. And Appleby Cottage – oh, she wished her grandma could see inside. Her eyes would pop out.

  Engrossed in her thoughts, she was halfway down the backyard before she realised there was a light in the kitchen. She stopped, her brow wrinkling. Her da was on the afternoon shift, so it couldn’t be him, but who else would be in their kitchen? Quickly now she entered the house, not stopping to take off her boots before she opened the scullery door leading into the kitchen. As she did so, her father looked up from where he was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of tea in front of him.

  ‘Da?’ Her voice was high. Something was wrong. ‘Why are you home? What’s happened?’

  ‘Your granda had an accident.’ He raised his hand as she went to speak. ‘He’s all right, just a broken leg. There was a bit of a fall and he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. We got him up and the doctor’s seen him and he’s back home with your grandma. He was asleep when I left.’

  Rebecca sat down on one of the kitchen chairs as her legs went weak. For a moment she had thought . . .

  ‘I called in at the shop to tell you.’

  Her eyes shot to her father’s face. She suddenly realised his voice hadn’t been the same when he told her about her granda.

  ‘They told me you were home with an upset tummy so I came here. That was at four o’clock. It’s now’ – he looked at the clock on the mantelpiece above the range – ‘gone half-five. Where have you been, Rebecca?’

  He knew. She could see it in his eyes. They had lost their usual velvety softness and were gimlet hard. Swallowing, she said, ‘I can explain. I had to tell them I was ill.’

  ‘Oh aye? Why was that then?’

  ‘I – I couldn’t stop thinking about Grandma and how she’d looked after Mrs Mullen had told her about Constance, and so – and so I . . .’ She drew in a deep breath; she had never seen him so angry, not with her anyway. ‘I went to Appleby Cottage.’

  ‘Despite the fact I’d specifically forbidden it?’

  ‘You didn’t, not exactly. You said you wouldn’t go but you didn’t say I couldn’t.’

  ‘So you thought I would approve of you lying to your employers and skiving off for the afternoon in order to demean yourself by begging Miss Shelton to do your grandma the great honour of visiting her? Is that it?’

  Put like that it sounded awful. ‘It – it wasn’t like that. Constance isn’t like that.’

  ‘And you had no intention of telling me about this, had you? Nor your grandma, I presume.’

  Rebecca hung her head.

  ‘Had you?’ he persisted grimly.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you understand what you have done? Have you any idea of the position you’ve placed us in? To go and see a virtual stranger and blackmail her with the past into doing something she obviously had no wish to do. What were you thinking of?’

  ‘I tell you it wasn’t like that.’ Her voice was harsh now in an effort to stop the tears from falling. ‘Constance was lovely and she made me welcome and showed me round the cottage and everything, and it might be grand and beautiful and she might have pots of money but she isn’t uppity about it. She wants us to go and have a cup of tea with her Sunday afternoon and she wants to meet Larry and she’s going to see Gran tomorrow.’

  Before she had closed her mouth on her words she knew she had made a mistake. His face had been red and angry before, now it was as black as thunder. He’d hardly ever raised his voice to her in the past, now it was a bellow as he shouted, ‘You say I didn’t forbid you to go before? Well, I’m forbidding it now, is that clear? You put all thoughts of visiting her again out of your mind, my girl, or so help me, big as you are, I’ll take it out of your hide.’

  She couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, but as the tears spilled over she saw his face change and he became her da once again. Moving swiftly, he came to crouch down beside her chair, taking her in his arms as she shook with her sobbing. He held her until she was calmer, then he stood up, bringing her with him. Cupping her wet face in his big work-scarred hands, he said gruffly, ‘I’m sorry, hinny. I shouldn’t have gone for you like that but there’s things here I can’t explain, and you going to see her like that . . . Well, it’s made it worse, lass. She was a working girl when she left these parts, but by your own admission she’s risen in the world, she’s a lady now. And that’s good and fine, I’m not knocking what she’s accomplished, but it makes things different, lass. Do you see?’

  She shook her head slowly. She didn’t want to make him angry again but she didn’t see.

  ‘I’m a miner, lass. You’re a miner’s daughter and your granda and his granda before him were miners, same as on your mam’s side. We get by but that’s all we do, and now your granda is going to be laid off for goodness knows how long we’re going to be even more strapped because we’ll be paying their rent and buying their food until he’s able to work again, if ever. The break was a bad one and your granda’s not a young man. In truth he should have left the pit a couple of years ago. It might be after the doctor’s had another look at that leg in a week or two that he says he won’t be able to work again and then they’ll have to let the house go because running two houses is beyond me, lass. Then it’s either the workhouse for them or moving in with us, do you see? It’ll mean they have the fr
ont room and my wage and yours provides for the four of us.’

  ‘But . . .’ She hesitated.

  ‘What?’

  ‘What’s that got to do with me going to see Constance?’

  Matt closed his eyes for a moment and then opened them as he stared into Rebecca’s troubled face for a long moment. ‘The Constance I knew had a soft heart, hinny, and from what you’ve said she still does. We – we don’t want charity, all right? Not from her or anyone else. I’ll provide for my own.’

  ‘But, Da—’

  ‘I mean it, Rebecca. This is not open for discussion.’

  Rebecca stared at him. There was something more here she couldn’t grasp, something her mind was dimly searching for. But he meant it. She could see he meant every word. Brokenly, she murmured, ‘But I said we’d go, Da. On Sunday, I mean. The three of us. I said we’d go and she was going to get us tea.’

  ‘Well, you shouldn’t have.’

  ‘She’ll – she’ll be waiting, expecting us.’

  ‘Then let that be a lesson to you on promising what’s not yours to promise,’ he said grimly.

  ‘Da, please. It’s not her fault and I’d feel awful.’

  ‘All right, all right.’ He raked back his hair irritably as he let go of her. ‘I’ll go and see her before then and explain that we’re not coming but it’s a damn awkward position you’ve placed me in, young lady. Damned awkward.’

  ‘I know.’ Her voice was quiet, tearful. ‘I’m sorry, Da. I just thought Gran would be so pleased to see her.’