Storm Clouds Over Broombank

by Freda Lightfoot

  He found Meg busily engaged in layering a hedge. The energy and skill she displayed in the task gave the lie to her slender youthful frame. It made him feel ashamed of his own inactive lifestyle.

  ‘You look busy. I hope I’m not interrupting?’

  ‘Not at all. I’ll just finish this bit.’ She’d cut a long slit down the side of the slender trunk, now she bent it over and wove the pliant frond into position with the others to form a living windbreak against which the sheep could shelter but not escape. Then she set down the small billhook she was using in a safe place, pulled off her leather mitts, and wiped her brow. ‘I’m glad of the excuse to stop, to be honest. Tea? I was just about to have one.’

  They sat at the big deal table in the kitchen, enjoying the scalding tea, weak though it was, not speaking for some time. Meg could almost hear him thinking.

  From the bedroom upstairs came the sounds of Lissa playing with her dolls. Effie had made them for her out of clothes pegs and she loved to line them up and pretend to teach them, as if they were in school. Meg could tell that Mr Ellis had his ears cocked, for every time Lissa’s little sing-song voice rose in pitch, he half turned his head towards it.

  ‘Would you like to see her?’ Meg asked at last, finally finding the courage.

  Eager eyes met hers. ‘I would.’

  She went to the door and called up the stairs. ‘Lissa, it’s time for your cod liver oil and orange juice. Come on down, there’s a good girl.’ A moan of protest followed by running feet, and Jeffrey Ellis found himself holding his breath. Too late now to wonder if he should have come at all.

  A pair of chubby legs appeared on the stairs, followed by the prettiest little girl he had ever seen. At least, since Katherine had been about that age. He was instantly disappointed that Lissa bore little resemblance to that long-ago child. But why should he have expected her to? Yet there was something about her, in the way she walked, the toss of her head. Or else he was a foolish old man with an over-ripe imagination.

  He smiled reassuringly as the child hesitated. He couldn’t have found his voice if he’d been strung up by the heels.

  Meg held out the cod liver oil spoon. ‘Come on, Lissa, open wide.’ The child screwed up her nose. ‘Don’t like it.’

  ‘Cod liver oil is good for you. Isn’t that right, Mr Ellis?’

  ‘It must be, that’s why it tastes so nasty. Hold your nose, Lissa, then you won’t notice. I think I have a mint in my pocket somewhere when you’ve finished.’

  The mixture went in a trice and the mint was accepted with one of Lissa’s most entrancing smiles.

  ‘She is a lovely child,’ Jeffrey said, eyes never leaving the small figure.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Your father thinks she’s yours.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘She isn’t though, is she?’

  ‘She is now.’

  ‘I mean. . .’

  ‘I know what you mean. We ought to be careful, she’s like British Gaumont News.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  Meg chuckled. ‘The eyes and ears of the world.’

  ‘Oh.’ Jeffrey Ellis laughed while Meg turned to the watchful violet eyes. ‘Go on, you can take your orange juice upstairs, but see that you drink it all.’

  ‘I will, Meg, promise.’

  When Lissa had gone, Meg turned to Mr Ellis, damping down the spark of fear that had suddenly kindled deep inside. ‘Was there something particular you wanted to say? I don’t mean to be rude, only it’s rare for you to call. In fact in all the years I have known you, this is the first time.’ She smiled to try to soften the impact of her words.

  Jeffrey Ellis returned her frank gaze with an equal frankness in his own. ‘You’re right. I did have a purpose in calling. I’m glad to have found you on your own because it’s connected with Lissa. She’s Kath’s child, isn’t she?’

  Meg didn’t answer immediately, the fear clenching the pit of her stomach. ‘What if she was? How would you feel about that?’

  Jeffrey Ellis was not an insensitive man, and recognised the panic in her steady gaze. ‘It’s all right. I wouldn’t dream of taking her from you. Seems to me you are doing an excellent job of bringing her up. Besides...’ He paused, and took refuge in sipping his tea.

  ‘Mrs Ellis would not approve?’

  Jeffrey met her clear-eyed gaze. ‘Rosemary means well, but she is bounded by convention. She has lived a sheltered life, too sheltered perhaps. Never had to rough it in the real world as most of us do. It is very important to her that her respectable, rose-tinted life is not besmirched in any way.’

  ‘She pretty well said the same about you, though not quite in such picturesque language.’

  Jeffrey set down his cup sharply and some of the tea spilled out. ‘She is far too protective for her own good - for my own good, I should say.’ He drew in a long steadying breath. ‘You know how I longed to find her. Why didn’t you tell me that you knew where Kath was?’

  ‘Because I don’t. I have no idea where she is.’ Meg found herself setting aside pretence, deciding there had been too much secrecy already. ‘Oh, I did find her once, by bullying the address out of your wife, if you want to know the truth. But Kath refused to come home with me. She bundled the baby in my arms on Lime Street Station, said I would make a better mother, and disappeared into the crowd. There was nothing I could do but come home without her.’

  ‘I see.’ Or did he? It hurt to think that Rosemary had known where their daughter was all along. Why hadn’t Kath written to him direct? ‘Where was she when you found her?’

  ‘In a home for unmarried mothers.’ Meg did not wish to reveal the stark horror of the place. She could leave him with some illusions at least.

  ‘And the father? Do you know who he is?’

  She looked him full in the face, summoning every vestige of courage she possessed. ‘Yes, I know who he is.’

  ‘It was Jack then?’

  Meg felt choked suddenly, grateful she didn’t have to say his name out loud. ‘You only have to look at Lissa to know that.’

  Jeffrey Ellis nodded, compassion strong in him. ‘I guessed as much. You loved Jack, whereas my daughter - bless her careless heart - merely wanted to play with him.’

  Meg swallowed the sudden lump that came into her throat and stood up, taking the empty cups to the sink. ‘It doesn’t matter now. That’s all in the past. I have Effie, and Tam, and I have Lissa. I don’t need anyone else.’ Coming back to the table, she took Mr Ellis’s hand. ‘But I still miss Kath. I want you to know that I bear her no grudge. She is still, despite everything, my very dear friend. How could she be otherwise when she left me her child to care for?’

  He blinked. ‘I hope one day she might appreciate that fact. I wish only for her to come home.’

  After Mr Ellis had gone, accepting gratefully Meg’s invitation to call and see Lissa at any time, Meg laid her head upon her hands and cried her heart out.

  Bad news arrived on the heels of the bitter east wind that scoured the fells before Christmas.

  ‘The Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbour,’ Sally Ann read, ashen-faced. ‘Even while their special envoy was making peace talks with Washington, Japan’s fleets were attacking Hawaii and Manila. Oh, dear God, there were more than two thousand Americans killed.’

  ‘That’ll fetch them in,’ said Dan, with some satisfaction.

  Sally Ann frowned at her husband. ‘Don’t be so brutal. They’d have come in anyway. What a price to pay. All those young men and women.’ Tears ran down her plump cheeks. ‘What if they were your sons? How would you feel then?’

  Dan looked at his two boys, pride evident in his round face, and pain at such a dreadful prospect. ‘We’re fighting this war for them. Then they won’t ever have to fight another. Mark my words, we’ll win it. Right always triumphs in the end.’

  ‘By heck,’ said Joe. ‘You’ve learned some long words. Been swallowing a dictionary?’

  Sally Ann held her breath, wondering
fearfully what Dan would answer. Many secret hours had been spent improving her husband’s reading skills, teaching him simple addition and subtraction. She had hoped it might give him the courage to stand up to his father. Was this the moment?

  Dan got to his feet, crimson to the tips of his ears. ‘It was only an opinion, that’s all.’

  ‘You great daft oaf. Thee, have an opinion? In that empty rattle head of thine. Pigs might fly!’

  Knocking over his chair, Dan blundered from the room.

  Sally Ann was on her feet in an instant, red in the face herself, livid with her father-in-law. ‘How can you talk to him like that, your own son? He’s working flat out driving tractors for the Government Committee all day, as well as helping to run this place with you.’

  ‘I don’t hold with tractors. Nothing better than a good horse.’ Joe was in a particularly sour mood this day. His hopes of buying Ashlea had died a death. Jeffrey Ellis’s lawyer had increased the price he’d first suggested, not reduced it. Anyone would think Ellis didn’t need the money, which couldn’t be right. What did he want with Ashlea? Joe hated failure, it made his bitterness against life more acute. He was feeling his age today, full of aches and pains he was, and a cough coming on. Annie would have made him a paper of goose fat for his chest.

  ‘Not to mention working in the Home Guard at night,’ Sally Ann was saying. ‘Sometimes dangerous work, conducting prisoners to the POW camp, fire fighting, as well as drilling and training in case of invasion or bombing.’

  ‘There are no bombs here. He’s safe enough.’

  ‘He doesn’t feel safe, or wanted. Can’t you ever give him credit for trying, offer a kind word, just once in a while?’

  ‘Kindness makes a man soft.’

  ‘It makes a man feel he’s appreciated.’ She steadied her breath. It did no good to shout at Joe Turner. That way he was bound to win. ‘You were glad enough to see Charlie here, yet you never showed him that you were. Why not?’

  ‘I don’t approve of my son’s choice of career.’

  ‘He’s fighting a war, that’s hardly a career.’

  ‘All this talk of engineering when it’s over. He should be a farmer.’

  ‘You already have two farmers in the family, Dan and Meg. Isn’t that enough?’

  ‘Only one.’

  Sally Ann sighed. ‘Not that again. Won’t you ever acknowledge her efforts?’

  ‘She’ll get fed up. Women have no staying power.’

  Sally Ann decided not to pursue this fruitless argument. ‘Anyway, how do we know what the future will bring for any of us in the years ahead? The war is a long way from over yet. It seems to be getting worse in point of fact. There might not be work for any of us by then, or not here at least. We might not manage to hang on to Ashlea. I know it’s a hard enough struggle now to make ends meet.’ She reached for his hand. ‘Why don’t you put Dan properly into the picture? Tell him what state the farm really is in. Perhaps then he’d work on it more. He’d feel wanted.’

  Joe got up from the table and flicked on his cap, adjusting the neb to its right position over his eyes. ‘There’s no danger of us losing Ashlea. I’ll see it’s there for my grandsons when they need it. You leave the worrying to me. I’ll let you know when I can’t manage.’

  When he had gone Sally Ann sat alone by the fire. There was no getting round Joe’s stubbornness. Oh, but he worried her. He really did. He insisted on doing everything himself. Wouldn’t share a thing with them, not a thing. She reached for her two boys and pulled them on to her knee. They always soothed her after an argument.

  ‘Joe’s in a temper. He’s been up to something, I can tell.’

  Sally Ann was watching Meg split logs. She stood by the old yew chopping block, chips of wood all about her, a fine figure of a woman, there was no denying it. Taller and slimmer than the young girl she had once been, her fair skin tanned by the weather though hair as raggy and unkempt as ever. Its beauty came from its colour, as bright as a polished penny. She was looking more than usually attractive today, Sally Ann had to admit, for all she was dressed in work overalls and a checked shirt that could have belonged to Dan or Charlie.

  ‘So what else is new?’ Meg had neither the time nor the inclination to worry over her bad-tempered father. She hummed as she swung the axe, more interested in the satisfaction of seeing a growing pile of logs for the winter evenings ahead.

  Sally Ann propped herself against the edge of the saw-horse. ‘I think there’s something wrong.’

  Meg stopped working, pushed back her hair and set down the axe carefully. ‘What can be wrong?’

  ‘There isn’t much money coming into the house. We’ve had two bad lambing seasons. Joe and Dan hardly speak, let alone work together. Dan would rather be off working with the tractors than on his own farm. But then he has to. We need the wages he brings in.’

  Meg sat on the chopping block and propped her elbows on her knees. ‘I’m sure you’re worrying unduly. Ashlea will be all right. It’s a good farm.’

  ‘It was a good farm.’

  ‘You must make Dan talk to Father. Get everything out into the open.’

  ‘Huh.’ Sally Ann gave a bitter little laugh. ‘Easier said than done. The tension between them is something terrible. He still wants Broombank, you know. More than ever now Ashlea isn’t doing so well.’

  Meg smiled and squeezed her sister-in-law’s hand. ‘Ashlea will do all right. Every farm has its bad years. It’ll pull back next season, you’ll see. As for Broombank, well, he’ll get over that. Let him want.’

  ‘You don’t seem too bothered.’

  ‘My father can do his worst for all I care, Sal. We are doing fine, thanks very much. He can’t hurt us now. Nothing can.’ Brave words, but she believed them to be true.

  Sally Ann examined her sister-in-law with new interest. ‘You’ve fallen in love.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You have. There’s a glow about you. I can see it in the way you can hardly stop smiling, and I could hear you singing from right down the lane. You look like a woman in love. Why, you’re positively blooming. You’re not...’

  ‘No, I’m not.’

  Sally Ann laughed. ‘It’s Tam, isn’t it? Oh, I’m so glad. He’s a lovely man. When’s the happy day?’

  Meg tried to look shocked. But deep down she knew that in spite of all her efforts to the contrary, she could not deny it was true. She was falling in love. And she wasn’t even sorry. ‘Who said anything about a wedding?’

  It was Sally Ann’s turn now to look disapproving. ‘My word, you’ve changed your tune. There was a time when you couldn’t wait to get down that aisle. Now you’re presumably content to give the gossipmongers a run for their money.’

  ‘Things change. I’ve changed.’

  ‘Are you saying you don’t trust him?’ Sally Ann asked quietly.

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘Why don’t you marry him then?’

  ‘I don’t want to make a mistake, that’s all. There’s no hurry.’

  ‘There’s always a chance Jack might come back, is that it?’

  ‘That’s not it at all.’

  ‘I should hope not. Because you’d be a fool if you let some kind of misguided loyalty spoil things for you and Tam. If he were mine, I’d marry him like a shot, before he had time to think twice.’

  ‘I’m not you, Sally Ann. I like to think things through more carefully.’ She smiled at her dear friend, to soften the implied criticism.

  ‘You think too much sometimes. Follow your heart, that’s what I say.’

  ‘I did that once before and look where it got me. Anyway, he hasn’t asked me, so there.’

  ‘Aw, Meg.’ Sally Ann’s soft heart filled with remorse. ‘I’m that sorry. I didn’t think.’ And she put her arms about her sister-in-law and hugged her. ‘Men,’ she said, with feeling.

  Meg pulled on her clean white nightdress and climbed in between the sheets, sighing with contentment as she stretched out, a knot
of anticipation in the pit of her stomach as there always was when she waited for Tam to come to her.

  I don’t need Sally Ann’s pity, she told herself. I don’t care about marriage. But conviction was hard to find.

  They were like a real family already, she and Tam living together with Effie a sister to Meg, and Lissa their own little girl. Except that they were not a married couple, and Lissa was not the child of either of them. It was a game of pretend that could all end at any moment.

  Only Effie was really a constant. Meg reminded herself of that fact now. One day she could lose both Tam and Lissa. Kath would come, or Jack, and take Lissa away. Or maybe even Mr Ellis might decide to exercise his right as a grandparent. She had seen the love and longing in his eyes whenever he looked at Lissa.

  Tam had never claimed to be anything but rootless, a man who liked to be free to move on whenever he chose. Marriage had not been mentioned by either of them and Meg understood that, for their different reasons, neither of them wanted it. How could she even consider such a thing while she was still engaged to Jack, theoretically at least? She would need to see him and give him back his ring.

  How she had changed. Some might say not for the better. Proper little Miss Meg Turner with a lover. She hugged herself with pleasure, determined not to feel guilty. Well, why should she? There was a war on. Things were different.

  Count your blessings.

  Effie was happily settled in the bedroom next to Lissa’s while she and Tam shared this lovely big double bed.

  Her new flock of Swaledales, which she checked almost hourly, were well and healthy, standing on all four feet.

  And the purchase of the horse must be a good sign. Perhaps Tam meant to stay for a long time. At least until the end of the war. Meg dared think no further than that. She wanted him to stay for ever. So badly, it hurt. Snuggling down between the sheets, her body began to tingle with anticipation.

  These were the best times, when they could shut the door on worries over the war and the daily grind of endless chores and lie together between the covers.

  He came to her now and she flung back the sheets, opening her arms to welcome him.