Storm Clouds Over Broombank

by Freda Lightfoot

  It seemed more important than ever that she make her future at Broombank secure. She couldn’t give it up now, not with success so near. Not to Connie, nor her own father, not to anyone.

  Perhaps she should slow down her programme of growth and not buy any more Swaledales in the spring, as she had planned. It would be a disappointment and mean the lamb crop would be less than she’d hoped for. And it would make it worse the next year too. But she could then use the money saved towards the deposit. Could they tighten their belts still further? Could they manage with fewer sheep for the moment?

  ‘Will you come to bed now?’ Tam asked, seeing her put down her pen.

  ‘No.’

  He said no more. Merely tightened his lips and left her.

  Her eyes were pricking for want of sleep but she couldn’t bring herself to go to bed, even with Tam waiting for her. Her thoughts were whirling too much.

  She’d bought in a couple more cows, neither perfect, but the regular milk cheque from the Co-op helped. Small but essential. Their food stocks for the winter were already stored. And they’d done well with the Christmas Eve market.

  Only when the figures started doing a jig before her eyes did she crawl off to bed and snuggle up to Tam’s broad back to fall instantly asleep. She wasn’t much nearer finding a solution but tomorrow she would go in search of a mortgage.

  Meg had been awake before it was light. Quickly she milked the cows, apologising for her haste, accepted a cup of tea from Effie but declined anything else.

  ‘You must eat.’

  ‘I’m too nervous. I’m going in to town. I have some business to do.’ Tam offered to drive her in the cart, but Meg opted for the bus.

  ‘We can’t both afford to take the time off. I’ll take the bus.’

  ‘Something special?’

  She saw the questions in his eyes but Meg refused to answer, smiling to herself.

  ‘I’ll tell you later.’

  ‘Secrets, is it?’ He looked almost hurt, like a small boy, and she laughed at him.

  ‘Have patience. You’ll find out all in good time.’

  ‘When you’re ready to tell me, eh?’ He stood up and went to the door. ‘Of course, I forgot. I’m only the hired man round here.’

  ‘Tam!’ Damn his pride. But he had gone and Meg sighed with exasperation. Never mind. He would forgive her for deserting him when she brought back some good news tonight.

  Meg trailed about town all day trying every bank she could find. None was interested.

  ‘You don’t have an account with us, Miss Turner.’

  ‘Farming is a risky business.’

  ‘There is a war on.’

  ‘Were you perhaps be considering marriage? Children?’

  Meg’s patience ran dangerously short but no mortgage was forthcoming.

  In the end she was forced to return to her own bank manager who had declined to loan her money even for a tractor. She sat on a hard chair in his wood-panelled office, her knees placed neatly together and her hat on straight. He scarcely looked at her. He shuffled her carefully drawn out plans on his desk and adopted an anxious expression.

  ‘I don’t see how I can help you, Miss Turner.’

  ‘I have raised one hundred pounds towards the purchase price as you can see, Mr Bricknell,’ she carefully explained.

  ‘That is a very small deposit.’

  ‘It’s the best I can manage at the moment.’ She’d put her blood, sweat and tears into raising it. ‘I was hoping that you would grant me a mortgage on the balance, at five percent interest.’

  ‘Were you indeed, Miss Turner?’

  ‘That is the usual rate, I believe?’

  ‘For farmers, and for men of good character.’

  She raised her eyebrows at him. ‘I am a farmer. Are you questioning my character, Mr Bricknell?’

  The bank manager cleared his throat. ‘Hm, well um. May I speak frankly, Miss Turner?’

  ‘If you wish.’ She could feel the thump of her heart against her rib cage. Why did people always ask your permission when they meant to insult you?

  ‘You are very young still, I appreciate that. As such you are perhaps not aware of the - um - correct way of going about things.’

  ‘I am ready to learn,’ she said, thinking he meant her farming. He looked at her with a pained expression. ‘It has come to my notice that you have a hired man living in.’

  ‘Indeed that is so. As do most farmers.’

  The bank manager actually blushed. The red stain started at his neck and spread upwards to his jowly cheeks. Meg was fascinated by it. ‘But you are not, if you will forgive me, Miss Turner, quite the same as most farmers. You, my dear, are a woman, and as such it is not proper. Not at all proper. You have a child too, I believe. Tch, tch. Not proper at all. You do see that?’

  She was so shocked that for a moment all breath left her body. Then she was standing, her knees knocking so much she felt certain he must hear them. ‘No, Mr Bricknell, I do not understand. Lissa is an orphan, if it’s any business of yours. A war orphan you might say. Tam is a good worker, and a friend. I have come here today for a mortgage, not comments upon my - my personal life.’ She had very nearly said ‘my lover’, right in the sanctum of the bank, thereby setting proof on the tittle-tattle.

  Mr Bricknell flapped a hand at her, waving her to be seated again. ‘Pray do not take offence, Miss Turner. You permitted me to speak frankly and there has been talk, you see. Which does you no good, nor your growing business, no good at all, to acquire the reputation of a...’ The red stain had passed his moustache now and was heading for his spectacles. He took them off and wiped them on a large handkerchief.

  ‘No need to say the word, Mr Bricknell. Your meaning is perfectly clear.’

  The bank manager cleared his throat. ‘If you were considering marriage, of course...’

  Meg swallowed. ‘No, I am not considering marriage, as I think I have already said, until this war is over. I have a fiancé overseas.’

  ‘Of course, of course. But this man, he is Irish, I believe? An itinerant worker, no doubt. Will he be moving on soon, do you think?’

  Meg was surprised her voice sounded so calm when all she wanted to do was shout that of course Tam wasn’t leaving. He loved her, didn’t he? ‘I wouldn’t know. I hope not. He is a good worker and I trust him. Even if he did, I would still need a man about the place, for the heavy work. So I do not see the problem.’

  ‘Oh, quite so, quite so, but one of respectable character, Miss Turner. A local man, do you see? And he should live in the barn.’

  ‘The barn is falling down, Mr Bricknell. Would you care to give me a loan for the repairs?’

  The bank manager laughed as if she had made a joke. It turned into a fit of coughing. ‘All in good time, my dear, all in good time.’ She wanted to tell him that she was not his dear, but she held on to her dignity, what little she had left. ‘Do I take all this to mean that you will not consider a mortgage. Ever? Unless you are permitted to vet the people who live in my house?’

  The bank manager had the grace to look embarrassed. ‘As I think I mentioned once before when you expressed a fancy for a tractor, if you could perhaps persuade your father, in lieu of a husband, to act as guarantor, there would be no difficulty, no difficulty at all.’

  Meg ground her teeth together in silent fury, all the while smiling serenely. At all costs, even to her pride, she must get a mortgage. But to allow her father to have any say in her affairs was out of the question. Joe would take control and rob her of Broombank, as he had always intended. Then he would have his revenge against poor Lanky, and against her, for being a girl, and for being so determined to beat him in spite of that. He would give Broombank to Dan and she would have nothing.

  A thought occurred to her. ‘What about my brother Dan? Would he do?’

  The bank manager pondered.

  ‘He is respectable.’ She emphasised the word slightly. ‘A married man with two children, and a farmer.’
r />   The bank manager stood up and extended a hand.

  ‘Bring your brother in to see me and I will give the matter my serious consideration.’

  Meg swallowed her pride and shook the outstretched hand. But at the door she turned and faced him again, her expression resolute. ‘I will agree to your request, Mr Bricknell, only because I must. But I assure you my brother will have no say in the running of Broombank, nor will the bank. And whom I employ and have living on the farm is my affair, and mine alone. No matter what problems may come in the future, I will succeed, woman or no. Believe it.’

  ‘I’ll not do it.’ Dan stood stubbornly in the farm yard, a too familiar pugnaciousness to his face.

  ‘Whyever not? It’s only your signature I’m asking for, as guarantor. Nothing more. You’ll have no say in Broombank, no work, no involvement at all.’

  He was far from mollified. ‘You think I’m daft? Well, I’m not. A guarantor means that if you can’t pay the mortgage, then I would have to, and I’ve no money. You know damn well that Father pays me a pittance, or nothing, which is more likely the case these days.’

  Meg sighed. ‘I’m not asking for you to pay anything. There’s no danger of my not being able to pay the mortgage.’

  ‘That’s easy said but things can go wrong in farming very easy. Disease, a bad winter, and you’re up the creek without a paddle. Be content with what you’ve got for once, Meg. Pay rent and have done with dreams. I’d like to help but I daren’t take the risk. Not with Sally Ann and the bairns to think of. You must see that?’

  She sighed, conceding that he did have a point. ‘Yes, I do understand.’

  ‘Besides which, Sally Ann is expecting again.’

  ‘Oh, Dan, congratulations. I didn’t know. When is it to be?’

  ‘Not till the summer,’ he said gruffly, sounding pleased for all his previous moans and groans. ‘So you see, I daren’t take the risk. I don’t want her worried about money. She has enough with the children, and Dad.’

  ‘Yes, I can see that. I do understand, about the guarantor business. Forget I asked. I’ll think of some other way.’

  Then she surprised him by kissing him on the cheek. Never close as she and Charlie were, yet he was her brother and marriage seemed to be softening him. ‘Sometimes, you know, you’re very nearly human, and laughed at his blushes.

  Perhaps she could find some other solution.

  Meg marked out the area to be ploughed with sticks. March had come in with a bluster. There was still the bite of winter in the air, a crispness to the soil, and that clarity of light peculiar to the north. A perfect day for the last of the ploughing. A few seagulls whirled overhead, blown in on the bitter winds from the coast, seeking food.

  She and Tam were set to work it themselves, taking turns with Carrie, teamed with Will’s old horse, Arlott, pulling Lanky’s rusty old plough cleaned off and brought back into service. It was backbreaking work but more cost effective than bringing in the War Committee to do it for them. Besides, she needed to prove that she could cope without help from anyone.

  Meg flicked at the reins, hoping the two horses wouldn’t prove too mettlesome.

  ‘Don’t pull too hard on one side,’ Tam called after her as she set the pair in motion. ‘Keep them well balanced.’

  Meg attempted to fix her eyes on the stick planted at the end of the field and drove the horses towards it. The rough fell ponies, taking no notice of the stick, and finding an amateur driver at the end of their reins, started to veer off at an angle to where more tempting vegetation beckoned.

  ‘Damnation.’ She could hear Tam’s laughter as she struggled to keep them on an even course, without giving them their head and losing control altogether. Not an easy task. What had made her think she could do this?

  The draining work had successfully given her more usable land and after decades of rest was proving to be surprisingly fertile. But the War Committee kept on putting up her quota to be ploughed. The wheat and oats she grew would be taken by the government while Broombank would be allowed to keep the kale for the milk cows and some turnips for the sheep.

  ‘An acre a day,’ Tam said.

  After two agonising hours she judged his reckoning to be out by a half, certainly so far as she was concerned. Her longing for a tractor had never been so strong. But she wouldn’t give in, oh no. She’d plough her acres or die in the attempt. She’d show her father and brother, and the bank manager, and everyone else who cared to watch, that a woman could farm.

  Meg was nevertheless profoundly thankful when midday came at last and she could let Tam take over for an hour or two.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘My knees feel like jelly and my back and arms will never move again. I’m going to find Effie and some embrocation.’ Turning her nose up in the air, refusing to rise to his great guffaws of laughter, she staggered away.

  Later Meg lay on the bed, unmoving, flat on her stomach, too exhausted even to think while he rubbed her aching limbs with lavender oil, smiling at her groans which were a combination of agony and ecstasy at his touch.

  ‘Why aren’t you in agony too?’

  ‘I’ve worked with horses most of my life. My muscles are attuned, and it’s partly a knack.’ He kissed her ear. ‘You’ll learn, given time.’

  Meg groaned. ‘When the ploughing is all done, we’re still nowhere near the end, are we? Every grain of seed will have to be sown by hand, broadcast in time-honoured fashion.’

  ‘Then chains attached to the horses and the whole lot harrowed in.’

  ‘And every root crop planted by hand?’

  Tam nodded, eyes brimming with laughter. ‘Regretting the extra land now?’

  ‘I shall die, Tam, I know I shall. This land isn’t meant to be ploughed. What has it all to do with sheep?’

  He kissed her neck and slid the towel from her, so he could admire her slender back and swelling hips. ‘It has to do with feed for sheep, and for cows.’ His hand was sliding beneath her now, seeking her breast. ‘It has to do with feed for people. With war. With being a farmer.’

  ‘I hope you weren’t thinking of making love to me this night? I couldn’t move a muscle,’ she mourned.

  ‘You don’t have to,’ he whispered. ‘I’ll move them for you.’

  To her surprise she managed to turn over and respond without any difficulty at all.

  The next morning she was back at the plough before eight. By now she was determined to stand no nonsense from the two horses. Gritting her teeth, she drove them straight as a die. She’d show them who was in charge.

  Chapter Nine

  1942

  It was a soft spring day with the kind of settled warmth rarely found in Lakeland, the crags looking blacker than ever against the sharp green of new grass. The kind of day a raven might fly upside down for the sheer joy of living. Meg felt a similar joy as she checked her flock. All her efforts seemed to be working for the Swaledales were settling well. Lambing had started and she hoped for a good crop.

  She and Effie laughed now when they remembered that first lambing season.

  ‘How green we were,’ Effie said. ‘I even remember trying to put each hen to bed at night. Didn’t realise they all lined up in proper pecking order and did it all by themselves.’

  ‘I made plenty of mistakes too.’

  ‘We did it though, didn’t we? We managed to keep the farm, Meg. We succeeded.’

  ‘Yes,’ Meg agreed with a smile. ‘We did, didn’t we? We can thank the Luckpenny for that.’

  ‘And hard work.’

  Jeffrey Ellis came striding up the hill towards her and Meg tried to ignore the flutter of fear in her stomach that she always felt when she saw him these days. Foolish, she knew, for though he came once every few weeks under some pretext or other to see Lissa, he never suggested that he should remove her from Meg’s care. Nevertheless, she still worried that one day he might. That’s what people did. Got up and walked away one day. At least you could rely upon land to stay pu
t.

  ‘Run and put the kettle on, Effie. We’ll be down in a minute.’

  His conversation was not about Lissa today.

  ‘You know that we have about sixty acres of land with Larkrigg? Pasture for Kath’s horse, some woodland, the rest too stony and steep to be of any use for anything but grazing.’

  Meg knew Larkrigg land and said so, curious at what this was all about.

  ‘Well, I’ve sold Bonnie. Gone to a good home, where she’ll get the attention she needs.’

  Meg was astounded. She didn’t know what to say. If he had sold the old pony then he had obviously given up hope of his daughter’s ever returning home. It was a bleak moment. She took a hesitant step forward then put her arms about his neck and hugged him.

  ‘I’m so sorry.’ Meg felt close to tears. How could Kath be so cruel? Why didn’t she at least write to her father?

  He patted her shoulder but said nothing more for a long moment. Probably couldn’t. Then he became his brisk self again and turned the conversation. ‘We ploughed up the two-acre paddock, according to instruction, at the beginning of the war. The rest has great crags and rocks sticking out of it, as you know. Too stony for the plough and too much work for me to deal with. I wondered if you would be interested?

  ‘What I’m suggesting is that you take over responsibility for all my sixty acres and my few sheep. I’m a hobby farmer, always have been. Supposed to be good for my health, once upon a time. Now my own doctor tells me it’s too much for me to manage. What do you say?’

  Meg dipped her head and blinked hard. She felt choked by emotion at his generosity. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘I’ve depended upon a few POWs. They come every day but need more supervision. Much of the grazing is going to waste for I’ve hardly any sheep on it these days. A dozen at most. It seems a shame, and we’re not supposed to waste anything, are we, these days?’ Jeffrey Ellis thrust his hands deep in his pockets, not looking at her. ‘We’re almost family, in a funny sort of way. I’d like you to make use of it, Meg.’