Durham Trilogy 02. The Darkening Skies

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

  ‘Sara!’ It was Mrs Gibson who gasped at her half-drowned appearance. ‘Eeh, take off those wet clothes at once, you poor lamb.’

  Dazed by the sudden heat of the kitchen and the crowd of people around the long table, Sara stood nonplussed. As her neighbour pulled at her sodden coat, it dawned on her that there was somebody lying motionless on the bare table. She could not make sense of anything she saw.

  ‘Dad?’ she croaked. Then her heart lurched as she caught sight of her mother’s stricken face, Bill’s arm about her shoulders. Chrissie was blubbering into Mary’s lap in the chair by the fire. Sara felt her knees buckle. Suddenly Tom was there beside her, his handsome face ashen with shock.

  ‘He was dead when we got to him,’ he choked in explanation. Sara held on to him, quite numb to his words. For the first time she realised the body on the table was covered in a white sheet. ‘Sid’s gone for the minister,’ Tom added, ‘and to look for you.’

  ‘Mrs Hall’s ringin’ for the ambulance,’ Sara said, ‘it’ll be here shortly.’ She could not take her eyes off the humped shape on the kitchen table. If she pulled back the sheet, perhaps it would not be her father after all. She looked around for him. Mary was in the corner crying and rocking Chrissie in her arms. Her mother was holding the dead man’s hand and Mrs Gibson was asking her if she wanted a cup of tea.

  Suddenly someone started to scream, a strangled high-pitched cry like an animal in a trap. It rang in Sara’s ears until everyone’s eyes were on her. Tom’s arms came about her, holding her tight and Sara realised it was she who cried out.

  ‘I tried to get the doctor!’ she sobbed. ‘He wasn’t in, Tom, he wasn’t there!’

  ‘It wouldn’t have made any difference,’ Tom tried to calm his sister. ‘The fall broke his neck. He’d gone before Sid came to fetch us.’

  The airless room began to waver before her. Tom’s voice buzzed in her ears. Sara leaned into her brother’s shoulder and fainted.

  Chapter Two

  Sara lay listlessly in her bed. Of the past week she remembered little, except a confused jumble of voices in her pounding head. Dr Hall had come and leaned over her and held her wrist and put a cold hand to her sweating forehead.

  ‘Bad dose of’ flu …’

  ‘Aye, out in damp clothes … the shock, poor pet.’ It was her mother’s concerned voice.

  ‘Old Gibson died o’ ‘flu…’ Mary said.

  ‘Hush now!’ Lily Pallister commanded.

  It surprised Sara to see Dr Hall, because he was supposed to be delivering a baby. Then it struck her that it was her father he should be attending to and not her, so she had grown agitated and tried to tell him that her father was lying at the foot of the beck bleeding to death. Death… Dead… Suddenly the memory of that body on the kitchen table had leapt into her mind and with searing pain she remembered her father was gone.

  At this very moment they were burying him in the cemetery at Lowbeck after a service at the chapel. Sara had protested that she was well enough to go and pay her last respects, but her mother, under instruction from Dr Hall, would not allow her to venture down from the icy bedroom she shared with Chrissie. As far as Sara could see, Dr Hall believed in fresh air and fresh vegetables as the best remedy for all ills. So the rags that had insulated the room from draughts all winter were removed from the window and blasts of chilly spring air swept out the mustiness.

  Earlier that morning she had listened to the assembled family praying and hymn singing in the large kitchen below, before her father’s coffin was borne out to the waiting hearse. Sara had lain and wept alone, gripped by grief that she could not see her father buried and remorse that she had not demonstrated her love for him more. As the funeral party left, Sara had dragged herself to the small window and watched them depart. She felt a spasm at the sight of her mother’s defeated face. Under her black hat she was grey and featureless in the lukewarm sun, older than Sara had ever seen her look.

  For Richard Pallister Lily Cummings had become Mrs Pallister and left her home and the cosy pit village of Whitton Grange for the bleak isolation of Weardale, putting up with all its hardships from wild weather to the suspicion of her as an incomer by the surrounding fanners. They still treated her differently, Sara thought, but she did not doubt that her undemonstrative father had loved her mother equally. You could see it in the quiet way he studied her across the kitchen table or the muted laughter she sometimes heard through the bedroom wall. How cruel for such love to be wiped out by one careless slip of the foot. Or had it been careless? Sara shuddered at another possibility; that her father had stepped off the cliff willingly. His mood of late had been as foul as the weather and why else would he have left Cath behind chained up at the house?

  Mrs Gibson, left in charge of Sara, found her shivering and in tears at the window and bustled her back to bed. Sara fell asleep, overwhelmed by weakness, until the sound of returning family awoke her again.

  Tom was the first to come up to see her. He sat in silence on her bed, holding her hand for several minutes.

  ‘I so wanted to gan to the burial,’ Sara whispered miserably.

  ‘I know.’ Tom squeezed her limp hand, sapped of its usual strength by the ‘flu that had struck his sister. ‘It was a grand send-off - chapel was burstin’ - folk had to stand outside.’

  ‘He was that popular, wasn’t he?’ Sara gave a wistful smile.

  Tom nodded. ‘He was a real Pallister, folks have always respected the Pallisters - good chapel people. I reckon I’m the black sheep.’

  ‘No,’ Sara protested. ‘Dad was right proud of you in your uniform, no matter what he said about not wanting you to fight a war. You’re one of the Faithful Durhams just like him.’ Tom smiled at her gratefully. ‘It’s me who’s the black sheep, I should’ve been there,’ Sara added feeling her eyes blur with tears once more.

  ‘You can’t even walk to the door.’ Tom shook his head. ‘It’s more important you get your strength back - Mam’ll need you to be strong, once I’ve gone.’

  Sara lay back feeling the weakness shaking her body. She knew Tom was right but it did not ease the frustration she felt at her immobility.

  ‘How long can you stay?’ she asked with eyes closed. She dreaded the time Tom’s compassionate leave must end and she would be left with her distraught mother and younger sister. Through the fog of her fever she had heard Chrissie crying under the bedclothes every night for what seemed like hours.

  ‘I’m back in barracks the day after tomorrow,’ Tom said quietly.

  There was a sad, shared silence between them, then Sara dared to ask what had been preying on her mind. She needed to know if Tom harboured the same black thoughts as she did.

  ‘How could it have happened, Tom? How could a strong man like Dad have fallen into the beck?’

  ‘He must’ve lost his footing, it was that muddy from the rain and blowing a gale.’

  ‘But not Dad!’ Sara pulled herself up. ‘He knew every inch of these hills.

  ‘It was an accident,’ Tom said with a fatalistic shrug.

  ‘He shouldn’t have gone alone,” Sara fretted, ‘why wasn’t Bill up there with him? And why didn’t he take Cath? It was all wrong.’

  But Tom misunderstood her anxiety. ‘It’s not right to blame Bill,’ he answered sternly. ‘And he wasn’t alone, was he? Sid saw him go up, but he couldn’t have stopped Him falling all that way, no one could, it just happened in seconds.’

  ‘I hate that beck now!’ Sara’s voice grew querulous. ‘I never want to go up there again, Tom, never.’

  Tom reached over and hugged his sister to him and she gave way to her grief.

  ‘I wish I could’ve hugged him before he went out that evening, like I used to as a bairn,’ she cried. ‘It’s terrible not being able to say goodbye, isn’t it?’

  ‘Aye,’ Tom choked, ‘but it’s ten time’s worse for Mam.’

  ‘Oh, poor Mam!’ Sara sniffed. ‘I’ll help more around the house and the farm, I promise.’ She felt
better as she spoke her words of resolution. ‘At least Bill can carry on with the farm. He and Mary will move in here, likely?’

  ‘Don’t pull such a long face,’ Tom smiled. ‘Mary’s been canny while you’ve been ill, sitting up night-times watching over you.’

  ‘Has she?’ Sara asked in surprise.

  ‘Aye,’ Tom insisted. ‘Anyways, you’ll be moving out once you’re married to Sid, won’t you?’ His blue eyes looked teasing. Sara’s wan face turned a faint pink at the mention of Sid’s name. ‘He’s been round every day to ask after you,’ Tom persisted.

  ‘That’s nice,’ Sara answered bashfully, ‘Sid’s all right, isn’t he?’

  ‘Aye, you could do worse,’ Tom agreed. ‘He’s downstairs now.’

  Sara felt nervous at the thought of Sid so close by when she still had not given him an answer to his proposal. ‘Who else has come?’ Sara quickly changed the subject.

  ‘All the neighbours are in and the minister and the Halls, and Aunt Freda and the cousins are over from Teesdale. Oh, aye, and Uncle Alfred’s come up from Whitton Grange,’ Tom told her.

  That’s grand. Mam’ll be pleased to see him after all this time.’

  Tom grimaced. ‘He says he can’t stop and he’s getting the afternoon train back from Lowbeck. Just staying long enough to stuff his face full of Mam’s pies and Mary’s baking.’

  ‘You don’t like him, do you?’ Sara asked. ‘I thought he was canny the time he took us all to Redcar.’

  ‘That was years ago,’ Tom scoffed. ‘He’s not bothered with us since he became overman at the pit. You should see the airs and graces now! To him we’re just farm labourers, common as muck.’

  ‘No! Uncle Alfred wouldn’t say that,’ Sara defended him.

  Tom snorted, ‘He as good as said so to Mr Gibson! And he never had time for Dad when he was alive, so why’s he bothering now?’

  ‘For Mam’s sake, of course,’ Sara answered, ‘he’s her brother, after all, and she needs his support.’

  ‘Well, she’s not getting much of it - just a lecture on how she should never have married a sheep farmer,’ Tom scowled. ‘He’s even got the cheek to take money off her to buy a present for his snotty-nosed daughter who she’s never seen since her christening. And at a time like this, when she’ll need every penny she can lay her hands on. It’s down right disgustin’!’

  Sara had never heard Tom so angry. ‘We will be able to stay on at Stout House, won’t we?’ Sara asked worriedly. She had always pictured the family staying on for ever in this house, as generations before them had. Despite the winter dampness and the rattling windows, she loved its familiar uneven floors, its creaking doors and the large, homely kitchen below with its dark polished furniture and roaring fire. It had been built by Pallisters four generations ago, when the mottled sand-coloured stones had gleamed with newness and the blue and white china stacked on the dresser had been a wedding gift to the first Mrs Pallister. In time, it would all be Bill and Mary’s, to pass on to their children and children’s children. But this talk of no money made her uneasy.

  Tom hesitated before answering. ‘Things’ll work out, I’m sure.’ He got up quickly. ‘Mary’ll bring you up some egg-and-bacon pie.’ He swung open the complaining door and gave a half-hearted smile, ‘I’m away to talk to Jane Metcalfe.’

  Later, coming out of a doze, the half-eaten pie still on the wooden chair by her bed, Sara became aware of subdued voices below the open window.

  ‘It may come to that.’

  ‘He should’ve provided for you. I can’t take on such a responsibility - I’ve a wife and daughter of my own. And there’s Colin, too.’

  ‘I’m not asking much - just this one favour,’ a woman’s voice pleaded. ‘I’m a widow now, it’s going to be hard.’

  ‘You always did spend too freely, Lily,’ the man replied in flat blunt tones, ‘you’ll have to cut your cloth to fit your coat.’

  ‘My bairns have had precious little, Alfred, life up here is no summer picnic, I’ll have you know.’

  ‘Didn’t I warn you not to go off with Dick Pallister? I could see a mile off he had no business sense. These hill farmers are little better than peasants herding a few sheep - there’s no living to be made here now the lead mines are closed.’

  ‘Dick was a good man,’ her mother protested. ‘I’ll never regret the choice I made.’

  Sara felt her eyes sting and she hauled herself out of bed to see what was happening. Creeping up to the window she peered out. Her mother was hidden below the eaves of the stone roof, but she could see the jowly face and receding black hair of her uncle, Alfred Cummings.

  ‘Then you’re as daft as you always were, Lily,’ he scorned. ‘What’s he done for you? Left you with a crumbling house and a farm up to its ears in debt, that’s what. You’re lucky the bank hasn’t made you bankrupt.’

  ‘I’ll manage well enough with our Bill’s help,’ her mother insisted stoutly. ‘I’m just asking you to give the lass a bit start in life, Alfred, while we sort things out with the bank. If it doesn’t suit you and Ida, you can send her home. Please, Alfred.’

  The small man in the neat black coat furrowed his bushy eyebrows and sucked in his cheeks with disapproval. Finally he wagged a finger at his younger sister, ‘She’ll have to go out and work mind. I can’t have Ida running around after her like you do. Not even coming to her father’s funeral, tut!’

  ‘She’s been very ill this last week,’ Lily Pallister’s patience almost gave way. ‘I don’t want to lose two of them do I, for pity’s sake?’

  Sara felt her knees shaking at her mother’s words. They were arguing over her! Her head swam as she tried to make sense of the conversation she had overheard. Was her mother about to send her away? And what did Uncle Alfred mean saying all those hurtful things about her father and the farm in debt?

  Below, the scullery door opened and someone else appeared. It was Tom.

  ‘I’ll take you down to the station now,’ he said curtly.

  ‘Good lad,’ Uncle Alfred nodded and fixed on his black bowler hat with precision. ‘At least one of your family shows some promise,’ he grunted as Tom went across to the stable to fetch Bluebell and the trap. ‘Army’s a good living for a fit young lad like Tom - long as there’s no war.’

  ‘So your answer’s yes?’ Lily persisted.

  ‘We’ll take her for a few months,’ he grumbled. ‘But if she proves idle I’ll send her packing.’

  Sara watched as her uncle clambered up in to the trap without a goodbye kiss to his sister. Tom flicked the reins and Alfred clung on nervously as the vehicle gave a violent lurch forward and Bluebell trotted off down the track.

  Sara groped her way back to bed, giddy nausea overwhelming her. She lay shivering under the covers for what seemed like an age before anyone appeared. As the watery evening sun fell in a shaft through the window, there was a tap at the door and her mother entered.

  Freed of her dark bonnet, her brown hair sprang thick around her ears and forehead. Her pale brown eyes were dark-shadowed and her smile weary in her square, pallid face.

  ‘How are you, pet?’ she asked softly.

  ‘Better,’ Sara lied, feeling sick with dread at the recent revelations below her window.

  ‘You’ve hardly touched the pie,’ her mother chided.

  ‘I’ve not much appetite.’

  ‘No, poor lamb.’ Her mother stroked her brow with a cool hand. ‘We’ll go together to the cemetery when you’re feeling stronger, just the two of us.’

  ‘Thanks, Mam,’ Sara answered hoarsely. ‘I wish I’d been—’

  ‘Don’t, pet,’ her mother cut short her words of regret and they clung to each other, her mother rocking her in comfort.

  ‘What’ll happen now?’ Sara whispered into her mother’s shoulder. The rocking stopped. ‘Are things worse than you thought, Mam?’

  ‘Mr Clark came from the bank on Wednesday,’ her mother’s voice was steady.

  ‘He could have waited till
Dad was buried!’ Sara was indignant.

  ‘Mr Clark hadn’t heard about the accident,’ her mother replied gently. It seems he’d arranged to see your father that day. There was a letter, I remember it coming week before last…’ Lily’s voice trailed away as she puzzled over something.

  ‘What did Mr Clark say?’

  ‘Bill spoke to him mostly.’ Her mother was evasive.

  Tell me, Mam,’ Sara urged, clutching her mother’s hand. ‘I’m sixteen now, I should know about the affairs of the family. Don’t treat me like a bairn.’

  ‘No,’ her mother sighed, ‘perhaps that’s been my trouble. I’ve wanted to keep you all dose to me, so you didn’t have to grow up too quick like the young’uns at Whitton Grange.’ She stroked her daughter’s lank fair hair. ‘But now you’ll have to be grown up.’

  ‘Meaning?’ Sara regarded her mother with glazed green eyes.

  Lily took a deep breath. ‘The farm is badly in debt, has been for years it seems. That’s why your father sold off his herd of Shorthorns couple of years ago. Mr Clark suggests we rent the house out - you know, to shooting parties or hikers who want to be up on the moors. Me and Mary’ll do the cooking for them. It would mean having to share the cottage with Bill and Mary, but just until we got enough income from the house to pay back what we owe to the bank. And it means we won’t have to sell up or leave the farm - at least not yet. He’s really been very good about it.’

  ‘Good about it!’ Sara exploded. ‘Making us give up Stout House? But it’s been in Dad’s family for generations.’

  ‘I know.’ Lily’s face creased in pain as she nearly gave in to her own distress. ‘But we have no other choice. Otherwise the bank will make us bankrupt. They’re only trying to make things a bit easier because of your father’s … death.’

  ‘How are they making things easier by turning us out of our home?’ Sara’s face flushed with indignation. Her mother gave her a harrowed look.