‘Come on, lass, no dawdling!’
I turned back to the cart and started the long walk behind it down the hill, Mary Farmer at my side. After a few steps I stopped hearing her endless chatter. It became just another sound of the country, like the birdsong. Ever present but meaningless. We passed the smithy and William Smith joined us, then the Gate Inn and Robert and Martha Grange.
One by one, the village turned out, dressed in their best, and fell in behind us. Mary Farmer greeted them all. I hardly noticed. I felt as if my insides had frozen. My heart, my lungs, belly, everything. With each step, they splintered further. I wondered if I would make it as far as the church at the other side of Thores-Cross or whether I would be left on the side of the lane, a heap of cracked and broken ice.
‘Here.’ Mary Farmer nudged me and held out a handkerchief. ‘Thought this might come in useful. John won’t miss it. Not today.’
I took it. I had not realised I were crying, but when I wiped my face and eyed the scrap of cloth, it were sopping wet. My eyes and nose must have been streaming since we left the house.
I scratched my shoulder. Remembered I were wearing Mam’s clothes and lost myself in sobs. Mary Farmer tried to put an ample arm around me, but I shrugged her off. I wondered if I would ever stop crying. The cart reached the bridge and turned right. I followed, walking alongside the river, the same walk I used to make every other Sunday with Mam and Pa. We shared a curate with Fewston and would have to make that walk twice a month, unless Robert Grange were making the trip in his dray cart and we could ride the two miles over the moor. I realised with a start that I would not have to do that any more – not if I did not want to. Less than half the village made the trip to Fewston, claiming a variety of ills, and we only went because Mam insisted. I cried harder at the jolt of relief I felt.
‘Here we are, lass. Thee stick with me, I’ll get thee through this.’ Mary Farmer clung to my arm and I peered at the church. Digger and Edward lifted Mam down from the cart, ready for various men from the village to carry it inside. Robert Grange, William Smith, Thomas Fuller and George Weaver. Our closest neighbours. I took a deep breath and followed them into the plain single-storey stone building with the steps so worn they were more like a ramp. It were cold inside, despite the July sun. Or maybe that were me. Still ice, still cracking, but still in one piece.
I sat on the front pew, Mary Farmer beside me – mercifully quiet now – and sniffed. I used the sopping rag that had been a handkerchief, but it were not much use now. I could not bear to wipe my face on Mam’s shawl. Did everyone know I were wearing her clothes? And what did they think of me if they did? Mam were not even in her grave yet.
The curate – a young dark-haired lad who had grown up in Fewston – started the service. I tried to listen, but I could not tear my attention away from the box in front of me. Mam.
Then I heard what he were saying, and the cracks widened. ‘Merciful God? Merciful God? What kind of merciful God would drown Mam in the sheep pit?’
Mary Farmer tried to pull me back down on to the pew, shushing me. I had not realised I were stood, but I could not stop.
‘What kind of merciful God would inflict the bloody flux on her husband? What kind of God would take Mam and Pa away? What kind of God is that?’
My sobs pierced the shocked silence that followed, and Mary Farmer finally managed to sit me down.
‘She’s distraught, poor lass – don’t take no notice, she’s distraught,’ she told the congregation. ‘Carry on, Curate, carry on.’
We moved to the graveyard and Mam were sunk into a great hole. Then Mary Farmer led me away as she were covered up.
At home, the stench hit me as we walked through the door. Pa were the same. My sobs tore the cracks inside me further apart. John Farmer went home. Mary Farmer stayed.
*
The next morning I were alone. I do not know when Mary Farmer had left – she must have waited until I slept. I dragged myself out of bed and went to clean Pa. It were for the last time. The bloody flux were not always a killer, but to survive it you needed strength, and Pa’s strength had drowned in the sheep pit with Mam. There would be another funeral this week.
Chapter 4 - Emma
4th August 2012
My eldest niece, Chloe, was already out of the car when I opened the front door, and she ran to give me a hug. I grabbed her, spun her round and gave her a kiss, then gave her sister Natalie, three years younger at seven, the same treatment. Five-year-old Sophie needed help from her mother to get down from the Range Rover, then she ran over to join the scrum.
‘Uncle David!’ They abandoned me in their rush to greet Dave, and I laughed as three blonde angelic-looking terrors mobbed him.
I went to join Alice at the car and gave her a hug.
‘How are you?’ she asked.
‘Great,’ I replied. ‘We’re going to love it here.’
‘I hope so.’ She opened the boot and three equally excited balls of fur jumped down, then leaped up at me with their own enthusiastic greetings. I ruffled their heads before they bounded away to explore their new home.
‘Come on in, you haven’t seen the place since we finished it.’
‘How’s the unpacking going?’
‘A complete mess.’ I laughed. ‘But at least we found the kettle. Coffee?’
‘Would love one.’
I linked arms with my sister and we walked to the house. I whistled for the dogs and they came running.
‘Thank you so much for looking after the beasts; I wouldn’t have coped with them as well as the movers and everything.’
‘My pleasure,’ Alice said. ‘The girls loved having them, and we’ve plenty of space. They were no bother.’
I smiled and felt ashamed for asking it of her. Alice had two dogs of her own, as well as a couple of horses, a flock of chickens and even a couple of goats. I didn’t quite believe my three were “no bother”.
‘I’m very grateful, Alice, I don’t know what we’d have done without you, I couldn’t bear the thought of putting them in kennels.’
‘Oh no, you couldn’t do that! Don’t worry about it, Ems, it was fine, honestly, we were pleased to help. You’ve had a hell of a time the last year or so, it was the least we could do.’
‘Thanks, Sis. I know they couldn’t have been in better hands.’
‘Wow!’ We had entered the lounge. ‘It looks so different with furniture. Trust you to have unpacked your books first!’
I felt ashamed. ‘Dave was furious when I started filling the bookshelves and left all the kitchen stuff in boxes,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t even wait till the movers left, I just had to get them on the shelves.’ I shrugged and smiled.
Alice laughed. ‘I doubt he expected anything else of you, Em. Come on, I’ll help you unpack the kitchen – Dave can amuse the kids, they adore him.’
‘I know, he’s great with them isn’t he?’
Alice turned to me. ‘Have you had any more thoughts . . . ?’
I shook my head. I’d already been through this with Dave, I couldn’t do this conversation again. ‘Don’t.’
She nodded and stroked my upper arm. I turned from the pity I saw in her face, and led the way into the kitchen.
*
‘Teatime,’ I announced a couple of hours later. ‘We’d like to treat you at the Stone House, a little thank you for having the beasts.’
‘You don’t have to do that, Ems, a sandwich here would be fine.’
‘We want to. Anyway,’ I surveyed the kitchen, ‘I think we deserve it after all our hard work.’
‘You have a point there. All right, that would be lovely. Kids!’
I jumped as she shouted the last word. The girls, Dave and the dogs ran in from outside.
‘Wash your hands, we’re going to the pub for tea.’
I chuckled when Dave obeyed Alice’s instruction as well, then grabbed my coat.
*
Ten minu
tes later, we pulled into the car park, Alice and the girls behind us.
‘Auntie Emma, Mummy said there’s a haunted house.’
‘Yes there is, though people live in it now, so I don’t think it’s haunted any more.’
‘Bet it is!’ said Natalie, and ran after Sophie making woo-woo noises.
Chloe stayed behind, looking thoughtful. ‘Are ghosts real, Uncle Dave?’
‘No, of course not. No such thing, it’s just a way of explaining funny noises in the night. Now come on, help me find us a good table.’
They walked hand in hand to the pub entrance. Alice and I glanced at each other and laughed.
‘I hope he’s right.’
‘About what?’ I asked.
‘No such thing as ghosts.’
I shrugged. I believed they did exist.
‘Are you going to be ok, living out here? I’d forgotten how isolated it is.’ She looked around. There was only a scattering of houses to break up the rolling expanse of moorland. ‘There’s not even a shop; and what if something happens, how would you get help?’
I shrugged. ‘We’ll make sure we keep plenty of supplies in. And there’s always this place.’ I laughed.
‘Yes, but what if there’s an accident? It would take ages for an ambulance or something to get here.’
‘Not really, it’s not like it used to be when we were kids. The doctors’ surgery in one of the villages has a four-wheel drive, and there’s always the air ambulance if something serious happens. We’re not that cut off, you know, not the way it was,’ I said.
‘Yeah, ok, but what about winter? I can remember drifts up to our shoulders, and not being able to get to the sailing club.’
I shrugged again. ‘I work from home and Dave is pretty flexible. This is still a farming community; I’m sure a local farmer will plough the lanes – he’d have to, to get to his livestock.’ I nodded at the distant sheep and the field of Highland cattle nearby – only the hardiest breeds survived up here. ‘And we’ll make sure we have plenty of supplies,’ I repeated. ‘We’ll be fine.’
‘I hope so,’ Alice replied. ‘But I can’t help worrying.’
I gave her a quick hug, then turned at a shout from Dave. ‘Come on you two, the girls are hungry!’
I smiled and linked arms with Alice. ‘Don’t worry, Alice, please. I know it’s isolated, but we have thought it through, and we’ll prepare well for winter. Anyway, it’ll be nice, the two of us snowed in, curled up in front of a roaring fire – romantic.’
She gave a small nod, and we followed Dave into the pub.
‘Where’s the menu?’
‘Above the bar.’
We crowded round to read the blackboard.
‘What does it say?’ Sophie asked.
‘Shepherd’s pie with chips and peas, steak and ale pie with chips and peas, chicken pie with chips and peas.’
‘Is there anything vegetarian?’ Alice asked the barman.
‘Aye,’ he replied. ‘Chips and peas.’
She stared at him and I burst out laughing at the expression on her face as she realised he was serious.
Chapter 5 - Jennet
9th July 1776
‘Here, cut that pie up will thee, Jennet?’ Mary Farmer called. I picked up the knife and sliced the large rabbit pie. The other women bustled around me, but for the most part they left me alone – apart from Mary Farmer.
It were the shearing. Two weeks after the sheep-washing and Mam’s death, the whole village had gathered again. This were the last place I wanted to be the day after burying Pa. How had I let Mary Farmer persuade me to come?
I picked up the platter of pie slices and carried it into the shearing shed. The rest of the year it were Thomas Ramsgill’s barn, but as the biggest in the valley (and Thomas having one of the largest flocks), everyone brought their animals here to be shorn each year. By pulling together like this, a thousand head of sheep could be bald by the end of the day. Somehow Thomas Ramsgill got his flock seen to without getting his own hands dirty, but it still worked out better like this than each farmer trying to deal with his own flock alone. Plus we had a party. Not that I felt much like partying this year.
The pie platter were cleared in five minutes flat and I went back for more. Thomas Ramsgill had taken the biggest slice and I scowled. It were supposed to be for the men and women doing the work – not only the clippers, but the wrappers, catchers and sharpeners, too.
The animals were sent in to the waiting clippers, who perched on their three-legged stools. The fastest clipper could take a fleece off in three and a half minutes – muscles bulging and sweat dripping as they worked the hand shears impossibly fast. I watched the ewes and wondered which one of them had killed Mam.
The clippers’ wives and daughters chopped off the dirty locks around the tail before wrapping the wool into tight rolls. They had fleeces from up to twenty clippers each to lap like this and it were exhausting work. The catchers at the door dabbed the sheep with tar marks to distinguish each man’s property and sent them off to their fold – one flock at a time. Add to that chaos William Smith sharpening countless pairs of shears, the bleating of the sheep, cursing of the clippers and wrappers, and the smell of sweating farmers and distressed animals, it were impossible to keep crying. I were soon swept up in the sheer busyness of the day and ran back and forth with pie and jugs of ale. I caught Mary Farmer watching me and smiled. She had been right to bully me out of the quiet empty house. It were good to be around people and forget – even if only for a few minutes at a time.
‘How is thee, Jennet?’
I started at the deep voice, and turned to see Thomas and Richard Ramsgill. The Ramsgills were the most important family in the valley – Thomas the Forest Constable, Richard the wool merchant, Big Robert the miller and Alexander just getting his own farm established. There were three more brothers still working their father’s farm.
Richard lived close to us. To me. Just down the hill at East Gate House, near the smithy and the Gate Inn. He were a stern man and had never spoken to me before today. Now he raised his eyebrows at my lack of response.
‘Umm,’ I said. It were the one question I never knew how to answer; I had no idea what to say to Richard Ramsgill.
‘I remember thy Mam when she were a young lass,’ Richard Ramsgill carried on, ignoring my stammering. It’s such a shame. If there’s anything I can do for thee, thee only has to ask.’
Thomas laughed. ‘Is thee gonna find her somewhere to live, then?’
‘What does thee mean?’ I said, panicked into forgetting my manners. Were I being evicted?
‘Well, surely thee knew? Thee’ll have to leave the farm, the tenure won’t pass to a fifteen-year-old lass. Did thy pa write a will?’
‘Umm, no, I don’t think so,’ I said.
Thomas Ramsgill seemed embarrassed.
‘Don’t worry theesen about it, lass,’ his brother said. ‘I’ll look into it for thee, see if there’s owt can be done. Thomas here is being a bit previous. Don’t worry, thee won’t have to leave farm.’
What to say to him? ‘Umm.’ I were dumbfounded.
‘By the way, does thee know what the terms of thy folks’ tenure of land was?’
‘Umm.’
‘Tell thee what, I realise this is probably a bit much for thee. Don’t worry about a thing, lass, I’ll pop round later this week. See thee again, lass.’ He doffed his hat and they walked away.
I stared after him. Mary Farmer joined me. ‘Ay up, lass, what did they want? Thee take care round likes of them, thee mark me words. Careful, lass. Now, grab this jug of ale, I reckon them in barn are getting a thirst on.’
Chapter 6 - Emma
12th August 2012
I whistled again. The beasts would stay out all night and day if they could. Cassie the Irish Setter came first. She was the eldest at nine and I’d had her since she was a puppy. The other two, both German Shepherds, would follow given tim
e.
It was getting chilly now the sun was going down, and I was splashed head to foot with mud. I turned towards the house and smiled as I always did, unable to help myself. It had taken nearly two years and a great deal of determination to build.
From the big upstairs office window I could see the dam to the left – innocuous from this side but terrifying from the other. It had a massive drop, like a black run with no snow – or a ski jump that kept going down. Functional and massive, it hid nothing of its purpose and had given me nightmares as a child sailing here. I’d been terrified of getting swept up to its lip and having to stare down that chasm, knowing it was the only place for me to go.
*
I shivered and whistled again. Running up the slope after Cassie, I could hear Delly and Rodney following, and was laughing at them when we burst into the mudroom – cold, filthy and exhilarated from the fresh air. I towelled the dogs off and took off my coat, then walked into the kitchen for a hot chocolate. Dave already had the kettle steaming and handed me a mug, smiling and shaking his head.
‘You’re like a child out there with those dogs, Emma, a carefree little girl.’
I bit, hearing a reprimand in his words. ‘You can’t be surprised, surely?’
‘I’m not complaining, relax. It’s great to see, I wish I could do it.’
‘You can, if you try. Just let go and enjoy the moment. That’s how I write and that’s what’s built this house.’ I was on my guard, expecting another lecture on responsibility, which was hardly fair. I had met most of the building costs as Dave had invested so heavily in his building project in Scotland.
The Haunting of Thores-Cross Page 2
