Tilly Trotter (The Tilly Trotter Trilogy)

by Catherine Cookson

  She wasn’t really aware of someone turning her from the graveside until she was once again standing by the farm cart, then through her blurred tear-streaming eyes she saw Simon and Mr Sopwith standing apart talking.

  Presently, Mr Sopwith went to his horse and Simon came back to her. It was when he said, ‘Come on, get up,’ that her tears stopped flowing. She took out her handkerchief and slowly wiped her face; then looking at him, she spoke as someone would who had suddenly put on years and jumped into adulthood. ‘I’ll . . . I’ll never be able to thank you, Simon, for all you’ve done for me granny and me. And also me granda. But it’s finished now. From now on I’ll have to stand on me own two feet.’

  ‘What you talking about? Come along! it’s cold standing here. Get up.’

  ‘No, Simon, no.’ She pulled her arm from his grip. ‘I’m not going back to your house.’

  ‘What! . . . Now don’t be silly; where do you think you’ll go?’

  ‘I’m . . . I’m goin’ to the cottage. I was there yesterday. The woodshed and the byre are all right, they’re dry.’

  ‘Don’t be a fool! You can’t live there.’

  ‘I can for a little while anyway; and then . . . then I’ll go into service or some such.’

  ‘Well, until you go into service you’re coming back . . . ’

  ‘No! Simon.’

  He stared at her, amazed at the authority in her voice. She neither looked nor sounded like young Tilly. He knew that not one word, not one deprecating look, not one insinuating nod had missed her during the past few days. She had been aware of Mary’s feelings towards her from the first, and they must have pierced deep for her now to be refusing the shelter of his home; and in weather like this too, for the spring had seemingly forgotten to materialise. Instinctively he pulled the collar of his coat high around his neck; and then said weakly, ‘But where will you sleep?’

  ‘There’s plenty of dry straw, and they left enough wood for me to make another fire.’ Although her voice was now low, her words implied deep hard bitterness. ‘The woodshed has a boiler in the corner; it used to be the pot house. I’ll get by, never fear. And anyway, it’ll only be for a short time.’

  Simon hung his head, every decent instinct telling him to thrust her into the cart and take her back to his home; yet he knew that if she returned there there would be hell to pay. Mary had a deep ingrained hate of her; she had the power of looking beyond the eyes had Mary, she could sense hidden feelings, like a terrier smelling a rat . . . But for this girl to go back there among the burnt-out ruins of that cottage and to live in the woodshed . . . Well perhaps, when he came to think of it, she’d be happier there. Aye, and perhaps she’d be safer there an’ all, at least for a time, for if some of those maniacs in the village got going again God knows what would happen to her. There was one thing he would like to find out, that was who started the fire . . . deliberately started the fire. Apparently it wasn’t Hal McGrath for he had proved he was nowhere near the village on that day. He had cleaned up immediately after his shift, so he had said, and gone to Cookson’s foundry in Shields to pick up some pieces of iron for his father, and Billy Fogget had sworn that he was on his cart early that morning. That he had also visited Cookson’s was verified by the gaffer who had served him.

  Well, whoever had perpetrated the deed that had brought on Annie’s end would let it slip out one day, he had no doubt, and until then he could wait. In a way he was glad it wasn’t McGrath because that fact had prevented bloodshed.

  ‘Ta-rah! Simon. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be all right.’

  ‘Wait!‘ He pulled at her coat with one hand while thrusting his other into the back pocket of his breeches; then pressing something into her hand, he said, ‘That’ll tide you over.’

  She looked at the two sovereigns and was about to refuse them when she thought, Well, it’s me granda’s money. But even as she thought this she asked, ‘How much money is there left . . . of me granda’s, I mean?’

  When she saw his face redden and his tongue come over his lips before he said, ‘Oh, a bit,’ she stared at him then said softly, ‘There isn’t any left, is there?’ And now he sighed and said, ‘No.’ But he didn’t add, ‘There should be.’

  ‘How long has it been finished?’

  ‘Oh. Oh, I can’t remember. Not long.’ He shook his head, and for a moment she looked perplexed.

  Twice she opened her mouth to speak before she said, ‘Well, I thank you for them, both of them; and for me an’ all. But now I can’t take this.’ She held out the two sovereigns to him. But he thrust her hand away, saying, ‘Don’t be a fool, Tilly. How are you going to live?’

  She looked downwards to where her boots were showing below her old skirt; then, her fingers closing over the coins, she said, ‘Thanks, Simon.’ And with one last look at him she slowly turned away.

  But she hadn’t taken two steps before his voice halted her, saying, ‘I’ll drop in and see how you are. I’ll bring you a blanket or two.’

  ‘No, Simon.’ She was facing him again, and as she stared at him over the distance she shook her head, saying now, ‘Please, please, don’t come near me.’

  ‘Don’t be daft, girl!’

  ‘I’m not bein’ daft. They’ll be watchin’, talkin’, waitin’.’

  ‘Who will?’ It was a silly question to ask, and he knew that she thought so too when all the answer she gave him was one slow movement of her head before turning from him and walking away.

  Two

  She had been living in the woodshed two days. The first day she cleared it out, swept the narrow pot chimney and got the fire to burn, brought in some dry sacks and clean straw from the byre, raked among the burnt embers of the cottage until she found the frying pan, the kale pot and a few other cooking utensils. In one place her foot had slipped through some mushed wood and disclosed red embers still burning. As she worked the slightest unusual sound had brought her head up. There was fear in her still, but a fear threaded now with anger.

  The first night lying on the straw on the stone floor she had lain awake and seen herself standing in the middle of the village yelling at each house in turn and the occupants cowering behind their curtains. Later, her dreams picked up her retaliation and there she was again in the village, but behind the main street now and facing the McGrath house, and she was screaming, ‘You murdered me granny, an’ in a way you’ve killed the parson an’ Mrs Ross for they’ll never know real happiness again. An’ you’ve tried to befoul me. But you won’t! You won’t! Hal McGrath, nor no-one else. Let anybody venture near me again an’ they’ll take what they get.’

  The remnants of the dream had helped to stiffen her back when early this morning she had taken the long walk into Jarrow, but on this particular return journey her arms weren’t aching for her purchases had been meagre. She had planned that if she could last out till the fair she would go to the hirings in Newcastle and get a position in some house, no matter how lowly, any place that would take her miles away from this area.

  Arriving at the ruins of the cottage, she stopped within the broken gate sensing that she wasn’t alone. The outer wall, still standing, blocked her view of the yard but she knew there was someone there, and she was backing towards the road again when round by the smoke-begrimed wall she saw young Steve McGrath and she drew in a long breath before moving towards him.

  ‘Hello, Tilly,’ he said. ‘I’ve fetched you a couple of blankets, and there’s some bacon and odds wrapped inside.’

  ‘Oh’ – she moved her head slowly – ‘that’s kind of you, Steve. But . . . but where did you get the blankets and the rest?’

  ‘They’re not from me; Farmer Bentwood asked me to pick them up on the quiet like an’ last night he slipped them out on to the road, an’ I hid them in the thicket down by the burn ’cos I didn’t want to come up here in the dark an’ frighten you. They’re a bit damp, the blankets. ’Cos they would be, lying in the thicket, wouldn’t they?’ He sounded apologetic.

  ‘Ta
. Thank you, Steve.’

  ‘How you farin’?’

  ‘Oh, all right, Steve.’

  ‘I put them in the byre, I couldn’t get into the woodshed.’

  ‘No, I locked it up.’

  ‘You’re right, you’re right an’ all to do that.’

  He now turned from her and looked through the gaping hole that had been the scullery window and what he said was, ‘Wicked . . . wicked,’ then looking at her again he added, ‘He’s bad, rotten. He was born rotten; he’ll die rotten, putrid. Aye, putrid.’

  ‘Who?’ Although she knew to whom he was referring, she still didn’t know why he was connecting his brother with the fire, but when he said, ‘Our Hal,’ she moved a step nearer to him and said, ‘But . . . but he was gone, he was in Shields when it happened.’

  ‘Aye’ – his chin moved upwards, stretching his thin neck out of his coat collar – ‘but he had it planned, he had it all set up.’

  ‘Aw no! No!’

  ‘Aye. Aye, Tilly. An’ I think you should know just to be on the safe side, but keep it to yoursel’. I’m tellin’ you in case you let your guard down against him ’cos he can be smooth-tongued when he likes; aye, like the devil. An’ like the devil he coached the other two well, our Mick and George. They watched you leave the house that mornin’, then they went in and brought your granny out. And then they tore the place apart lookin’ for the money, they even chopped at the beams. He had worked it all out for them. They even dug the bricks out of the side of the fireplace thinking there might be a loose one there, but they found nowt.’ His head drooped to the side now. ‘But they made sure not to leave empty-handed, they took the odds and ends, like your granny’s bits of pewter an’ the tea caddy, an’ the big brass tongs and other bits and pieces.’

  She was leaning against the wall now, the bass bag at her feet, one hand held tightly across her mouth, and when he said, ‘He means to have you, Tilly. That’s . . . that’s why I’m tellin’ you, just . . . just to put you on your guard. I think’ – he bit on his lip and his eyelids blinked – ‘your best plan would be to do a bunk, clear out somewhere ’cos . . . ’cos if he made you marry him your life would be . . . ’

  ‘Marry him!’ She was standing away from the wall now actually glaring down at him as she cried, ‘Marry your Hal! Oh! Steve. You know what I’d do first? I’d cut me throat. Aye, I would, I swear on it, I’d cut me throat afore your Hal puts another finger on me. An’ . . . an’ should he come near me an ’ me hands are free, an’ by God! I’ll see they’re free this time, I’ll leave me mark on him. I will! Steve, I will! I’ve stood enough. He’s . . . he’s a murderer. He killed me granny and it was him that was the means of Burk Laudimer dying. As you say, he’s a devil.’

  She stood gasping now and when he said, ‘I only told you to put you on your guard. You won’t tell Farmer Bentwood? ’Cos . . . ’cos I feel there’d be trouble, big trouble if he knew.’

  She turned from him without answering and went behind the wall and, taking a large key from the pocket of her skirt, she opened the woodshed door, and when she went inside he followed her and, looking around the small warm space, he said, with not a little admiration in his voice, ‘Eeh! by! you’ve got it cosy, Tilly. I wouldn’t mind livin’ here meself.’

  When she looked at him the half-smile slipped in embarrassment from his face and he stammered, ‘I . . . I was only meanin’ . . . ’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know.’ She put her hand on his shoulder. ‘You’re a good friend, Steve. I haven’t many of them an’ I appreciate all you’ve done, and all you would do for me, but . . . but I’m not gona live in this little hole all me life. As you said, I’d best go away, I’d already made up me mind to do just that. It’s gettin a place. You see I’m well past sixteen and I’m not trained, not for anything. I realise I’ve had it too easy.’

  ‘Not you, not you, Tilly. You’ve done a man’s work around here, and you looked after the old couple for years.’

  ‘That was happy work.’ Her fingers began picking at the front of her coat as if trying to unloosen the threads, and she repeated, ‘Aye, happy work. It’ll never come again.’

  ‘I wish I was older.’

  ‘What?’

  He looked towards the boiler in the corner of the shed. The fire below it was giving off a good heat and he bent down on his hunkers and held his hands towards the iron door enclosing the fire and he repeated, ‘I wish I was older.’

  ‘You’ll soon be old.’

  ‘It’s now I want age. If . . . if I was older I would take care of you.’

  ‘Oh! Steve.’ Her hand was out towards him again about to drop on to his cap when she hesitated and withdrew it. She knew, without being told, what he meant by taking care of her, and at this moment she wished he was older, as old as his brother Hal, as big as his brother Hal, as strong as him, stronger, able to stand up to him, to frighten him. But there was nothing or no-one on God’s earth, she imagined, able to frighten Hal McGrath, only distance from him would give her any safety and rid her of the complications that life was heaping upon her, that involved Simon and his wife, and Steve here. Yes, Steve, because she realised that his feelings for her could bring him into danger; it had already, in a way, crippled his arm for he would never be able to straighten it again. And so her voice held a sharp note as she said, ‘If you see Farmer Bentwood thank him for the blankets and . . . and the food.’

  He rose to his feet and, his face now as straight as hers, he said, ‘Aye. Aye, I will.’

  He had left the hut and taken some steps along by the wall when he turned and, looking over his shoulder, he warned, ‘Keep your eyes open and your door locked.’

  She didn’t answer, she just stood and watched him go.

  And now the twilight had set in and with it another long night before her. There was enough chopped small wood to keep her going. She had forced herself to eat some belly pork which she had toasted at the fire opening, and a couple of potatoes cooked in the boiler; but it had been no effort to drink two mugs of black tea – she wanted to keep on drinking.

  It was as she decided the time had come to bolt the door that she heard the muted sound of a horse’s hooves coming along the bridle path. Quickly she moved outside to where the back door of the cottage had been. This gave her a clear view through the living room and out through the gap that had been the front door, and through narrowed gaze she recognised the rider as Mr Sopwith.

  While he was dismounting she moved slowly until she reached the end of the wall, but she did not go further to meet him.

  For a moment he stayed his approach and looked at her kindly before saying, ‘How are you, Tilly?’

  ‘All right, sir.’

  ‘I understand you are living here?’

  ‘Yes, if you don’t mind, sir, just for the time being.’

  ‘But I do mind.’ He passed her now and walked towards the open door of the woodshed and, glancing inside, he was surprised to note that it was both warm and tidy, and, he surmised, far cleaner than some of his cottages, though it was many years since he had been inside one. He turned to her now and said, ‘You can’t stay here . . . I mean for your own good. How would you like to go into service?’

  ‘Service, sir? I . . . I would like that very much, sir.’

  ‘Ah yes, well, that’s the first step, you’re willing. But having been brought up solitary, you don’t know much about children, do you?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Are you willing to learn?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Oh yes, sir.’

  ‘Well, I understand the nursemaid that looks after my children has left suddenly, in tears I understand.’ He smiled now. ‘You see, my four are a little wild. I’m packing two off to school shortly, but in the meantime they all need some attention. Are you willing to take them on?’ Again he smiled at her.

  Four children! As he said, and rightly, she knew nothing about children. She couldn’t remember playing with children because the village children rarely got out this far;
sometimes on a holiday she would see them playing down by the burn, but she had always been too shy to join them. More than once she had lain hidden and watched them at play, especially the miners’ children because they, too, worked down the pit, and so they usually came in a group by themselves on a Sunday in the summer and would swim like fish in the water and yell and shout and struggle with each other. They always enjoyed the water, the miners’ children.

  ‘Are you deterred?’

  ‘Pardon, sir?’

  ‘Have I put you off accepting the position?’

  ‘Oh no, sir. No, sir. I’ll take it and gladly, an’ . . . an’ do me best.’

  ‘Well, you can do no more. But I must warn you, you may have a rough time of it.’

  ‘I’m used to rough times, sir.’

  Her face had been straight, her voice low, and he stared at her for a moment as he thought, Yes, yes, indeed, you’re used to hard times; and likely, looking as she did, there were many more ahead of her. There was something about her. It was in the eyes perhaps, they seemed to draw you. This had likely frightened the villagers and yet at the same time had the power to attract the men, like that McGrath individual in particular.

  There had been McGraths in the village as long as there had been Sopwiths in the Manor, and strangely history noted that every generation of McGraths brought its own particular kind of trouble; highway robbers, sheep stealers, wife abductors.

  Wife abductors. The word brought his chain of thinking to a halt for it had reminded him, that’s if he needed reminding, there was that dinner tonight with the Mytons. Agnes delighted in making a cuckold of the old man, and he had the idea that Lord Billy wasn’t unaware of it, which made him think that maybe he wasn’t unaware of his own part in her latest escapade. That he was merely one in a long string of offside suitors he recognised, and he was sorry that he had ever started the affair, but Agnes had a quality about her. Like this girl here, only of a different appeal. Yet perhaps not all that different, for this slim girl, who still had a childish look about her, had certainly aroused the fires in the man McGrath.