Brackenbeck

by Margaret Dickinson

  A few mornings later, Anthony, his ankle now much improved allowing him to take up his duties once more, came into the dining-room at breakfast time, holding a long, thin envelope in his hand.

  ‘This has arrived for you, Kate, from London.’

  With trembling fingers she opened it and read with excitement that she had been accepted as a doctor attached to the children’s wing of St. Bernadette’s hospital in London. It was the appointment for which she had longed.

  Day by day she grew stronger and her back ceased to pain her so much.

  The day before she was due to leave Brackenbeck, she walked down to the village to say goodbye to the Giffords, to the other villagers and to Jim Kendrick.

  Her welcome at the Gifford household was exuberant. Tom, home now from the hospital, was the centre of the household. From his bed in the small living-room, he ran the life of the home. Young Tommy romped by, on and under his father’s bed, whilst Mary looked on with her adoring, gentle eyes.

  ‘Tha’s not leaving us, now, lass, surely?’ said Tom.

  ‘There’s no reason for me to stay here, Tom. And I’ve obtained the appointment in London, which I wanted.’

  She saw Tom glance at Mary, saw the latter shake her head slightly, and was puzzled. Tom cleared his throat.

  ‘Jim wants to see you. Tha’s not going without seeing him?’

  ‘Of course not,’ she smiled. ‘ When will he be home from the quarry?’

  ‘He’s home now.’ ‘In the middle of the afternoon?’ ‘He didna want to miss seeing thee. We thought thee might call

  today.’

  Tom did not look at her so she could not see if he were telling her the truth. Cold fear washed over her. Was Jim ill, injured in

  the accident worse than she knew?

  She rose from her chair hardly noticing the twinge of pain in her spine.

  ‘I’ll go now. Goodbye, Tom, Mary and little Tommy. I’ll see you again some time, I’m sure.’

  Tom nodded.

  ‘Ay, we hope so.’

  His grasp was warm and strong. ‘Maybe sooner than you think,’ he murmured.

  Katharine smiled and left. Next door the smoke curled from the single chimney. Katharine knocked on the brown painted door. Jim opened it, his shoulders bent slightly to adjust to the height of the doorway.

  He smiled and for a fleeting moment the frown left his face.

  ‘I’ve come to say goodbye, Jim,’ Katharine said.

  The frown returned swiftly.

  ‘Katharine, will you walk with me up the dale? Are you strong enough?’

  ‘Why, I’d love to, Jim. I’ve seen all too little of the countryside during my stay.’

  The air was clear and sharp as they left the village far behind and climbed slowly up the slopes of the dale. Higher and higher until the village was far below them, looking as it had on Katharine’s first sight of it. They hardly spoke as they climbed, except when Jim pointed out some difficult piece of ground, giving her his hand in support. Most of the time he was silent, his eyes on the ground, as if lost in his own thoughts.

  So his sudden question startled Katharine.

  ‘Are you going to marry Anthony?’

  She stopped in surprise, and looked up at him. His deep brown

  eyes looked down at her as he towered above her.

  ‘Whatever makes you ask that?’

  ‘The villagers said from the start that you must be going to be married, with you staying there …’

  ‘I’m sorry if it offends your idea of propriety,’ she laughed.

  ‘It’s not that,’ he looked hurt and was silent.

  ‘No, I’m not going to marry Anthony. I’m going back to London. I have obtained a post in the children’s wing of a big hospital. It’s what I’ve always wanted.’

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘How long will you stay there?’

  Katharine shrugged.

  ‘As long as they want me, I suppose.’

  ‘But you can’t go for good, I mean, you must come back.’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because – Katharine …’ he stopped again and turned to face her, taking her slim shoulders in his hands.

  ‘Because I love you, Katharine, I want you to marry me.’

  For a long time, it seemed, they stood staring at each other, Katharine in bewilderment, Jim, anxious, now hiding none of the deep emotion he felt. She saw plainly in his face the extent of his feeling for her. This was no idle fancy, this was no gratitude mistaken for love, following the accident.

  ‘But why?’ she whispered. ‘I thought – I thought you disliked women.’

  His grip tightened, drawing her towards him.

  ‘No, Katharine, I just did not want to fall in love. I didn’t believe in it. But now, I can’t help myself. Me,’ his tone was incredulous, ‘helplessly in love with a slip of a girl.’

  He drew her to him and bent his head to kiss her. There, high on the hillside, with only the sky and the birds as witness, he declared his love. And as he kissed her, Katharine felt herself respond.

  Suddenly she broke away as passion threatened to overwhelm her.

  ‘No – no, Jim. It’s no use.’

  She turned away and began to run down the hill.

  ‘Katharine, Katharine,’ his voice bounced over the breeze.

  Tears blinded her as she rushed on heedlessly. She tripped and stretched out her hands helplessly. But his strong arms caught and held her, and she clung to him. But her words belied her action.

  ‘I can’t marry you, Jim, I can’t.’

  ‘My darling Katharine, why not?’

  ‘Please try to understand. I’ve dedicated my life to medicine. I’ve vowed. They’ve given me years of training. They extracted my promise that I would never waste it.’

  As he threatened to protest, she laid her fingers gently against his lips.

  ‘Don’t you see? I cannot allow myself to fall in love. I cannot love you Jim, I am not free.’

  ‘Katharine, you cannot mean it, you cannot be so blind, so stubborn. No one can hold you to such a promise.’

  Katharine shook her head slowly.

  ‘You wouldn’t be asking this of a married woman, Jim. You wouldn’t ask this of a nun, who is married to the Church. Then can’t you understand that I am married to medicine?’

  Anger darkened Jim’s face.

  ‘You cannot be serious, Katharine?’

  Katharine sighed.

  ‘I am. Maybe in twenty or thirty years’ time a woman will have the right to have a career and marriage as well. But through man’s blindness and stubbornness, a woman is supposed to sit at home all day and let life pass her by.’

  ‘Her life should be her husband and children.’

  ‘For some, perhaps. But why should not those with the ability contribute something to this world? It’s not so perfect, run by men, that it couldn’t do with improvement.’

  Jim was silent. His grip on her shoulders relaxed and his arms fell loosely to his sides. He turned away. Katharine caught at his arm.

  ‘You do understand, Jim?’ He shook his head and said slowly, ‘I understand only that you don’t care for me.’ ‘I’m not in a position to allow myself to care – for anyone. If I

  did – then – then it would be for you,’ she added softly.

  He turned back swiftly.

  ‘Then let yourself care, Katharine, dearest.’

  Tears blinded her again at the ardour in his voice. Her heart cried out against the rejection of the love he offered.

  ‘Do you want to spend your life alone?’ Jim said softly.

  Katharine’s chin hardened.

  ‘It was my choice. It was no good sitting around waiting for a man who might never come. I did not think I would ever fall in love – or – or be loved.’

  Despite the gravity of their conversation, Katharine saw a small smile play at the corner
s of his mouth.

  ‘You are the most lovable creature I ever knew.’

  He made to pull her to him again, but Katharine resisted, afraid that she would give way beneath the power of this man.

  ‘Katharine, Katharine,’ Jim’s voice was hoarse. ‘Have I to beg

  you?’

  Katharine shook her head.

  ‘My answer’s no, Jim. It must be, and will be.’

  They returned from the hillside in silence. They reached the village and Jim escorted her to Anthony’s house.

  He turned to face her at the gateway.

  ‘Then that is your final answer?’

  She nodded, afraid to speak.

  ‘Very well,’ he said, his voice flat and emotionless now.

  Jim Kendrick turned and walked away and Katharine watched him out of sight. But he did not look back.

  The next morning, she left Brackenbeck early. Anthony wanted to take her over the hill to the station, but she told him she preferred to go alone. For some reason, she wished to leave the valley as she had arrived. On foot and alone.

  She was passing through the village as the quarrymen were leaving for work. Their good wishes echoed in her ears. Their exhortations to ‘come back soon, doctor’ were proof of her final conquest over their initial antagonism. But still her heart was heavy and her feet taking her away from the village were like lead.

  Jim emerged from his cottage, and stopped when he saw her only a few yards from him. They looked at each other. Katharine went to him.

  ‘Jim I’m sorry. Please try to understand and forgive me?’

  At first he did not answer. She could not read the expression on his face. The frowning mask she had seen on her arrival in Brackenbeck was back, his eyes unreadable depths.

  Where was the love that only yesterday had shone from his face?

  He shook his head slowly.

  ‘I cannot,’ he said.

  Slowly, she turned and walked down the cobbled street away from him. She climbed the long hill out of the village. But before she lost sight of Jim’s cottage, she turned round. He was still standing just as she had left him, watching her out of sight.

  She lifted her hand in farewell, but there was no answering wave from him. He could not forgive her.

  Katharine left Brackenbeck and Jim Kendrick with bitterness in his heart.

  Chapter Five

  Five long years passed after Dr, Katharine Harvey left Brackenbeck. Five years in which the outward life of the village continued in much the same way as it had done before her arrival. Tom Gifford did not lose his leg, though it was stiffened and he walked with a slight limp.

  He and all the villagers, however, were not ignorant of the fact that he owed his life to the girl who had bravely attended to his injuries.

  But not all was the same.

  Jim Kendrick was a changed man. On the day Katharine had left, he had watched her out of sight and even then had stood staring at the point where she had finally disappeared, before he turned back into his cottage and shut the door. He did not come out of the cottage for over a week and during that time, Mary, his sister, was the only person who saw him and knew the depth of his suffering. He was unshaven and sleepless, not eating, just sitting in his small parlour, speaking to no one.

  But this Mary kept to herself and though rumour and conjecture were rife through the valley, Mary knew that the village folk had short memories and would soon forget. Jim never talked about Katharine nor told Mary what had happened between them, but his sister guessed and was sorry. She had grown fond of Katharine, respecting and admiring her, and would dearly have loved her as a friend and sister-in-law. Mary, a shy, gentle girl, did not make friends easily and was often lonely for another woman’s company.

  But her heart also held anger against Katharine for distressing her beloved brother so. But she felt herself helpless for she had not the resolve to interfere.

  For several months after Katharine left Brackenbeck, the villagers talked of her and asked Dr. Stafford for news of her. But word soon passed round, as word will in a small community, that her name was not to be spoken of to Jim Kendrick. Over the months the villagers’ interest waned. Other happenings, both domestic and national, superseded the quarry accident.

  Life continued.

  Anthony Stafford heard infrequently for the first year from Katharine by letter. And he answered cheerfully enough. But somehow their letters were stilted as if each were avoiding a particular subject – a painful subject.

  And in truth they were. The subject being Jim Kendrick. He could not forget her, even though he was probably the only one of the community who particularly wished he could do so, and yet found it an impossibility.

  Anthony and Jim were gradually restored to their former friendship though there was a slight reserve on either side, some withdrawing of old confidences. For between them lay the ghost of Katharine’s presence. Neither spoke of her from the time she disappeared over the hill, and yet, whenever they met, she was there in their thoughts.

  Jim returned to the quarry for a few months and worked with a feverish intensity and yet his outward appearance was one of cold reserve, hard as the rock he quarried. The men, respecting him, said nothing.

  Some six months after Katharine’s departure, Jim was called to his dying father’s bedside and before the old man died, father and son were somewhat reconciled. On his father’s death, Jim found himself heir to a considerable estate, far more than he had imagined the old man had amassed. He became owner of three more quarries and much of the farmland surrounding Brackenbeck, which, though unsuitable for arable farming, was reasonably valuable in parts for grazing.

  The quarry held bitter memories for him and Jim was relieved to have the excuse to cut himself off entirely from it. He made over the four quarries to his sister as her share of their father’s estate. The old man had been stubborn to the last in remaining estranged from his daughter. But Jim, of course, saw that their shares were equal.

  He opened up Kendrick House, redecorated and renovated it. For Mary and Tom, he built a similar house on the quarry side of Brackenbeck valley, on the opposite hillside to Kendrick House.

  But in Kendrick House, Jim lived alone and lonely. He took up various interests: sheep farming, grouse shooting and still he maintained an interest in the motor car. From London came reports that the horseless carriage had reached twenty miles per hour, and at the same time the suffragettes were causing much talk and speculation. The world was changing from the narrow confines of the Victorian era. Jim, against his will, searched the news of the suffrage movement for Katharine’s name, but failing to see mention of her presumed she was far too preoccupied with her medical work to join the women pioneers.

  It could be supposed that Jim Kendrick’s action in taking advantage of his new-found wealth caused a rift between himself and the villagers. Far from it. The affection and respect of the people of Brackenbeck were so deep-rooted that not one would say other than that had they found themselves in the very same position they would have done exactly the same as Jim. Besides, they were not forgotten. Any word of hardship or suffering reaching Jim’s ears concerning one of the village folk, did not pass by without action on his part. Whether money or help was needed, neither was found wanting in him. Though Jim lived now more the life of the gentry – a life which was his birthright, for only the estrangement from his father had caused his former hardship – he was still a villager at heart and in mind. He took care that no elderly inhabitant suffered as had Grannie Banroyd, in poverty and loneliness. He remembered the shame and remorse he had felt when he had learnt of the suffering the old lady and her grandchild had borne: how in his prejudice he had blamed Katharine for the woman’s death, when in fact he might have helped in a positive way earlier.

  Never would such a thing happen again now that he had money at his command, Jim resolved.

  Five years passed after Katharine left Brackenbeck. Five long years. Jim, at length, bought his motor car and never
was the contraption seen chugging along the rough, hilly roads round Brackenbeck, but that dozens of village children were packed into it. If Jim did not get his full measure of enjoyment from it, there was little doubt but that the children did.

  But in spite of all this, Jim Kendrick remained a lonely man and though time is supposed to lessen a hurt such as he had suffered, he found that with him it did not. Whatever interest he undertook, it was never enough. The memory of a bright-haired girl, so neat and beautiful was seared in his mind and on his heart.

  Mary and Tom Gifford produced another offspring – a little girl, tiny and delicate, who grew to be the favourite of her uncle. At three she became Jim’s constant companion and whilst Mary teased her brother that she never saw her own daughter, secretly she rejoiced that he found some comfort in the small child’s company.

  But was it because the small girl was so delicately formed and so pretty, with red curls and dancing dark eyes? Or because they called her Kate?

  Anthony at last acknowledged to himself that though he had been very fond of Katharine, his affection for her was infinitesimal beside Jim’s love for her. They could have been happy, Anthony thought, but their marriage would have been based on a good friendship and a mutual interest in medicine, rather than the ‘grand passion’. He admitted to himself that he had been wrong in having proposed at all, and that it was his pride, and not his ardour, which had suffered the blow of her rejection.

  Unlike Jim, time cured Anthony of such thoughts concerning Katharine, but they did not erase the memory of her friendship nor the knowledge, though no words passed between them, that his friend Jim suffered torture every day of his life because of her. And whilst he watched Jim build his new life, watched him reopen Kendrick House and make it a home, all the time Anthony wondered if Jim nurtured the hope that Katharine would, in time, return to him, and that all this was in preparation for the day when she would become his wife.

  But the years passed with no word from Katharine. And Jim Kendrick remained alone and lonely in his grand house.

  And so when Anthony had to attend a conference in London during the summer five years after Katharine’s visit to Brackenbeck, and found that time hung heavily on his hands when the actual conference was not in session, he decided to seek out and learn for himself whether or not the plans she had had five years before had reached fruition.