Like Father, Like Son

by Diane Allen

  Polly couldn’t get out of the dairy fast enough, away from the talk about milk and cheese and butter. She knew how to make it, as she’d churned the milk often enough, helping her mother to make butter. And she knew how it made her arms ache, turning the paddles that battered the creamy milk into butter. She ran down the dairy’s steps and knocked on the cottage that stood next door to it. The sound of the gushing fosse filled her ears as she stood waiting for an answer to her timid knock. She knocked louder when nobody came to the door, and watched the beer-coloured water rush down under the bridge as she stood there, feeling awkward, on the doorstep.

  ‘I said, “Come in”, didn’t you hear me?’ The red-haired Maggie came to the door, opening it wide to let her friend in. ‘You must be deaf. I shouted from upstairs.’ Maggie never minced her words, which could be a good thing, but at the same time could be hurtful, if she was that way out.

  ‘I didn’t hear you because of the waterfall. The river’s full because of last night’s rain,’ said Polly as she stepped into her friend’s home.

  ‘What are you doing here anyway? It’s not market day or Saturday, and they are the only days you are usually in Hawes. My mother said she saw you with your father as you walked up to the dairy. I didn’t think you’d be allowed to see me, after your mother heard me talking about Ralph. I can still see her face – she’s a bit of a prude, isn’t she?’ Maggie giggled and brushed back her long ginger locks, revealing a nose covered with freckles and a pair of green eyes, which hinted at a little wickedness.

  ‘We are here because of your father and his dairy. My father is thinking of supplying him with milk. And don’t call my mother a prude. She’s just set in her ways, and you wouldn’t shut up in front of her about kissing Ralph. So she got mad. How is he, anyway?’

  ‘Oh, he’s been and gone. He’s always up at Gunner-side at that blinking lead-mine. He doesn’t have time for me. When he does have time, he’s only after one thing, and I’m just not that kind of girl.’ Maggie fell backwards into one of the huge easy chairs and laughed again. ‘Plenty more fish in the sea, especially now that my father is employing most of the eligible young men in the district.’

  ‘You are so shallow, Maggie Sunter. I thought Ralph loved you.’ Polly sat in the chair opposite her friend and looked at her, as she twiddled with hair around her fingers.

  ‘You’ve got to kiss a lot of frogs before your prince arrives. That’s what my mother has told me. It’s what she did before she met my father.’

  Polly remembered what her mother had said, about how Maggie’s mother had cornered Bill, and thought to herself that it could just be true. ‘Yes, but you have to take care. You don’t want a reputation,’ she said thoughtfully.

  ‘Well, it’s better than just looking at them and dreaming your life away, like you are with that Tobias Middleton. Of all the men in the dale, why do you admire him? Everyone knows he’s a wrong ’un, just like his father – that’s what I hear.’ Maggie was making fun of her friend.

  ‘He isn’t, he’s just misunderstood; he’s always been a gentleman to me, and he’s so handsome.’ Polly blushed as she thought of her secret love. She knew that perhaps Tobias was dangerous, but that was part of his attraction.

  ‘Look at you blushing, and you haven’t even kissed him. Your father won’t let you anywhere near him, since the stint with the sheep, and you know it. Do you want a drink of tea? I’ll go and ask my mother to make us some.’ Maggie stood up and looked down at her friend with what seemed to be almost a sneer on her lips.

  ‘If you want one.’ Polly watched as Maggie went into the adjoining room to ask her mother for some tea. If it had been her, she’d have had to make it herself and wouldn’t have expected to have her mother running after her. As the only child, Maggie was a bit spoilt by her parents; her every whim was adhered to, and the trouble was that she’d become so accustomed to this that she expected it from everyone else. Polly sighed. Sometimes she wondered how Maggie and she were friends. Whilst they were both only children, they were from completely different backgrounds. She also knew why Maggie was popular with the male population – not only was she generous with her affections, but her father was also extremely well off. Maggie would be a good catch for any aspiring young lad.

  ‘Here you go, Polly love. Maggie said you and her would like some tea, and I’ve brought you a slice of cake on a plate as well. I bought it at Sam Allen’s this morning. I don’t like baking myself – too messy.’ Jenny Sunter placed a tray with willow-pattern china and slices of cake on a table between the two chairs. ‘I’ll leave you two girls to it. You must have plenty to talk about. I know I had at your age. What a life I had, back then in Bradford. I had men flocking at my feet.’ Jenny gazed wistfully as she remembered the good old days. ‘And then I met your father.’ She paused. ‘Still, never mind.’ She smiled as Maggie sat back in her chair, and then she disappeared back into the kitchen.

  ‘Does your mother miss Bradford? It must have been a bit strange, coming to live here after being in such a big city?’ Polly looked at the shop-bought cake. Her mother would never have considered buying such an easy thing to bake.

  ‘Don’t know. She talks a lot about it, but she never goes back there.’ Maggie stirred her tea and put the slice of cake on her plate, before biting into it.

  ‘Do you not have any relations there? I know I have an Aunty Evie and Uncle Albert in Liverpool, but I’ve never seen them. Polly mused on the idea of her relations – and the lack of them, in Maggie’s case – as she tucked into her cake.

  ‘Nah, just me mother. My father’s got his brother, Uncle Steven, at Bainbridge, but that’s it – don’t need anybody else. This is good cake, isn’t it?’ Maggie took a long sip of tea and sat back in her chair.

  ‘Yes, it’s all right,’ Polly replied, thinking it wasn’t a patch on what she and her mother could make at home.

  ‘So, is your father thinking of bringing his milk to our dairy? It’ll be less work for him, and money coming in on a regular basis. My father says the locals will be fools if they don’t sign up with him.’ Maggie sat askew in her chair, wiggling her legs carelessly under her long, expensive chiffon skirt.

  ‘I don’t think any of the farmers will be fools, and that’s probably what’s worrying your father. If it’s a good deal, they’ll take it; if he’s robbing them blind, they will soon find him out. He needs them as much as they need him.’ Polly wasn’t having the local farmers called fools. In times of hardship they were always there to support one another, and if Bill Sunter thought they were fools, he was going to be in for a surprise.

  ‘Listen to you! When did you become interested in commerce? I thought you were a farm girl, only interested in sheep and if the grass is growing,’ Maggie scoffed.

  ‘There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Maggie Sunter. And I thought we were friends. Stop making fun of me!’

  ‘I am your friend. That’s why I told my father that if there’s an offer of a part-time job in the dairy, you’d be interested. I thought it was time we got you off that farm and into the real world.’ Maggie suddenly sat up straight and grinned at Polly. ‘I suggested we could both work at the shop counter that he’s opening. He knows we both have the looks, and you’ll soon learn the patter. It’ll be a laugh. And besides, Pol, every farm lad in the district will be coming through those doors. Forget your Tobias – he’s had his chance!’

  ‘Oh, Maggie, you didn’t. I don’t think my father will ever agree. And besides, I don’t know if I want to come and work for your father. How would I get to work? How would my mother and father manage without me? They are not as young as yours.’ Polly was torn, but it would be a lot more interesting working in a shop in Hawes than mucking out a stable.

  ‘Of course you want to. Now I think about it, how come your parents are a lot older than mine are? Your mother must have been ancient when she had you – well past you-know-what, I’d have thought! Do you never think about that?’

  ‘Maggie, do you
mind! Sometimes I can’t believe what you come out with. No wonder my mother warns me about you. I don’t think she will want me to work with you, as she already thinks you are a bad influence.’ Polly grinned at her best friend while she finished her tea.

  ‘She’s not seen anything yet. If we work together, it’ll be a laugh a minute,’ Maggie smirked.

  ‘We’ll see. It will be up to my father, and whether he brings his milk to be processed.’ Polly secretly hoped that he would agree, giving her the best of both worlds. A comfortable home life on the farm, while enjoying the fun of working in a shop.

  ‘I don’t know, Father. I heard that Maggie talking the other day and she’s nowt but a brazen hussy, stringing all the lads on, playing with their hearts.’ Ada pulled the bedclothes up to her chest and put her arms out of bed. ‘Her mother was just the same.’

  ‘I take it you don’t have a high opinion of the Sunter women?’ Edmund turned to Ada and looked at her, as she scowled at the thought of Polly going to work for the Sunters.

  ‘No, I don’t, and I’m not keen on our Polly as a shop lass. Couldn’t we get her a bit of a cleaning job at the vicarage, or up at the big house down the dale? That’s more to her breeding.’ Ada folded her arms in defiance.

  ‘She’ll get picked up in the morning with the milk, and the same bloke will bring her back at night, when he picks the evening milking up. She’ll be under the watchful eye of Bill all the time she’s at work, and he’s offering her a decent wage for two days a week. That’s better than scrubbing floors at any vicarage or big house. You know yourself it was no job being in service.’ Edmund was finding it hard to persuade Ada that Polly should work at the dairy, but after seeing the new business Bill would bring in, he knew Polly wouldn’t get anything much better.

  ‘And what about hay-time? We’ll need her to do some of the raking and gathering in.’ Ada was thinking of every excuse to stop Polly from going.

  ‘That’s another two month off yet. The grass is no higher than my ankles, and by then she might be bored of it anyway. And we still have her the rest of the week, so there’s no problem that I can see of.’ Edmund could sense he was winning the fight.

  ‘If Bill Sunter swears that he keeps his eye on her, and if her hours don’t change – because I can’t manage to rake all those hay-meadows myself – then she can go.’ Ada was tired of arguing and was in need of her sleep. She rolled over onto her side.

  ‘It’ll be right, lass; it’ll be the making of her, you’ll see. We can’t keep her under our wing forever. Besides, there will be plenty of good solid lads who go to that dairy. We could do with a son-in-law to inherit the farm, ’cause our lad’s not coming home, and well you know it.’ Edmund regretted the words as soon as he’d said them.

  Ada turned round sharply. ‘That’s just it, Edmund Harper. What if she finds out she’s not our daughter, but our granddaughter. There’s many a gossip in Hawes, and it’s Bill Sunter’s dairy – he knows exactly who she is, else I’m a monkey’s aunty.’

  ‘Hold your noise, woman. Nobody’s said anything in these last sixteen years. Folk have nearly forgotten whose daughter she is. Nothing will be said, and she’ll be more content than pacing about like a caged animal, here with us two old crones.’ Edmund pulled the covers over him and turned away from his wife.

  ‘On your own head be it, Edmund Harper. I can see this being nothing but trouble.’ Ada turned over and pulled at the covers.

  ‘Well, she’s off to work there, and that’s an end to it.’

  Polly once again lay in her bed. She could hear the muffled words through her bedroom wall, and knew the subject was yet again her, and the job at the dairy. Her mother had not looked happy when her father had come back with a glowing report of what Bill Sunter was going to do, and what promises he had made for the delivery of milk to him. But she had been even more unhappy when the pair of them told her of Polly’s job offer. It seemed there was no pleasing her at the moment. Polly could see no problem. She could easily get there and back, she had a promise of good pay from people she knew – what more did her mother want? She pulled the covers up around her chin and listened to the raised voices, and then to the silence that followed. Somebody must have won, but was it in favour of the job, or against?

  Maggie would be laughing at her worrying. Nothing seemed to bother Maggie, but then again she was selfish, and Polly knew it. Could she work with Maggie? That was the next question. She was the boss’s daughter, and she’d know it and abuse her position. Polly lay awake, watching a moth fly around her room in the pale moonlight. She felt a bit like that moth, trapped in a life that she didn’t really want. She was alone, so terribly alone, with no one to talk to and no one to understand her.

  6

  ‘Well, did she get her lift? And who was it that picked her and the milk up, from the lane end?’ Ada dried her hands on the tea-towel and waited for the report from Edmund as he pulled up his chair to eat his breakfast.

  ‘Aye, she’s gone. You know, I felt full of pride, and nearly bawled. She looked so bonny in her black-and-white dairy uniform. She’s grown up so quickly.’ Edmund tucked into his breakfast.

  ‘And . . . ’ Ada knew he had more to say.

  ‘Oh! Aye, it was Oliver Simms from Buttersett that picked her and the kits up. You know him – he has that big family and preaches at Chapel on a Sunday. She couldn’t be any safer than with him, so stop fretting.’ Edmund was getting tired of the constant earbashing from Ada, but was still adamant it was the right thing for Polly.

  ‘Oh, well, I don’t have to worry about him. It’s who else she works with that might be the problem.’ Ada continued to wipe the pots.

  ‘Will you stop bothering. She’ll be all right. Bill will look out for her. He owes it to our Danny, because I’m sure it was Bill that led him astray.’ Edmund ventured to mention his son’s name, fearing a reaction from Ada.

  ‘Aye, and look what he did to this family last time. I tell you, Edmund, I’m worried to death. I don’t mind you supplying the dairy, but when it comes to our Polly, I wish she wasn’t working there.’ She could nearly have cried.

  ‘You didn’t see her face, Mother, as she waved goodbye. She’ll be right – it’s only two days a week. She just looked so happy.’

  ‘Well, I hope that you are right, for all our sakes.’ Ada sighed. How she wished she had never encouraged Edmund to supply the dairy with milk.

  Polly sat next to the man her father had called Oliver and waved to the farmers she knew, as they picked up kits full of fresh milk. Oliver, she gathered, was a man of few words, not bothering to pass pleasantries about the weather, or ask if she was nervous about starting her new job. If he had asked, she would have told him she was petrified, and that she had never worked for anyone other than her father, and didn’t class that as work really. He had said, ‘Now then, Edmund’, when he loaded the two kits onto the back of the cart, but that had been over half an hour ago. And now they were passing through the tiny hamlet of Appersett and were nearly into the town of Hawes.

  ‘You’ll be wanting a lift back tonight, Mr Sunter tells me. I’ll be round the back of the dairy at six. Don’t be late. I want to see something of my missus and kids before she puts them all to bed.’ Oliver talked drily as he focused on the bobbing heads of his horses.

  ‘If that’s all right with you? I believe that’s what was agreed between Mr Sunter and my father.’ Polly smiled and turned her head to look at Oliver, hoping to strike up a conversation on the last mile into Hawes.

  ‘It’ll have to be right – I’ve no say in it. I just get my orders and hope I get paid at the end of the week, else my family goes hungry.’ Oliver still kept his gaze on the horses and the road ahead, not turning his head to acknowledge Polly.

  ‘I see. Well, six o’clock it is, and I won’t be late.’ Polly thought she wouldn’t dare to be. Oliver might completely blank her if she were to be or, worse still, might refuse to take her home.

  The cart shook as it made its
way through the streets of Hawes, with kits clanging together from the rattle of the chains that held them in place. Polly felt herself sway with every uneven cobble and flagstone on the road, and was thankful as the cart came round the corner and down the track that led to the back entrance to the dairy.

  ‘You get out here. Go through them doors and ask for Miss Swaine. She’ll show you where to go and what to do.’ Oliver jumped down from the front of the cart, without any offer to help Polly alight. Instead he went round to the back of the cart and started to undo the chains from the milk-kits.

  Polly sat for a second and then slowly swivelled her bottom to the edge of the high seat and made a tentative step down onto the ground, feeling her skirt get caught on a piece of metal bar just under her seat. She blushed, as she knew she was showing her ankle. She quickly turned round and tried to free herself before anyone noticed, silently cursing to herself as she hastened to undo the material.

  ‘Here, let me help.’

  Polly looked up and noticed a young man of about her age coming to her rescue.

  She blushed. ‘It’s all right, really, I can manage.’ She tried again, but the material had become wedged between the two pieces of metal, and the more she moved her body, the tighter it caught.

  ‘Don’t move, I’ll pull it free while you just keep still . . . There you are, free to go, but I’m afraid you look a bit grimy where it was caught.’ Her rescuer smiled, his eyes twinkling with amusement at the embarrassment of her plight. ‘Oliver, next time offer Miss Harper a hand. It’s a big step down off the milk cart for a woman,’ he shouted as he smiled at Polly with a knowing look.

  ‘Yes, sir. Will do, sir.’ Oliver was quick to talk now.

  ‘You know my name. Thank you for your help.’ Polly flattened her skirt down and looked up at the young man, who must be of some importance, judging by the way Oliver had jumped to attention.

  ‘I do indeed. Maggie has told me all about you, and that you are to be looked after, in her absence. She also told me to warn you that Miss Swaine can be a bit of a tartar, and to watch yourself. Anyway, she’ll be waiting, so I’d get a move on. Miss Swaine’s a stickler for time-keeping.’