Like Father, Like Son

by Diane Allen

  ‘He’s back taking it to the early-morning train, to send it to my Aunty Evie in Liverpool.’ Polly felt sorry for Maggie’s mother, as she watched Bill pat the waitress’s bum and nearly dribble his mouthful of beer, as she smiled at him and tripped away giggling. Bill Sunter could have anything he wanted, because money talked, and well he knew it.

  ‘He’s a silly old bugger, if he’s getting up at that time in the morning and trailing up to Hawes Junction with a few gill of milk. He’d have been better stopping with me. After all, there was no harm done. The whole of Hawes knew who your father was, and I did nowt wrong with taking your brother on. He always was a bit cobbed – that’s why your father left.’ Bill took another long drink and glared at his wife, sitting at the next table. ‘That and not wanting to get landed with something like that!’

  ‘I think we’ll go and have a chat with Maggie and Ralph, if you’ll excuse us, Mr Sunter.’ Joe had heard enough of Bill Sunter’s drunken talk and decided to save them both from any more insults, sensing that Polly was on the brink of tears.

  ‘Aye, go and see the loving couple. Get some tips, lad. Or perhaps it’s our Maggie that can learn you a thing or two, but I seem to remember the dairy being full of gossip when you worked there, lass, so perhaps you don’t need them.’ He stared at Polly.

  Polly rose from her chair. What an obnoxious load of rubbish Bill Sunter was. She would have liked to have given him a piece of her mind, if it wasn’t Maggie’s wedding and he hadn’t been old enough to be her father.

  ‘Don’t let him upset you. My father warned me he couldn’t hold his drink. I think, even for all his money, he’s not a happy man.’ Joe led the way to where Maggie and Ralph sat with his parents.

  Maggie stood up, hugging Polly tightly, and kissed her on the cheek. ‘I’m so glad that you are here, Polly. This is my new family, Ralph’s mother and father and his two brothers.’

  Ralph’s family nodded their heads in recognition of Joe and Polly, and smiled as Maggie sat down with her best friend and Joe talked to Ralph. ‘And has my father told you he’s bought Ralph and me a cottage in Muker.’ She hardly stopped for breath. She’d wanted to tell Polly her news and introduce her to her new lifestyle in Swaledale.

  ‘Yes, yes. You are very lucky. You’ve everything now, Maggie, I’m so pleased for you.’

  ‘But you’re going out with Joe now.’ Maggie smiled and then whispered into Polly’s ear. ‘He’s so good-looking.’ She giggled and glanced at Joe and Ralph, who were talking business, even though it was the wedding day.

  ‘Mmm, I know.’ Polly smiled, feeling really ungrateful for the good-looking man on her arm.

  ‘I can feel that there is a but, and I know just where he is standing,’ Maggie whispered as she glanced over to Tobias Middleton, now standing talking to Ralph’s brothers. ‘Polly, let me introduce you to my brothers-in-law. You must meet them. Besides, listen to these two old men of ours. Who wants to talk about how to extract the best quality of lead? That’s boring.’ Maggie giggled and pulled on Polly’s hand, taking her next to the window that overlooked the market square, where Tobias and Ralph’s two dark-haired brothers stood. ‘I thought I’d brighten the day up for you three single gentlemen and introduce you to my best friend, Polly Harper. Although, Tobias, I do believe you already know her.’ Maggie giggled, and watched as Tobias turned in surprise towards Polly, who was standing next to him.

  ‘Oops – excuse me, I think my mother wants me.’ Maggie smiled, making an excuse for leaving her friend, knowing full well what she was doing, and leaving Polly embarrassed that she had been so obviously dumped on Tobias.

  ‘Miss Harper, or may I call you Polly?’ Tobias smiled and noticed the flush of colour in Polly’s cheeks. ‘I was just saying to Ted and Frank here that the price of land is going to rise this coming year. Do you think I’m right, Polly?’

  Polly looked at Tobias and felt like a dumbstruck schoolchild as he gazed upon her. ‘I don’t know. I leave such like to my grandfather, but if you feel it might, I’m sure it must be correct.’

  ‘Indeed, I aim to buy whatever I can afford, when it becomes available, of course. The world is changing and there is only one thing that holds its value and worth, and that is the fields and the fells around us.’ Tobias drank from his glass and smiled as the two Bannister brothers gave their apologies; talk of finance and bragging of money matters was not for them.

  ‘So, Polly, how are you? Now that we have lost our unwanted company, I see you have a new suitor on your arm, though I don’t think he’s quite strong enough for the likes of you.’ Tobias smiled.

  ‘I think I’ll be the judge of that. Joe is thoughtful and sweet, and a gentleman.’ Despite knowing that Tobias was right, Polly wanted to show some loyalty to her new love.

  ‘Aye, but he’ll never make you happy. You are a woman of the wild fells, not a dreary carpenter’s wife. I’ll never forget the day when I first saw you up near Mallerstang Edge: your hair was wild and as tangled as a gypsy child’s, and those blue eyes flashed with a hint of fear, but also with a hint of curiosity.’

  ‘Tobias, be quiet – folk will hear.’ Polly bowed her head.

  ‘Well, let them hear. I’ve decided that from now on I’m going to have what I want, and to hell with folk. I know what they all say about me: that I can never be any good because of my father. Well, perhaps they are right.’

  ‘Aye, perhaps they are right about you, because what about the poor woman on your arm at the harvest supper? Have you got fed up with her already? You spent enough money on buying courting cake for her.’ Polly’s hatred of the woman who had won Tobias’s favours tumbled out, before she could stop them.

  Tobias looked stunned and then let out a hearty laugh. ‘You mean my mother? You are jealous of my mother? Did you not see who it was on my arm? I bid it up for her. She always loves kiss-me-cake, as it reminds her of her time in Leeds. The only person to eat it was me and old Jed, my shepherd, when we had our morning break.’ Tobias grinned. The look on Polly’s face told him everything. The lass was smitten with him, and well she knew it.

  ‘I thought you had a girlfriend on your arm. I couldn’t see, from where Joe and I were sitting.’ Polly was feeling foolish. She’d used Joe for nothing, and now she was stuck with him. Tobias had already guessed how shallow her friendship really was.

  ‘Never mind, Polly, I’m sure you are happy with your new conquest. If you do feel like a change, meet me next Saturday afternoon on Mallerstang Edge, next to the waterfall. It can be our meeting place,’ Tobias whispered in her ear as he watched Joe make his way through the crowd. His laughter had alerted Joe to the fact that Tobias was talking to his girlfriend.

  Polly blushed as Joe grabbed her arm.

  ‘Are you all right, Pol?’ Joe looked at Tobias and puffed his chest out like a bantam-cock.

  ‘Of course she’s all right. Polly’s just been telling me all about you. What a perfect partner you are, and how lucky she is to be with you today.’ Tobias patted Joe on the back.

  ‘You said all that, Pol? I didn’t realize that you felt all that.’ Joe smiled and looked at Polly.

  ‘All that and more, my man.’ Tobias grinned as he moved away.

  Joe’s face burst with pride.

  Polly smiled angelically. Now she’d have to go to the waterfall this coming Saturday, just to give Tobias a piece of her mind, if nothing else.

  The October wind was bitter as Polly trudged up over the fell, but that wasn’t going to deter her from seeing Tobias. She’d thought of nobody else since the wedding, and now the day had come and nothing was going to prevent her from seeing the man who made her feel light-headed and utterly wicked. Thankfully, Matt had turned up like a bad penny and she had been able to leave him and her grandfather talking, while she made her way through the waist-high rushes and squelching sphagnum moss of the fell over to Mallerstang.

  The low cloud clung to the dark shape of Wild Boar Fell and there was a smell of rain in the air. Polly’s
long black hair whipped across her face, and the bottom of her skirt was wet and muddy as she climbed over the stile onto the Mallerstang road. She remembered the first time she had seen Tobias there; how she had been fearful of him, but even then had felt an attraction. Now she was nearly running in her urgency to see him, her breath heavy and pounding in her chest as she came within sight of the waterfall. The force of the wind was pushing the water from it backwards, making a spectacular white shower at the head of the fall, as well as the usual frothing cascade, and the laden rowan tree at the side of the bank creaked with the wind’s strength. Polly pulled her shawl around her and brushed back her straggling locks of hair, taking shelter at the foot of the fall, under the hillside. She looked down the valley at all the smallholdings dotted along the dale, and at the rivulets and streams like white ribbons, which flowed down the side of each fell to the river in the valley bottom. It was a wild landscape, but one she loved.

  Ahead lay the market town of Kirkby Stephen and, beyond that, the wide plains of the Eden valley leading up to the Scottish borders. Over these lands, in times past, battles had been fought between invading Scottish tribes from the north and the hardy Dales folk. Border reivers had swept down under the cloak of night, stealing cattle and sheep and taking them back over the border, but still her ancestors had stood their ground. Hers was a heritage to be proud of, and Polly knew it.

  She pulled her shawl tighter around her, hoping that Tobias would not be too long. Her ears were pinned for the noise of a horse’s hooves on the cobbled road. An hour or more passed, and still Polly sat waiting. She was chilled to the bone and shivering with cold. Where was he? Soon the heavy grey afternoon would give way to dusk and she would have to go home. The first spot of threatening rain fell, and Polly knew it was time to go back. Had Tobias been playing with her heart-strings again? Perhaps he had no intention at all of meeting her; perhaps he was the cad everyone said he was.

  Polly sobbed as she made her way back into Gars-dale. She was frozen, soaked to the skin and broken-hearted. Tobias Middleton was a bastard. Everyone kept telling her so, so why didn’t she believe them?

  ‘Where the hell have you been, lass? Look at you – you are sodden to the skin and mucked up.’ Edmund looked at Polly’s sorry state.

  ‘Don’t . . . just don’t. I got caught in the rain. I went out for a walk, because you were talking to Matt, and I just got wet.’ Polly stood soaked to the skin, her hair dripping and hanging like rat’s tails down her back. She struggled to keep the disappointment out of her voice, and if her grandmother Ada had still been alive, she would have broken down in tears in front of her. But Edmund was different, and he’d play hell with her, if he knew what she had been up to.

  ‘Well, you’d better get up them stairs and change, before you catch your death of cold. You can’t hide from Matt all your life, you know. He is your brother, whether you like it or not!’ Edmund scowled at Polly. She had a jealous streak in her sometimes.

  ‘I didn’t go because Matt was here. I went because I fancied a walk,’ shouted Polly from halfway up the stairs.

  ‘Aye. well, I worried where you’d gone. Matt says to tell you Joe’s coming by tomorrow night.’ Edmund stood on the bottom step of the stairs and received no reply from Polly. He heard the floorboards creak above him as she walked into her bedroom. She was sulking. He didn’t know what about, but he did know that the dark, scowling look upon her face meant that she wasn’t happy.

  Tobias stood in his stable, stripped off to the waist and steaming with sweat. He wiped his damp hair with his shirt and looked on, as the foal took to its legs. He smiled as it took its first unsteady steps towards its mother, and milk. The bloody animal, he thought, of course it would decide to foal today and have a difficult birth. But he couldn’t leave his favourite mare for a lass who might not be waiting for him anyway. He smiled again as the mare gently nudged the little filly, urging the newborn to fill its empty stomach with protecting milk. It would be a grand horse when it got older, having its mother’s markings.

  Even though he’d been looking forward to seeing Polly, being at the birth was worth missing her for. Besides, Tobias hoped she’d understand. He pulled on his shirt, tugged up his braces and looked back at the mother and daughter, before making for the closed door of the stable. He opened it to find that the weather had changed. He hadn’t noticed because he’d been so involved in the birth. He stood at the stable door and watched as the eaves above the barn and stable overflowed with the rain, which was coming down in torrents. Grouse Hall looked grey and brooding, fitting into the dark, moody Dales landscape and the wet October day. He leaned with one hand on the door, his shirt sleeves billowing in the cold wind as he looked across the farmyard and down the valley to Garsdale. His thoughts were now with Polly. Had she waited for him? Was she still there? Surely not, for dusk was nearly falling and she would be at home now. He should have gone; he should have gone and left the mare with Jed. If only her grandfather was more receptive to him, he could tell him why he hadn’t been there for his granddaughter, the next time he saw Edmund at the station with his milk-kits. As it was, the old man would be more likely to threaten him with a shotgun than let Polly even talk to him. It was a shame that some memories were not buried along with his father, and that some folk would never forget.

  Tobias watched as the torrent from the eaves trough became worse, and felt his mood change with the day. He too felt dark and miserable. He was tired of being alone, and all he wanted was someone to love.

  ‘Polly, my lass, what’s wrong?’ Edmund came rushing into Polly’s bedroom in his nightshirt and carrying a candle. ‘I can hear you in my bedroom. Are you having a nightmare?’

  The old man leaned over the iron bedstead and looked down at his granddaughter, whose brow was covered with perspiration. Even by candlelight he could see her burning cheeks.

  ‘Aye, lass, you’ve caught a chill from trailing out in that weather. You’re burning up.’ Edmund’s voice was full of panic as he pulled the cover up around Polly’s chin and sat down beside her.

  ‘No, Matt, don’t hit him!’ Polly sat nearly up in bed and then lay back down again and mumbled something that Edmund couldn’t make out, before fighting an imaginary demon that was tormenting her, lost in her delirium.

  Even though Edmund knew Polly couldn’t hear him, he talked to her. ‘We’ve got to get your temperature down. I’ll get some cloths and a dish of cold water, and place the cloths on your brow. I’ll have to go down to the kitchen and get them. Don’t you move.’ Edmund lit the candle on Polly’s chest of drawers and quickly made his way down to the kitchen, returning in a flash with cooling towels and extra candles for light. ‘I don’t know what you were doing out in such weather, and you’d next to nowt on – no wonder you are so poorly tonight.’ He wrung out one of his cooling cloths and placed it on her burning brow.

  Polly tossed, turned and flayed her hands out, mumbling gibberish as Edmund soothed her.

  ‘Aye, lass, if owt happens to you, I’ve nobody. I think the world of thee, you do know that, don’t you?’ Edmund patted Polly’s head and stood over her. ‘You were all me and our Ada lived for, after your father left. So you’re not leaving me now.’ He patted and cooled his granddaughter and pulled up a chair next to her bedside. He drew back her bedroom curtains and looked out into the dark night, as he listened to his Polly rambling. ‘My Ada would have known what to do. I’m just a useless old man. I’ll get the doctor in the morning, if we make it through this night.’ Edmund gazed out into the night, noticing the stars twinkling over Rise Hill. ‘Thy mother lived over there, lass. Bonny bit of a thing she was, caught our lad’s eye straight away. Can’t say I blame him, and you look a lot like her.’ He got up and changed the damp cloth from her head. ‘I’d have kicked his arse, if I’d have known what he’d done to her.’

  He looked down on Polly, who tossed and turned with fever. ‘Here, take a sip of this water.’ He lifted her head up from the pillow and tried to trickle
some water into her parched lips. ‘Perhaps if I just wet your lips instead. Oh dear, I’m spilling it all down your nightdress.’ Edmund laid Polly’s head down and wet her lips with some water on his finger. ‘Aye, lass, what are we going to do? Don’t leave me. I know there’s Matt, but I never watched him growing up, and I don’t feel the same about him as I do about you.’ His eyes filled with tears as he held her hand and prayed for the fever to break. The night was going to be a long one, and morning just couldn’t come quickly enough.

  ‘You’ll not leave her, will you, Joe?’

  Edmund had never been so grateful in his life for the sight of Joe Fothergill entering the yard of Paradise, just before lunchtime the following day.

  ‘I’ll look after her, Mr Harper. You go and get the doctor.’ Joe sat in the chair next to Polly, with a furrowed brow and a worried look on his face.

  ‘And you’ll behave yourself with her – you know what I mean? It isn’t right conventional, leaving a young man alone in a woman’s bedroom.’ Edmund frowned.

  ‘Mr Harper, who do you think I am? Polly’s ill. And besides, I respect her!’ Joe was clearly insulted that Edmund had even considered that he might take advantage of Polly, for the thought had never crossed his mind. All he was worried about was Polly’s health.

  ‘Aye, I’m sorry, lad, but I had to say it. Right, I’m off. I’ll be back as soon as I can.’ Edmund took a long, lingering look at Polly as she mumbled words under her breath, and Joe patted her forehead. Old Clover would have to pull out all the stops and get him to Hawes double-quick.

  Joe sat next to Polly and watched as she tossed her head back and forth, muttering to herself while the pillowcase became drenched with her sweat. What had she been doing to get so cold and wet, out on the top of the fell? It hadn’t been fit for a dog to be let out yesterday afternoon, let alone someone out for what should have been a pleasurable walk. The look on old Edmund Harper’s face had told him how harrowing the night had been. Joe had thought the old man was going to break down and cry, as he’d entered the house. Polly meant everything to Edmund – everyone knew that – and she was beginning to mean a lot to him too, despite Matt’s disapproval.