Family Drama 4 E-Book Bundle
Page 132
That would be a sign that he was doing the right thing. ‘Who’re you kidding?’ he sneered out loud. He just wanted to ease his own conscience, to make his desertion more comfortable, soothe his confusion, but he felt like a heel. He was taking flight from Cragside because he was a coward. He’d seen the evidence and he couldn’t face all the lies and deceit again. Yet she always seemed so sober.
How many times had he wanted to tell her how he felt but sensed his words would bring only rejection and awkwardness between them? Better to bugger off now and make the best of a bad job. If only she’d given him a sign that what they felt for each other was more than kinship and companionship. How could it be any other way? They were bound together by suffering and misunderstandings.
Mirren had a passionate heart, frozen still, dormant, waiting like the poor sheep sheltering even now under walls and drifts, waiting to be rescued, breathing, scratching, waiting for the thaw to save them. One day she’d blossom and love again, but not him.
Jack had never been the right man for her right from the start. Ben’d hung back and watched them pair off, knowing his step-cousin was too wild and wilful to make her happy. Whereas he, like a timid tup, hovered around, hoping she would notice him. ‘You have to grab life by the balls,’ his old sergeant used to say. He was more like a useless tup in a field full of ewes, not up to the job.
The two of them were rooted to this spot by generations of breeding. Hill farming was bred in their bones so why was he running away now, making excuses, leaving her in the lurch?
He was afraid of that bottle in the cellar. Its power was too strong for him to overcome. He was afraid of there being no loving responses in her. He was afraid of being turned down.
The sun pierced through the clouds for a few seconds as he reached the lane end and saw what remained of the crossroads shimmering like silver glass where the telegraph poles went in two directions. This was where he must have stumbled off track the first time. The silence was eerie, the wind whipping his earlobes and the end of his nose. It was time to kick the ice off his leggings and take out a snack from his bag.
It wasn’t that far to make for Scar Head and give them a surprise, though better to make down the lane leading up from Windebank. It felt like weeks since he had left the train, the longest time he had ever spent with Mirren alone. The more he’d lived with her the more he’d loved her.
He got up and shook off the snow. No more dithering. Time to head down the valley before the light went. He would face the huge barriers of uncut snow when he came to them. No diggers had got close to this moor yet and nothing was left but a pile of letters and bills for the farm. No sign of boxes hidden on the slate shelf halfway up the wall.
Dieter would be out on digging patrols. All the POWs would be made to work off the farms. As Ben walked, his legs got heavier and heavier and his heart sank into his boots. Funny how he could hear her voice in his head teasing. ‘Move along, slowcoach, stop flither flathering. Get on with it!’ He brushed the crumbs from his frozen coat. If only there was another way…Mirren found she’d laid the table for two and whipped up the cutlery with annoyance. Ben would be where he wanted to be by now, no doubt propping up the bar at The Fleece, boasting about being off to foreign parts.
She could do with making off to sunshine and leaving this whole sorry mess behind. The house was as quiet and empty as it used to be, and somehow that was no comfort at all. Something was missing–rather someone was missing–and she’d let him go without even a murmur of protest.
How would the family pay for all their losses? Only by pulling in their horns. If truth were told, she didn’t want Tom and Florrie taking over again, having to share a kitchen with another woman. Doreen was different. Florrie wanted to gossip about folk who didn’t interest Mirren.
It was Ben who would’ve made this harsh life bearable. Now he was gone. Perhaps it was a sign she’d lived too long with only the grandfather clock for company to be looking to him for something that wasn’t there.
They’d danced a bit and he’d comforted her over the lost snaps. It wasn’t exactly lovey-dovey candlelit dinners with soppy words. He’d sat on his hands. That sort of stuff was for the pictures. It didn’t happen in real life, not up here in the Dales. Courting was a shifty sort of arrangement, made on the dance floor or at the Young Farmers’ club. She was far too old for any of that now. Then she smelled the milk burning in the pan and jumped up. Just time for her comfort.
She flopped down with the whisky bottle and the bowl of hot water, and poured the contents into the bowl to soak her feet. If she couldn’t drink at least she could use the spirit to dab on her corns.
She felt a sudden draught, a blast of ice and wind, and the door banging open, the dogs barking and wagging their tails, jumping up at the open door.
There was a snowman in the doorway grinning, his beard full of icicles, his coat sticking out like a crinoline. She dropped the bottle in shock.
‘Now don’t go blaming me for that,’ said a familiar voice.
‘Ben! What are you doing back here? Is it that bad outside?’ Her heart was thundering with pleasure at the sight of him. ‘Sit down, sit down…I’ll get you a brew.’
‘I got halfway down the hill and then I saw how bad it was. It’s not good. Then I thought to myself, there’ll be other ships but now’s not the time to be deserting yer post. Cragside is my home as well as yours, and I don’t want to see you all ruined for want of another pair of hands. I hope you don’t mind…’ He paused, looking down with furrowed icy eyebrows at her standing in a bowl of water.
She burst out laughing. ‘You’ve caught me at my ablutions…but I think you thought I was back on the hard stuff and came back to spy on me. Oh, Ben! Look, it’s all here to soothe my corns. Smell it! Proper medicine this time.’
Enough shillyshallying, it was now or never. ‘You’re a good man, Ben Yewell. I’ve never been so glad to see anyone in all my life. The house’s been that quiet. I can’t believe you’ve come back. I want to hug you. I missed you so!’
‘Then what’s stopping you?’ he laughed, his ice-blue eyes sparkling with mischief at giving her such a shock.
She tore at his frozen clothes and flung them on the floor. Her heart was racing as she fingered his icy cheek. Her kiss was closed, dry and tentative, testing, hesitant, just a peck, waiting for him to draw back in shock. He searched her face with his eyes. Then she kissed him hungrily, her lips apart as if she was drinking in the very heart of him. They rolled down onto the old sofa that smelled of dogs and coal, lying in each other’s arms, laughing.
‘Oh, Mirren, can you forgive me? I thought the worst. I wanted to catch you out and now it’s me who’s ashamed.’
She stopped his mouth with a kiss.
Ben was home and this time she was going to give him such a Yorkshire welcome that nothing would make him go away again.
In the early dawn she woke to feel the warmth of the bed and the big hump beside her. She wanted to shake him and kiss him awake, and leaned over.
‘This’s the only way to keep warm from now on, better than any hot-water bottle,’ she whispered. The bed was rumpled and the sheets awry, but Ben turned towards her and cupped her breast, flicking her nipple alive with one finger and feathering her in a slow deliberate caress as if there was all the time in the world.
Her hands explored him back. There were no boundaries or stone walls between them now, nothing but pleasure given and received.
Somewhere in that precious evening they had crossed the river, over the wooden bridge from friends to lovers, and now her body yearned for more. This was how it should be. This is what she needed, feelings long forgotten as his fingers roamed across her skin and lit a fire no blizzard would ever quench.
Ben leaned over his lover with a smile. To think if he had walked away he’d have missed the fire in her eyes as she welcomed him home. This was his home for good, hefted to her side for the rest of his life. Who needed promised lands when all the world was
right here in this bed, burning up with eagerness to draw him back into her? In this curtained-off cocoon was life and courage and hope; all he had ever wanted. Mirren, his lover, his woman, his friend. He nuzzled her cheek and grinned. ‘Let’s be having you again…’
Outside the wind turned from the east towards the south, warmer air crept northwards, changing snow to fat goose feathers. Everything looked the same but wasn’t.
The sheep sensed the change, the crows rasped and the cows snorted. Soon the icy gargoyles on the drainpipes would shrink and melt in the morning sun, ice glistening to the sound of sliding snow.
Down in the valley the mechanical diggers ground their way up the gritted track, banks of brown slush parted as the plough divided its spoil. Footprints left a damper patch.
Winter was losing its stranglehold at long last. The curlews bubbled and called, flying over a shrinking sea of snow to find their nesting places. Spring was on the move and new life growing, safe under the blankets in a bedroom at Cragside Farm.
The house creepers sank back into the darkness, content.
Author’s Notes
You will not find Windebank or Scarperton on any map of the Yorkshire Dales for they are fusions of many villages and townships in the Craven area. My story and its characters are entirely fictitious but I have based some incidents on local events before and after the Second World War.
I am indebted to the following for sharing their stories of their farming lives: Anne Holgate, Olive and Joe Coates, Elizabeth Hird, Gordon Sargeant and Dick Middleton but especially to the late Mrs Edith Carr for the loan of photographs. I have drawn inspiration from her detailed account of surviving the winter of 1947 from her memoir: Edith Carr-Life on Malham Moor. A mini-biography by W.R. Mitchell, Castleberg Publications (1999).
I also drew ideas and inspiration from local exhibitions at the Folly Museum, Settle, and Victoria Hall, and from local publications: North Craven at War: A Collection by the North Craven Historical Research Group, Hudson History publications of Settle (2005) and How they lived in the Yorkshire Dales by W.R. Mitchell, Castleberg Publications (2001).
The incident with the barrage balloon was inspired by an anecdote in Sheep, Steam and Shows by Gerald Tyler.
I am indebted to North Yorkshire County Libraries for always finding my obscure requests, especially the Settle branch for showing me the Craven Herald and Pioneer articles and the local archive of the Giggleswick total eclipse in 1927.
Most of the information on the secret Auxiliary Units of the Home Guard came from www.auxunit.org.uk. My hidden bunkers in the Dales are fictitious. I’d love to know if there are any still extant.
This story was sometimes written to the accompaniment of Edward Elgar’s Introduction and Adagio for Strings, Opus 47: the background music to Barry Cockcroft’s inspirational Yorkshire TV documentary, Too Long a Winter (1974).
Many thanks to my editor, Maxine Hitchcock and the team at Avon, to Judith Murdoch, my patient agent, Elizabeth Gill and Trisha Ashley of the 500 Club and Diane Allen for their constant encouragement and support.
A special thanks also to Jenny Hall, Joyce Price, June Parrington, Kate Croll and the late Kathleen Firth for their friendship and enthusiasm and to David and all my family for just being there.
About the Author
Leah Fleming was born in Lancashire of Scottish parents, and is married with four grown-up children and four grandchildren. She writes full time from a haunted farmhouse in the Yorkshire Dales and from the slopes of an olive grove in Crete. For further information on Leah Fleming, please visit www.leahfleming.co.uk
Visit www.AuthorTracker.co.uk for exclusive updates on Leah Fleming.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
The ultimate treat for fans of Danielle Steele and Penny Vincenzi …
Copyright
Avon
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
77–85 Fulham Palace Road
Hammersmith, London W6 8JB
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by Harper Collins in 2013
Copyright © Kitty Neale 2013 NOBODY’S GIRL, Pam Weaver 2013 (THERE’S ALWAYS TOMORROW) Marie Maxwell 2013 Ruby, LEAH FLEMING 2013 (THE GIRL FROM WORLD’S END)
NOBODY’S GIRL
Cover [photograph/illustration] © Benedict Winter
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2009
THERE’S ALWAYS TOMORROW
Cover [photograph/illustration] © Debbie Clement design
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2011
RUBY
Cover [photograph/illustration] © Colin Thomas/Getty
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2012
THE GIRL FROM WORLD’S END
Cover [photograph/illustration] © Beard & Howell/Getty
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2007
Kitty Neale asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of NOBODY’S GIRL
Pam Weaver asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of THERE’S ALWAYS TOMORROW
Marie Maxwell asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of RUBY
Leah Fleming asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of THE GIRL FROM WORLD’S END
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
Ebook Edition © June 2013 ISBN: 9780007532445
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Version 1
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street
Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia
http://www.harpercollins.com.au/ebooks
Canada
HarperCollins Canada
2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor
Toronto, ON, M4W, 1A8, Canada
http://www.harpercollins.ca
New Zealand
HarperCollins Publishers (New Zealand) Limited
P.O. Box 1
Auckland, New Zealand
http://www.harpercollins.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London, W6 8JB, UK
http://www.harpercollins.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
10 East 53rd Street
New York, NY 10022
http://www.harpercollins.com