Above the Harvest Moon
Page 36
There was a taut silence. Outside the window they could hear Jack Osborne calling to someone and then the sound of him laughing, and somewhere in the distance one of the farm dogs barked.
Jake swallowed hard. His throat felt like sandpaper. Part of him was crying out, I haven’t got the strength to deal with this now. I can’t think straight. I’ll give myself away. The other part was horrified she could have been feeling hurt.
She looked beautiful, more beautiful than he’d ever seen her, sitting there with her great liquid eyes fixed on his face. Her face blurred and he swallowed again, looking down at his hands. Quietly, he said, ‘It wasn’t that I didn’t trust you. I didn’t want to involve you, that’s all. Not in something so unpleasant.’
‘What would you have said if I’d done a similar thing?’
‘That’s different.’
‘Why? Because I’m a woman?’
‘Yes. No. Oh, I don’t know.’ He paused. ‘But it wasn’t that I didn’t trust you, I want you to believe that.’
‘Then it can only be that you don’t think I love you enough.’
He stopped breathing, his eyes remaining fixed on his lifeless hands on the counterpane. They didn’t look as though they belonged to his body. He didn’t recognise them.They were too white, too limp looking. His mind was taking refuge in the mundane and he forced himself to respond to what she’d said. She was talking about sister love. He knew that. But this conversation was crucifying him. ‘No, I don’t think that,’ he said woodenly. ‘You’ve always been very kind, very good—’
‘So why are you making me behave in such a forward way? It shouldn’t be me saying I love you, that I can’t live without you and that those three weeks when I thought they might wrongly convict you were the worst of my life. That a world that didn’t have you in it wouldn’t be worth living in. It’s not seemly for me to say all that when you’ve given me no indication that you feel the same way.’
He couldn’t bring himself to look at her. If he did, all this might fade away and he would be forced to recognise his mind - the mind that had played such tricks on him the last weeks - was misbehaving again.
There was a pause which stretched into eternity and then she said brokenly, ‘If you want me to leave, I will, once you’re better.’
‘No.’ He raised his eyes to her face and what he saw caused his throat to swell and his heart to knock against his ribs. ‘But you can’t feel like that, not about me.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’m—’ He stopped. Shaking his head, he said, ‘You’re young and bonny.You could have anyone.’
‘I don’t want anyone. Just you.’
‘You don’t know what you’re saying.’
‘On the contrary. And before you start thinking this and that, let me make it plain this is no sudden thing.’
Her cheeks were burning with hot colour but her voice was calm, cool even. For a moment he allowed his mind to clutch at the hope that this was no girlish fancy that would evaporate once he was on his feet again and she had stopped feeling sorry for him.
‘And the reason I can’t have much sympathy for Adam being locked away for good is because he would have happily seen you hang for something he was guilty of.’
So that was it. Reality rushed in. She was seeing him as the injured party, the innocent victim. Not only that but the nursing of the last weeks, when he’d been as helpless as a babe, had brought out her womanly emotions. It would be very different when he was back on his feet and behaving like a man again. Stiffly, he said, ‘You don’t have to make atonement for what Adam did.’
For a moment she stared at him. Slowly she got to her feet. ‘If you weren’t so ill I’d punch you on the nose for that, Jake Fletcher.’
A line of red stained his cheekbones as he stared back at her. ‘I didn’t mean—’
‘You’re the most patronising, arrogant, awkward, stupid man I’ve ever come across,’ she said slowly and distinctly. ‘Why I love you I don’t know, but I do and I’m stuck with it. I can’t force you to believe me though. You’ll have to work through that for yourself. And I’m not going to turn cartwheels trying to convince you either. And now you’ve made me say this all wrong and spoilt everything.’To his amazement she actually stamped her foot in temper before turning and walking across the room.
She had her hand on the door handle when his voice came. ‘Hannah?’
‘What?’ Her eyes were misty with unshed tears when she faced him.
‘Doesn’t this,’ he lifted a hand to his face, ‘repulse you even a little?’
How could she make him understand? What chance did she have of breaking through thirty-three years of aloneness? She didn’t know the words to say, she wasn’t articulate enough to express all she felt. ‘If it was me who had been hurt, would you be repulsed or would you love and respect me all the more for making a good life for myself? I know you won’t believe this, but I don’t see your scars, Jake. I stopped seeing them a long time ago. To me you’re the most handsome man in the world and I mean your whole face when I say that, not just the undamaged side.’
‘I . . . I find that hard to believe.’
‘Try,’ she said simply, before opening the door and leaving the room.
Outside on the landing, she stood with her back against the wall, her chest heaving. She wanted to cry but suddenly her eyes were dry, her heart aching. She had said it all wrong. How could she have called him those names? She lifted a hand to her mouth, biting down hard on her thumbnail. She had always known he would never speak first and so she had determined she would tell him calmly how she felt, once he was well enough, and then leave the rest with him. But him suggesting she was offering herself as some sort of compensation for what Adam had tried to do had made her mad. It had been little short of insulting.
She looked towards a shaft of April sunlight slanting across the floorboards at the end of the landing. She walked over to the tall narrow window and peered out. Peter and the twins had already left for the walk into Southwick where they were now attending a new school on the west side of the parish, but to one corner of the farmyard she could see Daniel Osborne and Stephen talking to Naomi. It had been decided Naomi would leave the jam factory and work on the farm. Anne Osborne was getting married in a few weeks and Naomi would take her place in the dairy. Enid had already offered to train Naomi up. Naomi was getting on well with Daniel’s mother, something she herself had never done.As she watched, Daniel lifted his hand and brushed a strand of hair from Naomi’s cheek.
Hannah turned abruptly. Naomi and Daniel. Anne getting married. Florence expecting another bairn. Even Grace Osborne had just started walking out with a lad from the village. For a moment envy swamped her. It was all so easy for them.
She stared down at her chewed nail. Jake had never said he loved her. What if she’d misread that look in his eyes at the police station? But then she reminded herself it had been her name he had muttered in the midst of his delirium, not just once but many times. And she loved him. No one else would do.
Moving her head impatiently at her thoughts, she made her way downstairs. She had too much to do to stand mooning, as Clara would call it. Dear Clara. She had been a rock the last weeks. She had already made it her business to make a friend of Rose, chivvying Jake’s mother along as best she could when Rose’s despair had threatened to overwhelm her.
Pausing outside the kitchen door, Hannah took a deep breath, composing her face before she pushed the door open. Rose was sitting at the kitchen table drinking a cup of tea. Glancing at Hannah’s empty hands, she said, ‘I thought you went for his breakfast tray?’
‘He hadn’t finished.’
‘But he was eating something? That’s a good sign.’
‘I’m not sure if he’d had anything.’
Rose looked up into the face of the girl she thought of as a second daughter. Her voice changing, she said, ‘What is it? What’s happened now?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Some
thing’s wrong. Is he worse?’
‘No, no. He’s fine. Well, as fine as he was yesterday anyway.’ Hannah plumped down on a chair. ‘It’s just - oh, I shouldn’t be bothering you, you must be feeling awful. You’ve enough on your plate.’
‘Lass, I’ve had plenty on my plate, as you put it, since my Joe died and I’m going to be feeling awful for a long time. Every time I think of my lad locked up in that place, in fact. But that don’t mean life don’t go on. It went on after Joe and it’ll go on now, that’s the way of it. Wilbur . . .’ Rose paused. ‘That’s going to happen and I can’t do nowt about it. The good book says an eye for an eye and God won’t be mocked.’
Hannah nodded. She always felt acutely uncomfortable when Rose talked about Wilbur but there was nothing she could say or do. Wilbur insisted he’d been the one to deliver the fatal blow. Adam had not challenged this and certainly it was more acceptable to Rose that it was her husband and not her son who had murdered Silas. Hannah knew that her suspicions were something she would have to live with, shared only with Jake.
‘So what is it, hinny? What’s upset you?’
‘You remember the day I came to see you when we found out about Wilbur and Adam, when I said how I felt about Jake? Well, I told him this morning that I loved him. I should probably have waited a while. It . . . it didn’t go well.’
‘Oh, lass.’
‘But I do love him, Mrs Wood, and I’m not going to give up.’ As she spoke, Hannah’s voice gathered strength. ‘And he would never have said anything to me, you know that yourself.’
Rose nodded. ‘That’s for sure.’ There was silence in the kitchen for a moment; then Rose said, ‘I want you to know this, lass. However things turn out in the future, I want to say this now. I think of you as one of my own, I always have, and I’m for you come hell or high water. Just so you know.’ She paused. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘Carry on as before.’ A voice inside her head said, can you? Do you really think you can pretend this never happened and just act normal? She answered it by saying out loud, ‘I’m going to let the next move come from him and if he chooses not to say anything . . .’ She shrugged. ‘I can’t do more, Mrs Wood.’
‘No, I see that, lass.’
‘But thank you, for what you said about being for me.’
‘What will be, will be, hinny. Take comfort in that.’
Hannah smiled at Jake’s mother. What will be, will be. Did she believe that? Not altogether, no. Many a time since coming to the farm she’d heard Clara say that it was all very well to pray to God to bring you into His harbour of blessing in times of trial and turmoil, but He expected you to do your bit and row the boat as well.Well, she’d done her bit of rowing, she’d pointed the boat in the right direction; where it ended up wasn’t down to her any more.
Chapter 28
It was a week later and the last seven days had not been easy ones for Hannah. Outwardly she had appeared the same, inwardly she could feel herself shrivelling a little each day. She had been true to the promise she had made herself in the kitchen that first day and the next time she had gone into Jake’s room she had acted as though all they’d talked about was the weather. And so it had continued. Somehow she had managed to chat and laugh and carry on as normal but the price was crying herself to sleep each night and this feeling that she was diminishing in the core of her. It was about the third day that it came to her that she was experiencing a taste of what Jake had endured all his life, and with the knowledge came a new understanding of the man she loved.
The knowledge provided no answers to the situation she now found herself in. Maybe there were none. And so day followed day as she continued to play the part allotted to her.
She didn’t know what to do. What could she do? she asked herself, as she ran one of the sheets she had washed that morning through the mangle in the wash-house. She couldn’t beg and plead. He had been pleasant enough since she had spoken but with a cool reserve about him. He was holding her at arm’s length. Perhaps she had got it wrong. Perhaps he didn’t love her as a man loves a woman. Perhaps he cared for her only in the same way he cared for Naomi. She didn’t know any more. All she did know was that her declaration had made it impossible for her to stay once he was well.
The last of the sheets done, she straightened her aching back. She had been in the wash-house since eight o’clock that morning and it was now eleven but the poss tub was finally empty, the clothes mangled. All that remained was to peg everything on the two long lines at the side of the farmhouse where they caught any wind, and it was a fine drying day. It was cold but the sky was high and the sun was shining and there was enough wind to ensure come evening everything would be dry.
She had left Rose in charge of preparing lunch and baking some bread and cakes in the kitchen, but as she left the wash-house with the first of the three baskets of clothes to be hung on the line, she saw Jake’s mother hurrying towards her. The expression on Rose’s face was enough for Hannah to drop the basket.
‘Come quick.’ Rose did not shout; on the contrary, her voice was low but urgent. ‘He’s up.’
‘Jake?’
‘Aye, who else?’
They reached the kitchen door and Rose clutched at Hannah, preventing her from entering the house. ‘I heard a commotion a few minutes ago and there he was, staggering down the stairs. How he didn’t go from top to bottom, I don’t know. And he’s dressed.’ Bending her head still closer, she murmured, ‘I think he’s gone round the bend, lass. I do straight. When I asked him what he was doing he said he’s resuming his rightful place in the house. Just like that. That’s word for word. And then he made his way into his study. I went to the door to see if I could help and he told me to come and get you. Wouldn’t let me say another word. Just kept repeating for me to get you. All this has been too much for him.We’ll have to send for the doctor.’ Opening the door, Rose let Hannah precede her into the kitchen, saying, ‘Do you want me to come with you?’
‘No, no, it’s all right.’
‘What if he collapses?’
‘Then I’ll call you.’
‘I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw him.’ Again Rose was clutching at her.‘And I thought he was getting better an’ all. Lass, I couldn’t stand something happening to another of my lads and that’s the truth, it’d finish me off. First Joe dying and Adam as good as—’
‘Nothing’s going to happen to Jake, Rose.’ It was the first time Hannah had called Jake’s mother by her Christian name but both women were too upset to notice. ‘And he is getting better. Just the fact he’s up and downstairs proves that.’
‘You haven’t seen him,’ said Rose darkly.‘He looks like death warmed up and there’s something in his eyes . . . He’s not well.’
‘Let me have a word with him and then we’ll decide what to do, whether to send for Dr Stefford or not. All right?’
‘Aye, all right.’ Rose followed Hannah into the hall, saying, ‘I’ll wait out here and you call if you need me, lass.’
‘She won’t need you.’
The voice from the study caused the two women to look at each other and Rose to remark drily, ‘There’s nowt wrong with his ears anyway.’
Hannah stood in the doorway of the study looking at the man seated at the desk. She could see what Jake’s mother had meant. He did look like death warmed up.
Jake stared back at her for a moment and then said, ‘Shut the door please, Hannah.’
She did as she was told but didn’t venture further into the room, not until he said, ‘Come and sit down. I won’t bite.’
Slightly reassured at the normality of his voice, she took the seat he’d indicated on the other side of the desk. ‘You’ve frightened your mother to death.’
‘Have I? I’m sorry about that. I was hoping to be down here and established before anyone knew but she’s always had cuddy lugs.’ He smiled but she could see it was an effort.
‘You shouldn’t be up. Dr Stefford said—’
‘Why?’ She glanced at his desk. ‘There’s nothing that can’t wait when getting up too early could put you back weeks or worse.’