Leo shook her head, then said, ‘I wouldn’t in her place. Where are we going, Peter?’ After she had asked this question she gave a little laugh and added, ‘See? I don’t know where I’m going any more.’
With a swift movement he slipped his arm under her shoulders and, drawing her up to him again, he said softly, ‘That’s how things should be, I’ll be driving from now on. And I can tell you you’ll be safer in our old Austin than ever you were in the Alvis. We’ll find a little place somewhere, a cottage or a flat, and I’ll start the business of getting you better.’
‘Oh, Peter’—her face took on a look of pain—‘don’t hope like that, it’ll make things harder. I used to, then I had to—’
He brought one hand to her mouth and placed his fingers gently over it, and smiling down at her, he said with such firmness that he almost believed it himself, ‘You’ll get better, or your name won’t be Mrs Puddleton. Aw there, don’t—don’t cry. Leo, darling, don’t.’
As he dried her eyes, Rosie’s voice came from the bottom of the stairs, startling them. ‘This supper’ll be stone cold.’ They looked at each other understandingly, and he whispered, ‘Smile…come on. Just another day or so and then…’
And when she smiled and kissed his fingers with her wet lips he had to leave her swiftly in case the pain of his love should overwhelm him and he should join his tears to hers.
There was silence at the supper table when he sat down, and he did nothing to break it. But after some moments Harry spoke, and his question brought all eyes in his direction.
‘How’re you having your money?’ he asked. ‘Cash, or in a bank?’
His fork halfway to his mouth, Peter said, ‘Cash. Why do you ask?’
‘Nothin’. Nothin’…I just wondered.’
‘Why?’ asked Peter again, his fork still poised.
‘Now can’t I just ask a question?’
‘Funny one to ask, strikes me.’ Peter bolted his mouthful of food.
‘Well, I could say it’s funny you having cash, couldn’t I?’
‘No. Because I don’t know where I’m going to settle, I may want ready cash at any time. But when I know where I’m going to stay I’ll open an account.’
In deference to Rosie’s feeling he kept to the ‘I’, omitting the more personal ‘we’.
‘Lot of money to be carrying around with you,’ said Old Pop quietly.
So that was it, they wanted to hang on to his money for him. Rosie’s knife clattered to the plate as she cried, ‘He’s not a child! If he can’t look after his own money now he never will.’
‘That’s right. You’re right there, he’s not a child.’ This stressed agreement coming from her husband took the strong wind out of her sails and left her more puzzled than ever. She was about to resume her supper when Harry, chewing on a piece of sirloin, looked up at her and asked, in a still, quiet, even conversational tone, ‘And what are you doing with your share, lass?’
Rosie’s chair scraped backwards. So this really was it, she hadn’t been mistaken. If they couldn’t get his they’d go all out to get hers. So nodding her head at her husband, she cried, ‘I’m putting it into the new War savings, the minute I get it. Get that!’ Her indignant gaze swept the three men. And when they all, in quite a docile manner looked at her and nodded agreement she felt completely stumped. But when Harry added, ‘Good for you, lass,’ the situation went beyond her powers of understanding, and she rose from the table and flounced into the scullery, and Peter, glancing at his father tucking heartily into his supper with apparent renewed appetite, thought, ‘She’s right after all, they are up to something.’
Chapter Eleven
Grandpop was feeling sad, so sad that he hadn’t the list to bellow at the twins and Tony for dashing out and leaving the front gate open. And there it was, swinging wide now, a challenge to all the village dogs looking for pastures new. There’d be pluddy hell to pay when Rosie came back and found any of her flowers trampled. At any other time he would have thought gleefully, ‘Let she get on with it’; but today he would, if he could, have so arranged life that Rosie would find no cause for any complaint, at least through him or the delinquency of dogs, for just about this minute she was, he surmised, in Hexham signing away the garage.
Slowly Grandpop turned his eyes up the street. From today onwards, he felt, all interest in the street would be gone—he wouldn’t want to look at the garage any more. And yet…and yet, if things turned out as they should, perhaps he could sit here and get the laugh of his life. But still, Peter wouldn’t be there. His things were all packed up, and hers, too. The morrow they’d both be gone. He’d miss the lad mightily…and she. Now why in the name of fortune couldn’t things have worked out sensible like, and she could have stayed here. Lay on the couch by the window, she could, and what she couldn’t see he would have told her about. And some laughs they’d have had and no mistake, for she had a bright spirit…aye, she had. She might be ill, but she wouldn’t say die until they shut the lid on her, that ’n. Look at her this mornin’ as she had sat just there. Gay she was. That was when Rosie wasn’t nigh—she’d made very little headway with Rosie and she knew it, aye, she did. She was sharp. Well, not sharp but wise. Aye, she was wise for her years. Reminded him of someone. His mind started groping. Now who did she remind him of?
‘Grandad.’
At the sound of her voice he turned quickly towards the door and automatically adjusted his cap to an angle. ‘Hello, lass. I was just this minute thinkin’ on you. Come an’ sit down, me dear.’
Leo came a step into the room, but said, ‘Not now, Grandad, if you don’t mind, but when I come back I’d like to. I’ve got a feeling I’d like to see the lake once more and see if the eel has gone.’
‘Oh, she’d be gone after Saturda’…all that watter.’
‘Yes, perhaps, but it’ll be a little walk and it’s such a lovely day. I won’t be long, Grandad.’ She spoke his name gently and her eyes smiled at him.
‘Wish I could come along of you, lass.’ He returned her smile, wistfully, and the flesh on his cheeks fell into folds. ‘Take it easy, mind, and don’t be gone ower long. They’ll be back soon and that scarecrow of a Peter’ll be sayin’, “Where she be?”’ He cackled softly and knowingly, and now she smiled at him almost lovingly and her eyes lingered on him before she said, ‘I’ll be back before they are. Bye bye, Grandad.’
‘Bye bye, lass.’
As he watched her go out her yellow hair seemed to take the light from the room, and when she was halfway down the path something prompted him to call to her.
When she came back to the window, he said, as quietly as his voice would allow, ‘Don’t go through village, lass, go up street by cut, side of baker’s shop. You know’—he nodded at her cautiously—‘best keep clear of ’em, eh?’
She nodded soberly and somewhat sadly back at him as she repeated, ‘Yes, best keep clear of them.’
When she had gone through the gate he waved to her, and she answered it with a small salute of her hand that left him with an added sadness, and jerking his cap to the other side of his head, he exclaimed, ‘Blast! Damn and blast the pluddy lot of ’em!’
Now that she had gone there seemed to be nothing for him to do but stare, so settling himself in his chair he prepared to doze…just a nod, not real asleep. He never slept any place other than in bed, at least so he believed.
It seemed to him only some seconds later, but was actually fifteen minutes, when the sound of the gate being banged back and almost off its hinges brought him out of a deep sleep and upright in his chair, and through his bleared eyes and with fuddled mind he saw the twins galloping up the path and round the side of the house. And before he could collect himself and let forth a bellow they were in the room yelling, ‘Grandpop! Grandpop!’
‘Name of God! What is it? Shut up yer screamin’. Here! Here! You’ll have me on the floor.’ He thrust away their hands.
‘Grandpop.’
‘What is it, I say?’
He took as firm a hold of Johnny’s shoulders as his rheumaticky hands would allow. ‘Stop gibbering an’ tell us.’
‘You tell him.’ Johnny turned to his brother, and Jimmy, swallowing and spluttering, gabbled, ‘We was playing round back of Institute, spot the tiger with Tony and young Betty and Clara, an’ it was our turn for tiger an’ we got into the lay at the back. And then the women came round and we couldn’t get out ’cos they would have clouted us, an’ they started talking, Miss Collins and Miss Florrie…’
Jimmy paused for breath and Johnny put in, ‘Mrs Booth was there an’ all. An’ Mavis, ’cos she’d been to the doctor’s and she said she’d got nervis bility and was put off for a week.’
‘Aye, she did.’ Jimmy took up the tale again. ‘But it was Mrs Booth what first said “Duck her”, and she had seen her going across the fields to the lake, and she called her brazen, Grandpop, and said she was wicked. She’s not, is she, Grandpop?’
Grandpop’s hands came off the boy’s shoulder and onto the arm of his chair and he asked quietly, although he knew the answer, ‘Duck who?’
‘Miss. Our Peter’s miss.’
‘Where are they…the women?’ Grandpop had pulled himself to his feet with the help of his stick.
‘They went back in the Hall, ’cos Miss Florrie said the more that was in the better, an’ Mrs Armstrong would be with them. An’ Mavis said, “What if she swims away?” an’ Mrs Booth said she couldn’t swim, she had told Mr Booth she couldn’t. And Mrs Booth said three times under would give her a good chance to try and she’d think twice about staying here. They think she’s staying, Grandpop. An’ Miss Collins said they should tie her hands.’
‘God Almighty!’ The old man looked wildly around the room, then his gaze came back to the two youngsters who were looking to him for guidance, and he barked, ‘Why the hell didn’t you go straight to garage for Old Pop?’
‘We did, Grandpop, but he weren’t there, an’ ’twas shut up.’
‘Weren’t there? Did you look round back?’
‘Aye, an’ we couldn’t see him nowhere.’
The old man looked down at the legs that would carry him, and then only with great will-power, as far as the lavatory and back, and lifting one foot slightly he attempted to shake it. When it responded with no more than the merest wag he thumped his stick on the floor, then drawing in his mouth until his nose almost touched his chin, he demanded, ‘Could you knock down bottom palms?’
‘Garden palms, Grandpop?’
‘Aye, that’s what I said, garden palms.’
Blinking bewilderedly together, they said, ‘Aye, Grandpop.’
‘All right, go on then…But listen’—he stopped their rush to the door—‘once they’re down, you Johnny, double back to garage and find Joe. Tell him to come back of lake where elm tree is, he knows the place. Come on, then.’
‘You comin’, Grandpop?’ They halted.
‘Course I’m comin’. What you gonna knock palms down for? Use yer napper.’
They blinked at him again, then dashed ahead, through the kitchen and scullery and down the garden, to do a job they’d always longed to do, for you could go almost in a straight line from the bottom of the garden to the wood.
Fencing that has stood for forty years and whose posts have rotted in the ground doesn’t take a lot of knocking down, but as the railings were wired together it required the uprooting of quite a number before they could be pushed flat enough on the nettles and brambles in the field beyond to allow Grandpop to slither over them.
With burning impatience he had stood watching what was to him their fumbling and slow progress, and when finally he was in the field beyond, to his own amazement he found that his legs were moving, if not as they once did, at least as good as they had done two years ago. And with Jimmy darting in front of him to clear the obstructions he made the outskirts of the wood within a few minutes of leaving the garden. But once under the shelter of the trees he stopped, and supporting himself against a broad trunk he took his breath, for he was both gasping and shaking.
After a moment or so he dropped his head to one side in an attitude of listening, and Jimmy said, ‘Can you hear owt, Grandpop?’
The old man shook his head.
‘Perhaps they’ll have their meetin’ first?’
Again Grandpop shook his head. ‘There’ll be no meetin’ the day, lad.’
Jimmy stared up at his great-grandfather. Somehow he seemed to have changed; he didn’t look old here, like he did when he was in the chair.
It was odd, but at this moment Grandpop did not feel as old as when he was in his chair, for in his mind he had skipped back over seventy years to the time when he had scrambled through this very wood on much the same errand as he was on now. Love had been in his heart that day and curses on his lips, and it was much the same today. On that bygone day he had first called women ‘pluddy buggers and bitches’, and today they still merited the names.
Although it was now some years since he had been in the wood, he knew, as well as he did his own house, every inch of it. He knew where the best courting bowers were; what had once been the best rabbit runs; the badger sets and the short cut to Top Fell Dyke.
It was of this now that he spoke to Jimmy: ‘If we can’t see Miss afore we get to lake we are going round t’other side, and when we find her you take the road till you come to Top Fell Dyke.’
‘But she’ll be in the clearing, Grandpop.’
‘Well, if she is, all to the good, but it’s no use us makin’ for there. Once that lot get their eyes on her we couldn’t be all that use…summat would happen. They’ll have to do summat to her to get her out of their systems for she’s made of the same stuff as Connie…knew she minded me of somebody.’
Jimmy looked puzzled and asked, ‘Connie who, Grandpop?’
And the old man, wiping the question away with a flick of his hand, said, ‘It’s no matter. What we’ve got to do is to get her across to t’other side, if she’s in clearing.’
Jimmy pulled a briar from the old man’s path and let it swing back behind him, then asked, ‘But how’ll we get her across, Grandpop?’
‘Cross tree trunk.’
‘Tree trunk?’
‘Aye.’
‘But you can’t get down to tree trunk, Grandpop, it’s all tangle in there.’
‘We’ll get through…you’ll get through.’ Grandpop looked significantly down on Jimmy; ‘Badgers still got their run down there?’
‘Aye, Grandpop.’
‘Then where badgers can go, you can go, eh?’ He smiled down at the boy, and Jimmy, without much conviction said, ‘Aye, Grandpop.’
‘That’s the lad. Move that bit wood.’
Jimmy moved the rotting branch and Grandpop, slithering on again, said, not without pride, ‘Legs doing fine, eh?’ Then stopping, he raised his hand with a warning gesture. And as Jimmy listened there came to him the faint crackle of feet on undergrowth and he glanced up apprehensively at the old man.
‘Come on.’
Not only to Jimmy’s, but to Grandpop’s further astonishment, his legs began to move faster, with his feet actually clearing the ground, and when Jimmy exclaimed in admiration, ‘Grandpop, your legs are going,’ his only comment was, ‘An’ it’ll take ’em.’
They were now on the narrow bramble-strewn path that ran round the far side of the lake opposite the clearing, and after traversing some way, with his eyes darting upwards at every step or so, Grandpop pointed to a tall tree whose top was bare of branches and which was kept upright only by the support of the other trees around it and exclaimed, ‘That beech tree. It’s hereabouts.’ He now thrust his stick about on the ground, until it came into contact with a covered stump of a tree. ‘There!’ he exclaimed. ‘See that?’ He pulled Jimmy to him, and tapping the root with his stick he whispered, ‘Right opposite here is where oak’s fallen cross pond. Go down one of the runs, but keep to the right—your right hand, see?’ He tapped the boy’s arm, ‘If you don’t you�
�ll come high up on the bank, away from tree. When you’re through, whistle her softly and wave her over—like this.’ He gave a demonstration of silent beckoning. ‘But don’t shout or they’ll hear you.’
Jimmy was far from clear in his mind about what he had to do and he looked his bewilderment and said, ‘But what if she won’t come, Grandpop?’
‘Get along the trunk then and swim over to her. You can swim, can’t you? Tell her I’m here. And don’t make more noise than you can help. Oh, God Almighty!’ The old man’s eyes flashed angrily, ‘I wish I was young again, I’d be through there…’
‘All right, Grandpop, I’ll go.’ The boy got down on his hands and knees to the questionable comfort of Grandpop’s words as he said, ‘Go on, push. Don’t be feared of a few scratches and bit blood.’
Necessity aiding his wits, Jimmy found that if he lay flat and wriggled on his belly instead of crawling he not only made progress but evaded the brambles. Then, with so much relief that he almost shouted aloud, he found himself within a few seconds clear of the undergrowth and its gloom and forced momentarily to close his eyes against the glare of the sun on the water. He hadn’t thought of Grandpop’s instructions to keep to the right, but not two yards away was the great upended root of the oak tree, so big that he couldn’t see over it. But across its trunk which followed a steep grade down towards the middle of the lake he saw on the other side, standing at the very edge of the clearing, the Miss, but with her back to the water …
Leo had her eyes riveted on the opening from where, at any minute, one after the other, the women would emerge, and then…The sweat broke out all over her body and she knew fear as she had never done before. That she was dying she knew; there was no doubt about it in her mind. After the first terrifying and sickening shock of this knowledge she had been more upset at its effect on the man with whom she was living than by the fact that at most she could hope for only another few months of life. As day had followed day she had, unconsciously by her attitude towards living, practised letting go of the reins so that at this time last week she would not have cared if the end had been a matter of minutes away. Yet even then she would, she knew, have been afraid of an end precipitated by madwomen, and she felt, and truly, that the women behind that screen of undergrowth were, for the moment, mad.
Slinky Jane Page 22
