by Diane Allen
‘What, and have to tell everybody that you were the father and that you had left me? What would that have achieved? We’d both have been cast out by our families. Remember what your father did when we went to Appleby; he’d have been even worse, once he’d found out the baby was yours.’ Rosie buried her head in Ethan’s shoulder and cried. His tweed jacket and strong arms comforted her as he held her close. She could smell the mountain air on his clothes and realized just how much she had missed him, and how much she loved her wild rambler.
‘I’ve only been living in the shooting hut below Moughton Scar. I had to have time to myself to think things through. To see what I thought about the future for both of us – for all of us.’ Ethan put a finger under Rosie’s chin and lifted her face up for her to look at him. ‘I didn’t leave you, Rosie, I just needed time to think. I do love you.’
‘But you left and didn’t say anything, so what was I to think?’ Rosie wiped her eyes clear of tears.
‘Aye, but I’m back now, and I was going to tell your father all and ask for his permission for me to marry you. Regardless of who I am. Now, with things like they are, perhaps asking his permission to court you would be a better idea. It’ll not be as rushed, and then there’s no more sneaking about. Neither of us have enjoyed lying and being secretive.’
‘My father would never agree, nor will my mother, especially with you disappearing like you did.’ Rosie looked up at him, thinking it was a hopeless request.
‘Nay, I don’t think they will. But your grandfather knows we are made for one another. I can tell from the way he looks at us when we are just talking together. It’s better to marry for love than for money. After all, isn’t that what he did?’ Ethan held Rosie tight. ‘I can but try and, if they are truly against us, then we will continue like we have done, until they realize that we are meant for one another.’
‘Alright, but they will both say I’m too young and that I should set my sights higher. I know they will.’ Rosie held Ethan tightly; he was everything to her, she had known that when he’d left her on her own in her grief.
‘Tonight, then, I’ll ask them after supper.’ Ethan bent down and kissed her. ‘And yes, I do love you, Rosie Atkinson, and now I can truly say it, as we are under no pressure. I would have married you, if you were still carrying our baby. I would not have deserted you, no matter what.’
‘Now then, lad, I suppose you’ve come to plead for your job back and tell us why you went wandering without leave.’ Danny looked at Ethan. For once he looked respectable: his shirt was clean, his corduroy trousers were stainless and his long dark hair was brushed and in place.
‘Aye, I’d be grateful if I could keep my job, especially after I tell you why I left. I hope that perhaps you’ll respect the dilemma I find myself in.’ Ethan looked at Danny and Archie, as they both sat at the polished dining-room table, in a room that was not often used by the farming family. It was one Ethan had never been in before. It was obvious to him that this was just as an important meeting to them as it was to him, and he felt uneasy as he glanced around the room at the oil paintings on the walls and the polished silver upon the dressers. There he stood, a stable boy asking for no less than the hand of the lass that all this would belong to one day, so perhaps he did have ideas above his station.
‘Well, go on then, lad, let’s be hearing you.’ Archie looked at the nervous lad; he’d known Ethan since he was born and, no matter what else was said of him, he knew Ethan never did things without a cause.
‘I had to leave. I needed time to think and to see if what I was feeling was right.’ Ethan paused and looked at both burly farmers. ‘I’ve been living in the shooting hut below Moughton these last few weeks, because I had to get away from here. I couldn’t let my feelings get the better of me until I knew what to do. Rosie has felt the same.’
‘Rosie – what has this got do with Rosie?’ Danny sat up in his chair and gazed at the swarthy lad, who stood looking uncomfortably at them.
‘Let the lad finish, Danny.’ Archie pulled on his son’s sleeve.
‘I, er . . . we, both think a great deal of one another. We can’t help it, we are just alike. But I know my father would give me another braying, and I know that I’m way below Rosie’s station in life and I shouldn’t even be thinking of her in that way. That’s why I needed time to think. But I’m hoping that you’ll both understand and that you’ll give me permission to court her properly.’ Ethan blurted it all out. What he’d rehearsed so carefully was nothing like what had come out of his mouth, but at least they knew how he felt.
Danny sat back in his chair. ‘I bloody knew it! I’ve been as blind as a bat, until I saw Rosie’s face when I told her that he was back.’ He turned and stared at his father. After all, Archie was to blame for making this happen, by bringing Ethan up to Crummock and turning his young daughter’s head. ‘She pretended not to care, but she cared alright.’
‘Hold your noise, lad. It’s not the end of the world. Rosie’s nearly seventeen, and Ethan here is not a bad soul. At least you know all about him, and he is right: they are alike. Two wild ’uns together. And he’s doing the proper thing, instead of sneaking about – give him some credit.’ Archie winked at Ethan as he stood, almost trembling.
‘But he has nowt, not a bloody penny. I wanted better for Rosie.’ Danny sat back and looked at Ethan. ‘Oh God, Harriet will not be happy.’
‘You are forgetting, lad. I was in the same shoes as Ethan and couldn’t afford the clothes on my back, when I fell in love with my Lottie. Then your mother came along and we were happy, but Lottie was always at the back of my mind and I knew she would one day be mine, no matter how poor I was. There’s no price on true love, lad, you should know that. Let the lad court her, see how they feel about one another in six months’ time. It might come to something or it might disappear like the morning’s dew.’ Archie smiled at Ethan; he liked the boy’s determination and knew he was right for Rosie.
‘Bloody hell, Father. Think of what you are saying. He’s a stable lad; at least your father had land. I should say no and send you on your way.’ Danny looked at the lad who stood in front of him and thought of how unhappy Rosie had been the last few weeks, which he’d put down to her mother giving her extra work, but now he realized differently. ‘Rosie is everything to me and I want to see her happy. I can’t stand the sullen face we have had the last few weeks. If I say yes, it’s on the understanding that you don’t get up to anything untoward; no wandering hands – you respect her like a lady and you treat her right. Else it won’t just be your father that gives you a braying. As my father says, six months and we will see how you still feel about one another. You can join us on a Sunday for dinner and can have the use of the parlour for an hour.’ Danny stared at the young lad who had captured his daughter’s heart. ‘I’ll ask Mrs Atkinson to make the room above the storehouse available for you; it’ll be a bit warmer than the stable. We were going to have to find you somewhere before the onset of winter, and I’ve been thinking of that for a while. There’s already a bed in there, although you might have mice as company.’ Danny looked at the lad, who was now trying to hide his happiness and couldn’t believe his luck. ‘You treat her right, otherwise God help you.’
‘I will, Mr Atkinson, I will. Thank you.’ Ethan beamed.
‘Now go on, get your arse out of here. I expect hard work out of you and no loitering about, looking at our Rosie. God knows what her mother will say!’ Danny shook his head. Harriet wouldn’t understand. She had wanted Rosie to be a lady all her life, but Rosie had always had other ideas, he’d known that. She loved the land.
Rosie lay in her bed. She could hear her mother and father talking through the wall that divided them, and knew she was the subject of discussion. She’d gone to her room early that night, avoiding any contact with Ethan and the conversation that would follow between her parents. But now she found herself unable to sleep. She imagined the disgust of her mother, at her setting her sights as low as the gypsy sta
ble boy. She recalled all the times Harriet had sighed and said she wished Rosie was more like her cousin Jane. Jane would never do that, Jane would always be a lady and would marry into higher society, so long as everyone forgot her mad moment of fighting for the suffragette cause.
No matter. Ethan had broken their silence, and no doubt she’d be confronted by an irate mother in the morning. It was a pity it wasn’t Harriet’s day helping out at Skipton, for she would have to endure her mother lecturing her all day as she helped her. Whatever happened, her mother must never find out that they had already been intimate with one another, and the terrible consequences it had caused. That would always be her own and Ethan’s secret; no one else must ever know. Rosie pulled her bedclothes up to her chin and tried to sleep, tugging her pillow around her ears. Tomorrow would be hell, but Ethan was worth every minute, she thought, as she gazed into the darkness of the night.
‘I swear this place would go to the dogs if I wasn’t here. I’m gone just a few days a week, and then this happens behind my back. And your father seems to have no more sense than he was born with – saying yes to Ethan! For heaven’s sake, Rosie, you are only sixteen and, of all the lads in the dale, it’s Ethan that takes your eye. Could you not have set your heart on the lad from Woodend or Sowermire? At least their fathers own some land.’ Harriet looked across the table at her young daughter.
‘But they are not the same, Mother. Ethan and I get on so well; we both have the same love of the countryside, and we are happy in one another’s company.’ Rosie lowered her head. She’d had earache from her mother all morning – lecture after lecture on how to behave, and on setting her sights higher than a common gypsy.
‘Well, I suppose I’ll have to make the best of it. Your father says Ethan’s not a bad lad, and your grandfather seems to be relishing the thought of you two walking out together. Even told me he was looking forward to a wedding, instead of a funeral. I personally hope it doesn’t come to that – wedding indeed! You’d better both behave yourselves, for we are not having the embarrassment of a hurried wedding in the family, so don’t be lifting your skirts, my girl, else I’ll wipe my hands of you.’ The bread she was making got the pummelling of its life as Harriet vented her frustration on the dough.
‘No, Mother, we would never do that.’ Rosie blushed and passed her mother the greased bread tins, hoping to be out of her earshot soon.
‘You can go and sweep out the feed-room and make up Ethan a bed in it. Take them old sheets that the Irishmen have been using, seeing as your father has said Ethan can sleep in there. I’m just glad he’s not let him into the main house. I’d never have slept for listening for him and you sneaking about the place. Because that’s what he’d do, I just know it.’
Harriet looked across at her daughter. She’d wanted better for her, but Rosie’s happiness was the main thing and she was in better spirits this morning.
‘Take that old piece of gingham that’s in the bedding box at the end of my bed – it’ll make him some curtains. And I don’t want to see him with next to nothing on in a morning, when I’m off about my work. There’s two old chairs that Archie brought with him and a table in the outhouse; take him those as well. We’d better give him a better standard of living, if he’s to walk out with you.’ Harriet watched as Rosie grinned at her. ‘You can grin, my lass, but you behave with him! Just until we know what he’s about. And time will tell us that – if you’re still on his arm this coming spring.’
Rosie stood back and looked at Ethan’s new living quarters. The room smelled of the barley, wheat and corn maize used to feed the hens and pigs, stacked in one corner. But it was warm and dry and quite homely now. The spare bed, which had been there for any travellers and drovers, was now made up with clean sheets, and Rosie had hung the red gingham curtains around the windows and whitewashed walls, as her mother had suggested. In the corner she had placed the old kitchen table and two chairs from Windfell, which had once been in her grandfather’s kitchen at Butterfield Gap. They had found a home, just like Ethan, she thought, as she placed a jam jar of late-flowering Michaelmas daisies on the table to brighten the room up.
Ethan was gradually being made welcome at Crummock Farm. Perhaps it was a blessing that she had lost her baby; this way everyone would know that both of them were serious about one another. It didn’t matter that Ethan was a stable boy. Anyway he wasn’t any more; he could say he was the farm man now, and he’d hopefully have an even better position in the future.
Rosie smiled as she closed the paint-worn door behind her and climbed down the stone steps that led into the farmyard. Ethan had made it this far and, with her love, he’d get even further with her beside him, of that she was sure. Sunday could not come soon enough, and in six months’ time hopefully they would be able to marry.
22
‘Seen any tarts on bikes, lately, Fox?’ Geoffrey Brunskill, the school bully and prefect, hit Luke hard around the head as he walked down the dormitory, checking that all was in order for night. ‘Oh no, sorry – your father just kills them, I’d forgotten.’
Luke hung his head and then pulled his covers back to climb into bed, watching as Brunskill left the room. How he hated him. Since his father’s accident Brunskill and his little gang of followers had made his life hell.
‘Take no notice, Luke, he’s a bastard.’ Bill Palmer looked across at his best friend, who he knew was upset about events at home and the fact that he’d been sniggered about for weeks. ‘Nobody else even gives a damn about what they heard. Besides, he’s only having a go at you tonight because you’ve received your rifle badge so quickly. It took him ages, and he still hasn’t received his red star and fully qualified as an NCO. I bet you get there before him – he’s too thick to become an officer. I’d like to know what his parents are like. He’s only from Bradford, and they can’t be that posh.’
‘I’m just a little tired of him constantly having a dig. One day I’m going to get him and make him pay. But at the moment it’s not worth it.’ Luke got into his bed, before giving another glance at the uniform that was now hanging up, adorned with the newly awarded rifle badge on the left arm. He was proud of himself, so Brunskill could say what he wanted.
‘Lights out, no talking. Especially you, Fox, I can hear you and that rat-like Palmer.’ Brunskill hit the side of his leg with the newly acquired silver-topped swagger stick that all the cadets had been given, for parade purposes. But in Brunskill’s case it was an extra bullying tool, one he did not hesitate to use.
Luke and Bill went quiet, waiting until the gas lights had been turned off and the bully had left them in darkness.
‘It’s feels strange with half the dorm missing and in the sanatorium,’ Bill whispered.
‘Yes, have you had German measles, like me? Mother said I’d had them when I was just over five, but I can’t remember,’ Luke whispered back.
‘Yes, I’ve had them, and you can’t catch them again.’ Bill looked at the empty beds in the darkness, devoid of their inhabitants, who had either been sent back home or were being looked after by matron elsewhere, in isolation from the rest of the pupils.
‘I can see our visit to camp being postponed; they won’t be sending a load of spotty, ill lads anywhere. God forbid if half the War Office developed German measles because of Giggleswick School,’ Luke whispered back. ‘Still, it’s drill parade in the morning and instruction lecture after tea. We’ll probably find out more tomorrow.’
‘Now that will annoy Brunskill, as he’ll be hoping for his red star and his proficiency certificate to say he’s assured of a commission, if we do go to camp. His brother got both at Bordon Camp last year, and he needs to keep up with him. God help us, if we don’t go.’ Bill sighed.
‘We can’t do anything about it. I’m tired, Bill – sorry, I’m off to sleep now.’ Luke pulled his covers up around his face and thought about the camp he had so wanted to attend. There he would have mixed and made friends with other cadets from around the country, and they would
all have the same patriotic feelings that he had. Then his thoughts wandered to home and his mother and father, and the stony silence there had been on his last weekend visit. He hoped things had improved, but now his sister had written to him telling him of her escapades, the fool. Between school and home, there wasn’t much to like, but the cadets made him feel special, especially now that he had reached a first-class honour. The military was the life for him and he’d give it all that he’d got.
‘Now then, men, I’m afraid I have some bad news for you. As you know, we were due to go to camp next week, but in view of the outbreak of German measles, I’m afraid it has had to be cancelled.’ The Commanding Officer stood in front of the cadets, after putting them through their paces on the square outside the historic school rooms. ‘Now I know that you were particularly looking forward to this event, so for those of you who are well enough, I suggest that we have a few days up at Attermire Scar on the practice ranges. The miniature range under the cloisters has poor light, though it serves some purpose, but I propose that we march through Settle and then camp out on the fellside in readiness for using the ranges.’ The CO watched and listened as a mumble of discontent ran through the cadets on parade. ‘There’s always next year, and as you know we will be going to Hagley Park in Staffordshire, so set your sights on that event in late June.’
‘I bloody well knew it.’ Luke walked back into the school with Bill next to him.
‘Well, at least we get a few days off at camp on the side of Attermire, that’s better than nothing. I wasn’t looking forward to more than a week in this weather anyway, it’s gone so cold of late.’ Bill patted his mate on the back.
‘You’ll never make a soldier, you are too soft,’ said Luke.
