The Land Endures (The Apple Tree Saga Book 4)

by Mary E. Pearce

  ‘Aren’t we allowed to air our views?’

  ‘We know your views! We hear nothing else! The farmers get their say all the time. The papers is full of what they say! So you pipe down and let the man speak!’

  ‘Yes, let the man speak!’ Gerald said. ‘Let’s hear what he’s got to say about solving our problems for us. How he’s going to stop foreign corn ‒’

  ‘I will come to those things,’ the candidate said, ‘but first I want to deal with the labourer ‒’

  ‘Let’s deal with him by all means!’ Jackie Franklin said with a sneer.

  ‘No problems are going to be solved while conflict continues to exist between the farmer and his men.’

  ‘Who causes the conflict?’ Chris demanded. He felt it was time he had his say. ‘The union causes it by sowing discontent! The average labourer would be happy enough if it weren’t for the union stirring him up.’

  ‘Happy be blowed!’ said one of the men from Lucketts End. ‘It’s up to us to say whether we’re happy or not!’

  ‘You’re still wet behind the ears, young fella,’ said an elderly man, just behind Chris. ‘You want to go back home to your dad and wait till you’ve growed up a bit before you start talking on our behalf.’

  After a while, order of some sort was restored, and the candidate began again. But he had not proceeded far when Gerald, turning to his friends, spoke out in a loud voice. ‘Not much of an audience here, is it, in spite of all the posters about? I expected a lot more folk than this. It’s hardly worth the poor chap’s trouble.’

  ‘If I could perhaps be allowed to proceed ‒’

  ‘Just a minute!’ Gerald said. ‘Two of my friends don’t feel too well.’

  He nudged Jeff Twill and Jackie Franklin, and the two of them lumbered to their feet. Each held a handkerchief to his mouth, and, making a great deal of noise and fuss, left the schoolroom and slammed the door.

  ‘Where have they gone?’ whispered Chris.

  ‘You’ll see in a minute,’ Gerald said.

  ‘My object in coming here tonight,’ the candidate went on in a ringing voice, ‘is to offer some hope, some ray of light, to those who are groping in the darkness and gloom enveloping our country at this time.’ Pausing, somewhat surprised at the silence, he took the chance of a deep breath. ‘My party is that ray of light …’

  Betony, at the back of the room, sitting with Billy Rye and his wife, listened with only half an ear. She was worried about the two young men who had just gone out.

  ‘I don’t think we’ve seen the last of them. I think I’ll go out and lock the porch door.’

  Billy half rose to accompany her, but Betony motioned him to stay. She walked quietly to the door and passed through into the porch, which was lit by a single hurricane lamp hanging from a beam in the roof above. The outer doors were still fastened back, but before she had time to loosen the hooks, there was a sudden scurry outside and three wet sheep pattered into the porch. They were quickly followed by five or six more and coming behind them, urging them in, were the two young men, Twill and Franklin.

  ‘Get these animals out at once!’ Betony cried furiously. She stood in the way, trying to turn them. ‘Do you hear me? Get them out!’

  But Jeff Twill, ignoring her, was already opening the inner door, and Jackie Franklin, wielding a stick, was driving the sheep into the schoolroom. They lolloped in, confused and frightened, blinded by the glare of light, their ears back and their eyes rolling. Seeing the people gathered there, they came to a halt, defensively, and one or two of the older ewes stamped with a fore-foot on the floor. Gerald Challoner and David Mapp now sprang up with a loud halloo. They darted forward with arms outstretched and sent the sheep lurching around the room.

  ‘That’s more like it! Here they come! Are they all good union members? Make way for them, it’s only fair! They’ve got a right to have their say and bleat along with the rest of you!’

  The frightened sheep went careering about, and most of the audience rose at once, trying to shove them towards the door. The benches, thus vacated, were sent toppling in all directions, and one of them, sliding along the floor, struck two young men behind the knees, bringing them down together in a tumbled heap. Angrily they scrambled up and lunged towards Chris and Gerald. Chris got a stinging blow on the mouth and Gerald was hurled against the stove. Bellowing because he was burnt, Gerald rushed towards his attackers, but was knocked down and winded by one of the ewes. David Mapp and Jackie Franklin were wrestling with two young labourers and were getting the worst of it by far. Chris mopped the blood from a cut on his lip and reluctantly went to their aid. The noise by now was terrible. The whole of the schoolroom was in an uproar.

  The older men, such as Fred Cox and Billy Rye, were doing their best to catch the sheep and hurl them out through the open door, and their womenfolk were trying to help by driving the sheep in the right direction. But the younger men were out of hand. They had formed themselves into two camps, one at either end of the room, and were pelting each other with coal from the scuttles. One young man, Leslie Smith by name, having snatched up a chair that came flying his way, had seated himself at the school piano and, in the manner of a cinema pianist, was playing a spirited accompaniment to the melee around him.

  The battle raged across the room, and there was a crash of splintering glass as a lump of coal went through a window. The music came to a sudden stop, and the young pianist looked down in surprise as blood dripped into his lap from a cut in his forehead, neatly opened by flying glass. Chris, during a lull in the battle, saw the pianist’s bloodied face and watched as a woman led him away. The sight of the blood made him feel sick. He wished he had never come to the meeting. Gerald and Jeff Twill, he saw, had opened one of the school cupboards and were hurling inkwells across the room.

  The sheep were driven out at last. Three men went with them across the playground to drive them down to the village pound. Billy Rye sent his son to fetch the constable from Slings, and the candidate, on hearing this, thought it was time he slipped away. His motor car was brought to the door.

  The coal-slinging battle was at its height when someone shouted: ‘The constable’s coming!’ Hostilities ceased miraculously. The opposing factions skeltered away.

  ‘Come on, let’s go!’ Gerald said, and his fellow lordlings, with blackened faces and hands and clothes, joined him in a rush for the door. Chris for a moment hesitated. Then he too followed the rest, taking to the fields in the wind and the rain.

  By the time the constable arrived, only the older men remained, with Betony and three of the wives. The constable opened his little book and listened to the story he was told.

  ‘There was five of the young sods altogether, but my young master from Outlands, like, he was the ringleader,’ Johnny Marsh said.

  ‘It was the young chap from Dunnings, though, that went and brought in the bloody sheep. Him and that cross-eyed lout from Letts.’

  ‘They all came together, the five of them. You could see they meant mischief the moment they walked in at that there door.’

  ‘Ah, and my master’s son was one of them, the cheeky young swine!’ said Morton George.

  ‘Names, if you please,’ the constable said.

  He knew well enough who the culprits were, from these remarks bandied about, but he had to observe the formalities and write in his notebook as informed. So the five names were given to him: Gerald Challoner; Jeffery Twill; Christopher Wayman; Jackie Franklin; David Mapp.

  ‘All farmers’ sons,’ the constable said. ‘And these are the ones you say are to blame?’

  ‘They are the ones that started it, there’s no doubt of that,’ said Fred Cox. ‘We was having a quiet meeting here and they was determined to break it up. They’re the ones to blame all right. No two ways about none of that.’

  But Betony, when they had all gone and she stood alone in the empty schoolroom, surveying the wreckage and the dirt, knew that as far as the vicar was concerned she and she alone would be held t
o blame for what had happened there that night.

  She put on her hat and coat and scarf, turned out the last of the lamps in the room, and quietly let herself out of the school. She locked the door on the chaos within and walked away towards the village. She went at once to the vicarage.

  Mr Netherton heard her through with an angry tightening of his lips and a gathering of colour in his cheeks. He sat without moving in his chair.

  ‘I was against it from the start. I don’t have to remind you of that, I hope? And now you see the sad result of flying in the face of my opinion.’

  ‘You can’t have foreseen what would happen tonight?’

  ‘I lay no claim to such a thing, but a Labour meeting such as this ‒’

  ‘It was those who support the opposite side who caused all the trouble,’ Betony said.

  ‘The inescapable fact is that if you had regarded my views on the matter, none of this would ever have happened.’

  ‘I shall of course take full responsibility for all the necessary repairs.’

  ‘I’m afraid the matter will not end there.’

  ‘No. I didn’t think it would.’

  ‘As soon as this regrettable affair is known to the school managers, they will come to me for an explanation, and I shall have no alternative but to tell them the truth: that you went against me in this matter and allowed the school to be used for this meeting without my approval or my consent. I have no doubt that the consequences for you will be very grave.’

  ‘How grave?’ Betony asked.

  ‘I’m very much afraid, Miss Izzard, that after what has happened tonight, the managers are bound to feel that you should be asked for your resignation.’

  ‘And what if I refuse to give it?’

  ‘The chances are that you will be dismissed.’

  ‘Will that be the course you recommend when meeting the managers?’ Betony asked.

  ‘I certainly don’t feel that I can speak up on your behalf, either to the managers or to the education secretary when I see him. How can you expect such a thing when you went against me so wilfully?’

  Betony rose and drew on her gloves.

  ‘I don’t expect it, Mr Netherton, and I wouldn’t dream of asking it.’

  She said goodnight and took her leave.

  When she got home it was past ten o’clock, and the faces of her family, waiting up, told her that they had heard the news. The incident, apparently, was all over Huntlip. Dicky had heard of it at The Rose and Crown. Jesse, her father, was much disturbed.

  ‘Whatever possessed you, my blossom,’ he said, ‘to let that Labour chap speak in the school?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t he speak?’ Betony said. ‘He speaks for the hungry, the unemployed.’

  Jesse shifted in his chair.

  ‘I know there’s a lot of talk these days about poverty on the land and that, but I dunno that it’s really so bad as some of these Labour chaps make out.’

  ‘Don’t you, father?’ Betony said. ‘Haven’t you seen those half-starved men tramping the lanes hereabouts as they go from one workhouse to the next? Haven’t you had them in the yard, offering to do a day’s work for a bite of bread and a bowl of stew? Even those who are in jobs ‒ have you any idea how much they earn? Have you seen their wives, as thin as laths, old and grey before their time? I’ve got children in my school whose only breakfast before they leave home is a slice of bread dipped in the water that has boiled an egg for their father’s dinner!’

  ‘All right, girl!’ Great-grumpa said. ‘No need to get in such a lather about it. There’s always been poverty in the world. Hungry folks ent nothing new.’

  ‘You’d better tell my father that. He seems to think it’s a fairy tale.’

  ‘About this meeting,’ Jesse said.

  But Betony had had enough. She made her excuses and went to bed.

  Chris, going home after leaving the school, loitered for a time in the cartshed, watching the windows of the house. He waited until they were all in darkness before he stole quietly in to his bed. The following morning, at five o’clock, he arose after a sleepless night and took himself off across the fields, lit only by a sprinkling of stars. He still had a lot to think about but when he returned, an hour later, his mind was not much clarified.

  News of the incident at the school reached the farm just before six, when the men arrived at the milking-sheds. Morton George spoke to Stephen about it, and Stephen went in search of Chris. He found him in the kitchen, drinking a cup of hot sweet tea.

  ‘Have you got something to tell me?’ he asked.

  ‘I daresay you’ve heard it from Morton George!’

  ‘It would have been better if you’d told me yourself.’

  ‘I needed time to think things out.’

  ‘I hear you behaved disgracefully, you and young Challoner and the rest. A pack of hooligans, raising Cain! If it was only half as bad as Morton George says it was, you’ve got some explaining to do, my boy.’

  ‘It was pretty bad,’ Chris said. He stared miserably into the fire. ‘Everything somehow got out of hand.’

  ‘Was there much damage done to the school?’

  ‘I don’t know. I daresay there was. Somebody let the sheep in, you see, and after that there was hell to pay.’

  ‘Were you a party to all this?’

  ‘I had nothing to do with the sheep, but I’m naming no names,’ Chris said.

  ‘I know all the names. Be sure of that.’

  ‘We only intended it as a lark. We went to heckle, and what’s wrong with that? You should have heard that Labour chap and all the rot he talked last night!’

  ‘There’s only one thing to be said for these piffling excuses of yours! ‒ At least they show you have some sense of shame!’

  Stephen was angry, a rare thing when dealing with his children, and he looked at Chris with hot, hard dislike.

  ‘Had you been drinking at all?’ he asked ‘Morton George seemed to think you had.’

  ‘One pint, that’s all, outside The Black Ram.’

  ‘I won’t have you drinking at any pub, inside or outside or anywhere else! You’re only fifteen. It’s against the law.’

  ‘It’s a damn silly law, if you ask me.’

  ‘I am not asking you!’ Stephen said. ‘I’m not interested in your views on anything till you show some signs of maturity. And as a first step towards that end, you can go in due course and call on Miss Izzard, and apologize for your behaviour last night.’

  ‘But I can’t do that! I simply can’t!’

  ‘Oh yes you can. Indeed I insist.’

  ‘Well, I’m not going to!’ Chris exclaimed.

  ‘Then I must do it for you, that’s all. I shall have to see her in any case, but it seems I shall also have to explain that my eldest son, although fifteen, is too much of a coward to make his own apologies.’

  Stephen returned to the milking-sheds and worked there until eight o’ clock. He then went in to his breakfast; washed and shaved with extra care; and changed out of his working-clothes. Chris had taken himself off again. The younger children were eating their porridge. Aunt Doe saw Stephen as far as the door.

  ‘What’s all the atmosphere about?’

  ‘I haven’t got time to tell you now. I’ll tell you later, when I come back. Or, if my eldest son comes in, you can ask him what it’s all about!’

  But Aunt Doe did not have to wait for Chris. She heard the story from Mrs Bessemer.

  Because it was Saturday, Stephen intended to walk out to Cobbs, expecting Miss Izzard to be at her home, right at the farthest end of the village. On nearing the school, however, he saw that the doors were wide open and that chairs and benches stood outside. So he crossed the playground and went in.

  Inside the schoolroom, Betony, with a broom and shovel, was sweeping up the coal that littered the floor and putting it back into the scuttles. Most of the coal was dust by now, trodden into the wood-block floor, with the sheep-dung and the broken glass and the bits of broken inkwells.
Stephen looked round, grim-faced. He saw the black marks on the white-painted walls, where the flying lumps of coal had exploded, and he saw that the coloured posters and maps and the pictures painted by the children had been taken down, torn and blackened, to lie in a pile on the teacher’s desk. Betony stopped what she was doing and turned to face him. Her eyes in the light from a nearby window were a very clear bright shade of blue.

  ‘I hardly know how to start,’ he said, ‘except that I’ve come to apologize.’

  ‘On behalf of your son?’

  ‘I hope, when he’s had time to think, he will come and apologize for himself. At the moment he’s too ashamed. But I’d like to make it quite clear that, whatever the cost of the damage done, I expect to pay the bill.’

  ‘Your son wasn’t the only hooligan involved, Mr Wayman. He was merely one of a group. As for the damage done here, my brother is coming in to paint the walls and replace the window-pane, but thank you for offering all the same.’

  ‘Isn’t there anything I can do to ease my conscience in this matter?’

  ‘I’m more concerned with my own feelings at the moment, Mr Wayman, rather than giving relief to yours.’

  ‘I share your anger, I assure you, especially now that I see this mess.’

  ‘Your son is very young to be taking such an interest in politics.’

  ‘Much too young, I quite agree.’

  ‘He’s against socialism and the union. It seems he’s against free speech as well. Does he take his stand from you?’

  ‘If he does,’ Stephen said, ‘he much mistakes my attitudes.’

  ‘You’re not against the union yourself?’

  ‘The one union man I’ve got on my farm is a poor advertisement for the rest. You must make allowances for my son if he takes a somewhat jaundiced view.’

  ‘On some of the farms in this district, men run the risk of losing their jobs if they join the union, so I’m told.’

  ‘There’s bound to be prejudice, I suppose.’

  He knew there was truth in what she said, but he did not wish to be drawn into an argument concerning his neighbours’ actions, and he therefore looked for another subject. He turned to the pile of children’s paintings lying, tattered, on the desk.