A Sixpenny Christmas (43 page)

‘Right,’ Chris said wearily, beginning to strip off his soaking outer clothing and kicking off his boots. He was turning to head for his bedroom, knowing that Auntie Ellen was talking good sense, when Lana spoke.

Her voice was husky with unshed tears, but she caught Chris’s arm and ignored him when he tried to shake her off. ‘Please don’t go on being cross with me, Chris,’ she begged. ‘I can’t help being sick at the sight of . . . so will you forgive me?’

Chris carefully detached her detaining fingers from his arm and spoke stiffly. ‘You did your best, I’m sure, so there’s nothing to forgive,’ he said. ‘Do as your mum says and get some rest.’ He turned back suddenly. ‘Oh, Auntie Ellen, I’ve just realised: no one’s told the Pritchards what has happened, so they’ll be down here as soon as it’s light expecting . . .’ his voice broke, ‘expecting a jolly Christmas breakfast.’

Ellen smiled reassuringly at him. ‘And that’s just what they’ll get,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Of course they’ll have to hear what’s happened, but we still have to eat, you know. We’ll visit the hospital around lunchtime, I reckon, but I do believe I ought to cook the turkey. What do you think?’

Chris was about to reply waspishly that the turkey could go to the devil for all he cared when he remembered that these two women were his guests and deserved more consideration than he had given them so far. He turned back and gave mother and daughter a rather watery smile. ‘Put it in the dairy, on the cold slab. Perhaps tomorrow, when everyone comes in for their dinner, we can eat it then,’ he said. ‘You look pretty tired yourself, Auntie Ellen.’ His grin became livelier. ‘Get up them stairs and leave a note on the table for Nonny and the Pritchards. I’m sure they’ll understand and leave us to sleep for a few hours.’

‘Righty-ho, you’re the boss,’ Ellen said obediently, heading for the stairs. ‘Shall I wake you when breakfast is cooked?’

‘No need; as soon as the jeep comes into the yard I’ll wake,’ Chris said. He went into his room, closed the door and fell on the bed fully dressed. I’ll just close my eyes for five minutes, he told himself, and was asleep on the thought.

Ellen saw Lana into bed and watched her fall asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow. Only then did Ellen steal softly out of the room and return to the kitchen. She sat down at the table and pillowed her head on her arms. She would stay here so that she might be awake to cook breakfast as soon as the party from Cae Hic returned, she told herself. She was older than Lana and had had a far less traumatic night. She did not want the Pritchards and Nonny to find only an empty kitchen with the fire smouldering dully and not so much as a plate of porridge on the table.

Yes, she would stay awake.

Ellen slept.

Mr Taplow woke. He had retired to bed as soon as they had finished playing games the night before, but had had a restless night because of the storm which had battered the farmhouse. However, the wind had eased in the small hours, and though he imagined that the snow was probably still falling it did so silently. He reached out to the bedside table, picked up his old-fashioned gunmetal watch and peered at its face. Good gracious, it was half past eight, high time he got up to help with the preparation of breakfast.

Mr Taplow was a man who lived by routine, and saw no reason why today should be any exception. He got out of his bed and pulled back the covers to air, went over to the washstand – he had to break the ice on the water in the jug – and had a cold but exhilarating wash. He rubbed himself dry on the rough towel and began to dress, checking his watch again because it seemed so very quiet in the house below. From what he remembered of his own childhood, farmhouses and farmyards were noisy places. Dogs barked, cockerels crowed, farm workers shouted to one another and clanked buckets full of milk or poultry meal or pig food. Then there were farmers themselves and their wives and children. He remembered his aunt’s stentorian voice as she shouted for her family to come in for meals; surely the farm kitchen below him was too quiet?

Fully dressed at last, he slipped on his shoes and went across to the window, pulling back the curtains a trifle. The snow had stopped and frail sunshine gilded the
snow-laden trees and the roofs of the outbuildings. Mr Taplow smiled to himself; so the snow was the reason for the quiet! It muffled sound, of course, and there was little point in letting out the poultry for it looked to be six to eight inches deep; far too deep for a hen to enjoy rootling around the yard.

If they had been at home in Bethel Street, Mr Taplow would not have hesitated to go down to the kitchen to start the breakfast if Ellen was still not up, even perhaps to make her a cup of tea and carry it upstairs, knocking politely on her door and making sure that she was respectable before he entered her room. But here everything was different, because he was a guest. If he went downstairs early, would it be considered impolite? But after a further five minutes of indecision he decided that it was too cold to hang about up here when he knew there would be a grand fire in the range. He swished the curtains right back – still no sign of life in the yard – then went over and made his bed, plumping up the pillows and smoothing the counterpane. After that he headed for the stairs.

He reached the kitchen and went in to find Ellen asleep with her head on her arms and the fire guttering low. The curtains were still drawn across the windows and the lamp was still lit, though by now it was broad day. Mr Taplow hesitated. He was pretty sure that everyone had gone to bed not long after him; why, then, had Ellen chosen to sleep on the kitchen table? It seemed very strange, but no doubt his landlady would wake presently and explain what had happened. Mr Taplow crossed the kitchen and pulled back the red and white gingham curtains to let in the winter sunshine, and as he did so
Ellen stirred and yawned, stretching her arms out in front of her and blinking like a rosy-cheeked child disturbed from deep slumber. For a moment she looked wildly about her as though she, too, was surprised to find herself sleeping in the kitchen instead of her warm bed, and Mr Taplow found himself fighting an urge to give her a Christmas kiss on her warm pink cheek. Would it be permissible? There were bunches of holly in the parlour, he had noticed the previous evening; unfortunately there did not seem to be any mistletoe.

But Ellen was getting to her feet, hurrying over to the range and distractedly beginning to pour on fresh fuel from the tall hod which stood on the hearth. Then she turned to her lodger. ‘Oh, Mr Taplow – Bob, I mean – we’ve had the most awful night, but I’m so sorry I fell asleep. I really meant to greet you with a grand breakfast, even though the news is dreadful. I wonder if Lana is awake yet? She was with Chris when he found him, so I suppose she’s trying to sleep it off . . .’

Mr Taplow took Ellen by her shoulders, sat her down and picked up the kettle. It was empty, and he filled it from the pump at the sink, then stood it on the range. ‘I haven’t got the faintest idea what you’re talking about,’ he said frankly. ‘Perhaps you’d better start at the beginning and keep going until you reach the moment when you woke up. I take it something happened after we all went up to bed . . .’

Whilst Ellen told her lodger the story from the moment they had realised Mrs Pritchard had left her medication behind to the moment he had pulled back the curtains, she had been working on getting the breakfast things
together, and by the time she had finished her story and Bob had exclaimed with horror she had put several slices of Molly’s home-cured bacon into the big black pan and a most satisfactory and delicious smell had begun to fill the kitchen. Mr Taplow’s mouth watered, and when he said as much to Ellen she gave him her twinkling smile and said that the smell of bacon was the best wake-up she had ever known, far more effective than the loudest alarm.

‘But it might be a kindness to take Chris and your daughter a jug of hot water to wash in,’ Mr Taplow suggested. ‘They seem to have had a terrible time and would probably appreciate a warm wash, whereas I myself, having spent the whole night in a gloriously warm and comfortable bed, found the cold water invigorating.’

Ellen agreed and presently they were joined by two heavy-eyed young people, both in dressing gowns and slippers and both eyeing the food Ellen was cooking with undisguised greed. After all, as Ellen told them, everyone must eat and it would be a crying shame to let bacon, kidneys and scrambled egg go begging, to say nothing of a great deal of golden brown buttered toast and a good many mugs of hot coffee.

‘But shouldn’t we have waited for the Pritchards before we ate?’ Bob Taplow asked suddenly, with a forkful of bacon halfway to his mouth. ‘I thought that was the arrangement.’

Chris laughed. When he had entered the kitchen he had looked grey with fatigue and worry, but the warmth of the room and the good food had brightened his eyes and brought a flush to his cheeks. ‘If my mum and dad
were here they would insist that there was nothing like a good meal to line the stomach and prepare one for whatever the day ahead had to offer,’ he said. ‘I woke worried sick about my father and I’m worried about him still, but rushing off to the hospital with only a cup of tea inside me wouldn’t help anyone. So eat up, Mr Tap – oh, I’m sorry, eat up, Bob, and when the others get here we’ll decide what to do.’

Lana leaned across the table and patted their lodger’s hand. ‘Oh, poor Mr Taplow; Auntie Molly invited you for a wonderful Christmas break and this has to happen,’ she said remorsefully. ‘When the others arrive we’ll have to decide who’s going to the hospital and who’s staying here, because the jeep can only really carry four people . . . well, five if three of them are quite skinny. And of course there’s farm work waiting to be done.’ She turned to Chris. ‘The cows have got to be milked, and the stock fed . . .’

‘That’s right,’ Chris said. ‘And someone will have to tell Nonny and the Pritchards what’s happened. It’ll be the most dreadful shock.’

Even as he spoke they all heard the sound of the jeep’s engine as the vehicle turned into the farmyard and stopped directly outside the door, which almost immediately shot open to admit Nonny, her face sheet white and her eyes enormous, with Rhodri and Mr Pritchard close behind her, Rhodri with an arm round his father’s frail shoulders.

‘What’s happened?’ Nonny said, her voice trembling. ‘We passed the tractor; it was upside down and there was what looked like – oh, God, it was Dad, wasn’t it?’

Chris jumped up and crossed the kitchen in a couple
of strides to take his sister in his arms. Then he ushered the little party into the warm kitchen and saw them settled in chairs before he answered.

‘Yes, it was Dad. The tractor climbed the bank, which I don’t suppose Dad could see in the snow, and it turned over on top of him. It – it pinned him to the ground, but Lana managed to get the men from the village to come up – Dr Llewellyn too – and we got him out. He’s in hospital in Bangor. Mum’s with him; we’re going down there once we’ve done the work on the yard.’ He broke off, eyebrows rising, and addressed the old man sitting at the table and staring dully before him. ‘But where’s your wife, Mr P?’

Mr Pritchard glanced helplessly around the table, as though he expected to see her sitting in one of the kitchen chairs, but he did not speak, so his son answered for him.

‘My mam died this morning, about an hour before we left,’ he said quietly.

Chapter Sixteen

MOLLY AND ELLEN
between them had planned how this Christmas was meant to be down to the very last slice of plum pudding and mince pie. It should have been a wonderful Christmas, the very first one when she and Rhys had been able to buy really good Christmas presents for everyone, especially for Chris, Nonny, Lana and Ellen. But instead of being a wonderful day it had turned into a nightmare. Mr Pritchard scarcely spoke, seeming just to want to return to Cae Hic, and once there he huddled by the Aga and refused to do anything. He would not even make up the fire when it burned low or riddle the ash, and when his son tried to talk to him about farming matters he just stared as though he could not understand a word.

For several days Rhys’s life hung in the balance, but at last he was considered well enough to be taken to a hospital in Liverpool where the surgeons had hopes of saving his legs. It was too far for Molly to travel daily since she could not drive the jeep, so she stayed with Ellen and the girls a mere couple of miles from the hospital in which her husband was incarcerated. Nonny had given in her notice to Mr Lawson and to everyone’s surprise, including Ellen’s, Lana, too, had quit her job. She said that even if Chris and Nonny thought they could manage without her, she knew better. She might not be
able to do half the things that Nonny took for granted, but she could do ordinary housework, keep the place clean and see that food was on the table three times a day. Nonny expressed her gratitude in every way she could think of, because she knew that Lana had been looking forward to the dances and parties she would normally have enjoyed upon the O’Maras’ return to the city, but Chris, taciturn for once, said little. Nonny, who had always thought that her brother and friend were good pals, put Chris’s sudden change of attitude down to his worry over Rhys, but when she suggested this to Lana her friend shook her head. ‘He can’t forgive me for throwin’ up when I saw your dad’s blood all over the snow,’ she said bluntly. ‘And then he wanted me to fetch the chaps from the village . . .’

‘But you did!’ Nonny exclaimed. ‘I know you did! He told us so.’

‘Yes, but I didn’t want to go at first. The men mostly seem to speak Welsh and I was afraid they wouldn’t understand. I said I’d stay with Uncle Rhys and Chris could go into the village. He hasn’t forgiven me, not yet. But he will when he sees I mean to be like you, Nonny. I’ll learn to milk and help a lamb to get born. I already know how to tack up a horse, from watching you and Chris, though I’ve never done it myself . . .’

‘It’s awfully good of you, but you shouldn’t have given up your job, Lana. It will be grand to have your help for a couple of weeks when we all go back to the farm, maybe even a month, but after that you’ll want to come back to Bethel Street, you know you will.’