For The Sake of Her Family (32 page)

Alice didn’t know what to say. She didn’t want to hurt his feelings by saying no, and she knew Jack was a good safe catch. But in her heart of hearts, she wasn’t truly in love
with him. He was too much like part of the family. She had grown up with him and he was beginning to be like a replacement brother to her.

‘Give me till Christmas to think about it – it’s only a month away, not long to wait for an answer.’ Alice smiled at crestfallen Jack. ‘I just want to be sure.
Everything is happening so fast and I’m not over losing Will yet.’

‘Sorry, Alice, I wasn’t thinking. ’Course you’re still in mourning. Still, I’ve got to say, Christmas can’t come quick enough. Aye, lass, make it a yes and
I’ll be the proudest man up the dale.’ A huge smile lit up Jack’s face. ‘I’d always be right with you, you know that.’

‘I know, Jack. I just need time. I don’t know what I want myself – all’s wrong in the world. All of them young men fighting and dying for our country and here am I
looking after Nancy and this baby here. I can’t leave them – what would become of them? Mrs Dowbiggin and Faulks couldn’t manage; neither of them is getting any younger. Give me
until Christmas; by then we’ll have moved back into the manor. And who knows, Gerald might be home by then and the war might be coming to an end.’ Alice felt quietly ashamed of herself,
making up any excuse rather than saying no.

‘Right, Christmas it is. And if you say yes, we’ll get married on New Year’s Day, ’cos I’m not going to give you time to change your mind. Until then, I’ll
leave you in peace.’

Jack opened the door and Alice could hear him whistling as he walked down the lane. She didn’t want to break his heart again, but while Gerald remained alive, there was still hope of her
winning his affections, she just knew it – how could he resist? The thought of marrying Jack when she knew it was Gerald she had feelings for filled her with dread. Come Christmas, she was
going to have to tell Jack the truth and hurt him. She’d written to Gerald, giving him the good news that he was now an uncle, and then informing him of Will’s death. She’d cried
as she’d written the letter, thinking of her father’s saying ‘One going out of the world and a new one in, always happens like that.’ How true it had been that day.

She’d come to a decision about Nancy, too. By the end of the week, she’d break the news about Will’s death. How she’d take it, Alice didn’t know, but it had to be
done. Alice could not carry the burden any more; she was worn out with their endless conversations about what a dead man might be doing in far-flung fields.

Nancy sat motionless. Not a tear, not a whimper, just a constant to and fro of her body, swaying in her chair as Alice told her of Will’s death. She twisted her
handkerchief tighter and tighter in a knot and gazed out at the rain trickling down the glass panes of the window.

‘Do you understand, Nancy? You do know that Will’s not going to be coming home to us, that we are on our own now?’ Alice put her arm around Nancy as she stared out of the
window.

Nancy lifted her hand and traced the downward path of a raindrop on the glass with her finger. She didn’t say a word, but a trail of tears ran down her cheeks, mimicking the raindrops on
the windowpane.

In the end, Alice left her there, not knowing what to say. It had been bad enough when she was heartbroken over Will choosing to go to war. Now she had to mourn his death and face the fact that
she would never see him again.

The shells had pounded all morning, the constant barrage of guns and noise sending men almost to the edge of insanity as they wallowed in the thigh-high mud amid the dreaded
lines of barbed wire strung out between the trenches.

Gerald Frankland was leading an attack on a patch of land just the other side of the Belgian border. It was only a few yards, but if they could gain it, the morale of his men would be lifted. A
few yards meant a lot in this war.

‘Right, men, listen for my whistle. On my signal, we go over the top.’ Gerald lined up his exhausted and battered men. Their eyes betrayed the fear they were feeling; while some
prayed to their Maker, others took deep drags on their cigarettes in an effort to combat nerves.

Gerald blew loud and clear on his whistle and the assault began, men scrambling over the trench, bayonets fixed, voices screaming and guns firing, both sides refusing to give an inch. Shells
exploded, sending limbs and bodies flying. Smoke hung all around, and the smell of sulphur and the blood of dying men mingled in the air.

Gerald charged forward, yelling at the top of his lungs, bayonet drawn, leading his men into battle. He stumbled, only to get up again, yelling all the while. Then the ground gave way beneath
him as a shell exploded inches away. Bleeding, injured and half buried, he lay fighting for his life in no-man’s-land, while all around him his men were falling one by one. Consciousness came
and went, and Gerald found himself crying out in pain with no one there to hear him apart from his dying comrades. The last thing he saw was the grey gun-smoke skies clearing and the blue of a
frosty December morning shining through. The clear, sweet voice of a skylark trilled its song over the devastated battlefield. For a moment he smiled, remembering the clear blue skies of the
Yorkshire Dales, and then darkness fell, his pain winning the day.

The rain had fallen every day since the trip to Kendal, never giving anyone the benefit of seeing a clear winter’s sky for more than a few hours. The streams down the
fellsides were in full flood with waterfalls splashing into deep pools and entering into the River Dee with force. The river had risen well above its banks, surging through the dale, uprooting
small trees and dislodging boulders in its urge to get to the sea.

Alice stared out at the rain, unwittingly rocking the baby to and fro in her arms. She was turning out to be more of a mother than Nancy. Since learning of Will’s death, Nancy had barely
left her bed.

‘I don’t know, little one, this weather’s getting worse. It’s the first time I can remember hearing the river from here – it must be terribly high. It’ll do
some damage if it’s not careful.’ She folded the blanket around the baby’s head and gently placed her in her cot. Baby Alice chortled happily, gazing at the woman she thought was
her mother.

‘That wind’s getting up – just listen to it blowing down the chimney. We’d better get some coal in from outside before it gets dark. We’re going to have to keep
that fire going tonight, aren’t we, my darling?’ She tickled the smiling baby girl under her chin, then picked up the coal scuttle and went outside.

Leaving the door ajar behind her, Alice ran through the driving rain to the shed where the coal was stored. Behind her, the wind caught the back door and slammed it with an almighty bang. Moving
as fast as she could with the full scuttle, Alice returned to the house and closed the door behind her.

‘There, my love, we can close the door on the world now.’ Grabbing a towel, she went to stand by the baby’s cot so she could carry on talking to her while she dried her hair.
When she lifted her head, Nancy was standing in the doorway, looking at the pair of them.

‘Nancy, love, come and sit by the fire – you must be cold in that nightdress. I’m sorry, did I wake you up with the door banging? I’ve been out for some coal. It’s
such a wild night out there. Just listen to the wind blowing down the chimney! I wouldn’t want to stop out in this.’ Taking Nancy gently by the arm, she guided her towards the warmth of
the fire. ‘Why don’t I make us something to eat? Would you like Baby Alice to hold?’

Nancy shook her head as she sat next to the fire.

‘Here, let me put a blanket around you. There’s a real draught blowing through them windows, even though I’ve closed the curtains.’ Alice pulled a blanket from the old
oak bedding box that had belonged to her parents and wrapped it around Nancy’s shoulders.

‘Have you heard the voice? I heard it as plain as day when I was lying in bed. It called to me from outside. Did you not hear it? It called my name.’ Nancy gripped Alice’s hand
hard.

‘Don’t be silly, Nancy, there’s nobody out in this. It’s the wind you’re hearing, that’s all. There, do you hear it whistling down the chimney?’

Both women jumped as a loud knocking was heard on the door. Nancy shrank back in terror as if it was the devil himself knocking.

Alice hesitantly went to answer, nerves on edge after listening to Nancy and her story of voices calling for her.

There in the pouring rain was the telegraph boy. ‘Sorry, missus, but I’ve got a telegram for Mrs Bentham. I had to deliver it even in this weather.’

The wind howled around him and the battered winter leaves blew into the house as the drenched telegram boy stepped over the threshold, his dripping waterproofs leaving puddles on the floor as he
fished inside his leather bag for the all-important telegram.

‘We don’t want it! Whatever you’ve got for us, we don’t want it – you must have the wrong house!’ Alice didn’t want to take the envelope from the boy:
she knew what it would contain.

‘Give it to me. It’s addressed to me – I’ll read it.’ Nancy snatched the telegram from the boy’s hand and went into the front room, clutching the rain-soaked
telegram in her hand.

Alice looked at the shivering young boy standing on the flagstone floor of the kitchen. She knew what he’d brought and she didn’t want him in the house a moment longer, but at the
same time she couldn’t send him back to Dent in this weather.

‘Do you want to stay? It’s not fit to return to Dent tonight – that river sounds really swollen.’ She looked at the shivering, white-faced boy. He could only be twelve or
thirteen at most; his mother must be worrying where he was.

‘No, me mam said I’d to get home and not go near the madwoman. I’m more frightened of her than the weather.’ He reached for the door handle, job done and his instructions
from his mother calling him home, no matter how bad the weather was.

‘Just a minute, I’ll give you something for coming out.’ Alice went to the kitchen drawer to get her purse. As she did so, a blood-curdling scream came from the front room. She
turned to the ashen-faced boy.

‘Thanks, missus, but I’m off. Me mam said the madwoman’ll have me if I don’t get home straight away.’ Banging the door behind him, he disappeared into the wild
night before Alice could give him anything for his bother.

Replacing her purse in the drawer, her heart heavy, she went to join Nancy in the living room. The baby had joined in with the cries of her mother, but Alice was more concerned with the contents
of the telegram.

‘What does it say, Nancy? Give it to me.’ She snatched the paper from her.

‘I told you I could hear him crying out my name! He’s on the wind. I can hear him calling me.’ Wild-eyed, Nancy got up, pulled the curtains back and looked out of the window,
the palms of her hands flat against the windowpane.

Her hands shaking so much it was all she could do to focus, Alice read the telegram:

How many of these letters did the armed forces send out? Alice looked at the telegram, thinking about the wording and how the people who sent them must be almost immune to the constant stream of
grief that they wrote every day.

‘Nancy, he’s missing in action; they are only presuming he’s dead. It’s not the same as the one I received about Will – Gerald might still be alive.’

‘He’s dead. I know he’s dead. Can’t you feel it? Something’s wrong. I keep hearing his name.’ Nancy made no effort to soothe poor Baby Alice, so Alice picked
her up and rocked her in her arms as tears rolled down her own cheeks.

‘He can’t be! Both our brothers can’t be dead; he’s just missing.’ Alice hugged the baby tight, needing a cuddle in her grief and the baby giving her some
reassurance. ‘Nancy, come and sit down. We don’t know that he’s dead. They will surely write again and confirm his death or tell us that he’s been found safe and
alive.’

She put the baby back in her cot and guided Nancy to the fireside, settling her in a chair and stroking her long black hair. All the time she was trying to comfort her sister-in-law, she wept
silent tears. Two deaths in two months; this was the second time in Alice’s short life that two deaths had come close together. What had she done to deserve all this sadness?

That night she lay in her bed exhausted by grief yet unable to cry herself to sleep with the wind gusting around the chimney and the rain pelting down on the tin roof of the stables. It was the
wildest night she could remember. Seeking the comfort of Baby Alice’s presence, she crept to the cot, smiling at the sight of the perfect little girl with her arms stretched above her head,
content even though a force-ten gale was blowing outside. Suddenly she heard the familiar creak of the top stair: Nancy must be awake. Alice opened her bedroom door and got to the stairs just in
time to see her sister-in-law going into the kitchen. Perhaps she, too, was unable to sleep for thinking of her loss.

By the time Alice got to the kitchen, Nancy was unbolting the back door. ‘What are you doing? You can’t go outside in your nightdress in this weather!’

‘Can’t you hear him? He’s up at the old marble works and he’s calling for me to come. Will’s there too – can’t you hear them?’ Nancy turned
wide-eyed, then carried on pulling the bolt and lifting the latch.

‘Nancy, come back. Don’t be so daft – it’s the wind! It’s only the wind you can hear.’ She snatched at Nancy’s nightdress, trying to pull her away as
she opened the door, the wind and rain gusting into the cottage, snatching at the curtains and the clothes on the airer.

‘Don’t stop me, Alice. I must go – he needs me; he needs my help.’ She pushed Alice aside with all the force of a madwoman, but Alice stood firm.

‘Nancy, come, my love, come to bed. There’s no one there; it’s only the wind. Let me close the door and we’ll go to bed.’ Holding Nancy tight, she leaned against
the back door, closing it on the wild night outside. ‘Here, carry a drink of milk upstairs and let me tuck you into bed. There’s no one there, believe me.’