Forever Yours (34 page)

Aware that Rebecca was looking at him, he forced his voice-box into action. ‘I think I feel a bit like your gran to be honest, hinny. Disappointed she didn’t let on she was back. Not that she was beholden to us to do that, of course, and no doubt the family know.’ He swallowed a mouthful of bread and butter pudding although it nearly choked him before he added, ‘This is every bit as good as your mam used to make. You’re a grand little cook. I reckon you could put in for a job at one of them big houses as cook and no one would turn you away, not if they had any sense, that is.’

The diversion worked. Rebecca giggled. Her, ‘Oh, Da’, expressing her gratification of the compliment, meant they finished the pudding in a comfortable silence. Comfortable on Rebecca’s side, that was, which was all that mattered. For himself, Matt felt physically ill, the meal he’d just eaten threatening to rise up into his mouth.

Constance was back, and by all accounts with the where-withal to live as a lady. But hadn’t he felt, five years ago at her grandmother’s funeral, that she had risen far above him? After that first time when he had gone round to Molly’s and talked with Constance in the kitchen, she had avoided him. He didn’t want to admit it to himself, but she had. Had he embarrassed her? Damn it, he was such a fool. Why would a beautiful lass like her look the side he was on? The Appleby place and her own horse and trap. She had no need of a common working man, that much was clear. She could have anyone she wanted.

‘Da?’ Rebecca rose, reaching for his empty bowl as she spoke.

‘Aye?’ He glanced up at her.

‘You could take Gran with you and call on Constance, couldn’t you? With you saving her life when she was a baby and all? I think Gran would like that.’

He swallowed. ‘She has been away a long time, Rebecca. People change, circumstances change. It’s probably better she goes to see your grandma herself when she feels the time is right.’

‘But what if she doesn’t? Gran’s already hurt and—’

‘Leave it, lass.’ He stood up, reaching for his pipe and baccy.

‘But—’

‘I said leave it.’And quickly, to offset his abruptness, he added, ‘It’ll all pan out, lass. These things always do. Now it’s late. Get yourself off to bed – the dishes will wait till morning. And thanks for waiting up, hinny.’ He stretched out his hand and her face lightened as she took it. He pulled her close, kissing the top of her head. ‘Go and get your beauty sleep or I’ll be in trouble with Larry for turning you into an old hag before your time.’

‘Oh you, Da.’ She grinned at him, equilibrium restored, and did as she was told, calling, ‘’Night, Da,’ from the hall.

Alone in the kitchen he sat down in his easy chair at the side of the range and lit his pipe, annoyed to see his hands were trembling. He sat there for a long time. And when he finally stood up to go to bed his hands weren’t shaking any longer but the trembling was inside him, shrinking the essence of him – the place wherein sat his pride, his self-esteem, his manhood – down to nothing.

Rebecca knew she shouldn’t have done it. If Mr and Mrs Turner found out, she could lose her job – and then where would she be? She’d been lucky to be taken on in the first place, and that was only because Mr Turner had known her mam when she worked in the post office, and had considered her what he called ‘a cut above’ most of the lasses roundabout. He was a bit like that, Mr Turner. Snobby.

She paused and looked behind her. The village was still in sight but in the distance, and the view wasn’t so clear now, masked as it was by trees and the rise and fall of the road. She stood catching her breath; the snow was deep and made walking hard.

When she had opened her eyes that morning after a restless night’s sleep she had known what she was going to do. At the shop she’d been purposely quiet as she worked, and towards midday she had rubbed a little flour on her face from one of the sacks in the storeroom and spent an inordinate amount of time in the privy in the backyard of the shop. It had been freezing but it had been worth it because when she’d come indoors again Mrs Turner had been insistent she go home when she said she had a tummy upset.

‘You look like death warmed up, child,’ Mrs Turner had said anxiously, making her feel awful for deceiving her. ‘You go home and go to bed and likely you’ll be as right as rain come morning.’

Rebecca bit her bottom lip, her small white teeth gnawing away as she thought, I’ll make it up to her, I’ll work twice as hard tomorrow. And it’s not as if I’ve ever done anything like this before. She turned and began trudging through the snow again which was banked high either side of the road.

Once she turned off into the thin lane opposite the reservoir, she breathed easier. The lane curved behind Findon Hill and there was less chance of being seen. A farm wagon had obviously trundled down the lane earlier and she walked in the tracks left by its wheels, but even so it was a struggle. She looked up into the pale grey sky, willing it not to snow until she had safely completed her mission and was home again, and warned herself that she had to be back on the main road before dark. Snow was thick on the hedgerows either side of the lane, and the long frozen branches of the trees overhanging the lane formed a canopy of glistening white as she plodded on. It was well over half a mile from the main road to Appleby Cottage, which was situated in a large amount of ground just past the old quarry.

Her legs were aching with battling against the snow when Appleby Cottage finally came into sight, nestling amidst trees and with blue smoke curling from the chimney. Rebecca had passed by the cottage in the summer and then the rustic porch had been smothered in honeysuckle and the small front garden a mass of flowers. She had stood and gazed in wonder at the wallflowers, lavender and sweet william, pinks and roses of every hue, until her father had urged her on in the Sunday-afternoon walk they were taking. It was then he’d reminisced about the Colonel and his wife, telling her about the orchard at the back of the house which led to a little field where the Colonel kept his horse and a cow. There was a yew hedge closer to the cottage, he’d said, as solid as a wall, which sheltered the Colonel’s wife’s beehives, and another separate enclosed piece of ground where they grew vegetables and had fruit-bushes. But of course the Colonel was old now, the couple had been much more sprightly when he was a boy although sadly they’d never had bairns of their own.

It had only been a few months after that, just before Christmas, that they’d heard the Colonel and his wife had died within days of each other and the cottage was up for sale.

The diamond-paned windows twinkled at her as she opened the rickety gate. Someone had brushed the path leading to the cottage free of snow and the brass knocker on the front door was gleaming bright. Now the moment had come to confront the woman she had heard so much about, Rebecca found she was nervous. What if Constance refused to visit her grandma now she was a grand lady? Worse, she might take offence at her interference and complain about her. Not only would she get into trouble with her da for disobeying him, but Mr and Mrs Turner could get to hear of what she’d been about when she was supposed to be in bed with an attack of the skitters.

She stood hesitating on the doorstep for a few moments, and then a picture of her grandma’s face the way it had been when Mrs Mullen had left came to mind. Her heart beating in her throat, she lifted her hand and grasped the knocker.

The sound it made seemed to echo in her head and it increased the feeling that she shouldn’t have come. She heard a dog bark inside the cottage and took a nervous step backwards, half-inclined to retreat to the lane and close the gate. But then the door opened.

She knew immediately this must be Constance because the woman staring at her was quite, quite beautiful, fair and delicate-looking, with the biggest blue eyes she had ever seen in a human face. Quickly, she gabbled, ‘I’m sorry to bother you and I shouldn’t have come, I know that, but I wanted to ask you to visit my grandma. She knows you’re here and—’

‘You are Tilly’s daughter.’

The warm northern voice was reassuring. Rebecca took a breath. ‘Aye, yes I am.’

‘You’re very like her.’ Constance smiled. ‘Come in, do.’ She opened the door wider and as she did so Rebecca saw a great, lanky dog standing behind her. It was skeletal, just skin and bone, and as Constance followed her gaze, she said, ‘This is Jake, at least that’s what I’ve called him. He was scrounging around in the outbuildings when I arrived. I think he must have been the previous owners’ dog and everyone forgot about him when the old couple died. We’ve adopted each other. As you can see, I need to feed him up.’

‘Is he friendly?’ Rebecca liked dogs but this one was huge.

Constance nodded. ‘I think he’s one of those dogs whose bark is worse than his bite, although he doesn’t seem to like men much.’

Tentatively Rebecca edged into the hall and as she passed Jake a long pink tongue came out and licked her hand.

The hall was small but when Constance opened a door which led into an oak-beamed sitting room, Rebecca involuntarily murmured,‘Oh, it’s bonny,’ as she gazed around her, open-mouthed.

The room was a perfect snuggery and lovely and warm thanks to a large fireplace in which a good fire blazed. This was framed by a carved wooden mantelpiece which would have graced a far bigger residence. Rebecca knew nothing about furniture but she could see that every piece in the room was vastly superior to anything she had seen before, and the thick red curtains at the window and fine shop-bought rugs on the polished floor – shop-bought, mind, and not clippy mats – emphasised the feeling of expensive comfort. The whole of the downstairs of their house could have fitted into this one room.

‘It is bonny,’ Constance agreed quietly, ‘but I’m afraid I can’t take credit for it. Everything was left as it was when the Colonel and his wife died and is included in the price of the cottage. Would you like to see the rest of it?’

Rebecca would like, and the cottage’s dining room, study and kitchen, along with the four large bedrooms, were equally well furnished and opulent. There was even a bathroom upstairs with a cast-iron bath on little legs in the middle of it and two hand basins on stands with enormous copper watering cans at the side.

In a small room leading off the kitchen, which Constance said she thought might have been a scullery at one time, the Colonel had installed an indoor privy, the drain of which led under the gardens at the back of the house right past the field where the cow and horse had lived in the summer to a soakaway which disappeared at the edge of the old quarry. This innovation had Rebecca awe-struck. She had heard of indoor privies but never thought to see one. Not in Sacriston.

The Colonel had even provided a flow of water into the house by means of a pump and piping from the stream which ran along the bottom of the garden, but that was frozen over at the moment, Constance told her. But the well at the back of the outhouses and stable yielded water, winter and summer. A wash-house with a boiler and big stone sink and mangle completed the tour, after which Constance left her in the sitting room while she went to make a pot of tea. Rebecca was acutely aware that Constance hadn’t referred to what she had said when she’d arrived on her doorstep, but had kept the conversation friendly but impersonal.

She sat nervously fondling Jake’s silky ears as she waited for Constance to return with the tea-tray and practised what she was going to say. The dog nuzzled her hand now and again, as if he sensed her agitation. Which he probably did. Dogs were intuitive that way, she thought.

When the sitting-room door opened again she didn’t know whether to stand up or remain sitting, and something of her state of mind must have communicated itself to the graceful young woman in front of her because Constance said softly, ‘Don’t be fearful, Rebecca. I hope you know you’re among friends.’

‘I’m not fearful, not really. It’s just that . . .’

‘No one knows you’ve come to see me?’ Constance finished for her.

Rebecca’s eyes widened. ‘How did you know?’

‘I put two and two together. I doubt your father would have been happy for you to take a walk on such a day if he had known.’ Constance put the tea-tray on one of the small occasional tables dotted about the room and drew a chair closer to Rebecca’s. ‘Now, tell me what’s worrying you.’

‘It’s not me.’ Rebecca found that after all her thinking she still didn’t know where to start. ‘It’s my grandma and Mrs Mullen.’

‘Oh, I remember Mrs Mullen. We used to call her Meddling Mullen when I was a bairn.’

‘Did you? Well, she still is. Meddling, I mean. You see, it’s like this . . .’

Constance sat looking at Tilly’s daughter as she talked. She liked her, she thought with a dart of surprise. Somehow she hadn’t expected to. But Rebecca was a lovely lass, warm and sweet with a natural kindness which shone out of her pretty face. And Matt was her father. She waited for the ache which always came with the knowledge that he had fathered a child with someone else, and although it was there it wasn’t so painful now she had met Rebecca.

‘. . . and so I wondered if you’d mind calling to see her as soon as you can. Just so she knows the two of you are still friends,’ Rebecca finished.

‘Of course I will. I fully intended to call once I’d settled in over the weekend, but then with the weather being so inclement I’m afraid I haven’t budged from the fireside. I’ll walk back with you now if you like . . . Oh no, no, that won’t do, will it? Not if your visit needs to be kept between the two of us. I’ll go tomorrow morning, whatever the weather. How’s that?’

Rebecca smiled. This had all gone far better than she could have hoped. Now all she had to do was get home without anyone seeing her. She could say to her da once he came in from the pit that she’d been in bed all afternoon but felt much better.

They sat having tea and cake and Constance told Rebecca all about the Ashtons’ estate and life in the big house until the rapidly deepening twilight reminded Rebecca that she had to leave. Constance insisted she and Jake would accompany Rebecca to the end of the lane and along the main road until the lights of the village were in sight, and the three set off together. Jake bounded ahead of them, cavorting in the snow like a puppy and making them laugh as he flung great mouthfuls of snow in the air.