i 75f9a7096d34cea0 (17 page)

`Frances! Frances! Are you there?` The voice came from the yard and they sprang apart, and he walked quickly to his horse as she, straightening her hair and grabbing up the coat from where it had fallen, pulled open the barn door and shouted hoarsely, Ì'm ... I'm here, Father.`

`Come out of there!`

She gave a swift glance behind her, then ran across the yard to where her father was standing outside the house door in an oilskin and broad-brimmed cap.

Daniel did not immediately mount the horse but waited until he heard the end of the distant exchange between them, followed by the banging of a door; not until then did he mount and ride out of the yard.

As the animal ploughed through the mud he had a very

down-to-earth thought: feeling as they both 215 did, should he take her and she became pregnant, her father would be only too pleased to see her married to him and for her to live anywhere. Anywhere.

Anywhere.

4

It was the first Saturday after his twentieth birthday in December, 1889. On this morning, as he usually managed to do when in Fellburn, he looked in on Pattie, knowing that she often managed to be at home around eleven o'clock.

Having heard laughter as he entered the house by the back door, he paused a moment; and then Pattie appeared at the kitchen door, saying, Òh! you look frozen. Get your coat off and come in; the tea's still hot. I've got company.`

When he entered the little sitting-room and saw Janie Farringdon he said, Òh, hello, Janie.`

`Hello, Daniel,` she replied.

As he took his seat before the small bright fire he said, Ì haven't seen you for weeks; in fact, a few months.`

`Well, you wouldn't,` put in Pattie, now handing him a cup of tea; `she's been in Holland.`

`Holland?` He looked at Janie again, enquiring, Òn holiday?`

`Some and some. Father was after stones.` She cast a glance towards Pattie now, saying, Ì get told off for calling them stones and yet that's all they are.`

`Stones for the jeweller's shop?` Daniel nodded at her. `Were they diamonds?`

`Yes, in the main. They seem to be the most popular, especially for engagement rings. By the way`--Janie again turned her head towards Pattie--`Jessie Bannister asked me to be bridesmaid. I politely refused,ànd she laughed as she added, Ì've got to draw the line somewhere, or sometime, I'm becoming the standard bridesmaid.`

`Well, you shouldn't give such good presents; they know they're on to a good thing.Àgain Janie laughed, the while pulling a face as she admitted, `Yes, I suppose you're right.`

`What excuse did you give? because 217 she's very dominant, is Jessie.`

Òh, I said I was getting much too tall to be a bridesmaid. Well, imagine, she's having two four-year-olds, and there would be me standing between them like a lamp-post.`

Daniel sat looking from one to the other, amused by their conversation, yet thinking the while how close they seemed. But then, Pattie had always liked Janie. Although his sister was quite a bit older, they both seemed to be on the same mental level.

Pattie startled him now by exclaiming, `What am I thinking about! Happy birthday, dear.` She was leaning over him and kissing him. `Twenty. I can't believe it. Yet you know something?` She was now wagging her finger at him. `You'll grow old quickly because you could pass for twenty-five this minute, couldn't he, Janie?`

Òh, don't expect me to add insult to injury. Anyway, a happy birthday, Daniel. Birthdays are odd, don't you think? I've only got six months to go to my twenty-first and Papa said the other day that I wouldn't feel liberated until then. But as I

told him, I've felt liberated for years. I take after Mother, for she didn't turn a hair when I said I was going to take night classes with those creatures called "men" present.`

`You are going to teach?` There was a note of surprise in Daniel's voice. `Do you get many, I mean, turning up for classes?`

`You'd be surprised,` said Pattie, nodding at him now. Ì wish we in the schools could rely on getting as many children. It's you farmers, you know`--the nodding was emphatic now-- `cheap labour. They don't seem to recognise that it's an offence to keep a child from full schooling, and has been these last ten years. It hasn't got through to them yet; and they should be fined. If it touched their pockets that would bring them to their senses. And it's the same wherever there's a factory. Of course, at rock bottom it's the parents.`

Ì suppose they need the money, even if it is so little--`

Òh, now you, Miss Farringdon, don't you start and go soft on them.`

`Who's going soft?` said Janie. `You're the one to talk, and John is worse: he should have his head seen to, the things he does.

I don't know why he married you, because as 219 far as I can gather he's never in the house.`

Daniel was smiling now. They were, he supposed, what some of these newspapers called the new generation, and which many more said should be suppressed, for women were wanting not only to take up positions in the cities, but become doctors and even advocates of the law. And then there were women who said they should have votes, when it had taken years for the ordinary man to claim the power to vote.

He was amazed as he realised how mentally close they were: their interests were along the same lines.

And physically, too, they weren't unalike, except that Janie was bigger made than Pattie, bigger boned, and, if anything, plainer. But her face, topped by that mass of brown hair, was pleasant. And she had lovely hands. He hadn't noticed this before, but then, of course, he had never looked at her hands. There had been no need to; but he did so now because he noticed that she used them as she was speaking. She had a way of spreading out her fingers and her hand in a curving motion as if the gesture itself would strengthen or help to express what she was saying.

They drank more tea and they chatted on.

Pattie asked how things were ... back there, and he told her as much as he considered to be wise, especially in front of Janie.

It was when he stood up, saying, `Well, I'd better be off; I didn't unharness the horse because I must be back soon; I left him and the cart in Baxter's yard,` that Janie rose too, saying, `Father will be stamping like your horse, Daniel; I'd better be off as well.` She looked at her watch. Ì said I would meet them in the market at half past eleven and it's a quarter to twelve now.`

So, together, they said goodbye to Pattie and walked side by side during the ten minutes it took them to reach the market. And he found himself laughing most of the way--she had a keen wit--and as they reached the market place he realised it was the first time he had really talked to her, or she to him.

Previously, whenever he had met her, it had always been in the company of someone else, usually Frances.

She was asking him a question now, and with regard to Frances: `When are you going to be married, Daniel?` she said.

Òh. Oh, that's a question I'd like to be able

to give a straight answer to. If I 221 had my way I'd say, next week, because, you know, we've been courting, as the term goes, since we were sixteen. Of coursè--he laughed now--`Tommy Jobling, down in the village, has been courting Chrissie McFarlane for nine years because she's got her father to look after and he's got his mother to see to, and these two adults must be playing them one against the other.

The parents are supposed to hate each other like poison, so it's no good the couple expecting to go and live with either of them. They've become the village joke.`

They were laughing as they crossed the market place to where, outside the Lion Hotel, stood a carriage with her father standing by the door.

Àh, that's what's kept you, meeting up with young men. It doesn't matter about your father and mother standing here freezing.`

Òh, hello, Daniel,` Mrs Farringdon leant forward out of the carriage. `How are you? It's such a long time since I saw you. You promised to call last time. Do you remember?`

`Yes. Yes, I did, Mrs Farringdon.

But it's the weather, you know. If I could arrange that we have rain in one field and sunshine in the other I would know what to do with my time.`

Mrs Farringdon laughed and said, Òh, you farmers!`

`Can we give you a lift, Daniel?`

`Thank you, Mr Farringdon; but I've left the horse and cart in the market yard over therè--he pointed--ànd I have some shopping to do.`

`But you'll look in on us, won't you?Ìt was Mrs Farringdon speaking again. `Make him promise. Make him promise, Tom.`

Òh, woman! be quiet. He's just told you he hasn't got control of the weather ... Are you going to get in or not, daughter?` Then in a lower voice he said, `Roger's up on the box there swearing into his muffler.

Go and get yourself in.`

Janie now turned to Daniel, saying, `Goodbye, Daniel,ànd he answered, `Goodbye, Janie.` Then he added, Ì've enjoyed the morning ... I mean, our crack.`

She stared at him for a moment, then smiled, but

she said nothing more before turning and stepping 223 up into the carriage.

As Mr Farringdon was about to follow his daughter he paused a moment; then, looking at Daniel he said under his breath, Èverything all right at home?`

`Yes. Yes, thanks, Mr Farringdon.`

The older man now exclaimed, `Good! Good! Perhaps we'll see you soon, then?`

Daniel stood on the kerb and watched the carriage draw away before he turned to make his way back across the market place. And it was as he led the horse and cart from the yard that a voice called to him,

`Hello! Daniel. Stop a minute.`

When he turned about and saw Ray Melton hurrying towards him, he said, Òh, hello. You got back, then. I heard you were abroad.`

Òh, I've been back for some time. Like to come for a drink?`

`No, thank you. I have to make my way home.`

`Well, you can give me a lift. I came in by train, but I was coming your way in any case; I was going to look you up this afternoon.`

`You were?`

`Yes.`

`Looking for a job?`

Ray put his head back and laughed loudly as Daniel cried, `Gee up! there. What happened at Oxford?`

Òh, you heard about that?`

`Don't be silly!` Daniel cast a quick glance at his laughing companion, saying, Ìt set our part of the country on fire. Did your father really throw you out after you were sent down?`

`Well, as Dr Gibson, who was the means of seeing to my disposal would say, metaphorically speaking, yes. Yet, on the other hand, I was given a choice. I could come into the business, and he would even open another store for me, a different kind of store, one that sold everything, in an upper class way, of course; not paraffin oil, fire lighters, and broken biscuits; or I could take myself into the wide world and see what it was all about.`

`So you took yourself away into the wide world?`

`Yes and no. I went to France. Father has a cousin there who, I might add, is made from a different mould from himself. If I hadn't known about

life before I met him, he would 225 certainly have become my tutor. My French isn't all that bright, and the ladies to whom I was introduced knew no English. But, as my dear father's cousin said, love speaks all languages.` He laughed loudly now and punched Daniel on the arm, saying, `Dan! boy, you wouldn't believe. Nobody around this quarter has lived.`

`No, perhaps not,` said Daniel in a noncommittal tone; `but still, we're all managing to crawl up out of the slime.`

Òh, don't be so stuffy. You know, Dan, and I've said this to you before, I just don't know how you stick it, because since you left Crawley House, I bet you've never been out of this neck of the woods ... Still seeing Frances?`

`You could say that. Yes, you could say that.`

`Well, that must be some consolation, anyway, because she's a spanker, isn't she? Dress her up the way some of those French misses do and oh! Oh! la-la!`

Ray jerked in his seat as Daniel turned on him, shouting now, `She doesn't need fancy clothes to make her out. And I'll thank you not

to class her in the same breath as those particular ladies you met on your travels.`

The horse had trotted about twenty yards before Ray said, `Look here, Dan, there's no need to jump down my throat. What's the matter with you, anyway? You never used to be like this. If you ask me, what I think you need is a break. And of course it's understandable with--`

Daniel kept his gaze ahead as he enquired, `Go on. What is understandable?`

Òh, for God's sake! Come off it, Dan. We've been pals for years. We know everything there is to know about each other, and our families. Well, all right, I'll say it, your attitude is understandable with your father hardly ever sober and the whole responsibility for that tribe resting on you.Àgain Daniel had the urge to strike out and knock his longtime friend off the cart. Yet, at the same time, he was made to wonder why he was feeling like this against him. Was it because of the opportunities privilege had given him and he had wasted? Was it because it was the way he had referred to Frances?

Or was it because he knew, as everyone in the district did, that his father had turned into a sot, and that the responsibility of the 227 farm and the family had fallen on him? He supposed it was a combination of all those things; but mainly the fact that Ray had wasted his privileges. What would he have given to have been in his place, to go to university, Durham say, or any university; but to be given the chance to go to Oxford and then to be sent down because you disgraced yourself created in him not only envy but also anger at the waste of such an opportunity.

They drove on in silence for some way.

It was when they were passing the old turnpike gate and the ruined cottage that Ray said sharply, `You can drop me here!Àfter alighting from the cart and without giving Daniel a backward glance, he mounted the bank, jumped over the wooden bar, then hurried along the path that led to the wood.

Daniel did not immediately move the horse on, but sat staring at the tall striding figure. That path led to only one house, the Talbots' and Frances. Of course, further on, but another two miles or so, was Janie's place, and he had been friendly with Janie too.