Luckpenny Land (27 page)

Meg struggled against the rising heat behind her eyes which seemed to stop her seeing properly. ‘What exactly have you taken?’

‘It’s all legal and above board. Don’t look so shocked. You know very well that lawyer chap said as how we could. Well, like I said, it’s all done with.’

‘Tell me.’ She leapt forward and grabbed his arm, feeling the broad muscles ripple beneath her hand as he instinctively flinched from her. Meg dropped her hand and again he grinned at her.

‘All right, all right, if tha wants to know. We’ve taken a tup or two, and a portion of hay.’ He looked beyond her to Effie who sat like stone at the great deal table. ‘Is that your idea of a farm labourer? Well, I should say you’d be bound to make a fortune with that sort of brawn to help.’ Throwing back his great head he laughed till he was forced to hold on to his aching sides.

The sound of his boots clomping across the farmyard cobbles echoed in Meg’s ears long after he’d gone. Only when the silence rushed back at her did she run across to the hay barn and fling back the doors. It was completely empty. While she had been busy feeding Connie and her husband all weekend, her father and Dan had brought a horse and cart and robbed her of her winter feed.

Weeping never did anyone any good, Meg told herself crossly, rubbing her eyes red raw with her efforts to make the tears stop. The Herdwicks didn’t do well on hay anyway and she no longer had any cows. But it was upsetting all the same for them just to come and take it. Every farmer likes to know he has a barn full of hay, just in case the weather turns bad and the grass is used up. But she’d manage. She wouldn’t let this put her off. The farm could survive without a bit of hay.

The tups. Dan had said,
‘We’ve taken a tup or two.’

Meg ran till her sides were splitting, to the lower fell where she knew the rams had been enclosed. Her awful suspicions were correct. Lanky had kept at least half a dozen good strong rams. Now only two inexperienced young ones remained. Her shoulders slumped in despair. How could they survive now?

Though this was the quiet time of the year and the flock could largely tend to itself for a bit, within the next few weeks it would be time to gather the Herdwicks from the high fells and bring them down to be served by the tups. A portion of the lower fell was fenced off for this purpose since the good grass of the intake land must be protected for the weaker stock as winter progressed. Forty or fifty sheep would be put with each ram and Meg knew that it was a complicated task, necessitating careful markings of ram number and week served, so that it was clear which ewe would lamb in which week.

But without rams, there would be no tupping season. No seed would be sown for a crop of lambs next spring. She was finished before she had even started.

No rams, no money, no food, no cows, no small animals and no emergency feed for the sheep that she did have.

What had possessed her to think she could ever manage?

As she stood racked by the bitter wind and her own desolation on the bleak hillside, a small warm hand slipped quietly into hers. ‘Yer not going to send me back, are yer?’

Meg looked down into the pinched features of little Effie. She had known this child for only a few short weeks and yet felt as if she had known her a lifetime. By Effie’s side stood the devoted black and tan collie dog, loyally wanting always to be with them. If Rust ever left Meg’s heels, which was rare, it was only because he felt it his duty to protect this small stranger he had taken to his big heart. Tongue lolling as usual, one brown ear erect while the black one lolled like his tongue, he gazed from one face to the other and waited patiently as if knowing a decision was about to be made.

‘I don’t eat much,’ Effie continued earnestly. ‘I know as how I med a fuss when I fust come - first come. But I like it now and I promise to be good and learn to speak proper and everything.’ She sought Rust’s ear and nervously gave it a tug. The dog rubbed his face lovingly against her hand, eyes never leaving the child’s face. ‘I can work hard. I’m strong.’ She flexed a skinny arm so fiercely that Meg would have laughed out loud had it not been unkind to do so. She knelt down beside the child and gathered her into her arms.

‘Effie, I would love you to stay, really I would. But it won’t work, do you see? We have no food and I have scarcely any stock. I know very little about sheep and nothing at all about managing a farm all by myself.’

‘You could learn.’

Meg sighed and stared up at the dark specks as they moved over the tawny ridges, wondering how Lanky had managed all on his own. ‘You see those ewes standing guard on their favourite crag?’ Effie squinted in the direction she pointed. The size of these mountains made her feel smaller than ever, and she worried a bit that these same crags might drop down one of these days. But Meg said they’d been there since the ice age so why should they fall down now, on to her? And if Meg said they were safe, then they must be. ‘You see they can easily become trapped on the narrow ledges in bad weather,’ she was saying. ‘Blown off in high winds or fall from simple panic. Lanky would climb down, agile as a monkey and rescue them with a rope and his own strength.’

‘Can’t you do that then?’

Meg gave an odd little laugh and shook her head. ‘I thought I could but I don’t have Lanky’s agility, nor his strength. I don’t have his knowledge or his expertise. I wish he was here now, Effie, to tell me what to do.’

A sense of awful inadequacy swamped her. Following the old man about on his daily tasks had taught her little about sheep farming, particularly since her mind had been too fully occupied with Jack at the time.

Her throat was growing tighter as she listed these very sensible reasons for giving up now, before she’d even started. ‘I’m a woman, nowhere near strong enough to do all the jobs that need to be done.’

‘Oo ses so?’

Meg smiled sadly. ‘I do. Oh, I’m strong inside, and proud with it. But it takes more than inner strength to be a good farmer. You need long legs to walk the hills, and broad shoulders to lift the sheep and heavy stones and sacks. I don’t know how to gather the tups so I can put rud on them, how to catch and mark the sheep, how to keep them safe all winter...’ Her voice tailed away as her eyes moved over the smooth rounded foothills, the blue and white crags that hazed the horizon beyond. Tranquil as it appeared it was a hard land, unbending, a remorseless taskmaster. But she loved it all the same. Meg swallowed and blinked.

‘We’d best go and see Mr Lipstock this afternoon. I’m sure there are plenty of other people who would love to have you stay.’ Taking Effie’s hand she started to walk down the hill but the child tugged her to a halt.

‘Where will you go?’ The dark brown eyes were burning into Meg’s, beseeching, compelling her to find a better solution.

It was some moments before Meg could answer and the smile was more brave than convincing. ‘Maybe I’ll have to become an evacuee like you, and find someone to take me in too.’

‘Can’t we leave it till tomorrer? Goin’ to Mr Lipstock, I mean.’ And then as if anxious to clinch the matter, she continued, ‘I’ve found some tatties an’ all. We could have bubble and squeak fer us dinner.’

The small face, and the careful, rational appeal in the voice, so touched Meg that she burst into a peal of merry laughter. But only because if she hadn’t laughed, she would have cried.

The next few days were the hardest Meg had ever spent in her life. She worked from first light to long past dark and still did not seem to get through half the amount of work needing to be done. She spent hours checking the sheep, mending walls, repairing the sheds, barns, fences and gates with odd bits of wood and rusty nails, pieces of netting or, when all else failed, bits of tatty string because when the sheep were brought down, she couldn’t afford to lose any.

But she was only putting off the evil day. It was all a waste of time really.

As she worked, her mind gnawed away at her problems. If she had money she could hire tups. But she had no money. If she had no pride she could ask Joe for help. But she had far too much pride. There seemed to be no answer.

Effie proved herself surprisingly useful. If she had learned nothing of social graces and table manners in the slums of Manchester, she had certainly learned how to survive. Nor did she complain about the work. Her tiny, wiry body never stopped, the sound of her tuneless, high-pitched singing filling the dale.

She found and dug up quite a good store of potatoes and Meg taught her how to cover them with straw and soil in the darkness of an old shed, to keep them dark, dry and fresh.

‘These’ll last us all winter,’ Effie said with pride and Meg tried to look happy about the prospect of living on cabbages and potatoes for months on end. Soon, too soon, the hens might stop laying. She would ask Sally Ann for some isinglass, then she could store some eggs in readiness for that dreaded day.

They picked blackberries from the hedgerows, filling their mouths till they were black, like young children out on a picnic. They even chopped down nettles and made soup. It tasted surprisingly good.

Each morning they would look at each other and Meg would say, ‘We should go and see Mr Lipstock today.’

Effie would shake her head. ‘Tomorrer.’

Meg had the feeling that by taking the little evacuee back she’d be somehow admitting failure. Something she would much rather not do.

But for all Effie’s hard work and inventiveness it was a meagre diet, with too little protein and energy in it. How could a child grow strong on such fare? How could Meg do the work of a strong man on bubble and squeak?

And if she did not solve her problems soon, they would not be able to pay the rent at Christmas and then they would be homeless. The end of her dream, and Effie’s peace.

But nothing got Effie down. To the child, this was paradise. One day she brought Meg’s lunch up to Dundale Knott where she was working, and drew in great gulps of fresh air as if she could eat it. ‘It’s bonnie here, in’t it? We’re all right now, aren’t we? We’re managing.’

Meg paused in her labours of slashing back the bracken which, if left, would choke the much needed grass that fought for light beneath. Thankfully she sat down to drink the milkless tea and eat the cold potatoes. ‘We still need to find rams, by November, to provide next year’s crop of lambs, and the rent by Christmas. But apart from that, yes, I suppose we are managing so long as my family don’t decide to try any further funny business.’

‘Why should they?’

‘Because my father likes to be top dog, always in control. He doesn’t care to be bested by a mere woman.’

Effie snorted her disgust. ‘Sounds like my mam’s sort of fella.’

‘He wants me to fail so that Connie can sell him this land. Then him and Dan can have it all to themselves and he can keep me in my place, by the kitchen sink.’

‘Can’t you talk to him, get him to leave you alone? He might lend you some money if you ask proper.’

‘Over my dead body.’

‘You’ll have to talk to him some time or other. He’s yer da,’ said the too-practical child.

Meg gazed at her in astonishment. ‘Don’t you hate him for what he did to you?’ The physical scars on the child’s back were healing well but surely there would be mental ones too, harder to cure. To have suffered bruising abuse in her own home was one thing, to find the same treatment in the place offered as sanctuary was inhuman in Meg’s opinion, and filled her with an odd kind of guilt, as if she were in some way responsible.

Effie shrugged. ‘I’ve been belted afore. It dun’t get to me, not the real me, d’yer see?’ Fierce brown eyes looked up at Meg, dark as chocolate, like great melting pools in the white face. Meg did see. She understood perfectly. The child was showing more courage than herself, and was wise beyond her years. What you were inside could remain untouched, private and special. Not even Joe could quench her spirit, if she didn’t let him.

Effie was right. She would have to make some sort of peace with her father, for Meg would need his help with the gather. The ewes needed to be brought down from the fells and given the autumn dip whether or not she found any tups for them, and she couldn’t do that by herself. Nor could she risk not seeing Sally Ann or Charlie again.

But she still had to find solutions for all her other problems.

A voice shouted in the distance and they both looked up. Far below them, coming up the lane from Ashlea to Broombank, was a figure, waving an arm madly.

‘Someone’s coming,’ said Effie.

Meg’s heart leapt. Could it be Jack? Even as the hope came to her she rejected it. Hadn’t he only just gone back? The figure had reached the farm door and was waving two arms and shouting up to them now.

Meg was on her feet, pulling Effie with her. ‘Dear God, I think it’s Charlie.’ Then she was running down the hill with the wind behind her and joy in her heart.

Chapter Fourteen

Waiting in the farmyard was a young man dressed in RAF uniform, forage cap set at a killer angle just above his right ear, and a huge grin on his face.

Meg leapt at her brother to give him a big hug.

‘I called at Ashlea first. They said you were up here. How? Why. Where’s Lanky?’

‘Weeks you’ve been gone and no more than a postcard,’ Meg scolded.

Charlie had the grace to look sheepish. ‘We’ve been drilling and square-bashing in Blackpool.’