Luckpenny Land (3 page)

‘He treats you as if it were still the dark ages instead of the twentieth century. Don’t let him get away with it.’

Meg gave a rueful smile as she brewed tea and set a steaming mug in his hands. ‘I think I already said more than I should. We had a real ding-dong.’

‘He’ll not keep me locked up. There’s a war coming, you know. Hitler won’t stop till he’s got what he’s after. All of Europe no less. While we fuss over the cost of building aeroplanes, German forces have taken over Austria. Where next? France? Poland?’ His blue eyes came alight with fervour and he ran one grubby hand through hair only a shade paler than her own. ‘I’ll be one of the first to join up if war comes. You just see.’

‘You’re too young,’ she laughed, rumpling his tangled curls affectionately, but he snatched himself away from her.

‘Don’t say that. You sound like Father.’

She was at once contrite. Charlie was not a natural farmer, being better with machines than the blood and gore that was an unavoidable part of country life. And Joe never let an opportunity pass to taunt his younger son about his squeamishness which hurt Meg as much as it did Charlie, for they were close.

‘Come on, love, have a piece of gingerbread while I go and shut the hens up. It’ll warm you. There might be more to lamb tonight and you’ll need to cope alone with Father and Dan both going out.’

The hens were making those warm, contented chutterings as Meg slid down the door over the pop hole to keep them safe from unwelcome night visitors. She loved looking after the hens, sliding her hands under their soft bodies to capture warm eggs for breakfast, tickling them under their wings with powder to keep them free of mites. She loved talking to them as they scratched about, telling them her secrets, letting the peace of the night soak into her.

‘Stay safe,’ she warned them, hearing in the distance the bark of a lone dog fox.

The small animals were her province. Looking after the hens, and turkeys in season, feeding the pigs, milking the two cows that provided the family with milk, Meg enjoyed all of that. The animals made her life bearable. But she was not permitted to work with the sheep.

‘Not women’s work,’ Joe said, when once she had asked if she might help. In such a way that she had not mentioned it again. The desire for purposeful work, an identity of her own, was challenged only by the greater need now to see Jack Lawson. Meg clasped her hands together and stared about her. The black mountains seemed to shield her, crouching closer as her eyes grew accustomed to the dark, attempting to pick out the familiar detail that scarred their smooth surface. ‘Please help me to find the words to persuade Father to let me go to the dance.’ She couldn’t believe she had been so stupid as to risk missing it. ‘I must see Jack, I must. And don’t let there be a war.’

She’d heard talk of war a lot lately but never taken it seriously. ‘Charlie’s sixteen, young and headstrong. He thinks only of aeroplanes and adventure, do you see? Not the danger.’

Would Jack? If there was another war, then he too might be called up. Worry swamped her. Oh, she couldn’t bear it if either of them went away. They might be wounded or killed. It made her go all sick and funny inside to think of it, and her own problems seem small by comparison.

Back in the kitchen she made a fresh pot of tea to warm herself, trying not to listen as Charlie chattered on about the latest aeroplane that would blast the enemy from the skies.

Her father came in, looking uncharacteristically smart in his setting-off suit smelling faintly of mothballs, firmly buttoned over his best waistcoat. But then nothing looked more polished than a farmer dressed in his finest. A man’s pride would see to that. He wore his best flat cap, as he did for every occasion whether a birthing or a chapel function, the neb curling downwards from long wear, following the line of his thinned lips.

‘I hear you and Meg have been having a bit of a set-to,’ said Charlie, somewhat recklessly in her opinion.

‘Aye, you could say that.’

‘If you don’t let her go tonight, everyone will want to know why. There’ll be gossip. This dale is famous for it.’

‘Pity folks have nowt better to do then,’ he said tersely. But the point had been made. Joe Turner could not bear to lose face. There was a long pause while he considered, then he turned upon Meg. ‘See you’re quick about it then, if thee’s coming. We haven’t got all night. And splash thee face with cold water.’ He indicated Meg’s cheeks, hot from the fire. ‘We don’t want folks to know we’ve been having a few words.’

The remnants of her pride in tatters, her life in ruins, but the façade of family unity must be kept up. A tearing row passed off as a ‘few words’. But Meg didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was that she was to be allowed to go. She could fight her battles another night.

Chapter Two

The silence of the Lakeland night was profound as Meg followed her father and brother along the rutted lane to the school where the social was to be held. There was nothing to break the silence but the suck of moist earth at her heels, and the fast beating of her heart. Would Jack be there, as he had promised? She heard a rustling in the undergrowth and paused to watch the fleeting glimpse of the white rump of a roe deer, still clothed in its winter grey, as it blundered away from her.

‘I’m so sorry to disturb you,’ she whispered, moving more quietly still, afraid to disturb any other night creature.

There was no sign of Jack as she took one of the hard wooden chairs lined up around the walls of the main room in the school hall. A group of farmers’ wives exchanged gossip at one end as they slapped margarine and potted meat on bread rolls, interrupted from time to time by the need to reprimand one of the younger children who were practising sliding on the candle-greased floor.

Her father and some of the other men had gone in to the meeting room next door to listen to a speaker, but in this hall a special licence had been obtained so there could be dancing.

Meg spotted ‘Lanky’ Lawson, Jack’s father, so called because his stature was anything but. He was working the old wind-up gramophone and later, if pressed, she knew he would play his fiddle and they would all dance the old steps, the Cumberland Square Eight or the Ninepins Reel. Meg acknowledged his wave with a smile. He was a dear friend but this evening she was more interested in a modern waltz with his son. The kind of dance which meant Jack must hold her close.

Everyone seemed to be dancing. She looked about the room with a casual air, trying not to let it show that she felt conspicuous sitting all alone, or that she was looking for anyone in particular. Where was Kath? She had faithfully promised to come.

And then she saw them, dancing together, so carefree and good looking.

They were dancing a quick step, a Tommy Dorsey number, and Kath seemed to be clinging just a little too closely to Jack’s broad shoulders and he was laughing just a bit too much at something her friend had said. Then Kath looked across and saw Meg and at once abandoned her partner to come swooping across the polished floor on fashionable two-tone high heels.

She was wearing a little white embroidered jacket over a silk flared skirt in pillbox red. Nipped in at the waist with a narrow red belt, the jacket was trimmed with a row of tiny pearl buttons. She looked wonderful, a million dollars, and knew it.

‘What
have
you
done to your hair?’ she cried, hugging Meg in delight. ‘I love it. Oh, I shall have to cut mine too. Where did you get it done?’

‘Where did you get those shoes?’

‘Fun, aren’t they?’

Kath swung her own sleek bob about as she talked and Meg had to laugh as her friend prattled on, happily recounting her own latest encounters with hairdressers, which were numerous. Kath was constantly changing her appearance. One week she was a redhead, the next a brunette. For the moment she was blonde and it suited her.

Meg felt herself relax, enjoying as she always did Kath’s lively company. They chattered easily together with the familiarity of old friends, laughing at nothing in particular and understanding far more than was actually said.

‘What happened about the job?’ Kath asked, innocently recalling the tensions of the day.

Fortunately Meg was saved from answering this loaded question by the arrival of Jack himself who looked less enamoured of her new hair style. A frown drew two lines of displeasure above his straight nose.

‘Don’t you like it?’

‘Not much,’ he said bluntly.

‘Thanks,’ she said, disappointment blocking her throat with a rush of emotion. This was proving to be the most awful day of her life. ‘Wouldn’t you say that it makes me look more alluring and sophisticated?’ she asked, daringly teasing, but he only shook his head.

‘Personally I like long hair on a woman, more feminine.’

He was shocked by the change the hairstyle had made to her. With her hair long, never tidy, often dragged together with a bit of baling twine, she’d seemed like a young girl still. Now she looked like a woman. A sensual, mature woman. Long aware of her fancy for him, but also of his easy success with women, he’d thought he had plenty of time to play the field before he did anything about his feelings for Meg Turner. Now he wasn’t so sure. Something had changed in her today, and if he was any judge, it wasn’t just because of the new hair style.

‘Jack and I have been showing the old biddies how it’s done. But you can have him now,’ whispered Kath, winking outrageously, and to her horror, Meg blushed.

But when he asked her for a dance she accepted eagerly, melting against him, unable to disguise her pleasure at feeling his arms about her. Pulling her close, he tucked her hand into his chest where she could feel the fast beat of his heart. Was he excited by her as she was by him? Meg longed to look up into his face, lean and hungry with teasing violet eyes, but dared not.

She had known Jack Lawson ever since their early schooldays together and had wanted him almost as long. He’d always seemed to favour the more feminine sort of girl, the kind who wore broad satin ribbons and didn’t spend all their time climbing trees and damming up becks. He had never shown any interest in Meg Turner with her scruffy pigtails and scraped knees.

She hadn’t seen him for some time after they left school. She’d heard he’d gone off to work in Preston for a while, on the docks. And then last backend at a shepherds meet, there he was, more handsome than ever with the same old wickedly teasing smile.

Since then she had come across him surprisingly often on the lanes and fields about her home when she was out walking. Though his father’s land adjoined theirs, the houses themselves were a good mile apart. For a long time she had struggled hard not to read anything into these accidental meetings. Now hope rose hot and piercingly sweet in her breast.

They swayed together to the rhythm of the music. It was a Bing Crosby number,
When the blue of the Night
, and Jack crooned it softly against her ear, making little b-b-boom noises in imitation of the singer’s style. The warmth of his breath tickled her lobes, making her shiver with a new awareness.

‘Been on any interesting walks lately?’ he asked, his voice no more than a velvet purr.

‘Some. How about you?’

He grinned and pulled her away from him so he could look down into her face. ‘Tend to leave the walking to the dogs, but maybe I should take it up again. Where do you go to get away from that lout of a brother of yours? Wouldn’t care to cross him on a dark night.’

Meg giggled, knowing Jack was not the only one to be wary of Dan. ‘He tries to be tough, like Father, but it’s all show,’ she said. ‘If he bothers you, you’d best stay away.’ And see if I care, her tone said.

The music finished and she walked away from him, burningly aware he was watching the sway of her hips in the new blue chenille dress.

He danced with Kath again and Meg wondered if perhaps she’d been a touch too casual. She should have given him more encouragement, tried to get him to make a proper date. She’d die if he didn’t, she was sure of it.

Later, he took her outside. For a breath of fresh air, he said. Meg went willingly, heart thumping, aware that this was the usual mode of behaviour when a boy wanted to get to know you better.

The small schoolroom, a low, stone building that might have grown out of the rocky soil it stood on, was home to a few dozen children during the day and often commissioned into action as a social meeting point during the evening for the scattered farming community. Standing as it did in the middle of nowhere it was black dark all around, proving a great attraction for those wishing to try out a few undisturbed kisses. She’d noticed Kath make two or three well-timed exits, one of them, to Meg’s great astonishment, with her own brother, Dan.

Now that it was her turn she felt quite sick with anticipation and excitement. What if she did something wrong, said something stupid? Jack was so sophisticated, with vast amounts of experience, while Meg felt simply gauche and juvenile.

He leaned placidly against the wall and lit up a cigarette. He offered her one but she refused. Somewhere an owl hooted. ‘Your father wouldn’t approve, I suppose?’

Meg managed a smile. ‘I don’t suppose he would.’ She was tempted to take one, to prove she was her own person, but decided it would be childish.

His eyes were moving over her face and she put up a defensive hand to her hair. ‘I could always grow it again,’ she said, and his eyebrows lifted.