Luckpenny Land (36 page)

She fell to her knees beside him and put her face against his. He was alive. Dear God, thank you for that. As the tears ran unchecked down her cheeks she could hear him breathing little gusts of love into her ear. If he’d been a cat he would have purred.

‘Let me look at him.’ Tam ran knowledgeable hands over the dog’s limbs. ‘He’s broken a leg, and possibly his shoulder.’

Meg swallowed carefully. ‘We have to get him down. Take him to the vet somehow.’

The stranger was tying birch sticks across the dog to hold his legs still. ‘These will have to do as splints.’ Then he tore open the sack to form a hammock. ‘Help me lift him on to this, easy does it. I can carry him on my back, across my shoulders.’

Meg winced and cringed as she lifted Rust into position, but if the movement hurt the dog he gave no sign. Velvet brown eyes gazed trustingly into hers, his brown ear was torn and a great patch of his coat had been grazed down to the flesh. But he knew he had nothing to fear now. Meg would take care of him.

Miss Shaw, Effie’s teacher, had called in to bring her some books, and kindly drove them to the veterinary in her little car. Rust was to stay at the surgery overnight to have plaster put on his fractures and be carefully checked over. Now Meg and the stranger were sitting in Broombank kitchen, gratefully enjoying one of Effie’s home-made soups.

‘I owe you,’ Meg announced, not looking at him. Whenever she did she was half afraid her cheeks would flush under his oddly appraising gaze. ‘You haven’t yet told me your name.’

‘Thomas O’Cleary. At your service.’

‘Irish?’

‘Irish-American-Liverpool you might say, and goodness knows what else besides.’

Meg smiled. ‘Don’t you know which?’

‘I’m a mongrel. Like your dog.’

She was outraged. ‘Rust isn’t a mongrel, he has an excellent pedigree. I also own his mother and brother.’

The green eyes twinkled. ‘Tis awful fond you are of that creature. Wouldn’t a man give his eye-teeth to be so adored?’

A stillness came upon Meg and she heard Effie titter. She turned at once to the child. ‘You ought to be in bed. You have school tomorrow.’

‘Aw, Meg.’

‘Go on. No messing.’

Dragging her heels and taking as long as humanly possible without risk of inciting more stern words, Effie went to bed. When she’d gone, Meg realised her mistake. She was alone now, with a stranger, and night was coming on.

Tam grinned. ‘Do you have a barn?’

Meg hid a smile at his uncanny ability to read her thoughts. She shook her head. ‘We have several but none fit to sleep in, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

‘Ah.’ Tam glanced across at the window. The shutters were closed, but the rain could be clearly heard beating upon the glass. ‘Now that’s a pity, to be sure. Tis not a night for a lonely, unemployed male to be prowling about.’

Meg found her lips twitching upwards at the corners. ‘If ever I heard a load of soft-soaping bunkum, that just about takes the biscuit!’

The strange, soft green eyes which reminded her so much of Kath, opened wide in false innocence. ‘So what would you be meaning by that remark?’

Meg got up and removed the empty dishes to the sink. ‘You can sleep here, on cushions by the fire.’ Then more sternly, ‘Any prowling about in my house and you’ll find I have other, more fierce dogs to protect me.’ The thought of young Ben and quiet Tess setting upon this man almost made her laugh but she managed to keep her face perfectly serious. He didn’t know how soft they were.
 

‘I’ll bear it in mind, to be sure.’ His gaze held hers for a moment, boldly challenging, as if saying it might be worth trying anyway.

Meg brought him a pillow and a blanket and placed them on the chair by the fire, hoping that she’d made her point. As she started up the stairs he spoke in his quiet, lilting voice.

‘I’m glad to have made your acquaintance, Meg Turner. I hope as how we are going to be friends and you’ll call me Tam.’

For some foolish reason, Meg’s heartbeat quickened as she looked down upon him. ‘I think it’s time you closed those Irish eyes of yours and got some sleep.’

Meg called at the surgery first thing the next morning. Rust had spent a comfortable night but was still drowsy from a minor operation he’d had to set his shoulder.

‘He’ll live. You can take him home later,’ the vet said. ‘When he wakes.’

‘He will be all right?’-

‘He’ll never work again, I’m afraid. A quiet life in future for this young man. If you decide to keep him, that is.’

‘I’m not having him put down.’

The vet smiled. ‘I didn’t think for a minute you would, Meg. Nasty accident though. How did it happen?’

Meg hesitated. ‘Just one of those things.’

She went straight from the surgery back on her bike up to Ashlea. She had it in mind to give a piece of her mind to Dan but found herself being interrogated by Sally Ann instead. Her sister-in-law was busy knitting khaki socks for her soldier brothers but was willing enough to put down her knitting for a minute and hear about the stranger who had helped to rescue Rust.

‘You let a man sleep all night in your house?’ Sally Ann gazed at her in astonishment. ‘I wonder what Jack would make of that?’

‘Oh, don’t. I daren’t even think. He’s Irish and behaved most properly.’

‘He’s good looking then?’

Meg dropped the ball of wool she was winding for Sally Ann, so surprised was she by this question, and had to chase it under the table. ‘Why do you think so?’

‘I can see it in the flush on your pretty cheeks,’ Sally Ann said, making the rosy hue deepen as a result.

‘What else could I do but offer him a night’s accommodation? Him having helped with the rescue.’

Sally Ann’s grin faded. ‘How is the dog?’

‘He’ll live, the vet says.’

‘That’s grand news. He’ll be out on the fells again before you know it.’

Meg swallowed. She wouldn’t cry at the damage done to her good friend, she wouldn’t. ‘He’ll never be up to working again, but maybe he won’t mind so much. He always has had a fancy for the easy life.’

‘Dan is real sorry about the accident. Could hardly sleep last night. He likes dogs.’

Meg was aware of her sister-in-law glancing anxiously at her and tried to smile but her skin felt all tight and stiff. ‘I’m sure he is,’ was all she managed.

‘He didn’t think. Oh, I know, that’s Dan all over, you’ve said so a dozen times. But he is doing his best to change. He does try, if not often enough mind, to be his own man. But Joe goes on at him so much it’s as if Dan has to prove how tough he is, even when he doesn’t feel it.’

Meg reached out and squeezed Sal’s hand. ‘My father has a way of getting under anyone’s skin and turning them into monsters. The dog will be fine. And it’s true he did behave a bit daft. Rust has a nervous streak in him, as collies often have. Remember how he ran away that time? I don’t think he likes Dan’s booming voice.’

‘I can sympathise with that,’ chuckled Sal. ‘Here, have a piece of curd tart while I put on a brew of tea. It’s freshly made.’

They sat companionably for some moments before Meg spoke again.

‘I hope you don’t mind my calling here so often. But I always enjoy our little chats, as well as your delicious cooking.’ Meg grinned and took a bite out of the wedge of tart.

Shrewd eyes regarded her in silence for a moment. ‘You miss someone to talk to up there, don’t you?’

A flash of guilt crossed Meg’s face before she could stop it. ‘I do, yes. Effie’s lovely but she’s still a child. I forget that sometimes. I miss Kath, and oh, Jack of course, so very much. But that isn’t the only reason I come here. I hope you and I can be friends.’

‘Course we can. I know Kath is special to you. Sometimes, I used to think, a bit too special.’

Meg looked at her sister-in-law in surprise. ‘What do you mean by that?’

Now it was Sally Ann’s turn to flush beetroot red. It clashed alarmingly with her hair. ‘Trust me to put my big foot in it. I didn’t mean anything, except, well, she did push in between you and Jack, didn’t she?’

‘Push in?’

‘Yes. Going out with you on picnics and swims and such like. Wasn’t natural, I thought, for a beautiful girl like her to want to be with you two all the time, just as if you were sisters and always had to be together.’

‘I suppose we felt like sisters sometimes.’

‘Why didn’t she find a fella of her own?’

Meg sat and listened to the clock ticking out in the hall while she considered this. ‘She was a friend. Still is. Therefore always welcome with Jack and me. We didn’t mind.’

The sharpness in Meg’s voice caused an awkwardness to fall between them, one that might have continued indefinitely had it not been broken by the arrival of Joe.

‘Is that cur of yours still going strong then?’

‘Yes, no thanks to your son.’

‘Don’t look at me so fierce. I didn’t kick him down the scree.’

‘No. But you put it into Dan’s head to try and make it as difficult as possible for me to run Broombank.’ Meg spoke quietly but her tone said she wasn’t to be made a fool of. ‘You’ve taken my hay, my tups, my cows, and now damaged my dog, but you’ll not make me give up. I’ll tell you that for nothing.’

Joe sat down in his chair, took off his cap and rubbed one hand over his thinning hair. He was quite calm, infuriatingly so in Meg’s opinion. ‘I’ve allus had a fancy for Broombank.’

‘You can buy land as good anywhere.’

‘Aye, but not cheek by jowl with me own place. Anyhow, it has more usable acres than I have as well as good access to the heaf.’

Meg steadied her breathing and sat down opposite her father. Sally Ann excused herself swiftly, and went off to find something that didn’t need doing.

‘This is about Mum and Lanky, isn’t it?

The question was quietly asked but it was as if she had lit a match to touch paper. She watched his face turn red, then white as it drained of all colour, his mouth screwing into a tight knot of rage.

‘Oo told you?’

‘Does it matter? Isn’t it all very old hat now? Does it really matter if Mum once loved Lanky? Who knows if anything would have come of it? It mightn’t have lasted, they were only young.’ Like me and Jack, came the unbidden thought, but Meg quickly squashed it. Her love for Jack was absolute, not here today and gone tomorrow.

‘Aye, she used to say that.’ Joe reached for his pipe as he always did in times of stress and emotion. ‘She spent half her life up there at Broombank, even when Mary was alive. After Mary was gone Annie still kept going. She was never away. How do I know what was going on?’

It hurt Meg more than she could bear to hear her mother’s memory so defiled. ‘You nasty old man! Mum, Mary and Lanky were good friends. That’s all. They’re all dead now, let them rest in peace. Why you always have to see the worst in people, I don’t know.’

‘Because it’s generally the way things are. I don’t trust women. Never have, never will.’

For the first time she began to feel truly sorry for her father. He lied and cheated to get Annie to marry him but had never felt secure with her. Because of that he’d kept her close to the house, and her daughter too in the fullness of time. He’d bullied his two sons, each for different reasons, but he hadn’t managed to make any of them love him. It was really very sad.

Meg went to kneel by his chair and Joe looked directly into her eyes, surprise in his own at seeing her beside him thus.

‘Why do you have to be pushing and shoving all the time, ordering people about? Why can’t you just let things be? Maybe, if you gave me the chance, you might find something in me that you like. Would that be so terrible? Would it really damage you, or Ashlea, if I managed to be as good a farmer as you?’ She didn’t say better, that wouldn’t have done at all.

Joe made no reply.

When he made no move towards her, Meg got wearily to her feet and stood before him. ‘I don’t want to fight you, but I will if I have to. Every time you knock me back it makes me a little bit stronger, gives me a little more confidence to cope. If Mum hadn’t the courage to stand up to you, and escaped at every opportunity to a place where there was friendship and love, you’ve only yourself to blame. As I have escaped. And Charlie. If you don’t watch out, Dan will do the same.

‘But I’m still your daughter, Joe Turner, and I’m certainly not going to deny that fact, nor give in to your bullying. Nor will I fail in this enterprise. In fact, I intend to be a success. Have you ever considered that I might want to be like you, and not my mother?’ Then, bidden by some instinct she could not at that moment define, Meg leaned over and kissed her father on the cheek. She left the kitchen quickly before he had time to reply.

‘Walk with me up the lane for a bit,’ she said to Sally Ann.

‘You haven’t had another falling out?’

Meg shook her head, tears welling in the grey eyes. `’I don’t want to talk about it, all right?’

Sally Ann nodded in silent misery and Meg could see her sister-in-law wishing life with the Turner family could be a lot less complicated. So did she.