Luckpenny Land (6 page)

‘You do respect me, don’t you, Jack?’ she asked, a touch of uncertainty in her voice, in case she had lost him by such wanton behaviour, but he only chuckled.

‘Course I do, Meg. I’ve told you. I wouldn’t be here else.’

Her mother had told her long ago that a boy never respected you if you let him go “all the way”. Yet if she stayed here much longer, gazing into his violet blue eyes with their long curling lashes, she’d throw respect to the four winds and let him do what he would with her.

‘I must go.’ She got quickly to her feet, and was delighted when he did the same, putting his arms about her once more as if he couldn’t bear to let her go.

‘You’re not angry with me, are you?’ There’ll be another time, he thought, plucking a piece of grass from her hair.

‘`No, course not. Why should I be?’ They kissed again, softly now, with no urgency in it, and she knew it was all right. Life was suddenly wonderful and her heart was racing with happiness. Meg’s only experience of love and romance came from her rare visits to the cinema, or flea pit as Kath called it. A diet of glossy sentimentality and cultivated passion filled with vows of undying love lightened by jokey wisecracks, always with a happy ending in the final reel.

‘Will I see you tomorrow?’ he asked, and when she hesitated he persisted. ‘I must see you, Meg. I’m not made of stone, love.’ He’d called her his love. The delight of being wanted as those screen goddesses were wanted, was so delicious that Meg, as many a woman before her, felt suddenly heady with a sense of her own power. Reaching up, she wrapped her arms about his neck and kissed him good and hard.

‘Will that keep you happy till I can get away again?’ she asked, and turning from him, started to run down the hill.

Her feet flew over the coarse grass, slipping and sliding down the hillside with the wind in her hair and exhilaration in her heart. Her father was waiting for her when she got home, complaining that his supper wasn’t ready. He said nothing more but his silence was heavy and accusing as he riddled the coals in the grate and then banked it up for the night. He sent her up early to bed just as if she were a child and not a grown woman. But Joe Turner’s disapproval couldn’t touch her now, and she was glad to escape.

Meg undressed slowly and running her hands over her breasts before pulling on the flannel nightgown, she wondered if she was beautiful.

That night, in the secret darkness of her bed, she relived those moments over and over in her mind and knew with a shaming weakness that she hadn’t wanted Jack to stop, not at all. Would she have let him go further if there’d been anywhere more suitable than a copse of ash trees by a small mountain tarn? She didn’t know, but curiosity was strong in her and the thought did not go away that life with Jack Lawson would be a good deal more exciting than waiting on her crabby old father and brothers.

They met regularly after that. In the mornings Meg would race through her work, humming happily to herself. Most afternoons found her slipping out the back door and striding off up to Brockbarrow Wood, heart pumping as she waited for Jack.

She knew Joe watched her, often with dark brows drawn into a dour frown, but he never spoke about her change of humour and she never enlightened him. In her view, it was none of his business who she went out with. Besides, it was too soon to have their growing friendship examined by her grasping father. Joe would be sure to put the very worst connotation on it and start asking what Jack could offer as a prospective son-in-law.

Meg knew he wouldn’t want to lose her from the farm, not yet. He maintained that her job was to look after him until he retired, or Dan married and brought a replacement housekeeper to the farm. By which time Meg reckoned she would be well past thirty and quite grey with age.

But she couldn’t help telling Kath about meeting Jack at the copse, though she said nothing of the hot kisses or the furtive fumblings. These were secrets best kept to herself.

‘You want to be careful,’ Kath warned. ‘Jack has had loads of girl friends.’

‘Oh, I know he’s experienced,’ Meg said. ‘But he wouldn’t take advantage. I trust him.’

Kath looked disbelieving. ‘So long as you don’t get any silly ideas about him, Meg. Like falling in love and marriage.’

Meg took Kath’s warnings with a very large pinch of salt. What young man didn’t sow a few wild oats when he was young? And Jack was older than herself at twenty-three, nearly twenty-four, so of course he’d had a few girl friends. But she meant to be his last. The thought of marriage with Jack filled her with delight. Even so, instinct warned her that there had to be a greater purpose to her life. She understood this somehow, deep in her heart.

So although the two girls shared their thoughts and dreams, Meg had no intention of letting even Kath into this one. Not until she’d sorted out her own thoughts on the subject.

‘Heaven forbid,’ she scoffed. ‘And spend my life in a kitchen?’ Both girls giggled, content with each other, as they had always been. Meg resolved then that until she had discovered what that something was, and had achieved it, she would not allow Jack Lawson to get so far with her again. It was too risky. But she would go on seeing him, as often as she could manage.

There was a late snow the next day, blocking the lanes and filling the shady sides of the stone walls, burying the sheep who had sought shelter. Her father and two brothers were kept fully occupied bringing them in, often discovering the bedraggled, crow-picked bodies of newborn lambs, destroyed before they’d had time to taste life.

Meg too worked flat out as the snow created its usual chaos and extra work. Clothes to be dried, hot meals provided at all hours of day and night without a word of thanks. And on top everything else, the orphan lambs to be fed at frequent intervals throughout the day and night and kept warm by the kitchen range until they were strong enough to survive outside without a mother.

Worse, the snow meant that she couldn’t get out to see Jack. Through the long claustrophobic days that followed, confined to the farm, Meg dreamed of the warmth of his lips against hers, the feel of Jack’s fingers threading through her hair and the sigh of the wind in the ash trees as it washed over them, wrapping them in an almost mystical enchantment.

A week passed, and another. Was Broombank cut off too? she wondered, and began to worry about Lanky. She had known him all her life and loved him almost as a father. There had been times when she’d wished he was. Meg knew that the old man hadn’t been well recently and would appreciate one of her home-made pies. And so, as soon as the lanes were passable, she decided not to wait for the thaw. She would go anyway.

There were fox prints deep in the snow as Meg trod steadily upwards, leaving a trail of her own beside them. The thorn bushes were shrouded with white, showering the lane with yet more pristine crystal flakes as she brushed by. In her hand she carried a basket in which reposed the pie, deep and rich with gravy. There was also a small cheese, and a pot of her best raspberry jam. Lanky Lawson, being a widower with only Jack at home, had few comforts these days. So even if the food was not up to her mother’s standards, it would be welcomed.

The mountains glittered brilliantly in the morning sun, fallen rocks like glass marbles at their feet. Great banks of snow were still piled high at each side of the lane, alternately melting and freezing as the weather changed. Progress was proving difficult with her booted feet skidding and skating on the frozen puddles one moment, and the next knee deep in a drift. But she meant to get through, no matter what.

Stomach churning with excitement, she wished she’d thought to bring some lipstick with her, or a dab of Boots 711 Cologne to put behind her ears. In her old raincoat and wellington boots she looked a bit too plain and well scrubbed. But the anticipation of seeing Jack grew stronger with every step, making her hurry so that by the time she finally reached Broombank she was sticky and flushed with the effort.

The farmhouse, with its projecting wings and dilapidated barn, saddened her. Its once white walls, roughcast to better withstand the weather, looked grey and pockmarked. To think this had once been one of the biggest and best sheep farms in the district with its two hundred and fifty acres of intake land and six or seven hundred more on the fells above. But with his son away so long in Preston, old Lanky had lost heart.

Meg greeted him with a cheerful smile when he opened the door, trying to prevent her eyes from sliding past him to see if Jack was home.

‘Eeh, now then,’ he said, looking pleased. ‘Thee’s a grand sight on a cold day.’

She hugged the old man, kissing his too-thin cheek. The scent of St Bruno flake tobacco, wood smoke, and something indefinable that might have been animal feed clung to his parchment skin, like old leather against the softness of her lips.

Horny hands gripped hers with a strength that always surprised her, coming from such a small man.

‘Come in and warm theeself,’ he said, pushing the door closed behind her. ‘There’s a bit of a fire going.’

Moments later she had her hands cupped about a hot mug of cocoa, toasting her toes in the great fireplace which was wide enough, Lanky said, to take a horse and cart should you have one handy. No doubt the ladies of Tudor England spun their wool within its embrace, and wove the hodden grey clothing Lakeland was famous for. They would bake their oatcakes, known as clapbread since it was clapped flat by the palm of a hand, on the huge griddle that hung from the ratten hook in the centre of the huge chimney. Another hook held the great black kettle that now steamed and spat hot water into the flames as Lanky moved it to one side so she could feel the heat. The andirons still stood in the hearth but they did not hold in place a huge log on this cold day as they might once have done. Instead, an insignificant wood fire burned in an old iron basket, giving off very little heat and a good deal of smoke. It was no wonder that Lanky still kept a scarf looped about his neck, tucked into the vee of his waistcoat.

Lanky Lawson, for all his name, was a small, slight man with trousers that hung on braces from armpit to glossy boots, making his legs look like a pair of brown liquorice sticks, a bit frayed at the bottom as if someone had chewed them. And over it all he wore an old saggy tweed jacket that he declared ‘had an easy fit to give him room to grow’.

‘I’m right glad you came,’ he said. ‘Always did like a pretty woman to gossip with.’

Meg was at once sorry that she hadn’t called more often recently. Her mother had been a frequent visitor with home-made titbits, Meg often accompanying her. Annie had loved Broombank with its spacious old grandeur crouching low in the rolling hillside.

Through the low oak door that led into the back dairy Meg could see the stone sink filled with dirty pots and plates. What was Jack thinking of to let them pile up so? She’d see if she couldn’t tactfully deal with a few of those before she left.

There was no sign of Jack himself anywhere, which was a blow. Perhaps he was out looking for lambs, she reasoned, an endless job in this weather. Stifling the disappointment of missing him, she set the pie to warm on the trivet.

‘How’s Connie keeping?’ she asked. Much in evidence from the many photographs that stood on the wide oak dresser, Connie rarely visited Broombank these days. There she was as a schoolgirl in pigtails, looking plump and serious. And on her wedding day, stoutly pleased with herself as well she might be. A sour-faced spinster for years, she had surprised everyone by marrying in her mid-thirties only a year or two ago.

‘Oh, as busy as ever with her new house in Grange-Over-Sands,’ Lanky replied, equably enough. ‘She’s a grand lass, if a bit pernickety. Coming home to see me soon, she says.’

Meg had heard this promise many times so took little notice but it saddened her to see the old man alone so much in his neglected house. Untidy and unkempt, it offered little more warmth and comfort than an empty cow byre. The thought came to her how much she would love to see it reborn, a loving home and working farm once more. She could see herself at one side of this great hearth and Jack at the other. The thought made her heart race with excitement.

‘We used to have great hams hanging from the rannel balk when my wife was alive,’ Lanky told her, following her gaze and referring to the thick beam that ran the length of the kitchen ceiling. ‘We’ll not see the like again.’

‘You might. If your family produces lots of grandchildren for you to feed.’

‘Nay, I doubt it. Jack’s not about to rush into marriage, so far as I’m aware.’ And when she flushed, confused by the meaning of his words, he gave a little chuckle, but not to mock her. He was thinking how her sweet beauty lit up his dusty kitchen and recalling how his own pretty Mary had once done just the same. Mary might not have been his first choice but she’d been a good wife to him all the same and he was not sorry that it wouldn’t be long now before he saw her again. Till then he’d enjoy what time he had left, no complaining, and try to put things in proper order, as he should. If he could just work out what sort of order would be best, he’d feel better, he truly would.

Lanky insisted Meg stay and enjoy a bite of supper with him and how could she refuse? For once she had nothing particular to hurry home for. Father was out on some business or other. Dan had been asleep in the fireside chair snoring his head off when she left, and Charlie, as usual, was fully occupied with his aeroplane models, books, and cigarette card collection. Besides, there was always the hope that Jack might return home at any moment.