The Stony Path (5 page)

She could have prevented him marrying that scrawny scarecrow if her mam and da had let them alone. She inclined her head to the thought, her face grim. If she’d been able to tell him about the bairn he’d have stood by her; why else would she have made sure she fell? She knew her Henry. She wouldn’t have named anyone and likely her da would have gone mad, but he wouldn’t have thrown her out, not if Henry had stood his ground and said she had to stay. And then they could have been together with no one knowing who had fathered the bairn but Henry, and the bairn would have been a means of keeping him tied to her forever. But now that cord had become a noose around her neck ...

Acid hot tears burnt their way down her cheeks but she still remained perfectly still.

Oh aye, she’d see her day with her mam and da all right, her time would come. And now the bitterness became a tangible entity, lying heavy in the room. She’d never had no truck with religion – as far as she could see it was just a tool the preachers and such used on gullible folk who didn’t bother to think for themselves – but if there was any truth in what her da had flung at her, seconds before he’d left her at the church door in the town, then she’d go along with that. ‘The devil looks after his own.’ Well, maybe she’d find out the truth of that statement in the years to come, because there certainly wasn’t anyone else who would be looking out for her.

She slowly drew the sleeve of her heavy calico nightdress across her wet face as she sniffed and gulped a few times. Henry had treated her shamefully and she didn’t deserve it, not from him, but it had been her da who had pushed for Henry and Hilda to be wed. It had. She clung on to the thought as though it was a lifeline and gradually, over a period of some minutes, her body relaxed and she slept.

Part 1 – The Children 1902

Chapter One

The new century, rung in amid claims by the financiers and politicians that the next hundred years would be even more glorious than the previous ones of unparalleled success and expansion, didn’t appear so glowing to millions of Britain’s working class and to the hard-pressed north in particular. And to Walter and Alice, the newspaper reports of the immediate capsizing of the new royal yacht,
Victoria and Albert
, as soon as it undocked in Southampton three days into the new year could have been an echo of the farm’s fortunes.

There had been some significant changes at the farm in the last thirteen years and all of them bad, not least the ever-dwindling stock, empty farm labourers’ cottages and reduction of produce to sell in the marketplace due to the severe flooding in the north of England through the winters of 1900 and 1901. But to twelve-year-old Polly Farrow, conceived on Henry and Hilda’s wedding night, the farm was home and she loved it with a passion that matched her grandfather’s.

Whether it was this which had endeared the child to the dour old man from when Polly was a toddler, or his granddaughter’s sunny nature and bright, pretty face, no one knew, but it was clear to anyone with eyes to see that Polly was Walter’s pride and joy.

Her sister, Ruth, born three years later after a difficult confinement which provided Hilda with the excuse she needed to take to her bed and become an invalid, was pretty enough, but had none of Polly’s bounce and good humour, being an awkward, rather petulant child with a tendency to cry easily and complain incessantly.

And it was this last irritating attribute of her younger granddaughter that now induced Alice to swing round from skimming the milk and cry, her voice shrill, ‘Give over yammerin’ or so help me I’ll skelp your lug, an’ then you’ll have somethin’ to whine about.’

‘But me
arms
are tired!’

As Alice raised her hand Polly quickly moved her sister behind her, her voice soothing as she said, ‘I’ll carry on churnin’ by meself for a while, Gran. I’m not tired.’

‘Well, there’s more reason for
you
to be tired than that one. Over an hour collectin’ the eggs this mornin’ she was, an’ that with your da needin’ help with the milkin’. By ...’ Alice let her voice fall away as she eyed the two girls irritably. ‘More artful than a cartload of monkeys when it comes to avoidin’ work, she is.’

These last words brought to Polly’s mind the organ-grinder who had accompanied the travelling fair when it had stopped at Silksworth a few days previously. Her grandmother had taken the two girls to view it setting up. This was exciting in itself and was the next best thing to going on the rides, for which both girls knew without asking their grandparents had no money. But as they had been watching the beautifully painted caravans and the flamboyantly dressed men and women arrive, the small, cheeky-faced little monkey, dressed in a tiny red blouse and trousers and belonging to the old organ-grinder, had jumped on her granny’s shoulder. Bedlam had ensued. Gran had screamed and flapped her arms and had started running around with the monkey chattering and jumping as it held on to her straw bonnet, and then, when the organ-grinder had reached her, the monkey had whisked off her hat before the old man could grab him and taken off over the field to a nearby caravan, where it had sat on the roof laughing at them all with the bonnet in its little hands. Then it had danced backwards and forwards, pretending to put the bonnet on and making faces at them all, until Ruth had laughed so much she wet her flannel drawers and her granny had almost cried with vexation at the state of her bonnet.

Once the big fat woman who was billed as the bearded lady and had more whiskers than her grandda had coaxed the monkey down on to the ground with a bag of nuts, they had retrieved the bonnet – now distinctly the worse for wear – and made their way home, her granny muttering dire threats about the little animal and Polly and Ruth desperately trying to hide their laughter, which had continued to gurgle up every time they thought about the monkey’s bright-eyed, wicked little face.

It had been a lovely, lovely day. Polly met Ruth’s eyes and she knew from the sudden sparkle in them that her sister’s thoughts had followed her own.

‘We’ll get the butter churned and the washing done, Gran.’ Polly nudged Ruth meaningfully. ‘Won’t we, Ruth?’

Alice’s thin, austere face softened in spite of herself. What would she do without this wee lass? she asked herself, and not for the first time. Polly’s slender frame topped by a mass of glowing chestnut curls was deceptive in its apparent fragility. Her elder granddaughter did the work of a grown woman – two grown women – round the farm. It worried her that Polly and Ruth didn’t get much schooling, but they were sore needed here. Aye, sore needed. Up at five o’clock in the morning they all were, and still there weren’t enough hours in the day. And there was that one upstairs playing at being sickly and expecting to be waited on hand and foot!

The thought of her daughter-in-law brought the frown back to Alice’s face, and her voice was abrupt as – having finished the skimming of the cream from the big earthenware bowls of milk set on the cold stone slabs in the dairy – she said to Ruth, ‘Come on, you, an’ we’ll see about skinnin’ them rabbits an’ peelin’ the taties afore the three of us get stuck in to the washin’.’

As her grandmother and sister left the small dairy for the scullery beyond, Polly heaved a sigh of relief and continued churning the butter. This might make your arms ache until you thought they were going to drop off, but she would rather do the churning any day than handle the rabbits or pheasants her da sometimes caught. She knew they were dead and couldn’t feel anything any more, but their poor limp bodies and unseeing eyes always made her feel sad, and once the skins were off and needed scraping and salting and stretching she felt even worse. She hadn’t told anyone she felt like this because she knew it didn’t bother Ruth or her granny, same as they didn’t turn a hair when her grandda killed the fattened pig each autumn to keep them going through the winter. And it had to be done, she knew that. She just didn’t like to hear it squealing and know it wouldn’t be rooting about for its food any more, or feeling the sun and the rain on its back or snorting for its mash.

Her granny was in a right tear the day. As her thin arms kept up the rhythmic churning, Polly allowed her thoughts to flow and ebb. But she knew why tempers were short on the farm: the barley hadn’t done well – the torrential rain just before they’d harvested it had meant it was all but flattened – and it was Sunday tomorrow. Her granny was always in a mood when Sunday got near, and she knew – although she’d never asked her gran about it – that it was because her Aunt Eva and the lads might come. Her granny was always sharp on a Sunday until it had gone past three and she knew whether they’d made the journey from Monkwearmouth, although she was always nice to them when they got here. But it was polite nice, not real nice – to her aunt at least. Her gran loved Michael, though. A slight smile curved Polly’s rosebud lips at the thought of her cousin, and she gave a little hop of anticipation at the thought of the forthcoming day. She hoped they’d come the morrow; they hadn’t come last week and everything had seemed grey somehow.

Of course another reason why her granny couldn’t take Ruth’s whingeing might be because they hadn’t had a lodger for ages. Gran always moaned about the work involved when they had someone staying in one of the old cottages situated a hundred yards behind the cow byres, but the extra money bought things like their boots and winter coats. But they only really had people staying in the summer and it was nearly October now, and her coat had been too short last year. Her granny had said they’d go to the old second-hand market in Ryhope that all the colliery workers used. That had been last autumn, and then the bad weather and the floods had set in and they’d had some beasts drown, and her gran hadn’t mentioned the market again.

‘You nearly finished, lass?’ Alice poked her grey head round the open door of the dairy, and without waiting for an answer continued, ‘I’ve made a brew; take a sup up to your mam, hinny, while I finish off in here.’

‘Aye, all right, Gran.’ Polly’s voice was without demur but expressed resignation. She knew full well neither her granny nor Ruth wanted the job of venturing into her mother’s room and listening to the endless string of complaints that began the moment the door was opened, but although Ruth was her mother’s favourite and therefore less likely to incur her displeasure, her granny was aware that if there was a choice between any work and enduring her mother’s grumbling, Ruth would choose the latter and dally upstairs as long as she could.

Polly walked through the scullery, averting her gaze from the bloody skins of the rabbits lying in a tin dish on the stone slab under the small window. The poss tub was in the middle of the floor, half full of soaking washing, and out of habit she picked up the poss stick and gave the sheets a good pounding before continuing through to the kitchen, where Ruth was engaged in peeling potatoes at the scrubbed table.

The black kale-pot was already gently simmering with the rabbit pieces and other vegetables, and as Ruth looked up she said eagerly, with one of the mercurial changes of mood common to her when she had got her own way over something or other, ‘Gran says we can have a shive of the sly cake she’s made for tomorrow before we start on the washin’, Poll, so hurry up an’ take Mam’s tea before she changes her mind. An’ Gran said to fill the kettle for the washin’ an’ all.’

Polly stared into the round face framed by mousy-brown curls and her voice was flat when she said, ‘You fill the kettle.’ She didn’t doubt her grandmother had asked Ruth to do it, and although she wasn’t averse to doing more than her fair share for the sake of preserving harmony, she also knew that given an inch her sister would take a mile. ‘I’m takin’ Mam’s tea.’

Her mother was lying propped up against the big feather-filled bolster when Polly entered her parents’ small bedroom, and as Hilda raised herself slightly on her bony elbows and watched her elder daughter walk towards her, her expression was sour. ‘About time.’ She took the proffered mug with an abruptness that bordered on hostility. ‘You could die of thirst up here and no one would care.’

The smell wafting from the china chamber pot under the bed informed Polly her mother had used it recently, despite the row that had erupted the last time her mother had refused to make the journey to the privy in the yard to do her business.

‘No need for it,’ her grandmother had yelled. ‘It’s bad enough gettin’ the bairns to empty it normally without the other, an’ you can’t tell me you’re unable to get down them stairs, my girl.’ Her grandmother had been furious on that occasion, and although Polly and Ruth – sitting huddled at the bottom of the stairs with their ears straining – had been unable to hear what their mother was saying, the row had gone on for some considerable time, and had started again when the menfolk had come in for their dinner and her granny had dragged her da upstairs and told him to tell his wife what was what.

‘I’ll take the po down, Mam.’ Hopefully she’d be able to empty it without her granny noticing, Polly thought as she reached under the bed. The room was smaller than her grandparents’ bedroom, holding no more than her parents’ three-quarter-size bed, which was pushed against the wall under the window, and a big rectangular metal strongbox in one corner at the foot of the bed. This contained a change of sheets, the spare patchwork quilt and items of clothing. The suit her father had been married in hung on a wooden peg above the chest, and her mother’s Sunday frock, shawl and bonnet on the peg next to it. The room always seemed airless to Polly; her mother rarely had the window open even on the hottest summer day, insisting any breeze would be liable to give her a chill.