The Stony Path (7 page)

And then, as though the thoughts of her daughter had conjured her up, she heard a familiar voice call, ‘Yoohoo, anyone at home?’ seconds before the kitchen door opened and Eva stepped into the kitchen, closely followed by two youths and a young lad. And it was this young lad who ran over to where Polly was now standing by her grandmother and said eagerly, his thin, pale face alight, ‘We came, see? And it’s grand outside. Shall we go down to the stream and look for crayfish?’

‘Can we?’ Both Polly and Ruth were looking at their grandmother, who in turn glanced at the two tall lads either side of Eva. They added their own plea by saying,

‘It’s really warm out, Gran,’ from the younger, and ‘There won’t be many days like this afore the weather sets in,’ from the older boy.

‘Aye, all right, be off with you.’ Alice was laughing at them as she spoke, but once the door had closed behind the young folk and Eva had come fully into the kitchen, seating herself on one of the hardbacked chairs, which she pulled out from beneath the table and turned to face the room, Alice said flatly, ‘Nathaniel not with you?’

It was her stock address and Eva answered as she did each week, her voice matching her mother’s in tone. ‘He’s at his allotment.’

‘Oh, aye.’

‘Where’s Henry ... and Da?’

She knew Eva always mentioned Henry first to get under her skin. Alice turned quickly to the range, taking a cloth and pressing the ready-filled kettle further into the glowing embers before saying shortly, ‘They’ll be in presently. You ready for a sup?’

Eva opened her mouth to answer, but before she could do so the sound of a horse’s hoofs on the cobbles outside brought her mother walking swiftly across the room, saying, ‘That’ ll be Frederick.’

Oh, aye, that’d be Frederick all right, and give it another minute or two and in would come her da and Henry with their pipes smoking and their faces smiling as though they hadn’t got a care in the world. Who did they think they were fooling? It was savage. This bit farm was shrinking each year, and there they were trying to play the gentlemen. It would be funny if it wasn’t so pathetic. Her mam and da hadn’t made such a good bargain as they’d thought when they’d got rid of her and kept Henry and his lady wife, had they! She had always done half of Henry’s work along with hers; he was no farmer, Henry. But she hadn’t minded working for both of them, and she still wouldn’t.
Oh, Henry, Henry.

Eva listened to the sound of her mother greeting Hilda’s stepbrother and her expression was bitter, but by the time they entered the kitchen, her father and Henry following on their footsteps, Eva’s face was wiped clean of all emotion. And Alice would have been more than a little surprised if she had known her daughter was echoing her own agonising when Eva said silently to herself, her eyes tight on her brother’s beloved face,
Let the torture begin.

Once outside in the late summer air that smelt heavily of the big pile of manure steaming gently in one corner of the yard, Polly had the desire to laugh out loud, but knowing the others would enquire why she was laughing, she restrained the impulse. She was just so glad to see Michael – and Luke and Arnold too, of course, she added quickly, as a dart of guilt pricked her – and it was such a canny day too.

‘Come on then.’ She beamed at the others, her heart-shaped face with its great violet-blue eyes alight with the joy of being alive, and as though her elation had infected the rest of them, the five went running madly out of the yard into the lane beyond. They climbed over the dry-stone wall without bothering to open the gate and then continued pell-mell across the field, leaping over piles of cow dung with shrieks and cries until they came to the stream bordering that field with the next.

As though at a given signal the boys were taking off their boots and socks and rolling up their trouser legs, wading in over the smooth rocks around which the crystal-clear stream tumbled and frothed. Polly and Ruth followed a little more cautiously. The stream was running high – there had been several bouts of torrential rain throughout September which had created havoc with the crops – and their grandmother didn’t like them plodging at the best of times; besides which, the icy water was stinging like pins and needles on their bare legs.

Within a few minutes Ruth had had enough and retreated to the bank, laughing and shouting to the others as they searched for crayfish and the little minnows that populated the stream, but although Polly’s feet were numb and the bottom of her dress and her knickers were wet from the gurgling splashing of the water, she didn’t want to miss a minute of playing with Michael.

Eventually, however, they were all sitting on the spiky dry grass on the bank, toasting their frozen feet to the weak rays of the dying sun. It was Luke, noticing how Polly’s teeth were chattering, who said, ‘Here, I’ve a bag of winter mixture, who wants one to keep the cold out?’

‘Me, me, Luke!’

‘An’ me!’

‘Have you got one of the red ones, Luke? I like to suck’em until they’re nowt but a little spike.’

As the others clamoured for one of the sweets in the small paper bag Luke had fished out of his pocket, it was Arnold, his dark eyes on Polly’s bright laughing face, who said, ‘Aye, I’ll have one, man. I like a good sucker that puts fire in your belly now and again.’

‘Shut your mouth, Arnold.’ Luke’s voice was low but weighty.

‘What? I only said—’

‘I said shut your filthy mouth, they’re only bairns. Keep your double meanings for them as appreciate it.’

‘Shut your own mouth.’ Arnold had risen to his feet, his stance menacing, and as Luke handed the bag of sweets to Michael before standing himself, Polly felt a trickle of fear run down her spine.

She didn’t understand the portent of what had been said or why the afternoon had gone wrong so suddenly; she only knew there was going to be a fight in a minute if she didn’t do something to avert it. At fifteen and sixteen years old, Luke and Arnold had the tall, wide-shouldered physiques of lads a good few years older; they didn’t take after their father at all. Michael was the small, slim one who appeared younger than his twelve years. If Luke and Arnold started to fight, it wouldn’t be a bairns’ scrap.

Polly grabbed the bag from Michael and stepped between the two brothers, her voice carrying a shrill note as she said to Arnold, ‘Here, have one. Please, Arnold, have one.’

Arnold continued staring at Luke a moment longer before he lowered his gaze to the slender, chestnut-haired figure in front of him, and as Polly raised the bag a little higher he slanted another quick glance at Luke before he said, his eyes running all over her flushed face, ‘You don’t mind me funning, do you, lass? A bit carry-on never hurt anyone, did it?’

Polly blinked a little. There was something in his manner that she couldn’t put her finger on but which made her want to take a few steps away from the big bulk of him, and she found she had to swallow before she could say, ‘No, no, of course not.’

‘See?’ Arnold was again looking towards Luke, a smile curling his thick lips as he took in his brother’s angry face.

‘I’m warning you, Arnold – ’

‘It’s time to get back.’ This time it was Michael who put himself between the two antagonists and his voice was sharp. If Luke and Arnold had a fight they’d all suffer for it, and nothing must be allowed to interfere with their Sunday visits to the farm. ‘Gran’ll have the tea ready and she’ll go barmy if we’re late.’

It was Arnold, with a little hiccup of a laugh, who reached for his boots and socks first, thereby defusing the situation, but once they were all retracing their steps back to the farmhouse Michael kept close to Polly. He loved the farm. He glanced at the slim, straight figure next to him, and Polly, sensing his gaze, turned her head and smiled at him. And he loved Polly. He kept his eyes on her smooth, silky skin that was like thick cream, his gaze taking in the burnished copper in her glossy hair before he turned his eyes -– frontwards again. And now his thoughts were not those of a twelve-year-old boy but a grown man sensing his destiny as he told himself, Another eighteen months and I’ll have left school, and two years after that we’ll both be sixteen. Lots of people wed early ... And when he took Polly’s hand to pull her over a ridge of mud the cows had made with their hoofs and she didn’t try to withdraw her fingers from his once they were walking on again, it was all the confirmation he needed.

Chapter Two

The tea things had all been cleared away and the bowl of flowers was back in the middle of the snowy-white cloth and had been for half an hour, but still no one showed any signs of wanting to leave. This was mainly due to the earnest debate which had been steadily gathering steam for the last twenty minutes between Frederick on the one side and Arnold and Luke on the other, Walter and Henry long since having left the fray.

‘Aye, I know farming depends on the weather and such and can be a hazardous life, but it’s not a patch on coal mining,’ Luke was saying in answer to a comment of Frederick’s. ‘There’s danger all around underground. The owners pay lip service to safety, and there’s scarcely a week or so goes by without a fall or an explosion marking some poor devil’s card. They talk about the Labour Party the trade unions created a couple of years back being the answer to the working man – well, I hope so, the unions need some backing.’

‘It was one of your own, James Keir Hardie, who said the aim must be for a party in Parliament with flexibility for development,’ Frederick reminded the younger man quickly. ‘It was his proposal they took on board, and development happens slowly.’

‘Aye, and he’s a good man and a good Scottish miner, but when it comes to the unions taking on the owners it’ll be like spitting against the wind without government help. Look at Silksworth, and that’s only eleven years ago. Them damn – sorry, Gran – them bailiffs had a key that’d open every colliery house door and they got the police to help them. Miners on the roof of every house, rioting in the streets, but the end result was the candymen entering homes and turning men, women and bairns out into the streets to starve. Hundreds evicted and for what? Daring to object to being buried alive while the owners and viewers are sitting pretty in their blood-bought fancy houses, that’s what.’

‘Aye, aye, well, I wouldn’t argue with you there, lad,’ Frederick said with a touch of the condescension that was habitual with him. ‘Bad business at Silksworth, bad business.’

‘One hundred and sixty-four men and boys killed ten years before that at Seaham, seventy at Ryhope; man, I could go on and on up to the present day. And there’s always someone getting killed or injured or going down with silicosis and the like. And I’ve yet to see a farm worker covered in carbuncles and open sores caused by years of working in hot salt water seeping down from the North Sea above the mine tunnels. Me da’s covered in them. Isn’t that right, Arnold?’

‘Aye, aye, it is that.’ Their altercation by the stream put to one side in the face of this common cause, Arnold nodded vigorously.

‘I can see you’re going to be a strong union man, Luke.’

The censure in Frederick’s voice was not missed by the younger man, and Alice, having heard Hilda’s stepbrother’s views on trade unions before, squirmed slightly at his tone. This was going to turn nasty, she knew it.

Luke looked at the man sitting so comfortably on the saddle next to the fire who had his Aunt Hilda, Polly’s mother, hanging on his every word. Frederick’s plump hands were resting on his thick corduroy breeches, his leather boots were polished to a good shine and his coat was of the best woollen tweed. He looked like what he was – a prosperous employer who had never gone without a meal in his life – and now Luke’s voice was flat and hard when he said, ‘Aye, and I shan’t forget me membership’s bought with such as the Penrhyn quarrymen. Two years long, their dispute over union recognition, and them and their families destitute to the point where David Lloyd George asked the TUC for bread for their bairns last month. Lord Penrhyn wants shooting if you ask me.’

Frederick Weatherburn stared into the young, good-looking face of this callow upstart, as he thought of Luke Blackett. This was what came of education of the masses; they got ideas above their station and began to think for themselves. A working man was at his best when he could neither read nor write, everyone knew that. Hadn’t his own father refused to employ any individual who knew their letters? And he’d been right. By, he had. But he must go carefully here. He’d other fish to fry than putting this ignorant numbskull in his place, and Luke was Eva’s stepson when all was said and done. He had looked at the situation very carefully before he had given his consent for Hilda to marry Henry, but as it was, with the farm’s steady downhill descent, things couldn’t have turned out more satisfactorily. Aye, he’d hold his hand with this young understrapper, he could afford to.

Frederick rose somewhat ponderously to his feet before he spoke, noting with some satisfaction that Walter and his wife were looking anxious – as well they might; they relied heavily on his help at haymaking time and such like – and then he said coolly, ‘Maybe, lad, maybe, but I doubt his family would thank you for the thought. Well, I must be off. That was a grand tea, Alice, as always.’

Sanctimonious, patronising so-an’-so, he didn’t know he was born. Luke was red-faced and inwardly burning with righteous indignation as he watched the older man take his leave amid effusive goodbyes from Polly’s mother and the family. According to his stepmother, there were a good few men and lads employed full time at Stone Farm, besides female staff in the house and the like. When had Weatherburn ever worked until he was fit to drop? Not often, he’d be bound, and he’d certainly not gone home at the end of a soul-destroyingly long shift to a wife who was as thin as a rake through taking in washing and any other work she could find, and bairns who were bow-legged with rickets and full of ringworm and impetigo. Of course Walter and Henry were a different kettle of fish; they had their own cross to bear in trying to keep this farm afloat, he knew that. He had no quarrel with Polly’s family.