Far From My Father's House (3 page)

‘Can you ride a horse?’

‘Of course I can.’

‘Of course?’ and Annie whisked herself out of the room.

Blake wasn’t nearly as miserable the second night. His bed was warm and dry and the feathers in the mattress came up around and hugged him. The sound of their voices down below urged him to believe he was at home. He could go back and live in the past and know only sweet dreams until the morning.

Four

There wasn’t as much work to do now that Blake was there and Tommy went off most afternoons with his friend Frank Harlington. Frank’s father had the big house in the area and owned most of the farms. He went away to school but he was at home now for the holidays. He was much the same age as Tommy and they had known one another all their lives.

‘You’re not supposed to go and leave Blake to do everything,’ Annie protested the second day that this happened.

‘He’s a servant. That’s what servants are for,’ Tommy replied, pulling on his coat and walking out into the yard.

‘No, it isn’t and you know that.’

‘And who are you, his mother?’

‘He’s younger than you. He can’t manage all afternoon on his own with Daddy away at the mart.’

‘If you like him so much you help him then,’ Tommy said.

‘I don’t like him . . .’ She stopped because Tommy was walking away and not listening and Blake was probably within earshot. ‘Tommy!’

Madge came up behind her.

‘We could tell Mam.’

‘No, and don’t you. Daddy would belt our Tommy for it,’ and she went off up the yard and left Madge standing in the doorway.

There was a lot to do. Blake accepted her presence without a word as they worked and when the long afternoon was finally over she was frustrated at his silence and said to his back, ‘Don’t thank me then.’

‘What do you want thanking for? It’s your farm.’

‘If it hadn’t been for me you’d have had all this to do on your own, or were you going to tell Daddy?’

He didn’t have time to reply. There were voices in the yard and soon Tommy and Frank came into the barn.

‘Well, who’s a good little helper then?’ Tommy said. ‘I think she fancies him.’

‘Shut up!’ Annie said but Tommy went over and chucked her under the chin and when she lashed out at him he hit her round the head. Blake grabbed him even while Frank stood there and Tommy, taken by surprise, went down on to the cold stone floor winded and knocked. From there he eyed Blake, and as he did so Frank went up behind Blake and hit him and he and Frank pulled Blake down on to the floor and held him and thumped and kicked him.

As they did so Annie heard a noise and ran outside. Alistair Vane was walking into the yard. Annie ran to him.

‘Come and help,’ she said breathlessly and Alistair went after her into the barn.

*  *  *

Alistair had walked down to Grayswell because he was bored. He had thought he might see Tommy or help Jack with something or even be invited into the kitchen for tea and ginger cake. He had whistled up his father’s labradors and made his way slowly across the fields.

When he reached the yard at Grayswell there was nobody around but Annie Lowe ran out towards him and when she called to him he followed her into the big barn.

Tommy and Frank Harlington had some fair-haired boy down on the floor and were thumping him. They had him helpless. Annie looked appealingly at Alistair.

Alistair didn’t recognise the boy who was curled up as small as he could be but he could see fair hair and brown skin. Worst of all the boy was silent. Tommy and Frank stopped hitting him as Alistair said mildly, ‘Really, Tommy, what are you doing?’

‘I’m just teaching Blake his place, that’s all,’ and Tommy brought his fist across Blake’s face so hard that Alistair had to check himself from going forward. He had seen a lot of bullying at school.

‘He’s only a boy,’ Alistair said.

‘He thinks he’s too good to be a servant,’ Frank said. ‘And everybody knows what his mother was. He doesn’t even have a man’s name, only his mother’s.’

Blake was struggling wildly. Frank got hold of him by the hair so that Alistair could see his face. ‘Look how pretty he is. He should’ve been a lass.’

Alistair looked straight into the helpless blue eyes and remembered how awful school was. The blood was running down Blake’s mouth from his nose.

‘I think he’s had enough.’

‘Who asked you?’ Tommy said.

Alistair sighed. He was beginning to wish that he had stayed at home. He hadn’t been that bored. He looked irritatedly at Blake. He could probably better Tommy but Tommy and Frank together would be too much. Tommy’s eyes widened.

‘You wouldn’t?’ he said. ‘For him?’ and he laughed. ‘Fancy that, do you?’

Alistair hadn’t been angry for weeks. At school it was best not to.

‘Leave him alone.’

Tommy and Frank let go of Blake and got to their feet.

‘You’re going to be sorry you didn’t stay at home,’ Tommy said.

‘Tommy, I already am sorry but I’m not going to stand here and let you half-kill him.’

‘Think you can fight both of us at once?’

Behind them Blake unfolded and got quietly to his feet.

‘I won’t have to,’ Alistair said. Beside him Annie Lowe appeared with a hay fork.

Tommy glanced around him.

‘I don’t think Goldilocks is worth it,’ he said and made a scornful exit from the barn. Frank followed him. Blake stood stemming the blood from his nose with his knuckles.

‘I’m going to tell Dad,’ Annie said, putting down the hay fork.

‘No, you aren’t,’ Blake said immediately.

‘It’ll only make things worse, Annie,’ Alistair said.

*  *  *

Blake walked out and didn’t come back. Jack questioned Tommy and Annie closely but neither of them said anything. Blake hadn’t come back when the night was dark and cool and everybody went to bed. Jack left the doors unlocked.

Annie didn’t sleep. She felt so responsible for what had happened. After a long time she dozed and then awoke suddenly. She had the feeling that he was somewhere close. She put a jumper over her nightdress, put on socks and shoes and slid from the house. The night was cold but clear. There was a moon. She crossed the yard into the big barn and peered up into the shadows of the hayloft.

‘Blake, are you there? Blake?’

When there was no reply she climbed the ladder. It was still but she was not afraid. She could never be afraid at Grayswell. For years now in the dark nights tramps had come knocking
on the door and she had lit their way in here and given them what her mother could afford as supper.

It was not quite dark. The moon let in light, the shadows varied. He was sitting in the corner with his back against the wall and his knees drawn up to his chest. He didn’t say anything to her and Annie didn’t know what to say at first. His silence was somehow so quelling.

‘Daddy left the doors open for you.’

Blake didn’t answer. Annie was sure she looked stupid standing there in a long nightdress and socks and shoes and her old green jumper.

‘How did you know I was here?’ he said finally.

‘Did you have somewhere else to go?’

‘I did think about running away—’

‘Oh, Blake, I’m sorry—’

‘I daren’t start running, I might never stop.’

Emboldened by his unsteady voice Annie ventured nearer. She sat down beside him. It wasn’t warm in the hayloft and she could see why he had chosen that corner. The hay was all over the place and quite comfortable if you didn’t mind the odd piece sticking into your back. It was warmer there and the smell was good.

‘Who taught you to hit people like that?’

‘My grandfather. Pity he didn’t teach me to take them on two at a time.’

‘They’re bigger than you and older,’ Annie said helpfully.

‘Did you tell your dad?’

‘You said not to. Dad and Mam are worried about you.’

‘Going off before I did the milking, you mean?’

‘That’s not fair. There have been plenty of other boys they could have taken in but they didn’t.’

‘Do you know why they took me?’

‘Don’t you?’

Blake shook his head.

‘Maybe we’re related,’ Annie said.

‘If it had been that simple they would have told us.’

‘I suppose so.’

He didn’t seem inclined to talk any further and even though it was dark she could see the bruises on his face and guessed there were others in other places.

‘I don’t know what Daddy will say when he sees you. He’ll probably guess what happened. I’m sorry, Blake.’

‘It wasn’t your fault.’

‘I should have had more sense than to go on at Tommy. I didn’t think. I didn’t know you would . . . Tommy’s got used to being the only boy, you see. Why don’t you come in?’

‘No. You go in.’

‘Please come in, Blake. I’ll let you ride Shard tomorrow if you do. Please. I can’t sleep thinking of you out here in the cold.’

‘Are you freezing?’

‘Perished.’

He smiled at her and agreed and they went inside. Blake bolted the doors after him and they crept upstairs. It took Annie a long time to get to sleep after that because the room was cold and so was her bed. For the first time in her life she wished there was somebody warm to cuddle up to. Her toes and fingers would not warm up.

*  *  *

She slept late the next morning. Nobody called her and by the time she came downstairs her mother was frying breakfast.

‘So the boys were fighting, that’s why Blake took off?’ her mother said.

‘Who said?’

Rose looked patiently at her.

‘Nobody said. Tommy has a black eye and Blake has bruises.’

‘I don’t know.’

When her father came in for his breakfast she said, ‘Daddy, could you give Blake a little bit of time to himself today?’

‘No, I couldn’t.’

‘I promised him that he could ride Shard.’

Her father looked surprised, as well he might, she thought. She never let anyone ride her horse.

‘He has yesterday to make up for and the fact that he won’t tell me what happened.’

‘Just half an hour.’

‘Not even five minutes.’

‘Please, Daddy.’

‘No.’

‘Does he have to work all the time?’

‘He gets his meals and a bed for it – and the pleasure of our company, of course.’

‘It’s not fair.’

‘Life isn’t. It’s more than a lot of lads have. Much more than he might have had.’

‘But he’s . . .’

‘But he’s what?’

‘Nothing. If I help him can he have time off? I’ll milk his cows for him.’

‘You did that last night. He can milk his own cows.’

‘When will you give him some time off?’

‘That’s enough, Annie,’ Rose said sharply. ‘Go and do some work and leave your father to have his breakfast in peace. You’re two hours behind now.’

‘But—’

‘Out!’ her mother said.

*  *  *

Frank turned up the following day, shame-faced. He offered her a sheepdog puppy when they were born in a few weeks time and Alistair came over and asked her if she would like to go riding with him. She was very flattered by this because Alistair had ignored her up till now. She accepted both though her mother insisted that the dog be kept outside with all the other dogs when it came. Going riding with Alistair was good too. Tommy had stopped speaking to her because he was now having to work alongside Blake and she was left free to go off, and she enjoyed the morning riding. It was the warmest day they had had and she was slightly in awe of Alistair. He had a tall grey horse which she liked but it would have been too big for her, she reasoned, and she liked Shard better than any horse in the world. They stopped on the hillside late in the morning and let the horses crop the grass and she sat down there happily with the dale spread out before her in grey and green and silver.

‘Don’t you love this?’ she said, waving a hand over the fields and buildings and the trees and river. ‘Do you miss it when you’re at school?’

‘No.’

Annie was astonished.

‘You don’t like living here?’

‘Nothing ever happens here, it’s a backwater. I can’t wait to get away.’

‘But you are away most of the time.’

‘It’s not that I don’t like being here, it’s just that I want other things.’

‘Like what?’ Annie said.

‘I want to be an artist, you know, to paint. I want to go to Paris and live in a city and have excitement.’

‘Do you really? I didn’t know that. What about the farm?’

Alistair was silent for a few seconds.

‘There’s only you,’ Annie said.

‘That’s what my father keeps saying. He says farmers don’t paint.’

‘But that’s not true. My grandfather did. He was a miller to begin with and then he farmed. We have his paintings hanging in the house of the dale and the cattle he had, they were caillies and he carved the big stone dog that stands by our gate. Do you take art at school?’

‘No, I’m not allowed.’ Annie heard the flinty tone come into his voice.

‘Why not?’

‘My father won’t let me do painting so I don’t take it any more.’

Annie didn’t know much about his parents other than the fact that his grandfather had been deemed a clever man in the dale and had good cattle and that his father and mother spent a great deal of money. Her father had prophesied that the Vanes would come to a bad end going on like that with their ostentatious cars and their dinner parties. Her mother had said nothing. Annie thought that sometimes her mother envied Mrs Vane her brightly coloured car and many dresses, her jewellery and her glamour.

‘What did your father say about the fight?’ Alistair said.

‘Lots,’ Annie said. ‘Tommy’s awful to Blake.’

‘That’s not very surprising.’

‘Isn’t it? Why?’

Alistair stared into the distance and frowned.

‘Probably because you like him.’

‘I don’t really like him it’s just that . . . he doesn’t have anything. No parents, no home.’

‘I’m not sure that’s a reason to like anybody. You said he hit Tommy for you. You like that?’

‘Well, yes.’

‘I’ll hit Tommy for you any time.’

Annie laughed.

‘Will you?’ she said, looking into his blue eyes and he leaned over and kissed her very gently and slowly on the mouth. Annie was entranced.

When they got back and he had gone home Annie looked at herself in the mirror in her bedroom like she had never looked before and she was astonished at the face which looked back at her. She was not quite fourteen. She had thick black curly hair and wide brown eyes. Her skin was milky and her neck was long and her wrists were slender. Her mother had often told her that she was just like her Irish ancestors whereas Madge was brown-haired and Elsie was red-haired like her father. Annie liked being different but she wouldn’t have hurt them by letting them know, and in a way she thought they were both just as good-looking as she was because Madge was so slender and fine-boned and Elsie was dainty. Then Annie laughed at herself for her conceit and stopped looking in the mirror but she was pleased that Alistair Vane had kissed her. It made her feel grown-up.