Friendship's Bond (5 page)

Chapter 4

Three years. Taking a framed photograph from the mantelshelf above the fireplace of her tiny immaculately neat front parlour Leah Marshall looked through gathering tears at the portrait of two young men, whose faces reflected the pride they took in the uniform they wore, in answering their country’s call.

Three years on this day, since her world had crashed about her.

‘
But y’be scarce growed
.’

Leah pressed the photograph to her breast as she relived the past.

‘
I be growed enough
.’

Tall and strong, the image in body and mind of the father lost to a collapse of the coalface deep beneath the surface of Brunswick colliery, Daniel smiled back at her sharp reply.

‘
No, no you ain’t . . . you ain’t growed enough!
’

The pain of that moment struck Leah as deeply as on that morning. Daniel, her youngest son, had taken her in those strong arms.

‘
Mother . . .
’

In her mind that beloved voice spoke again.

‘
I don’t be no child; there be lads wi’ less years than me already gone to the front
.’

‘
Less years!
’ she had cried. ‘
Y’be nobbut a lad
.’

A deep and carefree laugh sounded from the vale of yesterday, Daniel’s reply ringing after it.

‘
A lad y’ says, I be near enough eighteen
.’

‘
Six months short is what you be, six months short of that eighteen y’ boasts of; no Daniel, y’be too young, I won’t ’ave you follow in the wake of your brother, one son be too much to give to the Army. I refuses to give another
.’

As she clasped the photograph Leah heard the quietly spoken reply.

‘
You might think me no more than a lad, Mother, but don’t prevent my being a man
.’

And so as he had done from his first days of walking Daniel had followed in the footsteps of his brother, followed nineteen-year-old Joshua into the army. And three months later he had followed him into heaven.

On this day in nineteen fifteen had come the notification: ‘Killed in Action’. The three words had torn her world apart.

Leah heard again the voices of her sons, saw their smiles, felt their kiss on her cheek then in her mind’s eye watched two straight figures march proudly from her sight.

‘
We won’t be gone long
.’

Leah touched the photograph with her lips.

You don’t be gone my dear ones, you don’t never be gone; you be in the air I breathe, you be the blood that flows in my veins, your names be the beat of my heart and your sweet faces the light of my soul. You live where you ’ave ever lived, in the love of your mother’s heart.

Leah returned the photograph to its place, her glance going to one set beside it. Housed in a matching oval mahogany frame, lovingly polished, a ringleted young girl demure in ribboned lace rested her hand on an ornate jardinière and smiled from gentle doe-like eyes. Her heart felt this time it must break; Leah snatched the frame to her, holding it so tightly she could hardly breathe.

‘Deborah . . .’

Tears she could not hold spilled silently over her lined cheeks.

‘Deborah child, my dear love, why . . . why?’

Sounds from the scullery pulled her back to the moment. she replaced the photograph then looking to another placed opposite murmured quietly, ‘Watch over our children, Joseph, watch over them until I come.’

‘
I add to your burden Ann . . .
’

Alec’s quiet words spoken as they had walked together beside the small cart with its several empty milk churns reverberated in Ann’s mind.

‘
I have taken advantage of your friendship, of your kind generosity for too long, it is time I leave and give you back your freedom
.’

‘
Leave!
’ She had stopped so abruptly the horse drawing the cart had whinnied disapproval at the drag of the bit against its mouth.

Alec had smiled that shy smile she had seen so often but today it had not reached those blue-grey eyes, nor added any sign of pleasure to those chiselled delicate features.

‘
Yes
,’ he had nodded, ‘
I have known almost from that day in the Ploschad Morskoy Slavy, the great square in Petrograd . . .
’

There had been pain in his voice, a deep sense of hurt as he had spoken the new name for the city of St Petersburg.

‘
. . . known
,’ he had gone on, ‘
that I should not be a responsibility to you yet I had not the courage to do what I should, to have left you in Morskoy Slavy, left the moment . . . but I did not, I allowed myself to be frightened by the noise of shouting, frightened as only a coward would be
.’

‘
No, Alec
.’ She had caught at his hands. ‘
You were no coward; like everyone else in that square you were taken by surprise
.’

‘
I ran away, Ann
.’

‘
No
.’ Her sharp reply had rung on the morning air blessedly quiet beyond the sounds of factory and workshop. ‘
You did not run away and I ask you not to do so now. It would be a worry to me, Alec, wondering were you well, were you safe; please, I know this is hard for you, that you want to return home to your family, but until this dreadful war is ended that has to wait
.’

There had been no more discussion. Rinsing the butter pats Leah often referred to as ‘wooden hands’ Ann’s thoughts remained with Alec. They had walked on in silence but she had seemed to feel the turmoil in his mind, asking why the relatives he had spoken of, those who were to meet him in England, had not been there at the dockside? Why in all his months in this country there had been no word?

Her fingers were now slippery with water and one of the several metal ladles she reached for dropped against the stone of the sink. Ann gasped, a sudden fear ripping through her at the hard dull sound.

Vivid in its clarity, graphic in every detail, a picture flooded into her mind, a scene taking place in that Great Maritime Square.

There had been a rumble, a sound like distant thunder. She had glanced at the sky; it was clear, a blue promise of a day free of snow.

Ann saw herself turn to glance along the length of that vast square, undecided as to whether she had tried hard enough. Should she return to the house? Search again for that ‘most precious possession’?

Once gone from Russia there would be no further chance to preserve the honour her father had spoken of, no chance to keep her own promise given at the moment of his death. She had glanced towards the huge arched entrance to the seaport; the ship – if she missed her ship!

It was not only overhead, that rumble of thunder. Alive in her mind it sounded as it had on that day, coming nearer, a constant repetitive drumming . . . and the people. Caught up in the confusion of finding her way and then in her indecision about whether to return to search those rooms again, she had taken little note of people scattered around. Then loud above the throb of still-distant sound had come shouts, men calling to others emerging from doorways or running from side streets; tall, short, young and old they had come together in groups, their faces set in expressions of anger, some waving fists as they shouted. But she heard too the cries of women, frightened cries as they were pushed from the way of the assembling men, screams of fear from children knocked accidentally to the ground, echoed by mothers hauling them to their feet only to push desperately through what had become a solid line fronting the port entrance.

What was happening? Where had all these men come from? Why were they shouting?

She had tried to ask but they had not understood her questions nor she their responses; yet their gestures, the rough hands pushing her away could not be mistaken: she should leave the square.

But they would not let her pass. With arms locked together, the chain of figures refused to give way. She had decided to wait in the shelter of some doorway; whatever this protest was about it would soon be over, the men would disperse and she could enter the port, enquire after the next ship leaving for England.

She had taken one step, one step only before being caught by the arm.

A stillness had settled over the crowd. Their cries had died away but not that other noise, that pounding pulsating beat, bouncing from wall and stone paving, echoing and re-echoing until like a great net of sound it closed over the square.

‘
Forgive please my rudeness . . .
’

It had come like a gift from heaven. The man now releasing her arm had spoken in English. Relief flooded through her. ‘
Please, I am trying to get into—
’

She had got no further; his words spoken quickly as her own brushed aside her intended request for assistance.

‘
My friend, Mr George Spencer . . .
’

‘
George Spencer!
’ Her exclamation had carried above the din yet he had continued as though she had not spoken.

‘
. . . we worked together at the British embassy
.’

He worked at the embassy! She had felt a slight flicker of suspicion. That day she had visited she had seen no person dressed like this man and the boy who stood beside him. They were not attired in the smart clothes she had seen there, these two like the mass of men blockading the entrance to the port wore rough shabby coats and caps, threadbare trousers tucked into worn-through boots: garments seen in the poorer parts of the city.

Had the threat of demonstrations, maybe of violence, been a factor in her father’s decision to leave Russia?

‘
I would not ask this of you but my friend he made a promise
.’

He would not ask what of her? Her attention had been distracted from what the man had been saying; she had been about to apologise when a sudden roar had erupted, a volley of noise making her turn to look again at the lines of figures at her back all of them now with raised arms waving and shouting towards the entrance to the square.

‘
Please . . .
’

Once more her arm had been caught and this time a sharp tug whipped her round to face the man but with a gasp she had glanced beyond the pair confronting her, looking instead at a troop of mounted uniformed men with sword and pistol at the ready, horses’ hooves striking sparks from the flagstones as they dragged to a halt.

‘
Please . . .
’

The hand had shaken her arm demandingly but her attention had focused on the figure at the head of what had to be a body of soldiers. Astride a huge black horse, sword held above his head, the bemedalled figure called to the demonstrators.

The words had passed over her head but not so the defiant answer rising to meet them.

‘
Niet
. . .
niet
.’ That word she understood. ‘
No
. . .
no!
’ Loud in its defiance it had sounded along the square.

‘
Please, the promise of my friend, it was . . .
’

‘
Niet!
’ The crowd’s rising anger had drowned that one voice, the one she should have listened to.

She stared at the ladle lying in the shallow well of the sink while regret stabbed at her with sharp fingers.

The man had named her father, was about to tell her the promise which had been given. But even as he had tugged at her arm, had tried to shout above the din, her eye had caught the flash of a sword sweeping downward and with it the crack of a pistol shot. His hand had slipped slowly down her arm, over her hand, sliding away from her fingers. As though in some terrible nightmare she had watched the figure slump to the ground, watched it fall on to its back and a stream of scarlet blood spurt from the open mouth while the dying eyes tried vainly to finish its message.

Chapter 5

‘Hill Rise be a long walk for legs ancient as mine so I be askin’ you brings your answer along of my ’ouse.’

‘Get along with you Leah Marshall, you should be ashamed fishing for compliments.’

‘Compliments you says, be long past time for them.’

‘There you go again.’ Edward Langley’s laugh rang across a wide earth-packed yard. ‘Incorrigible is what you are, incorrigible but pretty so I guess I can forgive you.’

‘Forgiveness is it!’ Tartness did not quite mask the fondness in Leah’s tone. ‘It be y’self should be a beggin’ o’ the Lord for that, y’self askin’ Him forgive the lies you speaks.’

The man lifted his brown eyes to the sky for a few moments before returning his attention to Leah, whose head was shaking at what she obviously expected to follow her censure. ‘You see,’ Edward Langley’s smile spread across handsome features deeply tanned by exposure to all weathers, ‘no lightning . . . that is clear proof the Lord agrees with me Leah Marshall is a pretty woman.’