Gracie's Sin (22 page)

Rose ran for the better part of a mile; a mixture of terror and fury lending her the energy she needed. She developed a stitch in her side, cricked her ankle and was gasping on each painful breath before she slowed to a more sensible pace. The night was cold, the light drizzle having changed into driving, freezing rain yet not once did she look back or think of returning, not even for the sake of the much needed wages which were due to her. She simply tightened her resolve, hardened her heart and walked on.

The difference this time, Rose told herself, was that she knew exactly where she was going. She’d seen a signpost to Stroud. That was the name of the town Agnes had mentioned which was nine miles away; where surely someone would know how she could join her friends in the Timber Corps.

Never would she forget the sickening little grunting sounds Agnes had made. Rose felt violated, unclean. The very fact that the attack had been carried out by a woman somehow made it a million times worse. Agnes should never have attacked her in that way. It was just her bad luck that she’d chosen to do so in the kitchen, and that the poker had been so handy.

The cathedral-like serenity of the dark forest was awesome. Not a breath of wind stirred, no birdsong or animal cry broke the stillness, only the sound of their own quiet breathing. Lou shifted one foot and a twig cracked, making both girls jump then smile at their own timidity. Beech, ash and sturdy oak towered above their heads, reducing them to the size of ants on the forest floor. They stood almost ankle-deep in a carpet of last autumn’s leaves, the coppery glow glazed by the frost of late winter. A redwing, a winter immigrant in search of softer climes, flew out of the canopy right before their startled gaze.

‘Oh, did you see the orange flash beneath its wing?’

‘Hush, I see a red stag, over there in the peat wallow. See how fine he is.’ Gracie and Lou crouched together, not daring to move in case they should frighten some other shy creature in the dense undergrowth, in which they themselves were the intruders. The scent of damp moss and the sharper tang of larch, pine and birch was strong in their nostrils.

Thousands of years before, bears, wild boar and wolves had inhabited this forest. That’s how Grizedale had first acquired its name, being Norse for “Valley of the Pigs” and Satterthwaite, the village quite close to where Lou and Gracie were billeted, meant “Summer Clearing.” It seemed an appropriate name, for it was a pretty village that you happened upon quite by chance, like a shaft of sunlight in the lush green valley of Rusland. It comprised a few Lakeland stone cottages with gardens turned over to growing vegetables rather than the profusion of flowers they had once boasted; plus the usual village ingredients of church, parish rooms, school and the Eagle’s head, the local inn, a popular venue in which to enjoy a glass of beer to wet your whistle after a hard day’s work.

The girls were billeted at a small farm, half hidden beneath the beech trees along one of the myriad country lanes on the outskirts of Satterthwaite. Gracie described it in one of her rare letters home to her mother as clean but Spartan. Its floors were bare stone with not a rug in sight, and freezing cold much of the time. It had no electricity, relying on oil lamps and candles and could lay claim to only one sink with a single cold tap situated in the kitchen. Each morning she could manage little more than a quick splash from the jug and basin in their room, the water was so cold. In addition, conditions were somewhat cramped, though as Lou was fond of pointing out, ‘You won’t hear me complaining. We’ve been known to sleep ten in our house in Rochdale.’

‘I’m sure you exaggerate,’ Gracie would giggle.

‘Nay, I tell you nowt but gospel truth. Not far off anyroad. There was myself and me two sisters in one room, in one bed actually, three younger brothers in the other room, our Dan in the wall-bed in the kitchen, and me Mam and Dad wi’ our Dolly, she’s the youngest, in t’third. It was a relief when our Katy got wed.’ Gracie noticed how Lou’s Lancashire accent always broadened when she talked about home. She rather liked it. ‘I don’t know how they managed to have so many kids, wi’ all them folk around. But it never bothered me mam. She allus said we were lucky to get a three bedroomed house, or we might well have been ten in one bed.’

Lou and Gracie shared a bed, not quite wide enough for two, in the only spare bedroom and took it in turns to turn over. They also took it in turns to bath in a tin tub before the fire every Friday night. After which they were expected to go to bed early, as the bath was then emptied and a couple of inches of fresh water added for the benefit of their landlady, Irma Cooper, followed by her son.

‘Now tha doesn’t want to watch me cutting me toe nails,’ she would say with a grin. ‘It’s not a pretty sight.’

‘Everyone’s entitled to some privacy once in a while.’ Lou very properly remarked and then spoiled it by whispering behind her hand to Gracie, ‘Her son Adam, on the other hand, might be worth a dekko at, what d’you reckon?’

‘You’re incorrigible.’

Adam’s weather beaten appearance, his hard hands, muscular body and long-legged stride from walking the hills, seemed entirely at odds with his thoughtful shyness. Sometimes Lou caught him casting shy glances in Grace’s direction. ‘Don’t you fancy him then? According to Irma, he could do with a good wife. So how about it? He’s rather dishy, don’t you think?’

Gracie flushed bright pink but she did pay him closer attention next time she saw him chopping logs in the back yard, or washing his face at the stone sink in the back kitchen. He was a quiet man, saying little unless spoken to directly.

His mother, on the other hand rarely stopped talking. Irma Cooper was a lively, unfussy soul with no pretensions and, as she herself declared, a light hand with pastry and people alike. Whether this was entirely true or not had still to be discovered but she certainly maintained an orderly household without any sign of rules. She never complained if they entered her clean kitchen without remembering to take off their boots. Nor did she mind putting up their sandwiches at cockcrow, or clearing up after them if they chose to do it themselves. Nothing troubled her. 'Easy going, that’s me,’ was her constant cry. Or, ‘what does it matter? It’ll all be the same in hundred years.’

Irma was a sociable woman, tall and striking with dark brunette hair and a bright, alert expression on a face that many would call handsome. Young enough still to be fond of a dance, or a ‘knees-up’ as she called it, she also enjoyed a good joke and a bit of a laugh. And she deserved one as she spent a good deal of her time elbow-deep in washing up water or cleaning out poultry houses. Even so she took great pains with her appearance, frizzing up her hair and wearing the brightest lipstick she could find.

Beech Tree Farm had originally been a simple cottage built during the last century in a remote spot, ideal for a young woodsman and his wife. But Irma had found that living alone for much of each day while her husband worked out in the forest made for a lonely existence, so she’d occupied herself by keeping chickens and a few pigs. After he died, her predicament had grown worse and she’d bought a bit of land and launched into farming. No more than a few hens and geese, a couple of cows and the odd pig but it made her a living, of a sort. Her son Adam now worked the farm, having bought or rented still more land and expanded the live stock. But Irma’s need for company had increased over the years.

Most days some tradesman or other would call. Bert, the fruit and veg man on a Monday. Fresh fish on Thursdays and the Butcher’s van on a Friday. In between there was the bread man, the knife grinder and the odd gypsy selling ribbons and lace. She could buy all she needed standing at her own front door but that wouldn’t do for Irma. She would walk into the village most days, to visit the village shop. Take part in some meeting or other at the church or parish rooms, as she was heavily involved in village affairs. And chat with friends, encouraging them to walk out the mile or so to her house every Wednesday afternoon for tea and a bun. They came in their droves, sitting around the circular table with its plush fringed cloth in the front parlour, gossiping and pulling everyone to pieces (as Irma herself described it) while they knitted balaclavas or socks for the soldiers, and discussed the quickest and surest way to end the war.

‘Really,’ Irma was fond of saying. ‘If only Mr Churchill would have the good sense to call upon our expertise, it would be over in no time.’

If Lou or Gracie ever wished to know the name of a flower, the route up a mountain, what the weather would be like the next day, or what was on at the picture house in Ambleside, one would say to the other, ‘We’ll ask Irma.’ She was also a mine of information on births (some of them without a husband in sight), marriages and deaths, long before any details appeared in the local paper. Both girls were convinced that she carried a family tree in her head, of each and every village resident, past and present.

Irma was a treasure. A capable and reliable woman who could turn her hand to anything.

‘To judge from the meals you provide, Irma, you’d never think there was a war on,’ Gracie would say. ‘If I go on eating like this, I’ll be as a fat as a pig in no time.’

‘Nonsense. Look at you. Thin as a drink of water.’

She’d give them creamy porridge for breakfast, black puddings or home cured bacon on Sunday as a treat, with lots of home made bread and jam. The fruit was from her own garden, naturally, as were the vegetables, but with rationing the way it was, it seemed a miracle that she managed to get the sugar. Yet there again they underestimated her. Irma was the secretary of the local WI and was therefore granted extra rations so that they could supply various hospitals and of course ‘our boys’ with their excellent produce .

‘You’ll be right as ninepence with me,’ she’d happily inform the two girls as she placed a hot potato pie or steamed roly-poly on the table before them.

‘Indeed we will, Irma,’ they would agree. And although any Ministry of Agriculture Inspector would be hard put to discover more than the regulatory twenty-five chickens on her land, the farm never seemed to run short of eggs despite several customers popping to the back door late of an evening. And whenever Lou went home to visit her family, Irma always gave her half a dozen to take with her.

The girls felt sure that they’d landed in paradise.

But even paradise is flawed. If Irma had a fault, it was a fondness for a choice bit of gossip. The girls had learned, when they were enjoying their nightly ‘bit of crack’ with her, not to tell their landlady anything that they didn’t want the entire village to know.

This was, of course, the main reason she took in paying guests. With a son as quiet and hard working as Adam, she relied upon her lodgers for entertainment. In this respect Lou and Gracie were something of a disappointment since they tended to nod off during her more convoluted tales, due to the fact that they were exhausted after working all day in the forest. She always forgave them as they were pleasant, well brought up girls, far from home and clearly in need of motherly care.

She was particularly avid for details of their love life. She certainly knew all about Gordon and always handed his letters over to Lou with a wink or a sly grin. On the mornings when there was no letter, which were admittedly few since Gordon was a faithful correspondent, she would shake her head with a sorrowful expression, assuring Lou that it was probably the censor who was holding up the deliveries.

‘Have to go through every letter with a fine tooth comb they do, just in case our boys have let something slip. My friend Madge has terrible trouble getting any from her son. He’s stationed in Singapore, or is it Ceylon? I forget. Anyway, she’ll hear nothing for days, sometimes weeks, then she’ll get half a dozen all at once. It’s very worrying for her. And what about you, my dear?’ she asked, turning to Gracie with a mildly questioning smile. ‘Have you no young man sailing the seven seas for his country, or dug down in some trench somewhere?’

Gracie shyly shook her head, the silky pale swathe of hair wafting softly against her slender neck. ‘Who would want a skinny waif like me? I’m not exactly your pin-up type, am I?’

Irma laughed and told her that some chaps might think pin-ups could be more trouble than they were worth. ‘Your day will come, mark my words. Mind you, I say that about our Adam and look at him, twenty-nine and still unwed. I despair at times, I do really.’ She considered Gracie with a more thoughtful expression as a thought occurred to her. ‘How about if I fixed you two up with a date?’

‘Date?’ Gracie wasn’t sure whether to be horrified or amused by Irma’s blatant attempt at matchmaking. She decided on the latter. ‘I doubt I’d suit.’

‘Oh, I don’t know about that. Quiet, li’le lass like you would happen do very nicely. The ladies’ committee is organising a dance in the parish rooms. Our Adam don’t usually care for dancing but I might be able to talk him into it, if he could take you.’

‘Oh no, you mustn’t talk him into anything. That would be dreadful.’ Gracie might well agree that her social life could do with a bit of livening up, but not this way. To have a man forced to take her anywhere would be hugely embarrassing and humiliating.

‘Well, suit yourself. Anyway, don’t decide now,’ Irma said, patting Gracie’s hand in a kindly way. ‘Sleep on it.’

What’s wrong with me?’ Gracie asked, studying her reflection in the mirror that night as they got ready for bed. The pale oval of her face framed by the straight blonde hair seemed to shimmer with an ethereal ghostliness in the candlelight, the grey eyes wide and questioning, like a child who had been hurt and didn’t quite understand why. But was her face beautiful, or even passing pretty? Somehow Gracie didn’t think so. It wasn’t at all the sort of face to make any man’s heart beat faster, even the undemanding Adam Cooper. Which was quite depressing in a way. ‘Why is there no man out there pining to be my lover?’ Though Gracie didn’t begrudge Lou her many admirers, at times a part of her did wonder why she never attracted more attention.