Larkrigg Fell (14 page)

‘I do understand. I promise to be sensible.’

Seemingly satisfied, Ellen agreed she could call any time. And as she walked away up the path with Andrew, the stentorian voice called after them, ‘Don’t fetch them friends of yours. They’ve done enough.’

Beth made no reply. She knew exactly what Ellen meant.

Chapter Eight

The commune, in Sarah’s opinion, proved to be a great success. At least in the beginning. Life at Larkrigg Hall was fun and she came very quickly to the conclusion that this was the only way to live. It was amazing how life had changed since discovering their delectable squatters.

Meg objected of course, which wasn’t surprising.

‘It’s all quite innocent good fun,’ Sarah explained. ‘Separate quarters and all that.’

‘Pietro Lawson amongst them?’

Beth lifted her chin, mirroring Meg’s own stubbornness. ‘Yes, Pietro included.’

‘We’re big girls now,’ Sarah said.

‘Even so, I’m not sure that’s a good idea.’

Tam sent Meg a warning glance and went over to kiss both his granddaughters. ‘Don’t we trust the pair of them?’ Against which Meg could find no argument and the subject was dropped.

Beth naturally drew up yards of charts to show who was responsible for which chore on any given day, but Sarah found it easy enough to avoid most of these by a little diligent absenteeism. And those she did do, she made sure didn’t tax her too greatly. Particularly since she insisted on being partnered by Jonty. They would hide away in the woods or even the woodshed, since private corners were everywhere, without feeling the least speck of guilt. If the two of them took twice as long as everyone else to wash up or chop logs, what did it matter so long as the task was done?

The advantages of commune life were legion. As well as finding easy opportunities to sneak away during the day, there was the ready access to the lovely beds every night. No more creeping across the fells in the dark. Instead, Jonty would pad along the landing and slide between the sheets in the great bed, desperately trying to stop up their giggles as they thought of the others in their chaste beds.

Sarah was always ready for him, an aching moistness between her legs, a pain in her belly, feverish with impatience for him to come to her. If he was late she would punish him by making him wait for her surrender.

She would straddle him and stroke the hardness of his stomach, tease the velvety skin till he had an erection then laughingly hold him away as he groaned in agony, begging for release. She would rub the hard peaks of her breasts against his chest and into his mouth, then draw enticingly away. Only when she chose did she let him pierce her right to the centre of her own yearning. Then she would ride him and bite him, the passion in her rising to a furious anger, driving him to satisfy a craving which could not be sated.

‘Let Tessa help with the heavy work,’ Sarah told Beth when, much to her annoyance, she’d been caught lying in bed one fine afternoon, ostensibly taking a nap and Beth accused her of not pulling her weight. ‘It’s a good way for her to pay for her keep.’

‘We none of us properly do that.’

Anyone else would have thought to look beneath the bed, and discovered a half naked Jonty. Beth, being Beth, simply tightened her lips, fidgeted with that dratted hair slide and told Sarah she wasn’t being quite fair.

‘Fair? What are you talking about? I do my whack like everyone else. I can surely take some free time off.’ Sarah jumped off the bed and started pulling on jeans.

‘But there isn’t any free time. Not yet. We have to aim to be self-sufficient. You could at least dig the garden or tie up the raspberries if you have a spare moment.’

‘What do I know about raspberries?’

‘I mean you shouldn’t simply follow the rota and nothing else.’

‘You want me actually to look for work?’ Sarah tried to hide her astonishment.

‘Yes, I do. This commune was Jonty’s idea, remember, not mine.’ Beth plumped herself down on the bed, making the springs squeak and sag so much Sarah almost burst out laughing as she thought of poor Jonty in imminent danger of being decapitated beneath. ‘You don’t think that dreadful prophecy is coming true, do you?’ Beth continued. ‘We seem to do nothing but quarrel these days and really it should be all for one and everything, shouldn’t it, as Jonty suggested.’

Sarah hooded her eyes and meekly agreed. ‘Yes, Beth. Of course, Beth,’ which was always the quickest way to be rid of her when she had her organising hat on.

‘So you will help a bit more?’

‘Of course, sweetie. When have I ever let you down?’

The moment the bedroom door clicked shut behind her, Jonty crawled from beneath the four poster, beside her in a second, stifling his laughter as he pushed Sarah back on to the bed.

‘Your sister is becoming a real drag,’ he said, tugging at the zip on her jeans. ‘Someone should loosen her up. Drat it, I can’t get these damned things off. Why do women wear so many clothes?’

‘Perhaps we should join a naturist commune? That would really save a lot of time.’ And they both dissolved into peals of laughter and thrusting, sweating sex, which was much more fun than digging gardens, or weeding the raspberry patch.

Beth took to visiting Ellen’s cottage on a fairly regular basis, drinking in every scrap of information from her new friend that might help with her own smallholding. Every visit seemed to lead to a fresh discovery. For all Rowan cottage looked as if a puff of wind might blow it down at any minute it had a cultivated garden, filled in every corner with fruit or vegetables. The ubiquitous raspberries of course, rhubarb, gooseberries, black and redcurrants. Then there was mint, sage, rosemary and other herbs which Beth didn’t recognise. Leeks, cabbages, potatoes and onions by the score.

‘Can’t grow carrots, more’s the pity,’ Ellen mourned. ‘Don’t grow well in this stony soil.’

The birds could feast as much as they liked on whatever Ellen didn’t eat. No nets in her garden. ‘Share and share alike,’ she said. ‘They were here first.’

There was a bee hive in one corner, its occupants humming busily. ‘What a fuss when they swarm,’ she told her young visitor. ‘Chase them half across the fells sometimes, I do. But beautiful honey. Feed on heather, d’you see?’

‘How wonderful.’

‘Know how to take honey from a hive, do you?’ And when Beth shook her head, she laughed. ‘Don’t look so feared. I’ll show you one day.’

Best of all, Beth enjoyed watching the animals.

The badger made steady progress and Ellen began to drop her reserve little by little, as she took note of Beth’s genuine interest in her simple country pursuits.

‘I build boxes for some of the owls which I release. They have a hard time of it with all the barns that are being turned into holiday accommodation. The red squirrels come and pinch bits of coconut I leave out for them. I like to watch them play, proper little acrobats they are. Have you known Andrew long?’

The abrupt change in conversation caught Beth off guard. ‘Tess introduced us, at the Jubilee Sports Day. We watched him wrestle.’

Ellen nodded. ‘He likes his wrestling, does Andrew.’ She glanced sideways at Beth, trying to appear not to pry as she plucked a thorn from the heel of one thumb. ‘He’s a quiet lad but strong, and with a heart as big as a mountain.’

Beth felt rather amused by these compliments. Perhaps Ellen saw him as a surrogate son. They certainly seemed old buddies. ‘Yes,’ she said kindly. ‘I can see that he is. Very steady.’

‘Reliable.’

‘Absolutely.’ And no doubt utterly boring with it, she thought. Poor boy, the description was almost as damning as the ‘Beth is such a nice girl’ which the old ladies of Boston used to say about her.

Ellen turned away, ostensibly to mend a hole in the compound fence with a bit of bailing twine from her pocket, half watching Beth at the same time. ‘He’s a good lad. I’d not see him badly done to. His future isn’t too certain.’

Beth was surprised. ‘Isn’t it? I thought his father owned Cathra Crag.’ She cut off the twine with a knife where Ellen indicated.

‘Nay, old Seth owns it, and the silly old fool is as stubborn as a mule. Terrified of doing aught new, he is. And Billy, Andrew’s father, don’t like change of any sort. Proper pair they are. Andrew has his hands full, I can tell you.’ She turned laughing eyes to Beth. ‘The poor lad is itching to modernise.’

‘I’m sure he’ll manage it, if he’s as sound and reliable as you say.’

The brown eyes sharpened momentarily. Was the girl making fun? But Beth maintained her expression of bland innocence and Ellen relaxed again. ‘Aye, course he will. All he needs is a good wife to help him along the road.’

So that’s what this was all about. ‘I’m sure he’ll find one. Lovely steady chap like him. Now I must be off. See you soon.’ Match-maker Ellen was running on the wrong track so far as she was concerned, Beth thought, chuckling to herself as she climbed back up the fell, the happy sounds of the birds and squirrels still whistling and chattering in her ears. It was perfectly plain, even to her, that Tessa was the one Andrew had his eye on. Why else would he keep popping in whenever she was around?

‘Let’s hope Tessa feels the same way. She deserves a bit of good luck.’

Beth was delighted to find that Pietro talked with her much more freely these days. He seemed to have got over his bout of diffidence and was always ready to offer his help with whatever she was doing. Not that he was particularly practical. He would start a job eagerly enough, whether it be cleaning out the hen hut, or painting the living room walls. But if she didn’t keep a close watch on him, she would return to find he was making patterns with the paint instead of applying it smoothly, or sitting sketching the hens instead of feeding or cleaning them.

‘What a dreamer you are.’

‘I am the artist. My thoughts are bigger than these simple tasks.’

‘Yes, but we have to eat. And we must be clean and tidy.’

‘Why? We can live without plaster and paint on the walls, buy food at the supermarket. We must lift our mind to greater things. I wish to be the great artist like the ones in the museums and galleries of my home town of Florence. It is a proud and noble thing to be.’

‘I agree, but we’d run out of money eventually, wouldn’t we? And the whole point is to be as self-sufficient as possible.’

He would look at her with his melting blue-eyed gaze, making her insides churn. ‘Ah, do not scold me, little one. I am the silly boy, yes? You are so wise. What is it you wish for me to do?’

Then he would reach over and place a soft kiss on her lips or stroke her wayward hair from her cheeks with such a tender touch that Beth would shiver with longing. Once he pulled out the slide and tossed it away in the long grass.

She gave a little gasp. ‘Why did you do that?’

‘Because the hair is too beautiful to confine. Discipline is bad for you. Let your hair be free. Let yourself be free.’

‘Oh, Pietro. If only I could. Sarah always does exactly as she pleases but I have this need, this compulsion almost, to do always what is right.’

‘You are the good girl, and she the bad?’

Beth giggled. ‘No, nothing so simple as that. I’m screwed up, that’s all. But I promise, I don’t mind your not working. Do your sketch, I’ll finish this job.’ She couldn’t help being soft with him, for all he was every bit as lazy as Sarah. How could she when he was so entirely charming and beautiful?

And she was falling so helplessly in love with him.

Later that autumn he went home to Italy on a visit to see his family and replenish his funds. He was most careful with money, she knew that, and contributed his share to the general housekeeping fund. She watched him go with an ache of longing in her heart, wondering about his family, this Jack who Meg had no wish to talk about. What were they like? Did they miss Pietro when he was here in England?

The long days while he was away would be an agony. What if he didn’t ever come back? What if he had a girl back in Italy? One he’d never told her about. A wife even. Beth paled at the thought. No, he would have told her. And he would be back soon, wouldn’t he? Otherwise how could she bear to live without him?

Beth busied herself more than ever. Every day she spent hours on the endless chores around the house, visiting Ellen and the badger, now recovering well, working till she was exhausted and could drop into bed and sleep without the torment of longing.

And as she worked, Beth found herself becoming more and more a part of the landscape. She knew the dip of every hill, could name every pale and distant peak, the fold of every mountain. Kentmere Pike, III Bell, High Street as far as Scafell and Great Gable. And to the east the softer line of the Pennines and the Howgills. She loved them all. Loved this vista which never seemed quite the same two days together. Even the sky seemed to produce a magical new colour of pink, topaz, turquoise or blue, each and every day.

She loved the soft rain on her face, the drifts of mist that veiled the hills, the wind that tore up the valley and shook every chimney and door, reminding her of the power of nature.

She was a country person at last, living her rural dream. And each day her resolve to stay grew ever deeper. When the house was finished she would fight Sarah tooth and nail to stop her selling it. It must never happen.