No Way Of Telling (2 page)

“Isn’t Mick clever?” said Amy, stamping her feet in the porch. “However did he know we’d be let off school early? It’s lucky we were—I’d never have got home else—it’s a blizzard, Granny.”

“Come on in, child, and shut the door. There! Well—it’s no school for you, not for quite a while by the look of it. Go along and give your coat a shake in the side-kitchen and get your wellingtons off. I’ll make the tea this minute—the kettle’s boiling. I’m thankful to see you, Amy, and I don’t mind saying it.”

Amy took off her coat in the side-kitchen and shook it, but not too vigorously for fear of the snow flying all over herself. Then she hung it on a peg, gave it another shake, and brushed it down with her gloved hands until most of the snow was lying on the stone flags.

“I’ve made the tea,” her grandmother called.

Amy stepped out of her Wellington boots. She pulled off first her gloves, then the thick tightly-fitting outdoor trousers that she wore over her stockings and under her skirt in wintry weather. Her grandmother knitted these trousers for her in scarlet wool, the same as her scarf, and always referred to them as leggings.

“My stockings are wet, Granny.”

“Bring them along in here—I’ve got dry ones for you, ready. And bring your gloves in too, and your leggings, and your scarf.”

Amy unknotted her scarf and gave it a good shake as well. Then she ran across the stone floor and the coconut matting into the other room, shutting the door thankfully on the cold side-kitchen.

“What a lovely big fire—I was hoping there might be. And you’ve fetched all those logs in. You shouldn’t have done that, Granny—that’s my job.”

“Not today, it’s not. There’s no more jobs for you today, Amy. I’ve seen to the chickens for you, and they as good as thanked me for shutting them up so early. There’s nothing for you to do now but only sit there and drink your tea and warm yourself. And I must say in weather like this I’m more glad than usual to be an old woman and not a sheep—imagine the poor creatures out on those hills—nowhere to go.”

Amy imagined them with pity; and yet the very thought of their bleak situation increased her own sense of comfort. She knelt on the rag rug in front of the big black range holding her cup of tea in both hands for the pleasure of feeling the heat from it creep into her chilled fingers. The brass toasting fork, and the brass handle of the poker, and the brass knobs on the fender, and all the other bits and pieces of ornamental brass gleamed and shone and sparkled in the light of the flames. On the rack above the range stood a plate of welsh cakes, keeping warm. The grandfather clock ticked away, slow and steady. Mick lay against her knees, flicking his ears with an air of satisfaction for having brought her safely home. Queenie, the cat, was curled asleep, or pretending to be, in Amy’s own chair. And overhead on a string that went from side to side of the fireplace hung her stockings and scarf and leggings and gloves, reminders of the storm and her good luck in being safe out of it. Her grandmother leant forward to feel her hands, and then her feet.

“Put your dry stockings on, Amy, and your slippers too. Your toes are like icicles, child.”

Except for the lively flames the room was perfectly still, very peaceful. Outside it was quite different. Amy glanced back over her shoulder at the square of window across which snow drove without a pause, and it was like a sample of the wild incessant activity filling the world beyond, choking the sky, the ground, isolating neighbour from neighbour.

“I hope there’s nobody out there—nobody lost, I mean. It’s bad enough for sheep but worse for people. Do you know on the way home I couldn’t tell where I was for a bit—I just couldn’t tell, it was so thick. Have you ever been lost in the snow, Granny?”

“No indeed, never! But it’s only people like Mr Protheroe are likely to be out on the hills today, and he can take care of himself no matter what the weather.”

“Mr Williams said he thought it looked bad. It might keep on for days, he said—and Mrs Rhys, she said the same. Will you mind if it does?”

“Mind?—whyever should I?” said old Mrs Bowen, laughing at Amy. “We’ll do very well I think, you and me together. We’ve got each other for company, and the radio too—that’s a blessing —just so long as the batteries don’t give out. And there’s plenty enough oil for the lamps, and food for no matter how long. So far as
mind
goes it can snow for a fortnight. I shouldn’t be surprised if we didn’t enjoy it.”

At that moment Mick sat up and pricked his ears. Then he ran to the door that led into the side-kitchen and stood there, wagging his tail and listening.

“It’s Mr Protheroe, bound to be,” said Mrs Bowen, nodding at Amy, and she went across to the dresser for a clean cup and saucer.

Amy, with Mick at her heels, rushed through the side-kitchen to welcome Mr Protheroe and, careless of the storm, flung wide the door that opened directly into their shed.

“Mr Protheroe!” she shouted.

He was climbing stiffly down from his pony, his back towards her. Beyond on the hillside, barely discernible through the swirling flakes, she could see his passive flock of sheep and, further again, crouched in the snow unmoving to hold the sheep where they were, the two dark blobs of Patsy and Nipper, his dogs. Mr Protheroe waved an arm at Amy to make her go in, but she waited while he tied the reins to one of the posts of the lean-to.

“We knew it must be you, Mr Protheroe—you’re the only person Mick never barks for.”

“Well, who else would it be on such a day as this?”

He followed her into the side-kitchen, stamping his feet and taking off his hat to beat the snow from it.

“At least you’re safe back from school, Amy. I wondered a bit.”

“We were let off early.”

“Ah!—so I understand. And a good job too.”

“Come in by the fire and have a cup of tea, Mr Protheroe—do! There’s a pot fresh made.”

“I can’t stop, Amy—I wish I could—but I’ve got to get back down with this lot. Mrs Bowen, how are you? I was just saying to Amy I’m glad to find her safe at home—that’s one worry the less. Molly’s been in a fret over Amy ever since it came on to snow. We half expected for Mrs Rhys to drop her off with Ivor. Why, thank you—that’s very nice indeed and I don’t mind telling you I’m glad of it, though I hadn’t intended to stop.”

Mrs Bowen had brought him out a cup of tea and a plate of welsh cakes.

“I knew you’d be in too much of a hurry to come in and sit down, but you can drink that and have a bite while you stand there and it won’t hold you up more than a minute. So you’re fetching the sheep down—you think it’s going to last, then?”

“Seems likely—the forecast was bad. There’s five ewes missing and I can’t stop to find them now—it’s going to be dark directly—dark early today. They’ll turn up before night, I daresay. If it’s not snowing quite so heavy tomorrow I was thinking could Amy maybe get along up to the stack and see are they there? I’m hoping they will be, for their sakes as much as for mine, and that’s the truth. And supposing they are, she could just loose them a feed of hay—could you do that for me, Amy, do you think? I’d be much obliged.”

“Of course I will, Mr Protheroe—I’ll be glad to,” said Amy.

“If this goes on I may not be able to get back up here for a day or two, that’s what I’m thinking.”

“I can see after the ewes for you—of course I can. But will it go on for long?” asked Amy.

“I can’t tell you, girl, not for certain. I’ll say this much, though—I’ve never seen it promise worse—no, never! Well now, it’s time I was from here. Molly sent a bit of meat along for you, Mrs Bowen, just in case you happened to find yourself short.”

He was fumbling with a satchel he wore slung round his neck and presently managed to tug out a large newspaper-wrapped package which he laid down on the table where the oil lamps, both brass and hurricane, were ranged.

“Why, mercy me if it isn’t a whole leg of mutton!” exclaimed Mrs Bowen. “And only me and Amy here to eat it!”

“You don’t know how long you’re going to have to make it do for,” said Mr Protheroe, clamping his hat back on his head and giving himself a slap or two in preparation for starting. “There’s one advantage, it won’t go bad this weather.”

“Oh, we shan’t let it go bad, no fear of that. Give Molly my thanks—I don’t know which is the kinder to us, her or you. Now you mustn’t stop here another minute. It’s all very well that short way over the top in fine weather, but on a day like this it’s bound to be nasty, especially by Billy Dodd’s Dingle, so you mind and take good care.”

Billy Dodd’s Dingle, which sounded so harmless, was a deep narrow ravine that had claimed the lives of innumerable sheep and even, it was said, in years gone by of a drunken farmer; on which occasion the preacher had delivered a sermon of terrible warning against the evil consequences of drink and spoken of Beelzebub’s Back Door. Time had changed and softened the name but not the place, for the cliff edges were as sudden, the slopes as steep towards them, as sheer beyond, as ever they had been.

“Don’t you waste your worry on me, Mrs Bowen. I know the short way over the top as well as I know my own back yard, and so do the dogs. It’s not deep yet, though it will be if I stay much longer. What had I better do about the milk? I don’t suppose there’s a chance of Amy getting down Casswell’s Gate for it?”

“Best to wait and see what tomorrow’s like. The road may be blocked by then. Or it could blow itself clean out in the night and be over and done with by morning.”

“Well, it could,” said Mr Protheroe, “but I’d be inclined to doubt it. Now I must be off. You’re all right for wood, are you? Oil enough? You don’t want to run out of paraffin—”

“We’ve got everything we need, Tom Protheroe—everything, and a leg of mutton on top,” said Amy’s grandmother, laughing and giving him a push towards the door. “We intend to have a snug time of it, me and Amy. You don’t have to think of us, even. We’ll be quite all right, no matter what happens.” And seeing him still hesitate at the door, she added: “Why, Tom Protheroe dear, we’ve been snowed up many a time before and no harm come of it. In all the years I’ve been here—and they’re getting to be quite a few now—I’ve never come to any harm, now have I?”

“No, that’s true enough,” said Mr Protheroe. “But we shall be thinking of you just the same, so don’t imagine we shan’t.”

They had occasion to remember these words, his last before going out of the door, later on, deriving from them then what comfort they could.

Amy was struggling into her coat and Wellington boots.

“I’m bound to see him off, Granny—I’ll maybe not see him again, or anyone else, for days and days.”

She ran out into the snow. He was already urging his stout pony up the hillside with the mob of sheep moving slowly ahead and the dogs running to and fro on either side.

“Goodbye, Mr Protheroe,” she yelled. “And don’t you worry about your ewes—I’ll see to them for you.”

He turned in his saddle and waved. Before he reached the crest of the hill the sheep were already invisible and he and his pony no more than a faint blur. Then, as she stared, there was nothing to be seen except for the steadily driving snow.

The lamp was lit and the curtains drawn. Amy and Mrs Bowen sat one on each side of the fire doing their patchwork. It was to be a bedspread, a present for Amy’s father and for his second wife whom they had neither of them ever seen except in photographs. Amy’s father had married again out in Australia and there were now three children belonging to him and his second wife. Amy liked to think she had brothers and a sister, even if they did live so far away.

She sat in the rocking-chair, a pillow-case crammed with old pieces of cloth on the floor beside her, and in her lap the cardboard shapes she had cut ready the previous evening. Each bit of cardboard had to have a corresponding scrap of material stretched over it and tacked firmly. Amy did this. Then Mrs Bowen sewed the sections together, her needle piercing only the cloth and her stitches so small it was almost impossible to see them. Later the tacking threads would be cut and the cardboard drop out. Every night they worked away at the bedspread and it grew and grew, overflowing from Mrs Bowen’s knees to the floor where Queenie dozed amongst its multicoloured folds. They spoke seldom, not feeling the need of much conversation, but now and again the stuff they were cutting or sewing would remind them of some incident.

“Here’s my old pink skirt, Granny. Fancy me ever being small enough to wear that.”

“Fancy indeed! I learnt a lesson off that skirt of yours, Amy. It was so bright I could see you in it a mile away and I had a foolish notion you were bound to be safe just so long as I could
see
you. But you proved me wrong—look at the tear! There was no use in even trying to mend it.”

“And I’ve still got the mark on my leg—it was barbed wire I was caught in, just like an old ewe. And didn’t I cry!—but it wasn’t so much for hurting myself. It was spoiling my skirt I minded. Still, it makes into lovely patchwork now. It’s my favourite colour, pink.”

“What a fright you gave me that day,” said Mrs Bowen, pausing to look over her spectacles and smiling. “I’ll never forget! I hadn’t run so fast for years. Run!—I believe I flew!”

They snipped and sewed and talked a little, comfortably, as they did every night. And every night when the clock struck eight they would put away their sewing and have a cup of tea and some welsh-cakes. Then they played cards; sometimes they played Patience, and sometimes it was Beggar-my-Neighbour or Two-handed Whist. When one of them yawned they knew they had played for long enough. Then Mick would be let outside for his last run while they tidied up the room and raked out the fire and lit their candles and Mrs Bowen withdrew from the bottom oven the two bricks that had been lying there all day long absorbing heat. These were their bed-warmers and as soon as each brick had been wrapped in flannel it was time for bed.

Regularly, until tonight, they followed the same routine. But tonight they never played their game of cards, for ten minutes before the clock struck eight Mick growled. First he sat up and looked towards the front door; then he growled. Amy and Mrs Bowen both laid down their sewing.