The Fleethaven Trilogy (106 page)

‘Please, Mum—’

As it moved, Ella felt Danny grasp her round the waist
and her grip was prised loose.

He held her until the vehicle had turned out of
the farmyard gate and, once in the lane, began to gather
speed. As he released his hold, Ella sped towards the
gate.

‘Mum! Mum!’ she shouted after it, but the car drew
away and all Ella could see was her mother’s arm sticking
out of the window waving to her.

The young girl stood a forlorn, lonely figure in the lane,
the cold wind snatching at her coat, whipping around her
legs. She watched the car turn left at the end of the lane
and move along the coast road towards Lynthorpe. Her
gaze followed it until, passing behind a clump of trees, it
was lost from her sight.

‘Oh, Mum, please come back,’ Ella whispered. ‘Please
don’t leave me here . . .’

As dusk began to close in, Rob took her back to Brumbys’
Farm.

Ella had not enjoyed her afternoon; the feeling of
apprehension just would not go away, not even when
Aunty Rosie fed her with scones topped with raspberry
jam and cream.

‘I’m off to play with Jimmy,’ Rob had announced.

‘Oh no you’re not,’ Danny said. ‘You stay here and
look after Ella.’

‘Aw, Dad . . .’

‘Can’t I come too?’ she suggested, but Rob said moodily,
‘We dun’t play with girls.’

‘What about Jimmy’s sister, Janice? You play with her
then, don’t you?’ Rob’s mother said.

Rob shrugged. ‘Not if we can get rid of her. She just
tags along, that’s all.’

Rosie smiled at Ella. ‘Boys!’

But Rob did not stay moody for long and later he
showed her how to make a bow and arrow and they played
‘Robin Hood’ in the big barn.

‘Can I see the kittens again?’ she asked, and when he
lifted the lid of the coop, she gasped. In only two days
they had altered. Little balls of fluff, they were crawling
all over their mother. For a fleeting moment her worry
was banished. ‘Oh aren’t they pretty?’ Ella cried, forgetting
her desire not to appear ‘girlish’ in front of Rob. ‘I do
like the black and white one. Look, all its little paws are
white.’

As if determined to keep them so, the mother cat licked
at the kitten who wriggled and twisted to get out of the
way. Ella giggled as she tickled the mother cat under her
chin and the animal closed her eyes and purred, a high-pitched
whirring sound of ecstasy.

‘Look, that one’s eyes are just beginning to open,’ Rob
pointed. ‘They’ll not be ready to leave the mother cat for a
few weeks yet, but me mam ses we’ve enough cats about
the place now, so we’ve got to find homes for them. Would
yar mam let you have one, d’you think?’

Ella’s eyes clouded and she shook her head. ‘No. She
says it wouldn’t be fair for us to have a pet where we live.
It might get run over.’ The picture of a neighbour’s cat she
had seen lying squashed in the middle of the street made
her shudder afresh.

‘We’ll tek the short cut,’ Rob told her as they set off
from Rookery Farm as dusk was blown in by the still
raging gales.

They crossed the lane opposite the farm gate and
climbed a stile into the first field. Rob pointed and put his
mouth close to her ear so that she could hear him above
the wind whipping around them. ‘It’d be even shorter if we
could go straight across the middle of the field to Brumbys’
Farm, but we’d better go round the edge.’ The field was
ploughed in deep, straight furrows. ‘Else you’ll get yar
shoes all muddy.’ He grinned. ‘We got into enough trouble
about your shoes from your grannie last time, didn’t we?
You really ought to get some boots for when you’re here.’

The wind gusted across the wide open space, catching
Ella’s breath and almost lifting her off her feet. Heavy
clouds scudded across the sky and huge spots of rain were
icy on her face.

‘Come on, it’s going to chuck it down in a minute,’ he
warned and Ella trudged after the boy leading the way
round the grass verge of the field.

Never mind him and his ‘boots for next time’, she
thought morosely. There won’t be a next time if I have
anything to do with it. The minute Mum comes back, I’m
off home.

‘Careful, dun’t fall in,’ he warned as they came to a
bridge made out of two planks over a water-filled dyke.
Gingerly, she walked across, placing her feet as if walking
on a slippery tightrope. The wind buffeting her as she
balanced precariously above the murky dyke water didn’t
help and when she jumped the last pace on to the bank,
she let out her breath in relief. The next field was a
meadow, the grass short and springy, and they ran across
the middle towards a hole in the hedge at the end of the
orchard in the front of Brumbys’ Farm.

‘There you are,’ was the greeting from her grandmother
emerging from the cowshed. ‘Come along in out o’ this
lot.’ She nodded angrily at the darkening sky. ‘I’m leaving
the cows in the shed again tonight. Poor things, they dun’t
like this weather any more’n I do. I wish yar mam’d hurry
up and get back ’afore dark.’ And Ella saw her glance up
the lane as if willing the car to appear.

As Rob turned to go, Esther shouted after him, ‘You go
straight home, Boy. It’s not fit for man nor beast to be
out.’

‘I’m just off to mek sure the old ’uns are all right at the
Point, Missus.’

Esther pretended to shake her fist at him, but she was
smiling as she said, ‘Cheeky young rogue! I’ll give you “old
’uns”, indeed. Is that what you call me an’ all?’

The boy’s grin widened. ‘Who me, Missus? I wouldn’t
dare!’ With a cheery wave he was gone.

They stood in the yard and watched the boy as he
reached the lane, turned to the right and broke into a run,
blown along by the wind.

‘He’s a good lad,’ Esther murmured to no one in
particular.

‘I know his gran and his other grandma live in the
cottages, but who else lives at the Point?’ Ella asked,
suddenly curious.

As they entered the back door and Esther leant her
weight against it to close it against the wind, she said, ‘The
two Harris boys live in the very end cottage, next door to
his grandma Eland.’

Ella’s eyes widened. ‘Boys? Two boys live on their
own?’

‘Eh?’ For a moment Esther stared at her, a puzzled
frown on her forehead. Then she laughed. ‘Oh, they’re
boys to me, but let’s think, they’ll both be pushing fifty-odd
now.’

‘Fifty!’ Ella squeaked. ‘Why, that’s
ancient
.’

‘Oh, thank you very much, seein’ as I’m nearly
sixty.’

‘Are you really?’ Ella said, with her usual candid
honesty. ‘Well, you don’t look it.’

Esther stood, hands on hips, her head on one side. ‘You
trying to flannel me, Missy?’

Suddenly, Ella grinned impishly and, mocking Rob’s
words, said, ‘Who me, Gran? I wouldn’t dare!’

If it were possible, the gales seemed to get worse. They
raged around the farmhouse, battering the back door,
rattling the tiles and whistling around the farm buildings.
By eight o’clock when Kate had still not returned even the
placid Jonathan was obviously agitated. He went out every
few minutes to the gate to look up the lane, watching for
the headlights. ‘Maybe she’s broken down somewhere.’

‘I don’t know what she wanted to go tearing off in this
weather for, anyway.’ Esther’s anxiety took the form of
irritation. She turned and looked sharply at Ella. ‘Do you
know, Missy?’

Ella shook her head. She felt close to tears, yet she was
determined not to cry in front of her grandmother. But her
fear was growing with every passing minute that her
mother did not return.

‘Oh, do stop running out to the gate,’ Esther snapped at
her husband. ‘It won’t mek her come any quicker.’

He tried to smile. ‘I know, love, but I can’t seem to
settle until I know she’s safely back.’

Ella saw her grandmother reach out and touch her
husband’s arm by way of silent apology for her sharpness.
Understanding, he patted her hand. Ella bit her lip and
then felt his gaze upon her. She looked into his eyes, her
own equally as troubled.

‘I know what we’ll do to take our minds off the weather,’
he said brightly, but it was a forced brightness and they all
knew it. He came towards the warmth of the range. ‘Get
the draughts board out, Esther. I’ll beat Ella at draughts
till her mam gets back.’

Esther snorted with a sudden spurt of wry laughter.
‘Oh, very appropriate on a night like this.’ But she went
upstairs and found the checkered board and the pieces.

Ella sat on the peg rug in front of the range and set up
the board ready for play.

Suddenly she looked up at her grandfather as he sat in
the Windsor chair. ‘Grandpa, what’s that noise?’

Ella’s sharp hearing had caught a different sound above
the noise of the wind.

‘What noise, love? I don’t hear anything.’

‘Listen . . .’ Esther stood still near the table. For a
breathless moment they all strained to hear, then Esther
sprang towards the window and dragged back the curtain,
peering out into the wild night.

‘Oh no!’ Her hand still clutching the curtain, her eyes
wide with panic, she turned to look at Jonathan. ‘It’s the
sea!’ she gasped.

‘What?’ Jonathan was up and out of his chair, hurrying
towards the back door. Esther turned and followed him.
Ella scrambled to her feet and went to the window. As her
grandmother had done, she pulled back the curtain and
peered out into the night. In the dim light cast by the oil
lamp and filtering through the window, Ella could see a
brown swirl of water raging around the farmhouse. She
dropped the curtain and ran to the back door. Channelled
between the farm buildings, a wave of water came roaring
towards the house.

‘Shut the door,’ Esther screamed and, as the torrent
came towards them, Jonathan slammed the back door and
leant against it. They heard the water slap against it. Ella
saw her grandparents stare at each other in helpless horror,
and then silently they watched as the water began to seep
in under the door, first in tiny rivulets and then spreading
relentlessly towards their feet.

Esther clutched Jonathan’s arm. ‘A boat. We need a
boat. Where can we get a boat?’

‘Esther, take the child and go upstairs.’

‘But we have to get out – we have to get away.’

‘Esther, you’ll be safe upstairs, but the folks at the Point
– I have to go . . .’

‘No.’ She clung to him trying to prevent him going.
‘You’ll be drowned!’

Gently, Jonathan tried to release himself from her grasp.
‘Esther. The water will be much deeper the other side of
the Hump and they’re only in cottages. This side, we’ll be
all right. It’ll spread out over the fields, but Beth and the
others . . .’

‘Not her. Not Beth Eland!’ There was a wealth of
bitterness in Esther’s tone. ‘I won’t lose you an’ all because
of her. I won’t have it happen again. Not again.’ Holding
on to his coat, she was babbling now, incoherently. Ella
listened with growing terror.

Jonathan prised Esther’s fingers loose and planted a
swift kiss on her forehead, promising, ‘I’ll be careful, love.’
Then he opened the back door. The water flooded into the
house swirling icily around their feet, threatening to bowl
them over with its force.

‘Don’t go, Jonathan. Please . . .’

His hand on the door, he turned back. ‘Go upstairs,
Esther. Just – for once – do as I say.’

He went out and though he tried to pull the door shut
after him, against the flowing water, it was now impossible.
The wind shrieked into the house and, above its noise, Ella
cried, ‘Gran, Gran, what about Mum?’

Through the gloom, Esther stared at her and then she
closed her eyes and threw back her head. ‘Oh, Katie, me
little Katie,’ she wailed and at the grief-stricken tone in the
older woman’s voice, the girl shook with dread.

Esther opened her arms wide and Ella, hesitating only
a moment, splashed through the murky water towards
her.

Terrified, grandmother and granddaughter clung together
whilst the sea flowed relentlessly into the house.

‘Come on, we’d better do as he said and get oursens
upstairs.’ Her grandmother gently released Ella’s arms
from about her waist but they still clung to each other as
they paddled back into the kitchen where Esther took
down a candle in a pink holder from the shelf and lit it.

Ella was shivering both with cold and fear. ‘Gran, it’s
up to my ankles already.’

‘I know, lass. It’s getting deeper every minute.’

The girl’s voice rose with hysteria. ‘Will it get right up
to the roof? Rob said there’s waves as big as a house
sometimes . . .’ In her mind was a picture of that vast
expanse of grey water whipped by the gales into a seething,
vengeful torrent that would flow endlessly across the
marsh, over the sand dunes, into their farmhouse and on
and on across the fields. There was nothing to stop it.

‘No, no, course it won’t. Ya heard what ya grandpa
said?’

Esther, after her brief moment of terror, seemed once
more in control of her fear, but the girl’s voice still
trembled. ‘I didn’t understand what he meant.’

‘The water won’t come very deep into our house.’

Ella shuddered again, feeling the icy water creeping up
and up her legs. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Course I am. Stands to reason. The land’s flat out there,
ain’t it?’ Esther waved her hand towards the kitchen
window facing out across the fields. ‘When it settles, it’ll
find its own level. It’s only – only the other side the Hump,
y’know, the bank in the road, where it’ll get deeper – a lot
deeper . . .’ Her fear for Jonathan was back and she
stopped mid-sentence.

‘But how far will the water go across the fields?’ Ella’s
voice was high-pitched with dread.

Esther shook her head. ‘I don’t know, lass. If only the
wind would stop . . .’

As if hearing her words, the wind dropped for a moment
and they heard clearly the waves slapping against the old
walls of the farmhouse. Then the gale roared once more,
blowing in through the open back door and rippling the
black water all around them.