The Fleethaven Trilogy (129 page)

Beth Eland stood there, her round body shaking with
indignation, her finger wagging only inches from Esther’s
nose.

‘How dare you even think my grandson would be up to
no good?’

‘Like his grandad, ain’t he, Beth? Allus after the women.’

At that moment, Ella saw her grandfather appear out of
the cowshed on the other side of the yard. He paused a
moment, looking at the two women in surprise, his eyes
going from one to the other and back again. Then Ella saw
his glance go beyond them and towards the barn where
she was standing. She ducked back, but too late; she knew
he had seen her. Peeping out again, she saw him coming
towards her, skirting the edge of the yard, unobserved by
the two women so totally immersed in their quarrel. In a
moment he stepped inside the barn and came to stand
beside her, putting his arm casually around her shoulders
but keeping partially hidden, looking out cautiously just
like Ella, as if he, too, wanted to watch what was happening,
but not get involved.

‘Grandpa?’

‘Mmm?’ His attention was still on the two women.

‘Grandpa – me and Rob – we weren’t doing anything,
honest.’

For a moment, through the gloom, his keen glance
returned her steady gaze. ‘I believe you, love. But I’m afraid
your grannie never will.’ He jerked his head towards the
arguing women.

‘But why, Grandpa? Why won’t she? I’ve never lied to
her in my life. Not even when I’ve been in trouble. I always
owned up, you know I did. And Rob too. He thinks that
much of her, he’d cut his right arm off before he’d upset
her. She should
know
that.’

Grimly Jonathan said, ‘I don’t even think such a drastic
step as that would convince her. Not in her present mood.’

They fell silent, their attention caught again by the
raised voices.

‘Ya judge everyone by ya own standards, that’s the
trouble with you, Esther.’ Beth Eland’s head nodded vigorously
and her fat chins wobbled. ‘You think no one else
but you can remember things, dun’t ya? That only others
has done wrong. Well . . .’ She thrust her face closer to
Esther. ‘What ’bout you in the war, eh? Carrying on when
ya husband was away fighting?’

Beside her, Ella was sure she felt Jonathan stiffen and
she bit her lip. Was Grandma Eland letting out secrets that
even he didn’t know? Then she frowned. She didn’t think
her grandpa had been in the last war; he’d been too old.
Then what . . .?

‘Oh, aye, trust you to rake up all the past. Why, that’s
years ago.’

‘It’s you can’t let go of the past, Esther Everatt.’

Ella gasped. That name again. She’d heard Grandma
Eland refer to her grandmother by that name before, when
she’d tried to ask questions about Esther’s early life.
Shrewdly, Ella guessed it was the name from their young
days; the name by which Beth had first known Esther. In
her anger, it was the name that came naturally to her lips.

‘Ya can’t forgive and ya can’t forget, can ya? Not ever.’

A memory stirred in Ella’s mind; a fleeting picture of
her mother and her grandmother . . . But then the argument
going on now claimed her attention.

‘You’re a fine one to talk about not forgiving, Beth.
Ya’ve harboured a grudge agin me all me life nearly, just
’cos you reckon I stole ya sweetheart.’

This was something new. Ella stepped forward, eager to
listen, forgetting for a moment just what the quarrel was
about. Then she felt her grandfather’s warning hand on
her shoulder and she glanced up at him.

Did he understand all this? she wondered. Was he being
hurt by the words they were flinging at each other?
‘Grandpa,’ she began, ‘didn’t you ought to stop them.
Maybe . . .’

He was shaking his head, and there was a small smile
on his mouth, yet it was tinged with a sadness. ‘No, love,
leave them be. They’ve been wanting to have a go at each
other for a long time. Years and years this has been
building up. We’d better let them get on with it.’

And get on with it they certainly did, though much of
what they said was a mystery to the listening girl.

‘Well, ya should ’ave kept ya legs crossed,’ Esther
shouted and Ella gasped at her grandmother’s crude
remark. If the scene being played out before her hadn’t
been so awful, it would have been funny.

‘Grandpa, what are they on about?’

But Jonathan pretended he had not heard her puzzled
question. Round and round the quarrel raged in a maelstrom
of emotion, the outpouring of years of bitterness.

‘Ya’re a mean old beezum, Esther Everatt. Work, work
and more work – that’s all you’ve ever known. All ya can
think about is ya precious farm. Ya put it before anybody,
dun’t ya? ’Cept mebbe Jonathan. As for that poor bairn.
Well, me heart fair bleeds for her it does, brought up by
you. You’ve never shown her an ounce of love, ’ave ya?
Just ’cos you was born a bastard . . .’

Ella gasped.

‘. . . and so was she, ya tek it out on her. ’Tain’t ’
er
fault, poor scrap, yet ya blame her, dun’t ya?’

‘Of course I dun’t.’

‘You, of all people, should understand her better than
anyone. You should know how it feels. And yet ya doing
the same to her as was done to you. Ya never let her have
any fun. Ya keep her here working like a skivvy—’

‘Aye, an’ what happens when I do give in and let her go
out? With
your
grandson?’ Esther flung her arm out
towards the barn. ‘A couple of weeks later, I find ’em
rolling in the hayloft. God knows what would have
happened if I hadn’t heard ’em laughing and squealing like
a pair of – a pair of . . .’

‘Yeah, yeah go on, like a pair of what? They were
hardly up to what you’re accusing ’em of if they were
meking a racket. Or do you know summat I don’t, Esther?
Mebbe in ya time, ya’ve learnt summat I ain’t.’ Beth
dropped her voice a little, but Ella’s sharp ears still picked
up her words. ‘After all, we’ve both ’ad two fellers, ain’t
we, Esther Everatt?
An’ we’ve shared one of ’em, ain’t
we?
’

‘Get off my farm, Beth Eland,’ Esther shrieked, ‘and
dun’t ever come back!’

Suddenly, Jonathan moved from Ella’s side, with a
swift, decisive action. He raised his voice. ‘That’s enough
now,’ he said firmly, and walked towards the two women.

They turned startled eyes towards him and Beth’s hand
fluttered to her mouth nervously as if she wished she could
bite back her own words.

But Esther only faced her husband squarely. ‘Listeners
hear no good of themselves. Where is she? Still skulking in
the loft?’

He turned and beckoned to Ella and she moved out of
the barn hesitantly and went to stand beside him. As if to
demonstrate at once to his wife that he was not taking her
part in this quarrel, he put his arm around Ella’s shoulders.

Returning Esther’s stare steadily, he said quietly, ‘Have
you ever known Ella, Rob or – since you seem so intent on
bringing the past into everything – Kate to lie to you?’

Ella heard her grandmother drag in a shocked breath
and Beth, too, gasped.

‘That’s not fair—’ Esther began.

‘Oh no? What you two have been slinging at each other
in the past few minutes is hardly fair. Raking up things
that happened over forty years ago. You could have been
friends, the pair of you;
should
have been friends, but no,
you go on harbouring bitterness down the years and
wrecking other folk’s lives too, because of it. What about
Kate and Danny all those years ago? If only you’d behaved
sensibly and told them the truth from the start then maybe,
just maybe, Kate wouldn’t have gone off and, well . . .’
Ella felt his arm tighten around her ‘. . . done what she
did.’

She looked up at him. This was not the time to ask
questions, but she had plenty of questions she wanted to
ask now, after what she’d been hearing. And ‘by heck’, as
Rob would say, she was going to ask them.

As she had feared, Ella did not see Rob again for days. She
heard him, though. Night after night, she heard his motorbike
roaring down the lane from Rookery Farm and
turning towards the town, the noise echoing through the
night air, growing fainter and fainter. Going away from
her.

Once, in the pale light of evening, she thought she saw,
leaning out of her bedroom window, two figures on his
bike, his passenger with long hair blowing out behind
her.

In stark contrast to all the heated words, her grandmother
now barely spoke to her, only acknowledging her
presence by snapping orders for the work she still expected
Ella to do.

‘Go along with her for a while, Ella love,’ her gentle
grandfather suggested. ‘Do your best to please her.’ He
sighed. ‘You’ll have to prove yourself all over again.’

‘I’m sorry if I’ve caused trouble between the two of
you,’ Ella said in a small voice, genuinely contrite.

Jonathan put his arm about her shoulders as they
walked towards the big barn. ‘Don’t worry yourself about
that. I’ll be in the dog-house for a few days.’ He gave a
deep-throated chuckle as if Esther’s frostiness really didn’t
perturb him very much. ‘It’s not the first time and I don’t
expect it’ll be the last. She’ll come around.’

‘But what did it all mean, Grandpa? When Gran and
Grandma Eland were quarrelling? They sounded as if they
almost hated each other.’

He sighed heavily and murmured, ‘It’s so long ago now,
yet they still harbour bitterness, each about the other.’

‘Why? What was it that happened that was so awful?’

He was silent a moment, seeming torn between the
desire to answer her questions and yet something still held
him back. At his next words she understood.

‘It’s not my place to tell you everything. Really, it
should come from your grannie.’

‘She won’t tell me anything. You know she won’t. It’s
always been “Don’t ask questions that don’t concern you,
Missy”, now hasn’t it?’

‘I’ll tell you a little, if it’ll help,’ he shook his head
slowly, ‘but I really don’t feel I can tell you it all.’ He sat
down on a bale of straw and let out such a deep sigh it
was almost a groan. ‘You do know, don’t you, that I’m
not your real grandfather, that I was your mother’s
stepfather?’

Ella’s eyes widened in horror. ‘Not – my – real –
grandfather? But you must be. You’ve
got
to be!’

He smiled and ruffled her short curly hair as he always
had done when she was younger. ‘Thanks for the vote of
confidence,’ he tried to joke, but Ella was not laughing.

‘Grandpa?’

‘Your gran was married to someone else before me.
Matthew Hilton.’

Ella drew in a breath. ‘But that’s my name.’

‘Of course. You – you know your mother was never
married, don’t you?’

‘Yes, but – but I thought the name I’d got was, well, my
own father’s surname. I never thought it was my mother’s
maiden name.’ There was a pause whilst she continued to
stare at him, her young sixteen-year-old mind trying to
come to terms with the facts. Facts that everyone else had
always known about her, but that she had not fully
understood. ‘Grandpa, do you know who my father was?’

Jonathan shook his head. ‘Your mother would never
say. She never did tell us.’

‘And this Matthew Hilton?’ Now her agile mind was
leaping ahead. ‘Was he Grandma Eland’s sweetheart,
then?’

Jonathan nodded and said hoarsely, ‘So I understand.’

He got up and for a moment stood looking down at
her, sympathy in his eyes. ‘I can understand how you feel,
love. In your shoes, I’d feel very puzzled and mixed-up too.
But it’s your grannie who should explain it all to you. I’ve
been trying to persuade her for years to be more open
about the past. Not to treat it all as if it’s some dark and
dreadful secret.’

‘And is it?’

He shrugged. ‘In her eyes, yes, but in mine, no. It’s just,
well, life. These things happen, but you can’t live in shame
for generation after generation.’

‘And that’s what she’s doing? Hiding the truth from me
because she’s ashamed of what happened?’

He nodded. ‘Something like that.’ As he moved away,
Ella stared after him in disappointment.

‘Grandpa, just tell me one more thing – please?’ He
paused and turned back, waiting for her question.

‘This – this secret, whatever it is, is that why Rob’s
keeping away from me now? Does
he
know?’

‘I think, though I’m only guessing, that he’s staying
away because he doesn’t want to make your grannie any
madder with him than she already is.’

Ella pulled her mouth into a wry twist. ‘Well, I can
believe that,’ she muttered, remembering his admiration
for her grandmother through the years. Esther Godfrey’s
anger would have hurt him more than anything.

‘But as for whether he knows anything, well, maybe his
grandma, or even his dad, might have told him something.’

Ella’s eyes widened. ‘Uncle Danny? Does he know it
all?’

Jonathan turned away again, so that she scarcely heard
his low-voiced, ‘Oh yes, love, Danny knows everything.’

Ella stared after him as he left the barn, his shoulders
stooping. She knew she could ask no more of her grandpa.
Maybe some of these memories her questioning had evoked
were painful for him too. But, just maybe, he had given
her a hint of someone she might be able to persuade into
revealing some of these dark and dreadful secrets.

Several times during the weeks that followed her conversation
with her grandfather, she tried to see Danny, but
it seemed that each time she was thwarted in some way;
most of the time it was because her grandmother would
scarcely let her out of her sight, and on the rare occasions
she was able to scamper across the fields to Rookery Farm,
Danny was not there.

The rest of her summer holidays were spent in backbreaking
labour just to try to please a stubborn old woman
who’d never loved her from the very beginning and Ella
began to question whether it was really worth the effort.