The Fleethaven Trilogy (45 page)

The money was gone.

‘Will,’ she screeched, ‘WILL!’

She stood up again just staring down at the empty box lying open on the bed.

She heard Will come to the bottom of the stairs. ‘Esther lass, what is it? What’s the matter?’

‘Here, Will, come up here!’

‘Aw, lass, it’s not Matthew, is it?’ she heard him say, as he pulled himself up the narrow, steep stairs. As he came through the doorway of the bedroom, she glanced up at him to see his face lined with worry and anxiety at what he was to find.

‘My money, Will, all my money’s gone. Stolen!’ She made a futile gesture towards the box. ‘It was in that box – the one Sam left under the bed. Someone’s been here and – and found it.’

‘Good Lord!’ Will muttered.

‘Who’d so such a thing, Will? Who round here would—?’ Her eyes widened as she whispered, T bet it’s Martha Willoughby and that sister of hers. They’re the only ones who—’

‘Now steady on, lass, steady on. You can’t go accusing people like that. You’ll get ya’sen into trouble. They’d not steal, Esther lass, not them. I know they ain’t no time for you, but nay, they wouldn’t do that.’

She bit back the retort, ‘Aye but they tried to drown me once,’ for Will knew nothing of that.

The fight went out of her and she sank down on the bed. ‘Then who . . .?’

Will shuffled his feet awkwardly and murmured, ‘Esther, lass, where’s Matthew?’

Slowly, Esther lifted her eyes to meet Will’s unhappy gaze.

‘Oh, Will, no . . .’ she began, then she remembered. Only three days ago Matthew had eyed the money in the box as she took out a few precious coins to buy herself a mourning dress for her Aunt Hannah.

Surely, surely he would not . . .?

‘Oh, Will, no!’ she moaned again, and let her head fall forward.

By the time she had done the milking and Will was long gone, there was still no sign of Matthew or of Kate, though Esther had a shrewd idea her daughter would be at the Harrises.

She went to the gate of the farmyard and stood looking up the lane towards the town, watching through the gathering dusk, her mouth set in a grim hard line. The lane was silent and empty.

She sighed and set off towards the Point to fetch Kate home to bed.

‘There you are then, lass,’ Ma Harris’s kindly round face greeted her. ‘Kate’s with the bairns. They’ve gone shrimping in the pools on the beach. Our Enid’s with ’em, they’ll come to no harm. I know it’s past the young un’s bedtime, but I thought you wouldn’t mind this once.’

Esther nodded and, suddenly weary, sat herself down at Ma’s scrubbed kitchen table and dropped her head into her hands.

‘Not been an easy day for you, I ’spect,’ Ma said gently, and the sympathetic tone threatened to overwhelm Esther.

She felt the tears prickle and a lump come into her throat. ‘Oh Ma. It’s just – everything.’

‘I know, lass, I know.’ Ma’s fat hand patted Esther’s shoulder. ‘Funerals aren’t easy at the best of times, and, well, if you ain’t seen yar family – for whatever reason – for a long time, then there’s bound to be – well, awkwardness.’

Esther raised her head and looked up at Ma. How strangely perceptive and wise this simple country woman was, Esther thought. ‘She left me her sewing machine, Ma. Me aunt left me her precious sewing machine.’ Esther shook her head, still uncomprehending.

‘She must have thought summat about ya, then, lass.’

‘To be honest, I can’t take it in yet.’ Esther sighed heavily and added, ‘Then when I get back home, Matthew’s gone . . .’

‘Oh, he’ll be all right, Esther lass. He went off this afternoon as usual with the squire.’

‘Of course,’ Esther murmured, ‘I’d forgotten,’ and added cynically, ‘It’s Friday and nothing – not even doing the milking while I go to me aunt’s funeral – must stand in the way of his Friday jaunts into town with the squire!’

‘Eh, lass, ain’t the milkin’ been done?’

‘It has now, Ma,’ Esther replied grimly.

‘I’m sorry, if we’d known, we could have . . .’

‘No, Ma, it’s not right. Matthew’s quite capable now of doing a bit of milking. He does little enough . . .’

‘Aw but, Esther, he’s a sick man.’

‘Not too sick to go jaunting into town – spending money!’ she finished bitterly.

Ma shook her head. ‘Dun’t be too hard on him. He’s had such a dreadful time,’ Ma pleaded his cause.

Esther opened her mouth to tell Ma Harris about her missing savings and then decided against it. She probably wouldn’t believe it of Matthew.

But Esther did.

It was almost midnight and Esther was still sitting before the dying embers in the range, a shawl huddled about her shoulders, her anger keeping her weary body wide awake and rigidly upright, when she heard the familiar chugging noise of the motor car echoing across the flat fields long before it reached the farmyard gate. Esther pulled herself up, her face set in hard lines of resentment as she opened the back door and went out into the yard. She stood waiting whilst the car swung in at the gate. Instead of stopping to let Matthew alight and then reversing out again, the motor car came right into the middle of the yard before it stopped. The engine died and the headlamps were turned out.

Esther blinked in the sudden blackness, unable to see anything for a few moments after being blinded by the light. Then she saw only one person climbing out of the car – out of the driver’s seat: Matthew.

‘Hello, Esther. Look what I’ve got! Go and get yar bonnet, and I’ll take you for a drive. It’s a car, Esther, I’ve bought a car.’

Matthew must have thought he was back in France under bombardment from the Hun by the time Esther had finished with him.

‘How could you do it? How could you spend all that money on a useless object like a car? Who do you think you are, the next squire? We ain’t in that class, Matthew Hilton. Just because he’s been kind to you since you came back from the war, just because he lost his son and is trying to make up to you because of it, it dun’t put you in his class . . .’

On and on she railed and shouted, stormed and raged.

‘Oh, I know you’ve had it tough in the war – none knows it better than me. But you’re alive – you’re back home with your family. But do you care?’ She flung out her hand to encompass the whole of the land around them. ‘Do you lift a finger to help me? I’ve struggled all that time to keep things going, and looking after you when you came back. You’re getting better now, Matthew. You could help, but you dun’t want to, do ya? You think you’ve done your bit for evermore. Life ain’t stopped, Matthew, it goes on, day after day after day.’

‘Maybe,’ he said quietly, ‘maybe it would have been better if me life had stopped – out there. Ya’d be better off if I had died out there.’

Though she heard the words, she didn’t listen to their meaning – their real meaning – and she retaliated impulsively, ‘Aye, mebbe it would . . .’ Her mouth fell open and she stared at him, stricken with swift: remorse for allowing the cruel words to spurt, unchecked, from her lips.

Even to her own ears, her words, shrill and venomous, had the ominous ring of her Aunt Hannah venting her frustration on the young girl for whom she had grudgingly taken responsibility. In the same way that, deep down, Esther resented the burden of a helpless husband which the war had thrust upon her.

She saw his hands start to shake and his head twitch and her shrill tongue was silenced.

He was struggling to speak, to explain. ‘I just thought the kids – we live a long way from – school – and town. I just thought . . .’

Aye, she might have known, she thought bitterly, his life revolved around Kate and Danny now – and his jaunts into the town with the squire. Jaunts that had resulted in this last act of madness.

Why? She railed, turning her anger inwardly on herself now, rather than on Matthew. Why hadn’t she had the sense to hide her money? Even before the war, he’d hardly shown signs of thrift. He had cajoled her into agreeing to buy the horses. Then he’d come home with a new suit without so much as a by your leave or can we afford it! And that because he had wanted to attend his son’s christening. Now, it was even worse, he was scarcely stable in his mind. What a fool she had been! She should have realized something like this might happen. Esther blamed herself. She was responsible for him. It was like looking after another child. The man she now called her husband bore scarcely any resemblance to the old Matthew. Except, she thought ruefully, when it came to spending money.

His whole body was now convulsed with the shaking and Esther had to put her arm about him and lead him into the house. He dropped into the chair by the range and she knelt down in front of him and took his hands in her strong work-worn grasp. ‘Don’t fret any more. I’m – I’m sorry for the things I said, but – well – you made me mad . . .’

Matthew grinned lopsidedly, but she was relieved to feel the shaking ease a little. Even in the midst of her anger, she had no wish to make him ill again.

‘It’s not a new one, Esther,’ he was saying hesitantly. ‘A chap had it afore the war and – well – he didn’t come back . . .’ He struggled to continue. ‘His widow was – glad of the money.’

Esther said nothing, but wryly she thought, well, I suppose it’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good.

She had the grace to smile at herself. Why did Ma Harris’s sayings always pop into her mind at such times?

She got to her feet and sighed as she did so. ‘Ah, well, Matthew, ’tis done now.’

E
STHER
stood in the middle of the yard, her hands on her hips, watching as the squire drew his motor car to a halt at the gate and climbed down. She kept her face expressionless. When he stood before her, she saw that he had the grace to look shamefaced.

‘Mrs Hilton – Esther – I am sorry. I feel its all my fault . . .’

Tight-lipped, Esther nodded. ‘Not
all
your fault, Squire, but a part – yes.’

He twirled his hat nervously through his fingers. ‘What can I do to make amends, I . . .?’

‘There’s nothing that can be done now, Squire. Matthew’s bought the car – and what’s done’s done.’

The squire spread his hands. ‘He went off on his own, you see, in the market. I lost him completely and when I found him again, he was tipping all this money into this chap’s hands and the deal was done. I couldn’t do anything about it without making Matthew look – well – very foolish in front of a lot of fellows stood around.’ He paused and looked at her keenly. ‘I didn’t want to do that, Esther.’

‘No,’ she said slowly. ‘No, Squire, you couldn’t have done that.’

‘Won’t you let me make amends in some way? Let me pay for part of the motor car. After all . . .’

‘No, certainly not!’ Esther snapped and then remembering just who it was she was talking to, she made a great effort to control her seething anger. ‘I’m sorry, Squire. I know you mean it kindly, but we’ll manage.’

‘Well . . .’

With a supreme effort she forced a smile on to her mouth. ‘Please come in, Squire,’ she now invited, ‘and take a glass of home-made wine with me. I have a nice elderflower just right for the tasting.’

‘Why, thank you, Esther, thank you.’ Mr Marshall actually looked relieved and accepted her offer at once. ‘I’m partial to home-made wine.’ As they went towards the farmhouse he added, ‘Have you ever tasted Mrs Willoughby’s home-made wine?’

Now Esther threw back her head in genuine laughter. ‘Oh, Squire! Does she make it from deadly nightshade, because that’s the only one she’d give me?’

‘Eh? Oh – er – yes, I was forgetting . . .’ He grinned. ‘You’re not exactly bosom friends.’

Again Esther chuckled, though to herself now, to think of the times she had caused Martha Willoughby’s ample bosom to heave in anger, not affection.

‘To be fair,’ she said as she set two glasses on the living-room table and poured out a glass of the clear liquid, ‘we haven’t clashed much of late. She was almost civil to me the last time I went to church.’

Tom had kept his promise, she thought to herself. His wife and Flo were obeying his command.

‘She’s not a bad woman, Esther,’ the squire was saying. ‘Just a bit of a gossip and full of – what shall we say?’ He looked up at her somewhat coyly. ‘Righteous indignation?’

It was in her power to disillusion him, but instead Esther sat down opposite him and, taking a sip from her own glass, said, ‘Aye, well, Squire, I s’pose I did cause a bit of a stir when I came here.’

The squire chuckled. ‘You were a trifle – headstrong, shall we say? And I’ll tell you something else, Esther Hilton.’

‘What’s that, Squire?’

‘This wine’s damned good!’

Across the table they smiled at each other.

Of course Matthew’s new and expensive toy created a lot of interest amongst those at Fleethaven Point. From the adults there was incredulity.

‘Have you gone quite mad, Esther?’ Ma Harris demanded. ‘Did you ought to let him be driving around – in his state? He’ll kill himself – or someone else in that – that – thing!’

‘I’ve told you what I think about it, Ma,’ was Esther’s reply. ‘But there’s not a lot I can do – not without making Matthew look a fool. I dun’t want to do that even though I’m mad as heck at him.’

‘But to spend all yar money on a car, Esther lass.’ Ma Harris shook her head. ‘Eh, what will become of him? Ya’ve got yar work cut out with him, an’ no mistake, Ya’ll ‘ave to keep yar eye on ’im, lass. There’s no telling what he’ll do next!’

Amongst the young people of the small community, however, there was wholehearted approval for ‘Mester Hilton’s motor’. It caused great excitement, and most days would find Matthew at the wheel and the motor car overflowing with children begging a ride. Always in the front seat rode Kate and Danny Eland with beaming faces and lording it over their friends.

Esther could not be persuaded to ride in the motor car, not even to be driven to church.

‘You’re just being plain awkward, Esther,’ Matthew growled. ‘You’re still trying to make me feel bad for taking yar money and buying it.’

Esther pursed her mouth. ‘You know I’m not one for dragging up the past. We had our quarrel about it at the time, so there’s no more to be said. But I can’t bring mesen to perch up there on that great noisy thing. Now if it could pull the plough or drive the threshing drum, then it’d be some use. As it is . . .’ She flung out her hand towards the car standing in the yard, a constant reminder as to where all her hard-earned money had gone and why she was now terrified that the coming harvest would not be a good one.