The Fleethaven Trilogy (53 page)

Kate laughed aloud and scrambled on all-fours to where the wriggling creature lay. She picked up handfuls of straw and wiped the calf.

‘Oh, he’s lovely. Look, Dad, he’s . . .’

At that moment the door of the barn was flung open and her mother stood there. ‘What on earth . . .?’ began Esther Godfrey. Her glance rested briefly on Danny and her mouth tightened noticeably, but she directed her anger at her daughter.

‘Kate! I thought I told you to go to bed. How many times do I have to tell you . . .?’

‘Esther,’ Jonathan’s deep voice interrupted in gentle reproach. ‘The youngsters have been helping me. I couldn’t have managed without them.’

Kate saw her mother open her mouth but at that moment she saw the calf struggling to its feet, and whatever sharp retort she had been about to make was stilled. Then once more her gaze came to rest upon Danny’s head, bowed over the plough line he was looping into a neat coil.

‘Thank you for your help, Danny.’ Her mother’s tone was stiff and unfriendly and as Danny’s head jerked up, Kate saw that there was puzzlement in his dark brown eyes and a red flush of embarrassment creeping up his neck.

Handing the coiled line to Jonathan Godfrey, he nodded briefly to Kate and went towards the door.

Once more Jonathan’s deep voice prompted gently, ‘Esther, the lad saved the calf and probably your cow as well.’

Esther seemed to be struggling with some inner conflict, but as Danny passed by her, she reached out her hand, touched his shoulder briefly and said, ‘I
am
grateful, Danny, really.’

The boy hesitated and, for a moment, stared up at her. Then with a muttered ‘Missus’, he moved on out of the doorway.

As they heard his boots crunching across the cinders in the yard, Esther’s attention came back to Kate. ‘I don’t want you to see so much of Danny from now on, Kate. He’s growing up and come Monday he’ll think of himself as a working man. He’s no longer a boy.’

Kate stared wide-eyed at her mother, her mouth slightly open in shock. Why was her mother behaving so strangely? Danny had always been her friend. He was only a few months older than she was and they had both lived all their young lives at Fleethaven Point.

‘Why have you gone all funny with Danny, Mam? You’ve never stopped us bein’ friends before. I can’t just . . .’

‘Mebbe that’s where I made me mistake – I should have put a stop to it a long time ago!’ her mother muttered, then she raised her voice and added, ‘Dun’t argue with me, Missy, ya’ll do as I say. Now off to bed with ya.’

‘Mam . . .?’ Kate began but her protestations were cut short by Esther flinging her arm out and pointing towards the house.

‘Bed!’

T
he next morning at breakfast, Kate was subdued and silent. Had her mother really meant what she had said about Danny the previous night?

‘Look after Lilian while I get the dairy work done, will ya, Katie?’ her mother asked, bustling between kitchen and pantry where the milk stood waiting in churns. ‘Just wheel her up and down the lane, mind. No sneaking off to the Point.’

So – she had meant it. Kate bit her lip, but decided not to argue – at least, not at present.

‘Can’t I c’lect the eggs, Mam?’ Kate hated wheeling the baby in the black baby car; its handle was too high for her and it was heavy to push on the uneven surface of the lane.

‘Later – when you’ve got the baby to sleep for the morning.’

There was no escape. For the remainder of the Easter holidays, it seemed as if her mother deliberately kept her busy. Collecting eggs, feeding the hens, fetching the cows from the meadow for milking twice a day and running errands – anywhere except to the cottages at the Point. And, of course, wheeling Lilian. The baby’s blue eyes stared resentfully up at her from inside the huge hood of the baby car, the tiny mouth puckered, ready to whimper.

‘Talk to her, Kate,’ her mother would say. ‘It’ll soothe her.’

But Kate could not bring herself to talk to the baby like her mother did. To the young girl it sounded daft!

She had no opportunity to see Danny. Now he had started work and she would soon be back at school, Kate realized there would be even less chance of meeting him.

‘Look sharp,’ her mother shouted from the bottom of the stairs as Kate dressed on the first morning of the new school term. ‘Yar dad’s getting the trap ready to take you.’

Tears threatened as Kate realized afresh that only she needed taking to school now. This morning there would be no Danny appearing on top of the Hump and running down towards Brumbys’ Farm for a ride to school in their trap. There would be no playing their usual game.

‘Go on, Dad, get going. Mek him run. ‘E shouldn’t be late.’

Smiling, Jonathan would flick the reins to make the docile pony inch forward, the animal seeming to know it was all in the game and that he shouldn’t set off too quickly but give the boy a fair chance of catching them.

‘Come on, Danny, faster, faster . . .’ Kate would stand up in the trap shouting back to him, her merry laughter bouncing on the breeze. ‘We’ll leave ya and ya’ll be late an’ get the cane.’ Then she would say to Jonathan, ‘Let him catch us now, Dad, he’s out o’ puff.’

Jonathan would ease back on the reins to halt the pony and the boy would clamber up into the back of the trap, breathless and red in the face, but laughing. Always Danny Eland seemed to have a broad grin on his tanned face.

But this morning there would be no game and no laughter because there would be no Danny.

Kate sat stiff and silent in the trap, looking back down the empty lane. Her gaze took in the flat fields stretching westwards as far as she could see, trees dotted black against the low horizon. The lane wound gently following the natural line of the sand-dunes all the way to the outskirts of Lynthorpe.

Just before they reached the first houses, Jonathan turned the trap to the left and took a lane leading inland. ‘We mustn’t forget to pick Rosie up.’ He smiled down at Kate, but her normally happy face was solemn.

She felt lost without Danny.

When the trap pulled up outside the smithy, however, and little Rosie Maine came running up, Kate’s spirits lifted a little. It was impossible not to be cheered by Rosie – she was such a bright chatter-box, with white-gold bouncing curls, merry blue eyes and a round chubby face that always seemed to be smiling. Jonathan held out his hand and the child climbed up the step into the trap. She flung her arms about Kate’s neck and hugged her hard. Then she sat down and pulled her skimpy dress over her knees. Already, the shapeless shift dress seemed too short for her. Over it, she wore a grey hand-knitted jumper that had been washed so many times, the wool stitches had matted together.

Rosie swung her bare legs and giggled as she pointed at her canvas shoe. ‘Look, me big toe’s poking through. I got a new pair at Easter, but me mam ses I’ll only spoil ’em if I wear ’em for school.’

She wriggled closer to Kate and slipped her hand through the older girl’s arm. ‘Ooh, I ’ave missed you, Kate, these holidays. I didn’t even get down to see me Grannie Harris and to come an’ play with you. Me mam’s been a bit poorly. She’s having another babby, y’know.’

Rosie’s mother was always having another baby, Kate thought. Rosie, at five, already had two younger brothers and now there was another child on the way.

‘She’s been sick ev’ry morning this week, but that’ll go after the first three months,’ the child added, frighteningly knowledgeable for one so young. Rosie paused and looked about her as the trap rattled on. ‘Funny without Danny, in’t it?’

‘Yes,’ Kate mumbled, but could not trust herself to say any more. Rosie was the last person she wanted to see her tears. The child idolized her and Kate loved Rosie as she might a younger sister – more, if she were honest, than she loved her real sister, well, half-sister.

Rosie chattered on. ‘We might be coming to live at the Point, in that cottage that’s empty near me Grannie Harris’s. I’ll like that.’

Jonathan Godfrey looked down at the excited little girl. ‘Your father will still work at the smithy, though, won’t he?’

Rosie’s father, Walter Maine, had been wounded in the war and had lost a leg. When he and Enid Harris from Fleethaven Point had married some six years earlier, Kate had been their bridesmaid, and the newly married couple had made their home in the two small rooms above the smithy where Walter worked.

‘Oh yes.’ The bright curls bobbed as Rosie nodded vigorously in answer to Jonathan’s question. ‘But there bain’t room there for all us lot now, Mester.’

Kate saw the slow smile on her stepfather’s face, and despite her unhappiness at missing Danny, she wanted to smile too. She well knew the cramped conditions the Maine family lived in, even though they had brought it upon themselves by having so many children. But it would be nice to have little Rosie living nearer.

‘You tell your dad and mam that if they want to borrow the horses and a wagon to move, they’d be most welcome.’

The child’s pink cheeks shone and her pretty mouth stretched wide in a grin. ‘Thanks, Mester, I will,’ and as the trap pulled up outside the school gate, Rosie jumped down and was gone, running into the playground.

‘She’s like a little whirlwind,’ Jonathan murmured, and Kate smiled thinly in return.

‘Bye, Dad. See you tonight.’

‘Kate?’ The soft tone made her look back at him. ‘Be careful coming home tonight.’ He paused, as if knowing that what he felt obliged to say would cause her more pain, ‘You – you’ll be on your own when you leave Rosie at the smithy.’

Kate closed her eyes against the tears and swallowed the lump in her throat. Not trusting herself to speak, she nodded, turned and ran into the playground without looking back.

All through the long morning, Kate’s glance kept wandering to the place where Danny used to sit, now occupied by a fat, spotty-faced boy. It gave her a shock every time she glanced across, half-expecting, half-hoping to see Danny, to see instead the ugly boy sitting at Danny’s desk. She didn’t want anyone else sitting in the place that had been Danny’s. She would have preferred it to remain empty rather than that anyone else should sit there. At playtime she sat morosely in the corner of the playground, refusing to join in any of the games, dreading the end of afternoon school when she must face the long walk home alone.

When the bell clanged for the end of the school day, Rosie skipped and hopped at her side, keeping Kate company as far as the smithy, chattering incessantly. Kate made no reply and finally the younger child looked up and said, ‘Kate, a’ya cross with me?’

‘’Course not.’

‘Then what’s the matter?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Yes, there is.’ Rosie danced lightly around Kate. ‘You bin in trouble at school?’

‘No.’

Silence.

They had reached the blacksmith’s, Rosie’s home, but the child grasped Kate’s hand and tugged at it insistently. ‘What, then?’

The pent-up emotion of the last few days and the loneliness of this day burst out. ‘I dun’t want to go away to school. I dun’t even want to go on going to school. I want to work – like Danny. I want to
be
with Danny.’

She saw Rosie’s eyes widen and her mouth open, but Kate snatched her hand away and ran, leaving the child standing in the lane staring after her.

Kate ran and ran until she came to the lane alongside the dunes, but instead of following it, she scrambled up the slope, catching hold of the tough, spiky marram grass, and down the other side. Across the flat marsh, jumping the creeks, frightening a skylark into the air to defend its territory against her pounding feet, until she crested the rise of the easterly dunes and came to the beach. Her heart was pounding as she gulped air, her lungs bursting, but still she forced herself onwards, across the soft, dry sand until she came to the water’s edge where she sank down, sobbing and breathless. She pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapped her arms around her legs and buried her face against her skirt.

The incoming tide came closer, receded and then crept closer still, its waves probing with gentle frothy edges until she became aware of its coldness soaking through her skirts. Sudden anger spurted and she smacked the flat of her palm on the encroaching water, sending a shower of salt water over herself. ‘I won’t be sent away. I won’t go – I won’t!’ Now the tears that she had kept locked inside all day long spilled over.

The sea retreated but came again; a stronger, bigger wave catching her unawares so that she lost her balance and fell backwards into the shallows. Soaked to her skin, Kate scrambled to her feet. Sobbing, the sea-water squelching in her shoes, she began to run.

‘Why, lovey, you’re wet through!’ Beth Eland reached out with gentle hands and pulled Kate into her warm kitchen. ‘Whatever happened? Did ya fall in a creek?’

Kate sniffled and shook her head as she allowed herself to be led towards the rickety wooden chair set before the glowing range. A log settled in the grate sending up a welcoming shower of sparks.

Kate hesitated before she sat down, glancing up at Danny’s mother. As if reading the girl’s thoughts, the woman smiled gently and said, ‘Go on, Mester Eland won’t mind you sitting in his chair this once. Now, off with these wet things.’

Mrs Eland slipped the shawl off her own shoulders and wrapped it round Kate. ‘I’ll rinse ya pinny out and hang it on the line, else that mud’ll stain it. Eh, dearie me, even ya shimmy’s wet through.’

She took Kate’s salt-stained clothes to the deep white sink under the window and worked the handle of the pump. Water splashed into the sink.

‘I dun’t know how I’m to get these dry in time for you to go home, Katie,’ Mrs Eland murmured worriedly, taking an enamel jug from a shelf of pots and pans running along one wall and coming back to the range to ladle hot water from the side boiler.

Kate, her teeth chattering, held out her hands to the log fire, and wriggled her toes into the worn peg rug that covered the hearth. She felt the woman’s anxious glance on her.

‘Eh, ya shivering. I’ll just get these clothes in to steep and I’ll make you some hot milk with a spoon of honey in it.’