by Jenny Holmes
And now she had to face the most important farewell of her life so far, to her new fiancé as he set off for Greenock, into a future so uncertain that it didn’t bear thinking about.
How will I get through this? she asked herself as she rode her motor bike over the moors, her stomach churning at the prospect. I only hope I don’t do or say anything stupid. Then she berated herself for not putting Les first. Imagine how he must be feeling right this minute. His bag is packed and he’s leaving his old life behind for who knows how long. He has to say goodbye to everything he’s ever known: his home and the dale he’s lived in since he was born, not to mention his father, brother and dragon-sister. And me.
Without being aware of it, she eased off the throttle and dawdled along the final stretch of road, gritting her teeth as the grand old house came into view.
Dale End sat in the valley, bathed in mid-morning sun, its weathered stone making it seem a part of the natural landscape. Behind the mansion stood vast, newly built barns that housed the family’s farm machinery and beyond them a river snaked peacefully through green fields where sheep and cattle grazed. It was a way of life that had gone on for ever, disrupted now by the demands of war.
And here’s me, a newcomer, also doing my best to rock the boat. Brenda had a sudden glimpse of what Hettie must think of her. She probably had a nice, settled girl from the village lined up for Les; someone who would make a steady farmer’s wife, not a shop girl from a smoky mill town who happens to have seen a bit of the world and has a different notion of what she wants out of life.
The idea didn’t make her feel any more confident as she turned into the drive and saw Hettie standing in the doorway talking to Arnold and Donald.
‘Look out, here comes trouble,’ Donald quipped as Brenda pulled up and killed her engine. Two shotguns were propped against the stone pillar and he swung three dead rabbits in her direction, only narrowly missing her as she came up the steps.
‘Give me those,’ Arnold barked at him before disappearing round the side of the house.
Hettie tutted. ‘You and Dad were cutting it fine,’ she muttered at Donald while staring steadily at Brenda. ‘Les has to leave for the train station in fifteen minutes. A taxi is due at half twelve.’
‘That gives us all plenty of time to say our fond farewells, eh, Brenda?’
She shrank back under Donald’s gaze then briskly took herself in hand. ‘Has Les told you our news?’ she asked Hettie as she brushed past Donald and entered the hallway. Les was on the landing at the top of the stairs, suitcase at the ready. ‘Have you?’ she called up to him.
He dropped the case and took the stairs two at a time. ‘Have I what?’
‘Announced our engagement.’ She slid an arm around his waist to await the response.
Hettie stepped in quickly. ‘Of course he has; he did it over breakfast.’
‘And didn’t he make a meal of it!’ Shaking his head in amusement, Donald sauntered into the study. ‘Dad practically choked on his toast and marmalade.’
Hettie nodded towards the study. ‘Go in and say your goodbyes while I have a word with your fiancée,’ she told Les as she drew Brenda into the sitting room.
Here they come: the dire warnings, the downright disapproval, the refusal to let it go ahead. Standing with her back to the French doors, Brenda steeled herself once more.
But Hettie surprised her. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to ask you to break the engagement. Les has made his choice and that’s that.’
‘Oh, I thought—’
‘It doesn’t matter what you thought – or what I or anyone else thinks, for that matter.’ Hettie folded her arms and eyed Brenda calmly. ‘What matters is that Les is happy. And he is. Any fool can see that.’
Brenda gave a sigh of relief. ‘You’re probably of the opinion that it’s happened too fast, though.’
‘Like I said, that’s not the point. And we all know everything is different these days. So I’ll say this quickly before I leave you two to say whatever you have to say.’
Brenda met Hettie’s gaze but she still felt a tightness in her chest.
‘It’s this: you have to promise me to do right by Les while he’s away.’
‘What do you mean?’ Brenda’s eyes widened and a spurt of anger forced its way out. ‘Of course I’ll do right by him. I’ve said I’ll marry him, haven’t I?’
‘It won’t be a case of out of sight out of mind?’
‘No! What do you think I am?’
‘Stop a second. I’d say the same to any girl, so don’t think that I’m getting at you in particular.’
‘Of course you are. You’ve already made it quite plain that you believed the nasty rumours about me and I’ve told you that you’d no right to say them to my face.’
‘Listen to me. I’m sorry I did that. I’ve been mulling things over since then and gone back over the dealings I’ve had with you. So now I’m sticking my neck out and backing this engagement of yours.’
‘That’s good of you!’
‘No need to be sarcastic.’ Hettie sighed and started to back towards the door. ‘Put yourself in my position. I’m only doing my best for my brother. When push comes to shove, I can learn to like you, Brenda. And I hope you and Les will be very happy.’
‘You hear that?’ Les cried as he burst through the half-closed door and immediately scooped Brenda into his arms. ‘We have my sister’s blessing; that’s quite something.’
Hettie closed the door behind her as she left.
‘What about your father?’
‘Dad will take his lead from her.’ Les lowered his voice and held her tight. He put his cheek against hers and waltzed her slowly round the silent room until they came to the doors out into the garden. ‘I can practically hear the seconds ticking away,’ he whispered. The sun fell on Brenda’s smooth, dark hair, streaking it with strands of rich chestnut. Her dress felt light and silky as it brushed against his legs.
‘I wish—’
His kiss stopped her. But yes, the clock was ticking and he had more to say. ‘You wish what?’
‘That you didn’t have to go. I know you have to, but I wish we had longer.’
‘I’ll write as soon as I can,’ he promised. ‘And before I go, I want you to have this.’
Brenda watched him dip his hand into his pocket and draw out a small, dark blue velvet box. He flipped the lid open with his thumb and she saw a cream silk lining. When he tilted the box towards her, she gasped.
He took the ring out of its silk nest and held it out. ‘This was Mother’s engagement ring. She left her wedding ring to Donald and this one came to me.’
‘Oh no, I can’t take it!’ A big sapphire surrounded by small diamonds, exquisite jewels set in rose gold.
‘Wear it for me while I’m away.’
‘No, I can’t.’
‘Please.’ Taking her left hand, he slid the ring on her finger. ‘Make this do for now. I’ll buy you a new one as soon as I get the chance.’
‘It’s not that. This is too beautiful, too precious.’ It sat snug on her finger, sparkling in the light. It didn’t belong.
But Les kissed her again and made her agree.
‘All right, but I won’t be able to wear it every day.’ The ring was real. Wedding bells sounded faintly in her head.
There was a knock on the door. ‘The taxi’s here,’ Hettie’s muffled voice announced.
‘Let me come with you to the station,’ Brenda pleaded on impulse.
‘No, I’d rather say our goodbyes here in private.’
Les held Brenda tight for a few seconds more then released her. Before she knew it, he was gone and she was left with the sun streaming in and the ring glittering brightly on the third finger of her left hand.
The days and nights of living like a tramp had brought Alfie lower than ever before. It beat even his time on the run before he went to prison, when at least he’d been able to hole up in a disused barge on the Millwood canal with enough food to see
him through. He’d had high hopes of escaping justice, until Maureen, his former wife, had dropped a hint to the coppers and they’d eventually hunted him down and thrown him in the clink for armed robbery. But out in the country there were no handy bakeries or grocer’s to break into, no mazes of terraced streets to throw pursuers off the trail. Here there were only wide-open expanses and farmers with shotguns. And besides, it hurt like hell every time he moved.
In some ways, the rib was the least of his problems. The last visit to Brigg Farm hadn’t produced the desired result, thanks to the little Land Girl with the fair hair and forget-me-not blue eyes who had turned out to be tougher than she looked. If it hadn’t been for her making a fuss, Alfie would have squeezed the seventy-five quid out of Neville, no bother. That pipsqueak had conned them all out of the money, Moyes and Nixon included. Without a shadow of a doubt Neville had it stashed away but even a beating from the two experts hadn’t convinced him to give it up. After that they’d turned on Alfie and kicked him half to death. And that hadn’t been the end of it; they’d cursed at him and given him forty-eight hours to stump up the cash. Alfie had done a deal to find them thirty quid as a first instalment and hand over the rest a week later – a hard-driven bargain that Moyes and Nixon had been forced to accept. The problem was, unless Alfie could prise the seventy-five out of Neville, he had only the eleven pounds plus loose change from Fieldhead to his name, plus the Kelletts’ five pounds, leaving him well short of the required thirty. And so he’d stumbled away from Brigg Farm to find shelter where he could, in ditch and barn, wherever he ran the least risk of being spotted.
By Sunday he’d made it as far as Winsill Edge but he was growing desperate. His clothes were in a filthy state from when he’d slid down the bank of a stream into muddy water. All he’d had to eat for three days were scraps thrown down for the pig at Henry Rowson’s place and, first thing that morning, raw eggs stolen from the hen farm. In constant fear of Moyes and Nixon’s return, Alfie had steered clear of the roads and used back lanes instead, ready to jump into a ditch or crouch down behind a hedge at the sound of any approaching car.
But now exhaustion and hunger made him desperate. He needed somewhere safer to hole up until his rib healed, a place where he wouldn’t be discovered and where he might gain access to a better supply of food. Hunkered down behind some straw bales shoved up against the back of the hen hut, well out of sight of the farmhouse, he eyed a few stray hens pecking at seeds in the long grass, racking his brains and discounting first this hiding place then that.
The sound of thick, chesty coughing and of footsteps shuffling towards the hen hut and opening the door brought Alfie back to the here and now. He ducked down low as hens squawked and flapped, running into the yard from all directions towards the hut and a night’s safe roosting. Eventually the door slammed and the squawking died down. The coughing faded. Alfie’s strength was almost spent but he managed to shift a couple of bales to form a windbreak around him. This would have to do for the night, he told himself. Tomorrow he would move on and find somewhere more permanent, wherever that might be.
‘Have you seen Poppy anywhere?’ Joyce had looked all over the hostel. The last place she tried was the kitchen, where she found Kathleen and Elsie on their hands and knees scrubbing the floor as a favour to Hilda. There was a strong smell of carbolic soap and the brisk swish of bristle over flagstones.
Elsie glanced up. ‘Not lately – why?’
‘She skipped dinner and she’s not in our room. I’m wondering where she’s got to.’
Kathleen raised a greenish-white lather by scrubbing methodically in a circular motion. ‘Have you asked Doreen?’
‘Yes, but she was no use. She kept her head stuck in her magazine.’
Elsie rested on her heels to think back through the day. ‘Was Poppy at church this morning? I can’t remember.’
‘She was. She had a ride back in the van with me and Jean. That’s the last I saw of her.’ Joyce was genuinely worried. ‘She’s been looking peaky and down in the mouth all weekend. I hope she’s all right.’
‘Is she going down with something?’ Kathleen wondered.
‘I don’t think it’s that. It looked to me as if she had something on her mind, poor lamb.’
‘Perhaps she’s missing home.’ Elsie wrung out a dripping floor cloth then wiped up a patch of suds.
‘Or else there’s a boy in the picture,’ Kathleen suggested.
Joyce was about to leave them to their scrubbing when she happened to glance through the window and saw the very person she was looking for.
‘Sorry, girls,’ she said as she tiptoed hastily across the wet floor. ‘I’ve just spotted her.’
She ran out through the back door and caught up with Poppy in the vegetable garden. ‘There you are – at last!’
‘Hello, Joyce.’ Standing in the shade of the cherry tree, dressed in blouse and skirt, with her arms folded tight across her chest, Poppy tried not to look as if she’d just been crying.
Joyce wasn’t fooled. ‘What’s up, love?’
‘Nothing.’
‘It doesn’t look like nothing to me.’
‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘All right, I won’t ask. But come for a walk with me anyway.’ Sliding her arm through Poppy’s, she strolled with her past the gate into the wood. ‘Aren’t you starving after missing dinner? I know I would be.’
‘I wasn’t hungry.’ Poppy had struggled through the weekend, unable to get Neville’s secret store of banknotes out of her mind. Saturday morning had been manageable because helping Doreen and Elsie to herd Henry Rowson’s sheep and lambs off the fell had kept her busy. The afternoon had seen her wandering into the village under orders from Mrs Craven to deliver a batch of newly laundered tea towels to the Institute. But she’d turned round when she’d reached the signpost at the junction and retraced her steps without ever completing her mission. In the evening she’d stayed quietly in her room but Neville’s desperate plea had replayed itself inside her head like a gramophone needle stuck in a groove. Can you tell me what to do now? Because I honestly don’t have a clue.
She’d had no answer then and none late on Saturday night as she sat on her bed darning the heels of her work socks. She could have said, ‘Give the money back to Alfie right now, this minute!’ or, ‘Tell your dad what you’ve done, tell him everything!’ But she hadn’t; she’d remained shocked and silent, staring at Neville’s bruised face for a full thirty seconds before turning tail and fleeing. She hadn’t looked back, just grabbed her bike and cycled off, praying hard that Alfie wasn’t lying in wait somewhere and only catching her breath once she was safely down the hill and coasting through the village. By the time she’d arrived at Fieldhead, she’d convinced herself that her best course of action was to say nothing to anyone. Silence: that was the answer.
She kept her resolution at breakfast on Sunday and afterwards at church, but then the effort became too much. If she stayed one more minute in the company of other people, she would blurt out the truth about what she’d seen. Neville’s stolen Alfie’s money! It wasn’t really Alfie’s to begin with. Now he doesn’t know what to do. She might say it to anyone: to Doreen stretched out on her bed reading a magazine, to Mrs Craven as she wheeled the dinner trolley along the kitchen corridor and now to Joyce who had collared her in the vegetable garden.
There was no wind. The wood was calm and peaceful. You could lose yourself amongst the tall trunks and spreading branches.
‘It feels good to stretch my legs and get a breath of fresh air,’ Joyce commented. ‘I’ve been cooped up most of the afternoon, composing a letter to Edgar. His leave finished yesterday.’
‘That’s a shame. I didn’t realize.’
‘We didn’t make a song and dance. But I will miss him.’ More than she could say.
‘Neville’s got himself into a hole.’ The words spouted from Poppy’s mouth like rain spilling from a gutter. ‘He’s stolen some money.’
‘You don’t say!’ Joyce stopped in her tracks.
Poppy drew a deep, jagged breath. ‘He showed it to me on Friday. It was in a tea caddy on the top shelf.’
‘What money?’ It took Joyce only a few seconds to see where this was going. ‘It couldn’t be connected to the burglary last Sunday, by any chance?’
The cat was out of the bag. There was no putting it back. ‘I don’t think so. There was much more than eleven pounds and some silver – lots of five-pound notes – seventy-five pounds altogether.’
Joyce shook her head. ‘Neville, of all people!’
‘But Neville didn’t steal it. He found all the money hidden in the hayloft, amongst the boxes that belonged to Alfie. Only it seems Alfie didn’t really own the boxes … or the seventy-five pounds, as it turns out …’
‘Stop!’ Joyce put up her hands in dismay. ‘Have you told anybody else about this?’
Poppy shook her head. ‘You’re the first. What’ll happen now? Will I get into trouble?’
‘What?’ There seemed to be much more to this than Joyce had thought. Poppy was petrified for a start, trembling all over and looking around as if she expected to be pounced on at any moment. ‘No, of course not. But if the cash isn’t Neville’s and it isn’t Alfie’s either, who on earth does it belong to?’
‘The two men who … I don’t know. There are some men Alfie knows.’
Joyce sucked air in through her teeth as she tried to connect the threads. Neville was in wrongful possession of some ill-gotten gains that had something to do with Alfie Craven and something to do with two other men. Word was all around the village that Neville had taken a mysterious beating. Alfie had disappeared from Home Farm and hadn’t been seen for days.
‘Come on!’ She turned Poppy around and walked her back towards the house. ‘Doreen knows more about this than she’s been letting on. We need to talk to her.’
They found her still in their room, the magazine closed, her dress lying crumpled on the floor, sitting on the bed in her underwear and subjecting her reflection to close inspection in a small handbag mirror. She scarcely looked up as Joyce and Poppy burst into the room.