Daughter of the River

by Daughter of the River (retail) (epub)

  Maddy could not help hearing the conversation. Although she felt a twinge of sympathy for Henry Beer who had been the village fiddler since anyone could remember, she was pleased to think that Patrick was getting a chance to earn extra money.

  To her surprise he was waiting for her outside the church.

  ‘I’ve been wondering how you’re getting on with Great Expectations’ he said.

  An expression of awe spread across her face. ‘Tis a brave story and no mistake. After the first page or so I didn’t seem to notice the long words. I be most grateful to you for letting me read un.’

  ‘I’m glad you are enjoying it.’ Patrick showed signs of wanting to talk more, but Maddy could not stay.

  ‘I can’t linger,’ she said reluctantly. ‘Else the dinner’ll dry up. I thought your playing were grand this morning. It were a real treat.’

  ‘Some day, when we get the chance, I’ll play just for you again,’ he said. ‘Exactly as I did that very first day.’

  ‘I remembers. And my, did I feel foolish!’ Maddy smiled at the memory.

  ‘You won’t feel foolish next time, will you?’

  Maddy shook her head. ‘I knows better now.’

  ‘Then farewell until our next meeting.’

  Maddy set off for home feeling inordinately happy, an emotion that was not the least bit dimmed by the glowering expressions her brothers had given her as they passed on their way to one or other of the inns. She did not care. She would talk to whomsoever she pleased.

  This new-found freedom did not extend to Cal Whitcomb, however. He, too, had been in church, and he passed her on the road, driving his mother in their neat gig. They did not acknowledge one another in the slightest. They had spoken once, and that was tempting providence quite enough for one lifetime!

  * * *

  ‘I hears as your lot’s been stirring things up,’ Annie informed Maddy one morning during the week.

  ‘What they done now?’

  ‘Causing a rumpus up to the Church House. Took exception to that friend of yourn playing his fiddle and threatened to smash it over his head.’

  ‘They didn’t, did they?’ Maddy asked in alarm.

  ‘Didn’t get no chance. The other folks at the inn was on them like a ton of bricks for spoiling the music. My, the fists and feet was flying, by all accounts. Didn’t they say naught when they come home?’

  ‘Not them.’ Now she recalled it, they had been a bit sheepish. They had also sported an assortment of bruises among them, but that was nothing out of the ordinary.

  ‘Some say as Sam Watkins, down to the Victoria and Albert, have paid them to start a fight up to the Church House, because he’m losing trade.’

  ‘Not my lot!’ Maddy shook her head emphatically. ‘They don’t need paying to cause trouble, they’m happy to do un for free.’ She knew beyond any doubt that her brothers had not caused the fight to aid the rival inn. It was Patrick they had been after.

  She heaved a sigh. Nothing had changed. Then she reconsidered. Things were different – she had changed. And she was not prepared to let her brothers’ bullying come between her and Patrick. Through no fault of their own they had ruined one love in her life; they could not be allowed to ruin another deliberately…

  She took in a deep breath, suddenly conscious of what she had been thinking. She had admitted it; although she scarcely knew him, she was falling in love with Patrick. It was quite an admission.

  There was no future in it for her, even if he cared for her – which she doubted. Such a love could not come to anything because she was not free, despite her recent threats to her family. But that did not matter; she would cherish this love while she could and just live for the moment. It would be worth it.

  Chapter Four

  Davie entered the cottage like a whirlwind. ‘What be there to eat?’ he demanded, flinging himself on the settle in a tangle of lanky adolescent limbs. ‘I be that starved my belly be stuck to my backbone.’

  ‘The day you come in not starved be the day we orders your coffin,’ said Maddy. ‘Wash your hands and come to table.’

  The order to wash hands would have been ignored if Maddy had not enforced her words with a prod from the wooden spoon she was holding.

  ‘Aw, I don’t have no need to wash, I habn’t been nowhere dirty,’ complained Davie, heading for the bowl of water nevertheless.

  ‘You habn’t been nowhere clean, neither, by the looks of you,’ commented his sister. ‘What’ve you been up to? Us’ve been waiting supper for you.’

  ‘Down mill, larking about,’ said Davie sitting down, his hands marginally cleaner than before. ’Us haven’t half had some laughs. Daft Biddy came along looking for her childer, as usual, and for a joke I told her we’d seen them up Byter Mill. My, did her go! Her were like a bullet from – Ow!’ he yelled as Maddy delivered him a sharp slap on the cheek. ‘What were that for?’

  ‘That were for tormenting a poor soul who’m enough to contend with,’ declared Maddy angrily. ‘Don’t you think her’m suffering enough without you baiting her for your own sport?’

  ‘I weren’t the only one,’ protested Davie.

  ‘No, but you were the one as told her that lie. I suppose the others put you up to un.’ Then seeing his shamefaced look, she spoke more calmly. ‘Oh, Davie, when will you ever learn? You’m always letting folk egg you on. If they habn’t got the stomach to do something themselves, they gets you to do it.’

  ‘For goodness’ sake stop getting on at the boy and let’s eat,’ complained Bart. ‘I don’t see what you’m fussing about, anyway.’

  ‘Don’t you?’ demanded Maddy. ‘You don’t see naught wrong with teasing an unfortunate woman who’m already suffered so much it have turned her brain? Well, I do! I knows Davie didn’t mean to be cruel, he wadn’t brought up that way – he just don’t think. That’s what I were on at him for.’

  ‘A lot of fuss about a daft fool,’ Bart muttered. ‘Be us going to eat tonight or bain’t us?’

  There was more Maddy could have said on the subject, but she held her tongue, turning her attention to cutting the bread. Davie’s problem was that he always mixed with lads older than himself. He was so eager to be considered his friends’ equal that he was ripe for any mischief anyone cared to suggest. All too often he was the one who was caught and punished, but it did not deter him.

  Basically he was a good-hearted boy and it hurt Maddy to see him behaving so stupidly. She always felt that a firmer discipline than hers might have made a difference; but if Jack had any qualms about the way his youngest son’s character was developing he did nothing about it.

  Later that evening, when the others were out of earshot, Davie came up to her and said quietly, ‘I wish I hadn’t said that to old Biddy. It must’ve got her hopes up, mustn’t it? Her’d have been terrible upset not to find her childer.’

  ‘Now I thinks on it I wonders if you made much difference to the poor soul,’ replied Maddy gently. ‘Her’m that confused in her head there idn’t no telling what affects her and what don’t.’

  ‘It would’ve been better if I hadn’t said naught, though, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘It would,’ Maddy agreed. ‘If you’d just think first afore you does these things. You’m idn’t stupid, you habn’t got that excuse.’

  ‘I don’t know why I does them.’ Davie shook his head regretfully. ‘Afterwards I realises how daft I were. Perhaps I’ll grow out of un.’

  ‘Perhaps you will,’ said Maddy, suppressing a smile, then, because he looked so woebegone, she gave him a hug. ‘Of course you’m going to grow out of un. Starting tomorrow.’

  Davie responded to her embrace and gave a quick grin, but he did not look very hopeful.

  Lack of belief in himself, that was Davie’s trouble. Maddy could sympathise with him. She had felt exactly the same way before she had met Patrick. It was extraordinary how meeting him had made such a difference in her life.

  During the last few weeks the unthinkable had happened. She
had begun to see Patrick quite regularly. At first it had been accidental, and he would greet her with that radiant smile of his and say, ‘Why, Miss Maddy, how do we always come to the same place at the same time? It’s quite uncanny.’

  Gradually the accidental meetings had become deliberate. They were not walking out together, Maddy was quite firm with herself on that point. They simply met sometimes to talk. And how she loved to hear Patrick talk. There did not seem to be a single subject he was not knowledgeable about and could make fascinating. She was learning new things, seeing with new eyes. Sometimes she felt her brain was like a rusty old clock that, having seized up, was slowly grinding back into working order once more. It was as if her whole world was gradually expanding, and all because of Patrick.

  One aspect of her widening world had come to an end. In spite of reading as slowly as she could to prolong the enjoyment, she had eventually finished Great Expectations. She handed it back to Patrick with thanks and a great sense of loss.

  ‘It were a grand story, I loved every bit of un,’ she said, ‘even though I were terrified of un getting spoiled or damaged or something.’

  ‘There was no need to be so worried. It’s only a secondhand copy I bought for a few pence.’

  ‘Idn’t books terrible expensive, then?’

  ‘Not necessarily. You can often pick up bargains if you don’t mind a copy that is rather tattered. Just make sure that the pages are intact.’

  A bargain was something that Maddy understood very well. She began to consider the exciting possibility that if she saved a few pennies from her egg money and what she got from the garden produce she might be able to buy herself a book.

  While she was savouring this wonderful notion, a gust of wind caught her cotton sunbonnet. Only the string tied about her throat prevented it from blowing away completely. It dangled at the back of her head, leaving her wild hair to blow about in unruly confusion, her hairpins flying out in all directions.

  ‘Oh darn!’ she exclaimed irritably. ‘I be going to have to go home looking a proper scarecrow.’

  Rummaging hopefully through the grass, she retrieved one or two pins and the boxwood comb that was her single ornament. She was about to scoop her hair back from her face, twisting it in an attempt to get it under some sort of control, when Patrick put out a restraining hand.

  ‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘Please don’t.’

  She looked at him in surprise. The expression on his face was one of frank admiration.

  ‘Magnificent,’ he murmured. ‘Truly magnificent.’

  ‘What be?’ she asked.

  ‘Your hair.’

  ‘My hair? You’m joking.’

  He ignored her comment. ‘Such a superb colour, like ripe corn in the sun. Do you know what you remind me of, sitting there, your hair blowing free? A mermaid. With your wild locks and your incredible sea-green eyes you might be a mythical creature emerging from the sea to lure some poor sailor to his doom. Tresses like yours should not be brought under control. They should be free as the breeze and the roaring ocean.’

  Maddy did not laugh at his mad fancies, she was too fascinated by them. The gentle caressing of his fingers through her hair was beginning to have a mesmeric effect.

  ‘But perhaps I was wrong.’ He was looking at her critically, almost impersonally. Then suddenly he lifted two thick strands from her temples, and with a ‘Yes, that’s it!’ swept them softly away from her face, fastening them, she knew not how, behind her head. The rest of her hair still hung down her back and with deft movements he spread it about her shoulders in a wild riot of tight waves.

  ‘Oh yes!’ He breathed the words with utter satisfaction. ‘You are no longer the mermaid, you are a damsel from an ancient time. With your disordered tresses you might be looking at me out of some medieval tapestry.’

  Maddy did not dare to speak. There was a rapt absorption about him as he viewed her rearranged hair that made her reluctant to break the spell. Tentatively she put a hand up to her head to feel what he had done, but he gently stopped her.

  ‘Don’t spoil the effect,’ he said softly. ‘Do you know, in London at this minute there are famous artists who would fight one another for the privilege of painting you exactly as you are.’

  Maddy did not know how to reply. She thought she was used to Patrick and his fancy talk, but this was different. There was an intensity about his words which stirred her emotions.

  ‘What, sitting here in a field with my dusty boots?’ she asked at last, to break the awkward silence.

  ‘Yes, field, dusty boots and all. And with your hair about you in a glorious golden aura. I can think of a name for such a painting of you at this moment: “The Rustic Damozel”. That would be perfect.’

  Maddy did not know what an aura was, or a rustic damozel, but it did not matter. Before she could ask for an explanation he leaned forward and kissed her.

  For Maddy it was like an explosion of light within her. She had been kissed before, in the far off days when Rob Bradworthy had courted her, but his robust smacks had been nothing like this. In Patrick’s kiss there was gentleness and promise of a passion that went far beyond her comprehension.

  ‘There, I would not have dared take such a liberty with the wild sea creature.’ Patrick caressed her cheek with his fingers. ‘But I fancy my gentle damozel will be more forgiving. You did not mind?’

  Past speech, Maddy shook her head.

  ‘Good.’ Patrick drew her close and kissed her again. Perhaps she should have resisted, it would have been the proper thing to do, but Maddy could no more have pushed him away than she could have flown with the birds in the sky. She responded, matching warmth with warmth. Only gradually did reality intrude and she eventually broke away.

  ‘Us… us shouldn’t have done that,’ she said breathlessly.

  ‘You are having regrets?’ He looked concerned.

  ‘No.’ She shook her head and a slow smile of happiness spread across her face. ‘I said us shouldn’t have done it. I didn’t say naught about being sorry.’

  He threw back his head and laughed, his white teeth gleaming in the sun.

  ‘Oh, Maddy, you are so much better than any picture,’ he said. ‘No painted rural damozel would be blessed with such honesty and humour. But what are you doing?’ he finished with a cry of alarm as her hands went up to her hair once more. ‘You can’t spoil my handiwork.’

  ‘I’ve got to go home and I can’t be seen like this,’ she pointed out. ‘What’d folks think?’

  ‘I suppose you’re right,’ he agreed reluctantly. ‘Here, let me do it.’ He gathered together the hair that was strewn across her shoulders and somehow twisted it into a knot at the nape of her neck. It felt softer than her usual scraped-back style, yet comfortably secure. Patrick nodded at her with approval. ‘Not quite as delightful as my wild mermaid or my rural damozel, but those creatures are for my eyes alone. As you are now will do very creditably for other people.’

  Maddy did not feel as if she walked home; she floated. She felt quite unlike the dull boring Maddy she had always envisaged herself to be. She was now a woman capable of love and, miraculously, worth loving. When she reached home she was glad that neither Annie nor Elsie Crowther were about. She felt that her new being was too recent and delicate to bear scrutiny just yet.

  Gazing in the mirror, she could barely recognise the reflection which stared back. She had never noticed before that her hair was indeed the colour of ripe wheat, she had always been more concerned about its wiriness. With the way Patrick had arranged it, its wildness had somehow been tamed into waves. Riotous waves it was true, but very pleasing ones nevertheless. With the softer style, her cheekbones were no longer gaunt and bony, as she had always thought, but more rounded, and in turn it emphasised the colour of her eyes. The face looking back at her was a long way from the doll-like features so fashionable at the moment; it was striking, unique, a face that was ageless in its beauty.

  ‘You’m certainly something different,’ she
informed herself. ‘I idn’t quite sure what, but it be a great improvement on what you was before.’

  It was inevitable that those about her would notice the change in her – the outward change, at least. Her brothers’ reactions were, ‘What you’m done up like a dog’s dinner for?’ while Annie’s gentler comments were, ‘My, what a change – but it suits you,’ said with a twinkle in her eye.

  Maddy was certain that not even the ever-observant Annie could truly perceive the changes that were happening inside her.

  ‘I knows now how a butterfly feels when it gets out of one of they chrysalises,’ she told Patrick. ‘’Tis like being a completely different creature.’ Then she felt embarrassed at having expressed such a flight of fancy.

  But although Patrick laughed at her, it was with pleasure, not ridicule. ‘Are you happy at the change? That’s the main thing,’ he said.

  ‘Oh yes.’ Two words had never been spoken with such sincerity.

  ‘Then we must mark the occasion. I have the ideal gift for you.’

  ‘A gift for me?’ Maddy was surprised and pleased.

  ‘Yes, it is something very old.’ From his pocket he drew a small wash-leather bag. Inside was a silver ring embossed with a mask of a man with two faces.

  ‘He’s not a very handsome chap,’ said Patrick. ‘But he doesn’t need to be because he is a god. The old Romans worshipped him and called him Janus. He gave his name to the month of January. Looking in two directions as he does, the Romans made him their god of beginnings and endings. That is why I am giving him to you, to symbolise the beginning of the new Maddy. May she be happier than the old one, though she could not be more delightful.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Maddy’s fingers flexed over the gift in a gesture of pleasure. ‘I habn’t never had naught like this before.’

  ‘Nor are you likely to have, it is really ancient. Older than the church, or the village yew tree, or anything I can think of.’

  ‘Oh…’ Maddy was impressed by such antiquity. But when she said fervently, ‘I’ll treasure this always,’ it was because Patrick had given her the ring, not because of its age. ‘I’ll put un on a ribbon and wear un round my neck,’ she said.