‘I have.’
Mrs Ellis did not take her eyes from the road as she shifted the gear lever and eased the car forward. ‘Is it Kath’s?’
A slight pause while Meg thought through her line of approach. ‘Everyone thinks she’s mine.’
‘She?’
‘Melissa. Effie has started calling her Lissa and I’m afraid we’ve all picked it up. But it seems to suit her.’ Meg cast the older woman a sidelong glance, then stared out at the passing scenery, achingly beautiful on this September morning, the bracken aflame to a rich russet red. Here there was freedom and solitude. Space to breathe and feel. She could scarcely imagine Kath’s despair, living in that dreadful home. How thin and desperate she had looked. Yet Rosemary Ellis, her own mother, had known where she was. ‘Kath has gone. I don’t know where.’
‘I rather thought she might run.’
‘Isn’t that what you wanted? For her to disappear?’
The question was very nearly impertinent and Meg heard the sharp intake of breath.’ I don’t know what I wanted,’ Rosemary admitted. ‘For it not to have happened, I suppose. The scandal...’
Meg wanted to feel sorry for this woman who’d lost her daughter, but somehow couldn’t quite manage it. ‘Did you send her money when she was in that place, in Greenlawns?’
Mrs Ellis fell silent as they drove on beside the tumbling waters of the beck, a worked-out quarry and an old farmhouse with a medieval pele tower. She was quiet for so long Meg thought she’d decided not to answer the question, which had been cheeky anyway.
‘We were asked to provide what we could towards her keep though the girls were expected largely to work for it themselves. I considered myself fortunate that Ruby had found somewhere to take her, somewhere the baby could be born and cared for.’
‘What did Mr Ellis think?’
The car swerved slightly and Meg grabbed the door strap, heart in mouth. But the road was empty as usual, so no harm was done. They came out of the narrow lane on to the main road.
‘Jeffrey doesn’t know anything about it. He mustn’t. His heart, you know. He isn’t as strong as he likes to think.’
Meg had no trouble in feeling sorry for Mr Ellis.’ He misses her. Doesn’t he ever wonder why she doesn’t write?’
The silence lasted so long this time, they had almost reached the bridge that led into Kendal before Rosemary answered.’ I pretended once that she had. I read him a letter that was supposed to have come from her, saying she was going to be away for a long time, somewhere secret, and she couldn’t write again for ages. It seemed to satisfy him. He thinks she’s doing her bit for the war.’
Meg gasped. To shuffle off one’s pregnant daughter to avoid a scandal was bad enough; to lie to one’s husband about her welfare was altogether more terrible. The words burst out of her before she could prevent them. ‘How could you do such a thing? Kath loved you. She still loves you. Both of you. All right, so she made a mistake but she paid too high a price for it. It’s not a criminal offence for God’s sake. Lissa is just a baby and she’s beautiful. She’s very dark, and sitting up nice as ninepence. Kath’s child. Don’t you want to see her? Aren’t you even going to tell Mr Ellis that he has a grandaughter?’
‘No.’
‘Stop the car here, please.’ Meg had to get away before she said something truly unforgivable.
‘Just as well Lissa has me then,’ she announced to the retreating vehicle as it sped away, Rosemary Ellis sitting stiffly at the wheel.
Later, in Melissa’s bedroom, Meg gazed down upon the sleeping child. Effie had made a bed for her out of a large drawer and she knelt beside it. The sound of the baby’s breathing was oddly calming and Meg felt a fierce need to protect her from cruel gossip, from the war, from all the problems she might meet as she grew. Meg stroked the back of one finger over the soft down of the baby’s cheek. So tiny. Such a frail scrap of humanity. A bubble of milk dribbled out upon the rosily pouted lips and Meg smiled.
‘It’s not your fault, little one. You didn’t ask to be born, nor to be abandoned. Kath, your mum, didn’t mean to be heartless. It’s the way she is, a bit reckless and impulsive. Never gives a thought to anyone but herself, and look what a mess she’s got herself into. Things are difficult for her right now, what with being thrown out by her ma and pa, and not having any job. Things aren’t too good between her and me either. Not like they used to be, nor ever will be again, I don’t suppose.’ Meg smiled sadly down at the baby. ‘Still, given the chance, she might have loved you.’
She bent over, about to gather the sleeping baby in her arms, so deliciously sweet did she look, then stopped as a new thought entered her head. As I might come to love you.
It jolted her and Meg became very still, aware, in that moment, of a new risk. The possibility of fresh pain in the future if she came to care too much for Kath’s child.
She took a step back, away from the sleeping baby. No, that wouldn’t do at all. She must think very carefully about this. What would happen when the war ended, and Kath and Jack returned?
In the meantime Melissa must be fed and given a home, as was only right and proper, until her mother came to claim her. But that was all she could give her. ‘You’re not mine, do you see, so I can’t love you as a real mother would. That wouldn’t be right. Or safe. For either of us.’
Being responsible for a baby on top of all her other chores would cause endless complications. Admittedly it was pleasant sometimes simply to sit and watch her gurgling happily, but Meg dare not allow herself too many such treats. Nor did she feel she could ask Sally Ann for any help since her sister-in-law gave birth to a baby herself in June. A boy, Nicholas David Turner, much to Joe’s delight. Both mother and child were doing well, Dan walking about as if he had performed the entire miracle singlehanded.
Meg was relieved when the school term ended and Effie took over, leaving her free to concentrate on the farm, and to avoid too much contact with the baby. Making a living for them all was all that mattered now.
In the days and weeks that followed, Meg buried her pain in work. She was glad of it, welcomed it. Up before dawn each day she laboured, blotting all thought from her mind. She concentrated entirely upon seeing to her flock, milking her two cows, seeking ways to make her farm pay. Her heart wasn’t in the task, the work feeling little more than drudgery but it got her through each day. Come the evening she would eat one of Effie’s suppers, though it might be sawdust for all she noticed half the time, and fall into bed praying for oblivion. Rarely did she find it. More often than not that was when the thoughts started, turning over and over, replaying the events that had led to this pain. Seeing Kath dancing in Jack’s arms, laughing up at him with her lovely hazel eyes.
Why hadn’t she realised what was going on? How blind and naïve she must have been. So much in love she hadn’t seen because she hadn’t wanted to see.
‘Will you take the bairn for a walk?’ Effie would ask her each day. ‘Will you give Lissa her bottle?’
Requests that became a constant thorn to stab into her heart.
‘I don’t think so. I have work to do.’ Meg would hurry from the kitchen back to the peace and sanctuary of the heaf and her sheep, aware of Effie’s troubled gaze upon her.
But the thorns kept on stabbing her.
What had she done to deserve such treatment?
Wasn’t Kath her best friend, and Jack much more? The thoughts whirled and burned, images to torment and torture. Where had he loved Kath? In the barn where he’d made love to her? How? Why? Till Meg felt insanity threaten and prayed for exhaustion to bring relief.
At first she expected a letter from Kath any day, an enquiry about Melissa at least, or word that she’d found a job. When summer followed spring and still Meg heard nothing she put the thought from her mind. In any case, she wasn’t ready to face Kath yet, wasn’t even able to think about the effect her betrayal would have upon their friendship. Betrayal was the only word for it.
Their threesome had be
come dangerous, she could see that now. A mistake had been made, boundaries had been crossed from which there was no retreat.
But she continued, despite Tam’s and Effie’s protests, to write to Jack as if nothing had happened.
‘He’s gone to fight for his country, perhaps even die for it. I can’t just abandon him.’
‘I would,’ declared the less complicated Effie, who had learned the whole sorry tale by this time.
Once, in the depth of her despair, Meg wrote to Jack, based now in Southampton, to say that perhaps it would be best if they called off their engagement, in view of the war, and go their own way. It was a coward’s way out but she felt short on strength.
He replied almost by return, saying he needed to be able to think of her waiting for him at home, and whatever was bothering her could surely wait until Christmas by which time the war would be over and they could sort it out. The rest of the letter was about how hard the training was and how he was expecting to be sailing any week now, so that might liven things up a bit.
‘Wish I could get up to see you before I go, but it’s so far I might not manage it. Thinking of you, Jack.’
Ashamed that she was fussing over a spoiled love affair when he might lose his life in this terrible war, Meg never again suggested they break their engagement. It seemed only fair to wait, as he suggested, for Christmas when the war would be over. That would be soon enough. As for telling him about Melissa, that was for Kath to do, when the time was right. Nothing to do with her.
‘You’re a fool,’ Tam told her. ‘Why concern yourself with Jack’s feelings, after what he’s done to you? Or Kath.’
‘I can’t help it. Kath and I have been friends all our lives, it’s hard to reject her even now. I’m sure she never meant it to happen. We were all too close, that’s all.’
Tam raised one eyebrow in disbelief. ‘What about Jack? How do you feel about him now?’
Meg dipped her head, not wanting to answer or even consider the question too closely, yet even that simple gesture seemed to exasperate him.
‘Don’t hang your head like that, Meg. The shame is not yours.’
Deep down she knew that worrying over Kath and Jack was all tangled up with her own self-pity. So long as she centred her thoughts upon feeling sorry for them, she didn’t have to think of her own pain, or the future and how she would cope without Jack. She knew it was over between them, that she must learn to face life without him, but the prospect was bleak and daily brought fresh pain to her heart. What did she care about the farm now, without Jack? What did she care about anything?
During the long hot summer everyone feared the south of England was about to be invaded but September dawned and though the battles still raged over London, here in Westmorland the quietness of the coming autumn hung in the air, an almost guilty peace. In the woodlands the red squirrels were busily burying their nuts, constantly chittering reminders to themselves not to forget. Even the youngest stags wore their hard antlers as they cleared the after grass following the hay harvest, and sleek young foxes learned to hunt alone.
In the first week of September, Effie handed Mrs Davies a basket of fruit and vegetables with a satisfied flourish. ‘All home grown,’ she said.
The scent of fresh fruit rose tantalisingly to Hetty Davies’s nostrils, seeming to fill the small church. She looked at the girl before her and laid aside the bronze chrysanthemums she was arranging in a vase on the altar table. Chrysanths were always lovely at this time of year, and Will had quite a talent for growing them, something not everyone had. ‘You do realise we’re not having a harvest festival as such this year?’
‘I hear folk are bringing stuff, all the same.’
‘Those who can afford it. But nothing like we usually have, not with the war and the shortages, oh dear me, no.’ Mrs Davies offered a kindly, if slightly embarrassed, smile to Effie. She was sorry they’d got this trouble at Broombank. Hetty had always liked Meg and had felt a keen disappointment that she’d turned out to be, well, just as silly-headed as all the rest, as you might say. She hadn’t felt it right to call, since she’d heard.
But Effie was still talking. ‘Sending the produce to a children’s home, I heard. That right?’
‘Perfectly correct.’
‘Then I’ll leave them, if it’s all the same to you. And Mrs D, I’d just like to say as how I’m right sorry my tongue ran away with me in the queue that time. I were that mad, I don’t know what come over me. Only it didn’t seem fair, what people were saying about Meg.’
Mrs Davies cleared her throat and a well of pity rose in her ample breast. Who was she to cast the first stone, even if it were all true? What she wouldn’t give for a baby half so delightful as this one was said to be, from those who’d been lucky enough to catch a glimpse. Hadn’t she and Will longed for just such a child? Once upon a time.
‘There’s no need to apologise. No need at all. Perhaps I should be the one to apologise to you. Gossiping is a dreadful sin, and I should have known better than to think such things about our poor, dear Meg.’ Her round cheeks were crimson with embarrassment.
Effie smiled. ‘It don’t do Meg no good, no good at all, to have everyone taking sides against her when she’s only doing her best to make a go of things. Hasn’t she enough trouble, with Joe Turner on her back?’
‘Oh, indeed, yes. A most dreadful man.’ Appalled by what she had just said, Hetty cleared her throat. ‘I mean...’
‘It’s all right. I know exactly what you mean. I agree with yer. I wondered if happen you could let it get round like, about the baby coming from just such a children’s home in Liverpool? Greenlawns, it were called.’ So there, said the tone, as if adding a name gave truth to the tale of an orphan child plucked from the jaws of almost certain death and uncaring deprivation by Meg’s caring hand.
‘I will indeed, Effie. I will indeed.’ Mrs Davies’s flushed face became very still. Perhaps they might have other babies needing a home? No, she shook the idea away. She was far too old now for sleepless nights, and she and Will were comfortable enough as they were. But she could at least help Meg, try to make up for her own unkind remarks.
Effie was anxious to go, but there was one other matter needing to be settled. ‘Meg says as how you can call and see our Lissa any time. Mebbe you might like to take her for a walk.’
Hetty’s cheeks now went quite pink with pleasure. ‘Oh, that would be lovely. I’ll be round tomorrow, if that’s all right?’
‘I was wondering if you might feel able to do a bit more than that, Mrs Davies.’ Dark eyes, large and beseeching, gazed up into the woman’s enquiring gaze.
‘Oh?’
‘Well, the thing is I have to be in school much of the day. Meg’s busy about the farm, proper thrang she calls it; Sally Ann is up to her ears with her own bairn, not to mention looking after that lot at Ashlea. It might be a bit cheeky to ask, but it crossed my mind like, that you’d happen be willing to have our Lissa for an hour or two each morning? Just to give Meg a chance to get on. She could manage her in the afternoons, till I got home.’
‘Oh,’ Mrs Davies breathed, too stunned to speak for a moment. ‘Oh, yes. I would like that. I would like that very much.’
Effie beamed and stuck out a hand, rather grubby and stained red from the blackberry picking. ‘It’s a deal then?’
Mrs Davies regarded the hand rather cautiously for a second, then shook it firmly. ‘It’s a deal. Oh, my word, yes, it is indeed. And thank you for the fruit,’ she called as Effie departed, flourishing an airy wave.
Hetty Davies returned, quite flustered, to her flowers, but her mind was no longer on the beauty of the chrysanths. ‘Now I wonder if Will ever threw that big old black pram away that we kept up in the loft all those years...’ She’d look it out, the moment she got home.
It was Rust, strangely enough, who helped turn the tide of Meg’s depression. The dog was making a good recovery, thanks to the services of the veterinary and the care he received at home afterwa
rds, fussed and spoiled by everyone. He now managed to lollop about the farmyard on three legs, rarely putting down the fourth, which poked out at an odd angle, not entirely under control. By her side at all times, he was ever her comfort and her joy.
Then one morning Meg collected the other farm dogs ready to go up the high fells to check on the sheep. ‘Don’t let him out for an hour at least, till I’m long gone.’ She rubbed his head affectionately. ‘You’re retired now, old friend, no longer a working dog. Rest easy.’
Meg set off, the other dogs at her heels, reaching the flock on the high fells some forty minutes later. She stood, crook in hand, as the dogs ran, or waited at her command. But then some movement in the distance caught her eye, and there he was: a streak of black and tan racing up the hillside, running in his own odd and peculiar way.
Rust barely paused long enough to greet her before getting down to work, as he had always done. But then how could she possibly manage without him?
Meg shook her head in disbelief. ‘Would you look at that? Never say die, eh, lad?’
Oh, but she was glad of his courage, for she needed his solid friendship by her. It came to her then that if a dog could bravely put injury behind him and soldier on, couldn’t she summon up the same fighting spirit? Easier said than done perhaps, but she could at least try.
That day as she worked her flock, Meg realised that no matter what the cost she would find the strength to build her life again and put the past behind her. She had lost her best friend, and the man she had loved and hoped to marry, but she still had a life to be lived. She still had Effie, and Rust. Most of all she still had the farm and her sheep.
She still had her dream.
She would focus now on turning Broombank into the best sheep farm in the district. In spite of the war, her bully of a father, and a jealous brother. She’d do it or die in the attempt.
This decision brought such a blinding delight, such a joy to her heart, that Meg knew, in that moment, she would indeed survive.
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