The Forbidden Path

by Jean Chapman

  ‘Is Cato there?’ one of them asked.

  Belle nodded, adding, ‘But he wants all the men I can find.’

  ‘I’ll go, Mother, pick the sawmill gang up in the trap, and …’ He glanced at Belle.

  ‘You’ll see the smoke.’ She gestured in the direction of the rise to the right of the glebe, but was for a moment diverted by this younger version of Cato. She ran her eyes over him appreciatively, but decided she much preferred the older brother. As she glanced back to Mrs Abbott, she found the woman was watching her closely, and with the slightest raising of her eyebrows made it clear that she had deduced the line of Belle’s thoughts fairly accurately. Belle felt a wave of annoyance as her checks coloured. She tossed up her chin, and a smile twitched on the older woman’s face.

  ‘Will you stay and catch your breath?’ she asked as her younger son hurried away.

  ‘I have to go back to our farm, and tell our men,’ she answered.

  ‘So you must be a neighbour.’ Mrs Abbott’s voice was kind, full of quiet, capable humour and of a quality that Belle was unable to put a name to. ‘You must come and see me again, when this emergency is over.’

  ‘Do y’want me to go over to Hall Farm, miss?’ one of the other men asked as they again viewed the smoke which rose in a growing pall above the glebe land.

  Belle registered his age and size in a glance. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I’ll be quicker. Goodbye, Mrs Abbott.’

  As she too ran from the old farmhouse, the echo of the amusement in Ruth Abbott’s goodbye followed and slightly teased her. Cato’s mother was very different to the wife she had expected of Joe Abbott in his coal-black and oil-shiny work clothes.

  Even as she reached the boundary line she could see the remainder of her father’s men, Levi, and her mother hastening towards the path, which stood like a raised rib between their lands. She slackened her pace and moved along the track of broken hedge and flattened pasture made across their land by the steam-engine. Shivers of apprehension skittered over her back as branches and hollow stems cracked and exploded, reminding her of the windows and sweet bottles that had cracked and splintered in the shop fire. She bit her lip as she heard a sudden surge of rising concern in the voices of the men. Then a sheet of flame leapt victoriously thirty feet or more straight up into the air and stayed there, the base brightening as the flames gained heat. The stacks of late hay her father had built, as always, in the high pastures for early spring feeding the following year were being lost. A hare, wild-eyed with panic, had to swerve at the last moment to avoid her as it streaked away.

  Now she could see the men drawing back, shielding their eyes from the heat. Then she saw the engine looking like a black coy in the middle of the towering inferno … and there was a man still on the footplate, shunting the machine backwards and forwards, pushing at the side of the stack nearest the blaze. She glanced around, her arms flung wide in disbelief and appeal, and saw that the men were all watching as Cato Abbott tried to cut off the fire’s fuel by pushing the stack back on itself, back into the fire.

  ‘No …’ She grasped at the arm of the man nearest to her. ‘It won’t work.’ The man seemed unaware of her as he watched too. The impact of the engine made the flames at the top of the stack waver. The loose hay, as yet unthatched, and uncompacted by long standing, yielded a little, but some fell forward and some toppled over to the back.

  Belle felt herself caught up by an emotion more powerful than herself. ‘You fool!’ she mouthed. ‘You fool!’ She imagined his hair scorched, his flesh singed. Burning strands of hay floated over them, making her run her hands over her hair. The smell of scorch and smoke was everywhere. Again she pulled and clawed at the man next to her. ‘It’s no use, can’t you see, stop him!’ Her hands were grasped and held. ‘It’ll save the woodland if he can do it,’ the man shouted at her above the noise of fire and engine. She snatched her hands away with a cry of exasperation and ran along the line of men, beating at them with her fists. ‘Don’t stand there - help him! He’ll be killed!’ Her father’s face loomed before her and her arm was roughly snatched and held.

  ‘Be still!’ he ordered.

  The anger in his eyes was as potent as the flames and awed her a little. She stood, his hand tight on her wrist, and saw the engine thrust again and again at the side of the stack. She watched the flames festooning the engine, and Cato brushing his arm across his face and head as hay strands fell over him. She was tense with the need for his safety as she concentrated her every sense on willing and watching, knowing she would break away and run to Cato if anything happened.

  She glanced up at her father, until that moment the man who had most filled her horizons. Did the tightness of his grip show he realised his daughter had found a new hero - and was this devastating anxiety for Cato Abbott love.

  Although the flames were still much worse on the far side, they were beginning to find a growing hold on Cato’s side of the stack, and it looked hopeless. But Belle had underestimated Cato’s persistence, and suddenly as he ran the engine in yet again, the whole stack seemed to crumble. For several seconds the engine and driver disappeared in a shower of flames and sparks. She held her breath, then sobbed with relief as it backed out. It was the turning point in the battle. She found herself standing alone as the men ran forward to pitch the remains of the stack back into the blaze, stoking and confining at one and the same time, and it was soon obvious that the second stack would be saved.

  Belle turned and walked a few yards into the spinney, away from the sight of it all. Leaning against the bole of a great ash, she energetically stamped down a patch of smouldering undergrowth. Then she started as someone took her hand. She swung round to see Cato. His face and clothes were black and reeking with smoke, but his hair and forehead still looked clean as he took off and threw down his leather cap. ‘You stupid thing!’ she shouted at him. ‘You fool, I hate you! I hate you!’ Tears and anger mingled powerfully.

  For a second he blinked in surprise, then saw fear for his safety had leapt months of acquaintanceship. He pulled her towards him and held her gently while she beat and railed at him. Then she was still, leaning her head on his chest. He bent and softly brushed his lips over her cheek. It was not a kiss, more like the passing promise of one.

  4

  Belle was the first to walk slowly away from the fire. She did not look back; her head was too full of dramatic scenes and overwhelming emotions to want more.

  She needed a space to examine this feeling that had overtaken her. It had begun as a mere whim, or self-indulgence. She bit her lip; now it had an importance that was almost frightening.

  She progressed solemnly back through the home field, her thoughts broken only once by the sight of someone else walking their land: a tall woman with a basket, making her way along the hedgerow, much in the way she herself had pretended to do when she had met Cato. The difference was that this woman had real purpose as she bent and reached far into the bushes. This would no doubt be the woman who had given Levi the cure for toothache. Another time, Belle would have made it her business to go over and see what she was collecting, but now she walked on, merely thinking it was strange this person should suddenly appear at the same time as the Abbotts had come to the village.

  With unnatural weariness she crossed orchard and kitchen garden and made her way to the loft. She climbed the broad runged ladder, and as she expected, found Tweeny still nesting the apples down. The girl had done about a third of one skipful, and did not seem to have heard Belle come through the trapdoor.

  Scornfully Belle noted the great width of the girl’s waist. The gathered waistline of her faded pink gingham dress pulled, puckered and emphasised the dumpy figure. She would never have a boyfriend, Belle thought. Remembering her own good fortune, Cato’s arms closing around her, his brushing kiss, she pushed her hand into her apron pocket, went over and dropped the lace collar in front of Tweeny. Her great moon face came up in disbelief. Even Tweeny knew Belle was seldom given to acts of generosity, an
d the girl indicated the full skip of apples and the still unfilled loft.

  The gesture brought Belle back to her more normal self. ‘Yes,’ she said almost testily, suddenly feeling so hungry she must have something to cat that very minute, ‘well, get on with it, Tweeny!’

  Tweeny gave her a beatific smile, folded the collar with infinite care and pushed it down the front of her dress. Belle raised her eyebrows in disgust and went to find something to stem the sudden hunger pains. In the silent farmhouse only the collie lay on watch on the hearthrug. The pan of dark, sharply aromatic damson jam had been drawn back from the hob. It seemed Mary too had gone off with her mother.

  She helped herself to a new cottage loaf out of the red earthenware bread pippin, sliced off a long slender crust, then went through to the dairy to scoop some of the thickest, yellowest cream from the edge of the pancheon of milk waiting to be skimmed tor the butter-making. It was a trick her father had taught her in childhood, and one her mother abhorred for the crumbs and flakes of crust it could leave behind.

  She was biting into the crust as she walked back into the kitchen and her father entered by the back door. Each seemed to the other no more than a black silhouette for a moment, and each was instantly wary, unsure how to treat the other … as was the dog. Belle saw its tail sweep once over the hearthrug in greeting, then stop, and the collie turned its head over its far paw, looking away from its master as if expecting trouble. Belle slid the crust from her mouth behind her back and stood childlike but defiant. He walked across the kitchen and reached for his shotgun. His hands were trembling as he took it down and laid it on the table, then went to the kitchen dresser for his cartridges. They both stepped nearer to the central table, like opponents sizing each other.

  Belle felt her heart beat faster as she encountered her father’s look, for his eyes held scorn and fury. ‘What were you doing at the path?’

  ‘I saw the fire …’

  ‘Hadn’t I told you to keep away! What did you think you were about, scrabbling at all and sundry … “he’ll be killed! he’ll be killed!”’

  Belle felt her own temper rising at his mimicry. ‘And so he might have been,’ she said. ‘It was stupid!’

  ‘And do you know what your behaviour seemed?’ Sam’s voice rose and tripped over itself, enraging him more. ‘Do you know? The stupid talk, the laughter even as we tried to clear up some of the mess that lot had caused … “He’ll be killed! he’ll be killed!” They all had you off. “Two fires,” they said. “No smoke without fire.”‘ His hand trembled even more violently as he took up the gun again.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ she asked involuntarily.

  ‘I’m going to mark out the boundary - with a little blood if necessary.’

  ‘You can’t!’ She turned away from him and violently threw the crust into the fire. With an exclamation, Sam came towards his daughter as if he would strike her. The dog stood up between them and looked anxiously from one to the other, but at a sound from the doorway went eagerly forward to greet Mabel. She put her hand on the dog’s head reassuringly, but her glance took in the attitudes of her husband and daughter, and the gun.

  ‘For goodness sake, Sam, you’re not giving anyone a chance. These people have as much right on that bridle-path as you have …’

  ‘I know my rights - and where my duty lies.’ His voice was ragged with irritation. ‘Which is more than I can say for you two!’

  ‘They seem like a nice family,’ Belle began, eager to support her mother’s stand. The remark was mistimed.

  ‘A nice family!’ He sounded as if he could hardly believe what he heard. ‘A nice family! Oh, yes.’ He indulged now in the special kind of irony he was master of, his voice sugar-coated. ‘Sure, they’re nice! They’ve been here two days and they’ve smashed my hedges and gates, burnt what they couldn’t smash and destroy, including my top winter hay, which means I shall have to sell stock now and lose money. They’ve made me and my family a matter for sniggering and laughter. Yes, they’re such nice people.’

  ‘You’re wrong about this,’ Mabel said quietly, the certainty she felt marred by a slight unsteadiness in her voice. ‘It’s terrible thing to make enemies of neighbours. It’s been a bad start, but just accidents … Things happen like this - you should know. This fire’s the third thing, so perhaps …’

  Sam pushed the gun fiercely across the table at this bland superstition. Both women instinctively stepped back as the raised ribs of the scrubbed deal were deeply and permanently scored.

  ‘I’ll say this now, once for all. No one - no one - in this house has anything to do with these glorified gipsies and their travelling circus.’ He snapped open his gun and slid a cartridge into each barrel. ‘I’m going to make sure they know what I mean. Joe Abbott is going to rue the day he ever came within ten miles of Loncote.’

  He turned and left the kitchen. Belle thought of Mrs Abbott, the dignified woman choosing fabrics and wallpapers for her new home, and turned to tell her mother, but was cut short.

  ‘I wish,’ Mabel snapped, ‘when your father and I are talking you would keep quiet! You always make matters worse.’

  Belle turned away so her mother should not see the rebellion in her eyes. She felt hunger pains stir again, but it was how and when she might contrive to see Cato again she brooded over.

  Once Sam Greenaugh and his wife, whom Joe had unfortunately mistaken for one of the servants at Hall Farm, had gone, leaving the men to get on with the task of clearing up, Cato felt the mood lightening considerably. One man stayed to watch for any rekindling of tiny fires in the tinder-dry surroundings, and Mordichi was detailed to walk around and try to find the source of the fire, while Joe and Cato went back to begin the task of righting the engine from the ditch.

  By using the Clayton engine Cato had brought to the scene and a stout oak on the glebe land, steel hawsers were fastened to either end of the slewed engine. The Clayton, with great chugs of power, pulled the Burrell upright while the second hawser on the tree held it steady.

  The next task was the reloading of the stone strewn over Hall Farm’s pasture. The two gangs of men now came together and combined for this task, working steadily, albeit with an awkward companionship. Work stopped as Mordichi came back bringing a thick glass Codd bottle, its marble stopper rattling in the neck as he shook it aloft. ‘Here’s your fire-raiser, governor.’ He handed it to Joe. It was blackened and much cracked.

  ‘That was right in the middle of the worst burnt patch. Reckon it’s laid in what was the hedge bottom, the sun caught it, and —’

  ‘Looks likely, ‘Joe said. Glancing up at Levi and the other Hall Farm men, he added, ‘It’s very rare a steam-engine causes a fire. We’re too damn careful.’ There was a murmur of agreement from the Abbott men, and as the work resumed, the talk became more general, and there was some good-humoured banter and laughter as the minutes passed.

  The last stone had been hauled on to the trailer and the men were straightening their aching backs, when the morning was suddenly rent apart by two shots, one leaping into the echo of the first, making their ears ring. ‘What the hell?’ ‘God Almighty!’ The men started, cursed and turned aggressively to find Sam Greenaugh standing behind them. Without speaking he reloaded the gun.

  ‘My next shots,’ he shouted, ‘will be along the length of my boundary, at knee height. Before that I want my men on this side, and … everyone else … over there - and that’s how I want things to stay!’ He swung the gun up and aimed at the centre of the group in his field. There were murmurings about his sanity, but the men split into two camps.

  Before he stepped on to the no man’s land of the path, Joe held up the Codd bottle. ‘Here’s the cause of your fire,’ he called, but as the muzzle was gestured arbitrarily for his final removal from Greenaugh land, Joe threw the bottle down. Hardly had Joe stepped on to the path when Sam fired, his first shot fragmenting the bottle, sending glass in all directions. The second went as he had promised, at knee height, along t
he boundary line.

  Cato felt a chill such as he had known in the still, frosty nights of the trenches, listening to the calls of men lying wounded between the front lines. Calls that sometimes prompted a foolhardy rescue attempt, and then perhaps another man lost, but only so much could a man’s spirit stand. He turned and strode purposefully back towards Belle’s father, who as purposefully was reloading his gun. He heard his own father call his name, and a second time, full of anxiety, saw the gun aimed at his chest. Then he noticed the means of satisfying himself and his father. He deliberately turned his back on the gun and went over to where he had spotted two of their chain couplings left behind when they were reloading the stone. He picked them up, then, very slowly, walked the long way from the field, making a circle around Sam Greenaugh, then back to the bridle-way. It was both a challenge and an insult much appreciated by the raucous Evanses, and whatever remark Sam shouted was lost in their laughter.

  The Greenaugh men unloaded their cart of hedging stakes and went off after their employer, inevitably looking like the retreating and defeated party. The happenings were much talked over, and tutted and laughed about by Joe and the rest of his men, but Cato calculated that he had certainly done himself no favours with Belle Greenaugh’s father.

  Even the contentment Cato’s parents always created whenever they were together did not eliminate the turmoil of his mind that evening. All he could see when he closed his eyes was Sam Greenaugh’s face, and all he kept thinking of was the man’s daughter - and how Belle could come to have such a father; certainly she did not take after her mother. He regarded his own mother as she sat at the table, leaning over the green plush cloth to allow the light of a green-shaded oil lamp to fall on the book she was reading, Somerset Maugham’s latest novel, The Moon and Sixpence, about a stockbroker turned artist. She was obviously finding it enthralling and, as she often did, she had just related the story — so far as she had read it — to Joe. Cato wondered if she sympathised with the character because she had done something very similar, giving up her upper-class home, her friends, to marry Joe Abbott.