‘I’ve got good reason,’ Jack said. ‘I’ve been talking to Tilly Preston and she says she’s carrying this chap’s baby.’
Tom and Linn were facing each other, sitting close, their knees touching. Linn had stopped winding and was looking at him with unbelieving eyes. He could see the laughter dying in them; could see her face growing slowly cold; and inside himself there was a similar coldness and deadness, together with an immense shame.
‘Well?’ Jack demanded, angrily. ‘Is it true or false that you’ve been lovering with this girl?’
‘What a word,’ Tom muttered. ‘Lovering!’
‘Choose what word you better prefer. I’m only asking if it’s true.’
‘Yes. It’s true. That ent disputed.’
‘And you knew,’ Linn said, staring at him, ‘that Tilly was going to have a baby?’
‘Not for sure, no. She was afraid of it, but she wasn’t sure.’
‘You didn’t go to her to find out?’
‘No,’ he said, and looked away.
‘How long is it since you saw her last?’
‘A week. Ten days. I dunno.’
‘And said nothing at all about it? Came here every evening the same, behaving as always, knowing Tilly was in such trouble? What did you think would happen to her?’
‘I reckon I put it out of my mind.’
‘How nice for you, having a mind so very convenient!’ Linn leant across and took the skein of wool from his hands. She held it loosely in her lap. Her face was pale, and she still looked at him as though she could scarcely believe what she heard.
‘Well?’ Jack said. ‘What d’you aim to do about it? Tilly expects you to marry her.’
‘I dunno why,’ Tom said. ‘I reckon she knows I don’t love her.’
‘But you must do!’ Linn exclaimed. ‘Surely? Surely? At least a little? Or are you the sort that takes every girl that comes along?’
‘It was the night of the bonfire,’ he said. ‘A lot of folk was mad that night. But it don’t mean I love her. Not enough to marry her. Nor she don’t care tuppence for me neither. I’m pretty damn well sure of that.’
‘How d’you know? Have you ever asked her?’
‘I don’t need to. I just know.’
‘You haven’t thought of her feelings at all. It’s too inconvenient. It’s something else you’ve put out of your mind!’
‘The way you’re talking to me,’ Tom said, ‘I reckon maybe I’d better go.’
‘Yes!’ she said. ‘Go to this Tilly Preston of yours and do what you know is right by her!’
Tom got up and stood for a moment as though lost. Then he walked out and they heard his footsteps in the lane. Linn sat staring with hurt, angry eyes. Her father watched her, aching for her.
‘And I thought I knew him!’ she said with sudden self-scorn. ‘It was silly of me, after so short a time, but I thought I knew him through and through.’
‘I told you before, you’re a lot too trusting where other people is concerned, and men ent altogether quite the way you see them.’
‘Then no doubt you’re pleased, being right as usual!’
‘No, I ent pleased. Far from it. In fact I feel sorry for that boy Tom.’
‘It’s the girl I feel sorry for, poor soul.’
‘You needn’t worry on that score. Tilly can look after herself pretty well.’
‘It’s a good thing she can,’ Linn said.
Tom went to The Rose and Crown and found Tilly still alone in the taproom.
‘You got my message, then?’ she said.
‘Yes, I got it. That’s why I’m here.’
‘I’ve been so worried these past two weeks, I’m nearly going out of my mind.’
‘It’s definite, then, about your having the baby?’ he said. ‘Have you been to see the doctor?’
‘What, and let the whole district know about it?’
‘No,’ he said, ‘I suppose not.’
‘It’s definite, you take my word. So what’re you going to do about it?’
‘Get married, what else? It’s the only solution. I’ll ask Jesse if we can have the old Pikehouse to live in and a few bits and pieces of furniture.’
‘A house of our own?’ she said, glowing. ‘Oh, Tom, won’t that be lovely? Won’t that be grand?’
‘I’ll see the vicar in the morning. If we get a move on, we can be married just after Christmas.’
‘My word, you’re in a hurry, ent you?’ she said.
‘There’s no point in hanging about.’
At Cobbs, later, when the news was known, only Betony felt surprise. She took Tom aside and asked him about it.
‘What happened to Linn Mercybright?’
‘Nothing happened. I’m marrying Tilly.’
‘But for God’s sake why? I don’t understand.’
‘We’ve got a baby coming,’ he said. ‘He’s forced our hand, as you might say.’
‘Oh, you’re such fools, you men!’ she said. ‘Getting yourself into a mess like that with a little trollop like Tilly Preston! I thought you’d more sense.’
‘Tilly’s all right,’ he said, shrugging. ‘It ent just her fault she’s having a baby and it’s him we got to think of now.’
He had lived at the Pikehouse as a boy. It was strange to be back there again now, with some of the same furniture, given to them by Beth and Jesse, and some of the same old crockery hanging up in the tiny kitchen.
‘I lived here with my Grannie Izzard. She wasn’t my proper grannie, really, but she brung me up from about a year old. That old rocking-chair was hers, and the footstool there, and that little old Welsh dresser.’
‘I bet you never thought,’ Tilly said, sitting beside him on the settle, ‘that you’d be bringing your bride home here and setting up house the way you have.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘I never did.’
‘I reckon we’re lucky, don’t you, having a nice little home of our own, miles away by ourselves like we are, with no nosy neighbours poking in?’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I reckon we are.’
‘I shall try my best to be a good wife to you, Tom.’
‘And I shall try to be a good husband.’
‘Oh, I know you will! I know. I know.’
‘I put some wood aside in the workshop yesterday, ready for making a cot,’ he said. ‘I shall start work on that when I’ve got a bit of time to spare.’
Tilly moved closer and put her arm through the crook of his, squeezing it hard against his side. She rested her face against his shoulder.
‘The men’ll see it if you do that. You know what gossips they all are, specially Sam Lovage.’
‘They’ve got to know sooner or later. You can’t keep a baby secret for ever.’
‘Tom,’ she said, twisting the button on his cuff, ‘I’ve got something to tell you about that.’
‘What is it?’
‘I made a mistake about having a baby. I’m not going to have one after all.’
‘Mistake?’ he said. ‘How could you have made a mistake when so many weeks is gone past by?’
‘You know what I mean. I was frightened to death! I thought you was going to let me down.’
‘There wasn’t no baby. It was all a lie. Is that what you’re trying to say to me?’
‘I really don’t see it makes much difference. We have been lovers, after all, and men so often need a nudge before they come up to scratch, the wretches.’
Tilly felt the change in him. She sat up straight and looked at his face, and what she saw there made her afraid.
‘Tom?’ she said, in a small voice. ‘Don’t look at me like that, Tom. It gives me the creeps. It does, honest. It makes me go icy all down inside.’
Gently, her fingers plucked at his sleeve.
‘Surely it’s better to be by ourselves for a bit? We’re only young once and babies’ll come soon enough I daresay. Why not make the most of things while there’s a chance?’
Tom got up and reached for his cap
. His shadow leapt, huge in the firelight. His face was that of a graven image.
‘Tom, where are you going?’ Tilly demanded. ‘You can’t go out on our wedding evening! You can’t go out and leave me alone!’
Tom made no answer. He was already on his way out. A blast of cold air blew into the room, the door rattled shut, and he was gone. Tilly put her face in her hands and rocked herself to and fro, giving vent to small choking sobs. Then she took out her handkerchief and wiped her eyes, aware that her tears were washing the face-powder from her cheeks and would stain the front of her wedding-gown.
The fire had burnt low. She threw on three logs and wiped her hands on the rag-made hearth-rug. She was feeling hungry and she thought of the joint of cold mutton lying on the platter in the pantry. Ought she to wait till Tom returned or would his sulks keep him out past midnight? If so, that was his own fault. It was no reason for her to starve.
She got up and went to the pantry.
Chapter Eight
Sometimes, at night, Tom would slip quietly out of bed, put on his clothes, and creep downstairs, out of the house. He rarely slept more than three or four hours at a time, for his head ached and there was a splitting of coloured lights immediately behind his eyes. Even his breathing gave him trouble. He had to get out in the keen night air.
Tilly, luckily, was a sound sleeper. She never knew when he left her side. She was still in bed when he set off for work at seven. But one morning, while he was eating his breakfast, she came downstairs in nightdress and shawl.
‘You been out poaching again?’ she said. ‘Brevitting about in them old woods?’
‘I went for a bit of a walk, that’s all.’
‘In the dark?’ she said. ‘On cold winter nights like they are now? You must want seeing to, really, you must.’
‘It wasn’t dark last night. There was a big full moon about three o’clock, and a sky full of stars.’
‘Respectable folk are warm in their beds at three o’clock in the small hours.’
She came behind him and put her arms around his neck, and her face, close to his, was soft and warm like a sleepy child’s.
‘Don’t you love me no more, now, Tom? Aren’t you going to try to forget that I told you just that one little lie?’
‘I shall get round to it, given time.’
‘And will you be nice to me again?’
‘I ent aware that I been nasty.’
‘I could make you love me again if only you’d give me half a chance. I could make you my slave. I know I could. There was plenty of chaps who was always after me in the old days. Harry Yelland for one. I could twist them all round my little finger.’
‘Then why ent you married to one of them?’
‘I chose you instead, didn’t I? Though I sometimes wonder why I did!’ She was holding him back against her body, her arms tightening across his throat. ‘Tom?’ she said softly, into his ear. ‘I know I can make you love me again if you’ll only let me. I’m your lawful wife. You’ve got no right being nasty to me.’
‘I’ve got to go. I’ll be late at the workshop.’
He rose from his chair and Tilly released him. He began getting ready and she studied him with growing anger.
‘Don’t forget to ask Jesse Izzard about that new stove. I can’t cook on this open fire. I’ve never been used to it, all my life.’
‘My grannie cooked on that open fire. She never found it gave her trouble.’
‘Oh, your old grannie was a proper wonder! But I’m not cooking at that there fireplace all my days and you may as well make up your mind I mean it!’
‘All right,’ Tom said. ‘I’ll ask Jesse’s advice about it.’
One evening when he got home, he saw a new broom with a brown-painted handle standing in the corner of the kitchen, and a new metal dustpan, painted green.
‘Where’d they come from, all new and shiny like that?’ he asked.
‘A man came selling them at the door. From Birmingham, he said he was. I can pay bit by bit for that broom and dustpan, and anything else I care to buy.’
‘From Birmingham? And comes all this way?’
‘He’s got a motor-car,’ Tilly said. She looked at Tom with a little smile. ‘He offered to take me for a ride round. That’s ’cos I said there was no buses. But I told him no, my husband wouldn’t like it.’
‘It’s no odds to me,’ Tom said, ‘though it’s maybe wiser to watch your step with chaps of that sort.’
‘Chaps of what sort, I’d like to know? Mr Trimble’s a very nice man. He was in the Army the same as you. Out in Egypt with the engineers.’
‘All right. You go for a ride if that’s what you want. I ent raising no objections.’
‘What fun do I get, stuck out here all by myself, miles away from other people? I see old Mould from the lodge sometimes and I see Mrs Awner going past, but otherwise not a single soul do I ever talk to from one day’s end to the next.’
‘I reckon it is pretty lonely out here, after your being right in Huntlip, with all the folk at The Rose and Crown. Why not go in now and then and give your father a hand like you used to?’
‘Oh, no!’ Tilly said. ‘Why should I work in my father’s taproom, now I’m married with a home of my own? What’d people say, seeing me back there, serving beer? What d’you think I got married for?’
‘Look!’ Tom said. ‘You do whatever it is you want to do and stop going on at me. All I want is peace and quiet.’
‘And nothing else matters!’ Tilly said. ‘You don’t never think of me at all!’
She turned away and began crying, great heaving sobs that wrenched her body. She leant against the back of the settle and hid her face in her folded arms. She looked small and frail, and it seemed she would never be able to stop crying.
‘I wish I was dead! I do really! You’re always so horrid nowadays. I never thought it’d be like this! Hating me, hating me, all the time!’
‘Ah, no,’ Tom said. ‘You mustn’t say that ’cos it ent true. You must stop crying or you’ll make yourself ill. I never meant to make you cry.’
He put out a hand and touched her shoulder, and straight away she was in his arms, clutching at him and pressing her body against his. The shivering sobs ceased abruptly and when she looked up at him, into his face, he saw she was laughing.
‘I knew I could do it!’ she said, exultant. ‘I knew I could make you love me again if I put my mind to it properly. Men are as soft as dough, really, but they have to be kneaded to bring them round.’ She put up her hands and entwined her fingers in his hair, trying to make him bend towards her. ‘Your face!’ she said. ‘When I turned just now! If you could’ve seen it! I had to laugh!’ Tom pulled away from her, jerking his head back, free of her grasp. She clutched at him and he pushed her aside.
‘Now what’s the matter, for goodness’ sake? You’re not going out without your supper?’
‘Damn the supper and you too!’
The door slammed and she was left alone again, strands of his hair still entwined in her fingers.
‘I get the feeling,’ said Sam Lovage, toasting his cheese at the workshop stove, ‘that marriage don’t agree with our butty here.’
‘He’s quieter than ever lately, ent he?’ Albert Tunniman agreed. ‘And his work’s gone off something terrible.’
‘What’ve you got for oneses, Tom? Don’t Tilly feed you, the bad girl?’
‘He’s got bread and dripping, same as always,’ said Fred Lovage, winking at Sam.
‘Oh no I ent!’ Tom said. ‘It’s fried bacon.’
‘You ent got a motor-car, have you, Tom? A smart little Austin with a hood? No, well, it ent hardly likely, I don’t suppose. Yet my girl Lilian swears she seen one, outside the Pikehouse on Friday morning, when she was going to sew at Scoate.’
‘It’s a traveller-chap, selling brushes. He calls every Friday for his money.’
‘I shouldn’t like that,’ Tunniman said, ‘a stranger calling on my missus when I ent there to
see what’s what.’
‘I know about him,’ said Sam Lovage. ‘He’s been through Huntlip, door to door, and tried to sell Queenie a new mop. She sent him packing and a good thing too. There’s too many salesmen going about bothering people since the war. Somebody ought to up and stop it.’
‘Tom should ought to speak to Tilly. I wouldn’t stick it if I was him.’
‘It’s no odds to me,’ Tom said. ‘Tilly must do as she thinks best.’
He finished his lunch and went back to the bench, where the screen he was carving lay half done. He selected a chisel from the rack.
‘Don’t you never rest?’ Lovage shouted. ‘It wants twenty minutes to one o’clock.’
‘I’ve had all I want,’ Tom said. ‘I’d just as soon get on.’
The next day, Saturday, Tom had work at Crayle in the morning and finished it by eleven o’clock. The workshop was closed in the afternoon so he went straight home, thus arriving early, perhaps an hour before his time. And, seeing a motor-car in the roadway, he went across to the woods opposite and stood among the trees, waiting for the visitor to depart.
At one o’clock, a fair-haired man came out of the Pikehouse, glancing at his watch, and Tilly followed him to the gate. They stood talking for a little while, and the man had his arm round Tilly’s shoulders. Then he got into the motor-car and drove away towards Norton. Tilly turned and went back indoors, swinging the end of the silken cord which she wore tied about her waist. Her heels click-clicked along the path.
When Tom walked in, she was combing her hair before the mirror.
‘You’re early today, aren’t you?’
‘Ah. Well. Maybe I am.’
‘I’ve been busy this morning. You’ll have to make do with bread and cheese.’
‘Suits me,’ Tom said.
It was true, as Albert Tunniman had said, that his work was not so good lately. Great-grumpa Tewke said the same.
‘You’ve lost your touch, boy, that’s your trouble. You’ve been too long with a rifle in your hands instead of the tools of your proper trade. You can’t go off for three years without it showing in your work.’
‘I reckon that’s right,’ Tom said. ‘I shall have to practise all the harder.’
The Sorrowing Wind (The Apple Tree Saga Book 3) Page 14