How long it was before Caleb gained control he didn’t know. It could only have been a matter of two or three minutes, but when he lifted his head and held her tightly against his breast, he was aware they were both soaked through and the water was running off the parched ground in a tide. ‘Eve, we have to get out of the rain.’
She nodded, half laughing, and he laughed with her. She cared for him. How long she had cared he didn’t know but in one way it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but that she was in his arms at last. Everything else could be worked out, he would make sure of that. She spoke, but another blast of thunder drowned her words. He bent his head. ‘What did you say?’
‘The fair’s over.’
He turned with her to look at the scurrying people and the stallholders salvaging what they could, and again the urge to laugh was strong. Whisking her up in his arms he twirled her round and round before he allowed her feet to touch the ground again, and then he kept her within the circle of his arms. ‘How soon will you marry me?’
She made a small movement with her head. ‘It’s only a year since Howard—’
‘I don’t care.’ His voice was thick.‘I’ve waited years for you.’
When she lifted her hands and cupped his face, bringing his mouth down to hers, he groaned softly, but when the kiss had ended, she said softly, ‘Caleb, there’s Alexander to consider. I would like him to get used to you before - before we tell him.’
‘How long will that take?’
‘I don’t know.’
The rain was like a sheet and now he tucked her into his side, saying, ‘Come on, you’ll catch your death. I’ll take you home and then we can start the process of him getting used to me there and then. But, Eve,’ he caught her to him again, his voice dropping so low she could scarcely hear him, ‘say you love me. Out loud. Say it.’
‘I love you.’ She smiled and in that moment she was radiant. ‘I’ve loved you from the first moment I saw you and I’ll love you till the day I die and beyond. Through all eternity. Will that do?’
‘For now.’
Epilogue
Eve and Caleb were married nine months later. On the eve of her wedding, which was to be a village affair at Washington’s Trinity Church, Eve visited the churchyard where Oliver and Howard were buried. It was a beautiful June evening, the birds singing in the trees surrounding the churchyard and the air still scented with the May blossom which had been late that year.
She went alone. She had wanted it that way. It would have been Oliver’s seventh birthday the week before and now she stroked the steam engine made of flowers she had brought to the grave that day. His steam engine had been his favourite toy.
‘I love you, my precious baby.’ She pressed her hands against her chest to contain the pain. ‘My sweet, precious boy. My darling one.’
After a while she lifted her wet face to the sky. For months after they had died she had found herself raging at Howard every time she came to the churchyard. She had been so angry, so full of rage that he could have let their son die. But lately the anger had gone, to be replaced by a sad acceptance that her husband had loved his son with all his heart and had given his life trying to save him. It had been an accident, that was all. A tragic, senseless accident. And with the acceptance had come a measure of peace.
A deep twilight had fallen by the time she closed the gate to the churchyard behind her, and then she gave a little cry as a shadow close to the stone wall moved. Caleb stepped forward, taking her in his arms as he murmured, ‘I thought I’d find you here.’
She clung to him, the tears falling again. ‘I know he’s in a better place but I want him here, with me. He was only a little boy. A little boy, Caleb.’
‘I know, my love. I know.’ He let her cry for a while and then dried her tears. They had agreed not to see each other the night before the wedding, but he had felt compelled to come, suspecting she might visit this very place. He held her close, his heart aching for her. He would make her happy, he vowed silently. Whatever it took, whatever he had to do, he would make her happy.
The next day half of Washington’s residents were there to throw rice and rose petals when the couple emerged from the church to the peal of church bells, the groom’s stepson held tight in his arms. No one, looking at Eve that day, would have labelled her plain.
When the newlyweds returned from their week’s honeymoon, they set in action the plans they had talked over during their engagement.After consolidating their assets into one pot, they purchased a property on the edge of Gateshead not far from the establishment where Toby had received his treatment.The enormous old manor house was ideal in that its extensive grounds boasted three barns and a number of outbuildings as well as a large stable block.The stable block was transformed into a comfortable four-bedroomed bungalow and once it was finished Nell and Toby and their family moved in. Toby’s days down the pit were over, his leg had healed but the damage to his knee in particular meant the limb was stiff and inflexible. Instead he was to manage the staff who would work in the workshops, vegetable gardens and orchard, and the animal husbandry section of the estate once it was all up and running.
While Toby supervised the remodelling of the barns and other outside work, Eve and Caleb presided over the alterations to change the manor house into a children’s home-cum-boarding-school. This included a one-bedroomed apartment in the basement for Mr Hutton whose official title was that of caretaker. Once the school was up and running, however, it was clear he had become everyone’s grandad.
Along with the changes to the original building, a new west wing was added. This provided Eve and Caleb with a large family home in which Tilly had her own sitting room and bedroom next to the nursery suite.Tilly’s duties were added to sooner than Eve had expected. In the midst of all the work, Eve discovered she was expecting Caleb’s child.
Luke Caleb Travis was born on a windy October morning four weeks after the Oliver Ingram-Travis home for boys and girls was officially opened. Caleb wept unashamedly when he held his son in his arms, and Alexander was delighted with his new baby brother. If it had been a girl he had intended to see it was sent back.
Twin boys followed eighteen months later, and then on Eve’s thirty-sixth birthday, with Nell urging her on and Tilly holding her hand, Eve’s longed for daughter arrived. When the news was announced in the morning assembly, the huge family the school had become cheered and stamped their feet so hard Eve heard it in the west wing.
The December day was bitterly cold and through the window of her bedroom Eve could see it was snowing heavily, but inside all was snug and warm. She glanced across the room to the roaring fire in the grate, then her gaze travelled over the pleasant furnishings and rested on the big framed portrait of her precious boys that Caleb had painted as a surprise for her birthday. He was gaining a reputation as a respected artist these days and regularly sold his paintings for considerable amounts of money.
Finally her eyes settled on Caleb who was sitting in a comfortable chair nursing his tiny daughter.The expression on her husband’s face was all Eve could have wished for.
She smiled softly and lay back on the pillows, shutting her eyes. She was richly blessed.
Rita Bradshaw
Enjoy . . . A letter from Rita Bradshaw
Find Out . . . All about the Michaelmas Fair
Discover . . . Rita’s top ten writing tips
Don’t miss . . . Rita Bradshaw’s other enthralling novels
A Letter From Rita Bradshaw
Dear Readers
In one way it doesn’t seem two minutes since I wrote the ‘Just for you’ section at the back of my previous book, Above The Harvest Moon, but in reality many months have raced by. These have held a mixture of deep sorrow - as you can see by the dedication in this particular book - but also times of joy and even adventure.
In May, Clive and I went on the holiday I spoke of in the previous book: three weeks in Italy and Greece which encompassed a twelve-day cruise on the Med and took i
n oodles of archaeology. It was all wonderful and fascinating - and the sun shone every day so at least we had a taste of summer! - but Pompeii was the highlight for me.We had allowed ourselves two whole days (arriving at the site as it opened at ten o’clock and not leaving until it closed), and it outdid all my expectations. As I stood and gazed along the dusty, time-worn lanes and pavements in the ancient town I could almost see those folk of long ago going about their daily business, unaware that the mountain which loomed over them was going to bring such destruction. I felt I had the privilege of peering straight into their lives and it’s a humbling and strange experience.
Home again - to a six-foot-high pile of post! - life resumed normality, or as close to normality as it ever gets in the Bradshaw household. Family, work, church, friends - so much to do and so little time to do it, as the rabbit in Alice in Wonderland said, or something along those lines! And then everything came to a sudden stop in July. Clive and I grieved with our dear friends, Peter and Dorothy, on the death of their beautiful, brave daughter, Lizzie, and we continue to do so. We pray every day that the Lord Jesus will comfort and uphold Lizzie’s parents and her husband, Phil, and her brother, Richard.
It’s often said in situations like this that the departed loved one was a very special person who touched the lives of everyone they met, and in Lizzie’s case that’s absolutely true. She suffered her battle against cancer with huge courage and cheerfulness, her unswerving faith and trust in God testifying to so many people.The world’s poorer, and heaven’s richer, at her passing.
Now as I sit and write this it’s the beginning of September, and there’s a new and long-awaited member of the Bradshaw family in our midst. He has four paws, a tail and the sweetest face you’ve ever seen, and for such a little puppy he has turned our lives upside down in the very best way imaginable. Our beloved old dog, Pippa, was such an ancient lady when she died last year that we’d forgotten the sheer exuberance for life an eight-week-old puppy has, but we’re remembering fast! It’s early mornings and hectic days and I wouldn’t swop a second, but why hasn’t someone made nappies for pooches? Only joking!
So, a little bit about this story. The embryo of the idea for Eve and her Sisters came one day when I was reading about a pit disaster which claimed the lives of one hundred and sixty-eight men and boys, a terrible blow for a small Durham mining town. It made me wonder about the folk behind the statistics, both the men and boys who were killed and the womenfolk who remained. What would life be like for women and children who had lost all their menfolk in one fell swoop, no breadwinners left and yet still plenty of hungry mouths to feed? And then Eve began to speak to me . . .
I do hope you enjoy entering into Eve’s story and getting to know her and her two beloved sisters, the warm, homely Nell and the lovely, wayward Mary, and experiencing the way each girl deals with what life has thrown at them. May you go into another world for a little while, Eve’s world, and come out the richer for it.
Lots of Love
Rita
The Michaelmas Fair
The Michaelmas Fair, which plays a pivotal part in Eve and her Sisters, was a huge event in the lives of folk in past centuries. It was always held on 29th September (the feast of Saint Michael), and in old English the day was called Sancte Micheles Maesse, Saint Michael’s Mass, after which a feast would be held in honour of the saint. Gradually over the years the Michaelmas Fair evolved and probably most working-class people of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries had no idea of the origins of the event many of them looked forward to from one September to the next. An event which lifted them from their often drab, work-weary lives into a world of colour and noise and excitement.
The Romany showmen arrived at the same place in a town or large village each year. In the case of towns it was usually a large park which hosted the event, but in the countryside the fair folk often used a farmer’s field in the middle of a cluster of small villages for easy access by foot or horse and cart for everyone, or a piece of waste ground at the edge of a large village which wasn’t quite a town. People would think nothing of walking several miles there and back, and sometimes lots of folk would get together and use a hay wagon pulled by a shire horse, young and old crowded in together with barely room to breathe.
Besides the coconut shies, shooting galleries, gypsy fortune tellers, boxing matches, merry-go-rounds, swing boats and umpteen side shows and stalls selling roast chestnuts, hot potatoes, toasted muffins and seafood, the fair provided an opportunity for a much more serious undertaking, the hirings. This was a great opportunity for employers of all types - farmers, inn keepers, hotel owners, rich landowners - to come and select potential servants, but it was less enjoyable for those seeking employment. Lined up in a special section of the fair, these men and women, often with children in tow, would stand like cattle before their potential purchasers. Because the Michaelmas Fair heralded the start of colder weather with the winter looming, it was generally acknowledged that those people waiting to be hired were in a fairly desperate situation.
Hirings took place at markets and in town centres in the spring and summer too, but by the end of September the employers knew they were fairly certain to get servants for far less than they would have had to pay at the beginning and middle of the year. In the time of the dreaded workhouses there was no social security net or anything else to save families from starving, and employers mostly had it all their own way, a fact the more unscrupulous among them were quick to capitalise on.
In this day and age it seems strange to think of men, women and children going to the fair and enjoying themselves, whilst in among the festivities and lined up for all to see and gawp at stand people so desperate for work and shelter they are prepared to work for next to nothing. Our present society may not get it right all the time, but the ‘good old days’ left a lot to be desired too!
Top ten writing tips
1. Absolute top of the list: be totally passionate about and committed to what you want to write. If you try to write in a ‘popular’ genre because you think it more likely it will get published, forget it.You’ve got to be so sold out about writing from the heart that if you never earn a penny it’s still worthwhile because you’ve satisfied that need inside you. If you’re concocting a story by attempting to follow a formula or imitating a favourite author’s style and your heart’s not in it the fact will scream from the page.
2. Closely following tip number one: believe - really believe - in your characters. If you don’t, no one else will. You can make them somewhat larger than life, of course; in the real world folk are attracted to larger-than-life characters all the time. They can be good or they can be bad, but never, ever boring. Who wants to spend quality time with boring people?
3. The first couple of paragraphs of a novel are all-important. You need to grab your reader from the beginning so try to make the first page sparky in some way. If a reader has never picked up your books before they are likely to read the blurb about the story on the jacket and then open the book at the first page and scan quickly.
4. Discipline. Unartistic word but important, unfortunately! It’s not good enough to ‘feel’ like writing. Decide when and for how many hours a day you are going to write and then stick to it, come hell or high water.
5. Never rely on your memory. Make masses of notes all the time, it’ll save time and frustration ultimately. Don’t repeat names of characters and do keep a running schedule of time factors regarding events, birthdays, births and deaths - everything!
6. Research thoroughly. Readers are intelligent and perceptive and are sure to pick up on the smallest error. Never assume anything and if you aren’t sure about something, leave it out.
7. Don’t run out of steam in the middle of your story. If you can, leave something meaty for around that point. If the beginning is great and the end is wonderful but the middle section drags, you’ll be in for a re-write.
8. Try and convey something of the mood of the novel in your title.The title of a
story, along with its cover, of course, is a tool to whet the appetite.
9. Keep to the number of words required for the genre. If, despite all your efforts, the story ends up too long or too short, take constructive criticism on the chin and be prepared to add another character or a twist to the story or, on the other hand, to cut and trim. Face the fact that you might be too close to the story to see it clearly.
10. Don’t be put off by rejection slips. Some of the most successful writers took decades to get their first break. Keep trying, don’t lose heart and enjoy your writing. Writing isn’t about money or selling millions of books - first and foremost it’s about you fulfilling that burning urge to transport the stories milling about in your head to the written page.
To any as yet unpublished writers out there - good luck!
Don’t miss . . .
We hope you have enjoyed reading Rita Bradshaw’s marvellous new novel, Eve and her Sisters. Don’t miss her other unforgettable novels of romance and family drama set in the north-east.
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