The Collier’s Wife

by Chrissie Walsh

  In the shelter of a deep-set shop doorway he offloaded his pack, and pulling the edges of his cape together, he lowered his long, lean body to the ground. Raffy Lovell was weary of wandering. He had come to stay.

  It was too late to seek lodgings so he rested his back against the shop door and pulled his broad-brimmed hat low over his face. He itched to remove his boots and rub his feet with the salve a gypsy woman in Mumbles had given him but, afraid of being disturbed by a constable on night patrol, he made do with packing a piece of rag inside the loose sole. As he prodded it into place he pondered on the past and what the future might hold. He didn’t regret his wandering days. He’d seen marvellous sights, met interesting men and bedded many beautiful women. But now he was weary. He wondered what sort of a man his son had grown to be. Had Bessie taken good care of him? He felt not a jot of guilt at having left the baby boy with her. He was certain she would have given him a better rearing than he himself could have provided. Maybe she’d made a farmer of the lad, glad to have an extra strong pair of hands about the place. Bessie had always put the farm above all else.

  And what about the girl child? She’d be a woman now. Had Bessie come clean? Had she whispered in the girl’s ear that the gypsy man she’d briefly met one day when she was no more than ten years old was her father? He doubted it. Hadley Elliot wouldn’t take kindly to that. And Bessie had too much to lose by telling the truth.

  Raffy shuffled into a more comfortable position and closed his eyes, picturing a buxom Bessie with her head of blonde curls and sharp blue eyes. She often came to him in dreams. She was his woman, no matter they had travelled such different paths. And the lad and the girl were his also, a son and a daughter who were strangers to him. But not for much longer, he thought, as sleep claimed him.

  *

  Hadley woke at first light, the wind rattling the windowpanes and a rhythmic clanging of metal against metal disturbing his sleep. He listened for a while, his temper rising by the minute. Damn Samuel! If he’d fixed the barn roof it wouldn’t be flapping and banging fit to wake the dead.

  Over breakfast Hadley glowered at his two sons. ‘That barn roof needs fixing – today,’ he growled. ‘Leave it any longer and the whole lot will come tumbling down.’

  Samuel shoved a loaded forkful of bread dripping with egg yolk into his mouth as though he hadn’t heard. Thomas glanced nervously at his father and then at his brother. He helped himself to another slice of bread.

  Hadley’s cutlery clattered to his plate. ‘Did you hear what I said?’ he barked.

  Samuel swallowed noisily then belched. ‘We’ll do it after we’ve been to see that new tractor I’m thinking of buying,’ he said lazily.

  ‘Tractor? And where’s the money for that coming from?’ Hadley asked scathingly.

  Samuel’s eyes slid to meet Bessie’s. She smiled indulgently. ‘Our Sammy says…’

  Harumphing noisily, Hadley got up and walked to the outer door, and pulling on his topcoat he said, ‘I’ll bring the cows down for milking. Be up on that roof by the time I get back.’ He opened the door, a savage gust lifting the edges of the tablecloth and ruffling Bessie’s curls. Samuel shrugged and carried on eating. Staring vacantly, Thomas chewed on a crust.

  Amy glanced disparagingly from one brother to the other. ‘You boys don’t pull your weight on the farm. You can’t expect Dad to do all the work,’ she said, buttoning her thick, navy blue winter coat then wrapping a woollen scarf round her neck, ready to go to work.

  Thomas shuffled to his feet. ‘I’ll get the trap,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t bother; I’ll walk,’ Amy retorted, ‘you just make a start on that roof.’

  *

  Raffy Lovell had risen at first light, leaving the shop doorway long before the proprietor arrived to open up the shop, and before a passing constable could apprehend him. He lingered in the streets until the Red Lion hostelry opened its rear gates, and sneaking into the yard, he visited the closet then washed at the pump, running damp hands over his dusty trousers and waistcoat. Spotting some twine dangling from the end of a clothesline, he sliced it off with his knife then bound it tightly round his broken boot. It wouldn’t do to arrive at Intake Farm looking less than presentable.

  Back on the street, the wind tugging at his cloak and threatening to whisk his hat from his head, he looked for a place to shelter. Spotting the high curved wall to one side of the steps outside the public library, he went and sat in its lee. He’d bide his time till a more respectable hour. He dozed, waking with a start some time later.

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw a pretty, young woman wearing a navy-blue coat hurrying towards him, the tails of her scarf flapping and long tendrils of blonde hair escaping her neat little cloche where the wind had caught them. Raffy jerked his head in surprise and stared. For one fleeting moment he had thought it was Bessie but, common sense to the rescue, he acknowledged the passing of time. Smiling ruefully, he rubbed his grizzled jaw.

  The girl drew level with him, and giving a dazzling smile and a friendly ‘good morning’ she bounced up the steps and into the library. Raffy watched the trim figure retreat, his thoughts on Bessie and days gone by.

  *

  In the library’s storeroom Amy slipped off her coat, and as she smoothed the collar of her white, pin-tucked blouse and the pleats of her grey skirt she thought about the man on the steps. He wasn’t a customer, of that she was sure. She would have remembered a gypsy with a golden earring. Yet, there was something about his dark, brooding eyes and the way he smiled that seemed achingly familiar. Shaking her head, she put him out of her mind.

  *

  By the time the cows had been milked and the churns left at the end of the lane for collection, neither Samuel nor Thomas had returned from Sisson’s Farm Supplies. Hadley lumbered about the yard, his head tilted and his eyes scanning the barn roof. Gusting wind lifted the loosened corrugated sheets. When it released them, they crashed down on the creaking roof trusses. The walls swayed and Hadley, looking as though his heart was about to break, stamped into the barn. Reappearing, he propped the ladder against the side of the barn, its top rested beneath two flapping corrugated sheets. Back inside, he stuffed a handful of nails into his smock pocket and then lifted a hammer from the bench.

  Harry Sykes, the farm labourer, came in behind him. ‘I’ve finished in t’dairy, Mester Hadley,’ he said, and giving Hadley a quizzical look asked, ‘What’s to do wi’ t’ladder outside?’

  ‘I’m fixing this blasted roof before it comes down on top of us,’ Hadley growled, blundering past Harry and out to the foot of the ladder.

  ‘Nay, tha nivver is,’ bleated Harry, hurrying after him. ‘Leave it to t’lads, Mester.’

  ‘I already did, and look where it got me.’

  ‘It’s too windy, mester. Them sheets are liftin’ rightly.’

  Hadley gave him a withering glare and mounted the ladder.

  ‘It’ll not hold your weight, Mester Hadley,’ yelled Harry, looking doubtfully at Hadley’s bulk on the insubstantial ladder.

  Hadley began to climb. Harry glanced sharply round the yard, willing Samuel or Thomas to appear. When he raised his gaze, Hadley’s head was almost level with the razor-sharp edge of the roof.

  A rushing noise like a thousand angry birds gusted between the house and the barn, and as Harry heard it coming, he shouted at the top of his lungs. The corrugated sheets lifted, flapping crazily before crashing down with a sickening thud.

  Like a slaughtered bullock Hadley toppled into the yard.

  *

  Outside the library, Raffy mulled over what he was about to do. Seeing the girl and thinking she was Bessie had left him feeling somewhat unsteady. Maybe it would be wiser to put the past behind him and forget about the seed he had scattered; he had left it too late. Bessie didn’t need him, and his son and daughter didn’t know him. Yet, he thought, he would like to know them, and they had a right to know he was their father. Reaching the decision to at least seek them out, Raf
fy left his perch and shuffled down the street. He’d go and see Bessie; she could tell him where to find them. Nearing his destination, Raffy left the road, making his way over the fields to Intake Farm. This way he could spy on the yard, hopeful of catching Bessie alone.

  He heard the commotion before he saw the cause of it. A woman’s shrill screams and a man’s angry shouts pierced the air, Raffy quickening his pace up the slope to the wall surrounding the yard. He peered over, his sharp eyes quickly taking in the scene. This was no time to come calling. He turned back the way he had come.

  *

  Bessie was distraught, but as she grieved she couldn’t help feeling relieved. Hadley would go to his grave never knowing the truth about Beatrice’s birth, or the part Bessie had played in Jude’s fostering. Now, there was no chance of her husband disowning her. Her position at Intake Farm was assured. Furthermore, she could use Hadley’s death as an excuse to delay Amy’s wedding plans and buy time to devise her own plan for getting rid of Jude Leas.

  After the funeral, attended by a hundred or more members of the local community, the family and a few close friends returned to Intake Farm to mourn the loss of a highly respected gentleman, husband and father. Later, when only the immediate family remained, Bessie firmly addressed Amy and Jude.

  ‘You’ll not be able to marry for at least a year,’ she said. ‘It would be disrespectful to your father’s memory.’ In her stiff, black widow’s weeds she looked every inch the domineering matriarch.

  Amy gasped. Jude frowned and opened his mouth to object. Before he could speak, Samuel intervened. ‘She’s right,’ he said, looking pointedly at Amy. ‘There’ll be no wedding from this house until we’ve mourned him for a year.’

  ‘You hypocrite!’ Amy hissed, rising from her seat to give vent to her feelings. ‘You’ve disrespected him for years. Now you’re pretending to grieve him. It was your idleness that killed him. If you’d mended the barn roof when he asked, he’d still be alive.’ Tears coursed her cheeks, her voice cracking as she spoke. Jude placed a comforting arm around her shoulders, but she shook him off.

  Two short strides took her to where Samuel lounged in Hadley’s chair by the hearth. She leaned in, her face close to his, and his head shrinking into his neck as he felt her hot breath on his cheeks. Contempt etched her features. ‘You might be master of Intake, Sammy, but you’re not my master. I’ll marry when I please,’ she said, her words as sharp as broken glass.

  She swivelled on her heel, and giving Jude a warning glare when she saw he was about to intervene, she caught hold of his arm as she swept to the door.

  ‘Take me away from here,’ she said.

  *

  Amy married Jude on a chill day in February 1913. She wore a white linen dress trimmed with Broderie Anglaise and a white fur cape to fend off the cold. She rode to the church in a hired car, tears threatening as she thought how proud Hadley would have been to be with her on this special day. But, with no father to give her away and Amy unwilling to let her brothers or Bessie take his place, she travelled alone.

  At the church, Amy handed the cape to Beattie who was waiting in the doorway with an excited Maggie and Mary. Pretty in spotted blue organdie, Amy’s bridesmaids were inspecting their frilly knickers, dazzled by their beautiful attire and the important role they were about to play. Bringing them into line with sharp clouts, Beattie left them to take her seat inside, leaving Amy to calm the girls and compose herself.

  From the arched doorway, Amy saw the empty pews to the right of the aisle. Lily and Tommy Tinker and three of Jude’s workmates and their wives filled just one. To her left she saw the sea of slicked male heads and ladies’ hats that were her family and friends, this imbalance in the congregation causing her to feel sad for Jude.

  The organ pealed out the bridal march. ‘Right, you two, let’s go,’ Amy said, her voice wobbling as she addressed her nieces. How she wished she had her father’s arm to lean on. At the altar rail, wearing his good black suit and a new white shirt, Jude waited with Bert, his best man. Hearing the music Jude half-turned, his eyes alight with love and admiration as he watched Amy’s approach.

  Bessie sat alone in the front pew, stiff in her lavender suit and cartwheel hat, her displeasure hanging like a dank fog above her head. Beattie and her sons sat behind, the boys wearing new white shirts (bought by Amy) and Beattie resplendent in pink crepe (Amy’s choosing), the soft, rosy colour enhancing her swarthy complexion. Beattie stared at Bessie’s lavender back, a rebellious delight running through her veins at having eschewed the drab browns Bessie had made her wear. Across the aisle Lily Tinker’s orange hat blazed like a beacon, Lily and Tommy beaming their delight as Amy and Jude exchanged vows.

  When the vicar asked, ‘Who gives this woman in marriage?’ Amy said, ‘I do.’

  A flurry of gasps, frowns and curious glances followed her bell-like response but the vicar, primed by Amy for this irregularity, smiled beatifically and carried on.

  To save face, Bessie had prepared a splendid tea at the farm, her social standing in the community demanding it and Amy and Jude grateful for the effort she had made. It lent another dimension to the wonderful occasion. Now, happily accepting gifts and felicitations, they stood arm in arm in the parlour congratulating each other on this being the perfect day.

  The afternoon was progressing nicely, neighbouring farmers and their wives chatting pleasantly with Phoebe Littlewood from the library, Bessie’s sister and her husband with the colliers, and Lily Tinker flirting with a bachelor friend of Hadley’s. Tommy Tinker came and stood with Amy and Jude, and was just about to replenish his glass from the barrel of beer Jude had ordered for the occasion when Raffy Lovell appeared in the open doorway. Clean and tidy in a dark suit of indiscriminate age and a bright red scarf at his throat, he leaned against the doorjamb and surveyed the pleasant scene. He might have gone unnoticed had it not been for the gasp escaping Bessie’s lips and the way she surged forward to meet him.

  ‘I just called by to congratulate the happy couple.’ Raffy smiled into Bessie’s beetroot-red face. Her blue eyes flashed dangerously, the twist of her mouth letting him know he wasn’t welcome. Unfazed, Raffy looked past her into the assembled crowd. ‘So where be the happy couple then?’

  Raffy’s eyes lighted on Amy. He knew she was the bride, his devious enquiries in the town having furnished him with knowledge that the pretty girl he had seen outside the library was Bessie Elliot’s daughter and that today was her wedding day. He had been told that the groom was a young lad from Bird’s Well, by the name of Jude Leas.

  Bert Stitt grabbed Jude with one hand and Amy with the other, ushering them forward and crying, ‘Here they are. Come in and drink their health.’

  Raffy needed no second bidding. Sidestepping Bessie, who was standing rigidly in front of him and looking as though she had sucked on a dozen lemons, he stepped jauntily into the kitchen and up to Jude and Amy. Then he faltered, visibly, his outstretched hand falling loosely to his side. He stared long and hard, utterly overwhelmed by the memory of his twenty-year-old self.

  Amy and Jude stared back, she because she recognised him as the man on the library steps, and Jude because an icy hand clutched at his insides; it was like looking into the future and seeing what he would look like in thirty years’ time. Recovering his composure, Raffy thrust out his hand, Jude and Amy automatically extending their own as Raffy enthusiastically proffered his good wishes. They thanked him, and as he moved away, Amy whispered, ‘I saw him outside the library a while back. Who is he?’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ Jude said, the strange feeling that he should know him persisting.

  Bert pushed a drink into Raffy’s hand, Raffy gulping it to settle his nerves. He had fully expected the bride to resemble the young Bessie he so fondly remembered, but he hadn’t given a thought to the groom. Now, covertly watching Jude as he mingled with the guests, Raffy was almost certain that Amy Elliot had married his son. He made his way across the room to Bessie.

 
Bessie watched Raffy approach, her heart thudding painfully. She had excused his presence with a lie, telling Bert and anyone else who asked that he had worked for Hadley many years ago. Now, as he stood close enough for her to feel the heat from his body and breathe-in that musky smell that was his and his alone, she was mired in deceit.

  ‘Why did you have to come on today of all days?’ she hissed.

  Raffy’s eyes gleamed, and he gave her his old, familiar smile – the smile that always filled her with regret and yearning. ‘I came to wish you well, Bessie. What better than a wedding be there but to renew old acquaintances?’ He leaned into her, his breath warm on her cheek. ‘And to meet new ones; who be the groom, Bessie?’ Bessie’s heart fluttered, her thoughts in turmoil. She might have confessed had the kitchen door not crashed back on its hinges.

  Samuel swaggered in with Thomas close behind. Having refused to attend the wedding, they had taken the day off and gone to the pub. They swayed in the doorway, their faces red and engorged with drink. Samuel stared sneeringly at the assembled guests and then pointed to the door. ‘You can all bugger off home,’ he yelled. ‘This is my house and I want you out. Now!’

  In the ensuing melee, Bert punched Samuel and Thomas and the colliers joined in the fray. ‘You’re to blame for this. It’s you made our Sammy the ignorant pig he is,’ Beattie shrieked at her mother. Bessie retaliated with a stinging clout and, ‘You ungrateful slut,’ before barging into the throng to pull on Bert’s shirttail lest he do Samuel any further damage.

  Amy’s cry rose above the rumpus. ‘Stop! Please stop! Don’t spoil today.’

  But by then it was too late. Although Jude’s fists itched to beat the living daylights out of Samuel he waded in and broke up the fracas, intent on saving the day for Amy’s sake. Raffy joined him, and between them they separated the combatants. In the uncertain calm that followed, Jude chivvied Samuel to the foot of the stairs. ‘Go to bed and sleep it off,’ he growled. Samuel slumped down on the bottom step.