by Iris Gower
The labourer was little more than a youth, thin, with fair hair flopping over his forehead; he looked more suited to poring over books than working the fields. In this assessment Fon turned out to be right.
‘Sit down, Eddie,’ she said politely. ‘I’ll put your dinner out in a minute.’
She liked Eddie; from the minute she’d set eyes on him, Fon had instinctively trusted him, but he was no farmer. Still, in these busy days, any help was better than none at all.
She served Jamie with a huge plate of meat pie, hot from the oven, and pushed the dish of vegetables towards him.
‘Eat up, love,’ she said softly. ‘You look as though you need it.’
He met her gaze, and even though he was tired, he had a light in his eyes that stirred her senses. A wash of warmth filled her, she loved him so much. Since her marriage, Jamie had filled her whole world; she couldn’t imagine now ever being without him.
She concentrated on serving the meal, and Eddie thanked her nicely as she handed him his plate of pie.
‘How’s Patrick this morning?’ Jamie asked, glancing towards the front room.
‘He’s sleeping,’ Fon said. ‘I’m hoping the remedy I’ve given him will start to work soon.’
Jamie pushed aside his plate and left the table, disappearing into the other room.
Eddie looked up from his plate. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked, and it was the first time he’d spoken two words together.
‘I’m afraid he’s caught the scarlet fever,’ Fon said quietly. ‘I should have the doctor to him, but money’s so tight, just now.’ She shrugged. ‘I don’t know what to do for the best.’
‘Will you allow me to have a look at him?’ Eddie said.
Fon stared at him in surprise. ‘Do you know anything about the sickness, then?’ she asked.
Eddie shook back his lock of fair hair. ‘My father was a doctor,’ he said. ‘I began my training, supposedly to follow in his footsteps, but’ – he shrugged – ‘it wasn’t to be.’
‘What do you mean?’ Fon asked, and immediately apologized. ‘Oh, excuse me, it’s none of my business, is it?’
Eddie smiled. ‘I don’t mind telling you what happened,’ he said, rising to his feet. ‘My father died, quite suddenly. His heart gave out, I fear. I found then that we were heavily in debt; the house had to be sold, and there was no money for me to continue with my training.’
He smiled, and his thin face looked quite handsome. ‘So I took to the hills, literally.’
He pointed in the direction of the parlour. ‘May I?’
Fon nodded, eager for another opinion, and followed him from the kitchen into the other room. She drew Jamie back from the bed, holding on to his hand, watching as Eddie gently lifted the blanket and exposed Patrick’s small frame.
‘What the . . . ?’ Jamie began.
Fon looked up at him, shaking her head. ‘It’s all right. Eddie was going for a doctor,’ she explained quickly, ‘but when his dad died there was no money for it. Let him look at Patrick. It can do no harm.’
‘His chest,’ Eddie said, with a sudden, unexpected air of authority. ‘It’s congested. We need a poultice and some hot flannels, and perhaps we could have a kettle boiling on the fire. The steam will help him a little.’
‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ Jamie said softly, but he brought the kettle and poked up the flames beneath it.
‘Can you make a poultice?’ Eddie looked at Fon, and she nodded willingly.
‘I’ll do it straightaway.’ She moved quickly, knowing that what Eddie wanted would do nothing but good. She was only sorry she hadn’t thought of it herself.
Afterwards, when Patrick was sleeping more easily, Fon returned to the kitchen. ‘Eat your dinner,’ she said to the menfolk, and at once Eddie was the quiescent labourer again, meekly obeying her commands. She smiled. How strange it was, the way a man would obey a woman when it came to childhood habits, like eating up his dinner or changing wet clothes, and yet could be so assertive out there in the harsh world.
That night Fon was seated at the table with the books spread open before her. The figures swam before her tired eyes, but she saw with alarming clarity that the stock of fodder for the animals was much lower than it should be; and that wasn’t the only problem. New seed was needed, and the money was fast running out. If Jamie didn’t get the corn cut and most of it sold in the next few weeks, the farm would be in real trouble.
The egg yield from her hens was still good, but the money from that enterprise brought in scarcely enough to put food on the table. In addition, the cows were a liability; with some of them in calf, and the rest still dry, they were a drain on resources rather than an asset.
The rams had been sold weeks ago, but the money from the sale had dwindled away alarmingly. Fon shivered; it seemed that ruin was facing them, in spite of all Jamie’s efforts to make the farm a success.
But no, she would not let that happen, she told herself. Matters would improve when the beasts were productive once again. The milk was always a good source of revenue. And when the corn was cut and sold, the farm would be in funds once more. In the meantime she would have to see to it that they cut back on everything except bare necessities.
Even so, she wondered uneasily, would the little money that was left last long enough to sustain the farm until things improved?
Jamie came into the kitchen and kicked off his boots. Fon closed the books with an air of finality; her husband had quite enough to worry him without knowing how bad things really were.
‘How’s Patrick?’ He slumped wearily into a chair and rubbed his hand across his eyes.
‘Much better,’ Fon said truthfully. ‘His breathing is easier, and he’s sleeping soundly in his bed.’ She knelt down before Jamie and put her head against his chest, listening to the strong beat of his heart.
‘I think our boy is over the worst, thanks to Eddie.’ She was grateful that she had one piece of good news to impart. ‘Hungry, love?’
Jamie shook his head. ‘I’m too tired to be hungry,’ he said, with a hint of anger in his voice. ‘I know Eddie tries, but he’s useless with the sickle. I don’t think we’ll ever get that field cut.’
‘Come on to bed then, love,’ Fon said softly. ‘Try to forget all about the farm for now.’
He touched her hair lightly. ‘I’m not giving you much of a life, colleen,’ he said. ‘It’s nothing but work from dawn to dusk.’
‘And isn’t that what I’m used to?’ Fon said fiercely. ‘I’ve always worked, mind, and worked hard. If you think the farm is any worse than the oyster beds, you’re mistaken.’
Jamie cupped her face in his hands and, bending, kissed her mouth. ‘But then you didn’t have a husband making demands on you during the night-time, did you?’
He drew her on to his knee and rubbed his hand against the nape of her neck, caressing the skin beneath her hair. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever stop wanting you, colleen.’
‘Come to bed and prove it,’ Fon said, her eyes alight, her pulse beating rapidly. ‘Talk is cheap, mind.’
Later, as they lay entwined, with Jamie’s head in the crook of her arm, Fon looked down at his face, the lines of weariness eased away by sleep, and tears came to her eyes. She loved him so much that it dragged at her heart to see him tired and worried. If only she could do something to help him, something constructive – but what?
She curled up beside him and tried to relax, but it was a long time before she could forget her problems and fall into a restless sleep.
A few mornings later, Fon was hanging the washing on the line when she saw a figure coming towards the farmhouse. She hurried indoors and took up the gun that stood, these days, near the door. But as the tall figure drew nearer, she recognized him and put the gun away.
‘Tommy!’ she said joyfully. ‘You’ve come back to us?’
She hugged the boy and drew him into the kitchen. ‘I’m that glad to see you! But what made you come?’ She pushed him into a chair and put a cup of
cordial before him. ‘Didn’t you like living with your auntie?’
Tommy shook his head. He seemed older and somehow more mature than the boy who had left with his mother some months ago.
‘I couldn’t stand the town,’ Tommy said bluntly, ‘and I couldn’t stand working indoors, never breathing the fresh air or seeing much of the sun, come to that.’ He sipped the cordial. ‘Can I have my job back, do you think?’
Fon thought of the lack of money and hesitated, and then she imagined the fields of corn waiting to be harvested. She nodded briskly.
‘You can have your job back and welcome,’ she said. ‘But you’ll have to wait a bit for your pay.’ She smiled at him. ‘You can have bed and board as always, and I’ll keep tally of what’s owing you. As soon as things pick up, I’ll settle with you. How’s that?’
Tommy smiled. ‘Shall I start now?’
Fon watched as Tommy made his way along the perimeter of the hedge and towards the field where Jamie and Eddie were working. She knew that Tommy, thin as he was, would do more than his fair share of the work; he was a farmer by birth, and his heart was in it. She sighed happily. Things would be easier now for Jamie, and if she asked Eddie too to wait for his wages, the money would be easier.
With Tommy’s return, it was as if fortune was smiling on them for the first time in months, Fon thought happily as she dressed Patrick ready for the fields. The corn was in stooks and drying in the sun, and the seed that Fon had bought in Swansea market, with no money and on the strength of Jamie’s good name, was safely sown. It was true they owed a debt for the first time ever, but at least they had been given time to pay.
Money was still short, but now there was the prospect of selling off the corn, and soon the late potatoes would be lifted, some of which Fon would take into the market and use to pay off the debt for the seed.
She picked up her basket, covered with a pristine cloth, and, taking Patrick’s hand, led him out into the September sunshine. The air was rich with the scents of the drying corn, and as Fon stared across the fields she saw in the distance the figures of her husband and his labourers like dark dots on the horizon.
‘Your daddy will be waiting for his dinner, Patrick, my boy,’ Fon said. ‘And so will Eddie and Tommy; they both eat enough to feed a bull!’
‘My Eddie,’ Patrick repeated. His small face was filling out again now, and the red rash had quite disappeared. He had taken a liking to Eddie, who spent a great deal of time with him, telling him stories and playing games.
Eddie was wasted on the land; Fon realized that he was cut out to be a doctor, with his keen interest in people and his clever mind, as well as his clever hands.
Fon smiled. Eddie’s hands were calloused now, like those of any farm labourer, but they were still gentle as they cut out paper shapes to amuse Patrick.
As Fon drew nearer to the field where the men were working, she realized that Jamie had seen her approaching. The men had stopped working and retreated to the shade of the hedge, drinking from the big brown jug Fon had provided that morning.
Patrick let go of Fon’s hand and ran towards Eddie, flopping down beside him on the ridge of ground and looking adoringly up at him.
‘You would almost think the boy understood what Eddie’d done for him,’ Jamie said, rising and taking the heavy basket away from Fon. ‘Eddie would have made a good doctor, no doubt about that.’
He removed the white cloth. ‘Ah, pasties still warm from the oven,’ he said, turning to the men, ‘and cheese and crusty bread. That’ll fill a corner or two, boys.’
Fon sank on to the ground and leaned against the gate-post, pleased to be resting in the late, unexpected sunshine, if only for a short time. During the afternoon, she would help the men in the fields, and later she would return home with Patrick and make the main meal of the day for all of them. It was a hard life, but, as she’d pointed out to Jamie, it was no harder than working the oysters.
She glanced covertly at her husband; his eyes met hers, and the look he gave her sent shivers of desire flowing through her. She smiled. It was good to be married to the handsomest man in the whole world.
By the time she returned to the farmhouse later that afternoon, with Patrick hanging on to her skirts, Fon ached in every limb. But as she neared the doorway, the hairs on the back of her neck seemed to rise.
‘Stay by here a minute, Patrick,’ she said and moved quietly into the kitchen, glancing around her uneasily. Ever since the night when the place was wrecked, she had been half afraid to walk into the empty house. Her eyes went to the gun placed near the door. It was still there.
From round the back, she heard the dogs barking, and, though everything appeared to be normal, she had the strangest feeling someone had been in the house.
She searched the rooms. All of them were empty, and yet her strange feelings persisted. She shrugged. ‘Fon, you’re getting like an old hen!’ she said out loud, but the sound of her own voice in the silence was not reassuring.
‘Come on, Patrick, my boy, better come inside out of the chilly breeze,’ she said. The boy came obediently and climbed into the old rocking chair, his eyes closing wearily.
Fon smiled, relaxing a little. It was time she put the potatoes on to boil, or the men would be coming in and no meal ready.
She built up the fire and lifted the heavy pot into place on the hob. She’d spent much of the morning peeling potatoes and cutting up swede; they would be boiled together to make the ‘potch’ that was a favourite of Jamie’s.
It was only when she went to set the table that she saw the note. It was pinned against the table by a pebble to which the dirt of the yard still clung. With trembling hands, Fon picked it up and tried to decipher the scrawled words.
YOU THINK I’M FINISHED WITH YOU, BUT I’M WATCHING YOUR EVERY MOVE AND I’LL HAVE YOU ONE DAY, MISS HIGH AND MIGHTY. BUT FIRST I’LL RUIN THAT PRECIOUS HUSBAND OF YOURS.
Fon burnt the letter and then went out to the yard and threw the pebble as far away from her as she could. She washed her hands and dried them carefully, as if to rid herself of any trace of the note.
She would not tell Jamie about it, she decided; he had enough to think about as it was. In any case, it would only anger him, and he would be constantly worrying about going out into the fields and leaving her alone in the house.
Fon picked up the gun from near the door and felt its reassuring weight against her. Woe betide any man who tried to do harm to her or hers.
It was several days later when Fon awoke to the smell of burning. During the moments of half-sleep, she thought Jamie must be burning the stubble from the empty fields prior to sowing the winter barley. But when she turned Jamie was asleep at her side.
She scrambled out of bed, flinging off her nightgown and pulling on her clothes. ‘Jamie!’ she panted, ‘wake up! Something is burning.’
He was awake in an instant; there seemed to be no transition between sleep and full alertness. He stood there on the opposite side of the bed, his strong back bent as he drew on his trews.
‘Christ!’ he said. ‘It must be the corn.’ He ran down the stairs and out of the door. Fon could hear raised voices in the yard and knew that Eddie and Tommy must have been alerted to the fire at the same time as she was.
She moved to the window, and her worst fears were confirmed. Smoke billowed upwards in dark clouds; some of the stooks were flaring like torches in the early morning light, whilst others smouldered darkly.
Fon sank on to the bed. ‘All that work!’ she whispered. ‘All of it for nothing.’
They would be ruined. There would be no money coming in, not from the corn now. And the potatoes would take time to lift; it was sheer hard backbreaking work, with only Jamie and herself and two lads to do the work of half a dozen strong men.
Rage filled her. If only she had her enemies in her sights, the men who wanted to harm her and Jamie, she would shoot without compunction.
She roused herself. She must run for help; all the neighbouring
farmers would join in to fight the fire, for it might spread to other fields, ruin other crops.
She wrapped Patrick, still asleep, in a blanket and carried him outside to where the grey horse was nuzzling grass. Without stopping to saddle the animal, Fon climbed up on the broad back, clutching, with one hand, at the grey’s flowing mane, Patrick held tightly before her.
‘Come on, girl,’ she urged the horse, ‘don’t gallop too hard, mind, or you’ll have us off.’
The acrid smell of scorched corn and earth brought tears to her eyes, and she began to cough as she skirted the perimeter of the burning field. The stooks were well alight, and in her heart Fon knew that her journey was futile. By the time help came, it would be too late. Much too late.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
‘We’ll work for nothing for as long as needs be, boss.’ Tommy’s young face was grimed with smoke, his eyes red-rimmed, and Fon felt her heart contract with pain.
‘We’ll soon catch up, you’ll see. Once the potatoes are picked, there’ll be a bit of money coming in,’ he added earnestly.
‘I’ll second that,’ Eddie said, his young face grim. ‘I don’t hold with hooligans trying to drive honest farmers out of their living.’
‘Aye, you’re all right, sure you are. I’ve got myself two fine young men,’ Jamie said, rubbing a weary hand over his eyes, ‘and I’ll accept your offer most gratefully, though the Lord knows when I’ll catch up with all the wages I’ll owe you.’
‘The fire was set on purpose then?’ Fon said, pushing the kettle on to the newly mended fire. As Jamie nodded, the last faint hope that somehow this was an accident, not the work of a vengeful enemy, vanished.
‘Aye, colleen.’ Jamie’s hand rested on her shoulder. ‘It was set deliberately, the work of evil men all right, and I’ve got a good idea who those men were.’ He rubbed at his tousled hair and it sprung in curls around his face. ‘Bob Smale was behind it all, no doubt; and somehow Mike the Spud is in it with him, up to his neck.’
Fon shivered. She knew that Jamie would not let matters rest there; it was a matter of honour for him to settle the score between him and the men who had done their best to take away his livelihood.