Proud Harvest

by Anne Mather

  ‘No, but Jeremy might,’ replied Lesley, folding pants into her suitcase. ‘Besides, I want to see Jeremy for myself. Measles can cause complications, and I want to be sure he’s properly looked after.’

  Mrs Matthews sounded disgusted. ‘All this talk about independence,’ she snorted. ‘I really thought you might enjoy being free of the responsibility for Jeremy, but you’re not, are you? Your idea of freedom seems to encompass a great deal of commitment.’

  ‘I am his mother,’ said Lesley quietly, considering the contents of her wardrobe, and Mrs Matthews shook her head.

  ‘I sometimes wonder why you pretend to want to live alone,’ she declared spitefully. ‘It seems to me that if you’d had a little more guts you might still be mistress of Raventhorpe!’

  ‘Guts had nothing to do with it!’ retorted Lesley, stung into retaliation, but clearly her mother did not believe her.

  ‘Guts—and staying power,’ she repeated, going out the door. ‘And the ability to stand up and fight for what’s yours, instead of running away like a frightened rabbit!’

  Lesley couldn’t help remembering what her mother had said on the long drive up to Yorkshire. It was true from the distance of time and experience, her reasons for walking out lacked conviction. But at the time they had been convincing enough, and just because the years had glossed over the crueller aspects of Carne’s behaviour, nothing could alter the fact that he had shown little sympathy for her exigencies.

  Perhaps her youth was the key, after all. Perhaps she had been too defensive, too ready to take offence over small digressions. Mrs Radley would not have been able to hurt her if she had been more sure of herself, of Carne, and of her position in the household. As it was, she had allowed every setback to become a defeat, every difference of opinion to escalate into an all-out row.

  Before Jeremy was born, she had had more self-confidence, but the strains of her pregnancy combined with her weakness afterwards had made everything so much more intense. She had been taut and nervous, defensive of her role as Jeremy’s mother, frightened and uncertain when Carne seemed to be turning away from her.

  That her fears had been magnified by Mrs Radley’s attitude she could see now, but she might have swum through the treacherous waters if it had not been for Marion Bowland.

  Marion Harvey, as she had been then. Lesley swung out to overtake a furniture wagon, her fingers tightening on the wheel. Without her intervention, things might have been so different. But Marion was an embittered girl herself. She had not visited Raventhorpe as frequently as she did just to see Mrs Radley. On Carne’s own admission, they had been friends since childhood, and she had treated the house as a second home. Lesley tried to put herself in Marion’s position, but it wasn’t easy. She couldn’t see herself coming to the farm so frequently once Carne was married and presumably lost to her, she couldn’t see herself ignoring the signs and behaving as if this was just a temporary setback, she couldn’t see herself insinuating her opinion into Carne’s ear and displaying in so many ways how much more fitted to be his wife she was.

  And yet Marion had done all these things. From the first, she had treated Lesley as a rather immature infatuation on Carne’s part, never taking her opinion seriously, constantly seeking ways to make her look small. Aided and abetted by Carne’s mother, Marion had ridiculed her rival on every possible occasion, and when Lesley returned home after having had the baby, Marion had become an integral part of their lives.

  Lesley couldn’t accept it. She didn’t want to accept it. She didn’t want Marion around her, pretending to help her, handling the baby. And what should have been a bond forged between her and Carne became a wedge to drive them apart. Because of Marion, and Carne’s total refusal to ask her to keep away, Lesley directed all the pent-up love inside her towards the child, and in so doing drove Carne to do what Marion had wanted all along—take his pleasures elsewhere. Lesley didn’t need to be told what was going on. Carne moving his belongings out of her room was enough, and Mrs Radley’s smug condemnation had been more than she could bear.

  It was ominously cloudy when she reached the turn-off for Ravensdale, and driving up through the valley spots of rain splattered the windscreen. But despite the overhanging gloom, she was exhilarated, a feeling she had never associated with Raventhorpe before. It was like going home, and her heart beat a little faster as she bumped across the cattle grid and drove towards the house.

  A glance at her watch told her it was after one o’clock, which meant that lunch was probably over. Still, she could always make herself a sandwich, she thought, as a low rumble of protest came from her stomach. She left the Mini at the side of the house and walked round to the kitchen door. She was surprised Mary hadn’t come out to see who it was, but then she probably had her hands full.

  Her first impression as she came through the kitchen door was dismay, followed almost immediately by amazement. Mary’s kitchen had never looked like this. There was a pile of unwashed dishes in the sink, the table was spread with the remains of several meals by the look of it, and the floor was grimed with dirt from the farmyard. But the most amazing thing of all was that it was not Mary who was standing by the draining board, peeling potatoes, but Marion Bowland.

  Suppressing the instinctive urge to turn her back on it all, Lesley stepped reluctantly through the door, and as if aware of the darkening shadow she cast, Marion looked round. If Lesley had been surprised to see Marion, it was not more so than Marion was surprised to see her, and an expression of angry resentment spread over her plain face.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded aggressively, and Lesley, rallying her forces, composed her features.

  ‘I could ask you the same,’ she countered pleasantly. ‘Where’s Mary?’

  ‘Mary!’ Marion made the word sound like an insult. ‘Mary’s not here any more.’

  ‘Not here?’ Lesley was taken aback, although she ought to have guessed something of the kind when she saw the state of the kitchen. ‘You mean, she’s ill, too?’

  ‘No, I don’t mean that,’ retorted Marion short. ‘I mean she’s not here. She left. Walked out—just like you did.’

  Lesley let that go, but her mind was racing furiously. When had Mary walked out? And why? Was that before she telephoned Lesley or after? But most importantly now, who was taking care of Jeremy?

  ‘How is—my son? And Mrs Radley, of course?’ she asked, walking further into the room. ‘I—understand they’ve been ill.’

  Marion’s mouth tightened. ‘Now who would tell you a thing like that?’ she snapped. ‘Not Carne, I’ll be bound. He’s got enough on his hands without inviting another useless individual to Raventhorpe.’

  Lesley itched to respond in kind, particularly in the circumstances, but she let a mocking appraisal of the rooms’ deficiencies suffice and said instead: ‘Never mind how I know. I do. Where are they? Where’s Jeremy?’

  ‘In his room, I expect,’ said Marion sharply. ‘Have you come to take him back with you? I hope so. Miserable little devil, crying all the time!’

  ‘Crying …’ Lesley’s hands trembled, but Marion was going on.

  ‘Yes. Wants attention every minute of the day, he does. A proper baby. Just because I slapped him when he wet the bed, he won’t have anything to do with me. As if I haven’t got enough on my hands—–’

  But she was talking to herself. Lesley had opened the door into the hall and was already hurrying up the stairs, trying to quell the almost violent fury she had felt when Marion said she had slapped him for something of which he would be bitterly ashamed anyway.

  She burst into Jeremy’s room to find him sprawled on the floor, playing with the soldier dolls Carne had provided for his use, but when the door opened he sprang to his feet, to stand facing the intruder in evident defiance. Then he realised it was not Marion but his mother who stood in the doorway, and with a disbelieving little cry, he flung himself into her arms.

  Some minutes later Lesley disentangled herself from his clinging
fingers and drew him down on to the bed beside her. He looked pathetically thin in pyjamas that seemed a size too big for him, but thankfully his spots were subsiding and no longer so irritable.

  ‘Now,’ she said, having listened to his chapter of accidents told between hiccoughing sobs, ‘do you know why Mary’s not here?’

  Jeremy sniffed a few times, blew his nose, and then nodded. ‘I think so.’

  ‘Go on, then—why?’

  ‘It was ‘cos of me, I s’pose.’

  ‘Why because of you?’

  Jeremy hesitated. ‘When—when I had an accident—you know,’ he gestured to the bed behind them. ‘Well, then Mary got angry with Mrs Bowland because—because she smacked me.’

  ‘I see.’ Lesley frowned, silently applauding Mary’s action. ‘But that really doesn’t explain why Mary left.’

  Jeremy frowned. ‘I—I think Mrs Bowland complained to Daddy, and he spoke to Mary.’

  ‘Oh!’ The position was becoming clearer, although how Carne could have taken Marion’s side, she didn’t know. And yet wasn’t that what he had always done? She shook her head. She was jumping to conclusions again, but somehow she couldn’t help it.

  ‘I’m glad you’ve come back,’ declared Jeremy fervently, edging closer. ‘I have missed you.’

  ‘Have you, darling?’ Lesley felt a moment’s scepticism. Until his illness, Jeremy seemed to have managed very well—as Carne had said he would. Now she said: ‘What about Grandma? How is she?’ deliberately hiding her own feelings of emptiness.

  Jeremy looked thoughtful. ‘She’s all right, I think,’ he said doubtfully. ‘She spends most of the time in bed. I haven’t seen her much, only with Daddy.’

  ‘I wonder when Mary left,’ murmured Lesley, returning to the most unpalatable subject of all, and Jeremy frowned.

  ‘I think it was two—maybe three days ago,’ he said. ‘Mrs Bowland said I had to stay in bed, ‘cos I was poorly, and she brought up my meals. Mary used to come up and see me, though, and then she just stopped coming. I asked Mrs Bowland where she was and she said she’d left.’

  ‘I see.’ The whole picture was falling into place like the pieces of a jigsaw. ‘Well, I suppose I ought to go and see Grandma.’

  ‘Not now,’ said Jeremy at once, and when his mother looked questioningly at him, he added: ‘She’s asleep. When Mrs Bowland brought my lunch she said I wasn’t to make any noise ‘cos Grandma was going to have a nap.’

  ‘Oh!’ Lesley digested this, and then she rose to her feet, going across to the window and looking out thoughtfully for a moment. She could see a tractor moving in the distance, weaving brown furrows against the burned earth, wavering through the streaks of rain that had threatened earlier. Her mind was busy with the reasons why Mary had chosen to telephone her, and only the hollow emptiness inside her brought her thoughts back to the present.

  Turning to Jeremy, she ran a light hand over his forehead, finding to her relief that his temperature seemed normal. Obviously, he was over the worst of the disease, but probably Marion was right in confining him to his room. His tray with its congealing mess of scrambled eggs and bacon attracted her attention, and picking it up, she said:

  ‘I’m going downstairs now to make myself a sandwich. You get back into bed like a good boy and I’ll fetch you some milk and biscuits up later.’

  ‘Will you?’ Jeremy was endearingly eager. ‘I couldn’t eat that!’ He indicated the tray. ‘I hate fatty bacon.’

  ‘Yes, well …’ Lesley was loath to be too sympathetic. ‘You be a good boy, and I’ll be back in a little while.’

  On the landing, she looked at the door to Mrs Radley’s room and then turned determinedly away. If Mrs Radley was sleeping, she would not risk disturbing her. Time enough to suffer her complaints when there was no alternative.

  When she reached the kitchen she found Marion had made herself a pot of tea, and was presently seated at the untidy table, drinking it. One of Mary’s homemade spice cakes had been set on a plate, and Marion had cut off a hefty wedge and was presently ploughing her way through it.

  Lesley carried Jeremy’s tray to the drainer and lifting his plate, scraped its contents into the waste bin. Marion watched her with brooding eyes, and then she said sourly: ‘Well? Has he told you all his troubles?’

  Lesley ignored this and after a quick look round, went towards the larder. The stone-floored larder was as big as her mother’s kitchen at the flat, and its shelves were usually filled with Mary’s pie and puddings. Today, however, only half a side of ham sat unappetisingly on a plate, and even the bread in the bread-bin was stale and hard.

  However, it would have to do, and Lesley carried the bread and the cutting board into the kitchen and carved herself a slice of ham to make a sandwich.

  Marion viewed her activity with scarcely concealed resentment, but Lesley refused to be intimidated. She had as much right here as Marion Bowland, she told herself, although she doubted whether Marion or Carne would agree with her.

  With a sandwich inside her, she felt more ready to face what was to come, and avoiding Marion’s dour indignation, she poured herself a cup of tea from the pot and drank it while she put the bread and ham away again. Then, still ignoring the other girl, she went to the sink and began running water into the basin.

  That made Marion sit up. ‘What’re you doing?’

  ‘Washing up,’ declared Lesley quietly. ‘It looks as though someone should.’

  Marion pushed back her chair and got to her feet. ‘There’s no need for you to soil your hands. I can manage.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ retorted Lesley, squeezing washing fluid into the water which fortunately was hot. ‘Besides, I’m quite willing to do my share.’

  ‘Your share!’ Marion stared at her scornfully. ‘What do you know about running a house?’

  ‘As much as you, by the look of things,’ retorted Lesley quickly, and Marion flushed.

  ‘If you had those two on your hands all day long—–’ she was beginning, jerking her thumb towards the upstairs rooms, when the sound of a thud followed almost immediately by shrill sobbing came from that direction.

  Shaking the water from her hands, Lesley sped across the room and up the stairs again. The sobbing was coming from Jeremy’s room, and she rushed in, expecting the worst. He was sitting on the floor at the bottom of the bed, crying and holding his head, and when she hurried to him he buried his face against her.

  ‘What is it?’ she exclaimed, feeling the thudding of her heart against her ribs, and Jeremy sobbed out his sorry tale.

  ‘I—I fell,’ he cried, sniffing miserably. ‘I fell off the end of the bed.’

  Lesley’s eyes looked over his head to the square rail at the end of his bed. With brows drawn together, she echoed: ‘You fell off the end of the bed?’

  ‘Yes.’ Jeremy turned injured eyes up to her. ‘I hurt my head.’

  ‘But how could you fall off the end of the bed?’ exclaimed Lesley, incredulously. ‘The rail would stop you. And what were you doing at the end of the bed anyway?’

  Jeremy’s mouth trembled. ‘You’ll be cross with me.’

  ‘Why will I be cross with you?’

  He hesitated. ‘Because I fell.’

  A faint line of irritation was etching its way across Lesley’s forehead. ‘Jeremy, how did you fall?’

  ‘I just fell.’

  ‘Jeremy!’

  ‘Oh, well, I—I was playing pirates, and—I was sword-fighting and—and—–’

  ‘—and you climbed on to the end of the bed?’

  Jeremy nodded.

  ‘You know that was very naughty, don’t you?’ Lesley stood up, bringing him to his feet as she did so. ‘I asked you to get into bed until I came back, didn’t I?’

  ‘I’m sick of being in bed,’ complained Jeremy sulkily, and Lesley sighed.

  ‘I know you are, but that’s the way it has to be.’

  ‘Why can’t I come downstairs with you?’

  ‘Because I have wor
k to do in the kitchen, and the door’s open, and I can’t have you catching a chill.’

  ‘Why can’t Mrs Bowland do the work?’

  ‘Because she can’t.’ Lesley tried not to sound too impatient, but reaction from Mary’s absence, Marion’s hostility, and Jeremy’s lack of understanding was beginning to set in. ‘Now, get into bed. Here’s the soldier dolls you were playing with before. You look after them until I have time to come back and talk to you.’

  Jeremy was not happy, but he took the dolls without complaint and Lesley made her way back downstairs. Marion had not tackled the dishes in her absence as she had thought she might, but had poured herself another cup of tea which she raised mockingly in Lesley’s direction when she reappeared.

  ‘Is the little darling making a nuisance of himself?’ she enquired silkily, and Lesley had to bite her tongue to stop herself from being blisteringly rude.

  There seemed no end to the pile of dishes that mounted on the draining board. Breakfast dishes, dinner dishes; dishes whose hardened contents bore witness to the fact that they had been there more than a few hours. Lesley’s arms ached by the time she had scoured all the pans clean, and then she had to set about drying them.

  Although the fine drizzle had cooled the air a little, it was still excessively humid, and she was sweating profusely by the time Jeremy shouted down the stairs. Aware of Marion’s silent derision, she climbed the stairs again, only to find her son wanted her assistance to find one of his toy cannon balls which had gone missing.

  ‘Jeremy!’ There was a definite edge to his mother’s voice now. ‘I can’t waste time looking for toy cannon balls. You’ll have to find it yourself. And don’t shout down the stairs again. You know Grandma is supposed to be resting.’

  Jeremy’s jaw began to wobble. ‘You’re not going to be cross with me, too, are you?’ he mumbled. ‘I only wanted you to help me.’

  Lesley controlled her temper with difficulty. ‘No, of course I’m not going to be cross with you,’ she exclaimed. ‘But try and entertain yourself for a while, Jeremy. I promise I’ll come back as quickly as I can.’