Larkrigg Fell

by Freda Lightfoot

  Andrew considered his wife, hungrily appraising the smooth round cheeks, still pink and girlish. The swell of her breasts rising and falling with little breaths of excitement beneath the simple blouse, and the curve of her hips in the tight blue jeans she often wore. He longed, very urgently, to press her against himself and make love to her, right here, on the floor of this old kitchen.

  ‘Aye,’ he admitted slowly. ‘A place of our own would be nice.’

  Her heart rose on a beat of hope. ‘I’ll make Billy understand. See his pride isn’t hurt. We can’t live in the past, Andrew. We have to go forward, you and I. Change is inevitable.’

  Her cheeks were flushed to a bright cyclamen pink, in bewitching contrast to her beguiling, grey-blue eyes. It would have taken a stronger man than Andrew Barton to resist their appeal.

  ‘Happen it’s not such a bad idea,’ he conceded. In his mind he’d already unbuttoned her blouse and his hand was closing over the soft ripeness of her breast, feeling the nipple harden beneath his fingers. He flinched, then his chest puffed out as he drew in a steadying breath. ‘You do what you want with the front parlour, Beth, and I’ll tell them that I said you could.’

  She was so thrilled by this small victory that she flung herself at him, kissing him with exuberant delight. ‘Oh, thank you, thank you. I shall make it so lovely and cosy.’ And, as once before, they were both so startled by her impulsive action, embarrassment washed over them in a dampening wave. Then she scurried away, duster in hand, eager to make a start.

  The parlour was scrubbed out and polished, the new curtains returned to the window, chair covers made, and Beth’s pictures and bright scatter cushions set about. It transformed the room. If only it could have the same effect upon their increasingly stilted relationship, Beth thought, then she would be content.

  Each evening she and Andrew would sit together, the old battery radio playing soft music, ‘Bright Eyes’, or ‘I Will Survive’, two appropriate hits that year. Andrew would read his paper and Beth the latest novel she had borrowed from the library van which visited the dale every Tuesday. They looked like any other contented married couple, and if there was little conversation between them beyond farming matters, who could say that was so unusual after a tiring day’s work?

  Often he complained about poor prices at the mart, or fretted over some ewe that didn’t seem quite right.

  ‘We’re living on the edge here,’ he would say. ‘We can’t afford any disasters. I’ll have to take her to the vet next week if she doesn’t mend.’

  ‘Ask him to come here.’

  ‘And be charged double? Don’t be daft.’

  But she was pleased with her small victory and it proved to be every bit as pleasant as she’d hoped for. Beth began at last to relax, deciding that she might even come to be happy here with Andrew, in this beautiful dale.

  Through the small window she could watch the seasons slowly change, clouds boiling with fury or listlessly mellow, and the arrival of bramblings and siskins as the summer days grew shorter, the leaves dropped from the trees and the glory of autumn also passed and a winter coolness came upon the land. A scouring wind that Seth called lazy, because it couldn’t be bothered go round you, but went right though you, would roar up the dale. Yet here, in the parlour, all was safe and secure and warm.

  Their relationship too grew warmer. They exchanged snippets of news, laughed and joked together, even made tentative plans for the future. Andrew spoke of his dreams for Cathra Crag, once it was entirely his.

  ‘I’ll put in new equipment.’

  ‘And electricity.’

  Grinning, eyes met with a radiant sparkle. ‘Aye, best generator money can buy. And more stock. I mean to grow t’best herd of Galloways around.’

  ‘And a washing machine?’ Giggling.

  ‘TV and record player happen.’

  ‘And who will pay for all of this?’ She laughed.

  ‘We’ll get a loan. We’re young and can work hard. We can build a good business here, don’t you reckon?’ He gazed steadily at her and just as steadily Beth gazed back. He was asking her if she meant to stay, meant to make a go of life with him.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, very quietly. ‘We have all the time in the world to build a good life here.’

  Then he gave her one of his smiles, less rare these days. ‘Cathra Crag has been in our family for generations. Going steadily downhill. It’ll take years to get it on its feet again.’

  ‘But it could be done?’

  ‘Oh, aye. It could be done.’ He frowned, wishing he felt as confident as he sounded. It would take a life-time of sweat and toil. And for what purpose, he thought with a sudden bleakness, if there were to be no future generations to pass it on to.

  This marriage had not turned out quite as he’d hoped. He’d seen the warning signs right from the first, but hadn’t taken them too seriously. He’d genuinely believed that in a few short weeks, days even, he’d be in her bed and they’d be man and wife in truth, content together.

  Yet as the months had gone by they’d grown further apart than ever. Each night as he climbed the stairs to his bachelor bed, Andrew agonised over how he was to break this impasse. Should he burst in and take her, insisting upon his rights as a husband. No, too Victorian. And he was a poor man at courtship, no good at wooing a woman, whatever you liked to call it. One look from those cool grey-blue eyes and all hope and passion drained from him.

  But he’d given her the parlour and Beth seemed more content than he’d ever seen her. Gave him quite languishing looks at times. He lived in hope that she would one night invite him to her bed.

  Later, as she stood with her hand on the door knob he thought she meant to do it. She hesitated, glancing back at him from beneath her lashes. Was this it? Was this to be his lucky night. Dear God, he was ready for it.

  ‘Andrew?’

  ‘Aye?’ He held his breath. He must remain calm, no rushing at the last fence. He smiled up at her. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Are you coming up soon?’

  His heart began to pound against his rib cage, leaving him agonisingly short of breath. ‘Do you think I should?’

  ‘Well…’ Again she hesitated. ‘There’s something we should discuss.’

  He sat up straighter in his seat, keenly aware of every flicker of expression on her lovely face. ‘If you’ve anything to say, Beth, I’m a good listener.’

  ‘I know.’

  He wondered if perhaps her shyness was getting the better of her, whether he should say that talk wasn’t needed between them, and sweep her off upstairs. Unfortunately he hesitated a second too long and she’d started to talk.

  ‘I want you to understand that it was just the once. Not that anyone cares about such things these days, but you have the right to know.’

  ‘Know what, Beth?’ Had he missed something? What had she said?

  It was quite beyond Beth to live a lie. He was her husband so she believed he should be told. Should, in fact, have been apprised of her true state before ever she’d agreed to marry him. If she and Andrew were ever to have a future together this matter had to be cleared up between them. She must purge herself of guilt. Then she would be free to take him to her bed.

  So she told him, quite bluntly, hardly daring to pause for breath or to watch his reaction. When, in the silence which followed her brief explanation, she finally dared to glance at him, Beth knew that the tactic had been a terrible mistake.

  His jaw had tightened and his face was set as if frozen. Andrew gazed at her for so long without speaking that for a moment she almost began to doubt he’d taken it in.

  ‘Did you hear me, Andrew?’ She reached out a tentative hand to touch his shoulder but he flinched and jerked out of her reach. The gesture of revulsion hurt her deeply and she drew back as if scalded.

  ‘Aye,’ he said, his voice echoing the cold bitterness that gnawed at his guts. ‘I heard. You’re saying you gave yourself to Pietro Lawson. You belong to him and I’ve made a proper fool of
myself.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant at all. I’m simply telling you it happened only the once.’

  ‘And whose fault was that?’ He stood, towering over her, almost threatening in his anger. Hating himself for his intolerance yet he could do nothing to still the hot jealousy that surged through him. What a fool he’d been to imagine she could ever love him. ‘Why tell me now? Why would I want to know what you’ve done with him?’

  ‘You are my husband. You have the right.’

  Hadn’t she the sense to guess how such news would tear him apart? No, like all women she thought only of herself. ‘Shove your guilt on to me, you mean.’

  He saw her stiffen, knew he was saying all the wrong things, but could do nothing to take them back.

  ‘Why should I feel guilty? It was only the once, I tell you.’ Beth was trembling, desperately searching for a way out of this awful mess.

  ‘But if he hadn’t been openly living with your sister, you wouldn’t have refused him a second, or a third time, would you?’

  She drew in a quick, startled breath. ‘That’s not fair.’

  ‘Sounds fair to me. Are you saying you weren’t in love with him, despite all you told me to the contrary?’

  Beth was forced to turn her gaze away, unable to deny the truth. And Andrew strode from the room without another word.

  The cosy evenings in the parlour were over. She told herself it was because Andrew was busy with the hundred and one tasks which kept him working long hours on the farm. Which was partly true. But that would not explain why he seemed to go out of his way to avoid her, rarely addressed her directly and never spoke her name. He took to calling her ‘the wife’ as if distancing himself from her. Beth hated the expression. ‘I’m not a possession,’ she told him. ‘Like the house, or the farm, or the car. I’m me. Use my name. Talk to me.’

  ‘Not now, Beth. I’m too busy. Besides, I’m surprised you want to waste your time talking to a yokel like me, let alone marry one.’

  ‘Oh, not that old chestnut again.’ But he would walk away, head held high in that stubborn way he had and she could only stamp her foot in frustration and wonder how she could ever regain that warmth which had been developing between them, and now seemed totally lost.

  Slowly, painfully, winter passed and Beth spent more nights alone in her lovely new parlour than she cared to count. Where Andrew spent his time she didn’t know and daren’t ask. She knew that he’d taken to often going out of an evening, along to the Broomdale Inn, no doubt, where he could hide his disappointment in a pint or two of best bitter.

  Sometimes she heard him clumping up the stairs to his single room at well past midnight. An unheard of time for Andrew with milking first thing. Once, she almost went out to confront him, but heard him stumble on the stairs, swearing copiously. She shrank back to her bed and maintained their silence.

  Beth slept little and was desperately tired. She felt old suddenly, all the games and hopes and dreams of youth dead in her. And each morning she would be acutely aware of Seth’s quiet gaze upon her, the unspoken questions in his watery old eyes, which she steadfastly ignored.

  It was true that she could do with someone to talk to. Someone who wasn’t too critical. If only Tess were here, or even Sarah. She still visited Ellen regularly, Sally Ann at Ashlea and Meg down at Broombank, but found it quite impossible to broach the subject with any of them. She maintained the myth of a happy marriage and felt more and more alone. No one suspected that anything was wrong, so why should she disillusion them?

  She would be loyal to her husband, if nothing else. No one must know that they were, in fact, no more man and wife now than they’d been on that June day last summer.

  Beth greeted the onset of spring with relief and took to spending hours in the patch of overgrown garden at the back of the farmhouse, as if she could bury her unhappiness in the thin stony soil. Clumps of nettles, rosebay willow herb, bindweed and wild poppies choked the long grass. Perhaps if she could dig it all up and make a proper garden, grow her own vegetables and fruit and flowers, she would have achieved something worthwhile and Andrew would take notice.

  She might take up beekeeping. The honey would be useful and she could sell the excess on Kendal’s free market, which operated on Saturday mornings. The old folk tale said that you should tell bees everything. She would talk to the bees since no one else was interested in her woes, she thought, in a welter of self pity.

  Seth quietly watched these frenetic activities with growing curiosity and interest. He saw how her eyes followed Andrew when he passed by and how his grandson rarely caught her lingering gaze. He noticed his quick temper. Things weren’t going too well for the newly weds, that was certain.

  Yet she was a bonny li’le thing. Not a beauty by any means but what he would call comely. Sometimes she tied one of them cotton triangular scarves about her hair to hold it back while she worked. Suited her, it did. And being outdoors so much had polished her skin to a summer brightness without coarsening it. Her cheeks glowed like ripe apples. How could his grandson not notice how she was blossoming? And why did he never admire her determined efforts to be a good farmer’s wife?

  Seth made up his mind to do his best to make up for his grandson’s negligence by giving the young lass every assistance. Near twelve months she’d been with them, time they stopped thinking of her as an offcomer.

  He carefully set about instructing her in the feeding and care of calves, bought her a fresh clutch of hens since her own were past their best, so they could enjoy their own free range eggs again, and she could sell the surplus. He even taught her how to milk Flossie, their latest house cow. This last seemed to delight her more than anything and she readily took over the chore.

  ‘We’re not a dairy farm, so we don’t have all the equipment,’ he apologised.

  ‘Oh, I don’t mind. I really don’t mind hand milking.’

  She always seemed so grateful for his interest, so anxious to be up early every morning to milk Flossie, feed the calves and prepare a good breakfast for the men when they came in at nine after their own early chores. Nay, you couldn’t help but admire the li’le lass. And in no time at all she’d scoured out the old dairy, and bowls of cream stood everywhere as she struggled to learn how to make butter, cream and cheese.

  Even Billy began to take an interest in the new activity.

  ‘What you up to now?’ he enquired, the truculent edge of suspicion back in his voice. When Beth explained, his eyebrows shot up and he stood nonplussed for a whole half minute. Then he turned on his heel and vanished out the door.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ Beth thought. ‘I’ve offended him again.’

  But moments later he was back, an old book in his hand. ‘Here,’ he said, thrusting it at her in an awkward sort of way. ‘My Emily allus used that. Been in the family for generations. Was my mother’s once upon a time. She set down all her recipes in it for pickling, jams and such like. And these are my Emily’s muslins. You pour the curds and whey through like, once the milk has thickened. We could get a couple of pigs to use up the whey you have left. The curd you make into cream cheese and wrap them in paper. Emily used to add herbs an’ all sorts. Don’t keep right well but hers were allus so good we were happy to eat them up right away. We enjoyed them.’

  Beth clutched the precious book to her breast and smiled up at her father-in-law. ‘Oh, thank you, Billy. I really do appreciate this. I don’t suppose I’ll ever be as good as Emily, but I’ll certainly try.’

  ‘Aye,’ he said, shyly rubbing his palms on his trousers. ‘Aye well, I can’t stand about here all day. There’s work to be done.’

  It was yet another small victory. Beth made the cheese, suffering many failures before she got it right. She experimented with herbs and garlic, and her three menfolk tried and tested, though she waited in vain for a word of praise from her husband. While the other two were ready enough to show appreciation where it was due, even offer a gentle word of advice, Andrew ate the cheese with the same st
olid seriousness he would any other dish she put before him, and said nothing.

  Seth noted her disappointment, and the air of sadness that clung to her. She might be getting on much better with us two old ‘uns, he told himself, having won us over with our stomachs like all women do, yet with her own husband there was no response. The lass wasn’t happy, not like when she’d first come, all bouncy and full of hope. Summat was wrong, and he wondered how best to deal with the matter, how much further he dare go.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Beth herself gave Seth the opportunity he needed. He was sitting in the yard on his rush-seated chair, a fox head taking shape in his hands as he carved and whittled the horn with the edge of his knife. He enjoyed working out of doors in the summer sunshine, and watching her weed and tidy the little garden and tie up raspberry canes.

  ‘Thee’s done a good job there,’ he told her, warm in his praise as he surveyed the neat garden with its rows of newly planted vegetables. ‘Didn’t know half what we’d got under all that jungle till you cleared it.’

  ‘The raspberries are already starting to come. I shall make jam this autumn. You’d like that, I dare say?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say no,’ the old man admitted. ‘Your bread’s improving, I’ll give you that. Quite light it is now. Don’t give me indigestion no more.’

  Beth laughed, enjoying the gentle banter with the old man. ‘It’ll be winter again soon and then I won’t be able to work in the garden quite so much.’ She came to sit beside him on a low stone wall, thinking of the long lonely evenings she’d have to face, yet again. ‘I like to be busy, and I want to be able to contribute to the farm’s finances. I was wondering what best to do this winter. Have you any ideas?’