Tilly put her hand over her mouth and laughed quietly and as she did so she felt the tense muscles in her body relaxing. Oh, it was nice to talk to one of your own sort, an intelligent one. And now he was speaking again.
His arms once more folded, he said quietly, ‘As I was about to put to you, did it ever occur to you when you were reading a lot, Tilly, of just how ignorant you were of all the things that went on in the world afore your time, and just how ignorant everyone else around you was? Did it? Did it?’
‘Oh yes, Steve, yes.’ She shook her head slowly from side to side. ‘I know I’m still ignorant. I think you only start to learn when you realise you’re ignorant, it’s your ignorance that drives you on.’
‘Yes. Aye, yes’ – he nodded at her – ‘that could be true. Yet I was thinkin’ the other day when I was listening to the lads down below, if they all had the chance to read and write would it get home to them that they were ignorant? Would they take advantage of it? Do you know I doubt it, I doubt it, Tilly. I think some men are made in such a way that they cling to their ignorance. “I know nowt but I’m as good as thee, lad.” You know, that sort of thing, sort of “I’m not gona learn, on principle.” Mind your eye, I don’t think women would take that attitude; I think if women got the chance they would learn.’
‘Oh, I don’t know if I agree with you there, Steve. All a woman really wants, in the first place that is, is a husband and a home and bairns. All the ordinary woman wants is warmth and enough to eat for herself and her family. A woman will work all her life to get security, as it were, for those belonging to her.’
He sat back in his chair now and his lips went into a twisted smile as he said quietly, ‘What about the Lady Mytons?’
‘Oh, they’re a type on their own, bred of their own class.’
‘Well now, it’s me that doesn’t agree with you there, Tilly, for I don’t think they’re a type on their own. Her type is found in every class of society from the gutter upwards.’
‘Well, you certainly sound as if you know.’ She was smiling at him but when she saw the colour rise to his brow she actually laughed aloud, and he self-consciously with her, and he said, ‘Well now, Tilly, don’t get me wrong; I didn’t mean I’d had experience with people like her in every class. But I do keep me eyes and ears open, and all I can say is she’s not alone. And when you do get somebody like her she’s worse than any man . . . Eeh!’ He rose to his feet now, saying apologetically, ‘I shouldn’t be talkin’ to you like this.’
‘Why not?’ She looked up at him. ‘We’re old friends, Steve, we’ve known each other for a long, long time, and we’re not children any more.’
‘Yes, you’re right there, Tilly.’ He stood gazing down on her. ‘And eeh, by! It’s lovely to see you again an’ to talk to you. And it goes without saying you’ll be very welcome in your own house’ – he spread his arms wide – ‘any time you’ve a mind to come, because I’ll not be able to take the road the other way unless I come as a messenger, will I?’
She wanted to say again, ‘Why not? You may call any time you like,’ but what had she warned herself of just a short while ago? They were old friends but the friendship must remain old and not be renewed in any way. She rose to her feet now, saying, ‘May I go up and sort out the books?’
‘It’s your house, Tilly.’ His voice was level and slightly flat now. He pointed to the ladder, then added, ‘When you’ve got what you want give me a shout and I’ll bring them down for you.’
‘Thanks, Steve.’
She had her foot on the first step of the ladder when he said quietly, ‘That outfit suits you. You don’t see the like of it round here.’
‘No, I suppose it is surprising, but it’s common in America and it’s a very comfortable way to ride.’
He nodded at her and she went up the ladder and into the attic where his bed was. It had been roughly made and there were no clothes lying around. He was naturally tidy, like a sailor might be, one who was used to a small space. Well, thinking back to his early days he had been used to a small space, a cubby hole in the roof, if all tales were true. Yet that being so it was a wonder he hadn’t gone the other way and strewn his things far and wide. He was a surprise was Steve in all ways; there was not the slightest connection between the man and the boy.
She went to the far corner of the attic and she could see at once that the books had been sorted over but she quickly found what she wanted. A moment later she knelt down on the floor and called, ‘Steve! Would you take these please?’
Having reached up and taken the books from her, he placed them on the floor, then, his arms extended, he steadied her as she came down the ladder.
It was the first time in years that she had felt his touch, in fact she couldn’t remember him ever putting his hand on her; she could only visualise him standing suppliant and pleading for her love. Now, surprisingly, he must be so self-sufficient he didn’t need love of any kind or else he would surely have been married before now.
‘How you going to carry these? You can’t tuck them under your arm. Look, I’ll make two slings and they’ll hang at either side of the saddle.’
‘Yes, yes, that’s a good idea. Thanks, Steve. And I’ll have to be getting back.’ She took a fob watch from the pocket of her short riding jacket. ‘Twenty to three. Dear, dear, how the time flies. The children will be racing round looking for me.’
‘How is the boy?’
‘Oh, Willy? He’s fine.’
‘Are his eyes improving?’ He asked the question quietly and she looked into his face which was straight now and then her head drooped as she said, ‘The sight has completely gone in one eye and the other is somewhat affected, but I’m afraid time isn’t on his side with regards to his sight going completely.’
‘I’m sorry. Oh I am, Tilly. I’m sorry to the heart. And I can tell you that feeling isn’t unmixed with guilt when I think me mother is responsible. By! The things our family have to answer for. I want to stop believing in a hereafter except for the fact that if there’s no justice beyond they’ll get off scot-free. I used to think our George was decent, or would have been if he’d got the chance, but his youngster, Billy, is another Hal by the things I hear he gets up to.’ He looked down towards the floor now as he said, ‘Me mother turned up at the door here one day. I didn’t ask her in, and I said things to her that day that she would have brained me for a few years earlier. You know’ – he smiled wanly now – ‘when I was a lad I used to imagine she had stolen me as a bairn because somehow I didn’t seem to link up with any of them in that house. And when our Hal gave me this’ – he now lifted his left arm which he was unable to straighten from the elbow, he added with bitterness, ‘I swore that one day I’d get me own back on him, and I did, didn’t I?’
‘Oh, Steve!’ She swallowed deeply in her throat. ‘I was to blame for that.’
‘No! No!’ The words were emphatic. ‘I would have done it some time or other; I meant to kill him and I haven’t the slightest regret. Perhaps I’ll have to pay for that too if there’s a beyond, but I’ll willingly do it. He would have died in any case that night left out alone as he was on the fells, with his back broken, but I saw to it that I despatched him afore the weather got him. Now don’t worry, Tilly’ – he put out his hand towards her but didn’t touch her – ‘I’ve never lost a moment’s sleep over it. I became a man that night, and it’s odd but I seem to have grown from then on both upwards and outwards. I feel free of the lot of them now.’
As she stared at him she wondered if he really had forgotten what he had said when he came to propose to her. ‘I killed our Hal for you, Tilly,’ he had said. ‘What I did to him I did for you.’ Had the years blotted out that memory? She imagined it must be so, and it was just as well. Oh yes, it was just as well.
During the time it took him to rope up the books neither of them spoke, and it wasn’t until they were going down the path that she said, ‘I’m so glad that you’re settled in the cottage, Steve. I would have had t
o sell it, or let it to someone who wouldn’t have looked after it as you have.’
He half paused as he turned to her, saying, ‘You’d sell it?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t think . . . ’
‘Well, we can talk about it later, can’t we?’
‘Yes, yes.’
‘Talking of buying cottages or houses, I had a stroke of luck a few years ago.’
‘Yes, what was that?’
They were standing by the side of the horse now. ‘Well, you know the people I lodged with when I worked in Durham, a Mr and Mrs Ransome? Well, the old lady died, and he was lost without her, and one Bank Holiday he took me with him to a cottage right out in the wilds of Northumberland, nothing but hills around it, and on the hills nothing but sheep. He had been brought up there. It wasn’t much more than a little but and ben, nothing like this one’ – he jerked his head backwards – ‘two small rooms, a loft and a couple of shippens and most of the place dropping to bits. Well, from that day we got into the habit of going up whenever we could and doing a bit of repairing. I could have got a job as a stonemason by the time I’d finished; and oh, it was and still is lovely up there, in the good weather that is. By heck! come the winter it would freeze the nose off a brass monkey. Anyway, to cut my long story short, when Mr Ransome died what did I learn but he’d left it to me, the cottage and ten acres. Sounds marvellous doesn’t it, but you’ve got to see the land. It’s all stone and you can’t do anything with it except run sheep on it, and then only a few. But there you are, Tilly, I’m a landowner. Doesn’t that surprise you?’
‘It does, it does indeed, Steve; and I’m very happy for you.’
‘Funny thing life, isn’t it? Neither of us had a brass farthing or as much as a penny to start with, and now we’re both well set, you most of all. And there’s nobody more pleased for you than I am, Tilly.’
‘Thank you, Steve. Thank you.’
They stared at each other for a moment, both smiling. Then without further ado he bent down, took the sole of her high boot in the palm of his broad hand and the next moment she was astride the horse, and he was looking up at her, saying, ‘You make a fine pair. I’ll swap him any day for the old dodger back in the field.’
She laughed, saying as she did so, ‘Bye-bye, Steve,’ and he answered, ‘Bye-Bye, Tilly.’
The horse had taken but a few steps when she turned and looked at him. He was no longer smiling and for a moment she seemed to recognise the expression that was usually on the face of the boy he had once been, and it disturbed her. But only for a short while, until she reached the Manor.
She had handed the horse over to Peter Myers and when Biddle met her at the top of the steps she had allowed him to relieve her of the books, but she had no sooner entered the hall when Josefina, jumping down from the second stair and evading Connie Bradshaw’s hand, rushed towards her, crying, ‘Mama! Mama! She slapped Willy. Mama, she slapped Willy.’
Taking hold of the child’s hand, she said, ‘Quiet! Quiet, Josefina!’ Then looking towards where Connie Bradshaw was holding Willy by the hand she asked quietly, ‘What is this about slapping?’
‘I just tapped his hand, ma’am.’
She stared at the girl for a moment; then reaching out, she took her son’s hand and drew him to her side, saying to him now, ‘Have you been slapped, Willy?’
The boy hesitated a moment as he peered up at her, his lids blinking over his brown eyes, and he replied, ‘I was naughty, Mama.’
She had noticed this about her son, that he never answered a question by yes or no but generally gave a reason. It was a queer trait in a child and it nearly always pointed to his attempting to avoid trouble both for himself and others.
‘Why were you naughty? What did you do?’
‘I pulled at nurse’s chain . . . ’
‘He touch it, Mama, she nasty, grab it and slapped him. She slapped him hard, Mama.’
‘I didn’t, I didn’t. I tapped his hand, that’s all.’
Tilly looked at the girl. She wasn’t wearing a chain of any kind. Naturally she wouldn’t while on duty. She didn’t, however, go into the question of what kind of a chain Willy had been pulling, but instead said, ‘Please don’t raise your hand to the children again. If they’re naughty come to me immediately and I shall deal with them. You understand?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Well now, take them up to the nursery. I’ll be there shortly.’
‘She naughty, Mama. She naughty.’
‘Quiet, Josefina! No more. Now be a good girl, go along with Willy.’
Both the children went dutifully away with their new nurse, but not silently, for Josefina’s mutterings could be heard even when she reached the gallery.
Tilly turned now to where Biddle was still standing holding the books and she said to him, ‘Take them to the nursery, please.’
‘Very good, madam.’
As she watched the footman ascending the stairs she wished Anna hadn’t gone to the expense of rigging out both him and Peabody in such flamboyant uniforms. Breeches and gaiters didn’t somehow go with the atmosphere of this house.
She sighed and pondered for a moment whether to go into the kitchen as she was or go upstairs and change. Having decided on the latter, she slowly mounted the stairs and as she made her way across the balcony and along the broad corridor, Josefina’s high piping voice came to her, and she smiled to herself ruefully. Things didn’t change all that much; it seemed no time since Matthew and his two brothers and his sister had run wild up on that floor and chased each other screaming down the stairs and along this very corridor.
Again she thought, Oh, Matthew! Matthew! For Matthew had loved her from the first moment he had seen her; he had been ten and she sixteen, and later he had died loving her; but he had laid the rest of her life heavily on her.
Immediately on entering the room she stopped and looked towards the bed on which she had lain with his father, but never with him, and she asked herself why she should have thought that Matthew had laid the rest of her life so heavily on her, for hadn’t she made up her mind she could never love again and so the promise she had made to the dying held no burden for her . . . Or did it?
She had got out of her riding clothes and put on a dressing gown, and, sitting before the mirror, she pondered the fact that she was only thirty-five but her hair was as white as driven snow. It was the hair of an old woman, yet she hadn’t a line on her face. As she rose from the stool, pulling tight the cord of the dressing gown around her thin body, an impatient voice within her muttered, What did it matter what she looked like? One needed to have pride in one’s looks only for a husband or a lover, and she’d had both and now she had neither. So be it.
Five
‘Look, Ma, I saw her shaking little Willy as if he were a rat. If the other one had been there there would have been hell to pay, but Miss Josefina had run down to the lake. I saw it all out of the gallery window.’
‘Well, if she had really hurt him he would likely have yelled out.’
‘He doesn’t, Ma. I’ve noticed that about him, he doesn’t. Miss Josefina makes up for it, I’ll give you that, but he holds his tongue about things. He’s funny that way, an’ it’s sort of old for a bairn of his age.’
‘Well—’ Biddy went on straining the stock through a sieve as she said, ‘Give her enough rope and she’ll hang herself; you can’t do anythin’ without proof and don’t go carryin’ tales, our Peg.’
‘I don’t go carryin’ tales, but I hate to see little Willy . . . ’
‘Master Willy.’
‘All right, Ma, Master Willy. And anyway, I don’t forget meself beyond the kitchen door, and I’m not talkin’ to anybody but you. Now . . . ’
‘An’ mind who you are talkin’ to.’ Biddy stopped her straining for a moment. ‘Don’t use that tone to me.’
‘Oh, our Ma, you never change.’
‘No; that’s one thing about me; as I was yesterda’ I’ll be the morrow. An’ when I�
��m on, what were you and Myers gassing about in the yard a minute ago when you should have been about your work?’
‘Oh, he was tellin’ me that he had met up with the Mytons’ coachman when he stopped for a pint in the Black Horse t’other night. And what do you think of the latest, Ma?’
‘Well, I won’t know till you tell me, will I, lass?’
‘You know who her ladyship is after now? You’d never guess.’
‘No, I’m no use at guessin’, so spit it out.’
‘Steve McGrath.’
Biddy let the strainer drop into the clear liquid, then jerked it out, saying, ‘Never!’
‘’Tis true. She does, she is. She waylays him on his road back from the pit.’
‘She’s a maniac, that woman . . . Steve McGrath. Eeh! Who in the name of God will she have next? She had the master at one time, then she had Farmer Bentwood; and now Steve McGrath of all people . . . ’
‘Oh, them’s not all. Their coachman told Myers that one of the stable lads . . . well, he wasn’t all that young, he was nineteen, but he did a bunk one night ’cos she kept coming up in the loft after him, supposedly wanting to have her horse saddled, sometimes around two o’clock in the morning.’ Peg started to giggle and Biddy said, ‘God above! She should be locked up.’
Tilly Trotter Widowed (The Tilly Trotter Trilogy) Page 5