Esther, wrestling with her conscience, pressed her lips together, and shook her head. ‘I can’t, Will, I just can’t.’
Matthew made rapid progress. Soon he could walk unaided. Then, hesitantly at first, he began to speak again. Just one word and then two or three, like a child learning to talk for the first time.
Esther would shake her head, a small smile on her mouth as she watched the three of them together. The two children, one on either side of him, skipping and dancing, chattering, glancing up at him, Kate slipping her hand into his, and Matthew placing his hand on Danny’s shoulder, not so much now for support as just in affection. Esther watched and smiled and in her heart she was glad. Glad for Matthew, compassionate enough to rejoice that he had perhaps, after all, some sort of life ahead of him. She was still a little fearful of the closeness between Kate and Danny. Yet what harm could it do while they were so young?
So some of her burden eased, at least some of the physical hardship, now that Matthew did not need quite so much help. Yet the farm work still lay fully on her shoulders. Matthew made no effort to do even the simplest tasks. He just wanted to spend his days with the children, and when they were at school, he would sit by the range or near the pond and gaze into nothingness.
Although Esther gave thanks for Matthew’s steady recovery, in her innermost heart Jonathan was never far from her thoughts.
She still slipped away to stand on the end of the Spit, to put her face up to the sky and the wind, to close her eyes and let the peace of the place surround her. This time of solitude she allowed herself was her only way of renewing her strength of purpose. Her iron resolve would not let her do any other than what she had vowed to herself to do; to turn her back on dreams and face reality. She would care for her sick husband and she would not let her longing for Jonathan eat away at her and destroy her. Her pledge renewed, she would turn away from the place where the sea and the sky and the land seemed to meet and once more take up the burden of caring for Matthew and Kate and running the farm single-handed.
With the coming of spring came a surprise for Esther. Suddenly, there were willing hands to help with the late ploughing and the spring sowing. Labourers from neighbouring farms appeared unasked and unheralded, sheepish grins on their faces. ‘Thought you could use a hand, missus, just till yar man’s well again, like.’
Esther held back the bitter retort that she had desperately needed their help during Matthew’s absence, but she knew that the reason they had stayed away towards the end of the war was solely because of her association with Jonathan. Now they had come back and she was far too sensible to turn away their help, however much her prickly pride might have liked to do so. Maybe they had talked it over amongst themselves, or maybe they’d just drifted back automatically now that her husband was home and the soldier gone. She had no way of knowing and she was certainly not going to ask.
Matthew made no effort to help, not even with light jobs that in Esther’s opinion he could have managed now. He sat in the spring sunshine or outside the pub on a bench and watched the rest of his little world at work or at play, apparently apathetic, locked in his own private existence.
Then something happened which gave him a new interest. At first Esther was gratified to see a spark of enthusiasm for anything, but as time went on she was to rue the day that the squire brought his brand new motor car down the lane to Brumbys’ Farm.
This strange chugging noise came nearer and nearer. Esther, in the process of stabling the horses she had on loan from the squire, had a job to calm the younger one. His eyes dilated with fear and he stamped and whinnied and backed away from his stable as if he thought the sound was coming from in there, and then just as suddenly, as if realizing his stable offered refuge from the noise, he shot forward almost knocking Esther over.
The chugging grew louder and Esther stared up the lane towards the town. Coming round the bend she saw a motor car bowling along the narrow lane and to her surprise turning in at her gate. She stood back against the wall of the cowshed, her hands spread against the brickwork behind her, staring wide-eyed as the vehicle, puthering smoke, came to a juddering halt in front of her. She saw the squire lean forward and then the engine died.
He climbed out of the vehicle. ‘Good morning, my dear. I hope you don’t mind, I thought I’d take Matthew for a little drive in my new acquisition. I thought it might – well, you know – perk him up a bit.’
Esther glanced towards the seat near the pond and saw that Matthew had already risen and was moving, with that peculiar, shambling gait, towards the motor car.
‘That was kind of you, Squire,’ Esther said.
Matthew was now standing near the motor car, his gaze roaming over it, his hands reaching out to touch the shiny metal.
‘If you’ll excuse me, Squire,’ Esther murmured.
‘Surely, my dear, surely. You have no objections to Matthew taking a spin with me?’
‘Of course not, Squire, it’s very kind of you to think of him,’ she repeated. And it was. It was kind of him and unusual for a man in the squire’s position to concern himself so with Matthew’s welfare. Perhaps, Esther thought intuitively, looking after another victim of the war is helping to ease the loss of his own son.
From the pantry she heard the car start up again and winced as the loud throbbing once more shattered the peace. Gradually the sound died away as the squire drove down the lane towards the town.
There he goes, she thought of Matthew not without a little bitterness, her lips pursing in disapproval. Gallivanting off with the squire, riding in a grand motor car and not even trying to lift a finger to do a few simple jobs. She sat down suddenly on the cold slab of the gantry.
‘Esther Hilton,’ she said aloud to the empty house. ‘You’ll become bitter and sharp-tongued just like your Aunt Hannah if you dun’t watch yourself!’
She remained sitting where she was for some time, finding herself in a strangely pensive mood. Maybe, she thought reflectively, it had been the responsibility of her family and the sheer drudgery of her life in caring for them that had made her aunt as she had been. For, despite the fact that her uncle had been a gentle, good-natured lump of a man, Esther could see now that he had never taken responsibility upon himself. He had worked hard but it had been her aunt who had made decisions, she who had carried the burden of bringing up the family.
Maybe I’m more like her than I care to admit, Esther thought ruefully, and tried to imagine what her aunt must be like now, struck down by a paralysing seizure. And her uncle, how would he cope? Hannah had ruled her family and organized their daily routine. Without her hand on the plough, the furrows of their lives would be crooked and uneven.
Again Esther wrestled with her conscience, but still the festering resentment clouded her vision and her emotions. She could not forget – nor yet forgive – the sharp tongue and the feel of the rough hand. Never a word of affection or encouragement had come her way.
The cold of the stone gantry struck through her clothing and reminded her that she had been sitting idling away her time. What would Aunt Hannah have said to that? she thought wryly. As she pulled herself upright and went about her work her feeling of guilt could not so easily be dismissed.
Not yet, I can’t go yet, she answered her nagging conscience. Maybe one day . . .
When the squire left Matthew at the farm gate and drove away, Esther came out of the back door to see her husband standing staring after the receding vehicle. Drying her hands on her apron she moved towards him across the yard. ‘Well, did you enjoy that?’
When he turned to look at her, she could see that his eyes were shining. He pointed with ringers that no longer shook, after the car. ‘It’s a Ford, the latest model,’ he told her and there was no denying the excitement in his voice. And, Esther realized with a shock, he had put together a proper sentence for the first time since he had come home.
‘Very nice,’ Esther agreed, forcing herself to be thankful for the obvious pleasure the ride had give
n Matthew, and for its undoubted beneficial effect. She pushed away uncharitable thoughts of how she carried the burden of the farm work alone. How strange it was, she thought, that such a simple thing could lift him out of his despondency and bring about such an immediate improvement.
The squire came every Friday to take Matthew into the town to the market. The first week, Matthew just got up from the bench seat by the pond and climbed into the vehicle and off they went, but the second week, Esther found him in the bedroom pulling on his Sunday best suit. She opened her mouth to say sharply, ‘And where do you think you’re off to in that, m’lad?’ then pursed her mouth against the sharp rebuke. Aunt Hannah was surfacing again, she reminded herself. Her fleeting resentment against his ‘gallivanting’, as she termed it within her own mind, died when she saw how unshapely his best suit was now. It hung on his emaciated, stooping frame, a pathetic reminder of his suffering and a reprimand to her uncharitableness.
‘Why, you ’aven’t fastened your collar stud, Matthew. Here, let me.’
‘It’s – stiff,’ Matthew murmured, but Esther knew his fingers, still without strength, could not cope with fastening the collar on to his shirt.
‘It’s me starching,’ she laughed. ‘I always get yar collars too stiff. Now put yar jacket on.’
She held it for him whilst he struggled to put his arms into the sleeves. Then she stood back to look at him. ‘Let me brush it down for you. It’s a long time since you’ve worn this. I hope the moths haven’t got at it.’
Matthew stood meekly whilst she flicked the clothes brush over his shoulders and down his back. ‘There now, that’s better.’
She stood watching them go until the car disappeared around the bend in the lane, listening while the chugging grew fainter.
Esther was preparing supper in the scullery by the time she heard the chugging sound of the motor car coming nearer and nearer. Outside it was almost dusk and Kate had been in bed over two hours.
Esther glanced at the clock on the mantelshelf above the range. Almost nine o’clock. Where on earth had they been until this time? She heard the car stop at the gate, and watching from the small scullery window, she saw Matthew climb out and lurch unsteadily towards the gatepost and lean against it. The car reversed into the gateway and then, with a grating of gears, it swung out again and up the lane towards the road leading off to the Grange.
Esther opened the back door. Matthew was still standing clutching the gatepost as if he needed its support to keep him upright.
Esther clicked her tongue in exasperation and walked towards him across the yard. He was lolling against the post, his arms wrapped around it and as she drew near, she realized just why. Even from a few feet away she could smell the ale on him!
She pursed her mouth. Now she knew why the squire had driven off so quickly. He had not wanted to face her anger.
She sighed heavily. What’s the use, she thought. He’s in no fit state to understand anything I say. Aloud she said, unable to keep the sharpness from her tone, ‘Come on with you. Let’s get you to bed.’
In his drunken state, the nodding and the shaking had returned. The squire might be trying to help, Esther thought grimly, but he was doing Matthew no favours at all by getting him like this. No favours at all.
Nor her either.
Thirty-seven
THE Friday jaunts into town with the squire continued and there was nothing Esther could do to prevent them – though she tried.
‘You’re doing yourself no good, Matthew,’ she railed at him. ‘The drink makes you bad again.’
‘Shut up,’ Matthew growled, struggling to fasten his collar, too angry and proud to ask for her assistance. ‘Ain’t I – a right – after what I’ve been through?’
‘You’re getting so much better – when you don’t drink.’
He raised his hand and swung round as if to strike her. It was a long time since anyone had hit her, yet Esther stood her ground. Quietly, she said, ‘Aye, go on then. Hit me if it makes you feel better. If it makes ya feel a man again.’
She knew the words were cruel, after all he had been through, yet she had to try to make him see sense.
Before her, Matthew swayed, his arm dropping uselessly to his side. There was no strength in him now to deal her any kind of a blow.
The gesture had been a futile one and they both knew it.
A bright spring turned into a warm summer and with each day Matthew improved – at least in some ways. He still refused to do anything remotely connected with work and spent his days between the two children, the Seagull and the squire and his contraption, as Esther called it.
He would sit outside the pub in the early evening and watch the children playing on the stretch of grass. Esther found this out because almost every evening she was obliged to go and stand on the Hump and shout her daughter home for bed.
‘Why dun’t you come when you know it’s your bedtime? I won’t let you go playing up at the Point again if you’re not going to come home on time,’ Esther said, almost dragging the reluctant child home.
‘Aw, Mam, but I’m looking after me dad.’
‘Danny Eland, more like,’ Esther muttered to herself. Her daughter’s sharp hearing had caught the name.
‘Yes, he looks after me dad an’ all. He likes me dad, does Danny.’
Esther’s mouth became a thin line as she compressed her lips together to prevent the words tumbling from them. Of course he likes your dad, she wanted to shout. He’s his dad an’ all!
But the words remained unspoken; they were words that must never be spoken – at least not to Kate.
Aloud she said, ‘Yar dad can look after himself now.’ Her tone was laced with a bitterness she could not prevent.
‘He still dun’t walk properly sometimes, Mam.’
‘Huh,’ Esther gave a disapproving grunt, opened her mouth to explain and then closed it again. Inwardly she sighed. How could she tell Kate that Matthew’s unsteadiness was caused not by his illness now, but by drink?
The child must have felt her mother’s controlled anger for she said no more and walked meekly beside Esther.
Each evening Kate slipped away to play with the Harris children and Danny Eland and however much Esther upbraided her, she could not stop her daughter, short of locking her up somewhere.
So time after time Esther had to leave her work and climb the Hump and shout to Kate. Then one evening as she crested the rise in the lane and stood on top of it, she saw the children playing on the grass near the cottages and her husband sitting on a bench seat outside the pub. Standing motionless on the deck of her boat home, looking down on the scene below her, was Beth Eland. Esther swivelled her glance to look at Matthew and saw that his face was upturned and his gaze was fixed upon Beth. Below, on the grass, quite oblivious of the grown-ups, Danny bowled a ball to Kate who hit it high in the air, shrieking with laughter.
‘Catch it, Enid, oh, catch it!’
Esther turned away and, unobserved, returned to the farm. For once she would let Kate come home of her own accord.
Back in her kitchen, Esther set the kettle on the hob and sat down at the table. For a long time she just sat there, staring out of the window that faced out over the front garden and across the flat land she now farmed. Her gaze was unseeing, for before her mind’s eye was the poignant picture of Matthew and Beth.
There was a dull ache of loneliness inside her, but the release of tears would not come. It was a pain – like Matthew’s and Beth’s – too deep for tears.
When at last Kate came home, Matthew was with her, leaning heavily on the child’s shoulder. Esther, busying herself in the pantry, stayed out of the kitchen until she had heard Kate scuttle quickly upstairs to her bed. When she stepped into the kitchen it was to find her husband sitting in the wooden chair at the side of the range, his head lolling back. His mouth wide open, he was snoring noisily.
The summer was well advanced. The hay was gathered and the corn ripening. Soon they would have to think
about the next harvest, Esther thought, and her mind fluttered back to the harvest when Jonathan had been here. Working all day side by side in the fields and then lying together in the soft hay . . .
Esther wandered through her fields of corn, splitting open an ear of wheat here and there. Almost ready, but not quite. She heard the rattle of cart wheels in the lane and glanced up in surprise. Today was not one of Will’s days for a call. As she shaded her eyes against the glare she could see that it was Will’s carrier cart right enough, but he had not blown his whistle to announce his arrival.
He saw her in the field and waved. She returned his greeting and went towards the gate where he pulled the cart to a halt. He climbed down stiffly and leant over the gate waiting for her to reach him.
She smiled a greeting. ‘This is a nice surprise, Will. What brings you out here today?’
There was no answering smile on his face. ‘Esther lass,’ he said at once. ‘It’s yar aunt. She passed away last night.’
Esther laid her hands upon the gate, feeling the rough wood beneath her palms. She could think of nothing to say.
‘Yar uncle wanted me to come and tell you. He asked me specially to ask you to come to the funeral . . .’
Esther drew in a sharp breath.
‘He asked me special-like,’ Will insisted, and Esther found her eyes held by his intense gaze. Softly, he said, ‘Ya’ll not refuse yar uncle, lass, will ya?’
Slowly, almost against her will, Esther found herself shaking her head. For a moment a look of anger flitted across Will’s face, but as she said, haltingly, ‘No, no, Will, I’ll not refuse him, this time,’ his anger died and he covered her hand with his own as it lay on the gate.
The Fleethaven Trilogy Page 34