The Fleethaven Trilogy

by Margaret Dickinson

  Ella shrugged. ‘You do what ya like. It’s your money,’ she said, trying to stop the resentment creeping into her voice as she thought of the meagre few pounds she had to spend on presents for everyone she wanted to buy for; precious little would be left for herself.

  Then, giving herself a mental ticking off for such selfish thoughts, Ella grinned, linked her arm through her friend’s and laughingly dragged her away from the window. ‘Come on, then, let’s do all your other shopping and see what you’ve got left.’

  With a lingering last glance at the dress, Janice allowed herself to be led away.

  They walked on up the hill and came to a large bookshop. Inside they joined those browsing and Ella ran her eyes along the shelves.

  ‘I ain’t never seen so many books in one place,’ Janice said, gaping round, ‘’Cept in a library.’ There was a bookshop in Lynthorpe but it was about a quarter of the size of this one.

  Rob was top of Ella’s list for presents, but she couldn’t think what to get him. What did boys of sixteen aiming to go to farming college want? she thought wryly. A book on pig-killing, perhaps!

  She came to the section devoted to books for men and ran her eyes along the pictures and titles. There was a book on traction engines which had been built in this very city over the years, with pictures and details. ‘That’s perfect for Grandpa,’ she murmured and picked it up, remembering how he had told her that before coming to Brumbys’ Farm he had worked in a factory building such engines. He would love it. Next to it was the ideal gift for Rob; a book about motorbikes. It even gave instructions on how to strip down the engine. He was crazy about them, always talking about the day when he would own one.

  About as much chance as Janice buying that dress! Ella thought with amusement, but she bought the book for him all the same.

  Then she chose a diary for Uncle Danny but could find nothing she thought suitable in this shop for anyone else. Still, that was three presents bought. She glanced around for Janice to see her friend picking up a magazine on beauty tips.

  ‘Have you bought any presents?’

  ‘Eh?’ The girl looked at her in surprise. ‘What? Oh no. Plenty of time for that. I can always get them in Lynthorpe.’

  Ella gave a click of exasperation. ‘But that’s why we’ve come here, isn’t it? Christmas shopping? For other people?’ she added pointedly.

  Janice grinned sheepishly. ‘Maybe. Maybe not. Aw, come on, El, I’ve never been let loose in a place like this before. I’ll just get something nice for Rob, I’m not bothered about anyone else.’

  ‘Oh, ta very much,’ Ella teased.

  Janice gave her a swift grin. ‘Well, you know what I mean.’ Still holding on to the magazine, she came to Ella. ‘Have you got him summat, then?’ And as Ella showed her the book on motorcycles, Janice grimaced. ‘He’ll like that. Trust you to get there first.’ But she said it good-naturedly and together they pondered what Janice could buy Rob for Christmas.

  ‘How about aftershave?’

  ‘Eh? Does he shave yet?’

  Ella laughed. ‘I think so. Haven’t you seen how dark his chin looks some days and then quite pale another. And I saw a little nick on his chin once as if he’d cut himself.’

  ‘Can’t say I’ve noticed,’ Janice said airily.

  ‘Thought he was your boyfriend?’ Ella said slyly and Janice smiled coyly. ‘One of many, young Ella,’ she said patting her long hair. ‘Keep ’em guessing, that’s what I say. Come on, isn’t it time we was meeting yar aunty for dinner?’

  They walked though the arches of the Stonebow to where the old sixteenth-century half-timbered black and white building straddled the bridge. The smell of real coffee met them even before they stepped into the small shop. They climbed the narrow wooden stairs to the upper floors and found a seat near the window overlooking the High Street and beyond it the river where swans glided up and down. Ella sighed as she sat down and settled her packages at the side of her. The last time she had been in this café, she’d been about nine and her mother had been at her side. But in Janice’s company, there was no time for maudlin thoughts. ‘Just look down there at all that traffic,’ the girl exclaimed, pressing her nose to the small leaded window panes. ‘Can them double deckers get through that arch, then?’

  Ella nodded.

  ‘There you are,’ came Peggy’s cheerful voice as she slipped in beside Ella. ‘Have you had a good morning?’

  ‘It’s wonderful, Miss Godfrey. You’re so lucky to live here,’ Janice said, and Ella felt a thrill of pride for the city of her birth. She had always loved the place, but to hear Janice in excited raptures added to her pleasure.

  They ordered hot soup and steak and kidney pie.

  ‘Now, tell me how they are at home?’ Peggy said.

  Ella almost said, ‘Fleethaven’s not my home – Lincoln is,’ but for once she bit back the remark. She didn’t want Peggy to think she had been unhappy at Brumbys’ Farm for the last six years, because she realized with a slight shock, it would not have been true, at least not all of the time. There had been some good times.

  ‘Gran’s all right . . .’ A mischievous smile quirked her mouth. ‘Same as always.’ Then a slight frown creased her forehead. ‘Grandpa’s – all right, I suppose, but, well, he seems to get tired a lot quicker now.’

  A look of concern for her brother crossed Peggy’s face. ‘Well, he is sixty-eight, you know.’

  Ella gasped and stared at her. ‘Is he really?’

  Peggy smiled. ‘Trouble with all of us, we’re still about twenty inside our heads and still think we can act that age.’

  ‘How old’s my gran, then?’

  ‘I’m not absolutely sure. She’s certainly two or three years younger than Jonathan.’ Peggy paused and then added, ‘I should have retired a couple of years ago but, well, my life would be so empty without work that they let me stay on.’

  ‘I don’t blame you,’ Janice put in. ‘I wouldn’t want to give up if I worked in such a lovely shop.’

  Peggy gave a small smile and sighed. ‘I suppose it will have to come to it soon. I’ll have to make way for a younger person.’ Peggy seemed to shake herself and say, with deliberate cheerfulness, ‘What about you two? When do you leave school and what are you going to do?’

  ‘I’ve already left,’ Janice said promptly. ‘I’m a bit older than Ella. I work in a café at the moment. It’s okay in the summer, but this time of the year, it’s dead!’ She cast her eyes upwards in a gesture of hopelessness. ‘I’d like to get something better some day.’

  ‘I’m sure you will, Janice.’ Peggy smiled and then added, ‘What about you, Ella?’

  She pulled a face. ‘Gran wants me to leave school and work on the farm, but I want something more than that.’

  ‘What sort of thing?’

  ‘I don’t know, really.’ Her voice dropped. ‘I still miss the city.’

  ‘What about dressmaking and tailoring like – like your mother?’

  ‘I’m not that good. Oh, I can sew neatly and make things on Mum’s sewing machine, Gran’s seen to that. But I haven’t got Mum’s flair for it. I want to get my O levels and then see.’

  ‘Very wise.’ Peggy nodded and, getting up, said, ‘Well, I’ll have to go.’

  Downstairs she silenced their protests and insisted on paying for all three meals. ‘It’s my treat. Come and get the house key from me if you want to go home before I can leave tonight. It’ll be after six by the time I get away.’

  Ella nodded.

  Outside on the pavement, Peggy asked, ‘How’s the shopping going?’

  Ella told her and added, ‘I can’t think what to buy Grandma Eland and Aunty Rosie, or Gran, though Grandpa’s given me some money to buy her something pretty.’ She laughed. ‘He told me to get her something really frivolous.’

  ‘Why not come back with me? You can wander through all the departments. You might see something that catches your eye.’

  ‘What do you want to do, Janice?’
r />   ‘What ya like.’ Her eyes gleamed. ‘I can have another look at that dress.’

  As they passed the huge window again, Janice paused and said, ‘Do you think they’ll let me try it on, Miss Godfrey?’

  ‘Of course, Janice. I’ll take you to the dress department and ask Miss Keenes to look after you.’

  The warmth enveloped them as they entered the store and as Peggy left them with the rather stern-looking head of the dress department, she said, ‘Come up later and I’ll help you pick something for your gran.’

  The dress fitted Janice perfectly and as she twisted and twirled in front of the full-length mirror, Ella could not help feeling a twmge of envy at her shapely figure, shown off to perfection by the snug lines of the dress.

  Janice, her eyes shining, took a deep breath and said, ‘I’ll take it.’

  An hour later, Ella having bought lavender soap for Grandma Eland and hand cream for Rosie, they found their way back to the lingerie department.

  ‘There was a bit of a lull earlier,’ Peggy greeted them, ‘and I’ve looked out one or two things.’ She glanced around to see that no other customers were waiting to be served before she said, ‘Come and have a look.’

  Two nightdress and négligé sets were laid out for Ella’s inspection, one in peach silk, the other in black satin.

  ‘Can you really see your gran in something like that?’ Janice said.

  Ella giggled. ‘Well, Grandpa said something frivolous and I guess the black one fits that description the best.’

  Peggy laughed. ‘Men are supposed to like black.’

  ‘Do you think I really dare take her that?’

  ‘She’ll clip yar ear, El,’ Janice warned, laughing.

  Peggy looked worried and said, ‘You can blame me if—’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t do that,’ Ella said swiftly. ‘I’ll take what’s coming.’ Silently she added, I always have. Aloud, she said, ‘I don’t think I’ve enough money left.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Peggy whispered, so that Janice could not hear. ‘I can get it for you on staff discount as you’re a relative. Leave it to me.’

  When the store closed and the three of them walked back towards home, the two girls were clutching large boxes wrapped in Christmas paper; Janice with her dress and Ella with the frilly black nightdress and négligé for her grandmother. Just what, she wondered, would Esther Godfrey say to it?

  As they turned into the long road which led them to the side-street where Peggy lived, a group of students emerged from some buildings on the left.

  ‘Is that a school, Aunty Peg? I’d have thought they’d have broken up by now.’

  ‘Mmm? Oh no. It’s the technical college. You can go there after you leave school to do all sorts of courses. Secretarial – that sort of thing.’

  ‘I say, El,’ Janice said, glancing back over her shoulder. ‘See that good-looking blond lad? He winked at me.’

  ‘Really?’ Ella answered absent-mindedly. As they walked on she glanced back to see the students laughing and talking as they walked towards town.

  A college, eh? Where you could learn useful skills. And in Lincoln! Now that was worth thinking about.

  Their stay in the city seemed to be over far too quickly. On the first evening they sat and talked with Peggy, and then climbed the stairs to share the big double bed in the spare room, giggling and whispering until the early hours.

  The following evening Peggy took them to the theatre and they had a fish-and-chip supper afterwards.

  ‘What are you doing for Christmas, Aunty Peg?’ Ella asked her as they walked home through the wet streets, hurrying between the circles of light cast by the street lights.

  ‘How – how do you mean?’

  ‘Well, do you go to friends – or what?’

  ‘Er, no. I shall be on my own.’

  ‘Oh, that’s awful,’ said Janice, whose own home at Christmas was open house to family, friends, anyone who fancied dropping in. ‘Rough and ready,’ her mother always laughed. ‘But ya allus welcome.’ Janice couldn’t imagine anyone being entirely alone at Christmas.

  Horrified too, Ella stood still, and because her arm was firmly linked through Peggy’s, the older woman was obliged to stop too. Ella peered at her through the gloom. ‘On your own!’ Her tone was scandalized.

  ‘Well, yes. I – I have been for the last six years, ever since . . .’ She left the words unspoken, but Ella knew exactly what she meant.

  ‘Well, you’re not going to be on your own this year. You’re to come to us at Fleethaven Point.’

  ‘But will your gran mind? Shouldn’t you ask her first?’

  ‘Course she won’t mind,’ Ella said, quashing any niggling doubts of her own. Besides, she thought, Grandpa would love to see his sister and her grandmother would agree to anything he wanted.

  Arriving home she ran at once to find her grandfather. ‘Will Gran mind?’

  ‘Of course not. It was a lovely idea of yours. Fancy poor old Peg being on her own every year since . . . I never thought. We should have asked her over long ago.’

  Ella doubted, however, that in the early days her grandmother would have agreed; she might have thought Ella would stow away in Peggy’s suitcase to get back to the city.

  After her initial surprise, Esther was as enthusiastic as the other two. ‘If only we’d known, Jonathan, she could have come every year. I’ve always liked ya sister, even when . . .’ She glanced at him and seemed to bite back the words, adding instead, ‘Well – always.’

  It was the happiest Christmas Ella could remember since before her mother died. On Christmas morning, she could hardly wait for her grandmother to open her present. Esther’s cheeks were pink with pleasure. ‘Is this what they wear in the city? It’s a mite cold for winter nights in a draughty old farmhouse.’ She laughed as she held up the black shimmering nightdress, holding it against herself and swaying to and fro, provocatively.

  ‘It’s for special occasions,’ Ella heard her grandfather say softly and touched Esther’s hand. Ella saw the look which passed between the couple and yet again she felt as if she were outside in the cold, her nose pressed to the window, looking in on a scene of love and warmth and being needed, of belonging.

  Once – how long ago it seemed now – she had been loved like that, by her mother.

  Was there anyone in the world now who would one day love and need her again?

  Seventeen

  ‘Why can’t I go? It’s only to the pictures, for heaven’s sakes.’

  ‘Watch your tongue, Missy!’ Her grandmother wagged her finger in Ella’s rebellious face. ‘You haven’t done your homework.’

  ‘Gran, it’s Friday night. I’ve got all weekend to do my homework.’

  ‘Ya grandpa needs some help with the spring sowing at Top End tomorrow. He’ll need you to walk behind the drill.’

  ‘I’d sooner drive the tractor,’ the girl muttered. ‘Besides, I can help him in the daytime and do my homework at night or on Sunday.’

  Her grandmother sniffed. ‘’Tis the Lord’s day. We dun’t work on a Sunday.’

  Slyly, Ella said, ‘Grandpa does. He mended the tractor last Sunday.’

  ‘That’s different.’

  ‘Why is it?’

  ‘Dun’t argue with me, Missy. And don’t go getting round ya grandpa to let you go. He’s not well.’

  If there was anything calculated to make Ella give up her planned evening out, it was a reference to her grandfather’s lack of strength over the past few weeks. He seemed to be suddenly much older. His hair, now almost completely white, was thin and wispy, and his skin seemed to hang loosely on his frame, which stooped more noticeably. But his eyes twinkled as merrily as ever and his smile still crinkled the lines around his eyes.

  Ella eyed her grandmother sharply. She knew the older woman was not above playing on her sympathies, yet loving her grandfather as she did, Ella dare not take the risk of gambling with his well-being.

  ‘All right, Gran,’ she said fir
mly, out-staring Esther. ‘You win, but only ’cos of Grandpa.’

  ‘And what’s because of Grandpa, might I ask?’

  Deep in their argument, neither Esther nor Ella had heard Jonathan step through the back door and come to stand behind them in the kitchen doorway.

  They turned to look at him, and Ella noticed, at once, the sweat standing in beads on his forehead, the dark stains under his arms and down the front of his shirt, and yet the early spring day was not that warm. His face looked grey with tiredness.

  ‘I’ll make you some tea, Grandpa,’ Ella smiled at him and lifted the kettle from the hob and took it out into the scullery to fill it.

  ‘She wants to go gadding out to the pictures tonight with Rob and the Souters,’ she heard her grandmother telling him. ‘I’ve said no. There’s work to be done.’

  The deep rumble of his voice answered her. ‘Let the lass have some fun Esther.’

  ‘Fun? Fun, you say. Just ’cos I gave in at Christmas, she reckons it’s the high life for her now. Well, she’s got another think coming. They don’t know the meaning of work, these young ’uns.’

  ‘You’ll lose her, Esther. You’ll drive her away—’

  ‘Like I drove our Lilian away, I suppose? She never lifted a hand’s turn about the farm.’

  ‘You worked her in other ways. Wanted her to better herself.’

  ‘Oh, so it’s my fault now she’s got so snooty, is it? That she looks down on all of us. We’re not good enough for our Lilian the school-marm now, a’ we? Never comes near us, does she? We could drop dead in our tracks for all she cares. ’Spect she’ll be the same.’

  Coming back into the kitchen with the kettle, Ella noticed her grandfather lean his head back wearily against the wooden chair and close his eyes.

  ‘Who’s she? The cat’s mother?’

  ‘None of your sauce, Missy,’ Esther snapped back.

  ‘Don’t go on, Gran,’ Ella said, forcing a cheeriness, though she was worried now by the sight of her grandfather’s fatigue.