For My Brother’s Sins

by For My Brother's Sins (retail) (epub)

  When he returned there was a mug of tea awaiting him. ‘Have you done it proper?’ Torie enquired.

  ‘I have.’ He pulled out a wooden stool and sat down. ‘I even made a little cross out of twigs like the others have. Does that please ye?’ He reached into his pocket for his pipe.

  ‘It’s no more than I’d expect – and you can put that away too!’ She pointed to the pipe. ‘I don’t hold with filthy habits neither.’ She went to the door and opened it. ‘I’ll go and inspect your work. I daresay you’ll have finished your tea by the time I get back.’

  ‘Don’t ye trust me, then?’ He sipped the scalding tea as she turned on the threshold.

  She gave him one of her strange looks and went out. Dickie’s stomach juices sizzled acidly and he looked around for something to eat. Pushing himself from the chair he sauntered over to the dresser and scattered the clucking hens. ‘What sorta place is this?’ he mumbled to himself, sweeping the rubbish onto the floor. ‘I’ve been in some holes in my time but this beats all.’ There was a biscuit barrel on the shelf; as it was the only thing pertaining to food he lifted it down. He inserted his hand – but instead of the crisp feel of shortbread his fingers encountered something cold and hard. He withdrew them quickly and peered into the barrel. It was almost full of gold and silver coins.

  It took him only a few seconds to recover from his pleasant shock. When he did he began to pour the money into his pockets as fast as he could. Before Torie came back he would be gone. With the biscuit barrel empty and his pockets weighing heavily he turned to go. But something stopped him in his tracks – a small black hole aimed directly between his eyes.

  Chapter Forty-One

  ‘I thought that might be your little game!’ Torie squinted down the barrel of the ancient musket, her finger curled around the trigger.

  Dickie swallowed, took a step backward and gripped the edges of the dresser. ‘That’s some gun ye’ve got there, Torie. I’ve never seen one like that before. Very old, I’d say.’

  ‘If you’re asking does it work – just walk over to that door and see how far you get.’

  ‘I’d rather not.’

  ‘Then just put my money back where it belongs,’ she said menacingly.

  ‘I wasn’t stealing it.’ He hurriedly tipped the coins back into the biscuit barrel.

  ‘No, I know – you were just taking it down to the river to wash it,’ she answered scathingly as he threw in the last coin. ‘Now turn out your breeches pockets too.’

  He pulled out a handkerchief and the money that he had earned yesterday. ‘This is mine; it’s what I got from the diggings.’

  ‘I don’t believe you, put it back!’

  He defied her withering scrutiny. ‘But ’tis mine I tell ye!’

  She cocked the gun. ‘Put – it – back.’

  Sullenly he threw the florin and pennies into the jar. ‘All right! But I still say ’tis mine an’ I worked bloody hard for that.’

  ‘One more curse and I’ll rip your tongue out! I’ll have you know I worked hard for that money you were about to steal. I don’t want no dirty little thief working for me. You can get out.’

  ‘Call me a thief!’ he threw at her in desperation. ‘Why, you’re as bad, taking my money and throwing me out tired and hungry. Call yourself a Christian?’

  The gun wavered. His mouth went dry as Torie continued to hold him in her sights for what seemed like an age. Then she uncocked the gun and set it down. ‘You’re right – wouldn’t be a very Christian thing to do, even to a thief.’

  ‘I’m not really a thief, Torie.’ He watched her put the gun in a corner, the saliva beginning to rush back into his mouth. ‘S’just that when I saw all that money I sorta lost me head. I thought – sure, what does Torie want with all that money and her no one to spend it on, and there’s me poor ould mam at home, bedridden, living the life of a pauper. The things I could buy her with that money …’ his voice trailed away wistfully.

  ‘Where does your mother live?’ asked Torie distrustfully.

  ‘Leeds. I couldn’t get a job there that paid enough to keep us so I’ve been navvying like I told ye.’

  ‘Aye, an’ you also told me that you were all alone.’

  Damn! He had slipped up there – that was most unlike him. It must have been that gun. ‘I meant I was travelling alone,’ he said hurriedly. ‘That’s all.’ Torie fixed him with a cockatrice eye but said nothing. He stared back at her, wondering what lay behind that pensive squint. ‘What’re ye going to do?’ he ventured, when her silence grew too much to bear.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she answered ruminatively. ‘I haven’t decided yet.’

  He used her indecision to his advantage. ‘Torie, if ye keep me on I promise I’ll never try anything like that again. I don’t know what came over me. It must’ve been the thought of me poor ould mam, starving, that overcame my normal honesty. But say, you’re not the kind to go round shootin’ folks, Torie. I’ll stake my life that the gun wasn’t even loaded.’

  She thrust out her lower lip noncommittally, then turned abruptly and shuffled over to retrieve the gun. She picked it up in her right hand, her index finger stroking the trigger, and pointed it calmly at the ceiling.

  There was a snowstorm of plaster, coinciding with an earth-shattering bang. The livestock scattered in a rush of fur and feathers. ‘Does that answer your question?’ she asked pleasantly, and propped the gun back in its corner. ‘There’s a lesson in the imprudence of gambling, son. Never stake anything on what Torie might or might not do – especially your life.’ She moved to the dresser where she rummaged noisily in the cutlery drawer. ‘But, all said, happen I might give you a second chance. Though you’ll have to prove your worth if you’re to work here. I want no namby-pamby dealings but an honest day’s toil.’

  Dickie, though his ears still rang and his face was bloodless, moved into action. ‘Ah, God love ye, Torie! I knew ye were a charitable body an’ wouldn’t turn a fella out because o’ one slip. I’ll do anything. Anything. Just name it.’

  She found what she had been looking for in the drawer and shuffled back up to him. ‘You’d likely see the pigsty when you went to bury Old Spittler?’

  His heart sank, but he nodded eagerly. ‘I did. Will ye be wanting it cleaned out?’ Back to shovelling shit, he thought dismally. What a let-down.

  But she shook her head. ‘That was done this morning. It’s the pig that needs attention.’ She made a swift movement and the knife clattered onto the table, sending the hens jumping. ‘Go kill it.’

  He gave a disbelieving laugh. ‘I can’t do that!’

  ‘Why not? Is it too much for you to stomach?’

  ‘Well, no but… I’ve never done it before, ye see. I’m not sure …’

  ‘Don’t you want to stay here, then?’

  ‘Of course I do.’

  She picked up the knife and pressed the handle into his hand. ‘Then go out and do as you’re bid, then when I see what sort of job you make of it I’ll decide whether or not to overlook your dishonesty.’ She scattered the hens from the table and began to slice some carrots into a cooking-pot. ‘Take that there pot with you to catch the blood. When you’ve done we’ll have some dinner – if you’ve still got an appetite.’

  Dickie looked down at the knife in his hand, swallowed, then reluctantly turned and went outside to find the pigsty. It was still perilously cold. He reached the pigsty; it had split doors. He stared at them for a second, then unlatched the top half to peer inside. Out of the straw rose the biggest pig he had ever seen. It sniffed the air suspiciously, sitting on its haunches like a large pink toad, and skewered him with pink-rimmed eyes. He crossed himself, tested the sharpness of the knife on his thumb, then unbolted the bottom half of the door.

  The pig raised itself and began to shamble about, swishing idly through its bedding. ‘There’s a good piggy,’ he murmured, edging towards it, knife-hand outstretched. The pig watched him get nearer, then moved slowly out of reach into a corner. Di
ckie pursued it doggedly, pushing the pot along the floor with his foot. ‘Go-od piggy.’ The pig allowed him to touch a hand to its head. It sat there like a dog while his fingers slipped behind its ear, scratching, and the other surreptitiously brought the knife under its chin. The point was almost touching … just a wee bit closer … nearly there … and – the pig was on him, biting and slashing with sabre-like tushes at the arms that had flown up to protect his face. The knife had gone, lost somewhere in the straw, so he had nothing with which to protect himself. The pig’s diamond-hard trotters pounded at his chest, rolling him this way and that in the dung-fouled straw. His legs scrabbled and lashed out at the pink belly, trying to escape those wicked fangs. Its stinking breath was hot on his face. He saw those evil, salivating jaws bearing down on him … Oh, God he was done for … he felt them crushing his bones …

  ‘All right, Percy, that’s enough!’ Torie waded in, swinging her besom down upon the wide body. ‘Back! Back, I said!’ She beat the pig about the head until he retreated grunting and grumbling into a corner to watch maliciously as his victim scrambled to his feet and was out of the pigsty like a tautly-coiled spring.

  ‘Mother o’ Christ, Torie!’ he panted, displaying his badly-gashed arms. ‘I coulda been kilt!’

  ‘Nay!’ She laughed uproariously and bolted the sty door. ‘I was watching all the time. Ready, in case Percy got carried away.’

  ‘Ye were there? Well, why didn’t ye come in sooner?’ He sank to the grass, cold as it was, and rolled about in agony. ‘Oh, Jazers, I’m dyin’!’ She brought the broom down on his elbow and he howled louder. ‘What was that for?’

  ‘I’ve told you about blaspheming! I let the other one go unpunished but don’t imagine you’ll get away with any more.’

  ‘You’re a wicked woman, Torie.’ He held up his slashed arms. ‘Please, help me, I’m bleedin’ to death.’

  ‘Don’t make such a meal of it, it’s nobbut a scratch.’ She hauled him to his feet and took him into the house where she set about cleaning the bites on his arms, rubbing in some pungent-smelling ointment that made him dance about. When she had bandaged him up and poured the bloody water into the yard he asked, ‘Torie, have ye anything I could wear? My clothes are covered in pig muck.’

  ‘Tsk! A bit o’ good manure never hurt no one. You’re too soft, my lad. A townie through and through. Oh well, I daresay I could find something.’ She rifled another drawer and came up with a pair of trousers and a shirt. ‘Try those on, though I don’t suppose they’ll fit – you’re a big lad. How old are you?’

  ‘Eighteen, nearly nineteen.’

  ‘Oh, I’d’ve taken you for older if you weren’t so green.’ He took the clothes from her. ‘Where shall I … ?’ ‘Pooh! Proper shrinking violet now, aren’t we? Oh, go on upstairs if you must – but don’t you dare touch so much as a pin, mindst!’

  When he came down she laughed heartily at his appearance; the trousers flapped halfway up his calves. ‘Oh well, they’ll do ’til I get your own washed. Give us ’em here!’ She snatched the bundle of dirty clothes and thrust them into the copper. ‘Now, sit down if your hands are clean. Let me see.’ She caught hold of his arm and inspected his upturned palms. ‘Filthy! Go stick them under pump.’ After washing his hands in the freezing cold water he sat down at the table. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t sort the pig, Torie. I don’t suppose ye’ll be keeping me on now?’

  She guffawed and leaned over a steaming cooking-pot. ‘My life! You didn’t think I meant it, did you? I knew you’d never get near Percy in a month o’ Sundays. A prize boar like him isn’t for bacon, laddie. He earns his keep in a different fashion.’

  He didn’t understand. ‘Then why … ?’

  She turned a grinning face on him. ‘Retribution.’

  ‘For thinking to steal your money? I did apologise for that, Torie,’ he looked reproachful. ‘I mean to say …’

  ‘I don’t think you know what you do mean to say, lad,’ she cut in sharply. ‘You tell that many lies you don’t know what the truth sounds like any more.’

  ‘Lies?’

  ‘Yes, lies! Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness. You’ve got to learn that in this house lies don’t go unpunished – nor any other broken Commandment.’

  ‘But what lies have I told?’ he objected.

  ‘Almost everything you’ve said since you came into this house has been lies.’

  ‘No, it hasn’t.’

  ‘That’s another!’

  ‘’Tis not!’

  Torie spread the fingers of her left hand and counted off the untruths with her right. ‘Lie number one: you said you’d spent last night at a farmhouse a few miles back. There isn’t one farm nor cottage on the road that you’d’ve taken from the diggings.’

  ‘I didn’t take the road, I came over the fields!’

  ‘Lie number two: you haven’t been navvying for six weeks like you told me. If you’d been working the diggings that long them hands’d be hard as nails, apart from which I happen to know that you were only set on yesterday morning.’ His jaw dropped as she went on. ‘Lie number three was the one about your poor old mother when you’d all but told me you were an orphan. Are there any more you’d like to get off your chest while you have the chance?’

  He was amazed, mostly at how she could possibly have known he only signed on at the railway cuttings yesterday, when she lived so far from anywhere.

  Torie smiled wickedly and crooked a finger, beckoning him over to the window. She handed him a heavy brass spyglass. ‘Fix your peeper to that.’

  He swung the telescope slowly over the landscape – then back quickly as a familiar figure blocked the aperture. The magnification was tremendous, he could make out every gesture that Standish made as he swore and drove the navvies to work.

  Torie gave a knowing smirk as he lowered the telescope in disbelief. ‘He really didn’t like you very much, did he, that old weasel-face. Well, I shouldn’t take it too much to heart; he’s like it with most people. I could’ve put my boot up his backside many a time for treating folk like dirt.’ She took the spyglass from Dickie and put it to her own eye, talking from the side of her mouth. ‘It’s amazing what you can see through this. Wouldn’t be without it. Spend hours every day watching people that don’t realise they’re being watched.’ She lowered it and replaced it on the windowsill. ‘So, now you know how I saw through all your lies; I’ve had my eye on you since yesterday. Good worker you said? Tut, tut!’

  He shook his head, the beginnings of a smile in his eyes. ‘But if ye knew I was givin’ ye a load o’ coddum why did ye bring me here in the first place?’

  ‘Now that I can’t answer.’ Torie scratched her head and went to search out two sets of cutlery. ‘Happen I felt sorry for you – leastwise I did ’till you pocketed my life-savings.’ He hung his head and observed her beseechingly through the curly forelock that had tumbled over his brow. ‘I didn’t mean it. Honest. It was just the sight of all that money.’

  ‘Well, God be praised! The boy’s got a whole sentence out without lying.’

  He gave a scandalised laugh. ‘So, ye got your own back with the pig? Why, you wicked old … I coulda been torn to pieces in there.’

  ‘And serve you right.’ She began to ladle stew onto two plates. ‘Now we both know where we stand I don’t need to expect any more hanky-panky do I?’

  ‘Chr …’ he saw the warning look on Torie’s face and changed his comment to ‘Crumbs! Ye mean I can stay?’

  ‘For a while.’ She sat opposite and clasped her hands. ‘Dear God, we give Thee thanks for the meal Thou hast provided.’ She pushed a plate of bread at him. ‘Aye, you can stay – but it might not be for long. I’m getting on a bit. Fifty-six. That’s the main reason I brought you here. Wouldn’t like to think I might die all of a sudden and have no one to tend my animals.’

  A lump of potato dropped from his fork and splattered gravy onto the borrowed shirt. He wiped it and did a quick mental calculation. This could be his El Dorado. To
rie had no family; if he got well in, gained her trust, it just might be that she would leave everything to him as Mr Penny had done Mother. The only snag being that Torie could live another thirty years with her spirit; he couldn’t face that long away from civilisation. But all said, she was a clever old stick. He admired the way she had got the better of him, and his stay here would at least be entertaining.

  ‘Do you think you can manage it?’ she asked, chewing. ‘Or more relevantly, can you be trusted to do it?’

  ‘I think so,’ he told her. ‘As long as ye’ve no more Percys tucked up your sleeve.’

  She smiled. ‘No, it’s mainly the land I’ll be needing you for. S’too much for me now. Can’t handle the plough like I used to. I can’t bear to see it choked with weeds. And I’ll need the cow milking – I only keep the one now. I get this queer tingling in my fingers, they go all numb when it isn’t even cold. Can’t feel what I’m doing with ’em. The cow doesn’t think much of it either. Your soft townie hands should be just up her street. In return you’ll get good wholesome meals and two shillings per week.’

  ‘Two shillings!’ he cried. ‘Oh, Torie, that’s a bit stingy isn’t it? I mean, there’s me poor ould mother to consider.’ She eyed him sharply, then saw the twinkle in his eye. ‘Tell me, have you really got a mother somewhere?’

  ‘I have – and a father and brother and a sister.’ And a couple of children somewhere, he reflected.

  ‘I’ll ask you to tell me more later,’ said his host, finishing her meal and leaning back in her chair. ‘But right now I’ve a few jobs I’d like you to do.’

  ‘What did your last slave die of, Torie?’ But there was no malice in his comment.

  In the evening, when the pigsty and byre were locked up for the night and a candle glowed on the still-cluttered table, Dickie told the widow all about himself, withholding those parts which he thought might be detrimental to her hostelry. After unburdening himself he asked, ‘Enough o’ the jawing. Have ye any cards, Torie?’

  ‘Cards?’ she answered spikily. ‘Cards? I don’t have none o’ that Devil’s recreation in my house.’