Gracie's Sin

by Freda Lightfoot

  Rose was surprised and pleased by the unexpected kindly gesture. Did this mean Agnes was about to pay her at last? ‘Thank you. I’m glad to have been of service.’ She would like to have said that she’d enjoyed the work, that the time she’d spent with the old couple at the farm had been most enjoyable, but that would have been stretching the truth a little too far.

  ‘You’re quite a pretty girl too, aren’t you? Beautiful I’d say, with that cloud of dark hair and those magnificent blue eyes. Not to mention those perfect cheek bones.’ Again she stroked Rosie’s cheek, this time with the tips of her fingers, very lightly caressing the silky skin.

  Blushing slightly, Rose mumbled her thanks. No one had ever paid her such compliments before and she clung to these few kind words, as if to a lifeline. It seemed some consolation that even if Maurice Sullivan gave her the shivers, at least his wife was friendly enough, despite her old fashioned ways. It felt good to be appreciated.

  Agnes Sullivan’s improved mood lasted for some weeks and made that first bitter winter away from Cornwall at least bearable for Rose. She would sometimes make her something special for tea, perhaps liver and onions, considered quite a treat, or a corned beef pasty. She would smooth Vaseline into her work roughened hands, or wash Rose’s hair for her. These small attentions, pleasant though they were, did not disguise the fact that she still had received no pay for her labours. Nor was she ever included in the trips out for supplies that the husband and wife took each month.

  Rose felt it would soon be time to reconsider her future and make some changes. A fear was growing in her that the war might be over before she’d joined up, or found her friends, and she would have missed all the excitement. One morning she took a firm grasp of her courage and asked the question that had been bothering her of late. ‘Is the nearest town very far? Would there be some sort of recruitment office there, do you think?’

  ‘Recruitment office? For what?’ Agnes’s eyes glazed over as she looked at Rose, as if she wasn’t properly listening to a word she said.

  ‘For the Timber Corps.’

  Agnes named some market town which Rose had never heard of, concluding with a shrug, ‘It’s nine miles away. That’s where we go each month, to buy in supplies.’

  ‘Nine miles!’ Rose was bitterly disappointed, all too keenly aware that she didn’t have the energy to walk so far to an unknown town and nine miles back, just on the off-chance someone might be able to help solve her problem.

  ‘It’s just that I thought I’d like to find these friends of mine. Besides, although it was very kind of you to give me shelter and a job, and I do appreciate your kindness, Agnes, I feel I should be moving on. It’s not too late for me to join up, is it? I might only be young but surely I could be of some value. What d’you think?’

  ‘I think you should peel those potatoes and stop prattling. I don’t pay you to stand about dreaming. Have you scrubbed those pantry shelves, like I asked you?’

  ‘Sorry. I forgot. I’ll do them the minute I’ve finished the vegetables.’ Rose cleared her throat. This was the part she’d been dreading. ‘Actually, I’ve been here half the winter already and you haven’t paid me a penny. I was wondering when I might expect to receive my wages.’

  ‘End of the quarter, assuming you haven’t run off in the meantime,’ came the curt reply.

  There seemed little else to say. Rose decided that she would just have to be patient. Hands raw from the washing soda, and with the chilblains on her toes sore and bleeding from the freezing temperatures in the stable, she swallowed her disappointment and went back to work. But then why should it hurt that neither Agnes nor Maurice showed the least interest in what she might wish to do with her life. She was nothing to them. Not even her own brother had cared about her, so why should they? Oh, she was forgetting, he hadn’t been her brother at all, had he? She didn’t have anyone in the world to call her own.

  A lump came into her throat, and her chest went all tight with the pain of it. Perhaps she was fated to spend the rest of her life without a single friend or companion. She put down her head to hide the spurt of tears that ran down her cheeks, and got on with the scrubbing. Such menial tasks seemed to be her destiny. Rose longed to find Lou and Gracie, but was truly fearful that she never would.

  Rose even began to worry that Agnes might never let her go, that she and Maurice would try to keep her here, working like a slave for them, exactly as Eddie had done. That wouldn’t do at all. Eddie had used her, kept secrets he should have told. As had her own parents. Rose didn’t like that. She would decide what she did in future. Nobody else. She would do exactly as she pleased.

  The very next time her employers went into town to collect their monthly supplies, she would ask to go with them. Except that she wouldn’t be coming back. Rose meant to collect the money they owed her, then stay and make proper enquiries about joining up. She resolved to ask at the Post Office or the Town Hall, if she couldn’t find any recruitment office. All she had to do was to be patient for a little while longer and see out the quarter to pay day.

  Later that night Rose was hastening through her ablutions, as usual wondering if she would ever again experience the luxury of a hot bath, or be truly clean. She’d taken off her cardigan, blouse, skirt and woollen stockings, even her petticoat and brassiere, and was standing in her French knickers, soaping herself down when she heard the creak of a door opening. Dear God, had she forgotten to bolt it? Had Maurice returned unexpectedly early? Snatching up the towel, she swung about, ready to give him the sharp edge of her tongue for intruding when she saw that it was in fact the bedroom door which had opened, and only Agnes who entered. Candlestick in hand, in her long white nightdress with a single plait draped over one shoulder she looked like a figure from a Victorian melodrama, or a child’s nursery rhyme.

  Rose almost giggled with relief. ‘Oh Agnes, you gave me the fright of my life. I thought it was Mr Sullivan.’

  Agnes smiled as she approached. ‘Aren’t you cold standing about half naked? You should hurry up or you’ll risk catching a chill.’

  ‘I’ve almost finished.’ A wave of embarrassment suddenly washed over her. Rose much preferred to attend to these personal hygiene matters in private. She reached for her discarded undergarments but found her way blocked by the farmer’s wife. ‘Oh, excuse me.’

  Agnes didn’t move and Rose felt suddenly trapped, with her employer in front and the sink pressing against her back. There was something in the mesmeric quality of the woman’s gaze which brought a sudden chill of unease.

  Then in one fluid movement, Agnes’s hand snaked out and captured one damp nipple, squeezing it between finger and thumb. Rose gasped with shock. But in the seconds it took for her to draw breath to protest she became aware that Agnes’s other hand had slid up her thigh, beneath her knickers and was now pinned between her legs, the fingers probing with pernicious purpose.

  ‘Dear God. What the hell are you doing?’ Rose pushed at her, desperately trying to jerk away, for all she was jammed in a corner and there was nowhere to go. She slapped at one hand and then the other in her panic to be free but succeeded only in tightening the woman’s tenacious grip. The long bony fingers seemed to be glued to her, like great red greedy spiders kneading and clawing at her flesh.

  ‘Let go of me. Stop it. Stop it, I tell you!’ Rose was gasping and crying, pleading and begging which finally erupted into screams as the woman’s hold was too strong to break. There was no hope of escape.

  For the second time in her short life, Rose ran. The moment the assault was over and Agnes had returned to her bed, as calmly as if nothing untoward had taken place, Rose dragged herself to her feet and fled the house, not even pausing to wash away the blood that trickled down the inside of her leg.

  She flew up to the loft to collect her precious bank book and few belongings and then rushed out into the night. Uncaring of the dark, the cold drizzle of rain, the pain in her groin or the tears washing down her cheeks, she ran as fast as she could, n
ot even pausing to say goodbye to the ever-vigilant figure of Maurice as he stood in the yard, watching her go. Rose realised now that he’d tried to warn her; that in his odd way he’d been guarding, not stalking her, as she’d imagined. Unfortunately, he’d been quite unable to protect her from those intimate female moments before bed. How she’d misjudged him! She’d erroneously believed that in some strange, unspecified way he’d been warning her to beware of himself. How wrong she had been.

  Rose ran for the better part of a mile; a mixture of terror and fury lending her the energy she needed. She developed a stitch in her side, cricked her ankle and was gasping on each painful breath before she slowed to a more sensible pace. The night was cold, the light drizzle having changed into driving, freezing rain yet not once did she look back or think of returning, not even for the sake of the much needed wages which were due to her. She simply tightened her resolve, hardened her heart and walked on.

  The difference this time, Rose told herself, was that she knew exactly where she was going. She’d seen a signpost to Stroud. That was the name of the town Agnes had mentioned which was nine miles away; where surely someone would know how she could join her friends in the Timber Corps.

  Never would she forget the sickening little grunting sounds Agnes had made. Rose felt violated, unclean. The very fact that the attack had been carried out by a woman somehow made it a million times worse. Agnes should never have attacked her in that way. It was just her bad luck that she’d chosen to do so in the kitchen, and that the poker had been so handy.

  Chapter Twelve

  The cathedral-like serenity of the dark forest was awesome. Not a breath of wind stirred, no birdsong or animal cry broke the stillness, only the sound of their own quiet breathing. Lou shifted one foot and a twig cracked, making both girls jump then smile at their own timidity. Beech, ash and sturdy oak towered above their heads, reducing them to the size of ants on the forest floor. They stood almost ankle-deep in a carpet of last autumn’s leaves, the coppery glow glazed by the frost of late winter. A redwing, a winter immigrant in search of softer climes, flew out of the canopy right before their startled gaze.

  ‘Oh, did you see the orange flash beneath its wing?’

  ‘Hush, I see a red stag, over there in the peat wallow. See how fine he is.’ Gracie and Lou crouched together, not daring to move in case they should frighten some other shy creature in the dense undergrowth, in which they themselves were the intruders. The scent of damp moss and the sharper tang of larch, pine and birch was strong in their nostrils.

  Thousands of years before, bears, wild boar and wolves had inhabited this forest. That’s how Grizedale had first acquired its name, being Norse for “Valley of the Pigs” and Satterthwaite, the village quite close to where Lou and Gracie were billeted, meant “Summer Clearing.” It seemed an appropriate name, for it was a pretty village that you happened upon quite by chance, like a shaft of sunlight in the lush green valley of Rusland. It comprised a few Lakeland stone cottages with gardens turned over to growing vegetables rather than the profusion of flowers they had once boasted; plus the usual village ingredients of church, parish rooms, school and the Eagle’s head, the local inn, a popular venue in which to enjoy a glass of beer to wet your whistle after a hard day’s work.

  The girls were billeted at a small farm, half hidden beneath the beech trees along one of the myriad country lanes on the outskirts of Satterthwaite. Gracie described it in one of her rare letters home to her mother as clean but Spartan. Its floors were bare stone with not a rug in sight, and freezing cold much of the time. It had no electricity, relying on oil lamps and candles and could lay claim to only one sink with a single cold tap situated in the kitchen. Each morning she could manage little more than a quick splash from the jug and basin in their room, the water was so cold. In addition, conditions were somewhat cramped, though as Lou was fond of pointing out, ‘You won’t hear me complaining. We’ve been known to sleep ten in our house in Rochdale.’

  ‘I’m sure you exaggerate,’ Gracie would giggle.

  ‘Nay, I tell you nowt but gospel truth. Not far off anyroad. There was myself and me two sisters in one room, in one bed actually, three younger brothers in the other room, our Dan in the wall-bed in the kitchen, and me Mam and Dad wi’ our Dolly, she’s the youngest, in t’third. It was a relief when our Katy got wed.’ Gracie noticed how Lou’s Lancashire accent always broadened when she talked about home. She rather liked it. ‘I don’t know how they managed to have so many kids, wi’ all them folk around. But it never bothered me mam. She allus said we were lucky to get a three bedroomed house, or we might well have been ten in one bed.’

  Lou and Gracie shared a bed, not quite wide enough for two, in the only spare bedroom and took it in turns to turn over. They also took it in turns to bath in a tin tub before the fire every Friday night. After which they were expected to go to bed early, as the bath was then emptied and a couple of inches of fresh water added for the benefit of their landlady, Irma Cooper, followed by her son.

  ‘Now tha doesn’t want to watch me cutting me toe nails,’ she would say with a grin. ‘It’s not a pretty sight.’

  ‘Everyone’s entitled to some privacy once in a while.’ Lou very properly remarked and then spoiled it by whispering behind her hand to Gracie, ‘Her son Adam, on the other hand, might be worth a dekko at, what d’you reckon?’

  ‘You’re incorrigible.’

  Adam’s weather beaten appearance, his hard hands, muscular body and long-legged stride from walking the hills, seemed entirely at odds with his thoughtful shyness. Sometimes Lou caught him casting shy glances in Grace’s direction. ‘Don’t you fancy him then? According to Irma, he could do with a good wife. So how about it? He’s rather dishy, don’t you think?’

  Gracie flushed bright pink but she did pay him closer attention next time she saw him chopping logs in the back yard, or washing his face at the stone sink in the back kitchen. He was a quiet man, saying little unless spoken to directly.

  His mother, on the other hand rarely stopped talking. Irma Cooper was a lively, unfussy soul with no pretensions and, as she herself declared, a light hand with pastry and people alike. Whether this was entirely true or not had still to be discovered but she certainly maintained an orderly household without any sign of rules. She never complained if they entered her clean kitchen without remembering to take off their boots. Nor did she mind putting up their sandwiches at cockcrow, or clearing up after them if they chose to do it themselves. Nothing troubled her. 'Easy going, that’s me,’ was her constant cry. Or, ‘what does it matter? It’ll all be the same in hundred years.’

  Irma was a sociable woman, tall and striking with dark brunette hair and a bright, alert expression on a face that many would call handsome. Young enough still to be fond of a dance, or a ‘knees-up’ as she called it, she also enjoyed a good joke and a bit of a laugh. And she deserved one as she spent a good deal of her time elbow-deep in washing up water or cleaning out poultry houses. Even so she took great pains with her appearance, frizzing up her hair and wearing the brightest lipstick she could find.

  Beech Tree Farm had originally been a simple cottage built during the last century in a remote spot, ideal for a young woodsman and his wife. But Irma had found that living alone for much of each day while her husband worked out in the forest made for a lonely existence, so she’d occupied herself by keeping chickens and a few pigs. After he died, her predicament had grown worse and she’d bought a bit of land and launched into farming. No more than a few hens and geese, a couple of cows and the odd pig but it made her a living, of a sort. Her son Adam now worked the farm, having bought or rented still more land and expanded the live stock. But Irma’s need for company had increased over the years.

  Most days some tradesman or other would call. Bert, the fruit and veg man on a Monday. Fresh fish on Thursdays and the Butcher’s van on a Friday. In between there was the bread man, the knife grinder and the odd gypsy selling ribbons and lace. She could buy all she
needed standing at her own front door but that wouldn’t do for Irma. She would walk into the village most days, to visit the village shop. Take part in some meeting or other at the church or parish rooms, as she was heavily involved in village affairs. And chat with friends, encouraging them to walk out the mile or so to her house every Wednesday afternoon for tea and a bun. They came in their droves, sitting around the circular table with its plush fringed cloth in the front parlour, gossiping and pulling everyone to pieces (as Irma herself described it) while they knitted balaclavas or socks for the soldiers, and discussed the quickest and surest way to end the war.

  ‘Really,’ Irma was fond of saying. ‘If only Mr Churchill would have the good sense to call upon our expertise, it would be over in no time.’

  If Lou or Gracie ever wished to know the name of a flower, the route up a mountain, what the weather would be like the next day, or what was on at the picture house in Ambleside, one would say to the other, ‘We’ll ask Irma.’ She was also a mine of information on births (some of them without a husband in sight), marriages and deaths, long before any details appeared in the local paper. Both girls were convinced that she carried a family tree in her head, of each and every village resident, past and present.

  Irma was a treasure. A capable and reliable woman who could turn her hand to anything.

  ‘To judge from the meals you provide, Irma, you’d never think there was a war on,’ Gracie would say. ‘If I go on eating like this, I’ll be as a fat as a pig in no time.’

  ‘Nonsense. Look at you. Thin as a drink of water.’

  She’d give them creamy porridge for breakfast, black puddings or home cured bacon on Sunday as a treat, with lots of home made bread and jam. The fruit was from her own garden, naturally, as were the vegetables, but with rationing the way it was, it seemed a miracle that she managed to get the sugar. Yet there again they underestimated her. Irma was the secretary of the local WI and was therefore granted extra rations so that they could supply various hospitals and of course ‘our boys’ with their excellent produce .