Tilly Trotter (The Tilly Trotter Trilogy)

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘The farmer, isn’t it?’

  Simon turned and peered at Lady Myton, but he gave her no answer, just stared at her as she continued, a chuckle in her voice now, ‘It’s your wedding day, I understand. What brought you here, you couldn’t have heard her screaming from your farm?’

  ‘No, me lady, I didn’t hear her screaming from my farm’ – his words were slow and heavy – ‘I was warned of what was going to happen to her.’

  ‘Oh, and you got here just in time . . . I think so anyway.’

  ‘Come.’ He now turned from them and led Tilly towards where his horse was standing calmly munching at the grass on the side of the bank, and after he had lifted her on to its bare back he turned his head and looked towards Mark Sopwith, saying, ‘Thanks. Thanks for your help, sir.’

  ‘I was no help, except to stop you killing him. You just could have you know.’

  ‘Pity I didn’t.’ He now bent his knees, then with a heave of his body he, too, was sitting astride the horse, his arms around Tilly gripping the reins. Slowly he urged the animal forward and when it passed Lady Myton he did not look towards her or give her any word of farewell, although she was standing looking up at him . . .

  Mark Sopwith went back along the road and, gathering up the reins of the two horses which had also been contentedly munching at the grass on the bank, he brought them forward, and when he reached Lady Myton she lifted her gaze from the departing figures and, looking at him, she said, ‘Well! Well! an interesting interlude.’ Then after a moment’s pause she added, ‘The interruption came at a most crucial part of our conversation. If I remember rightly’ – her head drooped to one side now – ‘you were about to extract your winnings, Mr Sopwith.’

  As he handed her the reins of her horse he could scarcely make out the outline of her face but he knew that she was laughing at him, and he also knew that she didn’t think he would be ungentlemanly enough at this stage to, as she said, extract his winnings from her.

  Well, she was mistaken for there would be no better time than the present, nor place for that matter, to prove her wrong, and if it lay with him he would extract his winnings to the full before the night was out because she had led him a dance. It was as if she had been in a position all evening to watch his every move for when, disgruntled, he had been making his way home she had stepped out on him, elegantly straight in the saddle, some little distance from the Flat, and what she had said was, ‘Good evening, Mr Sopwith. Were you looking for me?’

  When, having dismounted, he had gone to her she had extended her arms towards him and he had helped her down from the saddle. Having lifted her to the ground, he had kept his hold on her as he answered her, saying, ‘No, Lady Myton, you weren’t even in my thoughts.’

  He had still been holding her, their faces close together, their eyes telling each other that a certain kind of relationship was about to begin, when a girl’s scream brought them apart.

  It could have been a girlish scream of delight, but neither of them was sure, and they waited for it to be repeated, then were about to resume their own affairs when it came again.

  When he moved from her and held his ear cocked, she had enquired coolly, ‘What do you think it might be, some yokel causing his lady love to squeal with delight?’

  ‘That was no squeal of delight.’

  A few minutes later another scream was abruptly cut off and so he quickly helped her to mount, then turning in the direction of Billings Flat, he said, ‘Follow me.’

  ‘What? What did you say?’

  He had turned towards her and said slowly, ‘I said follow me.’

  ‘Oh, I thought that was what you said.’

  He knew that she was annoyed, yet once they reached the scene in which the Trotter girl was involved her attitude changed, and he had the idea she had really been amused by it all.

  And now she was awaiting developments. Well, he wouldn’t keep her waiting any longer.

  At the end of the Flat he took the reins from her and now quickly urged the horses towards a low bank. Once up it, he doubled them back and now led them along the higher ground beyond the belt of trees that bordered the Flat.

  Here the belt thinned out into saplings and scrubland, and after not more than a minute’s walk he tied the horses to a tree, then turned and waited until she came stumbling towards him. He could see her face now. Her eyes were wide and filled with amusement, her mouth was laughing. She didn’t speak, but he did and what he said was, ‘I’m ready for the prize-giving.’

  He knew that she was about to laugh and loud, but just as Tilly’s scream had been smothered, so was her laughter now as he, putting his arms about her, swung her from her feet. The next minute they had both tumbled on to the ground, and there they lay staring at each other for a moment, but only for a moment.

  As often happened in his life, the prize turned out in the end to be somewhat of a surprise holding a negative quality, because, whereas he knew who was master in the beginning, at the end he was not at all sure, and he was made to wonder how an elderly man like her husband coped with such passion, that was if he attempted to cope at all. Perhaps it was lack of his coping that made her so ravenous.

  It had been a very unusual night, but strangely he wasn’t feeling elated, not even temporarily happy.

  As Simon helped Tilly into the cottage Annie, turning in her chair before the fire where she had been dozing, put her hands to her lips and muttered, ‘God in heaven! what’s happened?’

  In a matter of seconds she was pulling herself from the chair and glancing towards the bed where William was now easing himself on to his side, his face showing the same amazement as hers, and turning, she said again, ‘What is it. What is it? What’s happened?’ She was now standing in front of Tilly, and Tilly, throwing herself into the old woman’s arms, began to sob, spluttering as she did so, ‘Oh Gran! Gran!’

  Holding her tightly, Annie looked up at Simon, at his blood-smeared face and at his rent coat, and in a voice that was a mere whisper she asked him again, ‘What’s happened, lad? What’s happened you? And why are you here this night of all nights?’

  Simon, dropping into a chair at the side of the table, didn’t answer her directly, but looking towards William, he said, ‘Doesn’t take long in the telling. McGrath tried to take her down, the dirty bugger! But besides that, he netted her in order to do it.’

  ‘Netted her?’ William’s face was screwed up.

  ‘Aye, you know the old game, the net slung up atween a couple of accommodatin’ trees, with a slip-knot and a pole. The last time I heard of it being used was years ago when they wanted to trap a good pony. Safer way than chasing your guts out across the moor.’

  ‘Netted her?’ William looked towards where his beloved child, as he thought of her, was now sitting crouched low on a cracket before the fire, and Annie, standing by her side, stroking her hair. ‘God above! if I only had the use of me legs.’

  He turned his head now and looked at Simon and ended, ‘They’ll stop at nothin’, they’re so sure it’s here.’

  ‘Yes, William, yes, they’re sure it’s here.’

  They both started somewhat and Annie actually stumbled backwards as Tilly, swinging her body round from the stool, cried now, ‘What’s here? He isn’t only after me, it’s somethin’ else and . . . and I’ve got a right to know; after tonight I’ve got a right to know. Granda!’ – she appealed to him, her head thrust out and falling to the side and the tears raining down her face – ‘this business of the money, I’ve a right to know.’

  There was silence in the room for a moment, except for the wind blowing down the chimney, and when the fire hissed and the log of wood parted in the middle and dropped gently away to each side of the hearth, William, lying back on his pillow, drew in a short painful breath before he said, ‘Aye, aye, lass, you’ve got a right to know. But I think you’ve had enough for one night, we’ll talk about it the morrow.’

  ‘No, no, you’re always sayin’ never put off till the morrow wha
t can be done the day, or the morrow never comes, or some such. The morrow, you’ll have another excuse. And you an’ all, Gran,’ she said, her voice breaking as she now turned and looked at her grandmother.

  Annie bowed her head as if against a piercing truth.

  ‘Come; sit down.’ Simon had risen from the chair and now, his arm about her shoulders, he brought her to the end of the table and pressed her down into a chair that was facing the bed, and he said, ‘Go ahead, William; or . . . or shall I tell her as I know it?’

  William’s eyes were closed, his head was turned slightly away as he muttered, ‘Aye, Simon; aye, ’tis best.’

  Simon now pulled his chair towards the end of the table and, sitting down, he leant his forearm on it and looking at her, where she had turned her face half towards him, he said, ‘It’s some thirty years this August. That correct, William?’

  William made no verbal reply; he merely acknowledged with a small movement of his hand, and Simon went on, ‘Well, it was on this summer’s day, a Sunday it was, your granda there was taking the air because that was the only day in the week the pitman had to himself. He had walked a good way and was hot and tired and he lay down amidst some gorse and dozed off. Now, as your granda said, when he heard the commotion beyond the gorse he lay still thinking it was a courting couple having a tussle. But then he realised he wasn’t listening to a tussle but to a man gasping as if he were struggling with something heavy. Your granda then turned on his side and carefully edged himself along by the scrub until he could see just beyond it. Well, he found himself looking on to part of the fell that was covered with boulders; he had just earlier on become acquainted with these boulders when he had walked in between them before coming to the grassy patch where he had lain down, and what he saw then stretched his eyes, so he’s told me many times, and I can believe him, for there was McGrath, Hal McGrath’s father you know, who was blacksmith in the village then as he still is today, struggling with one of the outcrops of rock. Eventually he moved it; but he moved it in the direction in which your granda was looking, so he couldn’t see what was going on beyond. But after a time, Big McGrath struggled with the rock again and placed it where it was before, then straightened up, dusted his hands, and walked calmly away into the fading light.

  ‘Your granda there’ – Simon now nodded towards the bed – ‘was naturally set to wondering. He stayed where he was for some time to let McGrath get well away, then he went round and examined this great lump of rock. And he marvelled that any one man could move it. He himself tried but he couldn’t even rock it. Then your granda got to thinking.

  ‘Well, things were very bad in the country about this time; jobs were scarce; farmers, such as my father, had had to dismiss some of their hands because of taxation and the like; the whole country was in a state of unrest. We think it’s bad enough now but around that time two men not a mile from this spot were sent to Botany Bay for stealing a sheep. One of them had lost two children in three months through starvation; but that was no excuse, he was lucky to get off with his life. The village, our village, was one of the hardest hit around these parts because half of the workers were on the land and four farmers went broke within one year. There were near riots. You know the big houses that still lie between here and Harton village, well, they used to put guards round them at nights with dogs to stop the peasantry, as they called them, raiding the vegetable gardens or the chicken runs. It had been said there wasn’t a rabbit to be seen between Westoe village and Gateshead not for many a year . . . So how, your granda asked himself, did the McGraths always appear to manage, always appear to be well fed and well shod, because fewer farms meant not only fewer farm workers but also fewer horses to be shod and Big McGrath worked the forge himself. The Rosier mine and Sopwith’s had their own blacksmiths, so how did it come about that the McGraths were not only surviving but surviving well? The answer, your granda considered, lay under this stone. But how to move it?

  ‘Now you knew, didn’t you, William?’ – he inclined his head towards the bed – ‘that should you go into the village and ask one of your neighbours to come and help you find out what McGrath had hidden under that stone, and should the findings show money, because money was the only thing that bought food in those days, for people had nothing left to exchange; well, you knew that should they help themselves the change in their fortunes would soon be noticed.’

  Simon looked at Tilly again. Her face white, her eyes wide and unblinking, held his for some seconds, until he wetted his lips and went on, ‘You see, men like the miners were working for starvation wages. Often a husband and wife had to go down below just to keep themselves alive. Aye, and take their young ’uns with them, five or six years old. There were about three dozen Sopwith’s men in the village at that time living in hovels; and as you know some of them are still there; and your granda was one of them.

  ‘Anyway’ – he inclined his head again towards the bed – ‘your granda was determined to see what Big McGrath had got buried, but he was at a loss to know where to go for help. Well, he began to walk home. Now on his road he had to pass our farm; and it didn’t look as it does today. My father, so I understand, was at the end of his tether both financially and domestically. You see my mother had had five miscarriages before she had her sixth child, and that had lived only a month. Moreover, it was only five months to Christmas and the rent to the owner, Mr Sopwith, was then due. Now old Sopwith was going through hard times too, at least so he gave out; he wasn’t as lenient as the present one, with him it was no rent, no farm; and what was more he was badly liked because he had enclosed some free pasture on the north side of his land. People said it was because his own father had had to sell half the estate in order to keep going. But hard times with the gentry and hard times with the people were horses of a different colour. The gentry could still have their servants by the dozen, go up to London Town, lavish presents on their wives and children; but what was more important in the eyes of the ordinary man, they could still eat.

  ‘Anyway, I’m going off the subject, which your mind is apt to do because these issues are still with us the day. Now who should your granda see when passing the farmyard but my own father. Now it says in the Bible, cast thy bread upon the waters and it shall be returned to you a thousandfold; well, I translate that, Tilly, in this way, do a good turn for anybody and if they’re decent folk they’ll repay you in some way. So it should happen that a few years afore this when there was a strike at the mine my father had given your granda there free milk, mostly skimmed of course, nevertheless free milk every day during the time they were off; he had also thrown in a stone of taties every week. Your granda there never forgot this, so when he saw my father coming towards him across the yard, to use his own words, he thought, here’s a man who is as much in need of an extra shilling or two as anybody in these parts, and so what did he do, he told him what he had seen. And my father, after listening to him in silence, simply said, “Come on, show me.”

  ‘It was a good mile back to the spot and it was getting dark, and when there it took them both every ounce of their strength to budge the stone an inch. But gradually, gradually, they moved it to the side, and there in the dim light below them was a hole, and in it was a tin box. Not an ordinary tin box you know, but one of those that travel on coaches, steel bound and locked; the gentry sometimes use them for carrying jewellery or money in when travelling from one estate to another, or in a mail coach when hundreds of pounds had to be taken to where they were building the railroads. Anyway’ – Simon’s voice dropped now – ‘that box wasn’t only full of golden guineas but round it there were a number of leather bags also full. But these ones were mixed with silver.

  ‘Well, your granda there and my father peered at each other, and it was my father who said, “What about it, Trotter?” and your granda answered, “We’ll take it. But where will we put it?”

  ‘My father thought a minute and then said, “I’ve got the very place, the dry well.” It’s a well that drained o
ut in my father’s time after he had made an extension to the seed room and had roughly slabbed over it. It is three or four years ago since I looked down it. It was still dry then, a bit soggy at the bottom but that’s all. Anyway, water or not, guineas don’t melt.

  ‘So they cleared the hole of its secret and they replaced the stone and in the now dark night they skitted along that road, keeping to the hedgerow like two highwaymen with their loot.’ For the first time Simon’s face went into a smile as he added, ‘There’s little more to tell. They counted the money. There was close on a thousand pounds. They were both amazed and slightly drunk with the happening, but when they sat down and thought things out they faced a snag, and that was, they wouldn’t be able to use the money, not openly, not in any way that would show a difference in their style of living. It was easier for my father because any extra money he had a mind to spend he could put out as profit from the farm, but not so William there. William was getting twelve shillings a week; even a shilling spent extra could bring suspicion on him because they knew that McGrath, once he had made the discovery, would have his sons taping everybody in the village and beyond. And so your granda decided to have five shillings a week for as long as it would last, but he would spend it far afield, like in Shields . . . So there you are, now you know why I bring the sovereign every month.’ Simon let out a long, slow breath and leaned back in the chair and ended, ‘And what McGrath’s after an’ all.’

  Tilly’s eyes were wide, her mouth was slightly agape. She stared at Simon for some time before she turned her head slowly and looked towards her grandfather, then towards her grandmother who was seated at the top of the table. But now it was Annie who spoke. Sadly, she said, ‘The times, hinny, I’ve been tempted to ask for more in order to buy you some decent clothes. An’ I might have chanced it except that I made a mistake one day. ’Twas some weeks after they had brought William back from the pit. They thought he would die an’ I couldn’t leave him and we were in need of meat, candles, and flour an’ such, an’ you being on ten years old and a sensible child into the bargain, I told you what was needed. And so I wrapped the sovereign in a rag and pinned it in the pocket of your petticoat an’ gave you a penny for the carrier cart into Shields. Well, you came back as proud as punch with all the messages an’ the change intact, an’ when I asked you how you got on you told me that one woman at the bacon stall wanted to know how a little thing like you had come by a sovereign, an’ you said your granny had given it to you to do the messages with. And then you caught sight of Bella McGrath at another stall an’ simply to point out to the woman your honesty you said, “That’s Mrs McGrath from the village, she knows me an’ me granny.” An’ you went to her and brought her to the bacon stall an’ said to her, “You do know me an’ me granny, Mrs McGrath, don’t you?” An’ Bella McGrath said, “I do, I do indeed. But what for are you askin’?” An’ you explained to her about the sovereign.’ Annie now sighed and shook her head as she ended, ‘It was from then, hinny, that this business all started. The McGraths knew, like everybody else did, that William being bad, there’d be no money coming in, so from that day to this they’ve never let up. You see, they think we’ve got it hidden here. They’ve worked it out that there must still be a good deal left. That’s why Hal McGrath’s bent on having you; it’s one way of getting his hands on the remainder of it.’