by Penny Jordan
During the course of the evening, however, she found herself in the company of a young man called Reuben Longhurst—mainly due to his good-natured persistence. She didn’t mind too much. He was tall and blond, with a twinkle in his eye, and he made no secret of the fact he was smitten with her. It eased the ache in her heart a little, even though she was careful to give him no encouragement, knowing it wouldn’t be fair to him.
By the end of the night she found she’d thoroughly enjoyed herself, however. Reuben had made her laugh, and had treated her with the utmost respect, and it had been a welcome change to feel young and carefree for once.
Alice Todd had made no secret of the fact that she was taken with Reuben’s older brother, and he with her, and as the two parties made their goodbyes at the end of the rough dirt road leading to Hawthorn Farm, Reuben said quietly, ‘Bart has asked Alice to walk out with him on Sunday afternoon. If I accompany him when he calls at the farm, would I be welcome, Connie?’
Blushing hotly, and speaking in a low voice so the others could not hear, she said, ‘I like you, Reuben, really I do. But not…not in that way, just as a friend. I’m sorry.’
‘Is there someone else?’ he asked softly, making no effort to disguise his disappointment. ‘Someone you like, I mean?’
‘No. Yes. I mean…’ Connie paused. She wasn’t making any sense, and after he had asked her to walk out with him he deserved some explanation. ‘I do like someone,’ she said shyly, after a moment or two, ‘but he doesn’t feel the same.’
‘He doesn’t?’
The blank astonishment in his voice and the look in his blue eyes in the moonlight was balm to her sore heart. Connie smiled into the young fresh face. He was nice. He was very nice, and she knew lots of girls would be eager to be seen on his arm, but…He wasn’t Luke. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said again. ‘In spite of that my feelings for him haven’t altered, so it wouldn’t be fair to give you any hope.’
‘Then how about I call on Sunday and we go for a walk as friends?’ Reuben said quickly as the rest of his party walked off. ‘Just friends—not as a courting couple or anything, I promise. You can bring Flora, if you want, your brothers, too. I don’t mind. And I’ll bring some lads and lasses with me. Yes?’
Connie stared at him doubtfully. ‘There’s no chance I will change my mind, Reuben, so why would you want to do that?’
‘Because I enjoyed your company tonight, and we had fun, didn’t we? I could be wrong, but I get the impression you’re not used to having fun. I’d like us to be friends if we can’t be anything else. I mean it, Connie. I’m quite serious.’
She shook her head. ‘It doesn’t seem fair to you.’
‘I mean it,’ he insisted. ‘Look, how about we give it a try on Sunday and go from there? There’s a whole bunch of us who often go walking of a Sunday afternoon. You met a few of them tonight and we’re all pals. Everyone needs friends, Connie. It’s what makes the world go round.’
He was grinning as he spoke, backing away in answer to his party, who were calling him from some distance away. Before she could object further he’d turned and run after the others, calling over his shoulder, ‘Till Sunday, then.’
Connie stared into the darkness which had swallowed him up. For the life of her she didn’t know whether to be annoyed or amused. Sunday afternoon and evening was supposed to be her half-day, but ever since she had adopted the role of housekeeper she hadn’t taken her free time, carrying on working in the farmhouse as though it was a normal day. Like Reuben and his friends, Alice and some of the others always took a walk on Sunday afternoons, if the weather permitted, but Connie had never joined them—although they had invited her a few times. But she could try it. She could leave Luke’s mother’s afternoon tray all ready, and they always had a cold supper on Sunday evenings, so she could prepare that too before she left the farmhouse.
Becoming aware that Flora and the others were calling her, and almost lost from sight on the road to the farm, she hastily hurried after them in the moonlight.
She’d give it a try on Sunday, she decided. It was her half-day, after all, and Luke’s mother wouldn’t mind. She knew that. It had been she who had persuaded her to join the others tonight, gently scolding her for never leaving the farmhouse. As for Luke, she doubted he’d even notice she wasn’t around.
‘Connie is doing what and with whom?’
Luke stared at his mother, and Maggie Hudson repeated patiently, ‘She’s going for a walk after lunch with some friends. She will leave my afternoon tray ready in the kitchen, and also a cold supper for the pair of us, so we won’t be seeing her until tomorrow morning. It has all been decided.’
‘And you told her that was acceptable?’
‘It’s her half-day, Luke. She is entitled to it. And don’t look at me like that. Surely you don’t begrudge the girl a few hours off, the way she works for us?’
Ignoring this, Luke said flatly, ‘Who are these friends, exactly? What are their names and where do they come from?’
‘Some young people from Stone Farm, as I understand it.’
Luke frowned. Young people. That would mean a number of young men. Connie was as innocent and ingenuous as a child, unlike some of the lasses round about, who would give you the eye as soon as look at you. Alice Todd, for one. And lads would be lads. It was the same the whole world over. Fine for them to sow their wild oats.
‘You should have stopped her,’ he said gruffly. ‘I don’t like it.’
‘Stopped her? Why on earth would I presume to stop her seeing her friends, Luke? Hasn’t it occurred to you that Connie is still a young lass, in spite of her having to have an old head on her young shoulders for much of her life? It can’t be much fun for her, seeing no one but us for most of the time, day in, day out. And, regardless of all that, like I said—this is her half-day, and she can do as she pleases.’
His frown deepened. ‘She’s never bothered to take it off before,’ he said mulishly. ‘And we don’t know these people.’
After a moment or two Luke became aware that his mother was staring at him with an odd look on her face. Then she said, ‘Connie is a bonny lass, Luke. Perhaps she has attracted an admirer. I don’t know. If she hasn’t already, she will one day. Make no mistake about that. And whoever gets her will be a lucky man, in my opinion.’
He glared at her. ‘She’s not ready for anything like that.’
‘Of course she is. She’ll be eighteen next year, as you know.’
‘Well, be it on your head if she’s taken advantage of.’
When her son stomped out of her bedroom, Maggie continued to stare after him for some time. Then she said to herself, ‘So that’s the way of it. Well, I hope he does something about it before it’s too late.’ But her voice carried no conviction.
When Connie got in from church she busied herself with the dinner, having sent Flora to set two places at the dining room table for Luke and his mother. It was a shame Mrs Hudson didn’t feel up to making the journey to church these days, she thought, after slipping the roast potatoes in to join the joint of beef she’d put on before leaving that morning. But at least she managed to come downstairs most afternoons. Luke never went to church. According to Rose he hadn’t set foot in the place since they had buried his son, in spite of Parson Lindsay having come to see him at the farm several times.
Her mouth tender, she was thinking, Poor, poor man, when a cold voice from the kitchen doorway brought her turning round from the range. ‘I understand you intend to leave the house for the rest of the day after lunch?’ Luke said thinly.
Connie’s eyes widened. By, he was in a state about something. She’d never seen him look like this. But surely it wasn’t due to her taking her half-day? It couldn’t be. Mrs Hudson had been fine about it when she’d mentioned it to her. She’d even said she was pleased she was going to get out and blow the cobwebs away for a change. No, it couldn’t be that. But something had upset him.
‘That’s right.’ She bobbed her head. ‘
I’m leaving your mother’s tea tray ready, and your suppers will be on the cold slab in the—’
‘What if my mother needs you while you’re gone?’
‘What?’ She stared at him bewildered.
‘I said…’ He paused, his voice insultingly slow when he ground out, ‘What…if…my…mother…needs…you…while…you’re…gone?’
The muscles of Connie’s heart-shaped face tightened as she looked into grey eyes which were almost black with what she recognised as suppressed rage. He was objecting to her going out. That was it. How dared he? How dared he when she had spent every day for the last nine or ten months at his mother’s beck and call. And his. Oh, yes—and his. ‘I assumed you would be here, sir,’ she said crisply, ‘if she needed anything.’
‘Really? And you didn’t see the need to check with me first? That would have been courteous if nothing else, surely?’
‘Sunday afternoon is my half-day. I’m not supposed to be here. I thought you realised that.’ She was standing as stiff as a ramrod now, her sense of injustice and hurt making her cheeks as fiery as the red tint to her chestnut hair and her tone as cold as his. ‘For that reason I saw no need to check.’
Luke’s voice had a steel thread to it as he said, ‘And that is all that matters to you? Not my mother’s welfare?’
‘I think of your mother’s welfare every day, as you very well know.’ She was glaring at him now, more angry than she had ever been in the whole of her life. It didn’t matter that he was the master of all their destinies. He was being grossly unfair and she wouldn’t be bullied like this. ‘And Mrs Hudson is quite happy for me to take my half-day—especially considering it is the first time I’ve ever done so since I came to work for you.’
‘Mrs Hudson is not the master of this farm.’
‘I’m aware of that,’ she snapped back, even quicker than he had. ‘But it was you who set my half-day the same as the others.’
There was a short silence as they stood facing each other, and into it Flora came, sidling past Luke in the doorway and then glancing at each of their faces before making herself scarce in the scullery. Connie just hoped her brothers wouldn’t come in yet from seeing one of the farm cats’ new litter of kittens in the hayloft.
She bit tight down on her lip before asking grimly, ‘Are you telling me I can’t go out this afternoon…sir?’ She knew the pause before the sir was insolent, but something outside of herself was urging her on, all the heartache and smothered dreams of the last months coming into play.
Luke stared at her, bitterness like bile on his tongue and the rage that had had him in its grip since his mother had first spoken entirely unabated. He knew he was being unreasonable, that he had gone about this all wrong, but the knowledge only made him the more angry. ‘You must do as you please,’ he said thinly.
She inclined her head. ‘Then, as your mother is comfortable and the meals are prepared, I shall join the others,’ she said in a voice unlike her own, so harsh was it. ‘And I shall be taking my half-day every Sunday from now on, sir. Just so as you know and can be aware of it. Unless your mother is unwell, of course.’
‘Oh, please don’t let us put you about at all,’ he said with acidic sarcasm, before turning and leaving the kitchen.
Connie put out her hands and gripped the edge of the kitchen table, her legs threatening to give way. She was trembling from head to foot, her face chalk-white except for two bright scarlet patches along her cheekbones.
She could hardly believe that one minute she had been feeling desperately sorry for him, wishing she could wipe away the grief which still held him in its grip, and the next she had been rudely catapulted into a scene of momentous proportions. He had been horrible, horrible, and she hated him. She did. She loathed and detested and hated him, and she would for the rest of her life. However could she have imagined herself in love with him? She must have been mad. He was an arrogant brute of a man.
Then she sank down on one of the stout hardbacked chairs, laying her head down on her arms on the kitchen table and beginning to sob. She heard Flora come through from where she had been waiting in the scullery and felt her sister pat her shoulder in silent sympathy. It wasn’t until her brothers came in and—after a whispered explanation from Flora—began to pat her too that she managed to pull herself together.
‘It’s all right.’ She wiped her face with her handkerchief and sniffed a few times before forcing a shaky smile. ‘A storm in a teacup, that’s all. Look, we need to set the table in here, and Flora—’ she turned to her sister ‘—you start to warm the serving dishes for the dining room. We want to be ready when they arrive from Stone Farm, don’t we? Mrs Hudson will be down any minute, and once she’s seated we can take in the dishes and then eat ourselves.’
‘Are you sure you want to go, Connie?’ Flora’s voice was low and she still looked worried to death.
Connie looked at her sister and brothers. ‘Quite sure,’ she said firmly. ‘And from now on my half-day is a time for us, when we do things together. We might go for a walk with the others, like today, or just stay at home, or whatever. But I shan’t be working here, all right? It’s going to be family time. I should have done it before now.’
Flora nodded uncertainly. Tommy, David and Ronnie just stared at her, their eyes wide.
‘I don’t mind what I do six and a half days a week, but I won’t be taken for a mug,’ Connie continued, half to herself. ‘Not by anyone. And you can put that in your pipe, Mr Luke Hudson, and smoke it.’
And with that she stood up, smoothed down her dress, raised her chin and set about seeing to the Sunday lunch.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE month of October passed by fairly uneventfully on the whole. True, Britain’s first troops to return home after the end of the Boer War received a heroes’ welcome, the Tories were re-elected with a huge majority, and many folk lost their lives in the severe floods which struck the north at the end of the month, but these happenings barely impinged on life at Hawthorn Farm, apart from a brief mention by the parson in his Sunday sermons. All Connie was really aware of was how difficult life had become in the last little while, and how miserable she felt all the time.
Not that anything had changed. Not really. And yet everything had. Luke had been waiting for her in the kitchen on the Monday morning after their disagreement, and he had made a stiff little speech where he’d apologised for his sharpness the day before and assured her her half-days were her own and she would not be called on during them. Nor had she been. Oft times she had seen him in the distance when they had returned in a laughing group to the farm late Sunday afternoon, but he had never acknowledged their existence.
The thunderclouds and rain of October gave way to a November of sharp frosts and thick fog first thing in the mornings. Every twig on every tree and bush was outlined in silver tracery, sometimes until nearly midday, and the older farmhands spoke grimly of a bad winter in store. By the time December was ushered in no one doubted they were right. The snowstorms had come with relentless monotony, the wind like a carving knife as it cut unprotected hands and cheeks, and even when mittens and mufflers were worn the wool froze like boards and became caked with ice.
The normal jobs of the farm had to go on—wall-mending, milking, cattle-feeding, watering—and the cowhouses and stables had to be cleaned, the hens, calves, pigs and sheep fed and kept safe. Turnips had to be chopped, bran mashed for the pigs, corn scattered for the hens and slices of dry clean hay cut from stacks for the cattle.
There were long days at a time when they were snowed in, and the children of the workers couldn’t get to school—something Tommy, David and Ronnie greeted with relish. Flora had taken to reading to Luke’s mother by the farmhouse’s sitting room fire on these occasions, and the two appeared to have become quite close. Connie’s three brothers would sidle in now and again, sitting at Maggie Hudson’s feet as quiet as mice. Usually this was when Connie was drying out their boots and coats on the farmhouse’s massive kitchen ran
ge; due to the harsh conditions myriad jobs were found for all the children if they were not at school.
Connie knew Luke had walked in on her sister and brothers during these times because they had told her so, but she did not know what he thought of his mother allowing—no, encouraging such liberties. He was always civil to her, and she to him, but both of them spoke only when they had to, and then often as not in monosyllables. It was hateful, but that was the way it was.
With the snow reaching the tops of the hedges they had not seen Reuben and the others from Stone Farm since the middle of November, but Connie did not mind this. She liked Reuben, and now counted him as a friend, but they were both aware that was all it would ever be on her part. When Reuben had been around, though, she had been able to put her misery about the situation with Luke to one side to some extent, at least for an hour or two. She didn’t want to love him, she would give the world not to, but it seemed nothing he did or said could kill the emotion. Her only comfort was that Luke was completely oblivious to the feeling that seemed almost to consume her at times.
On the first Sunday in December, with Christmas three and a half weeks away, there came a respite in the weather. The snow was still deep, and the ice thick, but there had been no fresh falls for some days. Paths had been cleared and remained cleared, the tramped-down snow in the fields and around the farm was easier to walk on, and each morning brought winter sunlight that turned the crystal and white world into something beautiful.
Connie had taken to feeding a little robin which came to the kitchen windowsill every morning since the worst of the weather, and it was now so tame it would take cake crumbs from her hand. She hadn’t been long in the farmhouse kitchen, and was far earlier than usual, having forgotten to prepare the porridge for Luke and Mrs Hudson the night before—usually her last job—when the robin made his appearance, fluttering up and down the window.