Eddie spread his hands in a helpless gesture. ‘You can’t go anywhere in this lot, love.’ He sighed heavily as he sank into the armchair, weary and dispirited. He dropped his head into his hands as he muttered. ‘Wait till the weather improves and you’re feeling stronger, then we’ll see.’
The truth was that, deep inside him, he didn’t want her to go anywhere. Eddie wanted Anna to stay right here in his little cottage.
Pat seemed to recover her senses. ‘Get back into bed, love. Here, give me the bairn. There, there,’ she crooned as she took the crying child into her arms. ‘All that shouting’s upset you, hasn’t it, my little love? There, there. It’s all over and your mammy’s going to feed you now.’
Anna climbed back into the bed and soon a comparative peace was restored as the infant’s cries were silenced while she sucked hungrily. But the cosy, intimate atmosphere of the little cottage was gone, spoiled by Bertha’s bitter wrath.
When mother and child were sleeping, Eddie and Pat sat before the fire, their heads close together.
‘What are you going to do, Eddie?’
Eddie closed his eyes and sighed wearily. Then, as the baby stirred and gave a little snuffling sound in her sleep, he smiled. He seemed to straighten up as he glanced towards Anna lying in the bed. ‘D’you know,’ he said, as if he was as surprised as Pat to hear himself saying the words, ‘I reckon I’m going to stand up to Bertha for once in me life.’
Pat touched his hand. ‘Good for you.’
‘The lass and her bairn can stay as long as they want. If – if she wants to go – ’ Pat saw a fleeting expression of disappointment in his eyes – ‘then – so be it. But if she wants to stay, then she can.’ He stood up and pulled on his coat. ‘I’d best be off and see to me sheep.’ He paused at the door and turned to say solemnly, ‘There’s one thing Bertha was right about, though.’
Pat raised her eyebrows. She couldn’t think of a single thing that the vitriolic woman had been right about.
Eddie went on, ‘Tony. I shouldn’t have involved him. I’ll have to tell him not to come here any more.’
Pat smiled as she said softly, ‘You can try, but I don’t think either you – or Bertha – will be able to stop him.’
The snow ceased at last, but then came the thaw and, with it, the danger of flooding to the surrounding district.
‘You can’t stay here. You’ll have to go into the village,’ Eddie told Anna. ‘Pat’s said she’ll have you and the bairn. I’ll take you—’
‘No!’ Anna’s voice was sharp and determined. She was up and about now and able to care for herself and her child and even the puppy, but she was not yet fully recovered from the birth and had not ventured outside the cottage except to visit the privy. ‘We’re going nowhere. Not yet, anyway. Not until I’m well enough to move on. To get right away.’
Eddie spread his hands. ‘But this cottage lies almost at the lowest point in the vale. The stream will overflow. There’s no doubt about that happening, and when it does the water could back up as far as here. It’ll get into the cottage—’
‘Then we’ll go upstairs.’
‘You can’t do that. The whole place would be damp. You wouldn’t be able to keep the bairn warm. You can’t light a fire up there.’
‘Can’t you bring me a paraffin heater, or something?’
‘I could,’ Eddie agreed reluctantly, ‘but it would hardly keep you warm enough up there.’
‘We’ll be fine.’
‘You might be, but what about the baby?’ He eyed her thoughtfully. She seemed to have come round now and to be caring for her child properly. Pat had no worries, but Eddie couldn’t stop the dreadful suspicion that the girl was just biding her time and that perhaps she still hoped something would happen to the child. To both of them, if it came to that. He lay awake at night, alone now in the spare bedroom to which Bertha had banished him, thinking of the young girl in the cottage and wondering . . .
‘Maisie’ll be fine,’ Anna was insisting now. ‘I’ll keep her warm.’ She must have seen the anxiety in his face, for she added, in her soft, husky voice, ‘I promise.’
As the snow melted and the earth began to show through in brown patches, it was still too wet for the sheep to find grazing, even though they were out on the hillside again. Each day Eddie brought hay for his sheep, but each night Anna still found them huddled against the cottage wall, as if asking to be let in. And each night she would open the door wide and usher them into the room, comforted by the sound of their soft bleating in the middle of the night.
‘The stream’s overflowing like I said it would. I’ve brought you some sandbags, but I don’t reckon it’ll hold the water from getting into the cottage.’
Anna nodded. ‘I saw. I went out for the first time today. I took Buster for a walk.’ She laughed. ‘But he doesn’t like getting his paws wet.’
Eddie smiled, though the worry never quite left his eyes. ‘He’s only little.’
‘I’ve got everything ready in the room upstairs.’
‘I’m sorry now that I didn’t get Joe Wainwright up here to the roof afore Christmas.’
Anna shrugged and smiled. ‘One room’s all right. That’s all we need.’ She glanced at him, teasing. ‘I wasn’t thinking of taking the sheep up there an’ all.’
Eddie laughed. ‘No, I don’t think they’d manage to climb the ladder. Not even with Rip barking at their heels.’ He watched her for a moment. It was the first time that Anna had said something light-hearted and now he saw that she looked better – calmer, he thought, and not so afraid.
‘Are you happy here?’ he asked before he stopped to think. To his chagrin, the smile faded from her face and the haunted look was at once back in her eyes. She returned his gaze, but avoided answering his question directly.
‘I’m very grateful for what you’ve done for me, Eddie.’ Suddenly, she was on her guard again as she added, ‘I’ll – I’ll always be grateful to you, but I can’t stay here for ever.’
‘Why? Why not, love? You said you’d nowhere to go.’ He paused, then when she did not answer he pressed on. ‘Or is it different now you’ve had the bairn? Is that it? Are you going home—?’
Almost before the words were out of his mouth, she had spat back. ‘No, no. Never.’ Then she faltered. ‘I – I have no home.’
‘All right, lass, all right.’ He spread his hands, trying to placate her. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you and I’m not trying to pry. It’s just that – ’ he took a deep breath – ‘it’s just that I’d miss you if you did go and – and – well—’ He was floundering now and the words came out in a rush. ‘If you really haven’t anywhere special to go, you’re welcome to stay here.’
‘What about your wife?’ Her unusual dark eyes were regarding him steadily.
He shrugged. ‘She’s said no more about it. The only thing she has done is to stop Tony from coming to see you.’ He forbore to tell Anna that his wife had also banished him from her bed. Not that it was any great loss. She had not allowed any ‘marital relations’, as they called it, for years, he thought bitterly. The only thing he did miss was the warmth of her bulk next to him on a cold night. But a brick heated in the oven, wrapped in a piece of blanket and shoved into the bed was a good substitute! Now he smiled mischievously. ‘But I don’t expect for one minute that she’ll be able to stop him sneaking over the hill to see you now and again. That lad will find a way, if I’m not much mistaken.’
Anna’s small smile chased away some of the guarded look on her face. ‘Well,’ she said slowly, ‘I’d like to stay for a while longer, but I don’t want to cause you any more trouble.’
‘You won’t,’ he said briefly and silently added to himself: No more than I’d already got afore you came.
Twelve
The snow continued to melt and the rushing stream became a torrent, which overflowed its banks and flooded the land. Nearer and nearer it crept to the cottage and Anna was obliged to move upstairs, though she could wade through t
he water if she needed to in her wellingtons. Eddie helped her take her bedding up the narrow ladder and lift the armchair onto the table, so that it would not get soaked.
‘I still wish you’d go and stay with Pat Jessop. She asked about you again yesterday.’
‘That was kind of her,’ Anna said carefully. ‘But we’ll be fine up there, specially now you’ve brought us that little stove. As long as I can keep Maisie safe and warm and fed, we’ll be all right.’
‘But can you?’ Eddie asked worriedly.
Anna regarded him steadily. ‘If I can’t, Eddie, I promise you I’ll give in and let you take us to Nurse Jessop’s.’
‘That’s all right then, lass.’ He smiled with relief. ‘And now I’d better get these sheep onto higher ground.’
‘How’s the lambing going?’ Anna asked. ‘I wish I could be more help to you.’
‘Considering what we’ve had to cope with, very well, really. I’ve still several ewes to drop, but I’ve already got a good few healthy lambs.’ He raised his hand. ‘Must get on, lass. See you later.’
‘’Bye,’ Anna murmured as she watched him whistle to Rip and begin to round up the sheep that had been her companions for several days. She was sorry to see them go.
The water was now lapping at the walls of the cottage and against the sandbags across the thresholds. As Anna sat on the floor at the top of the ladder with the puppy beside her, the water began to seep into her home. Buster yapped excitedly, as if he could drive back the thing invading the cottage. They watched tiny rivulets creep beneath the door and spread out, until the whole of the earth floor was covered. And still the water kept coming.
She felt a moment’s panic, imagining it rising so high that it engulfed the whole cottage and drowned them.
And suddenly she wanted to live. She no longer felt the craving to lie down and let a welcome oblivion overtake her. Now she had something, or rather someone, to live for. She had another human being dependent upon her. She hadn’t wanted the child. It had grown within her against her will and she had hated it. Hated the thing inside because of how it had come to be there.
But now the child was no longer an ‘it’. Maisie was a tiny human being in her own right, already with a character that was evident when she bellowed for attention. Anna smiled fondly as she glanced over her shoulder to where her child lay sleeping in a Moses basket that Pat Jessop had brought. Where had she heard the phrase ‘They bring their love with them’? Well, it was certainly true of her Maisie. Now Anna loved her daughter with a fierce, protective passion. And, ironically, it had been Bertha Appleyard who had made her see that.
If only – Anna’s face clouded – the child had not been born with red hair.
She glanced down again at the water, still rising below her. Rationally, she worked out that, because of the lie of the land, the water could not possibly rise above a certain depth. Up here, they would be quite safe.
That night Anna lay down on the soft featherbed mattress on the floor and cuddled her child to her.
Though the water lapped beneath them, she felt safer than she had done for weeks. Cut off from the outside world by the flooding, no one could find her.
‘Still visiting ya little bastard, are ya?’
Eddie sighed deeply and cast a sideways glance at Tony sitting at the table, head bowed and toying with the food on his plate.
‘Bertha, the child’s not mine. How many more times—?’
Bertha snorted. ‘She’s got brown hair. Just like you. I saw that much that night.’
Holding onto his patience with a supreme effort, Eddie said, ‘No, she hasn’t. It’s red. Ginger. And her eyes are blue.’
‘That’s nowt to go by. All newborn babies have blue eyes.’ She nodded knowingly. ‘Its eyes’ll be brown and its hair’ll go darker. Like yours.’
Bertha pursed her small mouth until it almost disappeared into her fat face. She banged Eddie’s dinner onto the table in front of him and then took her place opposite, beside Tony.
‘Don’t you worry, love.’ She patted her son’s arm. ‘You’ve still got me, even if your dad is so taken up with his new daughter that he hasn’t any time for you now.’
‘That’s not true, Bertha—’
Bertha’s tone was vitriolic. ‘Isn’t it? You’re off up that track two or three times a day and you don’t come back for an hour or more. And don’t try telling me you’re with your sheep all that time, ’cos most of ’em are down here in the barn or the yard. I bet you’re off up there to watch her feeding her kid. Getting an eyeful, are ya? Disgusting, that’s what you are.’ Her mouth twisted. ‘Disgusting.’
Tony’s head hung lower as he felt the colour creep up his own face. He’d watched Anna feeding little Maisie. He’d not thought it wrong. So was he ‘disgusting’ as well, then, in his mother’s eyes?
He’d not go to the cottage again, he vowed silently. He didn’t want to upset his mam – didn’t want her to think that about him. And he didn’t want to see the baby any more. Not if his dad was going to love her more than him. Yet he liked going to see Anna and the puppy, and the baby, too, if he was truthful. He’d helped name the little girl. He’d begun to feel she belonged to him a little bit as well. But his mam was so angry. Angry at his dad, angry because the girl was even there. It seemed to him that she hated Anna and the little baby. But he still couldn’t understand what his mam meant when she said the baby was his dad’s.
The young boy, with a tumult of emotions going on inside his head that he couldn’t really understand or rationalize, pushed the food around his plate and chewed each mouthful round and round, unable to swallow for the lump in his throat.
‘You all right, lass?’ It was Eddie’s voice shouting through the front door.
Anna climbed down the ladder and stepped into the water. She pulled open the door and smiled a welcome. As Eddie stepped inside, she said, ‘We’re fine. Managing to keep warm and dry.’
‘Pat wants to come and see you. Check on you and the bairn, but—’
‘Tell her not to worry till this lot’s gone. We’re all right. Honestly.’
Eddie nodded, but the worried look never left his eyes.
‘There’s something else, isn’t there?’ Anna said.
Eddie smiled ruefully. ‘I don’t think Tony’ll be coming to see you any more. His – his mam’s put a stop to it.’
‘Well, I expected that. I’m sorry, though. I’ll miss him.’
‘Aye, an’ I reckon he’ll miss you. He keeps asking about you and Maisie, but—’ His voice trailed away.
‘But what?’ Anna prompted.
Eddie sighed. ‘Oh, nothing really.’ He didn’t want to tell Anna about the full extent of Bertha’s spite, though he knew she would guess most of it.
Her presence in the cottage was causing Eddie Appleyard all sorts of problems that he had not foreseen when he had brought the girl home that night. He hadn’t known what he was doing, he thought wryly, in more ways than one!
But, despite it all, not for one moment did he regret that Anna had come into his life.
Thirteen
It was late the following afternoon when Anna heard movement outside the cottage and then someone hammering on the front door at the bottom of the ladder. She climbed down and stood near the door, but did not open it.
‘Who is it?’ she called.
‘Me,’ came Tony’s voice. She pulled open the door, rippling the water further into the cottage.
The boy was breathless from wading through the flood to reach her.
‘What are you doing here? You shouldn’t—’
‘Me dad sent me,’ he interrupted. ‘He ses can you come down to the farm? He needs help and he ses I’m not big enough to do it.’ For a moment, the boy’s mouth was a disgruntled pout and there was resentment in his eyes as he looked at her, as if she was personally to blame for taking the place he believed was rightfully his. ‘He’s got two ewes dropping at once and they’re both difficult. He needs help and I can�
��t get to the village—’
‘Of course I’ll come, but I’ll just have to get Maisie wrapped up warm—’
‘Dad said not to take her.’ His head drooped sulkily. ‘I – I’m to stay with her, he said.’
Anna bit her lip, uncertain whether to trust the boy in his present mood, though she really had no choice. Eddie Appleyard had been good to her. In fact, he had probably saved her life and that of her child. She couldn’t refuse his plea for help.
‘All right then. She’s just been fed, so she’ll be all right for some time and she’s asleep. But don’t touch the stove, will you?’
‘Course I won’t,’ he said, vexed that she could doubt his common sense.
She followed him up the ladder and dressed herself quickly in the warmest clothing she had, then, with a last glance at her child, she descended the ladder again and left the cottage. Once out of the water, she hurried up the track towards the farm. She was gratified to find that she had almost recovered from the birth of her child. She was not quite as strong as normal, but youth had helped her to heal quickly.
She paused at the top of the hill to look down at the farm below her. In the low-lying parts of the land, water stood in small lakes, and as she set off down the track she could see that part of Eddie’s yard too was under water. As she waded through it to reach the barn, she glanced apprehensively towards the farmhouse, hoping that Bertha would not catch sight of her.
She reached the huge barn door, pulled it open and stepped inside. There were two makeshift pens at one end with straw bales where Eddie could attend to the ewes in labour. Anna pushed her way through the flock, patting a head here, stroking a woolly back there until she reached him.
‘I’ve got a bad one here,’ Eddie said. ‘Breech and I reckon it’s twins.’ Then he nodded towards the ewe in the next pen. ‘I want you to have a go at that one. The forelegs are presented but there’s no sign of the head. Do you know what to do?’
Anna nodded. ‘I think so. Push it back very gently and try to manipulate the head into line with the forelegs?’
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