by Diane Allen
9
‘Ada, Ada, where are you, lass?’ The house was silent apart from the ticking of the grandfather clock at the bottom of the stairs. ‘I’ve brought the shopping. Where are you?’
Edmund looked in the pantry and shouted through to the sitting room, before making his way up the creaking farmhouse stairs. ‘Aye, lass, you’re not still asleep – you must have been jiggered.’ Edmund walked across to Ada, who was laid out on top of the patchwork-quilted double bed that had been in their bedroom since they had been married. She didn’t stir. Her hand hung over the edge of the bed and her chest was still. ‘No, no, not my Ada. God, please. No, don’t have taken the only woman I’ve ever loved, not yet! I need her, I need her more today than I’ve ever needed her.’
Edmund rushed to the bed, sat down beside his wife and gently rested her head on his knee, trying to feel for a pulse in her wrist. He found none. ‘Aye, Ada, what am I going to do, my love? You are my rock, I can’t face life without you. And what do I do about our Polly?’ He stroked Ada’s white curly hair and kissed her still-warm brow. ‘Well, at least I don’t have to break your heart, like our Danny did all those years ago. You’ve never been the same since that day. Damn that lad, the selfish bugger.’ Edmund stroked her hair and a tear fell among the silver locks of the woman he had loved all his life. Why did life always hit you hardest when you were already down. Without Ada, he would be lost.
He continued to stroke her hair and sighed. He’d loved her so long – so long that he’d forgotten how to tell her just how much he loved her. They had been like a comfortable pair of shoes that you walked around in every day, and then suddenly realized one day that they were old and tattered, but you still loved them anyway. How was he going to live without his rock, his friend and, most of all, Polly’s supposed mother? There was going to be a lot to explain, but now he would have to send for the doctor and see to an undertaker. And then break his heart again, when he looked Polly in the eye.
‘Now then, Polly, get yourself down from that cart and come up home with me.’
Since the doctor had been and gone, Edmund had waited in the sunshine and had sat on the newly built milk-kit stand at the bottom of the lane from Paradise, waiting for Polly to come home. The doctor had handed him the scrap of paper that told Edmund his way of life had changed forever. He’d not noticed the birds singing, or the heat of the sun, or how the river gurgled its way down the valley. All he’d thought about was breaking to Polly the news that Ada had died, and then having to tackle the subject of Matt Dinsdale. He’d watched as the young couple on the cart had come down the road, giggling and chattering to each other, and instantly knew that the gossip was true. Polly and her brother were in an unhealthy relationship, and he’d have to tell them both the truth.
‘Polly’s got some bad news waiting for her at home. Can you tell Bill Sunter she’ll not be coming to work any more.’ Edmund watched as Polly looked at him.
‘What do you mean? You can’t do that just because I’ve come home with Matt. You can’t stop me from seeing the people I work with. I’ve got to go to work, Father.’ Polly had known this day was coming, as soon as her father had heard she wasn’t coming home with steady old Oliver Simms. And she wasn’t going to take it – he couldn’t rule her life any more.
‘Did you not hear, lass, you’ve heartbreak waiting at home. I’m sorry, but you aren’t listening, and I’m not making myself clear. Polly, you lost your mother this afternoon. She died in her sleep, while I was at Hawes.’ Edmund nearly broke down as he said the words to the young couple that he now knew both to be his grandchildren.
‘No, you are wrong – she can’t be dead, not my mam.’ Polly dropped her apron and ran up the farm path, not looking back at her father, who was standing with Matt. She had to get home, she had to see her mother.
‘And, Matt lad, I need to talk to you and your grandmother, after we’ve laid my Ada to rest. There’s something we have to sort out.’ Edmund looked up at the blond lad, who was obviously heartbroken for Polly, as he watched her running into the farmyard of Paradise. ‘Perhaps you’d like to come to the funeral. It’s next Thursday at the church in Garsdale, 2 p.m. The undertaker has just confirmed and is coming back later with a coffin; he only lives across at The Street.’ Edmund found himself rambling with his thoughts as he looked at his grandson. He had every right to be at his grandmother’s funeral, if he did but know it.
‘If it’s about me and Polly, I’ve been honourable, sir. I’d never be anything else. I’m so sorry for your loss. Please tell Polly I’m there for her.’ Matt looked down from the cart at the heartbroken old man. What did this man need to see his grandmother and himself for? He’d never lay a finger on Polly, so there was no need for him to see his grandmother.
‘Aye, well, Polly and I will come up to your house at Gayle on Friday afternoon. Tell your grandmother that Polly’s mother has died, and that we are coming to see you both. She’ll know what it’s about.’ Edmund closed the farm gate after him and walked slowly up the track, the weight of the world on his shoulders. It was best that all was out in the open. With the death of Ada, and Polly and Matt’s burgeoning romance, the truth had to be faced and secrets could no longer be kept.
Matt watched Edmund climb the track to his farm, and the sorrow that it held within. How he wanted to go and comfort Polly. She hadn’t even said goodbye, else he would have given her words of comfort. He’d be there for her at the funeral, it was the least he could do. Perhaps by then he’d know why Edmund Harper was to visit his home, and why his grandmother would somehow know why to expect him.
Polly knelt at the side of Ada’s bed, stroking her cold hand. Tears trickled down her cheeks and Edmund could hear her sobs from the bottom of the stairs.
‘I loved you, Mother, and I always will. I should have known you weren’t well yesterday, when I put your feet up on the stool. I shouldn’t have gone to work today. All I was thinking about was myself, and enjoying Matt’s company.’ She sobbed into the quilt and blew her nose on the edge of it, as she realized her face was covered with snot and tears. ‘What am I going to do without you, and what is Father going to do, now he’s on his own?’ Strands of her long black hair fell onto her face and she caught her breath as she heard her father’s footsteps climbing the stairs.
‘The undertakers are coming up the path, Polly. Mr Raw is going to take her into his chapel of rest until the funeral.’ Edmund put his hand on Polly’s shoulder. ‘It’s time to say your goodbyes, lass. You know how much she loved you, and she wouldn’t want to see you upset.’ Edmund slipped his arm around Polly’s waist and lifted her up onto her feet. ‘She didn’t suffer, that’s the main thing, Polly love; she just went in her sleep.’ Edmund hugged the distraught Polly next to him and stroked her long hair. ‘Life’s cruel, lass, and if I could take the blows for you, I would. But we are all the better for having had my Ada’s love, and she will always be in our hearts.’ Edmund couldn’t stop a tear from falling as Polly shook with sorrow. What would he do now, with his Polly? She had always confided in Ada, and now he was going to have to be mother and father to the lass, and be responsible for telling the deeply buried truth.
‘Edmund, are you up there?’ Bob Raw yelled up the stairs as he and his apprentice pulled up outside the farmhouse with a coffin on the back of his cart.
‘Quiet now, lass. Tidy yourself up and stop crying. Bob Raw’s here to take her away.’ Edmund kissed Polly on her cheek and urged her to stop sobbing. ‘Aye, up here, Bob. We’ve said our goodbyes.’
Polly felt her chin wobbling again as she whispered, ‘I love you, Mother’, before rushing out of the bedroom and brushing past Bob Raw and his help. She had to get away, get some fresh air in her lungs and think about what the day had thrown at her. She looked at the coffin on the back of the cart. Her mother would soon be in that, deep down in the dark earth, where no light and no air could get at her. What if she wasn’t dead, what if she was just asleep? Happen her father had got it wrong.
Polly ran back into the house and flew up the stairs and into her parents’ room. ‘She isn’t dead, she can’t be dead – check she’s just asleep!’ But she knew she was wrong, as soon as she realized that they had dressed her mother in a burial shroud.
‘Polly, Polly, you can’t bring her back. Your mother’s gone.’ The three men looked at her, their hearts breaking with her cries.
Polly ran down the stairs. She ran past the coffin, through the farmyard and up to the high meadow. The long grass caught in the buckles of her shoes, and her skirts tangled around her knees. Her breath ached in her lungs, and her heart pounded as she threw herself onto the hard ground when she could run no more. There she lay, looking at the setting sun and running her fingers through the long ears of the seeded grass and clover. She sat up and looked down towards the farm path and the bridge that she had crossed so happily a few hours ago. A few hours that seemed like a lifetime now. She watched as, down the path and along the road to The Street, the coffin with her mother in it went with Bob Raw to his chapel of rest. Tears filled her eyes as she pulled on the stalks of grass, filling her hands with their seeds, only for her to discard them in a heap next to her skirt. Lying back down in the long grass, she listened to the woodland birds singing their evensong and felt the chill wind of night encroaching on her face. She smelt the scent of clover and buttercups in the long hay-meadow and watched as a late-evening bumblebee made its way home between the long grasses.
‘I thought I’d find you here. You always hid here when you were a lil ’un. Any bother and we’d find you up here in the top meadow, watching the world go by.’ Edmund bent down and sat next to Polly. ‘Everybody’s got to die sometime, Pol. Some just sooner than others, and your mother was getting a bit weary of this old world. I knew there was something up, but I just didn’t realize how ill she was.’ Edmund looked down upon the dale that he had grown up in, and thought of his beloved Ada and the hours they had shared together.
‘I know, Father, but I just didn’t expect it yet – not yet – and I loved her so much.’ Polly sat up and snuggled against Edmund’s jacket.
‘Aye, well, we both did. It’s a bit like your old Herdwick over there in that pasture. She has her three babies with her now, but come September we’ll have to take them off her. She’s loved them, done the best for them, and now they’ve to grow up and have their own life. She might see another winter or she might not, but life will go on, no matter what, and we can’t stop it. But don’t forget we’ll always have your mother here, in our hearts, and that will never change.’ He held Polly tight. ‘Come on now, lass, let’s be away down home. The night’s drawing in and it’s been a long day for us both.’
Polly stood up and offered her hand to her father, whose knees were stiff from too much fell-walking and damp days of kneeling on wet grass helping sheep, lambs and cows calve. ‘Yes, let’s go home, Father. I’ll make supper and stoke the fire. I’ll not let my mother down – she’d want us to carry on, wouldn’t she?’
‘That she would, lass, that she would.’ Edmund put his arm around Polly. Their hearts were going to be broken yet again after the funeral, but for now he had to be strong for his Polly.
It was Thursday, the day of the funeral.
‘Chin up, lass, she wouldn’t want us bawling over her. She never was one to make a fuss, was your mother.’ Edmund smiled at Polly. Her face told him everything. Tear-stains ran down her cheeks, and her nose was red from being blown. ‘I was only six when my mother died. My oldest sister brought both me and Evie up. I remember as clear as yesterday, her clouting me around the ear for dropping a jar of jam she’d just made. Looking back, I don’t blame her. The sugar would have cost the earth, and she’d have spent all day stirring the huge jam pan over the hearth. By, she’d a fair temper, had our Meg; you were a brave ’un if you took her on.’ Edmund cast his mind back to his childhood. ‘She jiggered off with a salesman from Newcastle as soon as Evie and I were old enough to look after ourselves, only to die of influenza the next year, and that was that. I was left with my old father here, at Paradise, and when Evie married Albert, and I’ve been here ever since.’ Edmund spat on the black shoes he was polishing and gave them a final buff with the shoe brush, before lacing them up and putting the brush away.
‘Do you remember your mother?’ Polly was curious, for her father had never talked of his family before.
‘No, I can hardly remember her face, poor woman, but what I do remember is her smell – she always smelt of violets. I can be walking past the bank of primroses and violets that flower above the wood in spring, and thoughts come flooding back to me of when I was a bairn. Thinking about it, she must have worn violet perfume.’ Edmund leaned against the kitchen window and looked out down the field. ‘Well, we’d better walk down to the church. Dick is waiting for us by the bottom gate. I can see him. Len said he’d take us up to the funeral tea at the Moorcock and bring us back. He’s a good man. I’ve known him both man and boy.’
Polly took her father’s arm and swallowed deeply. She wasn’t going to cry; she’d hold her head high and think of the good days she’d had with her mother. Her father pulled the kitchen door to, and they walked through the farmyard and down the rough farm path bordered by the tall grasses of the hay-meadow.
‘We’ll have to mow this next week, if the weather holds,’ Edmund said as they reached halfway down the field.
‘I’ll have to help keep the house going,’ Polly replied.
‘Aye, that’ll be grand, lass. We’ll manage it between us.’ He hesitated as he opened the farm gate and saw the coffin on the undertaker’s cart.
‘It’s too fine a day for a funeral, Bob. Is the good Lord not going to welcome her with a drop of rain?’ Edmund shook Bob Raw’s hand and nodded to the bearers, who stood on either side of the cart.
‘Doesn’t look like it today, Edmund. She’ll be welcome anyway, will Ada. She was a good woman.’
‘Aye, that she was. Let’s be off. Folk will be waiting, and my lass here looks a bit faint.’ Edmund took hold of Polly’s hand as the cortège made its way over the small narrow bridge and up the road, past the houses along The Street, with their curtains drawn as a sign of respect, and on for a further few hundred yards to the small Norman-built church that served the people of Garsdale.
Polly thought it was the longest walk she had ever made, as she entered the church porchway. The bearers lifted the dark oak coffin onto their shoulders, on the instructions of Bob Raw, and the vicar said words of blessing as he walked in front of the funeral party. She sat down on the front pew, next to her father, aware of the church being nearly full with Dales people who had come to pay their respects, yet not daring to look at who was actually there.
‘I am the life . . . ’ The vicar turned and stood in front of them.
‘Oh, Mother, why did you have to die? There was so much I wanted to tell you. There were so many times I should have said sorry, or helped more.’ Polly could only think of what she hadn’t done, and her heart ached as she listened to the service and sang the hymns that she and her father had chosen in the kitchen of the Paradise with the vicar a few days ago.
‘You all right, Polly?’ Edmund squeezed her hand after the service, as they followed the coffin out into the churchyard to be interred. ‘She’s had a full church – she’d be proud to know that she was well liked.’ He smiled at his daughter; she was bearing up well.
‘Yes, I’m fine.’ Polly wanted to scream how she really felt, but knew her father must be hurting in just the same way.
She followed and copied her father, as he took a small handful of earth from the box that Bob Raw offered him and threw it down onto the coffin that held Ada. She looked down into the deep, dark hole where her mother lay, and filled up with tears as she threw the damp earth clay, watching it splatter over the coffin, before walking away from the hole, and from her mother.
‘My condolences, Miss Harper. You must be heartbroken at the loss of your mother.’ Tobias
Middleton stood in front of Polly and looked truly upset for her loss.
‘Thank you, Mr Middleton. I am at a loss, I’m afraid.’ Polly wiped her eyes with her handkerchief and looked up at Tobias.
‘Please – it’s Tobias. We know each other too well to stand on ceremony. If there is anything I can do . . . ’
‘We’ll be fine, thank you, Mr Middleton. But thank you for your concern.’ Edmund came to Polly’s rescue, once he saw the attention she was getting from one whom he thought a cad.
‘Again my condolences. It must have come as a shock to both of you.’ Tobias bowed his head.
‘It did, and thank you for coming to the funeral. I’m sorry, but will you excuse us? I believe both Polly and I are needed by the vicar.’ Edmund took Polly’s arm and escorted her onto the church path and away from Tobias. ‘I cannot take to that Tobias Middleton. He’s got such a look like his father. Mark my words, he’s a wrong ’un.’
‘He was only saying his sympathies, Father.’ Polly wanted to defend her Tobias.
‘Nay, it was more than that, lass. I know that look he gives you. You keep away from him, do you hear? He’s nothing but bad news. He never even met your mother, so why is he here?’
‘He’s here like most of them, Father. When someone in the dale dies, everyone shows their respect. I don’t know half of the folk here today.’ Polly looked around her, and her heart missed a beat as she spotted Matt standing under the yew tree at the edge of the graveyard. He lifted his hand and waved gently at her as she smiled at him.
‘And that ’un – the sooner I go to see his grandmother, the better,’ Edmund muttered, as he saw the first smile for a week on Polly’s face.
‘Can I go and talk to him, Father? I never said goodbye the other day,’ Polly pleaded.
‘Aye, go on, but I’ve got my eye on you both.’ Edmund couldn’t say no, for the lass needed a friend and, besides, all would be settled by the next day.