Kiddar. They all thought of her as just a bairn, and Polly always made out she was miles and miles older than her instead of just three years. And she was fed up with Polly telling her what she could and couldn’t do.
Ruth was never really sure afterwards if she meant to push Polly into the fast-flowing river or just frighten her sister, but the end result was Polly seeming to hover in the air for a second as she gave one shrill, terrified scream, and then disappearing under the surging flow in a flurry of arms and legs and spray. And then Ruth was screaming herself and the lads were shouting, and Luke gave her an almighty shove backwards as he leapt into the river exactly where Polly had gone down. Ruth landed with such a bump it knocked all the wind out of her and she lay gasping but silent, listening to the voices above her head but unable to respond.
When Polly felt the waters close over her head her mouth was still open in a scream and she immediately took a great mouthful of the river before she knew what she was doing. It filled her airways and her eyes and ears as she sank – like Clara, like Clara had done at Farrington burn, her mind screamed. But then she felt her feet land on the river bed, and weeds and other things wrapped round her legs and she kicked out furiously, putting all her strength in aiming for the light she could see far above as she thrashed wildly with her arms.
She was aware the current was carrying her along and that its pull was aiming to keep her under, but she fought against it with all her might, her lungs beginning to ache as she held her breath. And then her head broke the surface of the fast-moving water and she managed to gulp a breath before she felt herself submerged again, and terror like she had never felt before gripped her.
It could only have been a second or two later that she felt her hair being torn out by its roots, the pain forcing her to open her mouth in a cry that made her swallow more water. But then she could breathe air again and her face was staring into Luke’s contorted features, whereupon she flung her arms round his neck in a stranglehold that threatened to drown them both.
‘Let go, Polly! You have to let go. I’ve got you, I won’t let you slip. Trust me.’
It was the hardest thing she had ever done, to follow his instructions and relax her hold sufficiently for Luke to turn her round against his chest, and her eyes were wide with fear as he struck out for the bank with one arm, towing her body behind him. And then she felt other hands reach down and grasp her, and she realised Luke had reached the edge of the embankment and Arnold and Michael were kneeling there waiting to help.
As she was hoisted to safety, Polly felt herself enfolded into Michael’s arms as Arnold heaved his brother on to dry land, but she was too spent to say anything, as was Luke.
‘Polly, oh, Poll. Poll ...’ Michael was murmuring her name over and over as he cradled her in his thin arms, his legs either side of her limp, water-soaked form and his arms tight round her as he endeavoured to stop her shaking with the warmth of his slight body.
She was covered in mud from being dragged up the bank; her granny would go mad when she saw the state of her Sunday dress and pinny. Polly was aware of the thought at the same time as her senses sucked in the heat of the sun, the smell of the warm grass and wild flowers dotting the riverbank and the twittering of the birds in the trees surrounding the water, who were blissfully unaware of the drama which had been enacted beneath them.
She raised her head to see Luke kneeling on the grass a yard or two away. He looked strange; he, too, was covered in mud and gunge, and there were bits of twig and more mud causing his wet hair to stick out at all angles. And then everything began to recede and she felt sick, and she rolled out of Michael’s hold as the nausea overcame her and her stomach rebelled against the river water she’d swallowed.
‘Polly?’ When she eventually pulled herself into a sitting position, Ruth was crouched at the side of her, and her sister’s face was ashen. ‘I slipped, Polly.’
‘It’s all right.’
‘No,’ said Michael, who had stripped off his shirt and now wrapped it round Polly’s shivering body. ‘No, it isn’t all right. You don’t act the cuddy near water, you know that as well as anyone, Ruth. You could’ve drowned her.’
He looked into Polly’s dirt-smeared face, in which her teeth were chattering so hard they could all hear it, and she managed a small, reassuring smile when she saw the expression in his eyes. He’d looked at her like that a few times since that time at the stream nearly a year ago, but never so long or so openly. ‘You look like a stranded little mudlark nymph,’ he said very softly, his narrow, thin chest rising and falling with the force of his emotion.
And then, as their shared glance became absorbing, shutting out everyone and everything else and making them oblivious to the three pair of eyes watching them, it was Arnold’s voice that broke the bubble as he said sharply to Ruth, ‘You oughta be whipped to within an inch of your life, you.’ His eyes had left Polly and Michael and were now glaring at the younger girl, and they resembled cold black chips of the coal he worked. ‘You’ll be in for a leathering tonight if I have anything to do with it.’
‘No, no, she couldn’t help it. You heard her, she slipped.’ Polly struggled to her feet as she spoke, walking across to Luke, who had also just risen to his feet as she said, ‘Thank you, Luke. Oh, thank you.’ She took his cold hands in her equally cold ones. ‘I wouldn’t have got out of there without you, I know I wouldn’t. You saved me.’
Luke stared at her for a moment. He was as aware as his brother had been of all that had passed between Polly and Michael, and for a moment the pain in his heart said, Oh, aye, I saved you all right, and it looks like it was for Michael. But then the bitterness was gone as the rational side of him added, Well? Wouldn’t you do the same again without thinking about it? Aye, aye, he would, by, he would. ‘I’ve never understood why lasses are discouraged from learning to swim.’ He smiled at her, allowing himself a brief touch of her face before he added, the smile turning into a grin, ‘Just give me a bit of notice the next time you decide to take a dip, eh?’
‘Oh, Luke.’ For a moment Polly leant against this big brother of hers – as she’d always thought of him. It seemed natural somehow that Luke had been the first to see the danger and dive into the water; he was like that. He might go on a bit about the unions and politics and education for the working classes and all, but there was something about this tall, big-shouldered miner that made you feel safe. You could walk into the worst of situations with Luke beside you and not be afraid.
And then she felt herself gently put from him as he said quietly, ‘Let’s see about getting you home and in the warm, eh? Can you walk?’
‘Of course I can walk.’ It was a touch indignant and told the others more clearly than anything else could have that no real harm had been done.
They looked a sorry bunch on the way back to the farm; Arnold stalking ahead with a face as black as thunder, Luke and Michael either side of Polly, who still had Michael’s shirt wrapped round her, and Ruth bringing up the rear with the four bandy nets – Polly’s having been lost in the river.
Several times on the walk home Polly turned and called for Ruth to join them, but each time Ruth shook her head and kept her eyes on the ground, so eventually Polly gave up trying, finding it was all she could do to put one foot in front of the other without worrying about how her sister was feeling.
And how Ruth was feeling was changing minute by minute. At first she had been overcome with horror at what she had done and terrified that one of the lads might have seen exactly what had happened. That fear allayed and Polly safely out of the water, relief had been paramount, along with the desire to make her part in the proceedings as innocent as possible. Then Michael had gone for her, and Arnold, and Michael had been all over Polly. Well, they all had, fussing and carrying on.
She hadn’t meant for Polly to actually fall in the river. Her conscience twinged for a second and she answered it vehemently: she hadn’t. It had been Polly’s fault, she’d been too near the edge, show
ing off in front of the lads. She was always showing off, although the others couldn’t see it. She scowled at the grass beneath her boots.
And now everyone was cross with her and she’d get wrong from her da and her grandparents when they got back, especially if Arnold had anything to do with it. She hated Arnold. She glanced straight ahead and saw Michael had his arm round Polly’s waist. And she hated Michael, and Luke, but most of all Polly. She always had to be the one, their Polly did.
Their entrance into the kitchen at the farm caused pandemonium, and in spite of Polly saying she was perfectly all right, Alice, and to a lesser extent Henry and Walter – lesser in the sense that the two men didn’t show their disquiet quite so verbally as Alice – were beside themselves with what might have happened. It caused an immediate exit of all the visitors, Luke sluicing himself down under the pump in the yard and insisting his clothes would dry on his back before he was home, and then the tin bath was brought out for the second time that day and filled to capacity with hot water and mustard.
How long Polly soaked in the steamy solution she didn’t know, but by the time Alice was satisfied her granddaughter could get out, Polly was glowing from head to foot and the cold stone slabs on the scullery floor felt wonderful beneath her bare feet.
Ruth had been sent straight upstairs by her furious granny and for once she hadn’t argued or complained, being wise enough to know she had got off lightly. However, once Polly was also in bed and their da and grandda and granny had all squeezed into the small room and told them that today marked the end of any more jaunts to the stream when the lads called, she had been less subdued.
‘That’s not fair.’ Ruth wrinkled her nose at the three grown-ups, but Polly, lying at the side of her, said nothing. She had been feeling constantly nauseous since vomiting the river water, and the hot mustard bath had made her feel worse. There was the washing to be done tomorrow morning, and all the ironing if the linen and clothes dried in time, and her granny couldn’t do much lately, not with her rheumatism so bad. She had to be well. But she felt like she was going to have the skitters.
Once the grown-ups had gone downstairs, Polly turned on her side away from Ruth’s quiet ranting and raving, and closed her eyes, but long after Ruth’s rhythmic breathing told Polly her sister was asleep, she continued to lie awake, the cramps in her stomach worsening. And then she felt something sticky between her legs and, after feeling cautiously, was horrified to discover what looked like blood on her fingers. She climbed out of bed carefully, her heart thudding fit to burst, and after wiping herself carefully with her handkerchief, padded downstairs to find her granny.
It was only sometime later, after listening to Gran’s brief and embarrassed explanation after she had fetched out some wads of calico to the ends of which were attached lengths of tape, that Polly realised this bleeding signified her entrance into womanhood, and that worse, it was going to happen to her every month from now on.
However, once she was snuggled up to her granny on the old saddle with a thin blanket over her legs and a mug of hot sweet milk in her hands, everything didn’t seem so bad. The room was quiet with the shadows of evening slanting across it, and the red glow from the fire was comforting. In spite of the heat of the day, the stone-floored farmhouse was never over-warm, and Polly had been feeling a mite chilly in her linen nightdress.
Her da and her grandda were seeing to the beasts out in the fields; they’d be in soon for their supper. Polly felt a wave of well-being and contentment relax the tightness in her stomach and her eyelids became heavy. In her semi-sleep state her mind drifted to Michael. She was going to be his lass; his face had told her so today. She hugged the thought to her, a small smile curving her delicately shaped lips. And once Michael told Arnold, he wouldn’t try and kiss her any more – not that he’d get much chance anyway now she and Ruth had to stay around the farmhouse when the lads came. He was horrible, Arnold, as horrible as Luke was nice.
Her granny had said she’d begin to get more of a woman’s shape now this thing had happened to her. She thought she would rather like that; you couldn’t stay a bairn forever and you had to be a woman to get wed. And she wanted to get wed, oh, she did. She would walk down the aisle on her da’s arm and Michael would be waiting for her ...
She snuggled more comfortably into the flock cushions. All in all, it had been something of an eventful day.
Chapter Five
‘Aye, well, you might think as I’m over-reactin’, woman, but I know what I know. He’s playin’ it tighter than a duck’s arse an’ twice as canny, but I’m tellin’ you he wants her.’
Alice had to suppress a smile. Walter’s way of putting things could be funny, but as her husband had no sense of humour whatsoever she knew better than to show amusement. And especially today, in view of what they were discussing. ‘Frederick?’ she queried doubtfully.
‘Aye, Frederick, an’ don’t tell me you haven’t suspected somethin’, with all the books an’ such he’s bin bringin’ the bairn?’
Alice raised her eyes to her husband, and in the flickering light from the oil lamp she saw his level gaze was fixed on her face as he waited for her answer. Had she harboured any suspicions regarding Frederick Weatherburn’s apparent charitableness and kind-heartedness towards Polly these last months? she asked herself silently. Well, she might have, now and again, but she wasn’t going to admit it to Walter, with him in this mood. ‘She’s nowt but a bairn, Walter.’
‘You’ve told me yourself this night she’s a bairn no more, so think on, lass. An’ don’t tell me he’s old enough to be her da either, I know that right enough,’ he ground out irritably. ‘But there’s plenty of ’em get the urge for something young to warm their bones.’
‘Oh, Walter!’
‘An’ while we’re on the subject, I’m none too happy about some of the things the pair of ’em talk about neither. I’m as broad-minded as the next ’un, an’ if he wants to bring the local papers an’ have a debate till he’s blue in the face I’ve nothin’ agen it, but I don’t want our little lassie’s mind filled with anythin’ mucky.’
‘Mucky?’ Alice didn’t have the faintest idea what Walter was talking about, but she knew the incident that afternoon, with its potential for tragedy, had upset him, and so her voice was indulgent.
‘Aye, mucky. I caught Frederick discussin’ what he called the “merits” of that dancer, her with the fancy name who’s none too particular about keepin’ herself to herself. Isadora Duncan, that’s it. Flauntin’ herself an’ prancin’ about in the altogether with her you-know-whats jigglin’ about.’
‘I don’t think she was in the altogether, Walter,’ Alice replied stolidly, aiming to keep the gurgle of laughter out of her voice.
‘Well, the woman’s nowt but a brazen hussy nevertheless!’
Alice nodded. It was always better to nod and keep quiet when Walter was on his high horse.
‘Takin’ Paris by storm!’ Walter gave a very good imitation of a pig snorting. ‘A young lass like her’d be better occupied settin’ her sights on marriage an’ bairns. By, I don’t know what the world’s comin’ to, I don’t straight.’
‘Aye, well, our Polly’s got her head screwed on all right,’ said Alice, aiming to placate him.
Walter looked long and hard at his wife for a full ten seconds before he turned from her and took up the poker. Crouching on his hunkers, he stirred the embers of the fire. He wasn’t sure about Alice, what she was thinking, he never had been. His uncertainty had been the reason he’d resorted to the measures he had to make sure she didn’t leave the farm after his mam and da died all those years back. Most women of his acquaintance would jaw their heads off all day given half a chance and always be ready for a good crack, but not Alice. Silent as the grave most of the time, Alice was. But she was a good worker, aye, and a canny lass in her own way.
Still on his hunkers, he glanced up at her, sitting on the saddle, and as his gaze fell on the blanket at the side of his wife it brought h
im back to the main point of their conversation. ‘He’s too old for her, you know it an’ I know it, an’ he could come here covered in gold an’ I’d still say the same. Do you hear what I’m sayin’?’
‘Aye, I hear you.’
‘An’ that’s all you’ve got to say on the matter?’
‘We don’t know for sure if Frederick is feelin’ the way you say.’
‘An’ if he is? If he’s pavin’ the way, so to speak, what say you then?’ Walter asked with quiet persistence. ‘Do you want to see our lass wed to Frederick Weatherburn?’
If he had asked her that question this time yesterday she could have said in all truth that the answer was no. Alice’s hands were lying on her lap, her fingers entwined, and now she worked her thumbs one over the other whilst keeping her eyes downcast. But she had seen the way Polly and Michael were looking at each other when the lot of them had come back this afternoon. She had been coming out of the privy and had stood and watched them crossing the field, and what she had seen had turned her bowels to water. Polly and Michael. Polly and Michael. She’d known the bairns thought a bit of each other, but bairns formed attachments, it didn’t mean anything. But this, this meant something. She felt her stomach turn right over and stood up quickly, her voice urgent as she said, ‘I need the privy.’
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