The Stony Path

by Rita Bradshaw

  The range at home was kept burning day and night, even in the summer, providing as it did their means of cooking and heating water, but this fire was serving no useful purpose except to provide warmth. And coal burned away so much faster when mixed with logs, everyone knew that. It was the fire in the sitting room – more than anything else she saw and experienced over the next two hours at the farm – that emphasised to Polly the difference between the Uncle Frederick she had always known and this new individual who was the lord and master of his own little world.

  After a cup of tea in the sitting room, Betsy called them through to the stone-flagged dining room. This room was half the size of the sitting room and again warmed by a substantial fire, but although the light repast the housekeeper had prepared was tasty, Polly found she could eat very little. She had been bracing herself for the ordeal of the funeral service for days, but nevertheless, the sight of the coffin being lowered into the ground had upset her profoundly, and the confrontation with Arnold afterwards had left a nasty taste in her mouth. But that wasn’t all of it. Her uncle’s attitude was unsettling her, but quite why she felt such a strong sense of unease, she wasn’t sure.

  The sense of disquiet continued all through the brief tour of the farmhouse after lunch, and although her grandmother oohed and ahhed over everything, Polly was mostly silent, although she acknowledged the house was a fine one.

  The old part of it dated back to 1725 and consisted of the sitting room, the kitchen and the dairy on the ground floor, above which were three good-size bedrooms, with a large attic room on the top storey which was Betsy’s living space plus storage. The new part of the farmhouse had been built by Frederick’s grandfather over a hundred years later; the lower floor consisting of the dining room and Frederick’s study and office, above which the space had been divided into one large master bedroom and a small dressing room leading to a tiny night water closet, all accessed by the original staircase.

  ‘Well, what do you think?’ They had just entered the sitting room once more, and again Frederick’s voice was hearty as he addressed Polly. ‘Was it what you were expecting?’

  ‘Expecting?’

  ‘Stone Farm, the house.’ He made an expansive gesture with his hands, flinging his arms wide.

  Did he really think she cared about his fine house on this day of all days? ‘It’s a beautiful house, Uncle Frederick.’

  ‘Oh, I think it’s high time we dropped the “uncle”.’ Frederick turned to include Alice in his glance. ‘What do you say, Alice? Our little lass is a full-grown woman now, and as you so rightly pointed out earlier, I’m no relation to her at all. “Uncle” seems out of place these days, wouldn’t you say?’

  There was a sick feeling growing in Polly’s stomach, but it was accompanied by a voice that was saying, You’re imagining it, you must be. He doesn’t mean what you think he means, not Uncle Frederick. He was there when Michael asked for you in marriage. He knows you love him. ‘I ... I wouldn’t feel right calling you anything else but Uncle,’ Polly said quietly, forcing her voice into a calmness she was far from feeling.

  ‘Nonsense.’ This time the tone wasn’t so much hearty as cavalier, and when Frederick’s glance again swept over her grandmother, Polly’s eyes followed it, but Alice was staring down at her hands, the thumbs of which were working one over the other. ‘I’ve always considered us to be the greatest of friends, Polly, and it would please me if you called me Frederick, all right?’ He smiled at her from his stance in front of the fire, his hands now holding the back of his long, beautifully cut black jacket away from his backside as he swayed slightly from side to side. ‘Now I’m sure that isn’t too much to ask, is it?’

  Polly’s back stiffened. He couldn’t be suggesting what she was thinking, but that look on his face ... She lifted her chin slightly, taking a long pull of air through her nostrils before she said, very coolly and without smiling, ‘Of course not.’

  ‘There we are then, it’s all settled. Frederick it is from now on.’

  A knock at the sitting room door signalled Betsy’s entrance with their outdoor clothes, and Polly had never been so glad to see someone in all her life. She needed to get away from this place – or more particularly from the man standing looking at her so intently – and she was dreading the journey home in the horse and trap.

  As it happened, the ride was uneventful, and Frederick confined his conversation to Alice, who was again sitting next to him. He refused Alice’s offer of a cup of tea when they reached the farm, his manner so normal as he said goodbye that Polly told herself she had completely misunderstood a perfectly innocent conversation, which had just been friendly and nothing else. Anything else was too absurd, too preposterous for words. Of course it was. She stood for a moment after her grandmother had entered the house, staring after the horse and trap, and in her mind’s eye she pictured her uncle’s – Frederick’s – round, red-cheeked face and bright black beady eyes, his big rotund body and large hands, the backs of which were liberally covered in thick brown hair. He was as old as her father, slightly older in fact, so she understood. Of course she had been mistaken ...

  That had gone well in the circumstances. Frederick Weatherburn settled his fleshy backside more comfortably on the wooden seat and clicked his tongue to the horse as he jerked on the reins, the animal immediately responding by falling into a steady trot. Yes, it had gone very well, all things considered. If nothing else, she had been forced to recognise that he was a man of substance, someone not to be sneezed at. Of course, it was early days yet. He narrowed his eyes on the back of the horse, a handsome chestnut he had bought in the summer at Durham horse fair. As far as Polly was concerned, at least; for himself, he had been thinking about marriage to Hilda’s elder daughter for some two or three years and educating her for that purpose.

  Polly was intelligent and amusing, and she had all but run that household since old Walter had had his first bad turn – and not just the household. Henry had never had any farming skills.

  Yes, Polly would make an excellent wife. She was young and robust and would produce strong, healthy heirs, which was important. He was forty-one years old; it was high time he got on with the business of procreating. Not that he had much heart for it, if the truth be told. He had never been able to understand this primeval urge regarding the act of copulation that most men seemed to feel. He preferred an enjoyable evening wining and dining at the Gentlemen’s Club on the corner of Fawcett Street any day, or a brisk gallop over his land on his favourite filly.

  But it was time to take a wife, and Polly fitted the bill for one reason above any other: she was his means of securing Walter’s farm without laying out another penny. He had encouraged Walter and Henry to fall more and more heavily into debt to him over the last years, and he didn’t apologise for the fact. No, by gum he didn’t. And things couldn’t have worked out better. The farm was crippled, they all knew it, but if he played his cards right he could acquire that forty acres – along with a wife – as well as being seen to fulfil his Christian duty by taking in his new wife’s family and giving them a roof over their heads.

  And the Farrows’ forty acres meant he had access to old man Nicholson’s land beyond, and it was common knowledge that Nicholson had lost interest in everything since his only son had been taken with the fever five years ago.

  Frederick breathed in deeply, drawing the raw air full into his lungs as a feeling of well-being quickened his blood. Land. Land meant power, and it was the only thing that really excited him. He had thought to wait another couple of years before he showed his hand with Polly, but the events of the last week or two were urging him to get things settled. By, he’d got the gliff of his life when that young whippersnapper had marched in and stated that he and Polly wanted to get wed, but as it was, it had furthered his course more effectively than anything else could have done. But there were still those other two sniffing about; he couldn’t afford to rest on his laurels. His upper lip curled at the thought of Eva’s steps
ons, whom he considered vastly beneath him in every way. Aye, he needed to press on sure enough, and now that interfering, hoity-toity baggage who had been lodging at the farm had hightailed it, it left the road even clearer.

  The Women’s Political and Social Union indeed! Unnatural they were, the lot of them. What did women want the vote for anyway? They didn’t have the faintest idea of what it took to run a country; their minds weren’t made that way. And just last week the Independent Labour Party had called for female emancipation! Keir Hardie wanted shooting, he did straight. Fuelling the silly notions put forward by these Pankhurst women, who would be better applied trimming their bonnets or whatever it was ladies did.

  But no matter, no matter. He consciously wiped the frown from his brow and forced himself to relax. The Collins woman was gone, and as far as he could ascertain Polly had expressed no sorrow at her leaving. He would soon make sure any stupid notions she had put in Polly’s head were dealt with; his wife would know her rightful place sure enough.

  There was a ground mist hovering over the land and everything was soaked with the icy drizzle that was falling, the road beneath the horse’s feet glutinous mud, but as the horse and trap approached the turn-off for Stone Farm, the going became easier.

  His grandfather had had the foresight to have a thick layer of pebbles and small stones laid on the drive up to the farm, and Frederick never drove down the stony path without a feeling of well-being enveloping him. The drive signified wealth and prestige – it had taken two men three months to complete it to his grandfather’s satisfaction – and prepared any visitors for the prosperous and thriving farm and imposing farmhouse they would see at the end of it.

  And now Polly had seen it. He gave a grunt of satisfaction as the farmhouse came into view. Next time he would show her the labourers’ cottages, which he prided himself were better than most, and certainly cleaner than she’d find on any other farm hereabouts. No stinking cesspools or foul-smelling middens outside the back door for his workers; the middens were at the end of their strips of garden, which were a good hundred yards long, and the contents of the small wooden boxes were collected every five days by Croft or one of his workers in the farm cart and dumped in the old quarry a mile away. His workers were well looked after, and they knew it, and gave him the absolute obedience and respect he deserved.

  Yes, Polly would appreciate that an alliance with Frederick was a feather in her cap, but just in case she proved to be difficult, her Achilles heel, in the form of her family, would provide him with all the persuasion he needed. He smiled to himself, his lips exposing teeth of a surprising whiteness. 1906 was going to be his year, he felt it in his bones.

  Luke’s thoughts were the very antithesis of Frederick’s as he sat at the kitchen table the next morning feeling as sick as a dog. For the first time in his life he had gone out and got mortalious after his father had left, staggering home just after ten, whereupon he had vomited his heart up in the deep glazed sink in the scullery and all but passed out on the cold stone flags.

  He had been vaguely aware of his stepmother and Arnold looking in on him at some point, but he had come to a couple of hours later to the realisation that they had left him where he had dropped and gone to bed. He’d been chilled to the bone and feeling like death as he’d pulled himself to his feet, grimacing in self-disgust at the mess in the sink.

  Once he’d cleared up in the scullery, he’d stumbled upstairs, there to fall on his bed fully dressed as the grinding pain in his head and the nausea in his stomach took the last of the strength from his legs. And to think some of the men he worked with got into this state every pay day. He didn’t know whether to feel sorry for them or give them a medal!

  ‘You had a load on last night.’

  Arnold had always been one for stating the obvious, and Luke didn’t bother to reply, but he winced slightly as his brother sat down at the table with a steaming bowl of porridge with a big dollop of jam in the centre of it.

  ‘You thought what Da clearing off means to us, then?’ Arnold took a great spoonful of porridge, half of which dribbled on to his chin.

  ‘Aye.’ Luke had leaned back in the chair and shut his eyes after one look at the porridge, and he didn’t open them as he said, ‘Strikes me it’s a pity you didn’t afore you opened your big mouth. What did you think he was going to say? Thanks for telling me, lads, and he’d leave it at that?’

  ‘Now don’t you pin this on me, our Luke.’ Arnold’s voice was without heat; he had been thinking along the same lines himself. ‘How did I know the old man had a woman on the side? I mean, Da of all people.’

  ‘What do you mean, Da of all people?’ Luke’s eyes had snapped open at the derogatory note in his brother’s voice.

  ‘He’s wind and water, always has been.’ Arnold was too busy spooning in the porridge between words to notice the expression on Luke’s face. ‘I’d have knocked me wife into next weekend many a time rather than put up with a quarter of what he’s put up with. She wouldn’t have been so cocky with her face bashed in.’ After a moment Luke’s utter silence brought Arnold’s attention from his bowl, and when he saw his brother’s tight, deep gaze fixed on his face, his eyes flickered. Luke saw Arnold’s Adam’s apple jerk up under his chin and then fall again, but his voice was aggressive when he said, ‘What? What have I said now? It’s true, isn’t it? She called him a weak-kneed nowt, and to my mind she wasn’t too far from the truth.’

  ‘You say that again, ever, and I’ll do for you.’

  Arnold stared at his brother. Luke’s voice had been low, eerily low, but it had felt like he had been yelling.

  ‘You’re a nasty, filthy-minded, selfish swine at the best of times, but you’re stupid too.’ Luke carried on talking and Arnold sat as though mesmerised. ‘You can’t recognise goodness, can you, because there’s not an ounce of that quality in the whole of your body. Da got her in because of us and he stayed because of us, and everything he put up with he put up with because of us and Michael too. Even knowing Michael wasn’t his he never showed it, not once, not ever. And you look at all that and you take him for a mug. I tell you, man, you’re not worthy to lick his boots.’

  ‘No?’ Arnold had jerked to his feet, two spots of colour high on his cheekbones. ‘Well, I wonder if you’ll still be saying that when you’re left with her. He thumbed towards the ceiling. ‘Because I tell you straight, I’m out of it as soon as I get meself a room somewhere. I’m not getting landed.’ He snatched up his bait can on the last words and stalked out of the house without waiting for his brother.

  Aye, well, he wasn’t surprised. Luke sighed wearily and then got to his feet, wincing again as a hundred little men with hammers pounded at his temples. He was under no illusions about Arnold’s capacity for tolerance and understanding; it was nonexistent.

  By, he felt rough. He reached for his own bait can, and as he did so the smell of smoke on his clothes was heavy. Mind, it wasn’t surprising – the air had been so thick with it in the pub last night that he hadn’t been able to see from one end of the room to the other. The smell of Shag tobacco smoke, McEwan’s bitter or Burton’s bass had been coming off every man’s breath, and they’d all breathed it in, coughed and spluttered it out and repeated the business over and over for hours. The cards, the dominoes, even the old fox terriers lying under the tables had all stunk with it, and in the corner there had been a whiff of vinegar with old man’s pee added to it. And he knew plenty of pitmen who lived in the place more than their own homes. They would sit there, kneading their dark brown baccy twist with the juice still in it to fill their pipe, a pint of Bass in front of them and a smile on their face as they peered through the thick haze.

  Luke shook his head and then wished he hadn’t as his brain objected. He wanted more than that from life. And he wanted more than the pit had to offer too. The air in that pub had been fresh compared to where he worked all week, and with one in every fifty Durham miners killed in the pit and ten times that number expected to have a
serious accident at some time, life could be short. Every miner expected to lose fingers or bits of them, but they were considered minor injuries, and the owners and viewers would have laughed at any miner who tried to say that such accidents deserved compensation. But Luke had yet to see one of the managers or owners with half a hand gone or eyes full of disease because of the coal dust. And he didn’t want to end up like that, or under tons of coal and stone either.

  Oh, stop your blathering. The voice in his head was caustic. All this because his father had gone, and yet no, it wasn’t that, not really. If he thought he had the faintest chance with Polly, if he was coming home to her each night, and their bairns, he would work down the pit till he dropped.

  There was a movement from upstairs, and not wishing to face his stepmother until his head belonged to him again, Luke made hurriedly for the front door, pulling his cap low over his forehead as he stepped into the raw northern air.

  He was on foreshift this week – six o’clock in the morning until two in the afternoon – and normally he didn’t mind the early start, but with his head drumming a tattoo and his stomach loose from its linings he could have done with another few hours in bed.