‘Oh, Poll! Poll!’ As Polly placed the sickle at the side of the wall, Ruth grabbed her. ‘Quick, the water’s pouring in.’
‘What?’
‘Upstairs. Grandda’s bed’s soaked and Gran’s trying to move him, and it’s all in Mam’s room too.’
By the time Polly had raced up the stairs, the devastation was worse. They had placed various pots and pans under the slate-tiled roof the previous winter, once they had realised just how bad the deterioration was, emptying them every so often, but the lath and plaster ceilings had shown evidence that the rain had been dripping in for some considerable time before that. Slates were broken and in some cases missing altogether — the whole roof needed retiling — but there was no money for what would prove an expensive job, and Henry had made the decision that they would manage for the time being until he could do some repairs in the summer months.
Now, as Polly stood on the threshold of her grandparents’ bedroom, she saw there was a very real danger that the whole ceiling could come down on top of the old man, who was sitting gasping for air on the side of the bed, his wife standing by the side of him, wringing her hands ineffectually.
She could hear her mother yelling for attention in her own room and now she spun round, saying to Ruth, ‘Strip the clothes off the bed and quick,’ before she sprang across the landing and wrenched open the door of Hilda’s room.
‘About time! I’ve been calling—’
‘Get out of that bed, Mam, and come and help me with Grandda.’ Polly totally ignored her mother’s outraged face, and as Hilda began to say, ‘How dare you! I can‘t—’ she flung back the covers from her mother’s thin body and yanked her out of the bed. ‘Get in there and help Grandda,’ she said again, ‘or I’ll make you, Mam.’
‘You’ll pay for this, Polly Farrow.’ Hilda was beside herself but she did as she was told, and after Polly had sent her grandmother down the stairs in front of them, she and her mother and sister lifted Walter into a standing position and then carried him, staggering under his considerable weight, on to the landing. They were halfway down the stairs, the whole lot of them having nearly gone from top to bottom twice, when the crash from upstairs alerted them to the fact that the ceiling had finally reached the end of its life.
‘It’s all right, Grandda.’ Polly was less concerned with the state of the bedrooms than the old man fighting for breath. ‘We’ll sort it.’
We’ll sort it. Once she had got her grandfather lying on the saddle and her granny had given him a spoonful of his medicine – the medicine that was bought with the proceeds from the items Polly had been forced to spirit away from the house and take to the pawn shop in Ryhope, which catered mostly for the colliery workers – Polly went upstairs to survey the damage. It was beyond sorting. She stared at the soaking, dirty, tangled mass that had once been her grandparents’ bedroom, her mind numb. And then she walked slowly to the room she shared with Ruth.
It had stopped raining now, the deluge finishing as suddenly as it had begun, and as she opened the bedroom door a shaft of sunlight was falling on the debris within. Several chunks of the ceiling was down, although the damage was not so severe as in her grandparents’ room. Nevertheless, the room was uninhabitable and distinctly unsafe, her mother’s bedroom proving to be the same.
After leaving the third bedroom, Polly stood quietly on the landing, her mind struggling to take in the enormity of the ruination. What was she going to do? What was she going to do? Over the last few months anything of the slightest value had been pawned: the spare bedding, her father’s wedding suit and other clothes, the few bits of extra cutlery and crockery – there was nothing left to take. And even if there had been, the money she could have obtained would have been a drop in the ocean to what was needed now.
She leant against the rough stone wall, her head spinning with exhaustion. All the shame and humiliation involved in slipping into Raymond Vickers’s shop and seeing her parcels unwrapped and the meagre contents inspected had been for nothing. They were worse off now than they had ever been. She had died a little each time she had walked into the fusty-smelling shop, the contents of which held stories of personal tragedies and poverty, but she had always emerged with her head held high and her chin jutting out, daring any passer-by to look at her with scorn or pity. But her fight to keep the farm alive, the hours of back-breaking work, the constant chivvying to get Ruth to do her fair share, had been thwarted by the most relentless of a farmer’s enemies – the weather.
She pushed back the mass of chestnut-brown curls that had worked free from the bun at the back of her head and were curling damply round her face, and looked down at the floorboards beneath her feet, her mind’s eye seeing the room below wherein her grandfather was lying. Grandda was so frail now, and Gran looked as though a breath of wind would blow her away. The heart attack her grandda had suffered when her da had hanged himself seemed to have aged his wife as much as himself; they were both painfully old and vulnerable.
The workhouse. The words loomed up from nowhere and caused a constriction in Polly’s throat, but in that moment she recognised that they had been lurking in her subconscious for months. Never. She bit down on the sick feeling as bile rose in her throat. Never, no matter what it cost, would she see her grandda and granny in that place. There was a way out of this, there had to be. She had no idea how much the farm was worth in comparison to the debts her da and grandda had run up, but her Uncle Frederick would know. Her mother had been brought up at Stone Farm – the ties which connected them were family ones.
‘Polly?’
She became aware of Ruth just behind her, and as she turned, Polly saw her sister had been crying. ‘What’s the matter? Is it Grandda?’
‘No, no.’ Ruth stopped her when Polly would have pushed past her. ‘It’s just . . . what are we going to do?’
Ruth looked much younger than her thirteen years as she asked the question she had verbalised many times over the last months when any problem had hit. Polly stared at the face which would have been pretty but for the petulance which had become a permanent feature, and as she did so, she shivered. But the chill she felt was less to do with her damp clothes than with the weight of the responsibility bearing down on her. All of them, her grandda and granny, Ruth, even her mam, were looking to her to provide a way out of what had become the shambles of their existence. They told her – and had been telling her for the last months – in a hundred little ways, spoken and unspoken, that they were depending on her, and it wasn’t fair. She was sixteen, she was young, she had her whole life before her, and she missed Michael so much. Missed him and worried about him and—
‘Poll?’ Ruth moved a step closer, burying her head in her sister’s chest, and Polly’s arms went round her. For all Ruth’s fierce hostility, she was capable of warm moments like this now and again, and as her sister’s arms went round her waist Polly sighed inwardly and nuzzled the top of the mousy-brown head. Self-pity was an indulgence she couldn’t afford, it was too weakening. As Luke always said, you had to play the cards you were dealt. She wished he wasn’t so bowed down by troubles of his own; she would have liked to talk to him. It wasn’t just Michael that she missed. The thought was a surprise; she hadn’t recognised that part of the ache in her heart was a yearning for the tall, dark miner she had always regarded as a brother, but it was there and it was very real.
‘We haven’t got any money to mend the roof, have we?’ Ruth’s voice was small and muffled.
‘No, we haven’t,’ Polly agreed briskly, hugging Ruth tightly before she pushed her away and looked down into the tear-stained face. ‘But it’s got to be done, so I’d best go and see Uncle Frederick and see if he can help. You dry out the bedding you took from Grandda’s room and make sure he’s comfortable on the saddle, and see if you can get the blankets off our bed and Mam’s while I’m gone, but be careful. And bring down any clothes you can salvage, anything you can. Mam can help.’
‘Huh.’ Ruth grimaced. ‘She says the sho
ck’s given her the skitters and she’s been out in the privy since we got Grandda on the saddle.’
‘She’ll be sleeping out there too if she doesn’t muck in,’ said Polly grimly, but with a twinkle in her eye.
‘Oh, Poll.’ Ruth grinned weakly. ‘Anything else you want me to do?’
‘Pray it doesn’t rain again.’
The bright and breezy manner Polly had adopted for the benefit of the others back at the house vanished the moment she was on her way to Stone Farm. She had taken the time to wash her face and hands and tidy her hair, and she was now wearing her spare clean blouse and her winter felt hat – the straw bonnet had all but disintegrated. Her skirt was grubby from her labour in the fields, but her spare one had been hanging on the back of the door in her bedroom and was in a worse state from the effects of plaster dust and rain.
Ruth had helped her to harness Bess to the cart, and now, as the old horse clip-clopped her way along, Polly didn’t hurry her. The sunshine which had followed the torrential downpour was intermittent and more storm clouds looked to be gathering – the heatwave had definitely broken – but in spite of this, Polly was in no rush to reach Stone Farm. She knew she had to face certain facts she had been putting off since her father’s funeral, the main one being the knowledge that the man she was on her way to see wanted her. And her granny knew. Oh, aye, her granny knew all right, although they had never talked about the visit they had made to Stone Farm that day in April.
Polly narrowed her eyes as she stared over Bess’s broad back to the lane beyond, the puddles it contained being swiftly absorbed into the thirsty ground. A kestrel cried, sharp and shrill, in the sky above, and for a moment the sound reflected something deep in her heart. It was a cry of freedom, of independence, and as her eyes followed the small falcon she could sense the glorious liberty displayed in the powerful wings as the bird swooped and glided in the thermals.
She would ask her uncle what the farm was worth, that was the first thing to ascertain. He had been good to them in the past, very good, but if his generosity had exceeded his normal astute business acumen, that would mean the farm was his in essence anyway. She shifted on the hard wood of the cart, her stomach churning. Of course if her father had been alive and her grandfather well they could have continued to live at the farm as tenants working for Frederick, but as it was . . . She squared her shoulders, knowing she had to come to terms with what Frederick might ask of her before she came face to face with him.
The man she had always regarded as her uncle had metamorphosised into someone else over the last months, someone with an unsmiling, determined mouth and hungry eyes, but he was still the same man who had brought her books and spent time talking to her. She had only ever known kindness at his hands, she must remember that. And she liked him, she had always liked him. There were four people relying on her to provide a roof over their heads back at the farmhouse, four mouths to feed and four bodies to clothe. The last thoughts were intrinsically linked. They brought to mind the expression on her granny’s face when Polly had looked at them all in the kitchen and told them she was going to see Frederick. It had pained her, that look, because along with the hope and relief etched on Gran’s countenance, there had been shamefacedness. Her granny suspected what the outcome of this visit would be but she hadn’t said a word to stop her going, because they both knew, at bottom, that it was the only avenue left open, with the house falling down about their ears and their livelihood swallowed up.
Surprisingly, she found the last thought quelled the nervous fluttering in her stomach. Her mind was no longer desperately racing back and forth, nor was there present in her that weakening feeling of self-pity, but instead strength to see through what had to be seen through. But she would be honest, completely honest, whatever happened.
A vivid flash of lightning followed by a low, deep roll of thunder told her more rain was imminent, but she didn’t hurry Bess to move faster. Instead she lifted her eyes to the gathering clouds that were darkening the sky and obscuring the last of the blue, and breathed in the smell of the approaching storm, allowing the old horse to saunter on at her own pace.
Frederick sat gazing down at the accounts spread out in front of him on the leather-topped desk, but the normal satisfaction the rows of neat figures gave him was absent.
Four months. Four months and she still continued to persist in her stubborn refusal to acknowledge what he was offering. She must know. Women sensed these things, didn’t they? But of course she knew. He ground his teeth together and flung down his quill pen, whereupon it splattered ink in a small arc of black droplets. There was talk that Nicholson’s wife was pressing the old man to move down south near Grimsby where her people came from; he wouldn’t be surprised to see the Nicholson farm up for sale in the near future. Now was the perfect time to get in first and pre-empt other offers, but it would still cost him a pretty penny.
He rose abruptly, walking to stand in front of the small tiled fireplace, where he stood staring down at the cold ashes left from the fire Betsy had lit the previous evening. He had been working until late at his desk, and in spite of the heat outside the building, the thick stone walls and flagged floors guaranteed the interior of the farmhouse never really got warm.
Had he played this affair with Polly right? A waiting game was all very well, but she had seemed to get more stiff and unyielding in her manner each time he had seen her of late, which hadn’t been often. The last two times he had called she had been out working in the fields like a common labourer. The thought irked him, but his irritation was not tempered by any tenderness; he couldn’t countenance the thought of his future wife behaving in such a way. Running the household was acceptable – useful experience for the time when she would be instructing Betsy and Emily, the kitchen maid – but any outdoor work beyond collecting the eggs and such was totally unacceptable. He had never dreamed, when he had withheld his labourers from the hay-making, that Polly’s stubbornness and headstrong attitude would lead her to the measures she had adopted. Any other girl of his acquaintance – and she was little more than a girl still – would have accepted defeat gracefully.
Frederick’s eyes narrowed. In the past he had congratulated himself on the fact that it was Polly who was the elder daughter – her intelligence and beauty would reflect on him among his social peers once she was his wife – but recent events had persuaded him otherwise. Ruth, had she been older, would have been much more realistic and appreciative of the advantages of such a match; she had more than a little of her mother in her, did Ruth.
A knock at the study door interrupted his musing, and he turned as Betsy opened it and, popping her head round, said quickly, ‘It’s Miss Polly, master, an’ she’s soaked through an’ as cold as clay. I’ve put her in the sittin’ room an’ lit the fire.’
‘Miss Polly?’ And then, as he stared into his housekeeper’s round bright eyes, Frederick took hold of himself, saying quietly, ‘Thank you, Betsy. Tell Miss Polly I’ll be along shortly, and see about some refreshments, would you.’
It was a full minute more before Frederick left the study, and when he opened the door to the sitting room it was to see Polly ensconced in front of a now roaring fire with a thick fleecy blanket draped about her shoulders. Her rich brown hair was curling about her face in tiny tendrils and her magnificent eyes were wide as she rose to her feet. She looked young and delicate, her slender body enveloped in the cream coverlet, but he knew her apparent vulnerability was an illusion – the last months had taught him that her fragile exterior covered a will of steel.
Polly’s stomach muscles had tightened when she had seen Frederick standing there, but her manner was quiet and contained as she faced him. ‘I’m sorry to come so unexpectedly,’ she said quickly. ‘I hope I haven’t interrupted anything important.’
‘Of course not.’ Frederick smiled as he strode forward and took her hands, which were still icy cold. ‘I would like to think this is a call in answer to the repeated invitations I’ve made over th
e last months, but I suspect something is amiss.’
Polly felt herself flushing. He knew full well she couldn’t afford time on social calls, and the intonation of his voice had aimed to make her feel guilty. She heard her voice, sounding to her own ears tight and defensive, saying, ‘Yes, something is amiss. The rain has brought the ceilings down at home.’
He was staring down at her and he did not say, as one would have expected in the circumstances, ‘Is anyone hurt? Is everyone all right?’ but, ‘I am not surprised. The farmhouse is in a severe state of disrepair. You must realise that?’
‘Yes, of course I realise that.’
It was clear from his deep breath and the stiffening of his face that he did not like her tone, but he continued to hold her hands in his own as he said, ‘The whole roof needs replacing and all the window frames are rotten, and that is just the start of it. Too much has been left for too long.’
‘My father and my grandfather did what they could.’
‘I’m sure they did.’
The Stony Path Page 23