The expression on Wilbur’s face was answer enough.
‘He’s blackmailing him,’ Adam went on as though his father hadn’t realised. ‘Heaven knows where he’s been all this time but whoever that poor blighter is in the cemetery with Silas Fletcher on his headstone, it ain’t Silas. And that means you’re not a married man and the lot of us are bastards.’
‘Don’t say that.’
‘Keep your voice down, Da, for crying out loud.’
‘I won’t have you saying that, you hear me?’
‘Aye, aye, all right. I’m sorry, Da. Sit down, man. People are looking. I’m sorry.’
Once Wilbur had sunk back down on his chair, his face red, Adam said quietly, ‘I was only saying what folks’ll say if this gets out, that’s all. Do you think Mam knows it wasn’t him they pulled out of the dock?’
‘Course she don’t know, don’t talk such codswallop. Why do you think Jake’s paying him off? Your mam’s a good woman, a decent woman.’
‘All right, Da.’ Adam glanced round.
‘This can’t get out.’ Wilbur was becoming more agitated by the moment. ‘I’ll never be able to hold me head up again. Think how some of them jumped-up toadies at the pit would laugh if they found out.’ He swore again, softly but vehemently, drops of frothy saliva gathering at the corners of his mouth. ‘I can just see a couple of them deputies, Longhurst and Ferry, they’d love this. And the neighbours . . .’ He shook his head desperately. ‘This can’t get out.’
‘Don’t take on like this, man. Look, drink your beer and I’ll get another pint in while we decide what we’re going to do.’
‘How serious was Jake about not paying him what he wanted?’
‘I don’t know. How the hell would I know that? I’ve told you what I heard.’
‘It’s no skin off his nose if word gets out,’ said Wilbur bitterly. ‘He don’t live round about no more, he’s got the farm and he won’t be labelled a—’ He couldn’t bring himself to voice it. ‘Not like the rest of you. I won’t have our name dragged through the mire, Adam. I don’t care what it takes but I won’t have that.’
‘Aye, we’re agreed on that, Da.’
‘I might not have much but I have got me reputation. I’m not like some I could name who have never done an honest day’s work in their lives. Hard graft all me life, I’ve done, and I won’t have me self-respect taken away by any man, least of all Silas Fletcher. Your mam let drop the odd thing about him when we was first wed and he was a wrong ’un, all right. All the Fletchers are the same, scum of the earth.’
‘He’s a skinny little nowt of a man now.’
‘That’s as maybe, but if he opens his gob too wide we’re done for.’
‘Then we’ll have to make sure he doesn’t.’
Wilbur nodded. The angry colour had drained from his face and it was pasty with shock. ‘You don’t know where he lives, do you?’ he asked hopefully.
‘No. By the time I’d come out of hiding, he’d scarpered. Jake stood looking after him for I don’t know how long and I couldn’t risk being seen so I had to wait. Anyway, that’s not important. We know where he will be next Sunday, don’t we?’
‘What if he don’t turn up?’
‘He’ll turn up.’
‘There’s no reasoning with a man like that, lad. He won’t be content until he’s bled Jake dry.’
‘He could do that and welcome if it wasn’t for the danger he is to us. Anyway, I wasn’t planning on reasoning with him. What I’ve got in mind is a sight more physical. You game, Da?’
Wilbur nodded. ‘To my mind he deserves everything he’s got coming.’
‘And more. We’re agreed then. Next Sunday you an’ I will disappear for a while. We can tell Mam there’s a meeting about getting some of the old-timers reinstated at the pit, something like that. There’s so many meetings these days about something or other she won’t think twice.’
‘What about Naomi? She’s been to the farm the last two weeks since her an’ Stuart packed up.’
‘Don’t worry about Naomi. I haven’t bumped into her yet and I don’t intend to start now. She always leaves long before twilight and that’s when Fletcher comes. I make sure I watch her go and only come out when it’s clear. Sometimes I’ve been at the end of the North Hylton Road when I’ve seen Fletcher.’
Wilbur stared at his son. How long had he been spying on the folk at the farm? Months probably. And all the time hoping to catch Hannah with this Daniel bloke. And what good would it do if he did see them together? The lass could take up with whoever she wanted, after all. Rose was right, it was an obsession with Adam; the lass, Jake having the farm, Joe’s death and now Stephen working for their half-brother. And if he went to the farm on a Sunday afternoon, where did he go most evenings? Not to the farm, it would take too long to walk there and back. But he was seldom at home these days, that was for sure. Mind, if it wasn’t for his fixation on the lass, they wouldn’t have caught wind of this other business. Keeping his thoughts to himself, he said, ‘How about we let Naomi leave home after we’ve had our Sunday dinner and give her plenty of time to get to the farm before we start.Then we’ll make sure we’re in position hidden out of the way when she starts for home again.What if we lose Fletcher like you did today though? What if Jake hangs about again? What if—?’
‘Enough, Da.’ Adam silenced his father with an upraised hand. ‘Let’s just see how it goes, eh? Play it by ear. All right?’
‘Aye, all right, lad.’ Wilbur nodded and drained his glass. ‘Now, what did you say about another pint? If ever I needed a drink, it’s tonight.’
Chapter 24
‘What’s bothering you these days, lad? And don’t say nowt because you haven’t been yourself for a while. It’s not just me who’s noticed it either. Hannah was saying the other day she’s worried about you.’ Rose stared anxiously at her son over the kitchen table where the two of them were sitting drinking a cup of tea. ‘You can tell me, Jake. You know that.’
His mother was the last person he could tell. Staring at her, Jake tried to control the growing resentment and bitterness he felt these days towards the woman who had borne him. He didn’t understand how someone like his mam, a good, decent person, could have got mixed up with the type of man he now knew his father to be. She’d lied to him. About everything.
‘What was my father really like?’ he asked suddenly. They were alone in the house for the first time since Christmas. Lily and Sadie were at her mother’s and Wilbur had gone to visit an old friend who recently had had a stroke and was residing in the Sunderland infirmary. The children were due home from school soon and Jake knew if he didn’t ask now, the chance would vanish.
‘What?’ Rose’s tea slopped into her saucer.
‘My father. I heard someone talking the other day.’
‘Someone? Who? What did you hear?’
‘That he was something of a wrong ’un. Look, Mam,’ Jake leant forward, his eyes angry, ‘I’m not a bairn and I’ve got a right to know what he was like. I know what you’ve said in the past but I want the truth, all right? Whatever you say won’t go beyond these four walls but I want to know.’
Rose’s hand had gone to her throat, her fingers plucking at the loose skin. ‘It was such a long time ago.’
‘Not to me. He wasn’t like you made out, was he?’
‘Oh, Jake. Don’t . . . don’t keep on.’
‘I want to know,’ Jake said mulishly.
‘Are you sure about that?’ Rose bit on her lip. ‘Least said, soonest mended. That’s what they say.’
‘Then they’re wrong. I want to hear it, Mam. All of it. I don’t want you to keep anything back.’
The kitchen clock on the mantelpiece ticked a full minute away before Rose said, ‘No, lad, he wasn’t like I made out. He . . . Your da was a bad man, cruel, violent. You take after my da, not the Fletchers.’
‘I want to hear it all. How it was, how he was with you, me, everything. What he was mixed up in, why he
ended up floating in the dock. Were there people who were after him for something? Was he in trouble?’
‘I don’t know that. Truly, lad, I don’t. It’s possible, more than possible. He gambled, he was in with a bad lot . . .’ Rose gazed helplessly at her son.‘Aye, it’s possible.’
‘Start at the beginning and don’t leave anything out, right up to the night he disappeared and I got burnt. Why did you marry him in the first place? Surely you didn’t love him?’
Again the moments ticked by. Rose turned her gaze towards the fire and began talking.
It was twenty minutes before she fell silent and she had told him it all. She had hesitated when she’d reached the part in the story about the last fight and all it entailed, but only for a second or two. She hadn’t looked at him once as she had spoken but she had felt his eyes tight on her face the whole time. Now she did meet his gaze. ‘I told you what I did because I thought it was for the best,’ she said brokenly. ‘You had enough to put up with, I didn’t want you to grow up thinking your da had done that to you. It was me he was aiming at though, Jake. Bad as he was, he wouldn’t have hurt you like that intentionally.’
‘But he made your life hell.’ He stood up, more shaken than he could express by what he had heard. He put his arms about her, drawing her up from her seat and holding her tightly as she began to cry. Her tears loosened something in him, something that had begun to form a cold hard knot around his heart and as it melted, the old feeling for his mother was restored but with it an understanding that humbled him. All that, she’d endured all that and now that bit of scum was back.What he wouldn’t give to shut his lying mouth once and for all. But enough was enough. He’d give his father no more blood money after this last time. It had been eight weeks now and all the money he’d put by for the spring to replace some of the old machinery on the farm had gone. He’d be selling off cattle after this. He’d give him one last payment and make it clear he didn’t want to see him again or he’d go to the law. After what his mother had just told him, the little weasel wouldn’t want to rock the boat whatever he threatened to the contrary.
‘I’m glad you told me.’ Handing his mother a handkerchief from his pocket, he smiled at her as she dabbed at her eyes. ‘In a funny sort of way it makes this,’ he touched the damaged side of his face, ‘easier knowing I didn’t have a hand in it.’
‘Your Granda and Grandma Hedley hated him.’ Rose sniffed and blew her nose. ‘And there’s nothing of him in you, Jake. I’ve always been glad of that.’
‘Did you ever resent me being born? If it wasn’t for me you wouldn’t have had to marry him.’
‘Resent you?’ Rose’s voice was soft. ‘Lad, whenever I’ve counted my blessings, I’ve counted you twice.’
The following Sunday was one of those rare days sometimes found at the end of February. The sky was high and blue, the air crisp and still and the cold winter sunshine a reminder that spring was round the corner. The snow was still thick in places and the ground was frozen, but the birds were twittering madly and sitting preening themselves when Hannah went to fill up the bird table with scraps from the kitchen. Normally a day such as this would lift her spirit, whatever was going on in her life, but since Christmas a greyness had slowly settled on her that no amount of reasoning could shift.
Jake was different. She hadn’t been able to put her finger on what was wrong at first, but then twice over the last week or two he’d made some reference to her future and hinted that he didn’t see her staying at the farm forever.
She gazed at a couple of sparrows who were making short work of the last of the fruit cake she’d crumbled up for them, but her mind wasn’t on the birds. What had changed so suddenly? What had she done? It was the same thought she had had umpteen times since the New Year, and the only thing she could come up with was the peck on the cheek she had given him at Christmas when she’d thanked him for his present. He had seemed a bit strange then, uneasy, wooden even. She had covered her embarrassment at the way he had made her feel by gabbling away about something or other and the difficult moment had passed, but now she wondered if he thought she had been saying more than thank you. Encouraging him. Chasing after him like Farmer Dobson’s daughter and Grace Osborne, not that it had done either lady any good.
Had she given herself away? Had he guessed how she felt about him? She thought she had been the same as usual but maybe that brief kiss had set him thinking and this undefinable change in him was the result. It wasn’t that he was unfriendly or stand-offish, not exactly, and yet . . .
She turned and walked slowly back to the house on leaden feet. She couldn’t daydream, she had the dinner to see to before she got ready for church. But she couldn’t hide from the truth any longer. She had to face the fact that things weren’t right. She knew it wasn’t her work that was at fault. She rose every morning before six and rarely was in bed before ten o’clock and there wasn’t a minute of the day her hands were idle. And if the problem didn’t lie with her duties, it had to be her. Her stomach turned over. Jake wanted her to go. He would never come right out and say it, he was too kind for that but she knew it deep inside. She’d just been trying to ignore it. Had he met someone? Someone who might object to him having a young housekeeper? But no, she would know, wouldn’t she? He wouldn’t keep a thing like that secret. Although . . . She paused at the kitchen door, her hand on the knob. He made the trip into town each week. He said it was on farm business and she was sure it was, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have time for other things. He visited his mother, for a start. And then there were the times, more often of late, when he was out riding in the countryside for hours on end . . .
She shook herself mentally. No more thinking, not now. She only had a few minutes to put the joint in the oven and get dressed to accompany the others to church, and then after lunch Naomi was coming to the farm and she knew her friend wanted a shoulder to cry on. After months of messing Naomi about, Stuart Fraser had finally found himself another lass and broken her friend’s heart. The last three Sunday afternoons had been spent sitting in the kitchen listening to Naomi talk and talk, and then mopping up her friend’s tears. She didn’t expect this one to be any different.
When she had changed into her Sunday clothes, Hannah joined those of the farm folk waiting to be driven to church in one of the farm wagons. Jake was not among them, it was Daniel who was driving the horse and cart. On the occasions Jake attended the Methodist chapel in Castletown, she rode in the horse and trap with him, otherwise she went with the others. She knew from Rose that Father Gilbert blamed Jake for her ‘turning’, as he’d termed it, but in fact it had been Clara who had first persuaded her to go to the church one Sunday a few months after she had arrived at the farm. It had been a momentuous step but after several long talks with the very nice parson, she’d realised she wouldn’t burn in hell’s flames for attending a non-Catholic church. Furthermore, she much preferred it and she had never gone back to Father Gilbert’s church since. Rose had told her all her old neighbours were shocked and no doubt held Jake responsible for her lapse too. When she’d told Jake this he had just laughed and said one more black mark against the ‘upstart’ was neither here nor there. She had tried to laugh with him but the narrow-mindedness of folk who had known him since a bairn had upset her.
As they came out of church and folk began to gather in small groups to talk to friends they didn’t see from one Sunday to the next, Clara drew Hannah to one side. Glancing about her to make sure no one was within earshot, Clara said softly, ‘You know anythin’ about this man that hangs about on the road of a Sunday evening?’
‘Man? What man?’
‘Some little fella, accordin’ to Frank. He saw him there one night when he was coming back from our George’s place. He didn’t think nowt of it at first but somethin’ in the way this fella was standing about made him check up a while later and he saw the master talking to him. They didn’t see him, Frank made sure of that, but he got the impression the master weren’t
none too pleased. Frank being Frank,’ Clara wrinkled her nose, ‘he made it his business to see if he was there the next few nights and sure enough the next Sunday, there he was. And there was the master a while later. Now you might say it’s none of our business’ - Clara’s tone made it clear she knew Hannah wouldn’t dare suggest such a thing - ‘but something’s not right. And he’s turned up every Sunday since.’
Hannah stared into the small, rosy-cheeked face.‘And has Jake met him each time?’
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