by Mary Mackie
Scanning the way my hair fell round my face, he lifted a hand to touch one of the damp strands that fell across my breast. ‘You look different with your hair down. That day on the beach, I hardly recognized you.’
Did he have to remind me? I had been trying not to remember how he looked in a wet bathing suit. Waves of helpless longing lightened my head. ‘Was that your girl you were with? Lou? She’s pretty.’
His voice a vibrant undertone, he said, ‘Those clothes fitted Mother a good deal better than they fit you. She’d have said you were skinny. I could probably span your waist with my two hands.’
How I wished he would! But I found myself backing away, drawing his attention back to my face, where he must have read my uncertainty.
‘I won’t, though,’ he said.
‘No. Better not.’ I could hardly breathe. My body seemed to be one vast pulse, beating in response to his nearness, and when he looked into my eyes I felt I was drowning. We both knew we were flirting with danger; neither of us could resist the lure.
‘You’ve bruised your face.’ He touched the place with gentle fingers, light as a butterfly’s wing, tracing the side of my cheek. His hand trembled as he let his thumb brush my prickling lips. All I could see was his strong brown face, dark lashes veiling his eyes, his mouth slightly parted as he tilted his head…
‘Master Philip!’ Mrs Gaywood’s voice shrilled up the stairs, making us leap apart as if stung. ‘Master Philip, are you ready yet?’
Three feet of air lay suddenly between us. Three feet of air pulsating with guilt and shock. ‘Just coming!’ he replied.
‘Tell the young lady breakfast’s now ready,’ the housekeeper called. ‘Come you both down right quick.’ And a door banged as she went away.
Letting out a long breath, Philip looked at me, straight-faced. ‘Breakfast’s ready.’
I bit my lip against a bubble of dizzy laughter, watching a slow answering smile light his eyes before he turned and led the way along the passage, down the creaking stairs to where there was more daylight. Reaching the bottom, he looked back at me, holding out his hand, and after a moment’s hesitation I took it, feeling his fingers twine fiercely with mine. When I responded with pressure of my own, he said in a low voice, ‘I’ve been praying something would happen, so that I could see you.’
Emotion misted my sight. ‘Please, Philip…’
‘From the moment we met.’
Our eyes held, confirming mutual feelings too strong to be denied. Though I knew it was wrong, I heard myself confess, ‘So have I. But you do know that we mustn’t…’
He nodded. ‘Yes, I know.’
‘Master Philip!’ Mrs Gaywood bawled.
Pulling a wry, rueful face at me, Philip answered, ‘We heard you!’ and opened the door into the kitchen passage, gesturing me to go ahead.
Standing by the laden table, Mrs Gaywood was sawing at a soft fresh loaf, holding it upright so that what came off were uneven wedges. The savoury smell of warm bread and frying ham filled the room, drifting up to time-darkened beams, from which hung marrows and bunches of herbs. Above the hearth on its pulley, the drying rack held Philip’s clothes and mine, steaming intimately next to each other.
‘Sit you down, then.’ The housekeeper nodded at a chair nearest the fire. ‘You sit there, my dare, where it’s warm. Master Philip, you—’
But whatever she was going to say stopped as the outer door came open and, with a blast of damp wind that swept away the friendly warmth in the room, the huge bulk of Mad Jack Farcroft, clad in bowler hat and all-enveloping cape, with boots and buckled buskins, stood framed in the gap.
Twelve
When Mad Jack appeared, time itself paused, unbreathing. Or was that only in my mind?
The burly, grizzled farmer slammed the door behind him, shutting out the rain, roaring, ‘Blast! That’s all we need. That’ll ruin the blessed harvest.’ Wrenching off his bowler hat, he slapped it in the air, sending an arc of spray across the room to sizzle in the fire. It just missed me, and as I flinched away he seemed to register my presence for the first time. He froze, peering at me through narrowed eyes.
I felt the tension in Philip as he moved to stand protectively beside me, a hand lightly behind my waist. ‘Kate got caught in a flood up on Back Lane.’
‘Did she, though?’ said Mad Jack. Rasping at the grey stubble on his jaw, he continued to peer at me, noticing the fact that I was wearing his late wife’s clothes. Beneath a thatch of unkempt grey hair, his face was inscrutable. ‘Well, bor, are you now going to introduce us?’
‘Yes, of course. Kate, this is my father, John Farcroft. Dad, this is Miss Catherine Brand.’
He came forward warily, holding out a huge horny hand. ‘Pleased to meet you, Miss Brand. Well, sit you down. You look like you could do with some good food inside you. Let’s eat before that get cold.’
Philip drew out the chair for me and saw me settled, then sat beside me, helping me to the food, while his father went through to the hall and returned without his cape. In brown corduroys, with a fustian waistcoat over a collarless shirt, he sat opposite us, piling his plate with fried ham, eggs, tomatoes and potatoes, which he ate with slabs of Mrs Gaywood’s wonderful bread.
I should like to say that I wasn’t hungry, that the accident, the excess of emotion, and the guilty excitement of being at the farm had quenched my appetite, but the fact is I was ravenous and tucked away my share of the tasty fare, while Philip recounted my misadventure. His father didn’t say much, but kept surveying me narrowly, suspiciously, trying to weigh me up. I could hardly believe I was there, in the lair of the enemy. Tension heightened my senses and adrenalin made my heartbeat swift and strong, my whole body preparing for flight. Yet, because of Philip, I wanted to stay, too.
After a while, the first pangs of hunger diminished, the farmer afforded me another of his looks, under beetling grey brows, ruminating, ‘So you’re Clara’s girl, then? Not much like her, are you?’
‘I’m more like my father, so they say.’
‘She used to sit there – right there where you’re now sitting.’
A piece of bread and butter dripped honey into my hand. ‘Yes, I… Philip did mention…’
‘She was no more’n a sprat,’ he told me. ‘But I reckon she felt more at home here than she ever did up at the big house. Lady Muck up there on the hill was only interested in her boys, and then not much. That’s why Clara came here. Poor little mawther needed a bit of attention.’
‘Please, Dad!’ Philip objected.
‘Well, she did.’
As Philip turned to me, to apologize for his father’s tactlessness, I said, ‘It’s all right, Philip. I’ve heard the same from other people.’
There was a moment’s silence, then: ‘Blast!’ the old man roared. ‘D’you know what you’re saying, agreeing with me? D’you know who I am? Mad Jack Farcroft – bane of all Rhys-Thomases! Hen’t they told you about me?’
‘I prefer to find out for myself,’ I said, beginning to suspect that he relished and played up the role of ‘Mad Jack’.
Eyes narrowed behind those shaggy brows, he pulled at his lips and scratched in his stubble with work-hard fingers. ‘Independent miss, eh? Hah! Times are changing. Women are changing. Wouldn’t’ve caught neither of my old mawthers daring to go against their folks. What’s it all coming to? Votes for women, by God! What d’you need the vote for, heh? Your husband’ll do the voting for you. It’s him as pays the piper. If my Julia’d’ve been here, she—’
‘She’d have said you don’t talk politics at her table,’ Philip put in lightly. ‘And you’d have listened to her. She had you right where she wanted you, Dad. She was the boss in this house.’
The old man glared at him, but couldn’t keep up the pretence for long. His face softened as he watched his son. ‘That’s true, bor,’ he conceded. ‘Your mother was a fine woman. A motherly woman. She was fond of the girl.’ Turning to me, he added, ‘Then they found out. Put a stop to it. Next t
hing we knew, Clara was sent right away, up north somewhere. Wasn’t the same when she came back. Didn’t want to know any of us Farcrofts then. Too good for us, she was.’ He stared into space, bleak memories darkening his brow. ‘Still, that’s all long gone by.’ With a glance at his watch, he scraped his chair back and eased himself to his feet, cocking his head at Philip. ‘We’ve work to do, bor. Rain or no rain. Can’t sit here a-jorin’.’
They both went into the hall, the old man returning in his cape, Philip swirling a macintosh round him. We exchanged a look, regretting the parting but acknowledging its inevitability. He said, ‘Shall I see you before you go?’
‘It depends,’ I replied with a glance at the rack where our clothes steamed merrily. ‘I mustn’t be too long. Mr Farcroft… There’s just one thing – about Tom. You know about Tom?’
‘The feeble-minded one?’ the farmer asked, frowning defensively. ‘I know him.’
‘He’s not feeble-minded,’ I objected. ‘He just doesn’t understand things in the ordinary way. And I’m concerned for him. He thinks it’s his job to guard the birds and animals in Denes Wood, and when you go up there shooting…’ His eyes narrowed, glimmering with warning, but I plunged on, ‘It upsets him. If you could see the state he gets into… I’m worried what he might do.’
‘To me?’ A harsh laugh broke out of him. ‘No imbecile scares me, bor.’
‘It’s him I’m worried about,’ I said. ‘We never know quite how he’s going to take things. If you push him too far… I don’t know what he might do. I thought you should know. I don’t believe you’d want to cause any real harm – especially not to someone like poor Tom.’
He grabbed his bowler hat from where he had left it on the wooden drainer by the sink, jamming it on to his head. Until then, his temper had been half playful; now he was coldly angry. His voice had lost much of the Norfolk richness he affected as he said flatly, ‘I’m a landowner – my own man – not some tenant farmer you can order around. My pedigree’s longer than yours, I reckon. I’ve been shooting those woods since I was a boy, and my father before me, and his father. Way back. That’s unwritten law we have rights to shoot there. Squires always allowed it. So did the chap who bought the hill and built the house, before Rhys-Thomases ever dreamed of coming here. I won’t let some lack-brained halfwit prevent me from exercising my rights. No, nor a chit of a thing like you, whoever you are. I’ve been polite since my son brought you under our roof, but—’ His arm shot out, a thick finger pointing damnation at me. ‘Once your clothes are dry, take ’em and go. And don’t come to my house again. None of your blood’s welcome here.’
He snatched the door open and stormed out into the rain that was still steadily falling. Behind him, Philip surveyed me unhappily.
‘I didn’t mean to upset him,’ I croaked. ‘I’m sorry, Philip, but I do worry about Tom. I just thought he ought to know…’
He nodded. ‘I’ll talk to him. Don’t worry.’
As he strode across the yard, boots splashing through the puddles, I leaned on the sink and watched him through the stained net at the window. He paused at the gate to look back and wave, and I replied in kind, but when he had gone I felt bereft, aware that I had no place here. What had I hoped to do – persuade the old man to call a truce? His hatred ran too deep. I should never have come, never have stayed.
Suddenly anxious to be gone, I said, ‘Are my clothes dry yet? My family will be worried about me.’
Mrs Gaywood let down the drying rack, so it was nearer the fire, and we turned the clothes, shaking them out. They were still too damp to wear and I couldn’t possibly go home in Mrs Farcroft’s cast-offs.
While I waited, I found myself helping the housekeeper to clear the table (something I wouldn’t have dreamed of doing at Denes Hill) and then I dried the dishes for her as we talked. The Farcrofts were a close lot, she said. Kept their affairs to themselves. Quick-tempered, Mr Jack was. Got wholly riled and in a puckaterry over nothing, ’times. But Master Philip was a nice old bor. She had a real soft spot for Master Philip, who, she would have me know, had a young lady he’d been walking out with since spring. Lou Roughton was a fine strong mawther without any fancy notions. She’d make a fine wife for Master Philip.
Well aware that she was warning me off, I said, ‘Does Master Philip think so, too?’
‘He will if he know what’s good for him,’ said Mrs Gaywood darkly.
By constant turning she soon had my clothes dry enough to wear, mud-spattered and creased as they were. I returned to the empty bedroom to change, pausing in the passage to look again at the picture which had caught my eye earlier. Mother must have been about thirteen when it was taken. Michael looked older – thin, dark, intense. Had he loved her even then? When she came back as an adult, had he hoped she would return his affection? But by then the enmity between his family and hers had hardened, and she herself had changed, grown away from him.
But at least I now knew why she had been sent away – to prevent her from becoming any more entangled with the Farcrofts. What a bold, wilful child she must have been, to come here at all. She had known it was wrong.
I, too, knew it was wrong, yet I had let myself be brought here. Was I more like Mother than I knew? But her disobedience had been that of a naughty child trying to draw attention to herself: my own motives were more questionable. My intelligence told me that the more I saw of Philip the more pain I invited, for both of us; but instinctively I longed for him, felt incomplete without him. Heart and soul, we were inexorably bound.
Dressed again in my own clothes, I put my hair up as best I could and went downstairs, carrying my left shoe – the right one had gone in the flood.
‘That’s now stopped rainin’,’ the housekeeper observed, glancing out at the yard. Where sunlight caught the roof of a shed, it was steaming.
‘Yes, I know. I’d be on my way, except…’
We were discussing the problem of what I should wear on my feet when Philip solved it by arriving with the lost shoe. He had been up to Back Lane and found both my cycle and the shoe, but he brushed aside my thanks. The cycle was damaged, he said, not looking at me; he’d left it with the blacksmith to be mended. The shoe I put on, though it was wet and shrunken: it would suffice until I got home.
‘Well, if you’re ready…’ Philip ran a hand through his hazelnut curls and fitted his cap over them. ‘Shall I hitch up the trap, or—’
‘No, don’t trouble, please. I can walk now the rain’s stopped. I’ll go by the short cut – if your father won’t mind too much.’
He opened the door. ‘I’d better come with you. I’m not sure what state that lane might be in. Don’t want you getting stuck in the mud.’
‘No… No, really – you’ve gone to enough trouble on my account. I’m capable of finding my own way.’ Fixing my eyes on the top button of his macintosh, I held out my hand. ‘Thank you. I… I’m most grateful.’
I felt his hand envelop mine, hard and warm: though he had been out in the wet it was I who was cold. Our flesh seemed to blend in more than physical contact, awareness leaping between us. I wanted to cling, never to let go. I daren’t look at his face.
‘You’re welcome,’ he said.
Knowing that if I delayed I might never find the courage to leave, I turned to Mrs Gaywood, thanking her, shaking hands, making for the door. We all said the required politenesses, and then I was away, part of me relieved to be escaping, part of me forever left behind with Philip. I would, no doubt, go on, make a life, maybe even find a measure of happiness. But nothing could ever equal what Philip and I might have had, if circumstances had been different.
* * *
At Denes Hill, I encountered Grandmother, who expressed dismay at the state I was in. But she accepted my explanation that I had fallen from my bicycle and that ‘some people’ had taken me in and dried me off. To my relief, she hadn’t time to delve too deeply: she was on her way to discuss menus for the special buffet ball she had been planning for weeks.
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br /> Little I cared about parties. I went about in a daze, assailed by memories of Philip. Most of my energies went into staying well away from the farm when all my instincts howled for me to go back, to see him again. It would be so easy – just a walk down the hill, to a casual, accidental meeting. Despairingly, I resisted the temptation. But, waking and sleeping, I dreamed of our passionate embrace in the storm and longed to repeat it.
When I wrote to Mother, I told her I had actually met the Farcrofts. Why hadn’t she told me she had known them as a girl? Her reply, when it came, was brief, repeating her assertion that the Farcrofts were of no importance. To cultivate their acquaintance would be as foolish for me as it had been for her, especially when I was beginning to win the family’s approval; both Frank and Grandmother had written and told her how well I was doing, studying so hard and making the right sort of friends.
She was right, of course. Philip was not for me. I should forget him. But knowing it and doing it were two different things.
The arrival of little Eddy’s birthday gave me an excuse to escape for a while, if only as far as Lynn.
The floods had been bad in the town, streets filled with mud and some riverside properties inundated – everyone was talking about it. The Lynn News reported devastation all across the county, houses hit by lightning, crops ruined, roads damaged and impassable, and a postman drowned when the flood water caught him. I had been lucky.
I wished I could tell someone how Philip had saved me. He was so much on my mind that I needed to talk about him. However, I daren’t mention him, even to Saffron, though she knew there was something wrong. When she asked me to stay a few days I happily accepted. It gave us a chance to visit the dressmaker and have fittings for our gowns for ‘the bash’, as she irreverently called it.
‘You’ll stun them all,’ she said, eyeing me with some surprise as I stood in a creation of jewel-green silk – a colour which reminded me of Philip’s eyes. ‘My dear girl, I hadn’t realized how quickly you’re growing up. We shall have to watch the young men, I can see, or they’ll all be proposing.’