‘All right, Emily. All right.’
‘She’s not fit to walk up the hill; she’ll never make it. Get her into the trap and we’ll take her home.’
Again she was struggling; and now she was crying, screaming, ‘No! no! He’ll shoot you. He said he would an’ he will, he’ll shoot you!’
Her head was down now pressing into her swollen breasts; her knees were up to her stomach; she was half lying, half crouching on the grass verge at the edge of the road; she had her eyes closed and she imagined for a wild moment that they had both gone and left her. Then she heard Mr Stuart saying, ‘How far can the trap get up the hill?’ and George reply, ‘With her alone in it, to the top of the first one and down the other side and across the valley bottom. But he wouldn’t be able to manage the rest of the way, ’cos the slope’s very rough, except for a narrow footpath.’
He was bending over her now, saying softly, ‘Listen, Emily, listen. We’re goin’ to take you up to the cottage. It’s all right now. It’s all right. But you must ride in the trap as far as you can. Come on. That’s a girl, come on.’
She could make no resistance now because the pain was using up her breath, but when she found herself lying on the floor of the trap she gasped out to the face hanging over her, ‘Let George take me, not you…not you.’
‘All right, all right. Here’s George now.’
‘You’re all right, Emily; I’ll see to you. I’ve put your bags with the other stuff. You’re all right. Just lie still; you’ll soon be there.’
As the trap jolted forward it was as if she were being rocked, and the pain eased slightly, but only slightly. The child was coming, she knew it was coming, but oh dear God, if this was giving birth she never wanted to go through it again; oh no! Never, never again.
She wanted someone’s hand to cling to. If only she had someone’s hand to hold. Her mother’s. No, no; her mother was long gone. Her Aunt Mary’s. Yes, her Aunt Mary’s. Oh, she wanted her Aunt Mary’s hand to hold.
The pain was easier. Had she been asleep? She seemed to have just woken up; but she was still in the trap. She opened her eyes wider and looked over the mound of her stomach. A man was walking by her feet; he was holding them…Oh no, no! He mustn’t go up the hill.
When she went to protest she seemed to fall asleep again, until the pain shot her, startling her into wakefulness. She felt herself being lifted up and knew she was lying on two pairs of arms. She couldn’t protest, for all her energies were twisted up in the pain …
When she heard the voice bawling, as if in her ear, ‘Put her down!’ she tried to raise herself from the cradle of the arms, but it was impossible for she was still being moved forward. Then George’s voice seemed to bellow in her other ear, ‘Don’t be a fool, Mr Birch! She’s bad, real bad; the bairn’s on her.’
‘I said put her down.’
‘I’ll put her down when there’s a bed to put her on.’ This voice wasn’t bawling, it was even, almost cool.
She tried to struggle upwards again, but the words ‘Steady! Steady!’ almost fanned her face, and she lay back gasping. Her head was resting against a shoulder. Whose shoulder, she didn’t know.
‘I’ll shoot you, as true as I’m standing here. If you don’t put her down this minute, I’ll shoot you!’
‘You do that…shoot.’
‘You bloody foreign swine! You!…You!…’
There followed a mouthful of abuse, some of which she hadn’t heard before, some of which she had. She felt sick at the sound of them; they became interwoven in the pain and in a way were hurting her as much as the child was doing. She felt disgusted, ashamed.
She knew they were going through the cottage door now. When her body was lowered to the bed she immediately drew her knees up and put her head towards them and, gripping the bed tick, cried, ‘Get somebody! A doctor…somebody!’
‘All right, all right. We’ll get a doctor.’
‘Get out of here! Else before God I’ll put a bullet through you.’
‘Why don’t you then?’
The voices were coming to her from the kitchen, both loud, both harsh and frightening now.
‘For two bloody pins!’
‘For two bloody pins, Mr Birch? You, let me tell you, haven’t got the guts to shoot, for the simple reason you understand what the consequences would be. You, Mr Birch, have hidden behind a woman’s skirts since you could toddle in this very cottage. When I first came here I was sorry for what my wife did to you, but now I see that she took your measure right away and in the end gave you your just deserts. In fact, there was a pair of you, you were well suited…’
There came now the sound of something heavy falling to the floor and Nicholas Stuart crying, ‘You couldn’t even use the butt end properly. You know what you are? You are what they say you are down in the village, a nowt, a miserable, underhanded, two-faced nowt…I’m going now, but I’m leaving you with a warning.’ The voice dropped here. ‘Stop playing your double game, or else…Anderson’s barn is not as isolated as you imagine. I should cut out your walks if I were you.’
There was silence all around her now; she didn’t know whether she was alone in the cottage or not. The agony in her was subsiding a little. All her clothes were wet with sweat. She wanted a drink. If only there was somebody here, somebody to hold her hand. Was she going to die? She didn’t mind now; it would solve all problems if she went. And the child too. But if it lived, it should have the watch, shouldn’t it? The watch. The watch. In years to come someone digging would find the watch.
When the pain gripped her again she closed her eyes tight and prayed for death to come soon.
It was half past three in the morning when the doctor, who had come all the way from Birtley, dragged the unresisting baby from her womb. It was quite dead, and as he looked at its mother his thoughts were that she would soon follow it. He told this to her husband, or at least to the man who had given her the child. But he received no response, one way or the other.
He said he would look in later in the day to see what had transpired, but he warned the man that he’d be surprised if she were still alive by noon, because he’d had to do a lot of cutting and she was now in a very weak state …
It was early evening when he returned. She was still alive, and the cowman’s wife from Croft Dene House was with her, and what she said was, ‘I thought she was gone more than once, but she keeps holdin’ on to me hand and won’t let it go. But she can’t last, can she?’ and he replied, ‘I’d say no, but then I’m not God, and she’s in His hands.’
Two
She got out of bed for the first time at the end of the third week, and for the next two weeks she sat either in the kitchen or on a chair set outside against the cottage wall. She didn’t talk and she scarcely moved.
George’s wife had come up the hill every day to attend to her needs. She liked George’s wife; she was a canny lass. She wanted to talk to her and tell her how grateful she was for all she had done, but the words just wouldn’t come. At times she thought she had lost the use of her speech. But yesterday when Jenny had come up the hill for the last time—Larry had now told her that he could manage—she had held her hand tightly and looked into her homely face as she murmured, ‘If I hadn’t had you to cling on to I wouldn’t have pulled through. Thank you, Jenny.’ Yet even as she thanked her she thought it was a great pity that she had pulled through. Had it been left to Larry she certainly wouldn’t have, for he had hoped she would die. More than once, as she lay too weak to move, she had felt that he was willing her to die.
From the middle of August she slowly took up her duties again, and soon life in the cottage appeared to have resumed its normal pattern. And yet Emily knew that nothing about their life together up here was normal. She had a strange feeling on her. She seemed to be marking time awaiting the outcome of something; what, she didn’t rightly know. Pieces of conversation floated about in her mind, going right back to the time when Mr Stuart and George found her on the road. She would he
ar his kindly tone, saying, ‘It’s all right. It’s all right,’ only for it to be shot through with words from the vile tirade that Larry had levelled at him; and then something about Larry taking a walk, or not taking a walk, to Anderson’s barn. She didn’t know of any farmer around here called Anderson; perhaps she had dreamt that part because Mr Stuart wasn’t likely to tell Larry to stop taking walks. Yet, no, she hadn’t dreamt it; she could recollect her mind grasping at it; but for what reason now she couldn’t recall.
She wished she felt strong enough to take the cart into Gateshead to see her Aunt Mary. Just to sit in that kitchen amid all the clutter and muck would be such a comfort. Not to have a laugh; no, she didn’t want to laugh.
Three weeks ago her Aunt Mary had trekked all the way up here, bringing the two youngest with her, to see how she was; and she had sat by her side and cried like a child. But she hadn’t stayed long because Larry had barely been civil to her.
‘So that slattern is your aunt,’ he had said. ‘Well, with all your talk about her you must be seeing her through different eyes from anyone else.’
It seemed to be this remark that had given her the urge to get back into the life-stream, because she wanted the strength to tell him that if he lived to a thousand he wouldn’t be fit to wipe her Aunt Mary’s boots.
It happened all of a sudden, Larry’s complete change of front towards her. He stopped her carrying the wood in; he even beat up a raw egg in milk and made her drink it, telling her she must have this twice a day. He went down the hill on a Thursday morning and humped up all the fodder; he even went as far as Chester-le-Street for what provisions they needed.
She took his attentions silently but with a question in her eyes; and he answered it one day by saying, ‘I must get you on your feet before the winter comes,’ then he added, ‘Anyway, I don’t think you could stand another up here, the way you are.’
At nights she would lie thinking about the sudden change in his attitude towards her, and she would tell herself there was something behind it.
As she grew a little stronger she walked farther, and one day she strolled right down to the road. She found it pleasant just to be able to take her time meandering over the hills without having to carry any bags.
She was standing leaning on the stile looking first one way and then the other along the road when she heard the sound of horses’ hoofs. She kept her head turned in the direction from which it came and saw coming towards her the first of a number of carriages. The drivers, dressed in black, held whips from which dangled black bows. As they passed her at a trot she noticed that the carriages were all empty, and behind the fourth one, at a more leisurely pace, came a farm cart. As she looked towards it she smiled and called, ‘Hello, George.’
‘Oh, hello there, Emily. ‘ He drew the horse and cart to the side of the road and, quickly dismounting, came towards her, saying, ‘By! It’s good to see you down the hill again. I might have passed you, I never thought to see you there. How you feelin’?’
‘Oh, much better, George, thank you.’
‘You look better, but still very peaky. You’ve got to take care.’
‘George.’
‘Aye, Emily?’
‘I’ll never be able to thank you or Jenny for what you did for me; I know that without you both I wouldn’t be here.’
‘Nonsense. Nonsense.’
‘No, no.’ She looked down to where the step divided them and said slowly, ‘No, it isn’t nonsense. Without you both I’d have been heading those coaches.’ She made a motion with her hand to the left of her. ‘By the way, has somebody died round here?’
‘Aye, Farmer Rowan.’
‘Farmer Rowan! Had he been bad long?’
‘No, about a week I think. He had a heart attack they say.’
She stared at George now for some little time. Then folding her shawl further over her breast, she asked, quietly, ‘Where’s Anderson’s barn, George?’
‘Anderson’s barn? Oh, it’s on the border of the Rowans’ land…’ He stopped suddenly, blinked hard, turned his head to the side, then asked, but without looking at her, ‘Why do you want to know where Anderson’s barn is, Emily?’
‘You know as well as I do, George.’
He was looking at her again. ‘How long have you known?’
‘Only since you told me who’d been buried.’
‘Oh my God, my mouth!’
‘Don’t blame yourself, George; things have been gatherin’ in me mind for a long time, and now they’re all of a piece. He treated me like dirt when he knew I was going to have the bairn, then just a few days ago his manner suddenly changed. He started feeding me up, strengthening me I suppose to enable me to take the blow.’ She nodded her head and looked away, and she kept nodding it as she mused, ‘I know where Anderson’s barn is; I’ve actually seen them both coming out of there. He didn’t open his mouth to me in weeks and then he comes across me suddenly on the hill near the barn. I can see him now. He was struck dumb, but when he realised I hadn’t been spying on him his manner changed and he treated me civilly for a time.’
She turned towards George again, saying, ‘I suppose everybody knew? It’s always the way isn’t it, the one that should know is always the last to hear.’
‘Aye, Emily, that’s always the way of it. But as far as I can gather it’s been going on for years. The mistress knew of it. That’s what made her mad and act the way she did, old Abbie said. But they say old Rowan hated his guts and threatened more than once to do him in if he caught them together. Of course’—he pursed his lips now—‘that was afore he thought your Larry Birch had come into the farm an’ property. He was known to be a hypocrite that Dave Rowan; there’s nobody in the village had a good word for him; in fact it was a toss-up who they disliked more, Birch or him. Skin a louse for its hide they said he would…What you going to do, Emily?’
She kept her eyes fixed on his for a moment before she said, ‘I don’t know yet, George, I don’t know. I’ll have to get meself gathered together.’
‘Will you tackle him with it?’
She tilted her head to the side as if listening; then she gave a sad little laugh as she said, ‘Not till the time is ripe. It’s funny, George, but I was always the one to chatter, remember? But of late I’ve learned to hold me tongue. In that way, you’re able to think more, to weigh things up better. And that’s what I’ll do, I’ll bide me time and weigh things up. But you can be sure, George’—she put her hand out and patted his arm—‘I’ll let you know exactly what happens.’
‘You’re always welcome above the stables, Emily.’
‘I know that, George.’
‘And you know something more, Emily?’
‘What, George?’
‘I’m no reader of minds but I know that you’d be very welcome in the house an’ all…No offence meant, Emily.’
‘And none taken, George…Goodbye.’
‘Goodbye, Emily.’
She turned from him and walked slowly through the copse and along the field path, and more slowly up the hill and down it again, then across the valley and up the last incline to the cottage; and all the way she kept repeating, ‘I must get you on your feet afore the winter comes.’
His next move was made evident to her the following day. Sitting across the table from her, he looked at her with a gentle expression on his face, and if she hadn’t known what she did know the concern in his voice would have touched her heart again as he said, ‘Emily, I’m going to say this to you, and I mean it, you’re free to go; I’ll not stop you by word or action.’
She had the sudden almost uncontrollable desire to spit in his face. Lowering her eyes and keeping her voice soft, she said, ‘I’m content to stay where I am.’
‘But it’s too much for you up here.’
‘What…what would you do if I went?’ She still kept her gaze lowered.
‘Oh, I’d fend for meself, don’t worry about me. I’ve done it afore, I can do it again.’
At th
is she rose from the table and went about her duties in the kitchen, knowing that he was still sitting there looking at her. But she didn’t look at him, nor did she speak again.
Every day during the following week he took his long walk, and each time he returned and she looked at him she longed for her old strength, for the time when she had been so full of life that she wouldn’t have tolerated him or his carrying on for one minute more. Yet, somehow, her very weakness seemed to have a strength of its own; it was, as it were, making her bide her time, as if preparing for the climax.
She thought the climax had come when, on Sunday night as they were sitting at tea, he said, ‘I’m worried about you, Emily, this business of the baby and all that. I know what I said about me not marrying, but I think you should marry, and I know I’m spoiling your chances keeping you up here. You’re the kind of woman that…well, could do well for herself just by the looks of you…You could sort of pick and choose, if you see what I mean.’
As he stared at her and she at him, a voice was crying loudly in her head, ‘Yes, yes, Larry, I see what you mean. You would even condone me going down the hill and across the road now, wouldn’t you? You would put no obstacle in me way now about taking up with the foreign bastard. You’re not naming anybody, are you, but that’s who you mean. You don’t want to shoot him now, do you? For two pins I’d…No, no!’ she cautioned herself; ‘don’t be stupid; bide your time.’
He was still talking; between mouthfuls of food he said, ‘Even if you didn’t decide to take up with anybody I wouldn’t see you short; and if you got a place of your own you could have some of this furniture.’
When she looked at him and said quietly, ‘Thanks,’ he became silent while continuing to stare at her; then he rose abruptly from the table and went out.
The Tide of Life Page 41