Linn went running out of the house and up the steep track, shouting to them and waving her arms. They turned to her in some surprise.
‘Have you no eyes?’ she said to them. ‘Just look at those cattle in that field! Can’t you see they’re eating our corn?’
‘That’s what they’re there for,’ Robert said. ‘Granddad asked Sam to put them in. The corn is coming on too fast. It wants eating down, Granddad says, to make it tiller out a bit.’
‘Oh!’ Linn said. She stood abashed. She felt she had made a fool of herself and a brief glance at Sam Trigg’s face showed her that he was highly amused. ‘That’s all right, then. I needn’t have fussed.’
‘No,’ Robert said. He looked away. ‘Everything is under control.’
The boy was trying not to smile and Linn, perceiving it, was suddenly piqued.
‘I suppose it was rather funny to you, to see me come rushing up like that?’
‘Well, yes, just a bit, I suppose.’ He glanced at her and the smile was there, flickering about his lips; ‘I thought the house was on fire,’ he said.
Sam Trigg reached out and patted her shoulder.
‘Don’t worry, Mrs Truscott. I’ll see that my cattle behave themselves.’
Linn turned and went back home. The incident had nettled her. And yet she was filled with an angry shame that she, who had lived all her life on the land, should be so ignorant of its ways.
Charlie teased her endlessly. It was still a joke to him that she was now a ‘woman of means’ and sometimes he called her ‘Lady Stant’. At the same time he admired her, because of her business acumen, and because her ownership of the farm was giving her new confidence. It showed in the brightness of her eyes and a certain challenging look she had, as though to say, ‘I know my worth’. She had always been a beautiful woman and now, although in her thirty-ninth year, an age when most women lost their looks, her beauty had somehow been enhanced.
They had been married for more than three years and in that time he had never grown tired of looking at her. But now, because of this challenging look in her eyes, he was falling in love with her all over again. He would stand watching her, secretly, while she was busy about the farm, or he would leave what he was doing and go in search of her in the sheds. And Linn, by the way she looked at him, showed that she knew and understood; showed that she shared this heightened awareness that had sprung from the change taking place in their lives.
‘I’m seeing a lot of you today.’
‘Yes, well,’ Charlie said, ‘now that I’ve got a rich wife, I mean to keep an eye on her.’
‘Rich indeed! What a lie! My little legacy’s nearly all gone.’
‘It’s tied up in the farm and the stock, where you can see it every day. That’s a lot better, to my mind, than a heap of pound notes in the bank.’
‘But we’ve got to have money all the same. We can’t do without it, in this world.’
‘You’re doing all right with your butter and eggs? And Jack did all right with those weaners last week? Why, the money’s coming in hand over fist! I can tell by the way you smile to yourself whenever you’re doing your accounts.’
‘And how do I look when I’m paying the bills?’
‘Like this,’ he said, and gave a great scowl.
‘You!’ she said. ‘You’re a lying toad! Why do you come pestering me? I get on better by myself.’ She turned again to sorting her eggs. ‘Now look what you’ve made me do! I’ve put three Grade As in with Grade B!’
‘Your Grade B customers won’t mind.’
‘I’m the one that’ll mind,’ she said. ‘There’s a difference of twopence a dozen between those two grades.’
‘Twopence a dozen! Fancy that! You won’t be able to sleep tonight, thinking what a close shave you had, nearly losing that halfpenny!’
It was true that she watched her pennies carefully; she had been obliged to most of her life, during the years of poverty; and the profits to be made at Stant Farm were too small and too hard-won for her to abandon her carefulness.
There was a covered market in Mingleton and every Wednesday morning Linn would travel in on the bus, carrying two baskets of eggs, with a few surplus pounds of butter, perhaps, and anything else that came to hand. Sometimes it might be watercress, picked from beside the spring at Stant; sometimes it might be sprigs of sage or posies of snowdrops and violets: these things looked well on her little stall and whatever she took was always sold. Home-made jam and apple jelly; chutney and brawn and white cottage cheese: her customers soon looked out for these things and she could have sold twice as much if only she had had it to sell.
One Wednesday afternoon, when most of the market folk had gone, and Linn was bent over her takings, counting the coins in their cardboard box, a man’s voice suddenly spoke, startling her by its loudness and gruffness.
‘Are these eggs really fresh, missus?’
Linn sat up indignantly, a sharp rejoinder on her lips, but the words were bitten off in a laugh, for it was Charlie standing there.
‘What are you doing here in town?’
‘I’ve been to the depot to fetch some tyres. I can give you a lift home if you like, if you don’t mind the dirt of the garage van.’
‘What about these last few eggs?’
‘Never mind them! You can chuck ’em away!’
‘I’ve got some shopping to do, before going home.’
‘Right, I’ll come with you and give you a hand.’
Linn had a good many calls to make; she always shopped on market days; and with Charlie to carry her baskets for her, she did not mind how much she bought. A bolt of grey flannel for making shirts; oil-cloth to cover the kitchen table; a new pair of rubber boots for Robert; and two new galvanized iron pails: all these things she bought today because Charlie was there to carry them and they would be going home in the van.
‘What about a bag of coal while you’re at it?’ he said.
‘Am I loading you up too much?’
‘Get away! It was just a joke!’
‘At least let me take one basket,’ she said.
But Charlie wouldn’t hear of it; the burden was nothing to his strong arms; and they walked through the streets of the town together, stopping to look in every shop window and even lingering on the bridge to watch the barges pass underneath. It was a rare thing indeed for them to be out in the town like this, just the two of them, shopping together, strolling along and taking their time.
‘We ought to get out like this more often.’
‘There’s always too much to do on the farm.’
‘Your father and Robert could manage all right.’
‘Perhaps we could come one Saturday, then.’
‘And go to the pictures, what about that? It’s Fred Astaire at The Plaza next week.’
‘Then have tea at the Copper Kettle …’
‘Right, it’s a date,’ Charlie said. ‘I’ll write it in my diary.’ It was only their nonsense, talking like this, but the day for them was an unusual one and the freedom of it had made them gay. They were like young lovers, a boy and a girl, who had stolen a meeting unlawfully; but they knew it would never happen again: too many things would get in the way.
Charlie drove her all the way home and carried her shopping into the house. Then he went back to work at the garage, where Fleming was looking out for him.
‘You took your time! You’ve been gone two hours!’
‘The old van packed up, climbing Glib Hill. It took me an hour to sort it out.’
‘Funny it always happens to you.’
‘I was always unlucky,’ Charlie said.
Whereas with Clew at Herrick Cross Charlie would have answered truthfully, with his new employer he was devious. Fleming had grumbled more than once because Charlie had been a few minutes late arriving for work in the mornings and there had sometimes been arguments.
‘You should’ve been here at eight o’clock.’
‘Why, what happened?’ Charlie asked.
‘Never mind the smart remarks. Your hours are from eight to six. I expect you to remember that.’
‘You never complain,’ Charlie said, ‘when I stop on late to finish a job.’
‘I haven’t noticed you stopping on.’
‘Haven’t you? You will next time! I’ll put in a claim for overtime.’
‘I’m not paying overtime. It’s quite as much as I can do to pay your wages as it is without any bloody overtime.’
‘Talking of money,’ Charlie said, ‘you owe me for those eggs I brought.’
‘I thought I paid you.’
‘No, not yet. You owe me two bob.’
‘Two bob for two dozen eggs? Is that what you call cost price?’
‘You’d pay three-and-sixpence at the shop.’
‘Can you change me half-a-crown?’
‘I can change you a five-pound-note if you like.’
‘Can you, by God?’ Fleming said. ‘And you farmers say farming doesn’t pay!’
Charlie had only been making a joke; trying to lighten the atmosphere; but always, where money was concerned, Fleming had a jealous eye.
‘I wonder you bother to work for me when you could be living like a lord on that farm of yours.’
‘Nobody lives like a lord on the land. Not these days at any rate. And the farm belongs to my wife, not me.’
‘I suppose she wears the trousers, then?’
‘I wouldn’t say that,’ Charlie said.
‘She’s the one with the money, though, and you know what they say? ‒ Money talks!’
The fact that Charlie lived at Stant Farm seemed to fascinate Frank Fleming. He was always asking questions about it: whether it had a mortgage on it; whether the profits were worthwhile.
‘I nearly bought it once,’ he said, ‘when it was empty all that time.’
‘Why didn’t you?’ Charlie asked.
‘I couldn’t raise the wind, that’s why. Not all of us have got rich wives.’
‘I didn’t know you were interested in farming.’
‘No, well, I’m not. But they say it’s a healthy life, don’t they, especially for growing kids?’
Charlie began to understand. He knew the Flemings had a sickly child.
‘How is Timothy these days?’
‘He needs building up a bit,’ Fleming said. ‘Plenty of milk and eggs and that. He’ll soon pick up when summer comes and he can get out to play in the sun.’
The boy Timothy, aged seven, had been ill with diphtheria the year before and Fleming’s wife, talking to Charlie, said he had nearly died from it. He was still too delicate to go to school and all through the winter he stayed indoors.
As the spring advanced, however, Fleming would sometimes bring him out, dressed in a warm coat and cap, and would walk round with him, holding his hand, showing him the cars in for repair and letting him watch the men at work. The little boy was deathly pale, with dark blue rings under his eyes, and bones as delicate as a bird’s.
‘This is your uncle Charlie Truscott. He’s the one that brings you the eggs. Aren’t you going to say how d’you do?’
The little boy put out his hand. It was cold and limp in Charlie’s grasp.
‘Hello, young fella,’ Charlie said. ‘Want to see me working the jack?’
The little boy gave a nod.
‘Right you are, then! Here we go!’
‘Your Uncle Charlie lives at Stant. Maybe he’ll let you go up some time and see the animals on the farm. You’d like to do that, wouldn’t you, Tim?’
‘Ah, that’s right; you come,’ Charlie said. ‘We’ll have a new calf in a week or two. I’ll let you know when it’s arrived and your dad can bring you up to see it.’
He was not keen to have Frank Fleming at the farm, but how could he deny this child, whose face was that of a small ghost and who looked at him with such wide, wistful eyes?
In fact, when the new calf was born and Charlie mentioned it at the garage, Frank Fleming shook his head.
‘Tim’s not really up to it. He’s still a bit weak. Maybe I’ll bring him later on.’
Fleming watched over the little boy and protected him at every turn. He would bring him out on fine days and let him talk to Charlie and Jerry; but George Cressy, the odd-job-man, was not allowed to talk to him.
‘Cressy only frightens him. It’s all this Red Indian stuff of his. He was at the house once, cleaning the windows for my wife, and Timothy got talking to him. Cressy cut his thumb with a knife and wanted to do the same to Tim, to make them blood-brothers and all that rot. Tim’s had nightmares over that and if I see Cressy pestering him he’s out on his ear straight away.’
‘George doesn’t mean any harm. He’s fond of kids. He’s one himself.’
‘I’m taking no chances, anyway. I don’t trust him no more than an inch.’
‘Why have him here if you feel like that?’
‘I couldn’t get a normal man to do what he does for a pound a week.’
‘Is that all you pay him?’ Charlie said.
‘I’ve got to watch my money, you know, the same as anyone else these days. I don’t see you giving much away.’
Fleming was a cadger, as Sam Trigg had said, and every week without fail, when Charlie brought him his two dozen eggs, Fleming would try to avoid paying; and whenever Charlie reminded him, he always made the same remark.
‘A shilling a dozen and you call that cost price? You want to get rich quick, don’t you, mate?’
Fleming was the sort of man who was always out of cigarettes. He would make a great show of patting his pockets in search of them and then, on finding the packet empty, would fling it across the repair-shop.
‘You ent got a fag, I suppose, Jerry?’
‘Sorry, Frank, I’ve just smoked my last.’
‘Me, too,’ Charlie would say. ‘I’m thinking of trying to give it up.’
Once, when Fleming was cadging like this, George Cressy came to him and held out an old sweet-tin containing four or five cigarettes.
‘Here you are, Frank, you can have one of these.’
‘Thanks, George, you’re a pal,’ Fleming said. But when he had lit his cigarette and had drawn on it a couple of times, he made a face of deep disgust. ‘Bloody hell! They’re as stale as old boots! How long’ve you had them, for God’s sake?’
‘Not all that long,’ Cressy said.
‘I suppose they’re a Red Indian brand?’ Fleming said. ‘Blackfoot, are they, or Cherokee?’
‘That’s a du Maurier,’ Cressy said. ‘Mr Wrennam gave it to me when he was in a while back.’
‘Tastes like old cowpats!’ Fleming said.
‘I shan’t give you my fags again. I’ll keep them for my mates at the pub.’
‘Yes, you do that,’ Fleming said. ‘It’ll save me from an early grave!’ And as Cressy walked away he said: ‘Heap big load of old stinking rope! That’s how it tastes, this fag of yours!’
‘Why do you bait him?’ Charlie said. ‘He’d be all right if you left him alone.’
Fleming merely blew smoke at him.
Chapter Eight
Robert was suddenly growing tall. He was shooting up amazingly. Half way through his fifteenth year he was almost as tall as his grandfather, and this spurt of growth had taken place in the eight months since coming to Stant. ‘It must be something in the air,’ Charlie said, teasing him, but Linn watched over him anxiously, afraid that he was outgrowing his strength. She would fill his plate at mealtimes and try to force second helpings on him and was always bringing him milk to drink.
‘Why don’t you leave the boy alone instead of making a fool of him?’ her father said in exasperation.
‘He’s so terribly thin, I can’t help worrying,’ Linn said.
‘That boy is as strong as a horse. If he’s thin, and I daresay he is, it’s because you’re always nagging him.’
Sometimes it was Robert himself who rounded on her impatiently.
‘Mother, how many more times? ‒ I don’t wa
nt a glass of milk!’
‘Very well. I only asked. There’s no need to snap my head off. You’re very touchy nowadays.’
‘I don’t blame him,’ her father said. ‘The way you go on, you’d think growing up was some sort of disease, instead of the natural thing it is.’
Sometimes Linn would laugh at herself. She perceived the truth of her father’s remark and did her best to look at her son as though he were just someone else’s boy, seen to be growing and shooting up. But this was a feat beyond her powers and every time she came upon him, busy about his work on the farm, it was always with a sense of shock.
‘How you are growing!’ she would say. ‘You’re really becoming quite a man!’
But although she said it so many times, she found it a difficult thing to believe. It really was too absurd that this boy of hers should be suddenly towering over her; that his legs were so long and could take such strides; that his voice had deepened so ridiculously and that he had the shadow of a moustache that had to be shaved off every morning.
Where had the years fled to, that her baby, her child, her little boy, should have vanished into the past like that? And sometimes, even while she laughed, she would be seized with a spasm of pain because this only child of her flesh was suddenly a stranger to her: a creature of moods she could not understand; shrugging, perhaps, when she spoke to him, or answering with a careless word; eyeing her sometimes in such a way that she found herself wondering at his thoughts.
Yet her pride in his manhood knew no bounds. Seeing him at work on the farm; his skill in tending the animals, and the way they followed him everywhere; his strong, clever, sensitive hands, able to do so many things; his quiet voice and his confidence: all these drew her closer to him, even though his manner to her was sometimes brusque and hurtful. And although she breathed not a word of it she thought him rather a handsome boy, for Robert, with his straight black hair, his deep dark eyes and smooth brown skin, his easy bearing and his height, stood out easily in a crowd; and Linn, whenever he went with her to the livestock market, noticed the glances that came his way.
Robert himself was quite unaware of attracting attention like this. His eyes would be on the stock for sale and his mind would be on the business in hand, and when that business had been completed, he expected to go straight home. He had no taste for trailing around, looking at stock they did not mean to buy, and would draw Linn’s attention to the market clock.
Seedtime and Harvest (The Apple Tree Saga Book 5) Page 13