‘I’m in trouble, Mother,’ she whispered, and scalding tears coursed down her face.
Barbara looked stunned. ‘You mean you’ve lost your job?’ Oh no, what was Cecil going to say?
‘N-not that sort of trouble… a b-baby.’
In case there was any doubt in Barbara’s mind about what her daughter was trying to tell her, Laura said softly, ‘I’m afraid it’s true, Mrs Roach. Marianne is pregnant.’
Marianne collapsed in a flood of tears. Barbara gagged on the gulp of air her lungs had gasped in and she gripped the table. Laura felt pity deep in her heart for them both. A cruel man had been partly responsible for the trouble that affected them and another cruel man would heap his rage on Marianne’s shame.
‘Oh, my God.’ The words of desperate prayer were trawled from the depths of Barbara’s being. ‘Oh, dear Lord. What are we going to do? What will he say?’
Suddenly Marianne was on her feet and across the room. She threw herself on her frightened mother. ‘Help me, Mother. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’
Barbara could hardly believe it. Her daughter needed her after all these years. Marianne, whose presence in the home she had almost grown to fear and despise, was her little girl again. It gave Barbara hope and a little courage. She stroked the sobbing girl’s hair. ‘Don’t worry, darling. We don’t have to do anything for a while yet. We’ll think of something. I’ll think of something.’
Laura got up. She had played her part and it was time to leave. ‘I think I’ll be going,’ she whispered to Barbara.
‘Thank you, Mrs Jennings,’ Barbara said, her voice firm, her eyes glittering with tears but her face unusually composed. ‘I’ll let you know what we decide to do.’
* * *
Laura felt drained as she made her way home; her encounter with Spencer and what she had witnessed in School House were taking their toll. When she saw Ince standing outside Little Cot, her heart lifted and she walked up the hill with renewed vigour. She hoped he would come in and talk to her, stay for dinner. She wanted no one else’s company but his right now. He would offer her his gentleness and kindness, without pressure, without worries of any kind.
‘Laura!’ The moment he saw her he rushed to her side. ‘I’ve been here twice today and not found you home.’
Without a moment’s hesitation, she linked her arm through his. ‘Well, I’m going home and staying there now, Ince. I hope you can come in and stay with me.’
Ince couldn’t have wished for anything more. ‘You look all in,’ he said, gazing into her eyes. ‘What have you been doing all day?’
‘Oh, nothing that can’t wait until another time to tell you,’ she replied as she opened the door of her home and let him step inside first. She had a triumphant look on her face. The comings and goings to Little Cot must be making a stir in the village, and the way she felt at the moment, she couldn’t give a damn.
‘Are you all right, Laura?’ Ince demanded the instant she’d closed the door. ‘Spencer came home in an almost murderous mood yesterday and all I can make out is that it must have had something to do with Vicki playing here. I couldn’t get a word out of him. He left Vicki with me and went out on the moor and stayed there nearly all night. He still refuses to tell me what happened, except to call you a couple of choice names. Vicki’s in a right state. She believes she’s done something to upset her father and doesn’t know what. When she mentioned your name, he snapped at her and made her cry. For goodness sake, what happened?’
Laura let her coat fall to the floor. She had tried as hard to shut Vicki’s darling little face out of her mind as she had Spencer’s wrathful words and warning. Now she had to face them again. ‘Oh, Ince,’ and she felt herself crumpling at the knees. ‘I’ve ruined everything.’
Ince was standing close and as his arms moved to wrap themselves round her she threw herself against him. He led her to the settee and held her tightly. He stroked her hair and the side of her face for some moments, giving her time to calm herself.
‘Can you tell me what happened, sweetheart?’ he breathed softly after what seemed an age but was only a few minutes.
Laura sighed heavily. She didn’t want to, but it was best to get it over with. And Ince had the right to know; he lived with Vicki and Spencer. She nestled in closer to him and put her hand into his, feeling less shaky and more resolved as his strong fingers tightened round hers.
‘I think Spencer was jealous of my friendship with Vicki. He came for her, not looking perhaps for a confrontation but he had something to say. He took Vicki up to Daisy then he came back alone. He said he didn’t want her playing here to become a regular thing. I know it’s not really my business but I’ve been worried about the excruciatingly tight hold Spencer keeps over her. I pointed out that when she starts school the week after next someone might tell her that Felicity Lean is her grandmother. After all, it’s common knowledge. I tried not to sound interfering but he went berserk. I told him that he was a terrible man. He threatened that if I ever talk to Vicki again or go to the farm he won’t be responsible for his actions.’
It brought back all the pain and humiliation and she was forced to wipe away stinging tears. ‘I realise that it’s all my fault, Ince. What right do I have to tell him how to run his life? He doesn’t like me and he never will. I spoke out of turn and too soon. Spencer hadn’t come to say Vicki couldn’t come here again. I should have let things move at his pace. It’s nothing to do with me if someone tells Vicki about her grandmother. I should just have let things happen. I’ve ruined the only thing that’s brought me real happiness in years, being part of Vicki’s life.’
Ince was quiet, more quiet than someone not talking. Laura looked up at his face. He was staring into space, as if he could see through the wall into the kitchen and was picturing yesterday’s scene of fury. She willed him to say something. His silence was nearly as unbearable as Spencer’s bad temper.
‘You’ve opened up some terrible wounds,’ he said at last.
‘Wounds that will never heal?’
‘Yes,’ he replied grimly.
‘And there’s nothing I can do to heal the rift this time,’ she murmured, more to herself than him.
‘It’s not entirely your fault, Laura. Spencer’s not what can be called a reasonable man.’ Ince put his hand under her chin and raised her face to his. ‘I know what Vicki has come to mean to you. Does this mean you will leave the village?’
‘I don’t know, Ince. I haven’t really thought about it.’
‘You still have friends here. Isn’t there anyone else who means something to you in Kilgarthen?’
She knew he was referring to himself and she realised that he was hoping for something more from her than friendship. She looked into his gentle dark eyes and saw the warmth and tenderness that came from deep inside him reflected there. He was a man who would never abuse a woman and treat her like the dirt beneath his feet, stifle her hopes and ambitions, make her feel less than human. He was strong and masculine and, she suddenly saw, very desirable.
She stroked his face. ‘You mean something to me, Ince.’
He gathered her in and kissed her lips. His mouth was warm and tender as it moved over hers. She pressed her mouth to his, opening her lips and releasing a feeling of slowly stirring passion in both of them.
His hands caressed her tenderly, down her arms, up over her shoulders, running up and down her back. He slid his lips down her neck and behind her ears, pressing and searching. Delicious tingly sensations were growing steadily inside her, not bursting out and frightening her and filling her with shame, but warm, heady, natural feelings, enriching her, making her murmur in his arms. Laura had not been made love to in this way before. She wanted more.
Ince’s need was becoming too strong; he stilled his hands before they caressed her somewhere that would offend her.
Disentangling her arms from him, Laura stood up. She pulled Ince to his feet. She moved towards the door.
‘Do you want me to go?’ h
e asked in a pained voice. He had very little experience with women and felt awkward and uncertain.
For an answer she locked the door then returned to him. She took his hand. ‘We can’t stay here, someone might look in through the window.’
They went upstairs and Laura opened the door to one of the spare bedrooms. She wasn’t going to take this gentle wonderful man to Bill Jennings’ bed. Inside the room she felt shy. They both felt shy. She wanted this though. She had been a widow for only a few weeks but hadn’t been a wife for years. She wanted to make love with this understanding man. He would make her feel like a woman. He wanted her for herself alone and would fulfil a need in her that had never been cherished or satisfied. It would be a time of love and total giving.
Chapter 23
‘Let me push the wheelbarrow, I’m stronger than you.’
‘You are not stronger than I am,’ Andrew declared as Tressa bounded on just in front of him. It was difficult pushing the old rusty wheelbarrow up the incline of rough narrow track over the moor. The ground under their feet was shifting and soggy and tufts of grass and gorse tugged at their boots. Tressa had seen him almost stumble and had used the same irritating superior tone she had treated him with since Jacka had welcomed his offer of working on the farm. ‘Tell me again where we’re going.’
‘To Reddacoombe Farm. ’Tis been deserted for nigh on forty year. We need moor stone to repair a wall and as the ground’s too wet for collecting on the moor we’re going to take some from Reddacoombe. It’s not needed there any more and it’s just the right size and shape for what we want.’
‘I see.’
‘That’ll make a change.’
His sigh came out like a growl and he wished she’d slow down and not stay in front of him where he couldn’t see her face. He didn’t like this sort of banter. Last night after supper at Tregorlan Farm Jacka had invited him to stay and join the family in the sitting room and ‘help finish off the Christmas drink’. Andrew had jumped at the chance, hoping Jacka and Joan would withdraw after a while and leave him alone with Tressa. Still in their working clothes, the three Daveys had settled down cosily and he’d soon realised he wouldn’t be granted his wish. He was pleased when Tressa produced a battered rectangular cardboard box and asked, ‘Want a game of draughts?’ Putting his glass of beer down on the floor he eagerly helped lay out the pieces on the much-used board. ‘You can be white,’ Tressa said. ‘I’m always black.’ Then she’d looked at him in a way that Andrew could only describe as slyly.
Five games later, all of which she had won quickly, he became aware of the reason behind that sly look. He noticed Jacka grinning behind his pipe and beer as he warmed his toes in front of the fire, and Joan chuckling behind her knitting and drop of sherry. He glared at his smug opponent and began the next game with determination creasing his brow. As Tressa jumped the last of his men in a noisy zigzag, he let out a cry of indignation.
‘Are you getting windy?’ She put her head cockily on the side and instead of wanting to hold her to him, he wanted to shake her until her teeth rattled.
‘Don’t be silly,’ he retorted ungraciously.
‘I always used to beat Jimmy and Matty at draughts,’ she told him through perkily pursed lips as she set up the board again. ‘And they always got windy.’
‘I am not windy,’ he growled, ‘whatever that stupid expression means.’ He’d never thought he’d be rude to her but his male pride had taken a hard blow; he rarely lost at chess which was a much superior game to draughts. ‘So you don’t want to risk another thrashing?’
‘I’m not a poor loser if that’s what you’re suggesting.’
‘Is that a yes or a no?’
‘Yes, yes, of course.’
‘Try thinking your moves out a little more.’
‘What?’
Jacka laughed, a loud rumbling sound that began in his fat stomach. He pointed his pipe at his equally amused sister. ‘Hear that, Joan? ’Twas just the same ’tween she and the boys.’
‘I remember, Jacka,’ she chortled. ‘They loved that maid but never liked it when she beat ’em, and she were only a child back then.’
That had made Andrew feel even more embarrassed but worse than that was being compared to Tressa’s brothers. He prayed she didn’t see him like that.
The wheelbarrow hit a tussock of reedy grasses and the handles were torn out of his hands.
Tressa turned round and again there was that smugness on her face. She gave a little shake of her head to toss away a wispy strand of brown hair from her eyes and raised an eyebrow. ‘Want to take a rest?’
No, I want to take you in my arms and kiss you and crush you to me and run my hands through your wonderfully messy hair and touch you and make love to you and I want to tell you how much I love you and I want you to tell me that you love me.
When words like that ran through his mind with a raw intensity, his blue eyes blazed in his taut face, he clenched his fists, his body shook and he didn’t appear to be breathing.
Tressa met his piercing eyes without flinching. Although these moments puzzled her and made her tingle strangely from head to toe, she was not one to be beaten down. Again she wondered why he had come back to Kilgarthen and seemed to be in no hurry to leave; it was two weeks since he had suddenly turned up at the concert. Early one morning when she’d been carrying the milk churns to the stand for collection she’d seen Mrs Sparnock bicycling down Rosemerryn Lane. Mrs Sparnock had repeated Mrs Prisk’s gossip that Andrew Macarthur was ‘down here after Mrs Jennings, in indecent haste if you ask me’. If that was true, why did he spend more time at Tregorlan Farm than in the village? So he wouldn’t appear to be an obvious suitor in ‘indecent haste’? Today he had brought Laura with him. She, however, had chosen to stay with Aunty Joan rather than traipse the moor with them and he hadn’t seemed in the least concerned, in fact he had advised against her joining them with the weather being inclement. As he had promised, he had obtained some application forms for a government subsidy for her father and helped him to fill them in. Was he hanging about to see the outcome of that? Did he care that much for her father’s rights and livelihood? Whatever his reason for staying in Kilgarthen, she found him a rather strange man.
‘Why haven’t you gone back to London?’ she challenged him.
Andrew’s heart sank and the glitter went out of his eyes, but he replied mildly, ‘Why? Can’t you wait to get rid of me?’ He hoped he wasn’t about to receive a blistering ‘yes’. There had been no need to return to London to look into the Morrison brothers’ demand for a further five thousand pounds. His partner John Walmesley had informed him he was confident that no such debt was owed. But Andrew’s romantic endeavours had not progressed at all. His hope that Jacka would see him as a suitable husband for Tressa and join in his campaign had not been realised. Neither Jacka nor Joan seemed to have noticed his feelings for Tressa any more than the girl herself had. He was fearful now that if the older couple did come to realise why he spent so much time among them, they would think him unsuitable because of his career and his middle-class background.
Tressa shrugged her slim shoulders, making the oversized coat rise up to her neat ears. ‘It’s all the same to me what you do. We’d better get on. ’Tis building up for a shower. ’Tis cold enough for hail.’
The wind was whipping up to a frenzy and the clouds were lowering in the darkening sky. He hoped the old farm wasn’t far away. As they made the top of the incline he saw the deserted low buildings sheltered in a rolling valley below them.
Tressa tapped on his arm. ‘If we hurry we can make the farmhouse before the hail comes.’
He needed no more encouragement and with the squeaky wheelbarrow easier to push downhill than uphill they reached the remains of Reddacoombe Farm in a few minutes. Nettles, docks and thistles, decaying and gone to seed, stood dejectedly against the walls. Tressa told him to push the wheelbarrow into what had been the outdoor closet. Andrew noticed it was similarly furnished to the basic
convenience at Tregorlan Farm. A very small building with a slanted slate roof, at one end it had a wall-to-wall wooden board with a hole over a bucket, except this one was larger and boasted two holes. Its twin buckets had been removed but the nails and pieces of string where sheets of old newspaper had hung were still there. Communal toileting – Andrew had not expected that. He ran across the yard into the farmhouse.
‘Close the door,’ Tressa ordered. ‘Keep out the cold.’ She was sitting on one of a pair of abandoned low stools, pouring tea from a flask. ‘We might as well have an early crib.’
The door was hanging on its top hinge and he had to lift it up and push hard to close it. It blocked out much of the light and as the small square window panes were coated in dust he could hardly see Tressa in the gloom. To reach her he picked his way carefully over pools of water, bits of fallen debris and rubbish discarded by careless picnickers. As she handed him a flask cup of tea, hail suddenly beat down fiercely on the building and he was momentarily startled.
‘It won’t last long,’ Tressa declared.
Andrew got the impression she was trying to comfort him and he realised she saw him as an inferior on the farm and moor. Knowing how hard the work was and how dangerous the moor could be, he admitted he was.
‘Then we can fill the wheelbarrow with stones and take them back to the farm before the next shower,’ he said.
‘You’re learning. Want a sandwich?’
‘Yes, please. I’m always ravenously hungry when I’m out like this.’ Now he knew why she ate so much and stayed so tiny.
They listened to the hail thundering on the roof and striking the window panes as they ate spam sandwiches. Draughts from the numerous holes in the walls lifted the dust on the floor.
‘Why did the last owners leave here?’
Kilgarthen Page 26