‘Hello, Dad,’ she said to his crouched-over figure. ‘What are you looking for?’
‘A tiny little spanner, no bigger than a woman’s nail file. Seen it lying about, have ’ee? I’ve given the Spyker a thorough overhaul now I’ve had her out a bit and there’s a difficult nut underneath her chassis.’
Rebecca looked in the usual places for small items of lost property. On the mantelpiece, in the drawer of the kitchen table, in an old tea caddy on the windowsill by the sink.
‘No luck?’ Trease said from behind her.
‘Sorry,’ she said, turning round.
‘What the hell!’
‘What’s the matter?’ Rebecca cried as her father lunged at her.
‘What’s that you’ve got on your face?’
‘It’s just a bit of make-up, a little powder and a smear of lipstick, that’s all.’
‘That’s all! Made up like a tart and you say that’s all? Just what are you trying to do to impress Major Fiennes into staying on here? Dress up like a tart and give him what every man wants?’ Trease was shaking with rage. He pushed Rebecca until her back was against a wall and stood close in front of her.
‘It’s only a little bit of make-up, Dad,’ she appealed to him. ‘For goodness sake, calm down. Mrs Fiennes gave me some cosmetics and I’m simply trying them out.’
‘That women’s a whore, she’s got it written all over her face. Course she would give you powder and paint. She wants to turn you into what she is and you, my daughter, are willing to let her. What will the other women in the creek think? They don’t plaster muck on their faces.’
Trease’s hand shot out and grasped Rebecca by the throat. ‘You’re turning out like your mother! Doing yourself up in fine clothes and making eyes at any man who comes along!’
‘Dad, stop it!’ Rebecca cried out fearfully. ‘Let me go, you’re hurting me.’
‘Hurting you? I haven’t started yet.’
Trease drew back his hand and smacked Rebecca heavily across the face. She screamed and he dragged her across to the kitchen sink where his clothes were soaking and dashing his hand into the soapy water he splashed some over Rebecca’s face. She screamed and struggled but her father wouldn’t stop, shouting obscenities at her, rubbing the water into her face, hurting her. Soap got into her eyes, she breathed it in through her nose, she tasted it on her tongue, she choked and gagged and tried to catch her breath.
She was dragged away from the sink and Trease grabbed a towel and thrust it against her face. ‘I’ll rub this paint off you!’ he shouted wildly. ‘I’ll have no whore under my roof. You either change your ways or out you go like that bitch, your mother!’
Rebecca pleaded with him to stop but Trease started to tear the clothes off her body. ‘You’ll wear your own clothes from now on or I’ll take my belt to you!’
Trease was suddenly yanked away from Rebecca and she pulled the tatters of her dress up to cover herself. Shaking and crying, she watched Joe manhandle her father outside the cottage. Jenny Jenkins came in and put her ample arms round her. Rebecca clung to her while Trease and Joe shouted at each other outside.
‘What happened, my dear?’ Jenny said gently, smoothing Rebecca’s hair away from her face and holding her close. ‘We could hear you screaming and your father shouting at you all round the creek.’
‘He… he just went mad… because I put some lipstick on.’ She buried her face against Jenny’s shoulder, sobbing. ‘He said I’m like my mother.’
‘Never mind, child. You’re safe now.’ Jenny reached for a cardigan hanging on a chair and put it round Rebecca’s shoulders. She had seen the bruises and scratches on Rebecca’s face and body and was furious.
The shouting outside went on and Rebecca pushed herself away from Jenny. ‘What are they doing out there? Why don’t they stop?’
The other women from the creek came into Allen Cottage and stared in disbelief at what they saw.
‘You stay here with us, Becca,’ Lilian Grubb said soothingly. ‘Let the men slog it out between them.’
‘You mean they’re fighting?’ Rebecca wailed. ‘Joe and my father are fighting?’
‘It’s been coming for years,’ Ira Jenkins said, making for the chair where Rebecca had put her old clothes. ‘Joe will teach your father he can’t treat you like this. Come and put your own clothes on.’
Rebecca heard her father howling in pain and, despite the women’s attempts to stop her, she went hurtling out of the cottage. Trease was getting to his feet and Joe was about to thump him again.
‘Stop it!’ Rebecca shouted at them, but to no avail. Years of dislike and brooding feelings had overflowed into hatred and no one was going to stop them now.
The men watching gasped at the sight of Rebecca, battered and bruised, in ripped clothes.
‘Beat the lights out of un, Joe,’ Jossy Jenkins shouted. The respect he had for Rebecca and the years of disapproval he’d felt at her father’s treatment of her made him, like the other men, want the outcome of the fight to be in Joe Carlyon’s favour.
‘Stop them!’ But Rebecca’s appeals fell on equally deaf ears.
She saw the Major coming down the hill and ran as fast as she could to him.
Alex was shocked by her appearance. He caught her arms and tried to get her to calm down. ‘What’s going on? I came down to see what the shouting was all about. Who did this to you, Becca?’
‘You’ve got to stop them, Major,’ she cried, trying to wrench herself away from him. ‘Tell them to stop, they’ll listen to you.’
Alex looked into her anguished eyes and said clearly, ‘Who hurt you, Becca? Who did this to you? Your father?’
Tears trickled afresh down over her face. She nodded wildly and tried to force Alex towards the lighting men. He pulled the cardigan round her to cover her bare skin and held her against him, tightly, so she couldn’t move.
‘It’s better to let them fight it out,’ he said grimly over her head, looking hard at Trease. There was no doubt who he wanted to win.
Rebecca managed to turn in his arms but he kept his hold on her and she watched in horror as Joe and Trease hammered their fists into each other. There was blood on their faces and hands, their shirts were torn, their clothes dirty from contact with the ground. Trease took a blow in the stomach and exhaled a loud breath, badly winded. ‘Please, do something,’ Rebecca whimpered.
‘Stopping them now wouldn’t serve any purpose,’ Alex said quietly. He shook his head at the women who were motioning to him to let Rebecca come to them. He knew she would run straight into the fight and probably get hurt again.
The fight ended when Trease was laid out, semi-conscious, on the ground and Joe stood over him, panting, his fists curled ready to start again if need be.
Rebecca gulped back a sob. It was ironic that the man she had put the make-up on for had been the one to beat her father for being cruel to her over it.
Alex relaxed his grip and held her gently. Joe came to her.
‘I’m sorry, Becca. It had to be done.’
She swiped his hand away, the one he was going to put on her shoulder in a comforting gesture. ‘Why did you have to beat him like that? Because the rest of you decided it was right? It wasn’t what I wanted. None of you cared about what I wanted.’
‘Dear God,’ a soft voice breathed from behind the gathering. ‘Rebecca, my dear, what’s happened to you? Alex, what’s going on?’
‘Let me go,’ Rebecca hissed at Alex and when he did she turned and faced him angrily. ‘You could have stopped the fight. Why didn’t you? Is it because you like fighting, to see men at war? That was all over years ago and it’s time you learnt it. I don’t care what you do with the creek or with Trevallion. I’m sick of worrying about it all.’
She ran straight to Abigail who, after giving the others a cold hard stare, led her away.
‘What was that all about?’ Abigail asked gently as she bathed Rebecca’s scratches and bruises. She’d helped Rebecca out of the ripped cloth
es, into her nightdress and into her bed in the gatehouse. Loveday had been ordered to bring hot sweet tea and Rebecca stared into the steaming cup.
‘I’ll tell you one thing, Mrs Fiennes,’ she said bitterly, the attack by her father, the fight, her failed appeal to Alex to stop it and Joe ignoring her milling feverishly round in her brain. ‘I think I could quite easily leave Kennick Creek and never come back.’
Chapter 13
Miles Trevallion stood at the end of Alex’s bed, the glow from the moon behind him making him stand out eerily in the darkness. Alex stared at him, closed his eyes, opened them again and found his second cousin was still there looking at him from huge, dark pain-filled eyes.
‘Miles,’ Alex whispered, ‘what are you doing here?’
‘I don’t want you to have Trevallion.’ Miles Trevallion’s voice echoed like the boom from a cannon through the dead of night.
‘But the others you mentioned in your will all died too, in the war, none of them came back. I’m your next of kin, that’s how the property came to me.’
‘I want the people of the creek to have Trevallion, not you,’ Miles said accusingly. He came closer, up to the top of the bed where Alex was sitting in just his pyjama bottoms, his body rigid with his knees drawn up.
‘You can walk,’ Alex gasped, having just realised that Miles had his two legs. ‘You can talk,’ he added, seeing that Miles could hold his head upright, that there was no drooping mouth constantly open and dribbling, no rolling of unfocused eyes, that Miles was perfectly sensible.
Miles’s eyes burned into his. ‘I brought my men back home, I want them to have the creek, Trevallion, the whole estate. It’s not yours, Alex. It doesn’t belong to you. It never will.’
‘I haven’t made any plans for the estate, Miles,’ Alex said meekly, wiping at the sweat on his brow. ‘I only came down here to settle your affairs, to see what can be done for the best.’
Miles pointed a finger. ‘You didn’t bring your men back with you, Alex.’
‘I didn’t want them to die, Miles,’ Alex protested. ‘I had to follow orders. I wanted to die with them. I didn’t want to come back alone. I didn’t, I swear.’
Miles stabbed his finger in Alex’s chest. It hurt, it burned. ‘You should have brought them home. I did. I brought mine home.’
The finger was lifted and pushed into Alex’s forehead. It drove a hole between his eyes, hot and burning, boring into his skull.
‘No! No! I didn’t want to leave them!’
Arms were put round him and Alex fought them off, wildly, madly. Someone cried out. There was a voice different to Miles’s and he came to with a jolt.
‘Major, please, you’re hurting me.’
‘What? Who is it? Oh, Becca, is that you?’
‘Let him go, Rebecca,’ came Abigail’s scathing voice. ‘He’s had a nightmare, that’s all. Go back to bed.’
Alex clung to the warm body close to his, soft and smooth in flimsy clothes. In mortal fear he held on to his source of comfort. The lantern was lit and he hid his face in the softness, the gentle contours, his eyes unable to stand the light. A soothing hand stroked his hair.
‘Don’t leave me,’ Alex moaned into the silky dressing gown.
Abigail put the lantern down and roughly pulled Alex’s head away from Rebecca’s body. ‘Oh, just look at him. He’s been at the drink again and woken up the whole household. I’ll go and tell Stephen not to worry, although he’s quite used to his uncle disgracing himself in this way. I’ve got a beastly headache now, thanks to him. Are you coming, Rebecca?’
Alex held her tighter and whispered, ‘Please stay.’
Rebecca could tell he hadn’t been drinking and she could feel his fear as he clung to her. She shook her head at Abigail.
‘Please yourself, but I think it’s pathetic. When I’ve looked in on Stephen I’m going to take a sleeping pill. You can stay up all night with him for all I care.’
Abigail swept out of the room, closing the door behind her with a bang.
Alex stayed as he was, his legs on the bed, his upper body twined round Rebecca’s. She reached past him and opened the top drawer of a chest of drawers, took out a handkerchief and wiped the sweat from his neck and the side of his face. When his breathing had become regular and the fear had almost gone, he raised himself and looked at Rebecca in the lantern light.
‘That’s the second time you’ve come to my rescue. I’m grateful, Becca.’
Rebecca’s dressing gown, one given to her by Abigail to sit up in bed in after her ordeal with her father that afternoon, was damp where his head had pressed into it. It was a hot night but she felt cold and shivered.
‘Were you dreaming?’ she asked tightly. She hadn’t forgiven him yet for not stopping the fight between Joe and her father.
Alex took the handkerchief and wiped his neck and face. ‘Yes. It was about Miles Trevallion. He was standing there.’ He pointed to the end of the bed. ‘He came to me and bored a hole right through my head. I could feel my brains spilling out over the bed.’
Rebecca shuddered, more at the distress in his voice than because she was feeling cold. She couldn’t go on feeling hard-hearted towards him. ‘That must have been terrible for you.’
‘You’re cold…’ Alex lifted the top bedcover. ‘Here, wrap this round you. Stay and talk to me for a while. I’m sorry to ask but I don’t want to be alone. Please, Becca, Abigail won’t know, she sleeps heavily for hours when she takes those pills.’
Rebecca looked at him closely. She’d been about to return to her own room. It wouldn’t be prudent to stay here alone with the Major but Mrs Fiennes would soon be asleep and he wasn’t in a fit state to be amorous; if he did try anything, he’d get the lantern across his head. Rebecca decided it was a small risk to take, and at that moment she also needed someone to talk to and keep her mind off her worries. Abigail had been very kind after the fight, but she had used the opportunity to berate men in general and talk about some of her own disastrous love affairs. She had been oblivious of Rebecca’s need to be alone, she didn’t realise that Rebecca would sit up all night reliving the shame and humiliation her father had subjected her to, to wonder what to say to him when she saw him next, to worry that he would go on a drinking binge.
Rebecca wrapped the bedcover round her shoulders and sat on the end of Alex’s small single bed.
‘Sometimes I think I’ll go mad,’ Alex whispered. ‘I’m sorry about today, sorry I upset you. I should have stopped the fight for your sake.’
‘I’m sorry about what I said to you,’ she whispered back. ‘I didn’t mean it. I was just lashing out.’
‘People say a lot of things they don’t mean in the heat of the moment. I wonder what Miles meant, why he said—’
‘It was just a dream,’ Rebecca gently reminded him.
Alex carried on talking as if he hadn’t heard her, as if Miles Trevallion was actually alive with all his limbs and faculties and had spoken in accusation against him ‘He said he didn’t want me to have Trevallion. That he’d brought his men home and he wanted them to have it. He must have meant Joe Carlyon and your father. He said I should have brought my men home too.’ Alex’s eyes filled with tears and Rebecca moved closer and reached out to him. He pulled her to him and she was holding him again. ‘I wanted to bring them home, and not just two of them, all of them, Georgie Gilbert, Jimmy Clark, and Cyril Dawkins and the others. So many times I’ve wished I’d died with them. Oh God, Becca, what am I going to do?’
He gripped a handful of her hair and wept. Rebecca cried too, silently. She cried for those who had died in the war, for the pain of those who’d come back, of the once proud and happy man who had beaten her in a rage as if he hated her, for her loneliness and uncertain future. And she cried for the man she held in her arms, who had no hopes or dreams, only shame, guilt and despair, and who didn’t want to live at all.
‘Are you all right?’ Alex said softly when their tears were spent and dried.
&nb
sp; ‘Yes, are you?’
‘I feel better now, thanks to you.’
Rebecca let him go and shifted herself so they were sitting closely side by side.
‘What sort of man was Georgie Gilbert?’ she asked. ‘Was he the one you named the Kellow baby after?’
She looked at his face and found he was softly smiling. ‘Georgie was a human tank. A very big man with a big sense of humour, rather naughty humour at times. I wouldn’t like you to have heard the sort of things he used to say, but then it wasn’t meant for a woman’s ears. If there was a wall in front of him and he couldn’t go round it, he’d walk right through it. He loved life in the regiment and would have fought to the last drop of blood to save the lives of the rest of us. I’d promised him a job at the end of the war or when he chose to leave the army. I wanted to have him near me. I miss him badly.’
‘He sounds like a loyal friend.’
‘He was,’ Alex said.
And I’m sure all the others were too.’
‘Yes.’
‘You asked me what you could do, Major. You could stop mourning the death of your men and do something positive, something worthwhile to make them proud of you. They wouldn’t like to see you like this, would they?’
‘No, I suppose not. Call me Alex, seems silly to be calling me Major. You’re my friend, Becca.’
‘Very well, I’ll call you Alex, but there’s no “I suppose not” about it. Georgie Gilbert used to walk through walls, remember. He wouldn’t have allowed anything to flatten him.’
‘I take your point,’ Alex said huskily. ‘Got any more suggestions?’
‘Yes, you could get on with sorting out Captain Miles’s affairs and decide what to do with the estate. There’s a lot of people on tenterhooks wondering about their future.’
‘You included?’ He gently touched the ugly bruise left on her cheek by her father’s hand. ‘You didn’t mean what you said about wanting to leave and never coming back, did you, Becca? Abigail was very angry on your behalf and told me what you’d said. She said she’d never forgive me if she lost you because of something I did, or rather didn’t do.’
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