Christmas at Emmerdale

by Pamela Bell

  ‘It’s all this talk of war,’ her mother, Edith, had sighed when Rose told her how she kept glancing over her shoulder, expecting every time to see an almighty storm building on the horizon. ‘It feels as if we’re just waiting and waiting for something terrible to happen and we can’t do anything to stop it.’

  ‘Perhaps it won’t happen,’ Rose had said hopefully. ‘But I wouldn’t mind a storm. Thunder, lightning and a downpour … at least it would be cooler then and we could all sleep.’

  But the sky behind the hills was still hazy in the heat; it would be August the next day and there was no sign of a storm any time soon.

  ‘Not much of a show, is it?’ Near Rose, Ava Bainbridge was making no effort to lower her voice as she surveyed the display of ham and cakes with Joan Carr, Betty Porter and Mary Ann Teale. ‘When you think of the Oldroyds of High Moor … well, it just goes to how you can come down in the world, doesn’t it? Poor Maggie. It must be hard for her.’

  She clicked her tongue and shook her head in what Rose imagined was supposed to be sympathy, although Rose didn’t know why she bothered to pretend. It was common knowledge that Ava was a cat and that she loathed Maggie Oldroyd, although whether that was for some long-forgotten reason or because Maggie looked at Ava as if she were no more bothersome than a summer midge, easily slapped aside and forgotten, Rose had never known.

  ‘She doesn’t look too upset about losing her pa,’ Joan commented, and Rose followed their glances to where Maggie stood, stone-faced, at the far end of the table, dispensing tea from a battered iron pot.

  ‘Dot says she never cried a drop,’ Betty confided. She lived next door to Dot’s mother and had heard all about it. ‘Not. A. Drop. Just found him dead in his bed one morning and Dot didn’t even realise until she saw Maggie was standing there staring at the wall. “He’s dead,” that was all she said. Course, Dot offered to get Joe Sugden, but Maggie wouldn’t have it. He needs to get t’harvest in, was all she’d say. And then Dot said she’d go and get Eliza Booth to help with the laying out, but madam wasn’t having any of that either. Insisted on doing it all herself!’ Betty finished triumphantly.

  ‘She was always supposed to be such a devoted daughter too,’ agreed Ava. ‘You’d think she could bother to look a little sad.’

  Rose glanced at them in disbelief. She had always found Maggie cold and more than a little intimidating, if the truth were told, but it seemed obvious to her that Maggie’s jaw was clenched with the effort of not weeping and that the strikingly pale grey eyes were full of pain. And when Rose thought of how she would feel if she lost her beloved papa, she knew she wouldn’t want to stand in a stifling room pouring tea for a lot of nosy neighbours who had never done anything but gossip about her.

  ‘That’s typical of Maggie,’ Ava went on with a sniff. ‘She always has to be different. Although she’s not as different as she thinks she is, as Lady Miffield pointed out.’ She snickered at the memory of Maggie’s very public humiliation.

  Mary Ann leant closer. ‘Do you think she knows Ralph is back?’

  Rose didn’t want to think about Ralph, and she moved away, murmuring an excuse here and there as she threaded through the crowd. The news that Lord Miffield’s heir had returned had sped around the village and she had been thrilled to be invited to tea at Miffield Hall with her mother a few days after his arrival. Rose couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t been in love with Ralph. Who could not be? He was charming, kind and ridiculously handsome and she had been bitterly disappointed when she had learnt that he was in love with Maggie Oldroyd of all people.

  Rose couldn’t understand it. Maggie wasn’t even pretty! She was aloof and fierce-looking with intelligent, eerily pale eyes. Wolf eyes, Rose’s brother, John, had described them once and even though Rose had never seen a wolf, she somehow knew what he had meant. But Ralph wasn’t a wolf. He was a golden figure, a hero, like a knight from a story book and his inexplicable preference for Maggie had cut Rose to the quick.

  When Ralph had gone away, life in Beckindale had been horribly dull. It wasn’t that she had seen that much of him before, Rose could admit to herself, but just the chance that she might encounter him unexpectedly or be invited to Miffield Hall when he was there had been enough to brighten her days.

  And if Ralph was back, it must surely be that his strange infatuation with Maggie was out of his system. He would be ready to settle down, Rose told herself, and why shouldn’t it be with her? She knew without vanity that she was very pretty. And she wasn’t a horrible person, whatever her younger brother, Arthur, might say. The Haywoods might not have a title but they were a good family, so it wasn’t as if she were completely ineligible, like Maggie.

  Rose had dressed carefully for the tea, in a pleated skirt and high-necked blouse with long sleeves and a lacy panel down the front. It was terribly hot, of course, but it made her look like a young lady instead of the schoolgirl she had been before Ralph went away. She had only been sixteen then. She wanted Ralph to see that she had grown up.

  But though Ralph had been charming and chatty, not even Rose could convince herself that he had looked deep into her eyes or pressed her fingers meaningfully. He had treated her just the way he had always used to, like a fond older brother.

  It had been awfully disappointing.

  Carrying her cup and saucer, Rose headed towards her mother who was trying to engage Maggie Sugden in conversation. She would say everything that was proper to Maggie and then perhaps they could leave.

  She moved through the press of people with difficulty, catching snatches of conversation as she went. Farmers with broad, weather-beaten faces, uncomfortable in their stiff dark suits, fidgeted, anxious to get back to haymaking. Their wives gossiped about their children and their neighbours and wondered if Ralph Verney had come home to announce his engagement, as rumour had it, and if so, how Maggie Sugden would react.

  Why was Ralph’s name always linked with Maggie’s, Rose wondered disconsolately.

  Her father was nose to nose with Mr Bates, discussing the latest news that had been displayed in the newsagent’s window that morning.

  ‘The government are taking things seriously at last, Mr Haywood. My boy came back from Bradford and said all the excursion trains for the Bank Holiday had been cancelled.’

  ‘Not before time,’ Charles Haywood said, fingering his pocket watch. ‘With Germany under martial law and Russia mobilising, I fear war can no longer be avoided.’

  ‘But will England join in?’

  ‘We must, sir, we must!’ Charles exclaimed. ‘It is a question of honour!’

  Rose was as tired of hearing about the prospect of war as she was about Ralph and Maggie. She had no idea why England should get involved in a dispute over Serbia and she had stopped asking, or her father would explain in tedious detail. All she knew was that until Germany and Russia had settled their differences, she was stuck in Beckindale and short of Ralph Verney falling miraculously in love with her, nothing was going to change.

  ‘Ah, there you are, Rose,’ Edith Haywood said with a trace of relief as she reached them. Evidently the conversation with Maggie had been a laboured one. ‘I was just saying how tired we are of this heat.’

  ‘And tired of talking about it,’ said Rose crossly and was surprised and even a little gratified to see a fleeting smile cross Maggie’s strange grey eyes.

  What was it about Maggie that Ralph found so fascinating? Rose wondered anew. She wasn’t beautiful, or even pretty. Her nose was big, her mouth too wide. Her jaw was too angular, her brows too bold, her expression cool. She held herself very erect, with her chin tilted at a defiant angle that seemed to put the rest of the world at a distance.

  What was it like for such a woman to be married to Joe Sugden? Rose could see him across the room, his beefy face a dull red, sweating profusely in his black suit and waistcoat. He was drinking beer in a surly fashion. The other farmers might be heading back to the fields where their farmhands would be making the hay they all
depended on in winter, but it was clear that Joe would be going nowhere. If he felt the disapproving glances, he gave no sign of it, unless to drink more heavily.

  ‘Would you like some more tea, Rose?’ Maggie asked, and Rose flushed, sure that Maggie had been able to tell exactly what she was thinking.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, handing Maggie her cup and saucer. ‘That would be …’ She broke off as she saw Maggie freeze, her eyes widening, and turned to follow her gaze.

  As if pulled by an invisible string, all the other heads in the room turned too. The babble of conversation petered into a hush as they realised who was standing in the doorway: Ralph Verney, impeccably dressed in a tailored black suit and black tie, his hat in his hand. He held himself with an aristocrat’s unconscious assurance and looked ridiculously out of place in the dingy parlour.

  Rose’s heart gave a little somersault at the sight of him, so tall, so glamorous, and her mouth curved into a smile before she realised that he wasn’t looking at her at all. His eyes were fixed on Maggie and hers on his. There might have been just the two of them in the room. The air between them pulsed and crackled in the heat and Rose caught her breath. It was as if something dangerous had entered the room, zipping precariously through the hot air.

  This wasn’t the sweet, romantic love Rose had dreamed of. It was raw and powerful, and her mouth tightened at the painful pinch of envy.

  The silence jangled. Rose could see people looking at each other, wondering if someone should say something, but then it was too late.

  Joe Sugden was pushing his way through the crowd, his tankard still clutched in his meaty fist. He was very drunk, and the funeral guests silently made way for him as he staggered towards the doorway where Ralph still stood.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded.

  Apparently unmoved by Joe’s aggression, Ralph regarded him with only the faintest expression of distaste. ‘I have come to offer my condolences,’ he said in his deceptively languid cut-glass tones.

  Joe’s head was lowered like a bull’s, his eyes red and mean. ‘You’re not welcome here, Verney.’

  ‘You might remember that you only hold the lease of Emmerdale Farm,’ Ralph said very softly. ‘This farm belongs to my family, and I can go where I please.’

  The shock of seeing Ralph seemed to have frozen Maggie into place. Rose took the cup and saucer from her before she dropped it, but she doubted that Maggie noticed as she jerked into belated action.

  As Maggie stepped forward and laid a hand on Joe’s arm, Rose couldn’t help thinking it must be like trying to control a vicious dog, straining at the leash and trembling with suppressed violence.

  ‘It was kind of you to come, Mr Verney,’ Maggie said in a surprisingly cool voice.

  ‘I am very sorry about your father, Maggie,’ said Ralph. ‘He was a fine man.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She glanced at Joe. ‘I hope you will forgive Joe his outburst. It has been a difficult time – with my father dying,’ she added quickly as Joe stirred ominously.

  ‘I quite understand.’ Ralph inclined his head. ‘I just wanted you to know that I have been thinking of you.’ His gaze swept the room briefly. Rose felt it pass over her face like a searchlight and although she doubted he had even registered her presence, she wished fervently that she hadn’t been there.

  ‘I must go,’ he said formally as his eyes returned to Maggie. ‘My sincere condolences for your loss.’

  And with that he turned and left.

  The silence in the parlour was broken by the clang and clatter of Joe’s tankard being flung into the fireplace and his inarticulate cry of rage as he shook Maggie’s hand off his arm.

  ‘Leave me alone!’ he snarled and headed out after Ralph.

  Chapter Three

  Maggie hurried after her husband into the hallway. ‘Joe, don’t!’ she said in an urgent undertone.

  ‘Don’t what? Don’t tear your nancy lover-boy apart with my bare hands? Don’t shove his condolences down his bloody throat?’

  ‘Don’t lose the farm,’ she said.

  Joe stood for a moment, his hot eyes on her face, his head swinging slowly from side to side as her words sunk in. His face twisted and he wrenched at his collar. ‘I’m going to take off this bloody suit,’ he said.

  Maggie stood in the dim hallway, her hands folded over her stomach, making herself breathe – in, out – very carefully. She could hear Joe stomping up the stairs, the violent rattle of the latch on the bedroom door, thuds as first one boot and then another were thrown across the room, and then at last the creak of bedsprings that told her he had flung himself onto the bed.

  In the parlour, a low hum of whispered conversations had broken out. Well, that little scene had given the village plenty to gossip about, Maggie thought bitterly. A vicious headache was tightening around her skull. She wanted nothing more than to run away, up to the moor, to lie in the heather and look at the sky and beat down the grief and the pain and the humiliation that surged inside her.

  But only cowards ran away.

  Lifting her chin, Maggie went back into the parlour where the whispers abruptly ceased. She knew that she looked cold and proud but she couldn’t relax her expression. If she let herself go, she would unravel into a hysterical mess of screaming and tears and there was no way her pride would let her do that. ‘I must apologise,’ she began stiffly, but the vicar had evidently decided to take charge of the situation.

  ‘My dear Mrs Sugden, there is no need to apologise. It is, as you said, a most difficult time for you both. And now we must go too.’ Charles Haywood swept the room with a smiling glance that nonetheless held all the authority of his calling. ‘And, I am sure everyone here has work to do. You men will be anxious to be back at the harvest.’

  There were murmurs of agreement and some relief.

  ‘You go, too, Dot,’ said Maggie. ‘I’ll clear up here.’

  Dot needed no second telling and at last Maggie was left alone.

  She let Toby out of the barn where he had been penned during the funeral and he frisked around her as she walked back across the dusty farmyard. A cloud of flies swarmed over the muck heap and in the field behind the byre, one of the milking cows let out a mournful bellow.

  Tying her apron around her waist, Maggie began listlessly tidying the parlour. She put any leftover pieces of ham and cake in the cool larder and gathered up the discarded cups and saucers. She moved sluggishly, barely aware of what she was doing, until a faint pattering caught her attention. A butterfly that must have found its way into the room through the window was beating its wings frantically against the glass.

  Maggie put down the plates she was holding. Gently she cupped her hands around the butterfly, admiring its elegantly patterned wings.

  ‘Off you go,’ she said to it as she shook it from her fingers outside the window and watched it flutter away.

  Lucky butterfly.

  By the time Joe woke up, Maggie had drawn water from the well, boiled it in a great pot on the range and washed and dried all the crockery.

  ‘Christ, my head’s splitting,’ said Joe, stumbling down the last step into the kitchen as Maggie was putting away the last of the cups in the pine dresser that had belonged to Joe’s grandmother. Maggie often wondered what kind of life she had led. Emmerdale Farm had been thriving in those days.

  Joe didn’t comment on the fact that Maggie had cleared everything away, but there was nothing surprising about that. Gertie, the cook at High Moor, would have known what to say. What d’you expect from a pig but a grunt?

  ‘I’m going t’pub.’

  Maggie said nothing. What was there to say, after all? She just nodded an acknowledgment as she untied her apron and hung it on the hook by the range.

  ‘Come, Toby,’ she said when Joe had disappeared unsteadily down the track. ‘Let’s go for a walk.’

  Turning the opposite way to her husband, Maggie headed for the moorland behind the farm. It was a steady climb and she had to hoist up her
skirts to jump over the tussocky grass in places while Toby snuffled into rabbit holes, startling grouse that burst out of the bracken with their clattering cry and the skylarks that darted over the heather. Somewhere she could hear the mewing call of a buzzard and when she looked up, she saw it circling lazily overhead.

  The heat had faded from the sky, but it was still warm and Maggie was soon sweating in her funeral blouse and dark, heavy skirt. Driven upwards by a determination not to let her swirling emotions get the better of her, she refused to stop until she reached a boulder high above Beckindale. Worn smooth by aeons of wind and rain, the rock was still warm from the sun. Toby flopped panting into its shade. Maggie sat, with her knees drawn up, and let herself think and feel at last.

  Three days ago, her father had been alive. He had been ill and unsteady, but he had been there, and then she went to wake him that morning, and he was gone. Maggie had known she would grieve, but not how his absence would clang in the silence, beating at her until she wanted to cover her ears.

  She was glad that he was at peace, glad that he no longer had to force himself to the gate to see High Moor, to yearn for home and grope through the confusion to realise what she was telling him about where he was, and why, glad that he no longer had to remember the pain of Andrew’s death afresh every time. But the loneliness was a fist around her heart, squeezing and squeezing until she could hardly breathe with the pain of it.

  Untethered by grief, Maggie had retreated into a cocoon of numbness, only fuzzily connected to the world around her. She had been going unthinkingly through the motions: sending for the doctor, for the vicar. Laying out her father’s body, caring for him one last time. Eyebrows had been raised when she insisted on attending the burial, of course. The women were supposed to leave that to their menfolk, but Maggie couldn’t abandon her father to Joe. She had accompanied him right to the end, to bear witness and watch dry-eyed as his coffin was lowered into the ground.