‘What did he want to see you about?’
‘He wanted me to let him have the Pikehouse.’
‘You surely didn’t refuse him, I hope?’
‘Of course I didn’t!’ Jesse said. ‘He gave me no time to think myself out.’
‘Then you’d better go after him, hadn’t you?’
‘Laws!’ Jesse said. ‘He is a queer chap! Fancy flying off the handle like that, before I had time to say a word!’
‘Are you going after him or am I?’
‘All right, all right, I’m on my way.’
But when Jesse caught up with him, Jack refused to stop and talk.
‘You can keep your Pikehouse and be damned to you!’ he said, brushing Jesse aside. ‘All I wish is I’d never asked!’
‘Don’t be a fool,’ Jesse said. ‘It’s yours for the asking. You should know that.’
‘I ent asking! Not any more!’
‘Then what’ll you do?’ Jesse said, calling after him anxiously.
‘I’ll do what I’ve always done!’ Jack replied. ‘I’ll fend for myself!’
Jesse returned home to his wife.
‘Laws! But he is a funny chap! He threw my offer in my face.’
‘You should’ve stuck out,’ Beth said. ‘You must go to his cottage and try again.’
‘It won’t do no good. You know what he is. He looked as though he could murder me.’
‘I don’t blame him. I could do it myself.’
‘Oh, it’s bound to be my fault, I know that!’
‘What about Linn and the little boy? Didn’t you ever think of them?’
‘It’s Jack’s place to think of them. I said he could have the Pikehouse, didn’t I? If he don’t take it, that’s his fault, not mine.’
‘I’ll go and see him myself,’ Beth said. She took her coat from the back of the door. ‘It’s the only way to get things done.’
But when she went to Lilac Cottage, neither Jack nor Linn was at home. And although she went twice the next day, each time there was nobody there. She pushed a note under the door and hoped for the best.
‘I don’t know what Betony will say to you when she gets home,’ she said to Jesse afterwards. ‘Such a mess you make of things!’
Betony returned from Birmingham on Friday night. It was after ten and the family were in bed. The next morning, as soon as she heard the news about Jack, she drove to the cottage in Stoney Lane. She found him and Linn in the act of moving out. He had borrowed an old hand-cart and was loading their furniture onto it. Linn was carrying out the bedding. Robert sat on a wooden hutch. He had a tame rabbit in his arms.
Betony tried to reason with Jack. She offered him the Pikehouse and work at Cobbs. But Jack, grim-faced, would have none of it.
‘I’ve already got myself a job.’
‘On a farm?’ Betony said.
‘No. Sweeping the roads for the council at Springs.’
‘You’d sooner do that than work at Cobbs?’
‘I’d sooner do anything,’ he said, ‘than be beholden for what I do.’
‘What about a place to live?’
‘We’ve got the loan of a couple of rooms.’
‘Springs is a long way away from here.’
‘The further the better, where I’m concerned.’
He lifted the bedding Linn had brought out and piled it on top of the furniture. Betony turned and took Linn’s arm.
‘What about you, do you feel the same? Can’t I persuade you to change your minds?’
‘I reckon Dad’s right,’ Linn said. ‘It’s better for us if we fend for ourselves.’ She drew away from Betony’s grasp. ‘I must get on. There’s a lot to do.’
‘Yes. Very well. I’ll give you a hand.’
‘No, there’s no need,’ Linn said. ‘We can manage by ourselves.’
Betony watched them helplessly.
‘All this stuff on a hand-cart!’ she said. ‘You’ll kill yourselves, pushing that to Springs. Why not borrow our horse and cart?’
‘No favours, thanks,’ Jack said. He hoisted a clothes-basket onto the load. ‘I asked one favour. I’ll ask no more.’
‘You know my father meant no harm. It’s just that he’s so slow in his ways. He’s very upset that you slammed out like that. He’d far rather you had the Pikehouse than anyone else in the world. Surely you must know that?’
‘I don’t know nothing of the kind.’
‘Won’t you give him another chance?’
‘I’ve just told you. We’ve got fixed up.’
‘At least let me take Linn and Robert in the trap. It’s nearly fourteen miles to Springs.’
‘Robert can ride on the hand-cart,’ said Linn. ‘I shall be helping Dad to push.’
‘Good God, but you’re obstinate!’ Betony said. ‘You’ll kill yourselves, the pair of you!’
Neither Jack nor Linn answered her. They busied themselves, loading the cart. She saw that further argument was useless.
‘You’ll let me come over sometimes and see my godson?’
‘Yes, of course,’ Linn said; but there was no hint of warmth in her tone, nor in the brief glance of her eyes.
‘Can you tell me the address?’
‘We’re not quite sure where it is ourselves. We have to enquire when we get to Springs. The council foreman will take us there.’
‘Then I hope you’ll write to me later on.’
‘Yes, of course,’ Linn said again.
Betony turned to the little boy. She stroked the white doe rabbit he held in his arms. He looked at her with deep, dark eyes.
‘You won’t forget your auntie Betony?’ she said.
The little boy nodded, but she knew he meant ‘no’. She laughed at him and touched his face.
‘You will forget me? What a shame!’
‘No,’ he said. He shook his head.
‘I’ll be over to see you as soon as I can. As soon as your mummy sends your address. If she forgets, remind her for me. Otherwise how shall I know where to find you when the Whitsun Fair comes round again?’
Reluctantly she left them and drove away. She was filled with anger at their plight, but she knew there was nothing she could do.
‘Don’t blame me!’ her father said, meeting her when she got home.
‘I do blame you!’ Betony said. But, seeing the stricken look in his eyes, she relented at once. ‘No, I don’t blame you. ‒ I blame the world.’
The world was growing old, she said to herself, and God was beginning to feel his years. In ancient times, or so we were told, whenever disorder came to his people, God put out a hand and pointed a finger accusingly, and men were brought to their senses again. Now, it seemed, he no longer cared.
On the third Sunday in September, the vicar of Huntlip, in his sermon, touched on the chaos in the world and took his text from the Book of Judges: ‘In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.’
People liked to hear Mr Netherton preach. His eloquence stirred them and woke them up. They felt cleansed and scoured after hearing him. And his sermon this Sunday touched on matters that were near home for many of the members of his congregation. Men had lost sight of those things in life that had the most value, he said. In agriculture, in industry, indeed throughout the world of commerce, there was a breakdown in hope and trust. On the land, especially, those who lived by the sweat of their brow were filled with sullenness and resentment. Who could have faith, who had been so betrayed? Was it any wonder that the faces of men and women everywhere were empty of hope, who had looked for guidance and found it not? Our politics, our economy, our morals and our religious feeling, were in disorder throughout the country, and there was no one to point the way …
Outside the church, after the service, Betony stopped for a word with Stephen Wayman. He was there with Joanna and Aunt Doe.
‘Were you suitably chastened by the vicar’s sermon, Miss Izzard?’ he asked. ‘We none of us escaped his lash this time. Employer
s and employed, rich men and poor! ‒ We were all treated roughly here today!’
‘The only one who escaped was God himself,’ Betony said. ‘Yet I think perhaps it is he who really needs to be taken to task.’
Joanna, looking at her, was shocked. She had recently been confirmed and had entered into a pious phase. Aunt Doe merely smiled. But Stephen gave a little laugh.
‘I’m inclined to agree with you, Miss Izzard, and I can think of no one better fitted for the job!’
He caught the quickening of her glance and saw her expression alter a little. He realized how uncouth his joke had sounded. But before he could say anything more, Betony’s sister came up with her children, and she was surrounded by nieces and nephews. They were all going back to Cobbs for lunch. Stephen saw her borne away; and he swore to himself, under his breath. Why was he always so inept whenever he met her and talked to her?
Walking through the village with Janie and the children, and listening to their chatter, Betony forgot his remark. She remembered it only when she got home, and then it lodged like a burr in her mind. She looked at herself in the hall mirror as she hung up her coat and hat on the stand. Was that how he saw her? she asked herself. Officious? Admonitory? Self-satisfied? The quintessential school-marm ready to scold even God himself? She laughed at herself, because it hurt.
‘There is no king in Israel,’ she said, speaking to the face in the hall mirror. ‘Only a handful of school-marms like me!’
There was a restlessness in her these days. Janie remarked on it that afternoon.
‘Are you busy hatching something?’
‘What sort of something?’ Betony asked.
‘That’s exactly what I want to know.’
‘I was only thinking, that’s all. Perhaps it’s not God that’s set in his ways. Perhaps it’s me after all.’
‘What do you think you’re talking about?’
‘I think I’m settling into a rut. I feel it’s time I shuffled out.’
‘Then you are hatching something? I knew you were!’
‘No. No, I’m not. It’s only a thought. I’ve got no plans of any kind. At least not yet.’
But it so happened that the very next day a letter came to her by post from her old school-friend in Birmingham. Nancy was working in politics. She was chairman of the local Women’s Socialist Group. ‘You seemed interested when you were here, and I thought you might like to know that we shall soon be needing a new assistant secretary. Not much money but plenty of work. The job is yours if you care to take it.’ Betony wrote asking for details, and a fat package came by return. There was plenty in it for her to read. It occupied her mind for three days.
The weather continued very wet. At Holland Farm, as elsewhere, the harvest dragged on eternally. Although Stephen was growing less corn these days, it seemed it would never be gathered in. They worked in the fields wearing gumboots and macks, so wet was the corn as they handled it.
Betony, driving in the trap down Holland Lane, found her way blocked by a loaded waggon, its front axle lodged on the hump of ground between the deep ruts. There were three or four men gathered about the front of the waggon, and from the field higher up on the left, where barley was being cut and stooked, Aunt Doe, helping the harvesters, was calling out unheeded advice.
Stephen came to Betony and raised his cap. He wore a brown tweed jacket, much patched with leather at the elbows and cuffs, and tied round the waist with a piece of string. His gumboots and breeches were coated in mud.
‘I’m sorry to hold you up like this. Tupper’s gone to fetch a spade. You haven’t got an appointment anywhere, I hope?’
‘Luckily, no,’ Betony said. She would not have been able to turn in the lane, because of the terrible depth of the ruts. ‘The pony is wanting her manger, that’s all. Otherwise there’s no hurry.’
‘I’ll give her something to stay the pangs.’
He groped in the pocket of his shapeless jacket and gave the pony a couple of knobs of cow-cake. Rosie ate them and blew through her nose. She nuzzled his jacket in search of more, her lips exploring the knotted string. She then leant her forehead against his chest, and Stephen, stroking the smooth dappled neck, looked at Betony with a smile. His angular face, with its strong cheekbones and long jaw, looked somewhat drawn and tired, she thought. This was a worrying time for farmers. It had been the worst harvest for forty-six years. But his slow smile was cheerful enough; there was humour in his eyes when he looked at her; and when he came to the side of the trap, to stand with one hand resting on the ledge, he seemed at ease, unhurried, relaxed.
‘A dry day for a change, thank God. Overhead at least, though not underfoot.’
‘Is your harvest very much spoilt?’
‘I’m a lot luckier than some. I’ve increased my stock in the past year or two and most of this ‒’ he pointed to the heavy load of corn towering up from the rut-bound waggon ‘‒ will be fed to the cattle in the sheaf.’
‘What about the years to come?’
‘We hold tight and hope for the best.’
‘You are preparing for a siege?’
‘It’s what it amounts to, yes,’ he agreed. ‘Only a miracle can stop the recession getting worse, and I don’t hold out much hope for miracles.’
‘You don’t seem too desperately worried,’ she said. Stephen gave the matter some thought.
‘For myself and my family, no, I’m not. I paid off my mortgage a month ago. ‒ We’ve got no debts of any kind now. So I think we shall live to tell the tale. But for many others it will be worse. Some poor devils are going bust. A farmer near Kitchinghampton last week went and hanged himself in his barn. The rest of the breed are frightened men and fear makes them hard on those they employ.’
‘Your neighbour, Mr Challoner, for one.’
‘Yes,’ Stephen said, ‘I’m afraid that’s true.’
While he and Betony were talking together, Hopson, Starling, and Billy Rye were talking together on the far side of the waggon, and now, as Bob Tupper came up, bringing mattocks and spades, there was some teasing and laughter among them. Stephen went to see how the work was getting on. He returned and stood by the trap as before and his right hand, with its twisted fingers, rested on the narrow ledge.
‘Shouldn’t be long before we get it moving now. We’ll pull into that gateway lower down so that you can get past without more delay.’
‘There’s no hurry,’ Betony said. ‘I’m perfectly happy sitting here.’
As soon as these few simple words were spoken, their implication came home to her and she wished them unsaid. She felt a hotness in her face and she stared, frowning, at the pony’s ears. She knew that Stephen was looking at her. She turned her head and their glances held. With an effort she spoke again.
‘I think perhaps you’re right,’ she said. ‘It would be better after all.’
Stephen stared at her absently.
‘What would be better?’ he asked. For a moment his mind had gone quite blank. ‘Oh, you mean if we pulled off into the field?’
‘If it’s not too much trouble,’ Betony said.
‘None whatever. Certainly not. We’ve got to take a bit off this load, anyway. We’ve overdone it, I’m afraid. ‒ We’ll never get it home stacked up like this.’
The axle was got free at last. The patient horses leant to their task. The wheels began to roll in the ruts and the waggon began to move down the lane. Creaking and swaying, it was driven left through the next gateway, onto an empty field of stubble. The way was now open and Betony, raising her whip in thanks, drove past the gateway and down the lane. Stephen raised his cap to her. He watched her until she had gone from sight.
When he turned to go into the field, he found that Aunt Doe was watching him. She had come down the lane from the field above to share her flask of tea with him.
‘Was that Miss Izzard you were talking to?’
‘Yes. I’m afraid we held her up.’
‘Did she say when the school would be opening again
?’
‘No, and I didn’t think to ask.’
That evening at home, when he and Aunt Doe were alone together, he found her thoughtfully studying him.
‘Is there something on your mind?’
‘When the day comes that you think of getting married again, just say the word and I’ll be off. I’ll get a little cottage somewhere. You needn’t think I’ll be in the way.’
‘Have you someone in mind for me?’
‘Goodness, no! I leave that to you.’
‘Thanks a lot. You’re very kind. I’m glad I’m to have some say in the matter.’
Stephen was amused, and yet not amused. Had his thoughts been going that way? Well, yes, perhaps they had. But only as an exercise of the imagination. He had been a widower for three years. The thought of Gwen still brought him pain. But for some little time now, he had to admit, he had been looking at Betony Izzard as any unattached man looks at an unattached and pretty woman: with pleasure; curiosity; speculation; sometimes even with a certain longing. But marriage as a serious proposition? That was something else again. He was ten years older than she was; he was set in his ways; and she would not be a docile wife by any means. There were also his children to be considered.
And what about Betony herself? What was her attitude to him? She was aware of him certainly: her blush that day had shown him that; but how deep did her interest go? She appeared self-sufficient; self-complete. She seemed to have arranged her own life to her own perfect satisfaction.
He would have to give the matter some thought; dwell on it and give it time; see how his feelings worked themselves out. Did he want to fall in love? He, a man nearly thirty-nine? He remembered the wonderful singing pain of falling in love as a young man and he answered firmly, No, he did not. He remembered the blinding horror of loss and he felt a dreadful shrinking inside. No, not again. Still, the longing was there, and he recognized it. He would have to give it some thought. Dwell on it, and then decide.
But he was busy on the farm, getting the last of the harvest in. There were a good many things on his mind. Emma, starting her new school term, caught measles and had to be put to bed. Chris fell from a cornstack and twisted a ligament in his foot, and Hopson had jaundice for a couple of weeks, which meant more work for everyone.
The Land Endures (The Apple Tree Saga Book 4) Page 24