Rosemary Aitken (14 page)

Peter smiled at her as the wagon moved along. ‘Done something to his ankle, it’s gone an awful shape – they nearly brought him here into Penzance, so he could go up to the hospital and have one of they clever photographs they do these days of bones, “exerays” or something, and have that plaster of Paris on his leg. But they didn’t do it – it would have cost no end, and anyway the doctor didn’t think that he could stand the trip.’

‘My lord!’ Effie whispered. ‘That’s never just his ankle. How didn’t you say?’

‘They think that something must have hit him on the head. Nobody realized it at first, ’cause he seemed as right as rain, but a little later on he passed out cold and hasn’t come around. Or hadn’t, when I left, half an hour ago.’

‘He’s gone unconscious?’ Effie was alarmed. ‘Going unconscious’ was a famous danger sign.

Peter nodded. ‘Mind, they’re clever nowadays, they can do all sorts. This doctor says he’s seen this kind of thing before and not to worry, old ways are just as good. Most likely your Pa will come out of this and be as right as ninepence in the end – although it might be weeks before he’s fit to work.’

Effie stared at him. ‘But what’s he going to live on, if he can’t go to work? And how are we ever going to pay the doctor’s fee?’

It was Crowdie who answered. ‘Don’t you fret ’bout that, my handsome. Time was it would have been the workhouse for him, or someone’s charity. But that’s all altered now. There’s that new Act of Parliament they passed last year has just come into force – they take fourpence weekly from your wage packet to what they call the “stamp” and if you’re sick or injured you still get a bit of pay. Ten bob for the first month or two, I believe it is.’ He gave her a sideways grin. ‘And they’ll pay the doctor for a wage-earner. You could almost say that he’d been lucky there. It was all in the papers. You hadn’t heard of it?’

She shook her head. ‘I haven’t seen Pa for a week or two and he wouldn’t worry me about it anyway – any more than Uncle Joe would do.’ She rarely talked to Joe at all, she thought, except about the weather and who’s dying and who’s dead. ‘But I’m glad you told me; it’s like a miracle.’

Peter gave her arm a little nudge. ‘I’m surprised your family never mentioned it. There was quite a stir about it down the mine and the owners had to hold a meeting to explain. I know your father wasn’t keen, for one – people already paid into the Friendly fund, he said, and this will mean that they were paying twice.’

Effie had to swallow hard when she heard this. ‘No doubt he’s changed his mind by now. A bit of money coming in will be a blessing to us all, and no mistake. Pay his rent and have a doctor come for free— Whoops!’ She broke off as they hit a pothole in the road.

They had left the outskirts of the town by now and were lurching along the narrow country lanes. Crowdie was doing his best to urge the horse, of course, and the heavy cart was bouncing like a light-weight gig.

Effie did not talk much after that. She found she was obliged to clasp her bonnet with one hand to save it falling off and, with the other, to hold herself onto the narrow seat. Peter was doing something similar and there was an awkward moment when their fingers met.

She felt herself turn scarlet and snatched her hand away. Peter looked embarrassed and a silence fell. Indeed, if Crowdie had not kept up a cheerful commentary – he knew every wood and farm and village that they passed along the way – there would have been no more conversation until they reached the house.

Effie was so pleased to get there and so eager to get down that she almost forgot to thank her two companions for their help. But as Peter helped her to the ground, she recalled herself enough to give him a smile of gratitude.

‘God bless the pair of you,’ she murmured, turning at the door. ‘Without you I don’t know what I should have done. It would have taken simply hours getting home.’

Crowdie nodded at her. ‘Don’t give it no more thought, my handsome! Only wish there was more that we could do. But don’t you hover there and chat to us – you go and see your father. He’ll be wanting you.’

Aunt Madge was in the kitchen, her face as pale as chalk. ‘You’re here then, child? He has been asking for you in his sleep. Doctor’s still with him, but he says to send you up. We’ve put him in our room for the time – we’ll have to sleep down in the front room chairs, meanwhile.’

Effie nodded. The best front room was hardly ever used, in any case, ’cepting for Christmastime and funerals. She hurried up and found her father lying in Aunt Madge’s bed, whiter than the sheets. The doctor was still doing something to his leg but indicated a stool where she could sit. There was a funny, strong carbolic smell about the room.

She sat down and took her father’s hand between her own. It felt as cold as ice, and it seemed a lifetime before he stirred at last.

Alex was in St Clare Street with his notebook out, interviewing an angry farmer about a stolen pig.

‘Brought it in ’ere, I did, tied up on my cart – going to sell ’un, see.’ He gestured to an ancient wagon standing in the road, drawn by an equally decrepit-looking horse. A large open crate was lying on the cart, upturned but still containing the remains of a nest of trodden straw, while a short length of broken rope was all the witness that remained of the former occupant. ‘But when I got here, the beggar wasn’t ’ere, and while I was round the corner asking questions in the street, he must have come round ’ere and pinched it off the cart.’

Alex licked his pencil. ‘Private arrangement, was it? It isn’t market day.’

The man looked shifty. ‘Didn’t put ’un through the market. Met a fellow here on market-day, told me he had a little smallholding out towards Newbridge, and was looking for a farrow sow. Well, o’ course, I said I had one home, and he promised me a decent price for it.’

‘The name of this gentleman?’ Alex felt every inch the constable.

The farmer pushed his cap back on his head and ran his fingers through his thinning hair. ‘Well, that’s the trouble, see. I aren’t exactly sure. He wrote it down – I’m damty sure he did – but I’m no real hand at ciphering, and anyhow I can’t remember where I put the paper to.’

Alex tried to keep his face composed. ‘And I suppose, you don’t have an address?’

The complainant shook his head. ‘Well, I didn’t need it, see. I arranged to meet him on this corner here, ten o’clock this morning, but he never came. Leastways, if he did, he left before I came – I was a minute or two late meself, cause I couldn’t get the damty creature in the cart. Well, I know a woman keeps that corner shop and I went to ask her if she’d seen him anywhere, but of course she hadn’t – and blow me down for sixpence, when I got back ’ere again the damty rope was broke in two and the damty pig was gone. Beggar must have stole it while my back was turned.’

Alex stifled a wild desire to laugh. ‘This was a valuable animal?’ he enquired with gravity.

An energetic nod. ‘I should damty think so! She was in farrow too . . . Worth every penny of the three pound ten that I was asking for.’

‘So when . . .?’ Alex was saying when a cart bowled up the road. He broke off and glanced towards it. ‘Is this your fellow now?’

The farmer shook a fierce, indignant head. ‘Don’t know much, do ’ee?! Course that isn’t him. That there’s Crowdie from out Penvarris way – should have thought that anybody could have told you that – and he’s got Peter Kellow and that Pengelly girl up there with him, by the look of it. I told you, this blighter that has took my pig comes from out Newbridge – or at least that’s what he said. If you can trace him, I’m sure you’ll find my sow! Here, are you listening to anything I say?’

‘Of course I’m listening,’ Alex said, untruthfully. In fact his attention was mostly on the cart. He had only glimpsed it, but the farmer was quite right. It was clearly Effie on the cart. Alex would have known her anywhere.

But what was Effie doing at this time of day? And who was that Peter Kellow she was snuggling up against, and smiling at in that familiar way? It couldn’t be her cousin – the surname wasn’t right, and she had assured him that she had no other family in Cornwall any more. Besides, the way that boy was making eyes at her, he did not look the least bit like a relative!

‘What the blazes is going on?’ he heard the farmer say. ‘What on earth is she doing there with him? He’s got no right to have her!’

It was so exactly what Alex had been thinking himself that he found himself staring at the farmer stupidly. ‘You think so?’

‘Course I damty think so,’ the man said angrily. ‘Don’t you think I recognize my own damty pig? Well don’t just stand there looking, aren’t you going to take him in?’ He gestured down the street.

Alex followed the direction of the hand and saw what he had not noticed up to now – he had been so busy thinking about Effie and the cart that he had not seen the little drama further up the street. An aged gentleman was standing by his gate, cursing and hopping angrily from foot to foot, while gesticulating at Alex with his stick, and a younger fellow – possibly his son – was putting his whole weight against a rope, attempting to tow back out onto the street a fat, reluctant and extremely ugly pig.

‘You tell them, Constable!’ the farmer urged, following Alex as he strode towards the scene. ‘Look at him scraping her along the path – shouldn’t be treating a prize sow like that. If he’s not careful she’ll get her dander up, and then he’ll be sorry. More than a hundredweight of pig – you don’t want that charging at you, I can promise you.’

Alex had come to that conclusion for himself and was
careful to keep the wall between him and the sow as he strode towards the garden. ‘Well now, what’s all this? This man is complaining that you’ve got his sow.’

The younger man gave a scornful snort and let go of the rope. ‘His pig is it? Well, he ought to keep a better eye on it. Look what it’s done to Fayther’s cabbages!’ He gestured to the garden, where the pig – released from tugging – had risen to its feet and was now munching pansies with a contented air, a length of broken rope still trailing from its neck. The man turned back to Alex and said, as though the farmer wasn’t there, ‘Dratted animal broke down the fence as well. We shall want paying for the damage, you can tell the owner that.’

The farmer was almost sputtering by now. ‘You mean to tell me that it just escaped . . .’ He broke off as another horse and cart came into view. ‘Well, ’ere’s the man you want to talk to about that. Wouldn’t have happened if he’d been on time . . .’

‘No such thing! You let the beast escape.’

‘Is that my pig? I’m sorry to be late.’ The cart driver pulled up outside the gate and everyone began to talk at once – except the pig, which went on serenely chewing flowers. Alex left them to it and went back to his beat.

It was a funny story and it would make Jenkins laugh, but somehow Alex couldn’t raise a smile. All he could think of was Effie on that cart and the boy who had been looking so protectively at her – and she didn’t seem to mind, though the boy was red with mine-dust from his forehead to his toes!

Of course he had been resolving to have it out with her – tell her there was no future, and that sort of thing – but it would have caused him so much pain that he was not quite sure that he could bear to give her up. It was only for her sake that he might have managed it. He had been half-rehearsing that sorry little speech in which he urged her to find ‘some nice fellow from the mine’ – but he hadn’t wanted her to do it, especially not so soon! Or was this someone she had secretly cared for all along?

His mood was so sombre when he reported back that day, that even Jenkins didn’t try to tease, just said baldly, ‘There’s been a message left. Major Knight will send a carriage if you like, and pick you up on Thursday so you can go to lunch. Take some clothes for riding – he has arranged a horse.’

Alex nodded glumly and went back to his room. It was not an appointment that he was keen to keep – but it wasn’t Effie’s Thursday, and even if it were, it didn’t look as if she’d miss him very much. One might as well take such pleasure as one could. He took the trouble to write a little note, thanking the Major for his hospitality and accepting the kind offer of a carriage-ride.

Walter swam up from a deep, uneasy sleep. For a moment he could not work out where he was. His head was aching and he could not think. He didn’t recognize the framed text on the wall, or the crooked chest of drawers beside the bed. Or the knitted patchwork bedspread, come to that. But Effie was beside him, so it must be all right.

He tried to move but there was something odd about his leg. It hurt; he couldn’t shift it and it seemed to weigh a ton. He raised his head a fraction and tried to look at it, but all he could see was a sort of wooden plank.

‘Now then, Walt, you take it easy or you’ll disturb the splint. Are you awake again? Don’t matter if you’re not. You’ve had some chloroform. The doctor said that you might sleep for hours, but if the pain gets bad, he’s left some laudanum.’

Through a kind of dizzy sickness, he recognized the voice. It was his sister Madge. Of course, he’d had some kind of accident. Slowly recollection floated back to him. He’d been lying on the table in the kitchen – hadn’t he? – and somebody had held a cloth of something wet against his mouth and nose. Now he seemed to be lying in a bedroom in her house.

He tried to speak but found his mouth was dry. Only a sort of strangled sound came out, and a moment later Effie was holding a cup of water to his lips.

‘Have a bit of this, Pa. It will do you good.’

He raised his hand and squeezed her fingers with his own. He seemed to have no power to do more than that. But she was delighted.

‘Well, thank the stars for that! I think you’re really with us, this time, and I’m some glad of it. You’ve been drifting in and out for simply hours. The last horse-bus back is due in just a little while and I was afraid that I would have to leave before you came properly awake – and then I would have worried about you all the night. But I can see you know me, so you must be clearer now.’

‘Course I know you, Effie!’ It came out as a croak but it obviously touched her – there were tears on her lashes.