Polly now took a long, deep breath, curbing her bewilderment, and said quietly, ‘Thank you for talking to Michael yesterday, Miss Collins. Was ... was he all right when you left him?’
It was a silly way to put it in view of the circumstances, and Gwendoline’s voice reflected this when she said, ‘Hardly.’ And then, as if realising she was being grossly unfair, Gwendoline added quickly, ‘But I’m sure he will be. Time is a great healer.’ Oh, hark at her! She despised platitudes.
‘Did you talk for very long?’
Gwendoline hesitated. She was aware of her character deficiencies, and unlike most people made no excuses to herself regarding them. She knew she was rather a passionless person – except where her love of naturalism and art was concerned – but this did not trouble her. Neither did her recognition that from a very young child she had fought constantly to have her own way and heartily disliked being thwarted. In fact if pressed she would have confessed to thinking it an advantage in the solitary life she had chosen. She had been excited this morning before Polly had arrived to carry out her normal duties; somewhat carried away with the idea of Polly as her companion, she confessed silently to herself. And now the girl had made it quite plain she could not be induced to leave her family or this miserable farm. And it had annoyed her. It had annoyed her greatly. But if Polly was closing her eyes to the wonderful opportunity being offered to her, she must accept her decision with grace. Nevertheless, Gwendoline’s voice still had a slight edge to it when she said, ‘I suppose so, some twenty minutes at least. He was in some distress.’
‘Did he say what he is going to do?’
‘Not exactly.’
Polly stared at the other woman before rising to her feet and standing perfectly still for a moment. She was glad she had burnt the dress. It was a ridiculous thought to come to mind in the present situation, but it lifted Polly’s chin and narrowed her eyes. And this woman wasn’t a friend, not in the true sense of the word. Real friendship was unconditional. This reticence regarding Michael was a punishment because she had refused to go away with Miss Collins.
And then Gwendoline disabused her of this idea when she said quietly, ‘I am not being mealy-mouthed through choice, Polly. Michael and I discussed the present state of affairs, the hopelessness of your attachment. You do know it is hopeless?’ And at Polly’s nod, she continued, ‘And then we spoke of other things – his family, life, God.’
‘God?’ said Polly blankly.
‘His father – his mother’s husband – is a Catholic and Michael has been brought up in the faith. He has not questioned it as I did at about his age. His religion will be a comfort to him.’
‘He means to go away, doesn’t he?’
There was a pause before Gwendoline said, ‘That was his intention, yes. I understand he was going to collect his belongings and leave before his mother returned home last night. He felt he couldn’t see her without ... wishing her harm.’
He had gone. The women’s eyes held across the expanse of the small two-roomed cottage, and it was Gwendoline who looked away first. He had gone. Gone. The word was reverberating in Polly’s head, before a stern inner voice checked it, saying, Well? You knew he was going, didn’t you? He told you so. ‘Did he say where he is going to live?’
This time the pause was longer, and Polly had her answer even before the other woman said, ‘I think he thought a clean break was best for everyone concerned.’
But Miss Collins knew. Michael barely knew her and yet he had confided in her.
What had she said to him?
After another exchange of glances, Polly turned and made for the door, saying over her shoulder, ‘I’ll bring the drinking water and fresh milk shortly.’
‘Thank you, Polly, and ... and I think it would be best if I left shortly, perhaps at the end of the week? You are going to have enough to do without tending to my needs too.’
Polly had stopped at the threshold but she hadn’t turned round, and now her slender shoulders stiffened just the slightest bit but her voice was quiet as she said – still without moving – ‘As you wish, Miss Collins,’ before she stepped out of the door, closing it firmly behind her.
Chapter Ten
‘An’ you’re seriously tellin’ me you can’t get out of that bed for your own husband’s funeral? Is that what you’re sayin’?’
As her daughter-in-law stared back at her, Alice acknowledged that if the power of thought had any say in the matter she would be six foot under at this very moment, the same as her lad was going to be shortly. Hilda’s eyes told her as much.
‘I’m ill.’ Hilda’s voice was thin and cold. ‘And it’s hardly surprising with everything that has happened. Even you must see that.’
‘What I see is a lazy, vindictive—’
‘Don’t you call me names! Not you! When I think of what I have endured since I was tricked into marrying Henry to cover the goings-on here, it makes me sick to my stomach.’
‘Aye, well, there’s plenty that makes me sick to me stomach an’ I’m lookin’ at one thing right now.’ Alice was standing in the doorway to Hilda’s bedroom, her small, slight body appearing even smaller in her black funeral clothes. It had taken all of the big pot of black dye Polly had purchased in Bishopsweaimouth to turn their Sunday clothes into those of mourning, but new ones – even purchased from the second-hand market in the East End at a fraction of the original cost – had been out of the question.
‘Gran, come away.’ Polly’s voice was firm as she took her grandmother’s arm and led her away from the doorway. ‘Uncle Frederick is waiting outside.’ She pushed the old woman towards the stairs before returning to her mother’s room and saying quietly, ‘Ruth is here to take care of you and Grandda until we get back, and there’s bread and cheese and brawn for midday. We’ll have a hot meal tonight.’
There was no reply from the figure in the bed, but then, just as Polly was about to close the door, her mother’s voice stopped her.
‘It’s disgraceful, you not having folk back here after for a bite. What will people think?’
‘I don’t care what people think.’
‘Well, that’s true enough. Cheapest funeral you could get; just one horse, and not even a closed carriage.’
Polly stared at her mother and wondered how her father had managed to live with such a stupid woman for seventeen years without doing her physical harm. Her mother had ranted and raved for the last week since her da’s death, calling him every name under the sun, so it certainly wasn’t any tender feeling for the departed that had prompted her complaint. Keeping up appearances, that was all her mother was concerned with. No matter that her da’s death and her grandda’s collapse had revealed to the unsuspecting womenfolk that the farm’s finances were in an even worse state than they had imagined. It appeared the two men had been borrowing off Frederick for the last few years and. the amount they owed was now considerable; added to which, with the remainder of the cows gone – excepting Buttercup – the farm was reduced to little more than a smallholding, which left no chance of recovery. The farmhouse and barn were in desperate need of repair, their livestock was almost nonexistent, their debts were overwhelming and her mother wanted to spend money they didn’t have on a lavish funeral and wake! It would be funny if it wasn’t so tragic.
‘Goodbye, Mother.’ Polly shut the door on her mother’s voice as it began another lament, and stood on the landing for a moment, biting hard on her lip. Then she nipped along to her grandparents’ room and opened the door very quietly, only to find her grandfather wasn’t asleep as she had thought he might be. For the last week it seemed he had barely been awake.
‘Hello, me bairn.’ He was lying quite still on the big feather bolster doubled behind his back which brought him almost sitting upright in the bed. The doctor had advised his patient to lie in such a position, and Polly and her grandmother had found it helped his breathing.
‘We’re just going, Grandda.’ Polly walked across to the bed and took one of the big, bony-knuckled, blue-veined hands lying limply on the bedcover. ‘We’ll be back before you know it.’
Walter said nothing, but as a drop of moisture slid out of the corner of one eye and down his weather-beaten face, Polly said thickly, ‘Oh don’t, don’t, Grandda. It’ll be all right.’ She had never thought to see her grandfather cry, not her big, burly, tough grandda, and it hurt her as much as anything that had happened.
‘I’m sorry, lass.’ Walter wiped his hand across his face before sniffing loudly. ‘I’m a bit down the day.’
‘Aye, I know, we all are, but we’ll get through, Grandda. Once the spring is here and the weather’s warmer everything will look different. You’ll see.’
‘He wasn’t a bad man, lass, an’ he’d have sooner slit his own throat than bring such pain on you. I know that. I should’ve stopped your aunt comin’ to the farm, I know that now an’ all, an’ weathered whatever came from that direction. As it is ...’ He shook his head slowly, his voice trailing off.
‘It’ll be all right,’ said Polly again, squeezing his hand between her own. Her grandda loved her, he always had, and it had been his hands that had lifted her high on to his shoulders and carried her round the farm as a small child, his hands that had mopped her tears and fashioned little wooden toys for Ruth and herself. Her granny and her grandda might have made mistakes with their own children, but with her mam as she was and her da always having been a remote father until the last couple of years, it had been her grandparents she had always relied on for security and love. She couldn’t let them down now when they needed her the most, and whatever it took she intended to keep what was left of this family together. She bent over the bed and kissed the old man’s furrowed forehead before hurrying out of the room and down the stairs to the kitchen, where she found Frederick and her grandmother waiting for her, Ruth purring like a kitten over the box of toffee their mother’s stepbrother had brought her.
‘You’ve got plenty to keep you occupied until we get back. There’s the leek pudding to do; mind you wash and trim the leeks well and split them to get rid of any grit, Ruth. Start boiling the pudding as soon as it’s ready and we’ll have it for our dinner tonight with mashed potatoes and gravy, all right? And make some bread while you’re about it, and keep enough back for a stottie cake after the dough’s had its first rising and you’ve knocked it down, so we can have that with the pudding and gravy tonight.’ Polly’s voice was brisk; she had found that was the best way to handle her sister, who had cried on and off for the whole of the last week. ‘Then see if there’s any eggs, and feed the pigs their mash. It’s cooling down in the scullery.’
Ruth nodded sulkily. She hated their Polly; her sister was always keeping her at it.
‘And don’t forget to keep checking on Grandda, mind.’
‘All right.’ She was only showing off in front of Uncle Frederick. Ruth looked at her sister through narrowed eyes. Her mam said Polly was trying to take over as mistress of the house and make everyone jump through hoops, and she was right. Look how Polly had shouted yesterday when she’d come in from milking Buttercup. Just because she had gone for a lie-down on the bed and fallen asleep and the bread-and-butter pudding had burnt away to nothing. Her gran had nodded off in the chair sitting next to her grandda, but Polly hadn’t said a word to her. No, everything was always Ruth’s fault.
‘Well now, are we ready?’ Frederick spoke almost as though the occasion was some kind of pleasant social outing, and he must have realised this because his voice carried a more sober note when he added, ‘It’s a quagmire out there, lass, so be careful.’
Aye, it was a quagmire all right since the thaw had set in four days ago and the thick snow and ice had turned to slush and mud. Polly had to wade through that same quagmire umpteen times a day, her feet constantly wet and cold and her flesh chilled through to the bone. Didn’t he realise that? Who else was going to milk Buttercup and see to the horses and the hundred and one other jobs outside? And then she checked the momentary irritation as she thought, He’s only trying to be kind.
She was forced to remind herself of this several times during the course of the next two hours. Her uncle persisted in holding her arm and that of her grandmother as he positioned himself between them at all times, acting as though he was in charge of the proceedings to the small collection of family and friends who had gathered at the tiny cemetery just outside Silksworth. Because of the circumstances, and the doctor removing her father’s body from the house rather than it being laid out at home as was customary, there was no cortege following behind the funeral conveyance as the black-plumed horse clip-clopped its way inside the cemetery gates.
Parson Dodds was standing to one side of the open grave, a single gravedigger behind him. Polly, her grandmother and her uncle stood at his side, with the rest of the mourners scattered behind them. Polly was touched to see her Uncle Nathaniel there with Luke and Arnold, but there was no sign of her Aunt Eva.
The sickness in Polly’s chest deepened as the service began. It was short, very short. It had been decided, in the few minutes before her uncle had gone for the doctor a week ago Sunday, that the story the family would stick to was one of an unfortunate accident on the farm. Whilst taking a close look at the hole in the barn roof, which was in urgent need of repair, her father had slipped, inadvertently entangling himself in his safety rope and causing his own death by hanging. He had been the victim of a tragic mishap. There was no point in putting out their dirty washing for everyone to see, Frederick had insisted when the others had expressed initial misgivings. Henry was dead, nothing could bring him back, and at least this way he could be buried with dignity.