‘I’m leaving it, Luke, once it’s born. I’m leaving everything.’ She had to tell him, now, quickly, before he said anything more. And then if he still wanted her – just her with nothing to her name but the clothes on her back . . . ‘I’m letting Ruth and Betsy bring the child up and it will inherit the farm. I don’t want to stay here a second longer than I have to, I hate it now. I can’t explain . . .’
‘You don’t have to.’ His voice was so tender, everything she could have hoped for. ‘With ten children or none, rich or poor, in sickness and in health I want you, Polly Farrow. And you’ll always be Polly Farrow to me, until you become Mrs Luke Blackett, of course. And we’re not waiting two or three years to get wed to please folk either, I don’t care what they think.’
Marriage. For a second, just a second, the images of Frederick and Arnold were there in her mind’s eye, and then she brushed the shadows away determinedly. It would be different with Luke, this thing that most men set such great store by. She had never been taken in love before. Nevertheless, she swayed slightly, and immediately Luke said, ‘Come on, come back to the house and sit down. This has all been too much for you, I shouldn’t have gone on like that.’
They met Ruth in the doorway to the farmhouse, and Polly had just cried excitedly, ‘Oh, Ruth, isn’t it wonderful! He’s free!’ when there was a high-pitched ‘No!’ from the top of the stairs that momentarily froze everyone, and then her mother was racing down the treads like a mad woman. And it was as a mad woman that Hilda attacked her daughter, leaping on her with such ferocity that the impact bore Polly to the ground, where she landed heavily on her back, her mother’s weight knocking the breath out of her as Hilda thudded down on her belly, crying, ‘You! You! You’ve got him off, haven’t you!’ amid curses that could have come from a hard-boiled docker rather than the gentlewoman Hilda purported to be.
In the resulting mêlée, Polly was aware of Luke hauling Hilda off her by the hair and slinging her aside amid screams and shouts from all and sundry, and then Betsy’s horrified face was bending over her, saying, ‘Lass, oh, lass,’ over and over again. She was still saying it when the first pain hit moments later.
It was thirty long hours before Polly’s daughter was born, on a sultry Saturday evening, and the hard labour was only made bearable for Polly by the thought that she would soon be free to start a new life with Luke. He had been waiting outside her room throughout, once he had returned from Bishopwearmouth with the midwife. Betsy and Ruth had stayed with Polly every moment; sponging her down, encouraging her, urging her on, and both of the women secretly fearing two lives would be lost. The baby was tiny, and exhausted though she was, Polly had seen the buxom midwife shake her head at Betsy when the first weak mew of a cry was heard.
Well, wouldn’t that be for the best in one way? Polly asked herself wearily, watching as Betsy wrapped the baby in a blanket. This child wasn’t going to have an easy life if it lived, not living here with Hilda, even though materially it would want for nothing. And then Betsy – without asking – placed the tiny bundle in Polly’s arms, and she looked down into the miniature face, and fell in love. As quickly and as simply as that. Her daughter looked sleepily up at her and then yawned daintily, and Polly felt such a welling-up of love and emotion that the warmth of it melted the last of the ice from round her heart and trickled into the back of her eyes, spilling out on to her cheeks.
When Ruth went to take the baby from her, Polly shook her head, unable to speak, and she still continued to weep when Ruth brought Luke into the room. He simply held mother and child close as he sat on the bed, aware that something deep inside Polly which had been damaged and torn and buried had been brought into the light and was now able to heal fully at last. He touched the baby’s face lightly, grateful that the tiny girl-child was the image of her lovely mother, and when minute fingers fastened on his thumb he felt something stir in his own heart for this tiny, helpless scrap of humanity.
‘I want to keep her.’ It was a whisper. ‘I want to keep her, Luke, but not here. I want a fresh start for the three of us.’
There was a question in the words and Luke answered it with ‘Whatever you want, my love.’ He’d been so scared as the hours had dragged by that he was going to lose her, that in the bringing forth of the child which had been forced upon her Polly would lose her life. He had been knotted up with sick anxiety and frustration – and, aye, and hate, he acknowledged silently – but now, as he looked down into the tiny face, a great weight was lifted off his heart. He could love this innocent life, love her as his own daughter. The biological side of things was nothing, any animal could procreate. What was important was what happened after the birth process, and he would make sure everything which happened was good. He hugged Polly and the child closer as he whispered, ‘The moon, the stars, just name what you want and I’ll get it for you. I promise.’
Polly gave a little gurgle of laughter, nestling against the hard, strong bulk of him, and almost in the same moment Hilda’s voice came from the doorway, saying, ‘And you say that bairn isn’t his!’
‘Get out of here, Mam.’ Ruth had appeared behind Hilda, Betsy at the side of her. ‘You’ve done enough damage.’
‘Wait a minute.’ Luke rose from the bed, ignoring Polly’s urgent ‘Please, Luke, leave it. She’s not worth it.’ He walked slowly up to Hilda, thrusting his face close to hers as his narrowed eyes raked her defiant face. ‘Polly’s baby is mine, but not in the way your cesspit of a mind thinks,’ he said quietly. ‘In every way that really counts the bairn’s mine because of my love for the exceptional lady who’s her mother. And that’s what sticks in your craw, isn’t it – that Polly is special, special and loved, whereas you are a dried-up stick of a woman who’s never been any good to anyone.’
‘How dare you!’ As Hilda’s hand rose, Luke made no attempt to avoid the slap she delivered across his face, but when she went to repeat it, he said quietly, ‘I wouldn’t if I were you. I owe you that one for telling you the truth you’ve tried to avoid for years, but although I’ve never raised my hand to a woman in my life, I’d be prepared to make an exception with you.’
‘You! You . . . low, ignorant, coarse individual!’ Hilda was spluttering. ‘I’ll see my day with you, with the pair of you! You see if I don’t!’ And then, to her utter outrage, she found herself being frogmarched out of the bedroom by an indignant Ruth and Betsy, who were determined that Polly and Luke should have a minute or two alone.
Luke walked back to the bed, holding Polly close again until Ruth and Betsy came bustling in and shooed him out. Polly caught at his hand as he left, her voice soft as she said, ‘Come back soon.’ All this with her mother had upset her more than she’d have expected.
‘Try and keep me away.’
‘Aye, well, she won’t be movin’ out of that bed for three weeks an’ more,’ Betsy said stolidly as she flapped at Luke’s departing back. ‘The midwife says complete rest for at least that long.’ The midwife had also said it would be a miracle if the bairn pulled through, but then she didn’t know their Polly, Betsy told herself silently. And the wee babby herself might be tiny, but the way she’d pulled at her mam’s breast soon after birth, she had all of Polly’s will power and then some.
‘What are you going to call her?’ Luke turned in the doorway and looked across at mother and baby as the thought occurred to him. And then he smiled, inclining his head in understanding as Polly said simply, ‘Alice.’
Over the next few days, as Polly began to slowly recover her strength, Ruth was never far from her. Her sister was utterly besotted with her tiny niece, possibly because little Alice seemed determined to have a shot at the perfect infant award – sleeping, waking and feeding on cue, and rarely crying. Although alert when awake, the baby was also very peaceful, something Polly found quite amazing in view of the traumatic pregnancy.
Ruth had got upset when Polly had confided her new plans for the baby, which meant her niece would be taken away from the farm. ‘But can’t you stay here?’ she had begged tearfully. ‘Luke would be happy wherever you’re happy.’
‘I wouldn’t
be
happy here, Ruth.’
‘And you don’t want to sell the farm? It is yours, Poll. It would mean Luke would never have to go down the pit again and you could buy a nice house—’
‘Ruth, face facts.’ Polly had cut her sister off before she could continue further. ‘The terms of the will state that Alice inherits everything, not me. This place will be held in trust for her until she is older, and that is fine – I don’t want it and I couldn’t bear to live here, but this way my mother can’t throw her weight about and dismiss Betsy or anyone else who crosses her. Everyone’s jobs are safe and Croft will carry on managing everything as he has done in the past, with monthly reports to me wherever I live. The bank balance is already rising rapidly, so there’ll be no shortage of cash for you and everyone else.’
‘I don’t care about that. It will just be so awful without you and Alice.’
‘But you know how Luke and I are going to be placed,’ Polly said gently. ‘There’ll be little money for anything with what Luke earns. I shall take an allowance from the farm profits for Alice’s education and so on, but that’s all.’
‘But Polly, that’s daft, it is really. You said that at the end Frederick was trying to tell you something. It could have been about the will.’
‘And it might not. There was all that about a box, but the will was with the solicitor, now wasn’t it?’
‘Oh, Polly!’
That conversation had been on the afternoon following the day Alice was born, and exactly seven days later, early in the morning of Sunday the twenty-third of June, Polly awoke from a long, involved dream with her heart thudding and her mind crystal clear. Why had she never understood before? she asked herself dazedly. How could she not have realised what Frederick was trying to tell her? But she had been sick in body and mind at the time, just coping one moment to another had been all she could manage, and once he had died and she had found out she was with child everything else had got put to one side.
She climbed carefully out of bed and was almost to the door of her room when she turned back and lifted Alice from her wicker crib. Somehow, with her mother in the mood she had been in since the birth of the child, she didn’t want Alice out of her sight. Was she saying she thought her mother would harm her own granddaughter? she asked herself as she padded silently across to the door. She didn’t know and she didn’t really want to think about it; she just knew she had to keep the baby with her at all times until she was out of this place. And that couldn’t come soon enough for her.
Ruth was lying on top of the covers on her bed in her lawn nightdress, one arm flung across her face. She was sleeping peacefully until Polly gently touched her arm, whereupon her sister gave an almighty start that frightened them both. ‘Polly?’ Ruth peered at her in the burgeoning light, sitting up in bed with one hand to her racing heart. ‘What are you doing out of bed? You know what the midwife said.’ And then, as a thought occurred to her, ‘Is Alice all right?’ she asked urgently.
‘Aye, yes, and keep your voice down or you’ll wake her and she’ll start bawling. I just want to talk to you.’
‘Now?’ Ruth’s tone made it clear how she viewed the early-morning visit. ‘Polly, you shouldn’t be up. The midwife said—’
‘Fiddle the midwife.’ Polly sat down on the coverlet with Alice cradled in her arms. ‘Look, it’s just come to me – don’t ask me why – but I think I know what Frederick was trying to say when he was dying. I came in one day unexpectedly and thought he’d fallen out of bed, but I think he was trying to get to the box he spoke of. The rug by the side of the bed was moved and there was a broken floorboard; I think it’s under there, the box.’
‘Oh, Poll.’ Ruth’s voice was soft now, with a touch of deference in its quietness. ‘You think he’d got a bit put away?’
‘He didn’t like banks. He told me that before we were married. Only money you could see in your hand meant anything, he said, and land, and bricks and mortar. And there was hardly anything in his bank account, you know that, and just in the last months it’s doubled. He only ever banked a fraction of the profits, Ruth. I’m sure of it.’
‘What are we going to do?’
‘Get Mother out of that room and have a look,’ Polly said grimly. ‘Now, today.’
‘You don’t think she’s found it?’
The same thought had occurred to Polly and it made her feel sick. ‘I hope not, but there’s only one way to find out.’ The blood was singing through Polly’s veins and she felt so excited she didn’t know how to contain herself. ‘Look, we’re going to need Betsy’s help, so go and have a word with her and Emily now. Tell her to say she noticed one of the cats in Mother’s room and she thinks it’s infested with fleas, and she’ll strip the bed and scrub the floorboards – something like that. With this hot weather it needs to be done straightaway, before the room’s alive. You know what Mother is like over fleas and bed bugs and the like.’
‘All right.’ Ruth was out of bed in a twinkling, returning a few minutes later as Polly was feeding her daughter. ‘It’s all arranged,’ she said with a high, nervous giggle. ‘Oh, Poll.’
Betsy had no trouble at all in persuading Hilda out of the suite of rooms and down to the sitting room once she’d mentioned the dreaded word ‘infestation’. Since the typhoid, Hilda had become positively paranoid about cleanliness – insisting all water and milk was boiled, washing her hands umpteen times a day and taking all matters of a sanitary nature to excess.