Through Glass Eyes (16 page)

‘Do you have to work?’ James asked bluntly.

Alice looked up.

‘Wouldn’t you prefer to stay at home?’

‘But I’ve got to work! How would I live otherwise? I can’t expect Mum to support me at my age.’

‘But what if I supported you.’
He paused. ‘What if you and I were to get married? You wouldn’t have to work again.’

Alice didn’t answer.

‘I can afford it. I’ve got plenty of money and you can buy whatever you want, clothes, furniture, even a radiogram or a wireless. You must know I would do anything for you, Alice.’

‘I know you would. You’re very kind, James. But Edward’s money – your money – won’t last forever and I don’t want all those things.’

He turned away, but not quickly enough. He knew she had read the disappointment clouding his face.

‘You must give me time to think about it,’ she said. ‘It’s a very good offer.’

When Lucy answered the front door, she was surprised to find John Fothergill standing on the doorstep. It was raining hard.

‘Morning,’ he said, touching his knuckles to his forehead.

‘Mr Fothergill, what can I do for you?’

‘If you don’t mind, I wanted to have a quick word about that field out the back.’

‘Come in out of the rain. I’ll make a nice cup of tea.’

The farmer looked down at his Wellington boots caked in farmyard muck. ‘If it’s no trouble,’ he said, kicking his boots off and following Lucy through to the living room. Offering him a seat at the kitchen table, she put the kettle on to boil. When he sat down, the farmer slid his feet under the chair, but not before Lucy had noticed the large holes in his socks.

‘I see you’ve left the field fallow this year,’ the farmer said.

‘You mean we didn’t plant anything.’

‘That’s right. I took a walk over there yesterday. Some good feed growing!’

Lucy glanced out of the window. The meadow was thick and green, scattered with the tall stems of self-seeded barley. The slender stalks swayed in the still air, as a group of birds were busily investigating the fresh green ears.

‘Is it all right with you if I put a few cows out there? It’s nice clean pasture. Shame to waste it.’

Lucy looked puzzled. ‘But it’s your field, isn’t it?’

‘That’s right, but I’m still obliged by the lease. Mr Carrington paid me five years in advance.’

‘But Edward has been dead for over two years.’

‘I know. But he was an honest man and generous too and, even though he's dead and buried, I have to honour my side of the bargain. Besides,’ he said, ‘you and Mrs Pugh did a wonderful job when things were scarce. I take me hat off to you. All that work you did for the war effort. I’d never begrudge you the use of it.’

‘Everyone did what they could,’ Lucy said.

‘I should have done more,’ the farmer said, shaking his head. ‘But I had enough on me plate at the time.’

As Lucy placed the mug of tea on the table, the farmer glanced at the dirt embedded deep beneath his fingernails. Sliding his hands to his lap he hid them beneath the table cloth. Lucy looked at the man. His face was weathered, his skin leathery, his expression gaunt and drawn, his grey-green eyes half sunken into the sockets. He wasn’t a tall man but was wiry. His hair was
wiry
too, grey and sparse on top except for his sideburns which were ginger and matched the colour of his overlong moustache. Like his hair, it was in dire need of a trim.

‘Well if it’s all right with you, Mrs Oldfield, I’ll bring a few heifers down tomorrow.’

‘Should I get James to move the horse?’

‘No, leave it. Cows won’t mind a bit of company. Only interested in what’s under their noses.’ He sipped the tea and looked around the room.

Lucy watched him, following his gaze. First he glanced at the doll sitting on the straight-backed chair, then at the photo on the mantelpiece. Both the doll and the young woman in the picture wore white uniforms bearing the distinctive red nursing cross.

‘Is that young Alice from next door?’

Lucy smiled. ‘It is,’ she said, taking down the picture and handing it to him.

‘Fine girl.
Don’t see much of her these days.’

‘She works away. At Cookridge Hospital.’

‘Ah!’ he sighed and handed the photograph back to Lucy. ‘Do you want a calf?’

Lucy was surprised at the question. ‘Pardon?’

‘A calf.
Only a week old,’ he said. ‘On the bottle. I’ll give you the milk. Much as you need. It’s just we can’t manage it.’

Lucy wasn’t sure.

‘If you don’t want it, I’ll kill it. Just thought I’d ask.’

‘I’ve raised a lamb on a bottle, but never a calf. You say you can’t manage. Is it a problem?’

‘Calf’s no trouble, it’s just we can’t spare the time messing about with it. There’s only me and me daughter, Grace, these days.’

‘But I remember Edward telling me you and your wife had two grown boys.’

The farmer rubbed his hand across his thinning hair. ‘We lost both boys in Flanders in 1917. Not more than two months apart. That was when my wife took to her bed. Doctor said it was women’s troubles but I think it was all tied up with the shock and grief. Same ailment as got to your boy – only worse and she ain’t never got over it.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Lucy. ‘I didn’t know.’

‘She wouldn’t let me tell anyone. Said she didn’t want folk knowing her business. Trouble is now at times she can hardly breathe and I think she’s proper sick. That’s what made me think about a nurse for her.’

‘Shall I speak to Alice when I see her? Ask her if she can spare a bit of time.’

‘I don’t know what my missus will say. She only lets Grace tend to her these days. Doesn’t even like me going into her room.’

  He wiped the tea from his whiskers. ‘It’s hard on the lass though, helping me with the milking and trying to look after her mother and the house as well. She’s turned twenty years old and says she don’t intend to be tied to the farm for the rest of her days. It was all right when she were young but now she grown she says had enough of mucking out sheds.  She wants to go to the city to work. What can I do?’

Lucy shook her head.

‘Can’t really blame her, can you? She’s a good lass, but I worry. I don’t know what she’ll do if she leaves. She’s got no learning. We paid for the boys to go to high school, but we couldn’t afford it with her. Didn’t seem necessary at the time. She left school at twelve to help the missus. Now I wish—’

‘I’d be happy to take the calf,’ said Lucy.

‘That’s good. I didn’t really want to knock it on the head. Nice little heifer calf. If she grows all right, we’ll put her to the bull when she’s big enough. You can start your own herd.’

Lucy laughed. She felt sorry for the farmer. He was a nice man.

James asked Alice to marry him three or four times during the summer of 1920. And both Lucy and Pansy tried to encourage her to accept James’s proposal.

‘You can get a job in the village,’ said Pansy. ‘Or work as a private nurse in one of them big houses, if you really want to work.’

‘Serving cups of tea and bathing some rich old biddy every time she wets herself! No thank you!’ Alice was not going to be persuaded.

Even James’s new car made no difference.

It was the latest model, a 1920 Morris Tourer - brand spanking new. The metal trim gleamed, even the leather upholstery shone. It seated four or five comfortably and had a concertina top which could be pulled up when it rained. It was one of the few cars in the Horsforth district and certainly the newest one for miles around. Lucy and Pansy felt like royalty when they travelled in the back. Timothy always took pride of place in the front passenger seat.

Much to James’s chagrin and disappointment, Alice was indifferent to the motor car, almost averse to it. She complained about the petrol fumes. Said the car was noisy and cold to ride in. And when James suggested he drive her back to the hospital and carry her bike in the back seat, she objected saying she preferred to ride her bike. It was good exercise, she said, and asked him what people would think if they saw her being driven to the nurses’ home by a
toff
in a fancy car.

James managed to hide his disappointment.

‘I thought of taking Goldie for a walk,’ he said casually, after lunch on one of her visits. ‘Would you like to join me?’

He was surprised when she accepted, especially as she sounded quite enthusiastic. Perhaps she had spent too much time that morning talking with her mother and Lucy. Perhaps, because it was a fine day, she wanted to get out in the fresh air. James didn’t care; he was just pleased she had agreed.

It was a long time since she had been in the saddle and a long time since Goldie had been ridden and at first both seemed a little nervous. Holding the bridle, James led the old horse out of the gate beside Pansy’s cottage and into the lane. It was the way he had led her many times when she was a little girl. How could he forget those times? How happy she had been then, full of fun and excitement, chattering non-stop while riding confidently, one hand on the horse’s mane, the other wrapped around Constance, her doll. Walking beside her, James looked up, but Alice was staring straight ahead and did not return his glance.

Skirting around the field on the back lane, he led Goldie along the narrow path into the pocket of woodland overlooking the meadow. Mr Fothergill’s small herd of cows was camped by the marshy ground at the far end of the field, cudding contentedly. In the distance, the three Honeysuckle Cottages were half-hidden by the old horse chestnut tree.

Alice sighed, as she held out her arms for James to help her dismount. ‘Being here reminds me of when I was a girl,’ she said, and when she slid from the saddle her body brushed against his, her hands slipping loosely around his neck.

James held her for a moment. ‘Shall we sit for a while?’

Alice agreed and with the horse blanket beneath them, they reminisced.

‘I remember the thrush’s nest’ Alice mused. ‘I used to lie here and watch you climb, looking for eggs. And we used to catch butterflies and take them to show Edward, and remember, if your mother called, we would pretend we didn’t hear her.’

He smiled.

‘And sometimes we would fall asleep in the sun,’ she said, lying back on the rug.

James laid down beside her and watched as she closed her eyes. The sun, filtering through the branches, flickered across her face. ‘And you looked just as you do today, lovely,’ he sighed. ‘You cannot imagine how many times I have longed for a moment like this.’ Closing his eyes, he touched her. Her skin was soft and warm. His hands trembled.

A dragonfly hovering over the grass nearby ignored them. Above their heads the new season’s acorns decorated the tree’s branches like candles on a Christmas tree. A bird flitted between the leaves. The old horse flicked flies with its tail and grazed amongst the wildflowers whose seedpods were firm and full and almost ready to burst and cast their crop on the late summer breeze. Goldie didn’t wander far. The cows never stirred. The sun continued flickering and it was almost two hours before Alice decided it was time she should leave.

‘Perhaps you’d reconsider what I’ve been asking,’ James said, as he touched her cheek.

‘Don’t ask me now,’ she said. ‘Please, not now.’

Chapter 16

Bad Times

Lucy and Alice sat next to each other at the pine table in the farmhouse kitchen. Mr Fothergill, perched on a stool near the fireplace, spoke in a low voice.

‘Her mother never made it easy for her,’ he said. ‘Always picking on the lass.’ He sighed deeply. ‘The two lads were always her favourites. And I suppose, if I was honest, I’d say Grace was always mine.’

From outside the window, a dog barked. Grace Fothergill kicked off her boots before popping her head around the kitchen door. Plump and freckle-faced, she wore her long ginger hair woven into two plaits. Her impish grin belied her twenty two years. Wearing dungarees, hand-knitted socks and an old jumper which had obviously belonged to her father, a look of embarrassment flashed across her face when she saw how smartly Alice was dressed, but it quickly disappeared. She smiled. ‘Have you been to see Mam yet?’

‘No,’ said Lucy. ‘We waited for you. Did you tell her I was bringing Alice?’

‘I told her you might call in just to say hello.’ Grace turned to Alice, her expression serious. ‘At first she said you were not to bother, then she asked if you was a real nurse. When I told her you were, I think she was pleased because she kept asking when you were coming.’

Mr Fothergill fed the fire from the pile of chopped wood heaped beside it. A kitten wandered over to Lucy and rubbed itself against her leg. Grace shooed it out of the door and then beckoned the two women to follow her down the passage which led through the house. The door to the end room was closed. Grace knocked on it gently before ushering the two ladies inside.

As she opened the bedroom door, Lucy was struck by the unsavoury smell of sickness. It was always the same – the smell of sickness in a house – only this time it was worse.

Mrs Fothergill was propped up in the bed with a pile of cushions behind her. While draped around her shoulders was a faded blue bed jacket, in her hands she was gripping a towel pulled up under her chin. The once silver hair was dull and matted and she looked much older than her fifty years.

‘Hello, Mrs Fothergill, I’m Alice.’

The woman smiled weakly. ‘I’d never have recognized you,’ she said, fighting for breath with every word. ‘Last time I saw you, you were only a girl.’ Her words drifted into a bout of wheezing.

‘Mam can’t talk for long,’ Grace said quietly, as she offered Lucy the only chair in the room. ‘She gets tired easily.’

Lucy and Alice exchanged glances, before Alice sat on the edge of the bed and took Mrs Fothergill’s hand. ‘How are you?’ she said gently, not expecting an answer. It was obviously hard work for the woman to speak so Grace answered most of the questions for her.

‘Is there anything you can do for her?’ Grace asked.

‘I’d like to help,’ said Alice, ‘but I think your mother needs a doctor.’