Twisted Strands (3 page)

Bridie gasped and glanced towards Josh. Even he hadn’t told her that Mary’s own mother was still alive. And this was a most unusual event. Mary never asked about her family in
Flawford and now Bridie was very much afraid that Josh was going to blame her for having raised the subject.

Immediately Josh was reaching out again to take Mary’s hand. ‘Now, my dear,’ he began, ‘don’t go upsetting yourself.’

Mary smiled at him. ‘It’s all right. I’m not upset. It’s high time I at least enquired after them, even if I can’t bring myself to go and see them ever
again.’

Before Andrew could answer, Bridie, unable to restrain herself any longer, burst out. ‘Your
mother
? You mean to say that I’ve got a
great
-grandmother and you never even
told me? I thought there was only me grandfather.’

For a moment Mary looked shamefaced as her eyes met Bridie’s accusing stare. The older woman’s glance dropped away, but she nodded.

Andrew cleared his throat awkwardly and said, ‘She’s quite well. She doesn’t get out much now, though. Her legs are bad.’

Mary smiled wryly. ‘Not even across the road to the chapel on a Sunday? That won’t please Harry.’

Andrew laughed. ‘She still has to attend chapel. Both services on a Sunday. He sees to that. He pushes her across the road in a bath chair.’

The tension in the room eased a little as Mary smiled too. Then she murmured, ‘I’m glad she’s all right. It wasn’t really her fault, though she could have supported poor
Rebecca a little more. No . . .’ Her voice hardened as she went on. ‘No, it’s Harry I blame.’

Andrew folded his arms, leant on the table and said quietly, ‘It’s him, if anyone, that’s not so well these days. His eyesight is beginning to bother him, I think, although he
will never admit it.’

‘Huh!’ Mary almost snorted. ‘That’s Harry.’

Again there was silence, until Mary, moving with a suddenness that made the others jump, got to her feet and began to stack the plates. ‘Well, this won’t get the table cleared and
the pudding served. Look sharp, Bridie. Stir yourself.’

The subject was closed and even later, when Bridie tried to draw Andrew out some more, he was evasive. ‘Look, love, it’s up to your gran or Josh to talk to you about it all.
It’s really nothing to do with me.’ And though she tried to wheedle more information out of him, Andrew pressed his lips together and refused to say anything.

‘All right, then,’ Bridie said, for once capitulating prettily. She tucked her arm through his. ‘Let’s go and look at the piglets. Bonnie has just had a litter of seven.
And I’ll show you the blackbird in the hayloft and the little rabbit in the hutch. I’ll have to bring them with me when I come to live with you,’ she informed him solemnly. But
Andrew only smiled and said nothing.

The day ended happily with Bridie standing at the gate, waving goodbye as Andrew pedalled away on his bicycle.

Josh came to stand beside her. ‘He’s a good lad, that,’ he murmured, watching the wobbling figure disappear into the gloom of evening. ‘Goodness knows what time
he’ll get back to Flawford. To think he comes nearly every week just to see you.’

The thought gave Bridie a warm glow, but she said gallantly, ‘He comes to see you and Gran as well.’

Josh chuckled and agreed. ‘Of course, he does, love, but I don’t think it’d be so often if you weren’t here.’ He put his arm about her shoulders. ‘Come on,
time you were in bed else you’ll have your gran after you.’

‘Just mind what you’re doing, girl,’ Mary snapped the following morning as Bridie turned the handle of the mangle. ‘You’ll have my fingers trapped
if you’re so erratic. For goodness sake, turn it steadily. Haven’t I shown you often enough? Your mind’s not on your job. That’s your trouble. Daydreaming again, I’ll
be bound.’ She clicked her tongue against her teeth in a gesture of impatience. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do with you. You’ll be the death of me, one of these
days.’

‘Oh, turn it yourself then,’ Bridie let go of the handle and began to move away, but Mary lunged towards her and caught her arm in an iron grip.

‘Oh no, you don’t get away with it that easily. You’ll stay here and do as you’re told.’

Bridie twisted around to face her. ‘No, I won’t. I won’t stay here another minute. You don’t want me. You never have. I’m just some stupid girl’s bastard who
you’ve had to bring up.’

‘Bridie!’ Mary’s grasp slackened in shock and Bridie pulled herself free.

‘I’m going to live with Andrew. He wants me. He loves me. Whatever you say, I know he loves me, even if no-one else does.’

‘We all know that,’ Mary gestured impatiently. ‘Of course he does. You’re the spitting image of your mother and she was the love of his life.’

Bridie felt as if the breath had been knocked from her body. The pain was physical. ‘What – did – you – say?’ she managed to gasp at last.

‘I said, of course Andrew loves you because you remind him of Rebecca.’

There was a huge lump in her throat and tears prickled behind her eyelids, but Bridie was determined that her grandmother should not see her cry. She turned and staggered from the wash-house,
her legs like jelly beneath her. In the fresh air, she pulled in deep, gulping breaths and strength flowed back into her. Though she heard her grandmother calling her name, Bridie picked up her
skirts and ran out of the yard and into the field, down to the beck, splashing through it without even taking off her boots and stockings. Then, heart pounding, she ran up the slope towards the
covert on the brow of the hill and disappeared into the shadowy coolness beneath the trees.

Breathless, she flung herself to the ground and sobbed. She’d stay here for ever, she vowed. She’d never go back home. She’d starve to death first and when they found her body
they’d all be sorry.

Pear Tree Farm lay amidst farmland to the west of Bernby, a small village on a hill just outside the Lincolnshire town of Grantham. Further west lay the Vale of Belvoir and in
the distance, against the setting sun, were the ramparts of Belvoir Castle. Beyond that was the road to Flawford and the city of Nottingham.

Micky Morton found Bridie late in the day. She was asleep in the den they had built as children in the depths of the woodland known as Bernby Covert. The trees covered the hilltop behind the
farm and overhung the lane leading up the slope past Fairfield House, the Dunsmores’ mansion, and on towards the village.

‘Your gran’s on the rampage,’ he said as he squeezed himself into the hide they had constructed of branches. ‘And Mr Carpenter is tearing his hair out.’ He paused
and then tried to lighten his news by adding, ‘What bit he’s got left.’

Bridie sat with her arms wrapped around her knees drawn up to her chest. She had been here the whole day and now she was cold and hungry. At first she had cried and cried until she had fallen
asleep, exhausted. Now her tears were all cried out and she was filled with a deep sadness that was an ache in the pit of her stomach.

‘What’s up, then?’ Micky asked, blunt as ever and coming straight to the point.

‘Nothing.’

‘It dun’t look like it,’ he remarked drily. ‘There’s not a scrap of work been done about the place according to Mr C. They’ve been looking for you all day.
Mind you, I could have saved ’em the trouble, but he didn’t come down to me grandad’s place until teatime.’

Micky Morton’s grandparents, Bill and Dorothy, lived a short distance down the lane from Pear Tree Farm at Furze Farm. Just beyond that, in a small cottage, Micky lived with his parents,
Ted and Alice. Micky paused and she saw him straining through the shadows to look at her. ‘I knew where you’d be.’

‘No, you didn’t.’

‘I’ve found you, ain’t I?’

Bridie was silent.

‘Your gran said you’d threatened to run away.’

Again, she said nothing, but tears that she thought were dried out prickled again as self-pity overwhelmed her. Now she had nowhere to run to. No-one wanted her. No-one loved her.

‘Come on,’ Micky said, standing up and grasping her arm. Though he was a few months younger than she was, Micky had been working on the farm ever since the age of seven during
out-of-school hours. Now he had just passed his twelfth birthday, he was doing a man’s work on the Dunsmore estate, where both his grandfather and his father worked. Indeed, Micky’s
whole family lived in dwellings tied to their employment. ‘I’d better get you home before Mr Carpenter fetches PC Wilkins from Bernby.’

Reluctantly, knowing she faced even more trouble when she arrived home, Bridie allowed him to lead her from the den and out of the woods. They walked down the hill and paddled through the
beck.

‘There’s Mr C now,’ Micky said and Bridie looked up to see Josh hurrying towards them.

‘Oh, Bridie love. Thank God you’re safe.’ He was reaching out to her, clasping her to his bulk in an awkward but genuinely fond embrace. ‘Come on, let’s get you
home and into the warm. Have you been there all day? You must be starving.’ He turned to Micky. ‘Thanks, lad. I wish I’d asked you earlier. You could have saved us all a lot of
worry.’

‘S’all right, Mr Carpenter. See you, Bridie.’ Pushing his hands into the pockets of his trousers, Micky sauntered away and was soon lost to their sight in the gathering dusk,
though for some time afterwards they could still hear him whistling.

‘She’s a wilful little tyke who deserves a good hiding.’

Mary’s tirade started the moment Josh opened the back door and ushered a reluctant Bridie into the kitchen.

‘Now, now, Mary love. That would do no good. Bridie, be a good girl. Go upstairs and change your clothes. I’ll get some hot soup ready for when you come down. Go on now,’ he
said, giving her a gentle push.

As she climbed the steep stairs, she heard their voices; her grandmother’s raised in shrill anger, Josh’s calm and rational.

‘Fancy her saying no-one loves her. The very idea. Haven’t we looked after her all these years? I didn’t want another bairn to bring up, not at my age. And that’s all the
thanks I get. Well, if that’s how she feels, she can go.’

‘You don’t mean that, Mary.’

‘Oh, don’t I? Isn’t she the reason my Jimmy ran away? And it’s because of her he’s never been back home in all these years.’

‘I rather think it was Jimmy’s fault that an innocent child who didn’t ask to be born was brought into the world at all.’

‘That’s right.’ Mary’s voice was becoming hysterical now. ‘That’s right. Blame my Jimmy. You never liked him. It was always Eveleen with you, wasn’t it?
She couldn’t do a thing wrong in your eyes, could she? And it’s the same now with Bridie.’

In her bedroom, Bridie could still hear the sound of their quarrel but not what was being said. She groaned aloud, sorry now that she had catapulted her grandmother into one of her moods. But
more than that she was sorry to have brought trouble upon the kindly Josh.

Still shivering from the cold of the woods, Bridie stripped off her clothes, washing herself all over with cold water from the ewer on her dressing table. Then she pulled on her warmest garments
and crept downstairs. She listened a moment at the door at the bottom, which led back into the kitchen. Hearing no raised voices, indeed no sound of voices at all, she opened the door and stepped
into the room.

Mary was seated in her chair by the range, her head bent over her pillow lace whilst Josh stirred the soup in a heavy black saucepan over the fire. It looked like an ordinary, calm and peaceful
domestic scene, but Bridie could feel the tension in the air. Her grandmother had now retreated into a world of stony silence, her lips pressed together in disapproval whilst her nimble figures
twisted the bobbins over and over to form the gossamer lace.

Josh glanced up and saw Bridie standing uncertainly in the doorway. ‘There you are, love. Now come and sit down at the table, drink this and then away to bed with you for a good
night’s sleep.’

She did as he bade and whilst she sipped the soup he sat with her at the table. He leant towards her and spoke in a low tone. ‘Now, Bridie, what you did today was wrong. You worried us
both very much. But if you say you’re sorry to your gran and promise never to do such a thing again, we’ll say no more about it.’

Bridie looked up at him, looked into the ugly, but kindly face, and knew that his expression of concern was genuine. She held his gaze steadily and was able to say with far more truthfulness
than she could do to her grandmother, ‘I am sorry I worried you. Truly I am, but . . .’ The next words were difficult to say, for as much as she had been hurt by Mary’s
thoughtless words, Bridie did not want to wound Josh, who had never once shown her anything but loving kindness. She took a deep breath and hurried on. ‘I don’t want to be a burden any
longer to you and Gran. Maybe it would be better if I went away. Perhaps to – to Nottingham. Into service or . . . or something.’ Her words faltered and faded as she saw the bleak look
in Josh’s eyes and, despite her desire not to hurt him, she saw at once that she had done so.

He dropped his gaze, looking down at his callused hand lying on the snowy tablecloth. His tone was heavy as he said, ‘I presume you overheard what your Gran said?’ He raised his eyes
and caught Bridie’s nod. ‘She didn’t mean it, love.’ Then he half twisted in the chair and added, ‘Tell her you didn’t mean it, Mary.’

Her busy fingers suddenly idle, Mary raised her head slowly. For a long moment, grandmother and granddaughter stared at each other. The young girl’s eyes pleaded for understanding, for a
denial of the older woman’s earlier words, but in Mary’s eyes there was still anger and resentment. Mary’s glance flickered briefly towards Josh as he said gently, ‘Come
now, Mary, love.’

Her grandmother sighed. ‘Of course I didn’t mean it, but . . .’ she added, her tone still firm, ‘she must learn not to be so wilful.’

Bridie saw the warning look still in her grandmother’s eyes, but Josh seemed satisfied. The matter, for him at least, was at an end. ‘There now.’ He patted Bridie’s hand
and his round face shone. ‘There now. We’ll forget all about it. Off you go up to bed, love. Sleep tight.’