The Tinker's Girl Page 20

  . . . anywhere. The alternative, Ma, is to sell up and then you'd have enough to keep you in a back room down in the village, with someone like Mary Fanny Cook to see to you. There'll be no Jinnie down there to answer your beck and call. Yes' - he jerked his head down to her - 'that's what I could do; sell up. And the quicker the better for me.'

  Her voice came back at him, deep and flat, and holding a touch of disdain as she said, 'You could sell nothing: this place is still mine, and when I go it is Hal's.'

  He straightened up and stared at her; and she stared back at him; then her head emphasising the words, she repeated, 'It is Hal's. Legally, you haven't a leg to stand on. You hadn't thought along those lines, had you? If he came back, and he said he would, you couldn't claim a dead hen. He might keep you on as a hand, because he's always hated farming of any kind.'

  He stepped back from her as if, in doing so, he would be seeing her in a different light, because he had never imagined her as being capable of venting such spleen: he had always been her first choice because he was the result of the only love she had ever known, perhaps had ever been capable of.

  His voice came as a croak when he replied, 'Well, now I know where I stand, Ma, and I'll fit into the post, something between a farmhand and an acting manager.

  Well, being the acting manager, I'm definitely keeping the big fellow.'

  Her voice rising again, she cried, 'You do that and I'll have every word I've said put in writing. I will. I will.'

  'Yes, you do that, Ma. Have it put in writing if it'll ease your bitterness.' And he went slowly from the room.

  Outside, he stood leaning against the wall of the swill-house. He was feeling so tired and drained that he could have slid to the ground. In the distance, he could see the figure of Jinnie returning from seeing Max off. She was neither walking nor running, but like a child she was hopping from one foot to the other.

  On seeing him, she changed her step and began to run.

  And when she reached him she panted, 'He'll be such a help, Mister Bruce. And you know what I was thinking?

  He said he could sleep in the barn, but the nights are cold, you know. I tell you what I could do.' She pointed to the door of the swill-room, saying, 'I could clean up in there: take the cobwebs down and do the floor and all that, and he could put in a plank bed.' She paused now and leaned towards him, saying, 'You all right?' and he answered wearily, 'No, Jinnie: I'm far from all right.'

  'Oh; the missis went on?'

  'You could say the missis went on, Jinnie. Yes, you could say that.' And he pulled himself from the wall, adding, 'You know something, Jinnie? If I had thirty pounds of my own I know where there is a derelict cottage that could be made warm and snug, and it has quite a bit of land around it. I would buy it and take you and Max with me. We might have to eat grass for a year, but I know we'd make a go of it.'

  'Oh! Mister Bruce. That would be nice. Oh yes; it would, but--' With a slow shake of her head, she added,

  'The missis needs you and she's sick.'

  'Yes--' he looked towards the ground as he muttered,

  'She's sick,' and he could have added, 'but she's not so sick that she doesn't know what she is doing. And she meant what she said. Oh aye, she meant what she said.'

  As she rounded the side of the barn, and carrying a flat straw-lined basket layered with eggs, Jinnie was brought abruptly to a halt. Drawn up opposite the cottage door was a trap, with one man seated in it, another standing by the horse's head. The man in the trap was a parson: his collar, his black garb, his hat yelled that at her; but she did not hurry towards him: she put down the basket, then dashed back the way she had come and into what had once been the cowshed, where Bruce and Max were examining a crumbling wall, and she called, 'Mister Bruce! you'd better come quick. Parson; parson's here!'

  "What? Who?'

  'A parson. He's in a trap by the door.'

  He hurried past her and after rounding the barn, he too hesitated for there was the parson to whom, on the advice of Mr Stevens, he'd had to give a precious sovereign; and for what? for yammering some nonsense about the corpse now being in heaven and protected by angels as he awaited the last day of judgement.

  He purposely slowed his step; and it was the parson who spoke first, almost heartily, saying, 'Good-day to you, Mr Shaleman. I am on my rounds of the outposts of my parish, seeing as I am what you would call new to the job, and in visiting you, I thought I would kill two birds with the one stone; introducing myself to your mother as that new parson from down below, and offering her my condolences on her loss.'

  When there was no reaction from Bruce, the parson became slightly embarrassed. From his verger he had heard of the extreme poverty of some of these hill farmers. It had been said that church mice had more than this particular family. Yet it was odd that the old man, whom he had buried, had been driven to the cemetery in a glass hearse and he himself had been given a gold sovereign. Normally, he was lucky if he got half that amount, and from those he was well aware could afford more.

  However, the outside of this place certainly fitted Verger Wilson's estimation. He would soon see if the inside matched up to it, for the young man who had given him no greeting at all had thrust open the door of the cottage and was now addressing someone at the far end of the room, saying,

  'You have a visitor,

  Ma.'

  For a moment, the Reverend Norman Cuthbert stood just inside the room so as to allow his eyes to become accustomed to the gloom after the bright sunshine outside, and when his vision cleared his suspicions were confirmed, for the inside of the cottage appeared to him little better than the outside. The place was sparsely furnished, and he noticed that although it was clean it offered not the slightest trace of comfort.

  He now looked up the room to where a woman was sitting in a wall-bed, and he was about to speak when she said, 'He sent for you?'

  'No-one sent for me, Mrs Shaleman, but I thought it was time I made your acquaintance and offered you my condolences on the loss of your dear husband.' He watched her flop back on her pillows, then he turned quickly to see the young girl, the one who had been carrying a basket of eggs, pushing a chair towards him, and he said, 'Thank you, my dear.' Then turning back to the woman in the bed, he asked, 'Is this your granddaughter?'

  'No;

  she is not my grand-daughter; she is a maid.'

  'Oh.' He half turned and watched the girl going out of the room, and when he turned to the woman again she was staring at him, her eyes wide, her mouth slightly agape, and when she said,' How did you know I wanted you?' he paused for a moment, then said, 'I... I wasn't aware that you wanted me, or you needed me, but the spirit is a very mysterious thing. It is, as it were, God's messenger. Now--' He was about to bend towards her but was checked by the strong body odour emanating from her, and so he remained seated upright; but his voice had a confidential note to it when he said, 'Is there something you would like to tell me?'

  'Yes. Yes, there is. I... I didn't know how I was going to get either you or the doctor. I want a letter written; but it's only to be read after I am dead.'

  'Oh, you mean a form of will?'

  'Yes. Yes, I suppose that's it, a form of will.'

  'Well, now, I take it you can't write yourself?'

  'No, I can't.' She could have added, 'I wouldn't be asking you, would I, to write me a will if I could write meself?'

  'Have you any paper?'

  'Paper? No. No, we have no writing paper.'

  He sighed deeply before he said, 'Well, all I have on me is a notebook. Is it going to be very long?'

  'No; just a few words.'

  'Oh, well.' He now thrust his hand into an inner pocket of his black open coat and withdrew a large notebook from it, and he had to flip over a number of pages before a blank one presented itself, and then he said, 'Well, what would you like to say?'

  'I would just like to say who I'm leaving the farm to when I go. It is my farm at the moment.'

  'Oh, well . . . well no
w, give me your full name.'

  She gave him her name, Rose Ann Shaleman, and when he asked, 'The name of your farm? It's just slipped my mind,' she replied, 'Toilet's Ridge Farm.'

  This done, he now prompted her: 'Tell me what you want to say.'

  She came back sharply at him, 'I've just told you, it's to do with who I want to leave the farm to.'

  He sighed deeply, paused a moment, then said, 'I shall write: "I, Rose Ann Shaleman, of Toilet's Ridge Farm, wish to leave the said farm and land and stock to my son--"' He now looked at her and asked, 'What is your son's full name?'

  She told him, and he wetted the pencil lead on his tongue before writing the name on the paper in block letters; then below that he wrote:' Signed this 14th day of November 1871 in the presence of the Reverend Norman Cuthbert'. Then he looked up again and said, 'As this is a form of will there should be two witnesses to your signature.'

  'Why?'

  'Oh; without going into the legal details, I only know that it is ... well, a law, and makes the bequest valid, if you follow me.'

  She didn't follow him, and she only knew that she didn't want anyone else to be aware of the details, and she voiced this by saying, 'I don't want that splashed around. I thought that you, being a parson, would keep it secret.'

  'And it will be kept secret, Mrs Shaleman, until the time comes for it to be read. My verger is outside; he is my driver too.'

  'You've got a driver? How did you come?'

  'A sort of trap; a light brake, really.'

  'And you've a driver?'

  His tone was sharp now as he answered, 'Yes, Mrs Shaleman,' but he did not go on to explain to her why he had a driver for a trap-cum-small-brake, although it was already known in the parish that he had had a serious accident with a horse and therefore did not trust them. He hadn't let it be known that the horse had really been but a donkey and that it had happened during his early childhood, but he had never been able to overcome the fear of animals since.

  'Will he spill it about?'

  'If you mean, will he talk about what is in this will, the answer is no, because he won't read it. All that is required of him is to write his name at the bottom. Now do you understand?'

  She did and she didn't, but she lay back now and he rose and went to the door, and lifting his hand to his verger, who was talking to the son of the house, he beckoned him. And when the man entered the room he, as his master had done, paused for a moment to get used to the gloom. Then he made his way behind the minister to the gaunt woman sitting on the wall bed, where the minister said, 'This is Mrs Shaleman, Wilson, and she would like you to sign your name to this document.' He now held the notebook out to the man, but kept his hand over what he had written, and pointing with the forefinger of his right hand he said, 'Write your name there.'

  'Write my name?'

  'That's what I said: just write your name there. That is all that's required of you.'

  George Wilson picked up the dangling pencil and in a large sprawling hand he laboriously wrote his name, and he had hardly finished putting the long stroke attached to the end when the notebook was almost whipped away from him and the parson said, 'That'll be all; I'll be out in a moment.'

  'Just as you say, Parson. Just as you say.' The man gave one hard look at the woman in the makeshift bed, before walking with slow strides down the room and out into the fresh air again, his whole mien showing his protest. He'd have something to tell his missis, all right, when he got home the night.

  Back at the bedside, Parson Cuthbert now very carefully tore the leaf from the notebook, but as he went to hand it to her she pushed it away, saying, 'I can't keep that; I've nowhere to put it. Anyway, I don't want anybody to see it.'

  'Then you wish me to keep it in my care until . . . ?'

  'Yes. Aye, of course that's what I wish. No other way, is There?'

  He folded the piece of paper with the perforated edge and after placing it carefully into an inner pocket, he said, 'I shall see that it goes into an envelope and is sealed.'

  At this, she let out a long slow breath and said, 'Oh.

  Well, thanks. Thanks very much. That's off my mind.'

  Then pulling herself upright, she said, 'The girl will make you a cup of tea.'

  'No, thank you. No, thank you.' He busied himself now returning the notebook to the inner pocket of his plain coat; then, as he was in the process of buttoning it up, she asked, 'Would you like a few eggs, then?'

  'Yes. Yes, thank you very much, Mrs Shaleman. Yes, I'm very partial to an egg.' She put out a hand as if thrusting him aside and, leaning out of the bed, she called, 'You! girl.'

  As if she had been waiting for the command to come in and to make tea, Jinnie appeared from the scullery, saying, 'Yes, Mrs Shaleman?'

  'Pack up half a dozen eggs for the parson.'

  Jinnie paused as if surprised by the order, but then turned and went out, and the Reverend Norman Cuthbert said the words to himself: half a dozen eggs. Really! A dozen and a chicken, he would have thought, at least, if not a suckling pig, for they couldn't be that hard up if they could afford such a funeral as they had given the old man after bringing him all the way from South Shields, which he heard would have cost them nearly twenty pounds; and this after the old man had absconded with the market takings.

  There was something fishy here.

  His voice held a distinctly cold note as he bade her his farewell: 'Good-day to you, Mrs Shaleman. I'm glad to have been of service to you.' He stressed the words, then added, 'I'll remember you in my prayers.'

  'I'm obliged,' was her only answer.

  The parson lost no time over his departure; yet he hesitated before climbing into the trap, for he had glimpsed a very large figure of a man standing near the girl. He had no recollection of anyone so big in the parish; still, he wasn't going to enquire further. All he wanted to do was to get away from this mean and miserable place, and he promised himself it would be a long time before it saw him again.

  Bruce stood apart, watching the trap disappear into the distance. She had done it then. But how had she got in touch with him? She had seen no-one from outside.

  Was it by chance that he had come? Well, if it was, it was strange, for she must have carried out her threat: the verger had been called in, and it would have been to put his cross to something. Being a verger, he probably could write.

  Well, he knew one thing: if she could make her plans, so could he, for he had no intention of slaving on until she died; and afterwards, when Hal returned, as he likely would, he could sell up.

  When Jinnie's voice at his side said, 'He wasn't over pleased with half a dozen eggs; he never even said thank you,' he made no comment; but when Max said,

  'P-p-parson, ch-ch-church beggars,' he nodded at him, saying, 'You're right there, Max. You're right there.'

  Max now continued the conversation they had been having before the arrival of the visitor. ' C-c-could build that wall p-p-proper. Good for cow. Good for cow and next-door dairy.'

  At this Bruce laughed ruefully, saying, 'Yes, good cowshed and dairy; all we want now is the cow.' He patted Max on the arm, adding, 'It's a good idea, Max, but we'll leave it for the time being.'

  'There were several cows at the house, and a dairy,'

  put in Jinnie. 'Three of the girls worked in the dairy.

  But' - she now pulled a face - 'nobody in the house saw a bit of butter or cheese; it was sold, but only after them up top had their share. It would be nice to have a cow, Mister Bruce.'

  'Jinnie!' There was a reprimand in his tone, and it was enough to make her say, 'Oh yes. Yes, I'm sorry.

  I know. It was just that I thought, with Max being here, he's so handy, turn his hand to anything, he can--' She looked at her self-appointed guardian with admiration, and he modestly tossed his head, saying, 'Not . . . not everything, no. Things I want to do, but can't.' He now wagged his fingers. 'Write. Y-y-you know, write.'

  'But you can read. You can read well.'

  Bruce's interest was
momentarily aroused, and he looked at Max and said, 'You can read but you cannot write? How comes that?'

  'D-d-don't know. Writin' all m-m-mixed up. Letters won't fffit.'

  Bruce sighed and smiled at the big man; then said to him, 'Well, you've got much more in your head than I have, Max, because I can neither read nor write.'

  'Try. Try.'

  'Oh, there's no time; never has been. And no need.

  Well--' He jerked his chin upwards as if in denial of his last statement, then added on a laugh, 'When I'm older and have plenty of time, I'll start then.'

  'T-t-too late.' And on these words Max turned away, and Bruce, looking after him, thought, an amazing fellow, really amazing. He's got a mind, and yet look how he's placed. Why? Oh, for God's sake! he said to himself; let's keep off the whys and get on with the job, and with this thought he said briefly to Jinnie, 'You'd better go in and carry on as usual.' And to himself he added, 'We'll both carry on as usual, for the time being at least.'

  10

  November had come in with wind and sleet showers.

  Towards the end of the month it snowed heavily and lay frozen for three days; then followed a thaw and intermittent rain that took them into the first week in December. In the second week, the weather changed again, this time to frosty nights and mornings, and a modicum of weak winter sun.

  A week after Max's arrival, Bruce had been able to take him up into the hills and show him the ropes of getting the sheep down from the high fells and also of controlling Flossie. It was strange, Bruce found, that here was this man who stammered on every other word yet who could whistle perfectly, and he was quick to learn the different notes to which the dog answered.

  Flossie had taken a liking to the big man to the extent of following him each night to share the warmth of his sleeping quarters in the swill-room.

  Max had made the room as comfortable as possible.

  He had constructed himself a plank platform on which to lay a home-made tick full of straw. He had also built a rough open cupboard to hold his two changes of underclothes, a number of coloured handkerchiefs, a new cap, and a long hand-knitted muffler. On another shelf he kept his Bible and a number of old exercise books, which were covered mainly with his efforts at writing, some old newspapers and three-year-old magazines. His Sunday coat and other oddments of top clothing were hanging from nails in the wall.