Tilly Trotter (The Tilly Trotter Trilogy) Read online

  ‘I’m not being perky, Gran.’ Tilly walked towards the table, then round it to the side that faced the fire and her grandmother who was now opposite to her, and her grandfather who lay in the bed to the left of her, and, looking from one to the other, she said, ‘You’re always tellin’ me I’m comin’ up sixteen and that I should act like a young woman, yet there’s things you keep from me, an’ always have done. Like the sovereign up there that Simon brings every month. And did you know he was gona be married? Did it come as big a surprise to you as you let on it was?’

  ‘Of course it was a surprise to me, an’ to your granda there.’ Annie’s voice was harsh now. ‘It’s the first breath of it we’ve heard. We never knew he was even courtin’, did we, William?’ She turned and looked towards the bed, and William shook his head slowly and looked at Tilly as he said, ‘No, girl, it was news to us. Now if it had been Rose Benton, or that Fanny Hutchinson, yes, her who’s been after him for years, I could have understood it, but I’ve never heard of this one. What did he say her name was?’

  ‘Mary Forster.’

  They both looked from under their lids at Tilly, and after a moment Annie, too, said, ‘Mary Forster.’ Then shaking her head, she added, ‘Never heard one of any such name.’

  ‘Well, that’s explained that!’ The tone of Tilly’s voice was such that her grandparents gaped at her in surprise as she went on, ‘But about the other thing.’ She nodded her head towards the tea caddy. ‘And don’t tell me again that Simon’s paying back some money he’s owin’ you. I could never imagine you havin’ that much to lend him that it would take all those years for him to clear his debt, so what’s it all about? I’m entitled to know . . . ’

  William now began to cough, a racking tormented cough, and Annie, going to him quickly, brought him up on the pillows and thumped his back and as she was doing it she turned her head towards Tilly and cried, ‘See what your niggling pestering’s done! It’s days since he had a turn. Scald some honey and bring it here, sharp! . . . You an’ your entitled to know. Huh!’

  Tilly, her whole attitude changed now, ran towards an oak dresser at the far end of the room and, taking a jar from it, she quickly returned to the table and scooped out two spoonfuls of honey into a mug; she then went to the fire and after dipping the mug quickly into the kale pot of simmering water she stirred the contents with a small wooden spoon, before going to the bed and handing the mug to her grandmother.

  Between gasps the old man sipped at the hot honeyed water; then lay back on his pillows, his chest heaving like bellows all the while.

  Tilly stood by the bed, her expression contrite and her voice equally so as she said, ‘I’m sorry, Granda. I’m sorry if I’ve upset you.’

  ‘No, no’ – he took hold of her hand – ‘you’d never upset me, me dear. You’re a good girl; you always have been, and I’ll tell you something else . . . when I can get me breath.’ He pulled at the air for some seconds; then smiling at her, he said, ‘You’ve been the joy of me life since you came into it.’

  ‘Oh, Granda!’ She bent now and laid her face against his hairy cheek and there was a break in her voice as she again said, ‘Oh, Granda!’

  Then the emotion and sentiment was shattered by her grandmother’s level tone, saying now, ‘I didn’t want water but I did want wood an’ I’ll have to have it, that’s if you two want a meal the night.’

  Tilly moved from the bed and as she passed her grandmother the old woman turned towards her and they exchanged glances that held no resentment on either side.

  At the back of the cottage, a roughly paved open yard was bordered on one side by two outhouses: one had been a stable and the other a harness room. The harness room was now used for storing vegetables and the stable for the storage of wood. Outside the stable there was a sawing cradle and on it lay a thick branch of a tree that she had brought down from the wood only that morning. She put her hand on it and, turning her body half round, leaned against the cradle and looked across the paddock and beyond to where the land dropped far away before rising again to the woods that edged the Sopwith estate; and for once, looking over the landscape, she didn’t think consciously, by! it’s bonny, because she was feeling slightly sick inside.

  Simon was going to be married. She was still under the shock of the announcement; she had never imagined Simon getting married. But why hadn’t she imagined it? A good-looking strapping farmer like him with his kindness and sense of fun. She had loved him for so many things, but mostly for his kindness and sense of fun.

  She could remember the very first day she had seen him, it was the day her mother had brought her to this cottage. She was five years old. She could remember what she was dressed in, a black serge dress and a short black coat and bonnet; she was wearing black because her father had fallen over a steep cliff in Shields and was drowned. Her granda took off her coat and sat her on a chair; then together with her grandmother, he helped to get her mother up the steep stairs and to the bedroom because her mother was sick.

  She was sitting by the fire when the door opened and a man and boy entered, and the boy came over to her and said, ‘And who are you when you’re out?’ And he laughed down on her; but she didn’t laugh back, she began to cry and he said, ‘There now. There now,’ and brought a barley sugar from his pocket and gave it to her.

  And when her granda came down the stairs he and the man talked. It was on that day too that she first heard the name McGrath spoken, and also a swear word, for the man said, ‘Bugger me eyes that for a tale, your Fred to fall over a cliff!’

  The boy then asked her name, and when she told him ‘Tilly’, he said ‘Tilly Trotter! Now that’s a daft name, Tilly Trotter.’ And she remembered her grandfather shouting at the boy, saying, ‘Don’t you call the child daft, Simon! Her name’s Matilda,’ and the man said to the boy, ‘Get outside! I’ll deal with you later. It’s you that’s daft.’

  But the boy didn’t go outside. She could see him now standing straight and looking at her grandfather and his father and saying, ‘I heard tell Mr McGrath was there waiting for the boat an’ all, he wasn’t on his shift, he had slipped it. Bill Nelson heard his father talking.’ And at that the two men came up to the boy, and somehow the boy no longer seemed a boy but a man.

  From that time she had always looked upon Simon as a man and someone who belonged to her. But he was no longer hers. She felt a desire to cry, and the desire was strange for she rarely cried. She’d had nothing in her life to make her cry, her days had been free, happy, and filled with love; moreover she hadn’t been sent into service, or into the fields – or yet down the mine.

  She was seven when her mother died, and she had scarcely missed her for the two people back in that room had wrapped her round with loving care from that day until this moment, and she had tried to repay them not only with love but with work. Even so, she knew that they could not have survived these past few years since her grandfather had taken to his bed had it not been for that monthly sovereign.

  But why? Why did Simon feel bound to bring that money? He must do, for to her knowledge he had never missed a month during the last six years. And before that he had accompanied his father on similar missions. There was something here she couldn’t understand. And look what happened when she probed, it forced her grandfather to have a turn.

  Would Simon’s wife probe? She could give herself no answer.

  She turned quickly about and went into the stable and, picking up a straw skip, she flung in small logs; then, scooping up handfuls of chips from a wooden bin, she threw these with equal force on top of the logs. With a heave she lifted up the weighty skip and with her arms stretched wide gripping it she went towards the back door. Here, she pressed the basket against the stanchion and, her head turned over her shoulder, she once again looked at the wide landscape, but now as if saying goodbye to it, for there had come over her a foreboding feeling as if she had suddenly stepped out of one life into another, and she felt that never again would she know the lightness of
spirit that had caused her to run down the hills, or skip the burns like a deer; nor yet sit in the moonlight on the knoll and let the day seep from her and the night enter into a silent patch that lay deep within her and from which there oozed understanding – understanding which in turn she could not understand, for she had not as yet served her time in tribulations. But in this moment she sensed that that time was not far ahead.

  As she pushed open the door and went through the scullery her mind skipped back a step into the long childhood she had just left and she said to herself, ‘Perhaps if my breasts had developed more he would have noticed me.’

  Two

  Simon stood with his back against the farm gate and looked up at his landlord, Mr Mark Sopwith, and he returned the smile of the older man, nodding as he said, ‘’Tis true, ’tis true; tomorrow as ever was I let the halter be put about me neck.’ He turned now and nodded towards the head of the horse, and Mark Sopwith, laughing too, said, ‘There’s many a worse situation; it all depends on the temper of the rider.’

  ‘Oh, I know the temper of the rider; I can manage the rider.’

  ‘Oh well!’ Mark Sopwith now pursed his lips and made a slow movement with his head from shoulder to shoulder. ‘You can’t wear the halter and be the rider, that’s an utter impossibility.’

  ‘You’re right there. You’re right there.’ Simon jerked his chin upwards now, and the action spoke against himself and he said, ‘I’ve always been one to have me cake and eat it. By the way, sir, may I ask, is it true what I’m hearin’?’

  ‘It all depends, rumours always have a spice of truth in them.’ Mark Sopwith’s face was straight now. ‘What have you been hearing?’

  ‘Well—’ Simon now kicked at a pebble in the road so raising a cloud of dust, and he watched the pebble skitting away over the surface before looking straight up into Mark Sopwith’s face and adding, ‘They’re saying the mine’s all but finished since the waters come in.’

  Mark Sopwith did not answer but he stared down at Simon, then presently said, ‘There’s such things as pumps. The water did come in, but it’s gone. And you can set another rumour around; my mine isn’t finished, nor likely to be.’

  ‘I’m glad of that, sir, I really am.’

  ‘Thank you. Ah well!’ The stiffness went out of his face and tone again as he said, ‘I must be off now, but you have my best wishes for a happy life after tomorrow.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  Mark Sopwith was just about to press his knees into the horse’s flanks when his action was checked by the sight of a rider coming round the bend in the road a few yards ahead. The rider was a girl – no, a woman, and she sat her mount as if moulded to it. A few trotting steps of the horse and she was abreast of them, and she drew the beast to a stop and looked at them, and both men returned her look, their eyes wide with interest.

  ‘Good morning.’

  ‘Good morning, ma’am.’ They both answered her almost simultaneously. Mark Sopwith raised his hat but Simon, hatless, didn’t put his fingers to his forehead.

  ‘I’m speaking to Mr Sopwith?’ She was looking directly at Mark now and he inclined his head and said, ‘That’s so, ma’am.’

  ‘I’m Lady Myton.’

  ‘Oh, how do you do? I’m . . . I’m sorry I haven’t been able to call on you yet, I . . . ’

  The lady now smiled, then gave a chuckling laugh as she said; ‘I’ve called on you just this very morning but I was told that you were out and that your wife was indisposed.’

  Simon, standing straight, stared from one to the other of the riders. He noted that Mr Sopwith’s face had lost its sallowness and was now a warm pink; he also noted that the lady was amused. He had heard that a lordship had taken over Dean House and that he was an oldish fellow with a young wife. Well, from what he could see she wasn’t all that young, nearing thirty he would say, but by! she had a figure on her; and the boldness in those eyes was what one would expect to see in the face of some wench sloshing out the beer in an inn.

  With almost a start he realised her eyes were being levelled on him and the head was being held enquiringly to one side, and he also knew that his landlord was being put to a little disadvantage wondering whether or not he should introduce him. He felt his spine stiffening a little, and the action became registered in his expression as he looked up at his landlord.

  ‘This is Farmer Bentwood, a tenant of mine.’

  She was again looking at Mark Sopwith, and it was a number of seconds before she inclined her head towards Simon, but he still didn’t, as he should have done, raise his hand to his forehead and say, ‘Good day, me lady,’ but returned her the same salute, inclining his head just the slightest, which action seemed to annoy Mr Sopwith for, backing his horse, a manoeuvre which caused Simon to skip to one side, he brought its head round in the same direction as that of Lady Myton’s mount and now level with her and, his knee almost touching her skirt, he said, ‘Have you any destination in view or are you just out for a canter?’

  ‘I’m just out for a canter.’ She accompanied her words with a deep obeisance of her head.

  ‘Then perhaps you’ll do me the honour of riding with me back to the house and there make the acquaintance of my wife?’

  ‘Surely.’

  As they both started their horses Mark Sopwith turned and looked down on Simon, saying, ‘Goodbye, Bentwood, and a merry wedding tomorrow.’

  At this Lady Myton pulled up her horse and twisted round in the saddle. ‘You’re going to be married tomorrow?’

  He paused before he said quietly, ‘Yes, me lady.’

  ‘Well, may I too wish you a merry wedding, Mr . . . Farmer . . . what did you say your name was?’

  ‘Bentwood, Simon Bentwood.’ He stressed his name. His face was straight, but hers was wide and laughing as she repeated, ‘Simon Bentwood. Well, again I say a merry wedding, Farmer Simon Bentwood,’ and on this she spurred the horse sharply forward, leaving Mark Sopwith to follow behind her; that was until they reached the end of the winding road, for there he shouted, ‘Turn right here on to the bridle path.’ He himself now took the lead, putting his horse into a gallop and then knowing a feeling of satisfaction and of not a little amusement that though she was close on his tail she would, he guessed, even from this short acquaintance, be annoyed that she couldn’t pass him and show off her horsemanship because he had recognised at once she was one of those women who once seated on a horse would go hell for leather over walls, ditches, fences . . . and over farmlands. Yes, they were no respecters of farmlands. Likely, that was what Bentwood had recognised in her that had made him act out of place, because his manner had not been respectful.

  When the path eventually widened out he drew his horse to a walk and as she came abreast of him he looked at her, but she gave him no indication of annoyance. She was looking away to the right, down towards a cottage, and she remarked, ‘That’s a pretty cottage and a well-tended garden. That’s something I’ve noticed in the short time I’ve been here’ – she glanced at him now – ‘the cottages have very untidy gardens; some with a few vegetables, nothing pretty.’

  ‘That’s the Trotters’ place. It’s within the boundary of my land. Old man and woman Trotter live there. It’s their young granddaughter who keeps the place tidy. There she is now coming up from the burn. She does the work of a man. She can fell a tree as good as the next; she’s got one of my copses as clean as a whistle.’

  ‘You allow her to saw your trees down?’

  ‘No, only limbs so far up; it’s good for them.’

  As they drew nearer the cottage the girl came closer into view, and Lady Myton said, ‘She looks very young, rather fragile.’

  ‘Oh, I shouldn’t judge her on her thinness, she’s as strong as a young colt.’

  When the girl saw them she didn’t stop but went on towards the back of the cottage, carrying the two wooden buckets full of water, and as they passed the paddock Lady Myton said, ‘So this is all part of your estate?’

 
; ‘Yes, what’s left of it.’ There was a wry smile on his face as he said, ‘Half our land was sold to enhance your property about fifty years ago.’

  ‘You must have been very short of money.’

  ‘We were.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘Things haven’t altered very much.’

  ‘But you have a mine?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Doesn’t that make money?’

  He sighed. ‘The only way mines seem to make money is if you go abroad or live in London and leave them to managers. If you stay at home and look after the people’s interests you lose all along the line.’

  ‘The Rosiers, I understand, do very well.’

  His face became straight. He levelled his glance now towards his hand that was gripping the reins as he muttered, ‘Ruthless people generally do . . . do very well.’

  There was silence between them for a moment. They reined the horses away from each other to avoid a deep pothole in the road and when they came together again she said, ‘You sound as if you don’t care for the Rosiers, why?’

  It was on the point of his tongue to say, ‘Whether I care for them or not, madam, is no business of yours,’ for of a sudden he was realising that he hadn’t been in the company of this woman for half an hour and she was questioning him as any close friend might. But when he turned and looked at the expression in those large deep blue eyes it wiped away any sting with which he might have threaded his next words. ‘You’re a most inquisitive lady,’ he said.

  Her answer was to put her head back and let out what he considered a most unladylike laugh, and, her eyes twinkling now, she looked at him and said, ‘You know some people are with me a full day before they realise what a very nosy person I am.’

  He was now laughing with her, but his was a gentle chuckle, and as he kept his eyes on her he felt a stirring in his blood that he had never imagined he would experience again, for here he was, forty-two years old, with a son of twenty by his first wife, three sons and a daughter by his second, and she in decline, a mortgage on his estate that was choking him, a mine that was barely meeting his men’s wages, and a household that was in chaos because it had no controlling hand. He had imagined there was no space left in him wherein was harboured a remnant of the emotions of youth; desire of the body yes, but not the excitement with which it had first made itself known. It was in this moment as if the spring of his manhood had just burst through the earth.