The Stony Path Read online

  The Stony Path

  Rita Bradshaw

  Hachette UK (2010)

  Tags: Sagas, Fiction

  * * *

  SYNOPSIS

  Growing up on a small, struggling farm on the outskirts of Sunderland in the early 1900s, Polly Farrow has a tough life, but she has gifts money can't buy; a joyful disposition and a loving heart. And her heart belongs to her beloved cousin, Michael. Polly knows that one day they'll be man and wife. But a terrible secret is to change everything: Michael is her half-brother, the fruit of an incestuous relationship between her father and his own sister; Michael's mother. The lovers are rent apart and Polly is left to bear the responsibility of the farm alone; for her father kills himself, unable to live with his shame. Life is now a battle for survival, and Polly wonders if she will ever find happiness. But the answer to her prayers is closer than she thinks...

  The Stony Path

  RITA BRADSHAW

  headline

  www.headline.co.uk

  Copyright © 2000 Rita Bradshaw

  The right of Rita Bradshaw to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copiright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  First published as an Ebook by Headline Publishing Group in 2010

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  eISBN : 978 0 7553 7586 8

  This Ebook produced by Jouve Digitalisation des Informations

  HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

  An Hachette UK Company

  338 Euston Road

  LONDON NW1 3BH

  www.headline.co.uk

  www.hachette.co.uk

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Part 1 – The Children 1902

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Part 2 – The Family 1906

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Part 3 – The Marriage 1911

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Part 4 – The Child 1912

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Rita Bradshaw was born in Northamptonshire, where she still lives today with her husband, their children and two dogs.

  When she was approaching forty, Rita decided to fulfil two long-cherished ambitions – to write a novel and to learn to drive. She says, ‘The former was pure joy and the latter pure misery,’ but the novel was accepted for publication and she passed her driving test. She went on to write many successful novels under a pseudonym before beginning to write for Headline under her own name.

  As a committed Christian and fervent animal-lover, Rita has a full and busy life, but she relishes her writing – a job that is all pleasure – and loves to read, walk her dogs, eat out and visit the cinema in any precious spare moments.

  Rita Bradshaw’s delightful earlier sagas, ALONE BENEATH THE HEAVEN, REACH FOR TOMORROW and RAGAMUFFIN ANGEL, are also available from Headline.

  To my lovely family; we’ve trod our own share of stony paths, but always shoulder to shoulder and loving each other. You’re all more precious than words can say, and I count myself the most fortunate wife and mother in the world.

  What plan of life is this,

  the stony path so oft times tread?

  An endless path when youth is sweet

  and nature’s hand is beckoning.

  A path of yearning and vain lament,

  of heart demise and sorrow.

  And yet my love walks the stony path

  and I will see him ... in my dreams.

  Anon

  Prologue

  1889

  The July evening was mellow after the fierce heat of the day, and dying shafts of sunlight spangled the dusty floor of the old barn, slanting softly through the half-open door.

  Outside the barn there was the occasional low mooing of cattle settling down for the night, and the odd squawk from indignant hens as the resident cock marshalled his harem into their crees.

  Inside the wooden structure the only sound came from the sweet-smelling hayloft set far above the floor and reached by a ladder propped against the platform. The low murmur of voices was punctured by a gurgling laugh, followed by a girl’s voice saying, ‘I always feel so happy when we’re together like this, Henry. In fact I think it’s the only time I am truly happy. Do you know what I mean?’

  ‘Of course I do. You know I feel the same, lass.’

  ‘Then how can you even think of marryin’ Hilda? She set her cap at you from way back, you know it, same as you know you only love me. You can’t marry her, Henry.’

  ‘Don’t start that again.’ Henry Farrow was of slender build, his finely boned body and delicate, almost pretty face giving the impression of someone much younger than his twenty years. In direct contrast, the girl lying beside him in the fragrant hay was hefty, her broad frame and voluptuous curves reminiscent of a full-blown Rembrandt beauty.

  She propped herself on one elbow now, stroking the side of Henry’s face as she said softly, her voice still holding an echo of laughter, ‘I will start it, I have every right to. I love you; I won’t give you up to that milksop who doesn’t know her backside from her elbow. She will never make you happy.’

  Henry stared up into the deep sea-green eyes looking down at him, and his voice reflected the turmoil within as he murmured, ‘Happy doesn’t come into it, lass. You know that. We’ve got to finish this, kill it stone dead, and if it means me being wed then so be it.’

  ‘But you love me.’ Eva tossed her mane of thick brown hair back from her shoulders as she continued looking down into his face. It was beautiful, it was so beautiful. She couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t thought how beautiful Henry was, or loved him. He was everything she would ever want in a man, in a husband.

  Aye, he loved her. Henry felt his body harden as she stroked his face again, her fingers light and teasing. He had avoided being alone with Eva these last months since he’d asked for Hilda Craggs, knowing his weakness if she touched him, but still she had managed to waylay him several times and the result had always been the same. He burned for her, that was the trouble. She only had to look at him in a certain way, slanting those green eyes of hers, and his body responded. That was why he had thought marriage would dampen down the fire. And tomorrow was his wedding day, and likely even now his mam and da were on their way home from visiting Stone Farm, Hilda’s home, where the jollifications for the morrow were to take place.

  ‘Tell me you love me, Henry.’ Her hand had moved to his unbuttoned shirt, and as her warm fingers began to wander over the slight dusting of body hair on his narrow chest, he felt his breath catch in his throat. ‘Say it. I tell you often enough.’

  She was right, she did. Right from a bairn it had been Eva, just a year older than him, who had played with him and mopped up his tears and
taken care of him when his mam had been too busy with being a farmer’s wife. He had been just fourteen when she had brought him up to this very spot and shown him how her love had ripened and diverted, and then, like now, he had been unable to resist the allure of her rounded curves and the utter abandonment with which she had given herself to him. The feeling she had for him was unconditional, and though she might consume him on occasion, wear him out with her constant need of him, he knew he felt the same. They were a pair. How often had she said that? But she was right.

  Something of his thoughts must have shown in his face because now Eva lay fully beside him again, pressing her lips to his ear and throat in little burning kisses before she whispered, ‘You can’t marry anyone, Henry, you can’t. I’ve got somethin’ to tell you—’

  And then her voice was cut off as he turned to her, covering her lips with his own as the desire she had been invoking rose hot and strong, and soon they were oblivious to anything but their need of each other ...

  It was their names being screamed that tore them apart as if by a giant hand; Henry to curl almost double as he attempted to hide the state of his dishevelment from the horrified gaze of the woman perched on the ladder against the platform, and Eva to kneel up in the hay, her hair tumbling about her shoulders as she fumbled with her gaping blouse.

  ‘You ... you ...’ That Alice Farrow couldn’t believe what she was seeing was evident from her stunned face. One hand was pressed against the starched white collar of her blue serge dress – her Sunday frock; she couldn’t have them at Stone Farm thinking the Farrows were paupers, even if they only employed two men and a lad to Weatherburn’s seven or eight men and inside help – whilst the other maintained a precarious hold on the ladder.

  ‘Mam.’ Henry gulped and spluttered as he straightened his clothing. ‘I can explain, Mam. Listen to me for a minute.’

  ‘Listen to you?’ His mother’s voice cracked and she wet her thin lips with her tongue before she said again, ‘Listen to you, you say? Do you know what you were about? But of course you do, aye, an’ that’s the truth! An’ with your own sister! Listen to him, he says! It’s Sodom an’ Gomorrah on me own doorstep!’

  The force of the last invective almost caused the ladder to fall as Alice’s body twisted in her anguish and was only saved by Henry’s dive at it. He held it fast as he said, ‘Mam, please, I’m askin’ you to listen a minute.’

  ‘I’ve no need to listen.’ Alice scrambled into the hayloft, there to confront her daughter, who was now standing and endeavouring to smooth her tangled hair. ‘I blame you for this, girl. Aye, I do. You’re dirty through an’ through an’ you’ve bin that way since the day you was born.’

  ‘You’d like to think that, Mam, wouldn’t you?’ Eva had regained something of her composure now the initial shock of being discovered had faded a little, and as she faced her mother the angry colour was hot in her cheeks. ‘Right from a wee babby you’ve never had any time for me, have you, an’ you’ve let me know it. The only person who’s ever loved me is Henry.’

  ‘That’s not love.’

  ‘Oh aye, it is, an’ you can’t bear it! You’ve made sure me da’s never liked me but you couldn’t turn Henry agen me an’ that’s always stuck in your craw. Well he’s not marryin’ that dried-up stick tomorrow, he’s not. I won’t let him!’

  Eva’s face was dark with resentment and hatred, and like two combatants the women faced each other; Alice’s small wiry frame bristling with self-righteous fury and her daughter’s big stocky body straining against the rough material of her working clothes.

  When her mother’s hand caught Eva full across the face it was not a surprise. Alice had often boxed Eva’s ears from as far back as her daughter could remember and Eva hadn’t been expecting anything less, but what did surprise her was her own response to the blow. She seemed to hover over the smaller woman like an enraged giantess and then her hands shot out in a violent push which sent her mother hurtling backwards to land with a thud against the far wall of the hayloft.

  She wasn’t aware her father had entered the fray until she heard Henry shout, ‘No, Da, no!’ and then she felt as though her hair was being torn out by its roots as she was pulled backwards with enough force to take her off her feet.

  ‘Get down there, the pair of you.’ Her father had left Eva sprawled in the hay as he went to help his wife, and now his big face was crimson as he raised Alice’s thin shoulders under one mighty forearm before turning to his children and growling again, ‘Into the house if you know what’s good for you.’

  ‘Henry? Oh, Henry.’

  When Eva reached the bottom of the ladder she swayed for a moment, her eyes fastening on a collection of old farm implements in the far corner of the barn, and then her brother, who had followed her down the ladder, took her arm, saying roughly, ‘You knocked her out. What on earth were you thinkin’ of to push Mam like that?’

  ‘Me?’ It stung Eva into life, a touch of her old defiance returning as she said, ‘I’m sick of her skelpin’ me, that’s why,’ but by the time she had followed Henry out of the barn, past the row of cow byres and the stable and into the yard, she was shaking with fear at what was in store.

  The farmhouse was small but clean – a large scrubbing brush and hard bar of carbolic soap saw to that, along with the scouring of the stone slabs on the floor once a week when the range was blackleaded and the brass fender polished to gold – but now, as Eva came to a halt in the kitchen, she gazed round the familiar surroundings almost vacantly.

  A couple of hours ago she had stood in this room, after watching her mam and da depart in the horse and cart for Stone Farm, and she’d known exactly what she was going to do. She would tell Henry he had to call off the wedding. She’d told him the same thing several times a day without fail for the last five months, since her brother had asked Hilda Craggs to marry him, but this evening he was going to be informed of a certain fact which made it imperative he didn’t get wed.

  Eva walked further into the kitchen, her feet dragging, before she sank down on to a hardbacked chair in front of the table covered with an oilcloth on which were piled several soot-smeared pans and a heap of dirty dishes. Her mother had left these for her daughter’s attention before she’d gone to visit the prospective in-laws.

  A fire was burning in the hearth despite the warmth of the muggy summer night, and a massive black kale-pot containing the family’s supper of thick rabbit stew was hanging from a chain joined to a cross-bar below the chimney opening. The smell rose up in Eva’s nostrils and she swallowed hard, her stomach heaving as she told herself she couldn’t be sick. Not now. Not right now.

  ‘He’ll kill me. When Mam tells him he’ll kill me.’

  Henry voiced what Eva was thinking, and she brought her eyes to the slight, thin figure of her brother standing in front of the fire and to one side of the range oven. ‘He won’t.’ It carried a shred of bitterness. ‘It’ll be me that gets it. The sun shines out of your backside with the pair of ’em an’ you know it.’

  She wanted to ask him if he was going to stand with her in this; brave the wrath of their parents and maintain a united front, but she didn’t dare. She was too frightened of the answer or the look on his face when he lied to her.

  And then her father burst into the room, his face demented, and all hell broke loose.

  ‘By all that’s holy, Walter, you could have killed her.’ Alice’s thin face was even more pinched than normal, her voice nothing but a whisper.

  ‘You given her the laudanum?’

  ‘Aye, I’ve given her it, but she’s in a state, Walter. She is that.’

  ‘She’ll survive; the devil looks after his own.’ It was savage.

  ‘She needs a doctor—’

  ‘Don’t talk daft, woman. You get a doctor to her an’ what’s the result? Our business spread across half of Sunderland. She’s a slut, you know it an’ I know it, but are you tellin’ me you want it spread abroad, eh? Put plenty of goose fat on her an’ she’l
l do.’

  ‘The buckle’s marked her—’ Alice’s voice was cut off abruptly as her husband slammed his fist down on the kitchen table with enough force to make the pots and pans jump.

  ‘She’s to be kept away from him until he’s wed an’ off on the fancy honeymoon Hilda’s brother’s paid for, you understand me? She’s no bit lass, not Eva, an’ you know it. By ...’ Walter ground his teeth, his jaw working fiercely. ‘When I think about it me guts turn to water.’

  ‘I know, I know.’ Alice stared at her husband’s bent head for a moment or two, before reaching for the big brown teapot and measuring two spoonfuls of tea from the caddy into its cavernous depths. After lifting the kettle from the hob she filled the teapot to half full, mashing the tea and letting it draw a minute or two before she said tentatively, ‘Shall ... shall I take him a sup?’