The Stony Path Read online

‘It’s time to get back.’ This time it was Michael who put himself between the two antagonists and his voice was sharp. If Luke and Arnold had a fight they’d all suffer for it, and nothing must be allowed to interfere with their Sunday visits to the farm. ‘Gran’ll have the tea ready and she’ll go barmy if we’re late.’

  It was Arnold, with a little hiccup of a laugh, who reached for his boots and socks first, thereby defusing the situation, but once they were all retracing their steps back to the farmhouse Michael kept close to Polly. He loved the farm. He glanced at the slim, straight figure next to him, and Polly, sensing his gaze, turned her head and smiled at him. And he loved Polly. He kept his eyes on her smooth, silky skin that was like thick cream, his gaze taking in the burnished copper in her glossy hair before he turned his eyes -– frontwards again. And now his thoughts were not those of a twelve-year-old boy but a grown man sensing his destiny as he told himself, Another eighteen months and I’ll have left school, and two years after that we’ll both be sixteen. Lots of people wed early ... And when he took Polly’s hand to pull her over a ridge of mud the cows had made with their hoofs and she didn’t try to withdraw her fingers from his once they were walking on again, it was all the confirmation he needed.

  Chapter Two

  The tea things had all been cleared away and the bowl of flowers was back in the middle of the snowy-white cloth and had been for half an hour, but still no one showed any signs of wanting to leave. This was mainly due to the earnest debate which had been steadily gathering steam for the last twenty minutes between Frederick on the one side and Arnold and Luke on the other, Walter and Henry long since having left the fray.

  ‘Aye, I know farming depends on the weather and such and can be a hazardous life, but it’s not a patch on coal mining,’ Luke was saying in answer to a comment of Frederick’s. ‘There’s danger all around underground. The owners pay lip service to safety, and there’s scarcely a week or so goes by without a fall or an explosion marking some poor devil’s card. They talk about the Labour Party the trade unions created a couple of years back being the answer to the working man – well, I hope so, the unions need some backing.’

  ‘It was one of your own, James Keir Hardie, who said the aim must be for a party in Parliament with flexibility for development,’ Frederick reminded the younger man quickly. ‘It was his proposal they took on board, and development happens slowly.’

  ‘Aye, and he’s a good man and a good Scottish miner, but when it comes to the unions taking on the owners it’ll be like spitting against the wind without government help. Look at Silksworth, and that’s only eleven years ago. Them damn – sorry, Gran – them bailiffs had a key that’d open every colliery house door and they got the police to help them. Miners on the roof of every house, rioting in the streets, but the end result was the candymen entering homes and turning men, women and bairns out into the streets to starve. Hundreds evicted and for what? Daring to object to being buried alive while the owners and viewers are sitting pretty in their blood-bought fancy houses, that’s what.’

  ‘Aye, aye, well, I wouldn’t argue with you there, lad,’ Frederick said with a touch of the condescension that was habitual with him. ‘Bad business at Silksworth, bad business.’

  ‘One hundred and sixty-four men and boys killed ten years before that at Seaham, seventy at Ryhope; man, I could go on and on up to the present day. And there’s always someone getting killed or injured or going down with silicosis and the like. And I’ve yet to see a farm worker covered in carbuncles and open sores caused by years of working in hot salt water seeping down from the North Sea above the mine tunnels. Me da’s covered in them. Isn’t that right, Arnold?’

  ‘Aye, aye, it is that.’ Their altercation by the stream put to one side in the face of this common cause, Arnold nodded vigorously.

  ‘I can see you’re going to be a strong union man, Luke.’

  The censure in Frederick’s voice was not missed by the younger man, and Alice, having heard Hilda’s stepbrother’s views on trade unions before, squirmed slightly at his tone. This was going to turn nasty, she knew it.

  Luke looked at the man sitting so comfortably on the saddle next to the fire who had his Aunt Hilda, Polly’s mother, hanging on his every word. Frederick’s plump hands were resting on his thick corduroy breeches, his leather boots were polished to a good shine and his coat was of the best woollen tweed. He looked like what he was – a prosperous employer who had never gone without a meal in his life – and now Luke’s voice was flat and hard when he said, ‘Aye, and I shan’t forget me membership’s bought with such as the Penrhyn quarrymen. Two years long, their dispute over union recognition, and them and their families destitute to the point where David Lloyd George asked the TUC for bread for their bairns last month. Lord Penrhyn wants shooting if you ask me.’

  Frederick Weatherburn stared into the young, good-looking face of this callow upstart, as he thought of Luke Blackett. This was what came of education of the masses; they got ideas above their station and began to think for themselves. A working man was at his best when he could neither read nor write, everyone knew that. Hadn’t his own father refused to employ any individual who knew their letters? And he’d been right. By, he had. But he must go carefully here. He’d other fish to fry than putting this ignorant numbskull in his place, and Luke was Eva’s stepson when all was said and done. He had looked at the situation very carefully before he had given his consent for Hilda to marry Henry, but as it was, with the farm’s steady downhill descent, things couldn’t have turned out more satisfactorily. Aye, he’d hold his hand with this young understrapper, he could afford to.

  Frederick rose somewhat ponderously to his feet before he spoke, noting with some satisfaction that Walter and his wife were looking anxious – as well they might; they relied heavily on his help at haymaking time and such like – and then he said coolly, ‘Maybe, lad, maybe, but I doubt his family would thank you for the thought. Well, I must be off. That was a grand tea, Alice, as always.’

  Sanctimonious, patronising so-an’-so, he didn’t know he was born. Luke was red-faced and inwardly burning with righteous indignation as he watched the older man take his leave amid effusive goodbyes from Polly’s mother and the family. According to his stepmother, there were a good few men and lads employed full time at Stone Farm, besides female staff in the house and the like. When had Weatherburn ever worked until he was fit to drop? Not often, he’d be bound, and he’d certainly not gone home at the end of a soul-destroyingly long shift to a wife who was as thin as a rake through taking in washing and any other work she could find, and bairns who were bow-legged with rickets and full of ringworm and impetigo. Of course Walter and Henry were a different kettle of fish; they had their own cross to bear in trying to keep this farm afloat, he knew that. He had no quarrel with Polly’s family.

  He glanced at Polly now – he had noticed she had been listening avidly while they had been talking, her huge blue eyes flashing from one to another – but she was looking at Michael. By, she was growing up fast, and she was going to be a stunner. What would she say if he told her that the main reason he continued to accompany his stepmother each Sunday was to see her? Laugh, most likely; she wouldn’t understand, she was still just a bairn. And there was Michael. The two of them were as thick as thieves, always had been, and he wasn’t sure if it was just bairns’ friendship or a stronger bond that would develop into something more as they grew. The thought caused the familiar ache in his chest and he now rose abruptly from his seat at the side of the table, nudging Arnold sitting at the side of him to do the same.

  Walter, Alice and Henry, along with Eva, had followed Frederick outside into the yard, where the horse and trap were tethered, and now Luke nodded at Hilda, who was still sitting on the saddle with her shawl drawn tightly across her thin shoulders, as he said, woe 11 have to be making tracks too. Goodbye, Mrs Farrow. Come on, Michael.’

  Hilda inclined her head coldly but she said nothing, although inwardly she was
seething. How dare this big, gangling half-nowt, this pit-yakker upset Frederick! Henry should have said something, put him in his place, instead of just sitting there with that silly look on his face, smoking his stupid pipe. She’d have something to say to him later, the weak, spineless fool.

  Once Polly, Ruth and Michael had followed Luke and Arnold outside, Hilda rose to her feet, drawing her breath in through her teeth in a low hiss as her anger continued to burn. Where was the respect for Frederick’s superior knowledge? He was well read; the study at Stone Farm was lined with books, and besides Frederick’s taste in literature and the arts, he had an excellent knowledge of current affairs. Their father – Hilda was emphatic in claiming the paternity and never allowed herself to dwell on the reality – had always maintained it was education that made the difference between the working man and his betters, and he had been right. Oh, why had she allowed herself to become linked with these people? If only she had known then what she knew now. It would have been better for her to remain a spinster all her days than to be interned in this dreadful place.

  She climbed the narrow, steep stairs slowly, the muscles in her legs being weak through lack of use. Once in the bedroom she sank down on to the bed as her thoughts continued to flow on. Henry had tricked her when he had married her and brought her here, oh yes, he had, he had. He had given her to believe that this farm, although smaller than the one she had grown up on, was a prosperous entity with plans for growth, but within a month of their arriving home from honeymoon Walter had dismissed his men and closed up the cottages. When she thought of those early days of marriage ... She shut her eyes tight, swaying slightly as her arms crossed over her flat stomach and her hands gripped either side of her waist.

  She had been expected to work harder than ever Betsy and the kitchen maid at Stone Farm had done, and the nights with Henry, the close proximity with this man who had changed from courteous, respectful suitor into someone with wants and needs that horrified and disgusted her, had been unbearable. She had never imagined that people did ‘that’ to procreate. Perhaps if her mother had lived longer she would have explained something of it to her, but the degradation, the utter baseness of the night hours had sickened her. And she didn’t believe Henry when he said that some women found it acceptable, even pleasurable. It was too, too humiliating, too vile for that. And what was the end result? Months of wretched bloatedness, and then agonising pain as the thing planted in her had made its appearance into the world. But she had put a stop to all that.

  The thought brought Hilda’s head – which had been bent over her flat chest – slowly upright, and the rocking stropped-as her cold pale blue eyes narrowed. Henry had always denied he married her to establish a solid link with Stone Farm, but if it hadn’t been that, then what else? It certainly hadn’t been because he loved her, she had realised that even before they had been wed; in fact from the first time they had walked out together. But she hadn’t cared for him in a romantic sense so she hadn’t been unduly concerned. Henry had been the only man of her acquaintance who had shown the slightest interest in her, that had been the plain fact of the matter, and she had known that if she’d refused him she would have been condemning herself to a life of spinsterhood – a life which appeared very sweet with hindsight, Fredenck would have taken care of her; he wouldn’t have expected her to soil her hands with low, menial work of the kind she had encountered here.

  She undressed slowly, but her indolence was engendered more by the bitter nature of her thoughts than by fatigue, and when Henry opened the bedroom door a few minutes later and glanced across at the thin, still figure of his wife lying primly under the worn, darned sheets, Hilda was ready for him, her invective flying forth before her husband had time to open his mouth. ‘Well? I trust you’re satisfied with your afternoon’s work?’

  ‘What?’ He had been about to change back into his working clothes but now he paused, his brow wrinkling. She was in a tear about something, but then that wasn’t surprising. That scrawny frame of hers held a capacity for venom that had used to amaze him in the early days of their marriage.

  ‘Don’t look at me like that, you big galoot. You know full well what I mean.’

  Henry’s mouth had thinned and now his voice was a snap when he said, ‘I don’t know an’ I don’t care, there’s the cows to be seen to.’

  ‘The cows to be seen to.’ Hilda repeated the words with acid mockery, her lips curling back from her teeth in contempt. ‘That’s all you’re fit for, to see to the cows, Henry Farrow. Well, for your information, I’m talking about the way you allowed that gormless yap to argue with Frederick.’

  Henry said nothing for a moment, then, on a deep intake of breath, he growled, ‘Luke Blackett has been workin’ down the pit for nigh on fourteen months, he’s no lad, an’ furthermore, he’s entitled to his own opinion same as everyone else.’

  ‘His opinion!’ It was said cuttingly, Hilda’s plain, sallow face wrinkling in a sneer. ‘How can someone like him have an opinion?’

  By, he’d do for her one day, so help him. Lying in this damn bed twenty-four hours a day, making his life and everyone else’s a misery, turning the screws whenever she had the chance ... She was a devil of a woman, and yet she’d been so quiet, so contained when they were courting. Uppity maybe, but then she’d been entitled, being Frederick Weatherburn’s stepsister. How often had the words he’d said to Eva come back to haunt him? ‘Happy doesn’t come into it.’ By, if ever there’d been a self-fulfilling prophecy, that had been it. And Eva wasn’t happy, he knew that, although they’d never spoken of it or the past. What he should have done, that day his mam found the pair of them, was to have taken Eva and gone far away somewhere. She’d have gone with him. Oh, aye, she would. Followed him to the ends of the world, Eva would have.

  He brushed the thought aside as Hilda continued to rant and rave, divesting himself of his clothes and pulling on his grimy working breeches and shirt without looking at his wife again. He let her voice flow over him and around him but not into his head; he knew from such scenes in the past that his detachment was the one thing that reduced her to a heap of quivering frustration and then a stony silence that could go on for days, weeks maybe, if he was lucky.

  But it was as Henry was leaving the room that his wife’s voice, now low, hissed at him, ‘I’ll make it my business to see Eva’s brat and those other two hulks don’t set foot in this house again, you see if I don’t. They’re a bad influence on the girls, especially Polly. She runs wild when they come, and Luke and Arnold aren’t even family, and Michael looks as though he’s riddled with the consumption—’ Then she stopped with a surprised squeak as Henry swung round.

  ‘Shut your evil mouth.’ Henry’s face was turkey red with temper and he no longer appeared to Hilda as the stoical, long-suffering, weak individual she thought she knew. He was staring straight into her startled eyes and his own were narrowed with hatred. ‘Them little lasses don’t have much of a life as you well know, but they look forward all week to seein’ their cousins – an’ they look on Luke an’ Arnold as their cousins just the same as young Michael. You do anythin’ to spoil the one thing that gives ’em a bit of pleasure, an’ so help me, woman, I’ll swing for you.’

  ‘Don’t you dare speak to me like that.’ Hilda’s voice was choked with outrage but threaded through it was a new emotion, one of fear, and it was this that Henry’s sixth sense picked up and which he capitalised on.

  ‘Oh, I dare, lass. Make no mistake about that,’ he ground out slowly, walking across to the bed and bringing his head low until his face was no more than a few inches away from that of his wife. ‘I’ve not much joy in me life, you’ve seen to that, but me bairns’ laughter is somethin’ I couldn’t put a price on, an’ I’ll be damned if I let a spiteful bitch like you finish it. You say one word to stop them lads comin’ or break up their friendship an’ you’ll have me to answer to.’

  The hatred which was in his eyes was reflected in the narrowed, opaque orbs staring ba
ck at him, and after waiting a moment or two for Hilda to speak, Henry straightened, staring down at the rigid, furious figure in the bed as he said, his voice quiet now, even calm-sounding, ‘I mean it, Hilda. I’d do it an’ you know I’d do it, don’t you.’ It was a statement not a question, and Hilda remained silent as he turned and quietly left the room.

  His bairns’ laughter! Hilda ground her fleshless buttocks into the bed. His bairns. As far as Henry was concerned – and Walter too – she had only ever given birth to one bairn, their beloved Polly. Her mind conjured up the image of a bright, laughing face with great azure eyes set under fine curving brows, and again her buttocks churned the mattress. Always cheerful, always seeing the rainbow in the storm, the girl was enough to drive anyone mad. Ruth now, Ruth was different. Ruth understood her mother was a gentlewoman, that she had been born to better things than this miserable farm.

  Henry had called her an unnatural mother once, and maybe she was. She considered the thought quite objectively. It had been when Polly was learning to walk and was always hanging on her skirts, and one day she had lost her temper and smacked the child’s hands away. They had all gone for her on that occasion – Walter, Alice and Henry, and she had shouted back that she hated the farm and everyone and everything in it, including her daughter. And she had meant it, and Henry had known she meant it.