Luckpenny Land
Freda Lightfoot
Originally published 1994 by Hodder & Stoughton Ltd. 338 Euston Road, London NW1 3BH
Copyright © 1994 and 2010 by Freda Lightfoot.
All rights reserved.
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. Nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
ISBN 978-0956607300
Published by Freda Lightfoot at Smashwords 2010
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‘paints a vivid picture of life on the fells during the war. Enhanced by fine historical detail and strong characterisation it is an endearing story...’
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Life is hard for Meg Turner. She lives on a lonely farm in the bleak but beautiful mountains of the English Lake District with a bully of a father and a brother who resents her. They want to keep her stuck at home, but Meg wants more than the kitchen sink. For love and comfort she turns to her best friend Kath, and to Lanky Lawson, who’s more of a father figure than her own father will ever be. But it’s Lanky’s son, Jack, with his dark good looks, she loves and hopes to marry one day. Loyalties are threatened as World War Two approaches and Meg gradually realises that the only thing she can really count on is her passion for the haunting land she loves. Until one day a stranger arrives in the dale and her world changes for ever.
Read a Sneak Preview of Storm Clouds Over Broombank
Also by Freda Lightfoot available as ebooks
1938
‘Anyone would think I was asking to go on the streets.’
The stinging slap sent the honey gold hair swirling about her face, enveloping her burning cheeks in a wash of colour that for a brief moment lit up the shabby kitchen.
Any ordinary face would have been hardened and cheapened by the cold light of the single Tilly lamp, but not this one. The girl’s face was arresting, alive with the urgency of her request. There was strength in the way she firmed the wide mouth, resolution in the sweeping arch of the brow, in the smoke grey of the eyes fringed by a crescent of dark lashes above cheek bones that would hold their beauty long after time had wrought its damage.
But there was no one to be captivated by Meg Turner’s youthful beauty here, certainly not her uncompromising father. Even her two brothers had withdrawn from the scene to a safer distance the moment supper was over, Dan to check the flock for any new lambs, Charlie reluctantly to clean out the sheds.
The remnants of the kitchen fire fell together with a small hushing noise. There was no other sound in the room, save for that of the rain that beat against the window. Outside, great waves of it washed down the hillsides from the high mountain tops, gushed into the overfilled beck and pelted onwards to the River Kent and the distant sea. They were used to rain in Lakeland and paid little heed to it, and the glowering skies seemed eminently suited to her mood. Meg wished she was out in it, letting it wash over her face and limbs, cleansing the pain and frustration from her as it so often did. The wind was rising, she could hear it whining in the great ash trees that lined the track to the farm and gave the name Ashlea to the place that had been her home for all of her nineteen years.
Inconsequentially, she remembered leaving a blanket loose on the line. She’d have to search for it in the bottom field come morning. Nothing that wasn’t battened down would survive the helm wind that scoured these high fells. Though the wind could not penetrate the walls of the farmhouse which were four feet thick, solid enough to withstand the worst mountain weather, and keep her within, like a prisoner.
Meg began to clear the table with jerky, angry movements, swallowing the bitter tears of disappointment that threatened to choke her. She supposed the slap was no more than she deserved. She shouldn’t have dared to repeat the rebellious statement she’d made to Dan earlier when he had caught her pulling pints at the Cock and Feathers.
‘Get your coat on,’ he’d bluntly told her. ‘You’re coming home with me.’
She hadn’t been able to believe her bad luck, having deliberately chosen the inn because it was far from the market area of town where her father conducted his business. Not for one moment had she considered the possibility of her own brother choosing to drink there. But losing her temper would get her nowhere. Hadn’t she discovered so a dozen times?
Nevertheless, since it had taken her weeks to find this job, she wasn’t for giving in easily. ‘I’ll not,’ she’d said, continuing to pull pints, feeling the excitement of defiance in the pit of her stomach.
When she’d tossed back a ragged abundance of honeyed curls from slender shoulders, an unconsciously sensuous act, not a man in the room would not have willingly championed her.
Only Dan Turner was not a man to take on lightly.
The elder of the two Turner brothers, his short stature belied the beefy power of him. In his tweed jacket and waistcoat, flat cap jauntily tilted to one side of his large bullet head, he looked even more intimidating than in his more usual working overalls. He had the typically round, handsome Turner face, broad nose and very slightly projecting ears. But unlike young Charlie, this brother seemed to wear a perpetual sneer, which drew up one corner of his mouth and flared the nostrils in a way that gave off a strong warning to leave well alone.
The farmers, recalling Dan Turner’s expertise on the wrestling field, fascinated though they were by this little drama, had drawn back slightly, shuffling uncomfortably.
‘You should be selling the eggs, not swanning around behind a bar.’
‘The eggs are all sold. What’s so terrible about a little job? You drink in enough of these places. Why shouldn’t I work in one?’
‘You know damn well why, because you’re a woman! God knows what Father will say.’
‘It’s only Saturday mornings, for pin money.’ She had spoken with calm assurance, desperately wanting to disguise the unease that filled her at mention of her father’s reaction. ‘You’re not going to tell on me, are you?’
But he had.
Now the man at the head of the table glared at her with a cold fury in his eyes that made Dan’s seem mild by comparison. ‘How dare you speak like a loose woman at a Christian table? I’ll wash thee mouth out with lye soap if I hear the like in my house again.’
Unrepentant, Meg returned her father’s accusing glare, a show of bravado she did not quite feel in her young, fiercely rebellious eyes. ‘I was only trying to make the point that it is a perfectly respectable public-house.’
‘Palace of sin, more like! You should be grateful for a good home and food on your plate, not always be prating on after summat different.’
‘It’s not that, you know it’s not,’ Meg cried.
She longed to reach out, to touch the rigid figure, to seek some sign of affection, but knew such a gesture would be considered a show of weakness. They had never been a family to display emotion.
Life was grinding hard on these Lakeland fells, governed by the changing seasons with little time for sentiment. The year began in October when the rams were put to the ewes. Through the harsh days and long nights of winter the hardy Herdwicks and Swaledales survived on scant grass where they could find it, eked out occasionally by croppings of ash and holly. In March and April the flock was brought down ready for lambing. Later there would be the sorting, marking, dosing, clipping and dipping that marked the farming year until the autumn sales came and it all started again.
But Meg felt she had no part in this routine. Her life was spent almost entirely within doors, even more so since the death of her mother six months ago. Since then Joe Turner had fashioned an even tougher shell about himself. If Meg had never managed to penetrate that shell, even as a young child, how could she hope to do so now?
Worse, she no longer had her mother’s protection. Without Annie’s steady hand to calm him, who knew what her father might do? Joe Turner didn’t approve of any show of independence from his women folk. He liked to know where they were at all times, and said as much, frequently.
As he was saying now.
‘I’ll not have you wandering round as if you had no home to go to and no proper work to do. If you’re short of summat to do you can scrub the hen arks out.’
‘I’ve done them.’
Meg felt the hot rebellion drain from her, and her shoulders slumped. What was the use? She could never win. She stared at her father and despite all her best efforts, she hated him. She hated his round, pugnacious face, the skin below the eyes loose and flabby, dragging the lids down at each corner. She despised the too large nose seeming to overpower the thin upper lip, drawn under slightly, to show a pair of expensive false teeth that grinned at him each night from his bedside table.
Meg knew all about honouring one’s father and mother. It had been drummed into her at hundreds of unwilling visits to chapel over the years. But though she had willingly and lovingly done the latter there were shaming moments when she wished that it was her father lying in the cold earth and not her lovely mum. She longed for Annie now with a passion that brought a physical pain to her young heart.
‘Are you going to tell me what it was all in aid of?’
Meg blinked the threat of tears away. ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake! I’m like stupid Cinderella in that daft fairy tale, and I won’t stand for it any more. I want to have a life of me own. An identity.’
‘Identity?’ Her father’s scathing tone made the word sound somehow not quite decent. ‘Thee’s my daughter, that’s who thee are. What’s wrong with that?’
Meg sighed, knowing he would never understand but unable to prevent herself from trying. ‘I mean I’ve nothing that’s just mine. No time to call my own, not a penny to spend that hasn’t to be accounted for.’
‘What do you need money for? Fol de rols, I suppose. Useless flibbertigibbets.’
Meg rubbed her forehead, which was starting to ache from the day’s endless arguments. ‘Don’t talk daft.’
‘Daft, am I? When have you ever gone short? Tell me that. You only have to ask.’
‘That’s just the point. Why should I have to ask? It’s undignified, having to ask every time I need something.’ Meg thought of her friend, Kath, who had a monthly allowance paid into her bank account, and knew a twinge of uncharacteristic envy.
‘I’m your father,’ Joe said stolidly, as if that explained everything. ‘I hope I can keep my family without help from a slip of a girl.’ Twin spots of colour lit the high cheek bones.
‘But I want to do it. Mrs Blamire gets run off her feet and says she can’t cope with all the cooking and serving on busy days, as she did when she was younger.’
‘Mrs Blamire may do as she thinks fit, but no daughter of mine will work in a taproom. If women’d stop at home where they belong we’d soon cure the unemployment problem, you mark my words. Wilful, that’s what you are, and it’s time you learnt your place.’ Dark brows met with the ferocity of his anger. ‘You have the hen money. It was allus good enough for thee mother.’
But Meg wasn’t for letting go easily, not now she’d got this far. In truth she didn’t rightly know what she wanted but her confused mind desperately searched for something. She couldn’t even put a name to it. Freedom? A purpose to her mundane life? Something beyond bringing in the coal bucket. She didn’t particularly like the idea of working in a pub but it had been a job she could do, with money of her own at the end of it. The feeling had been a good one. And now it was gone and her father would never permit her to find another.
But somewhere, somehow, there must be a place for her. A place beyond this kitchen.
On her feet now, her small pert bosom rising and falling on shallow breaths of anxiety, she met Joe Turner’s gaze with commendable courage and battled on. ‘I’m not me mother. I can’t take her place for you. Things have changed since her day. Women should have the same right to work as men do.’
‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this.’
The cold anger on his face was such that Meg quailed slightly and decided her to take a different tack. Deliberately she softened her voice. ‘Cock and Feathers is a respectable house and I’d get up early and see to your breakfast before I went. I’ve plenty of time to sell the eggs and vegetables at the market before I start, and after I finish I’d see you all had a hot dinner to come home to. You’d never notice I was gone.’
Not entirely unaware of his daughter’s burgeoning womanhood, for the most part Joe chose to ignore it. But he certainly knew how to protect it.
‘Thee would be open to all manner of lewd remarks from the scuff of the gutters that frequent such places. I hope I know my duty as a good Christian better than to let you. I’ll hear no more about it. I have my reputation to keep up at chapel. What would they think? That I couldn’t afford to keep me own daughter at home? It don’t bear thinking of. Working in a pub indeed, where folk spend money they can’t afford on demon drink. It didn’t take long for someone to see you and tell our Dan, now did it?’
Meg opened her mouth to protest that Dan had gone in the Cock and Feathers himself for the purpose of drinking, but thought better of it. It would only make matters worse.
‘Finish the washing up and get to bed.’
Joe’s tone was stark in its decisiveness and he turned away to pull on the old mackintosh that hung steaming before the fire. ‘And there’ll be no dancing for you tonight. You’d best stop in for a bit, see if that’ll get rid of your hysterics.’
Meg’s heart plummeted and all her defiance fled. She could still recall the humiliation of being kept in for a whole month after she had once dared visit the Roxy Picture House in Kendal.
It had been her sixteenth birthday and she and her best friend, Kath Ellis, had ridden in on their bikes to celebrate by drooling over Humphrey Bogart. They had dawdled on their way home, stopping for a hot meat pie at the corner shop and arriving home later than promised. Their giggling happiness had soon been squashed. Joe Turner had reached for his belt and only Annie’s pleading had saved Meg from a very sound beating. Even so, the punishment of being kept in for four long weeks had seemed severe and still rankled, nearly three years later.
Now it was all happening again. Only worse. If she was kept in then she wouldn’t be able to go with Kath to the supper dance. More important, she would miss seeing Jack. The thought made her die a little inside. She had loved Jack Lawson for as long as she could remember and lived in hope that he would notice her one day. She’d made herself a new dress especially for tonight and now Jack would never see her in it. Hot tears stung the backs of her eyes as she fought for control.
‘I’m not a child to be sent to my room.’
‘You’re behaving like one.’
‘I’m trying to show you that I’m a grown woman who wants to start work instead of being skivvy to two idle numbskulls.’ She dismissed her brothers with a flap of her hand. ‘Why must everything be done for their convenience? Why have I no rights?’
‘Because the farm will be theirs one day, not yours. Because they do all the work on it, not thee.’
Meg choked back the agony of unshed tears. ‘That’s not true. I work as hard as they do, harder. Our Dan only does what he has to and Charlie isn’t interested in the land, you know he isn’t.’
‘He’ll do what he’s told. You all will. Now have done. I’ve heard enough.’ Joe started to walk away but beside herself with the anguish of not seeing Jack, Meg snatched at his arm and pulled him round to face her.
‘I won’t stay in, I won’t! And I won’t skivvy for them two any more. They could do a bit more for themselves for a change. Fetch coal in for a start.’
Joe Turner went white to the lips, the spurt of flame from the dying fire reflected in the charcoal of his eyes. ‘My sons have enough work of their own to do without taking on women’s duties. Trouble with thee, young lady, is you don’t know when you’re well off. You’ve good clothes on thee back, food in thee belly. What more do you want?’
He set huge hands down upon the table top, hands that could bring a lamb from its mother as sweetly as butter, wring the life from a fat chicken or shoot a troublesome dog without flinching. He balled them now into threatening fists. A man who read his Bible nightly, he nevertheless considered it his duty to exercise discipline when it was needed. And this young madam was getting above herself.
‘You let the lads do whatever they like, why not me?’ She knew the answer so why did she torture herself by asking?
‘I thought I’d made that clear.’
‘It’s clear you’d have liked me a lot better if I’d been a lad too.’ Tears were standing proud in her eyes but she would not let them fall.
‘Happen you’d’ve been easier to manage if you were. Just take a good look at yourself, madam. Eyes mad as fury. Hair all round your neck like a wild woman.’
‘Would you prefer it if I had it all cut off? Then I’d look like a boy too.’ She tossed back the wayward locks with a defiant twist of her lovely head.
‘I’d prefer thee to act with proper decency.’
‘If that is the only way to make you see me as a real person, and not simply as your serving wench then so be it.’
Snatching up the shearing scissors from the dresser Meg pulled her tangled hair down over one shoulder and began to hack recklessly with the sharp blades. Glittering golden tresses rained upon the scrubbed table top, curling and bouncing about with a life of their own.
Joe Turner reached for the shears but she danced away, evading him, and continued with her relentless massacre, forcing him to remain a helpless onlooker.
She might have continued on this self-desecration had he not slammed those same fists down upon the table, seeming to make the whole room quake.
‘Enough! What would thy mother say if she saw thee acting so wantonly?’
Meg froze, tears brimming over at last from her clear grey eyes, making the room swim dizzily before her. What had she done? She stared at the bright curls falling away in her hand. He’d driven her to it. It was his fault. But she wouldn’t let him see her distress. Against the greater tragedy of a desolate life, ruined hair seemed of small importance.
Meg gathered up the cut tendrils into her palm, and tossed them into the fire where they crackled and fired up. A lump came into her throat. She couldn’t go to the supper looking like this, with half her hair cut off. What would Jack think of her now?
‘Now thee will have to stop in,’ Joe said with satisfaction, clearly reading her thoughts, and walked, spine rigid, from the room, his whole bearing making it clear that he’d had his say and won. As was only right and proper.
It took Meg the best part of an hour in her distress to finish the washing up, tidy the room and replenish the fire which had sulked itself black. When she had done, she refilled the big black kettle and set it back on the hob, so there’d be hot water for a mug of strong tea for her brothers when they got in. Then she took off her floral apron and hung it on the peg behind the pantry door before climbing dejectedly up the stairs to her room.
Hardly bigger than a cupboard tucked beneath the eaves right at the top of the house, it was at least her own. The only place where she could be sure of privacy.
Ashlea had been built some time during the early part of the eighteenth century. New by Lakeland standards, it was a typical, unprepossessing yeoman type building of grey stone with a slate roof and the traditional cylindrical chimneys. For all its plainness it had
seemed warm and alive when her mother had lived in it, its homely rooms muddled and untidy with Annie’s tapestry work, bottles for the lambs, and the usual boots and buckets of farming life.
Once the house had smelled of beeswax and lavender, overlaid by the strong tones of woodsmoke from the fire that burned constantly in the kitchen range. But Meg found she did not have the heart to reach these same standards. She could never rid her mouth of the taste of dust and unhappiness, as she coped with the cleaning of the five bedroom house all alone, and the endless washing, ironing and cooking for four people.
It wasn’t that she didn’t try. Meg longed to recapture the scents of those lovingly remembered days. Of home-baked bread, the sharpness of bilberry jam and the tangy aroma of her mother’s blackberry and apple pie. But her own efforts seemed poor by comparison.
So she loved her tiny hideway high in the attic, the only place where no demands were made and she could be herself. From the window cut in the farmhouse roof she could see right over the stand of ash and rowan behind the farm to the heather-carpeted turf of the high fell, clotted with broom and juniper and punctuated with the grey rocks that resolutely burst out of the thin soil at every opportunity.
Now the rain and wind robbed her of the solace of this much loved view and she fell upon the bed and lay on her back, determined not to cry. But despite her best intentions great fat tears rolled out of the corners of her eyes and ran down into her ears. She had chosen the wrong moment. Why had she risked spoiling the dance for an impossible concession? What had possessed her to be so reckless?
The thought of dancing with Jack Lawson made her stomach quiver with excitement. Now she wouldn’t see him at all and he’d chat up some other girl.
She got off the bed to stand in front of the speckled mirror and confront the horror of her hair. One side was long as ever, rippling in waves over her shoulder. The other side was short, sticking out in a madcap sort of way like a halo. The oddness of it suddenly appealed to her sense of humour and she felt a giggle start deep inside. What would everyone say if she left it like this? They’d think she’d gone mad. The shortness of it seemed to exaggerate the devilish gleam of hot rebellion that still burned in her grey eyes.
The laughter started then, bubbling up and spilling over in great spurts of glee. And suddenly it didn’t matter what her father did. She was young, wasn’t she? Soon the dull days of winter and a cold spring would lighten into summer. There was still time to find some other way of escape. And she would, too. However much she might feel that she belonged here, at Ashlea, she wouldn’t stay as anyone’s skivvy.
What’s more, if there was some way for her to go to the lambing supper, then she would find it. She must see Jack, she must. But first the hair. Meg opened a dressing table drawer and took out a pair of scissors. Short hair, Kath said, was all the rage.
It was Charlie who championed her, as always. He came in on a bluster of cold wind, banging all the doors.
Dan and her father were upstairs getting washed and changed ready to go out and Meg was drying her hair in front of the fire. She had cut and washed it and now it sprang in short bouncy curls, a wild mass of golden colour about her head. She rather thought it suited her but was still self-conscious about it. Charlie sank wearily into a chair, telling her about the latest lambs to be born and put with their ewes in the barn for the night. It was a moment before he noticed her hair. When at last he did, an explanation had to be given and his young face darkened.
‘He treats you as if it were still the dark ages instead of the twentieth century. Don’t let him get away with it.’
Meg gave a rueful smile as she brewed tea and set a steaming mug in his hands. ‘I think I already said more than I should. We had a real ding-dong.’
‘He’ll not keep me locked up. There’s a war coming, you know. Hitler won’t stop till he’s got what he’s after. All of Europe no less. While we fuss over the cost of building aeroplanes, German forces have taken over Austria. Where next? France? Poland?’ His blue eyes came alight with fervour and he ran one grubby hand through hair only a shade paler than her own. ‘I’ll be one of the first to join up if war comes. You just see.’
‘You’re too young,’ she laughed, rumpling his tangled curls affectionately, but he snatched himself away from her.
‘Don’t say that. You sound like Father.’
She was at once contrite. Charlie was not a natural farmer, being better with machines than the blood and gore that was an unavoidable part of country life. And Joe never let an opportunity pass to taunt his younger son about his squeamishness which hurt Meg as much as it did Charlie, for they were close.
‘Come on, love, have a piece of gingerbread while I go and shut the hens up. It’ll warm you. There might be more to lamb tonight and you’ll need to cope alone with Father and Dan both going out.’
The hens were making those warm, contented chutterings as Meg slid down the door over the pop hole to keep them safe from unwelcome night visitors. She loved looking after the hens, sliding her hands under their soft bodies to capture warm eggs for breakfast, tickling them under their wings with powder to keep them free of mites. She loved talking to them as they scratched about, telling them her secrets, letting the peace of the night soak into her.
‘Stay safe,’ she warned them, hearing in the distance the bark of a lone dog fox.
The small animals were her province. Looking after the hens, and turkeys in season, feeding the pigs, milking the two cows that provided the family with milk, Meg enjoyed all of that. The animals made her life bearable. But she was not permitted to work with the sheep.
‘Not women’s work,’ Joe said, when once she had asked if she might help. In such a way that she had not mentioned it again. The desire for purposeful work, an identity of her own, was challenged only by the greater need now to see Jack Lawson. Meg clasped her hands together and stared about her. The black mountains seemed to shield her, crouching closer as her eyes grew accustomed to the dark, attempting to pick out the familiar detail that scarred their smooth surface. ‘Please help me to find the words to persuade Father to let me go to the dance.’ She couldn’t believe she had been so stupid as to risk missing it. ‘I must see Jack, I must. And don’t let there be a war.’
She’d heard talk of war a lot lately but never taken it seriously. ‘Charlie’s sixteen, young and headstrong. He thinks only of aeroplanes and adventure, do you see? Not the danger.’
Would Jack? If there was another war, then he too might be called up. Worry swamped her. Oh, she couldn’t bear it if either of them went away. They might be wounded or killed. It made her go all sick and funny inside to think of it, and her own problems seem small by comparison.
Back in the kitchen she made a fresh pot of tea to warm herself, trying not to listen as Charlie chattered on about the latest aeroplane that would blast the enemy from the skies.
Her father came in, looking uncharacteristically smart in his setting-off suit smelling faintly of mothballs, firmly buttoned over his best waistcoat. But then nothing looked more polished than a farmer dressed in his finest. A man’s pride would see to that. He wore his best flat cap, as he did for every occasion whether a birthing or a chapel function, the neb curling downwards from long wear, following the line of his thinned lips.
‘I hear you and Meg have been having a bit of a set-to,’ said Charlie, somewhat recklessly in her opinion.
‘Aye, you could say that.’
‘If you don’t let her go tonight, everyone will want to know why. There’ll be gossip. This dale is famous for it.’
‘Pity folks have nowt better to do then,’ he said tersely. But the point had been made. Joe Turner could not bear to lose face. There was a long pause while he considered, then he turned upon Meg. ‘See you’re quick about it then, if thee’s coming. We haven’t got all night. And splash thee face with cold water.’ He indicated Meg’s cheeks, hot from the fire. ‘We don’t want folks to know we’ve been having a few words.’
The remnants of her pride in tatters, her life in ruins, but the façade of family unity must be kept up. A tearing row passed off as a ‘few words’. But Meg didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was that she was to be allowed to go. She could fight her battles another night.
The silence of the Lakeland night was profound as Meg followed her father and brother along the rutted lane to the school where the social was to be held. There was nothing to break the silence but the suck of moist earth at her heels, and the fast beating of her heart. Would Jack be there, as he had promised? She heard a rustling in the undergrowth and paused to watch the fleeting glimpse of the white rump of a roe deer, still clothed in its winter grey, as it blundered away from her.
‘I’m so sorry to disturb you,’ she whispered, moving more quietly still, afraid to disturb any other night creature.
There was no sign of Jack as she took one of the hard wooden chairs lined up around the walls of the main room in the school hall. A group of farmers’ wives exchanged gossip at one end as they slapped margarine and potted meat on bread rolls, interrupted from time to time by the need to reprimand one of the younger children who were practising sliding on the candle-greased floor.
Her father and some of the other men had gone in to the meeting room next door to listen to a speaker, but in this hall a special licence had been obtained so there could be dancing.
Meg spotted ‘Lanky’ Lawson, Jack’s father, so called because his stature was anything but. He was working the old wind-up gramophone and later, if pressed, she knew he would play his fiddle and they would all dance the old steps, the Cumberland Square Eight or the Ninepins Reel. Meg acknowledged his wave with a smile. He was a dear friend but this evening she was more interested in a modern waltz with his son. The kind of dance which meant Jack must hold her close.
Everyone seemed to be dancing. She looked about the room with a casual air, trying not to let it show that she felt conspicuous sitting all alone, or that she was looking for anyone in particular. Where was Kath? She had faithfully promised to come.
And then she saw them, dancing together, so carefree and good looking.
They were dancing a quick step, a Tommy Dorsey number, and Kath seemed to be clinging just a little too closely to Jack’s broad shoulders and he was laughing just a bit too much at something her friend had said. Then Kath looked across and saw Meg and at once abandoned her partner to come swooping across the polished floor on fashionable two-tone high heels.
She was wearing a little white embroidered jacket over a silk flared skirt in pillbox red. Nipped in at the waist with a narrow red belt, the jacket was trimmed with a row of tiny pearl buttons. She looked wonderful, a million dollars, and knew it.
‘What have you done to your hair?’ she cried, hugging Meg in delight. ‘I love it. Oh, I shall have to cut mine too. Where did you get it done?’
‘Where did you get those shoes?’
‘Fun, aren’t they?’
Kath swung her own sleek bob about as she talked and Meg had to laugh as her friend prattled on, happily recounting her own latest encounters with hairdressers, which were numerous. Kath was constantly changing her appearance. One week she was a redhead, the next a brunette. For the moment she was blonde and it suited her.
Meg felt herself relax, enjoying as she always did Kath’s lively company. They chattered easily together with the familiarity of old friends, laughing at nothing in particular and understanding far more than was actually said.
‘What happened about the job?’ Kath asked, innocently recalling the tensions of the day.
Fortunately Meg was saved from answering this loaded question by the arrival of Jack himself who looked less enamoured of her new hair style. A frown drew two lines of displeasure above his straight nose.
‘Don’t you like it?’
‘Not much,’ he said bluntly.
‘Thanks,’ she said, disappointment blocking her throat with a rush of emotion. This was proving to be the most awful day of her life. ‘Wouldn’t you say that it makes me look more alluring and sophisticated?’ she asked, daringly teasing, but he only shook his head.
‘Personally I like long hair on a woman, more feminine.’
He was shocked by the change the hairstyle had made to her. With her hair long, never tidy, often dragged together with a bit of baling twine, she’d seemed like a young girl still. Now she looked like a woman. A sensual, mature woman. Long aware of her fancy for him, but also of his easy success with women, he’d thought he had plenty of time to play the field before he did anything about his feelings for Meg Turner. Now he wasn’t so sure. Something had changed in her today, and if he was any judge, it wasn’t just because of the new hair style.
‘Jack and I have been showing the old biddies how it’s done. But you can have him now,’ whispered Kath, winking outrageously, and to her horror, Meg blushed.
But when he asked her for a dance she accepted eagerly, melting against him, unable to disguise her pleasure at feeling his arms about her. Pulling her close, he tucked her hand into his chest where she could feel the fast beat of his heart. Was he excited by her as she was by him? Meg longed to look up into his face, lean and hungry with teasing violet eyes, but dared not.
She had known Jack Lawson ever since their early schooldays together and had wanted him almost as long. He’d always seemed to favour the more feminine sort of girl, the kind who wore broad satin ribbons and didn’t spend all their time climbing trees and damming up becks. He had never shown any interest in Meg Turner with her scruffy pigtails and scraped knees.
She hadn’t seen him for some time after they left school. She’d heard he’d gone off to work in Preston for a while, on the docks. And then last backend at a shepherds meet, there he was, more handsome than ever with the same old wickedly teasing smile.
Since then she had come across him surprisingly often on the lanes and fields about her home when she was out walking. Though his father’s land adjoined theirs, the houses themselves were a good mile apart. For a long time she had struggled hard not to read anything into these accidental meetings. Now hope rose hot and piercingly sweet in her breast.
They swayed together to the rhythm of the music. It was a Bing Crosby number, When the blue of the Night, and Jack crooned it softly against her ear, making little b-b-boom noises in imitation of the singer’s style. The warmth of his breath tickled her lobes, making her shiver with a new awareness.
‘Been on any interesting walks lately?’ he asked, his voice no more than a velvet purr.
‘Some. How about you?’
He grinned and pulled her away from him so he could look down into her face. ‘Tend to leave the walking to the dogs, but maybe I should take it up again. Where do you go to get away from that lout of a brother of yours? Wouldn’t care to cross him on a dark night.’
Meg giggled, knowing Jack was not the only one to be wary of Dan. ‘He tries to be tough, like Father, but it’s all show,’ she said. ‘If he bothers you, you’d best stay away.’ And see if I care, her tone said.
The music finished and she walked away from him, burningly aware he was watching the sway of her hips in the new blue chenille dress.
He danced with Kath again and Meg wondered if perhaps she’d been a touch too casual. She should have given him more encouragement, tried to get him to make a proper date. She’d die if he didn’t, she was sure of it.
Later, he took her outside. For a breath of fresh air, he said. Meg went willingly, heart thumping, aware that this was the usual mode of behaviour when a boy wanted to get to know you better.
The small schoolroom, a low, stone building that might have grown out of the rocky soil it stood on, was home to a few dozen children during the day and often commissioned into action as a social meeting point during the evening for the scattered farming community. Standing as it did in the middle of nowhere it was black dark all around, proving a great attraction for those wishing to try out a few undisturbed kisses. She’d noticed Kath make two or three well-timed exits, one of them, to Meg’s great astonishment, with her own brother, Dan.
Now that it was her turn she felt quite sick with anticipation and excitement. What if she did something wrong, said something stupid? Jack was so sophisticated, with vast amounts of experience, while Meg felt simply gauche and juvenile.
He leaned placidly against the wall and lit up a cigarette. He offered her one but she refused. Somewhere an owl hooted. ‘Your father wouldn’t approve, I suppose?’
Meg managed a smile. ‘I don’t suppose he would.’ She was tempted to take one, to prove she was her own person, but decided it would be childish.
His eyes were moving over her face and she put up a defensive hand to her hair. ‘I could always grow it again,’ she said, and his eyebrows lifted.
‘For me?’
She wanted to fall into his arms and tell him she would do anything if he would only ask, but she smiled instead. Was he never going to kiss her?
‘My father can be a pain too,’ he said, sounding vaguely sympathetic. ‘Always comparing me with my well-organised sister or pestering me to "put down roots", whatever they are. And me with my whole life before me. What’s the hurry? There’s always tomorrow, I say.’ Jack laughed then tossed the half-smoked cigarette away with a careless flick of his hand. Almost in the same movement he pulled her into his arms.
His lips were cold against hers. She could taste the cigarette ash, smell it on his breath along with the pint or two of beer he’d had earlier. But his skin was soft and warm and, oh, it was wonderful to feel herself pressed so close in his arms. She wanted to stay there for ever. His teeth grazed her lips and she felt a bolt of excitement so intense it shot right through her stomach.
‘Hallo, everyone, having fun?’
Kath came bouncing alongside, one of the Jepson boys in tow, and Jack broke away with a laugh to light another cigarette. A cold wind from the fells brushed over her lips and with sinking heart Meg realised that the romantic interlude, if that was what you could call it, was over. And he still hadn’t made a date to see her again.
The rest of her evening passed, as usual, with perfect decorum and at ten o’clock precisely her father took her home. Everyone else stayed on for the Conga and the Hokey-Cokey.
Meg flung open the back door and called for her young brother. ‘Charlie, how many times do I have to call you?’
There he was, as she’d expected, expertly flicking cigarette cards against a row of them propped against the yard wall. With a sound of exasperation she marched over and gathered up the cards, tossing them angrily into the dustbin. He let out a howl of protest.
‘What did you do that for, Meg?’ He stood frozen, the next card poised between finger and thumb, bright blue eyes so affronted it was almost comical, had she been in the mood for laughing.
‘You’re too old for boys’ games.’
‘One minute I’m too young, now I’m too old. Make your mind up.’ Too young for anything serious like marriage or war, and too old for games, she thought, feeling ancient as she remembered the awkwardness of being sixteen.
‘Haven’t I been calling you this last ten minutes?’ She turned from him and started to snatch pegs off the washing line, the raw April wind whipping colour into her cheeks like a lash, turning her hands, still wet from a morning’s scrubbing, all red and chapped. Washing always made Meg irritable and she’d not felt quite herself since the dance two weeks ago.
She’d got so touchy about not hearing a word from Jack Lawson that she’d even stopped taking her usual walk each afternoon, just in case she saw him and he thought she was chasing him. It was the silliest attitude to take, Meg well knew, but somehow she couldn’t help herself. Unrealistically, she wanted Jack to seek her out, to court her. Though how he would dare venture on to Turner property without an invitation from the men of the household was a puzzle she hadn’t yet solved.
Now, as if to chastise herself again for wanting something she couldn’t have, she poured all her energy into work, unfairly taking her ill temper out on her young brother.
‘Didn’t you hear me shout that it’d started to rain and to bring in the washing before it got soaked? I think sometimes you’ve only sawdust between your ears. Just look at these sheets, all splattered with mud. You and your games.’ Meg flung the spotted shirts and sheets back into the basket, hard put to keep the tears out of her eyes. It had taken hours to soak, scrub and starch them all. Now she’d have to start all over again.
‘I didn’t hear you.’
‘You didn’t listen. You only hear what you want to hear, you great lump.’ She thrust the basket into his arms and pushed him towards the kitchen door. ‘Did you fill the log basket like I asked?’ She knew, of course, that he hadn’t. It still stood in the middle of the slate floor where she had set it hours ago, waiting to trip up any unwary passer-by.
She spent the next two hours scrubbing the mud spots off the washing and setting it to dry on the wooden rack that hung suspended from the ceiling in front of the fire. Steam filled the small kitchen in no time, making her short curls cling damply to her rosy cheeks.
Then Dan came in, reminding her to take his boots to the menders and presenting her with a whole wad of socks to darn that had somehow got collected up in the bottom of his drawer. Meg bundled them in to her sewing basket, telling him tartly to take his own boots to the menders.
‘You go to town more often than I do.’
‘Well, it’s not my job to darn socks.’
Meg bit back the desire to tell him just what he could do with his tatty socks.
She brought the logs in herself, Charlie having disappeared off the face of the earth, and by the time she had finished all the usual chores, and prepared liver and onions for the dinner, she was almost too exhausted to think straight. But she’d go out this afternoon, come what may. A breath of fresh air would do her good.
The wind had chased the rain away and a fickle sun had come out when Katherine Ellis saddled her pony to ride over to Broombank early that afternoon. There was an ethereal radiance to the light that turned droplets of water into sparkling diamonds on the newly sprouting fern heads, their tightly furled croziers like miniature shepherd’s crooks. The air was rich with the resonance of damp earth and new grass, and that feeling of hope that is peculiarly discernible when spring comes to Lakeland, as if to celebrate having survived a hard winter.
‘Come on, Bonnie,’ she urged, ‘stop blowing, then I can pull this damn girth strap tight.’ Bonnie, being a slightly overweight fell pony of mature years, was not really Katherine’s idea of a good mount. She would have preferred an Arab stallion or a fine roan. One who pranced and whinnied with excitement when she took her out, not stand on three legs with eyes closed, or drop her head to the grass verge at every opportunity, resisting any threat of exercise.
But Bonnie was an old friend and thus not easily discarded. Kath revelled in the freedom the pony gave her, even managing to stir Bonnie to a gentle trot if she squeezed her thighs against the pony’s plump sides hard enough, though it might make her back and leg muscles ache.
She leaned forward and let the wind skim through her hair, knowing she should have worn a hat. Mummy was for ever telling her so. Just as she told her to wear a coat on a damp evening, or to take a torch and a whistle if she went over Kentmere. But Kath rarely listened to these words of wisdom. Where was the fun in life if you always did what was safe and proper?
Her mother was holding open the gate for her now, quite unnecessarily, at the end of the long drive that wound between jutting rocks to Larkrigg Hall where Kath had been born and in which she had been cosseted ever since as the unexpectedly late child of elderly parents.
The fine old house had once belonged to her mother’s quarry owning forebears. Larkrigg Fell was pitted with the remains of a dozen old quarries, once worked for the blue-grey slate of the Silurian beds formed many thousands of years ago when Lakeland was young. The entire landmass had been pushed upwards by volcanic disturbance, fold upon fold of rock and earth with the most ancient rocks to the north. From these natural resources men had made fortunes, Rosemary Ellis’s grandfather among them.
And she had largely spent it.
‘You’ll be back by tea time, won’t you, darling? You know that Richard is coming over and particularly wishes to see you, not us old fogies.’
Kath flicked her crop against Bonnie’s flanks, wishing the pony would speedily gallop away so that she could pretend that she hadn’t heard the question. But Bonnie slowed down to nuzzle Mrs Ellis’s hand, just in case she had a treat secreted in the pocket of her soft tweed skirt. Kath restrained a sigh and smiled sunnily.
‘I’ll do my best. But don’t wait tea for me. You know how unpunctual I am.’
Rosemary Ellis watched her daughter until she was quite out of sight, a frown of concern upon her face. How difficult girls could be, particularly Katherine who had always shown a ruthless determination to have her own way. Perhaps it was because she was an only child and, as Rosemary was well aware, thoroughly spoiled by Jeffrey, that she seemed so wild and out of control. But she was young still, at eighteen, and there was plenty of time for her to mature. It was only that with Jeffrey being unwell and the future so uncertain, it would be lovely if she would settle down with some suitable young man. Richard Harper was ideal and from a good local family, his father likely to be Mayor of Kendal next year.
‘We’ll wait till five,’ she called out in desperation, just as the pony’s grey tail swished out of sight.
The whitewashed stone longhouse that was Broombank Farm came into sight as Kath rounded the last hill and Bonnie came to a halt without any prompting.
‘Even the horse can read my mind,’ Katherine said crossly, forgetting the countless occasions she’d ridden this way.
It was early yet for the blaze of gold which would soon surround the farm with an almost magical light, but the first spears of broom were already attempting to thrust through the thick green leaves.
Built as an Elizabethan manor farm, Broombank occupied three sides of a quadrangle though many of its buildings were now little more than ruins. Only its tall cylindrical chimneys stood proud, the narrow curtainless windows looking blankly out from thick stone walls that seemed to have shrunk in upon themselves with the passing of the years as if ashamed of the air of neglect. Kath knew that the inside was in an even worse state. It was hard to imagine the fine ladies and gentlemen who had installed the oak panelling and doors and whose initials were carved over the stone lintel taking too kindly to its present state. It was certainly not a house she would care to own. But it wasn’t the building she had come to see.
‘Let’s see if he’s in, shall we? Walk on, Bonnie.’ The mare ambled forward readily enough knowing there might well be a mint humbug at the farm, if the old man was in. There was little Bonnie would not do for a mint humbug.
Jack came to meet them himself, just as Kath had hoped, as soon as they entered the farmyard. She stayed on the pony’s back, sitting very straight to display her breasts to full advantage, and slanted a smile down at him.
‘You’re looking as devilishly handsome as ever on this glorious afternoon,’ she said.
Jack Lawson rested one hand on the bridle and smiled back at her. ‘And yourself.’
Four years older than Meg and she, Jack Lawson, with his black curly hair and sleepy violet-blue eyes, was the nearest thing to a rake that Katherine knew. A bit brash perhaps, just a little too full of himself, but one twist of that sensual lower lip and she could forgive him anything. Well aware that he belonged to Meg, or would if her friend had any say in the matter, still Kath could not resist testing her own standing with him. ‘Show me a man and I’ll wind him in,’ was her favourite catch phrase. And, generally speaking, a true one. Jack Lawson was certainly a man who interested her but he was not proving an easy fish to hook.
‘I was just giving Bonnie some much needed exercise and realised I hadn’t seen you since the lambing supper.’
For all there was a coolness to the April breeze, Jack stood with his shirt sleeves rolled above the elbow, hands thrust in his trouser pockets, allowing Katherine ample opportunity to admire his muscles. He worked hard, so they were worth seeing. ‘I’ve been busy. Why, have you missed me?’
Now she was thrown into a quandary. If she said that she had, it might make her look cheap. But if she said no, he’d wonder why she’d bothered to mention it in the first place. She decided to play it cool. ‘Don’t flatter yourself, Jack Lawson. It was nothing more than idle curiosity. Who else is there around here that isn’t already half dead?’
They both laughed at that, aware of Kath’s frustration with rural life and oft-pronounced intention of leaving the quiet fells to head for the bright lights.
‘What about Meg? I thought you and she were inseparable.’
‘So we are. When I can get her away from that sanctimonious old father of hers,’ Kath agreed, sobering instantly. ‘They do worry me, the Turner family. How on earth they managed to produce such a sweetie as Meg is quite beyond me. They are really quite dreadful with her.’
‘You seem to find her brother amenable enough.’
She glanced down at Jack, startled for a moment as she remembered allowing Dan to take her outside at the supper. Something she had almost instantly regretted. He had smelled of beer and cow dung. She shrugged slender shoulders, a gesture that managed to look elegant even in the old green sweater she wore. ‘He has a fancy for me, that’s all. Not to be taken seriously. I can handle him.’
‘As you can most men,’ came the soft reply, and Kath glanced swiftly at him again, to see if he was just the teeniest bit jealous, but his head was down, concentrating on the horse. She looked at his hand instead, large and tanned, the skin rough and calloused from hard work on the farm, held flat now under Bonnie’s soft muzzle. ‘Not too many sugar lumps, they’ll make her fat,’ and they both laughed.
‘Where are you off to?’ he asked, as she gathered the reins ready to move on.
She walked the pony round in a circle, aware of his eyes upon her. ‘Over Coppergill Pass. I often go there on a fine afternoon.’ Hazel eyes regarded blue for a moment in silence.
‘So long then,’ he said, sounding very like a gangster in one of those new American movies she and Meg occasionally went to see in Kendal.
Kath urged Bonnie into action and with an airy wave of a hand trotted out through the gate Jack obediently held open for her. He stood watching her go, eyes on the delightful up and down motion of her rear as rider and pony headed off up the lane. It was the neatest little bottom he’d seen in a long time and he almost regretted not offering to go with her.
It was late afternoon before Meg set out, striding away up the fields towards Brockbarrow Wood. More a copse than a wood, the stand of trees stood high on the fellside, flanking the sides of a small mountain tarn, dark and skeletal against the glistening water. It was her favourite place even when the wind cut through like a knife. But today spring was in the air and her heart felt uplifted by the freedom of an hour out alone where she could sit and think without fear of being disturbed.