Above the Harvest Moon (23 page)
‘Bonny, eh?’
She had been so lost in her thoughts she hadn’t heard or seen Jake’s approach on the path below, and now she jumped so violently she almost dropped the basket of eggs.
‘No, don’t come down,’ he said when she made to move. ‘Enjoy the sun for a minute or two, it’s going to pour again from the look of that sky.’ He climbed up the ridge to where she was, shading his eyes as he stared in the direction she was looking. ‘Rain, rain, rain,’ he said softly, without glancing at her. ‘It happens like that sometimes in October and the winter is worse. Do you think you’re going to be able to stand it?’
‘Of course.’ She looked at him in surprise, amazed he could ask.
‘Of course,’ he repeated in a way she didn’t quite understand. ‘You work from dawn to dusk, you have to fetch water from the well when you’ve been used to a tap in the yard, you have big galoots walking all over your clean floor with muddy boots—’
‘But then I can come up here and see the rain smiling from the hills when the sun’s shining,’ she interrupted solemnly. ‘It makes up for the big galoots.’
‘Really?’ He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and she grinned at him, whereupon they both laughed out loud.
‘Seriously, Jake, I can’t thank you enough for giving me a chance.’ It was something she had been meaning to say for a while but now seemed the right time. ‘And I like it here, I really do. The farmhouse is beautiful and I want to make it nice, and all the food for cooking . . . Well, anyone would like it. And I can’t believe I get paid too.’
He smiled. ‘You should come into town with me the next time I take the horse and trap, treat yourself to something.’
‘Could I?’ she said eagerly. ‘I’d like to buy some material and make a couple of new dresses.’ Her clothes were so worn she had felt embarrassed when Farmer Dobson and his daughter had called to see Jake and Seamus the other day.
Jake’s eyes were intent on her face. ‘We’ll go next week. Tuesday or perhaps Wednesday. How about that?’
She nodded, and then because the sky had become overcast again they made their way back to the house. Thunder rolled in the distance.
Much later that day, when the evening meal was over and Hannah was sitting at the kitchen table mending the sleeve of one of the farmer’s shirts, Seamus got up from his armchair opposite Jake and left the room. When he returned he was carrying an armful of clothes which he dumped on the table in front of her. ‘There’s a few of my Bess’s things,’ he said gruffly. ‘She was a one for clothes, was my Bess, and she had an eye for a good bit of cloth. Likely you’ll have to be busy with your needle, she was a slip of a thing when we first wed but she’d have made two of you later on.’
‘But . . .’ Hannah glanced from Seamus - who had resumed his seat in front of the range - to Jake, and then back to the farmer. ‘But I can’t take these. They’re your wife’s. You . . .’ She couldn’t very well say, ‘You would be upset to see me in her things,’ so she altered it to, ‘You don’t have to do that.’
‘I know I don’t have to, lass.’ Seamus appeared very busy attending to his pipe and did not look at her. ‘But I’ve a feeling Bess wouldn’t like ’em to go on gathering dust and getting moth-eaten when you could have some use out of ’em. Hated waste, my Bess did. There’s a canny little sewing machine she used to use somewhere in the loft, I’ll look it out tomorrow and you can have that an’ all.’
Hannah stared into the rough old face and then looked at Jake who was smiling. She glanced down at her faded blouse and skirt which had had the hem let down twice, and then fingered the rich thick material of the dress on top of the pile. They were so kind, the pair of them. They were like the father and brother she had never had. Her lips trembling, she voiced this, and it was Jake who said, ‘Then as your big brother I command you not to get upset, all right? That’s an end to the matter. Right, Seamus?’
‘Right enough.’
‘Thank you.’ Knowing how much the farmer hated any show of emotion, Hannah gathered up the clothes and disappeared to her room, and when she returned a few minutes later no one commented on her pink-rimmed eyes or red nose.
That night Hannah did not extinguish her oil lamp once she had retired to her bedroom. She stood gazing round the interior for some moments, her eyes taking in the comfortable bed, chest of drawers, small dressing table and wardrobe the room contained, and - luxury of luxuries - the glowing fire in the grate. Jake and Seamus scorned a fire in their rooms on the floor above, but as soon as the weather had turned chilly they had insisted wood and coal be brought upstairs for her every day. She was glad of it, the bedrooms were very draughty and when the wind was in a certain direction the curtains at the window in her room blew as though it was open a crack.
Pulling a blanket from the bed round her shoulders, she positioned herself on the clippy mat in front of the fire and took up the dress she had decided to alter that night with her sewing box. She couldn’t wait for Seamus to find the sewing machine, she wanted to be wearing something new and bonny when Adam came the next day. She knew she would be up most of the night; every seam needed unpicking and re-sewing once she had trimmed the material with her scissors. Seamus hadn’t been exaggerating when he had said Bess had been twice her size. But the material was beautiful. She stroked it reverently.Thick and smooth and the colour of corn-flowers. She would never have been able to afford cloth of this quality but now she could use her money for a pair of shoes. She would continue to wear her ugly old boots for weekdays but oh, to be able to have a pair of pretty shoes for Sundays and high days. She hugged herself, grinning like a Cheshire cat, and then began work on the dress.
It was an hour before dawn when she finished and she didn’t bother to go to sleep. She was too excited anyway.
After Sunday lunch Hannah left the two men at the table enjoying their glass of port and nipped upstairs to change into her new dress. When she walked back into the dining room, their reaction was all she could have desired. The amazement on both faces turned to smiles and Seamus said, ‘Well, I don’t know how you’ve done it so quickly, lass, but that dress fits you like a glove. By, you’re a bonny one and no mistake.What say you, Jake?’
Jake looked at the girl who up until a moment ago he had thought of as little more than a child. The dress showed the slim young figure off to perfection and above it the face, with its cream-tinted skin and enormous eyes shaded by long dark lashes, was more than bonny. She was a beauty, a real beauty, and she was still only sixteen. What was she going to be like when she was eighteen, nineteen? For some unknown reason he felt a constriction gripping his throat. It was a second or two before he realised it was the painful emotion which always welled up in him when confronted by pure unspoilt beauty. Swallowing hard, he managed to say, ‘You look lovely, Hannah.’
‘Thank you.’
Her youth was brought to the fore in the next moment when she twizzled round in the manner of a very young child, saying, ‘See how it flares out? It’s so beautiful, Seamus. I can never thank you enough.’
‘Aw, go on with you. It was Jake who put the idea in my head if you must know.’
‘I thought it might be.’
Her sparkling eyes thanked him and he said, ‘Even the weather seems to have conspired to fall in with you. The sky is as blue as your dress.’
‘I know.’ She had hugged the knowledge to herself all morning. After the fierce storms, this Sunday was the sort of nutty autumn day when it was good to walk in the tawny sunlight. He would come. She was sure he would come and then he would see her in the new dress and . . . Well, he would see her in the new dress. That was enough. She glanced down at her hands which were chapped and red and wished for a moment they were soft and white like a lady’s. But that was daft. He wouldn’t expect that.
Joe had arrived early the week before because the days were short now, but by three o’clock there was still no sign of anyone. Hannah had prepared a sack of food as usual - Jake left it up to her what she gave. She checked the bag of potatoes, stone of flour, tea, sugar, cheese and whole ham as though something would have changed from the last time she looked through the sack half an hour before.
They had to come. Apart from anything else, it was only the food Jake gave that was standing between the family and starvation now. She glanced at the basket next to the sack which contained a dozen eggs and a big slab of butter. Naomi’s mam would need this. She walked to the kitchen window and peered out, and saw Jake and Joe walking towards the house.
Adam hadn’t come. For a moment the disappointment was so acute she wanted to burst into tears. Then she pulled herself together. Naomi wasn’t with them either. Was she still ill? Was Adam ill?
She hurried to the door and was standing in the open doorway when Jake and Joe reached the house. ‘You look bonny the day, Hannah.’ Joe’s voice was cheerful but his face was strained and Jake wasn’t smiling.
Sensing something was seriously amiss, she waited until they had both scraped their boots clean before quietly saying, ‘I’ll make some tea and help yourself to some seed cake, Joe.’
‘Ta, thanks, Hannah.’ Instead of sitting down and taking a wedge from the plate on the kitchen table, Joe raised his eyes and looked straight at her as he said, ‘Adam’s not coming, lass. Neither’s Naomi, but she’s still bad. The cold’s gone on her chest . . .’ His voice dwindled away and he glanced helplessly at Jake.
‘Adam’s in a spot of bother.’ Jake had been standing by the range and now he took the teapot out of her hand before she could fill it with water and put it on the steel shelf next to the hob. He led her to the table and pushed her down on a chair. ‘It seems he has been accused of something which he is denying.’
‘It’s a lass, Lily Hopkins. She says she’s expecting a bairn and it’s Adam’s,’ Joe said in a rush. ‘Mam an’ Da have gone round hers with Adam this afternoon.There’s been ructions . . .’
Hannah stared into Joe’s troubled face. She had heard him, the words had registered, but strangely she was feeling numb. ‘Is the bairn Adam’s?’
‘He says not. He says she’s not too particular who she goes with and it could be any one of a number of blokes.’
‘What do you say, Joe? Has . . . has he been seeing this girl?’
Joe’s hesitation was all the answer she needed. Hannah rose swiftly from her seat and left the kitchen. When Joe stood up and opened his mouth to call her, Jake said quietly, ‘Leave her a while, Joe. She’ll come back when she’s ready.’
‘He’s a fool. He’s the biggest fool out.’
‘Aye, we’re agreed on that.’
‘It’s like a sickness with him, the lassies. From when he was thirteen or fourteen he’s been messing about with this one and that. The daft thing is, I think he does love Hannah in his way. He’s always acted as though she’s different to the rest.’
Jake’s voice was grim when he said, ‘He obviously doesn’t love her enough, Joe.You don’t treat a nice little lass like Hannah the way he’s done.’
‘No, I know.’ Joe shook his head. ‘By, Jake, the roof nearly went off the house when Lily’s mam an’ da come round. Mam went barmy at Adam, I thought she was going to belt him one. According to Lily’s mam, her an’ the da came back from her sister’s the other night and found Lily with her head in the gas oven. It was touch and go for a time. Then it all come out about Adam and the bairn and how he’d told her he didn’t want to know. Lily’s mam was bawling her eyes out and her da wanted to string Adam up from the nearest lamp post when he said the bairn could be anybody’s. It was all me and Da could do to hold him. Now Father Gilbert’s got involved and you know what he’s like. He’ll have the pair of them wed or my name’s not Joe Wood. He could persuade the Pope himself to walk down the aisle, could Father Gilbert.’
‘Aye.’ Jake smiled wryly but more to himself than Joe. He’d had one or two run-ins with this particular priest when he had stopped going to his church shortly after coming to the farm. Father Gilbert had been beside himself when he’d told the priest he couldn’t do with all the pomp and ceremony and incense-swinging, and not least the tales of purgatory that frightened little bairns to death and had their mams and das terrified as well. Father Turner or Father McHaffie from the Fulwell Church were a different kettle of fish; you could talk to them, discuss things without it turning into fire and brimstone. He might have continued in the Faith if he’d gone to their church but Fulwell was too far by half and so he had forever damned himself in Father Gilbert’s eyes by attending the Methodist chapel in Castletown now and again.
‘Course Mam’s frantic at the thought of Adam marrying Lily Hopkins but at the same time she can’t see any other way with a bairn on the way. As if she hadn’t got enough to put up with the way things are.’
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