Chaff upon the Wind (43 page)

Jack’s grip tightened. ‘Just you mind that’s the way you go on thinking about him.’

He released her and walked away and, as she watched him go, Kitty knew for certain that she was no longer obsessed by him. In a way she was saddened by the realization that nothing was going to
change. Jack was never going to change. As she had fought to save his life and then to drag him out of the depths of self-pity, she had still hoped that they could build a good life together. But
in the days that had followed, as Jack struggled to hold a place in the threshing team once more and to prove that he could still do a man’s work despite his injury, Kitty had begun to
realize the truth. He was still the old Jack Thorndyke, yet with an added bitterness to his nature now that robbed him of his roguish charm. With a heavy heart, Kitty watched her hopes and dreams
blown away like chaff upon the wind. She saw the man now for what he had always been, and still was. Yet there was no escape for her, for she was trapped, bound to Jack Thorndyke by the secrets of
others and the solemn promises she had made.

To reveal the truth would hurt so many people; people she loved dearly. Her own family, Miriam and the gentle-natured Mrs Franklin and Johnnie – especially Johnnie. Oh no, she could not
hurt Johnnie. And there was someone else now; someone for whom she also cared deeply and could not hurt. It was a love that had been there all the time, had lain dormant, unrecognized by herself
for so long. A true, unselfish love that had been buried beneath the blinding obsession that she had carried for Jack. Deep in her heart she knew that she was loved in return and yet there was
nothing she could do about it. It must remain locked within her, another secret, and one that held the key to her happiness and yet it could never be used.

Oh no, she could never, ever tell Edward how very much she loved him.

Resolutely, Kitty determined to rebuild her life with Jack and his son. She would care for them both and perhaps, in time, Jack’s bitterness would mellow and they could
be happy as a family. Her hopes were short-lived. As daily his strength returned, so did his arrogance and his need of her lessened. Yet, perversely, he took delight now in belittling her, in using
her body with deliberate callousness, without even a pretence of affection or tenderness. And always he kept his bitter promise.

She would never bear a child of Jack’s yet he delighted in keeping her cruelly bound to him by his threat to expose her secret. And now, worst of all, he was not above lashing out at her
in his rage.

In the year that followed the accident, they continued to live in the cottage on the Nunsthorpe estate and Kitty was aware that both Mr Franklin and Sir Ralph ensured that there was work always
available that Jack was able to do.

‘They owe me that much,’ was all Jack would say. ‘After all, I was working short-handed for them when it happened.’

Edward no longer walked with a stick, but he would, as he had predicted, always have a limp. Although he was invalided out of the army and home for good, the Franklin family were still anxious
for Miriam’s safety. Kitty had mixed, almost guilty feelings. While she prayed for Miriam’s safety, her absence from the neighbourhood meant that Kitty could live without the fear that
she would get to know and become attached to Johnnie.

But as another harvest came and went and autumn gave way to winter, Edward came with the news. ‘The war’s over, Kitty. Have you heard?’

‘Thank goodness,’ she said with genuine relief, but she had to force sincerity into her next question. ‘Then Miss Miriam won’t need to stay in France, will
she?’

He shrugged. ‘There’ll be all the wounded to care for and bring home. But at least she won’t be in so much danger as if the fighting was still going on, thank God.’

Kitty smoothed her palms down the side of her skirt. She glanced up at him and gave a quick, shy smile. Now that she had realized just what she felt for Edward, she could not help feeling a
constraint between them.

He was watching her, his gaze upon her so intently that she felt the colour creeping up her neck and into her face. ‘What is it, Kitty?’ he asked gently. ‘More
problems?’

‘No, no,’ she said swiftly, too swiftly. She took in a deep breath, raised her head and faced him squarely. He must not guess, she told herself, he must never guess. Everything would
come out, if he did. Everything. And she could not bear that to happen.

She had been in the wash-house when he arrived and now she began to pull down the sleeves of her blouse from where they were rolled up above her elbows. Edward’s glance followed her action
and suddenly he reached out and caught hold of her hand, staying it. ‘Wait. What’s that mark on your arm, Kitty? A bruise?’ Slowly, he lifted his head to look at her and now there
was anger in the depths of his gentle eyes. ‘How did you get that?’

She tried to laugh, attempting to hide the truth. ‘I don’t know. I must have banged mesen.’

Edward moved close to her, so close she could feel his breath on her face. ‘Kitty, oh Kitty.’ He was shaking his head as if disappointed in her. ‘You don’t get a bruise
like that by knocking yourself. That bruise has the imprint of fingermarks.’ He paused and then said, slowly, ‘It can’t go on, you know. You’re a shadow of that lovely,
merry girl who used to dance into my sickroom and brighten the day.’ He sighed deeply. ‘Do you know, Kitty, I wish we could turn the clock back. I’d go through all that suffering
again if I could see you once more as you were then.’

Tears smarted in her eyes and a lump came into her throat. Huskily, she said, ‘No, Teddy, don’t say that. I hated to see you wheezing and so ill. I wouldn’t want to see you
like it again. Not ever.’

Annoyed with herself for having allowed her own low spirits to show, she brushed away the threatening tears with an impatient gesture and forced herself to smile brightly. ‘Don’t you
worry about me. Whatever happens, I’ve only mesen to blame. I’ve brought it all on myself. I’ve made me bed, as me dad would say, now I’ve to lie in it.’

His gaze never left her face as he said, ‘You can’t still love the man, can you, if he treats you like this?’

He took her hands, red from scrubbing Jack’s shirts in the hot water in the tub. ‘Look at me, Kitty, and tell me you love him, really love him, and – and I’ll go away and
leave you alone.’

She was shaking her head, not answering his question directly. ‘I have to stay. For – for Johnnie’s sake.’

‘I – see,’ he said slowly.

No, you don’t see, she wanted to shout. You don’t see at all. But Kitty bit her lip and her eyes were downcast. How she wanted at this moment to tell him everything.

His fingertips touched her chin gently, raising it so that she was obliged to look up at him.

‘Then – take care of yourself, Kitty Clegg. You and your little boy. And if ever –
ever
– you need help, you know just where I am. I’m only a step
away.’

Wordlessly, Kitty nodded.

He turned then and walked away from her and Kitty felt as if her heart was breaking.

Jack’s strength had increased steadily and when the threshing season began again in earnest, he was putting in a full day’s work running his engine, with only a
little help from one of the young lads when two hands were needed. Kitty had to admire his determination and, it seemed, she was not the only one who did.

‘Isn’t he wonderful?’ Milly said, standing at the edge of the stackyard beside Kitty, who was taking a well-earned respite from her place at the chaff hole. ‘He’s
every bit as courageous as them soldiers now.’

Kitty stared at her sister. Wrapped up in her own life, Kitty had not noticed that her young sister had grown up. With a shock, she realized that the girl was now twenty-two, a young woman and
an attractive one.

Yet she could not forget that Milly had admitted putting that first white feather on Jack’s engine. Outwardly, her appearance might have changed dramatically from the pasty-faced,
thirteen-year-old kitchen maid, but Milly was the same person inside, Kitty thought, still capable of being devious and spiteful.

‘And in time everyone will forget how he got his injury,’ Milly was saying. ‘They’ll think he got it in the war. He’ll be a hero, too.’

‘So that’s why you tied the white feather on to his engine, is it? To try to goad him into volunteering?’

The girl’s lip curled. ‘Well, you don’t like to think of your man as a coward, do you?’

Kitty pulled in a sharp breath. ‘A man – a real man – dun’t have to go and get himself killed or maimed to make me proud of him.’

Milly turned to face her, a smirk on her face. A smile that had nothing to do with humour or with friendliness. There was malice and something else there too. Triumph. That was it, there was
triumph in Milly’s smile.

‘I wasn’t talking about
your
man, Kitty.’ Then Milly turned and walked quickly through the gate and the garden towards the kitchen door of the Manor, while, puzzled,
Kitty stared after her.

‘You goin’ to stand there gossiping all day?’ came Jack’s roar above the noise. ‘That chaff hole’ll be choked in a minute.’

‘Coming,’ Kitty answered automatically and began to move back towards her place, but her thoughts were still on her sister.

‘Where’s Dad?’ Johnnie sat at the table, shovelling meat and potato pie into his mouth.

‘Eat slowly, Johnnie,’ Kitty remonstrated. ‘No one’s going to take it from your plate.’

The boy grinned, his dark blue eyes dancing with mischief. ‘Sorry, Mam. But where is Dad?’

‘I haven’t the foggiest idea.’ Kitty turned her back on the boy to put Jack’s plate of food back in the oven. ‘If he doesn’t come home soon, this
dinner’ll be ruined.’

‘Maybe he’s gone to the Hall. The pretty lady’s back, ain’t she?’

Kitty stood up and twisted round sharply to stare at him and as she did so the plate slipped from her grasp, spilling meat, potato and gravy over the peg rug and soaking into its thickness.
‘Oh, now look what you’ve made me do,’ she cried in her vexation, but even as she said the words, she knew her accusation was unfair.

It was the thought that Miss Miriam was once more close by and already Johnnie knew it and was again intrigued by her.

As she fetched a bucket of water and a floor cloth and knelt on the hearth, she said, as casually as she could, ‘Have you seen her? Is she all right?’

‘No, I’ve not seen her. One of the lads working for Dad on the threshing team told me. Said there was to be a big party up at the Hall for her homecoming. The whole
neighbourhood’s going to be invited. Will we be invited, Mam?’

Kitty opened her mouth to give a wry laugh and say, ‘Of course not. We’re not gentry,’ but the words stuck in her throat.

Maybe she did not have the right, but Johnnie did. Probably more than any of the other guests, little Johnnie Thorndyke had every right to be at the party to welcome his mother home.

Thank God he doesn’t know it, she thought.

As the early months of 1919 turned towards summer and the threshing work lessened, to Kitty’s surprise Jack started arriving home later and later. She was puzzled. At
this time of year Jack had always undertaken other work, hedging and ditching, fencing, even building. But, with only one arm, much of this work was now impossible for him. She had expected that,
when forced into an idleness he hated, he would become even more quick-tempered and moody. The local estate owners and farmers would try to put work his way that they knew he could manage. Knowing
that he lived on their charity would not help Jack’s temper either, Kitty thought.

Instead, he was suddenly much kinder to her. He never once raised his hand to her now and he never took her roughly in their shared bed at night, using her body to ease his needs with a savage
bitterness. But neither, she thought, did he make love to her as he once had in those early days that seemed so far off now. He was more thoughtful towards her, though his temper still sparked if
something annoyed him.

‘I’ll get one of the lads to look after the chaff hole when we start the threshing again next winter, Kitty. You do a grand job there, but it’s the muckiest there is. Think you
could manage on top of the drum instead?’

Kitty laughed, touched by his sudden concern. She flexed her muscles. ‘I reckon I could. Strong as a carthorse, me.’

He turned away and over his shoulder, with a deliberate casualness that was not lost on Kitty, said, ‘I may not be back tonight. I’ve got to go further afield looking for a bit of
work to tide me over until harvest time.’

As he walked away from her without looking back, Kitty stared after him. Then suddenly, she knew. Jack had another woman.

‘How could I have been so blind?’ she murmured. ‘Of course, that’s it. That explains his odd behaviour. Nice as pie one minute and shouting his head off the next if
summat dun’t suit him.’

Then another thought came into her head. A thought that made her gasp and put trembling fingers to her mouth. ‘Oh no, she wouldn’t. She couldn’t be so stupid. Not again.
Don’t, oh please don’t, let it be Miss Miriam.’

Jack did not return that night. In the early morning light, he walked through the fields, the dew dampening his boots and the bottom of his trousers, to find an angry Kitty
waiting for him. She flung open the back door and stood on the threshold, barring his way into the cottage. Her arms folded across her bosom, she tapped the toe of her foot on the step.
‘You’ve got another woman, ain’t you, Jack Thorndyke? Who is it?’

He thrust his face close to hers. ‘Why should you care? You’ve not been a good wife to me.’

‘I aren’t your wife,’ she reminded him.

‘No, and ya never will be neither. All you care about is that lad.’ His mouth twisted into a sneer as he added cruelly, ‘Anybody would think he was yours.’

Without thinking, Kitty raised her hand to strike him, to shut his foul mouth, but he caught hold of her wrist. ‘Oh no you don’t, miss. Strike a cripple, would you?’

‘You’re no cripple, but if it hadn’t been for me, you might still be languishing up there in that bed. It was me got you out of it, me got you back to work and made you a man
again. I gave you back your pride, Jack Thorndyke, and don’t you forget it.’