The Black Mountains (14 page)

“Well, I think it's wicked!” Dolly said airily, but at the sight of his face she couldn't hold the laughter back any longer. It came out in a loud explosion, and she stood with her hands pressed over her mouth.

Evan's face darkened “You've been having me on,” he accused.

“Yes,” she admitted, through her giggles.

“Don't you try to make a fool out of me, Dolly,” he said, and his tone abruptly stopped her laughter.

“What do you mean? It was only a joke!” she told him, but he did not answer, and a chill ran up her spine.

They walked on in silence, following the main street away from the square and past the church. Here, under the churchyard wall, a path branched away to the fields and the river where Ted had swum on the Sunday morning he had first found Nipper, and Evan turned Dolly along this path.

“I don't think I want to go that way,” she said, nervous suddenly. “Let's stick to the main road.”

But Evan's fingers tightened on hers, and he leaned back against the wall, pulling her towards him.

“I'm sorry, Dolly,” he said.

He sounded so miserable, her soft heart went out to him.

“I'm sorry, too. I shouldn't have teased you.”

“No, you shouldn't,” he agreed, “not the way I feel about you, Dolly.”

He pulled her close then, kissing her as he had never kissed her before. His mouth moved on hers with rhythmic insistence, and his hand slid over her back to squeeze her hips closer to his. Dolly, off balance, let herself lean against him and felt something within her respond to his maleness and his desire. But as his free hand began to fumble with the buttons on her blouse, she tried to push herself away.

“Evan, no! Stop it, please.”

“But why?” He held her firm, his breath hot on her face. “ You're mine, Dolly. I wouldn't hurt you. I only want to feel you, that's all. Just for a minute.”

It was something in his attitude that frightened her more than what he was trying to do. All boys tried. She'd known that since she was fourteen. But this was no light-hearted raid for what he could get. There was more to it than that.

“Evan, don't!” she said again, but he took no notice, stopping her protests by kissing her again and again until she could hardly breathe. His hands seemed to be everywhere now, on her breasts, her bottom, hoisting up her skirt, fumbling and groping, and with a shock she realized his trouser buttons were undone.

“Evan Comer, will you behave yourself!” she cried sharply.

His hands stopped their probing and she pushed herself away, straightening her clothes.

“What do you think you're up to?” she asked indignantly. “And put yourself straight, do! You look disgusting!”

Her tone sobered him, and shamefaced he buttoned his trousers.

“I'm sorry, Dolly …” He reached out to put his arm around her again, but she stepped away. “ I couldn't help myself, Dolly. You know how I feel about you.”

“That's no excuse,” she said.

But she was weakening now, and he rushed on, “ Do you think we've known one another long enough to get married?”

“Oh!” she said, surprised “Are you … are you asking, Evan?”

“I suppose I am.” He patted his hair tidy with an unsteady hand. “I've been thinking about it a long while, but I've been putting off saying anything. I was so afraid you'd say “no”.'

“Oh, Evan!” Dolly said, confused. The trapped feeling was back, stronger than ever, and she didn't know what to say to him. It would be foolish to turn him down out of hand. He was a good-looking boy with a steady job, and all her friends would regard him as quite a catch. And just now, when he'd kissed her so masterfully, it had been quite nice until he'd gone too far.

But she didn't love him, not the way she wanted to love the man she married. And she was scared of his odd, intense ways.

“I don't know, I'll have to think,” she said, hesitantly.

They walked in silence back to the town square where the Band of Hope temperance meeting was just breaking up. Evan had to go to the public convenience on the corner of the Victoria Hall to relieve himself, and while Dolly was standing on the pavement waiting for him, she noticed a young policeman on duty at the back of the crowd giving her sidelong glances.

She guessed he was one of those drafted in to deal with the strike, and in his uniform he made an impressive figure. Dolly always enjoyed the fact that boys found her attractive, and immediately found herself flirting discreetly. She felt he might be about to come over to speak to her, when Martha Durrant, an enthusiastic supporter of the Band of Hope, descended on her, saying how pleased she was to see that young people were interested in temperance. Mrs Durrant had barely finished when Evan was back.

By the time she reached home, Dolly had almost forgotten the young policeman again. But he had not forgotten her, for the next day he came rapping at the backdoor of the house. Cook was severely startled to find a policeman standing on the other side of the door and was heartily relieved to discover that the purpose of his visit was to ask Dolly if she would walk out with him.

Dolly had been thinking about Evan all night, and had decided that she did not want to marry him, but telling him so was going to be difficult She reasoned that, perhaps if she went out with someone else once or twice, he would begin to understand that she simply didn't feel as he did, and not pursue the matter.

Dolly accepted the young policeman's invitation, and on her next night off they went to listen to a Welsh male voice choir who were giving a concert in Victoria Hall in aid of the striking miners.

The next morning when Evan arrived with Captain Fish's groceries, he was in a furious temper. Dolly, who was cleaning the silver on the kitchen table, realized as soon as she saw his thunderous expression that he knew of her outing the previous evening. Despite her protestations that they were
not
engaged, Evan's temper flared, until Dolly finally fled from the kitchen, her eyes spilling with tears.

It wasn't until five minutes later, when she heard his horse clip-clop away, that she dared return to the kitchen. The room was empty—Cook had gone to the shops for some good beefsteak for the evening meal—and the door was still flapping open as Dolly had left it. She sat down, her mind in a turmoil, and endeavoured to resume her cleaning. It was then that she noticed the captain's heavy silver cigarette box was missing.

At first she could not believe it. She looked again and again through the silver on the table as if it might miraculously appear. But it was gone!

It had been there, of that she was sure. Tears began to gather behind her eyes, but this time they were tears of outrage. Evan must have taken the box! It couldn't have been anyone else! But why should he do such a thing—and what was she going to do about it?

For a moment she stood undecided, but the thought of telling Captain Fish and having him send a bobby after Evan was not a very pleasant one. In an odd way she felt guilty for even having been mixed up with someone who would resort to stealing, and she shrank from admitting it.

“I'll go after Evan myself!” she said aloud.

Without even stopping to take off her cap and apron, she hurried out. She knew the way Evan went from here—to the two or three other big houses on Ridge Road, then back again and over the brow of the hill to the cottages on the other side. For a moment she stood in the road, looking up and down, wondering which way to go. A child was kicking stones into a hopscotch on the opposite pavement, and she called out to her, “ Has the Co-op cart gone back yet?”

The child shook her head and Dolly started off up the road. Just as she reached the drive of the last of the big houses, she saw his cart coming out. At the same moment he saw her, and flushed scarlet.

“Just a minute, Evan, I want you!” Dolly called.

He reined in the horse, his guilt plainly written all over his face.

“Where's that cigarette box?” she shouted at him. “ Come on now, I know you've got it.”

He looked around embarrassed, trying to shut her up. “Dolly, I …”

“Are you going to give it back, or am I going to call a bobby?”

He jumped down from the cart on to the road beside her. “ For goodness sake, keep your voice down! The whole road can hear you.”

“I don't care if the whole of Hillsbridge can hear me!” she shouted. “How could you, Evan? Stealing while my back was turned …”

“I didn't!”

“You did, too. Don't tell me you're a liar as well as a thief.”

He was really flustered now.

“All right all right, I took it,” he conceded. “ But I only did it for you.”

“For
me?”
she spat.

“To get some money to buy you something nice. I thought maybe if I got you that brooch you've had your eye on in the jeweller's window, you might change your mind.”

“Evan Comer! If that's not the most insulting thing I've ever heard! You think you can buy me with a brooch!”

“No, Dolly, you've got it all wrong …”

“Wrong, is it? And what about all those other things you've given me? Did you get them with stolen money, too?”

“No, of course not,” he protested. “ I don't know what came over me. It was thinking you'd finished with me, like—and then there was the cigarette box right there on the table. I took it without thinking.”

“And you can put it back the same way,” Dolly ordered “I'll have it this very minute, Evan, if you don't mind.”

Shamefaced, he reached under the seat of the cart and got out the cigarette box. She took it from him and hid it under her apron.

“I'm glad you've seen sense, Evan.”

She turned away, but he called after her “ Dolly, just a minute! When will I see you?”

Her chin went up, and her lips set in a determined line. “I'm sorry, Evan, but I don't want to see you any more. Not now.”

“But, Dolly …”

He looked so wretched she almost weakened again, but making up her mind, she said decisively, “I'm sorry, Evan. Mammy wouldn't like me getting involved with someone who could steal. She's very particular about us only ever having what belongs to us.”

Then, before he could say anything else, she turned and hurried back down the road. The cart still had not passed her when she reached the gates of the house, and looking over her shoulder, she saw it pulled into the side of the road. Evan was recovering himself, she supposed, but she did not wait. She wanted to get the cigarette box back inside the house before Cook came back and missed it— and her.

Luck was on her side. Cook was still out, and she was able to replace the box with no one any the wiser. But she did not change her mind about Evan. A man who could steal was not the man for her, even if he had done it on the spur of the moment. And somehow she felt it was probably not the first time. Dolly knew she would never be able to trust him again.

She told nobody of the incident with Evan, not even Charlotte, who was somewhat dubious about her giving up a local boy for one of the policemen who would be gone when the strike ended.

“Nothing will come of it, you know,” Charlotte warned her.

“Oh, Mam, I don't want anything to come of it!” Dolly replied impatiently. “I don't want to get married yet. There's a lot of things I want to do first—like learning to be a cook. And I don't see why I shouldn't have a bit of fun while I'm young.”

Charlotte nodded. She would like to see Dolly settled, but let her have a good time first, as long as she knew where to stop.

“Just as long as you don't get too attached to this bobby, that's all,” she said.

It was much the same thing as she had said to Ted about Nipper, but this time her advice was heeded. When on Easter Eve the miners voted to accept the pay and settlement terms offered them, and the police were marched out of Hillsbridge for the last time, Dolly's heart was still intact, though she promised to write to her policeman boyfriend if he wrote to her.

It was Evan who was unable to forget, Evan who brooded while love turned to hate, and plotted his revenge on the girl who had spurned him.

THE PIT WHEELS were turning again, and the men were back at work, but in the Hall household things were not easy, for the six-week strike had left them in severe financial difficulties.

Although Charlotte had scrimped and saved wherever she could, the list of things for which money was needed had grown and grown. All the men's boots were in desperate need of repair. Amy needed new clothes for she was getting up and about now, and nothing she had worn before the accident would fit her. As for Jack, he needed school books.

During the strike, William Davies had been very kind, providing what Jack needed out of his own pocket because, he said, he did not want Jack's chances to suffer. But he could not afford to do so for ever. A schoolmaster's salary did not allow for it, and Charlotte had begun to think Jack would have to leave school after all.

To her surprise, however, James did not leap at the idea as she had expected.

“There's not much work going at the moment anyway,” he said philosophically. “ If you ask me, he might as well bide where he is.”

“Well, I shall have to start looking around myself,” Charlotte said. “ Maybe there's something I could do in the evenings when you're home to look after Amy and little Harry.”

But although she made inquiries she could find no work. Too many other women had the same thing in mind.

“I believe it's going to come down to taking in washing like Ada Clements,” Charlotte said. But there, James drew the line.

“That's one thing I'm not having,” he told her firmly. “Wet washing about the place all the time isn't healthy, and our boys are too big now to want to be running about fetching the baskets of dirty stuff and taking back the clean like the Clements boys. And besides,” he added, “ if you want to finish up with hands like Ada, I suppose that's up to you, but I shouldn't like it, I can tell you.”