The Fleethaven Trilogy (114 page)

Back in the house, her grandmother was standing at the
kitchen table, her hands on her hips, her mouth pursed as
she surveyed her sewing machine. ‘Ruined!’ she muttered
angrily, as Ella came into the kitchen. ‘What can I have
been thinking of to leave it on the floor?’

Jonathan eased his aching limbs up from the Windsor
chair at the side of the hearth and came to stand beside
Esther, putting his arm about her shoulders. ‘The flood
came so fast, love. There was no time to think.’

‘Yes, but I always keep it on the little table under the
window in the living room. What on earth possessed me to
leave it on the
floor
?’

‘You often do, Esther, when you’re in the middle of
making something. You know you do. You pile all the
material, all the pieces you’ve cut out, on to the table and
you leave the machine on the floor.’

Ella saw her grandmother look at him and then nod.
‘Yes, you’re right. So I do. But I hadn’t been making
anything just before the flood came, now had I?’

‘No,’ then Jonathan reminded her gently, ‘but you had
the tea after your father’s funeral in there, and the little
table was used to put things on.’

‘Oh, aye, of course.’ She sighed, remembering. ‘I just
forgot to lift it back up.’

‘Normally it wouldn’t have mattered, now would it?’
he said reasonably.

Esther pulled a wry face. ‘No, no it wouldn’t.’ She
turned back to look down at the sewing machine plastered
with mud and sand, its moving parts rusted solid by the
salt water. ‘But why, oh, why, did I have to leave it on the
floor that night of all nights?’ she moaned.

Ella watched her grandmother run her fingers lovingly
over the wooden lid of the machine. ‘It was the only kindly
gesture me aunt Hannah ever made to me,’ she murmured
more to herself than to the other two. ‘I got the shock of
me life when she left it to me when she died instead of her
own daughters. All me young life I’d never known anything
from her but cuffs and knocks and work, work and more
work. Mind you,’ her smile was a wry twist on her mouth,
‘I suppose I ought to be grateful to her. At least she made
me a survivor.’

‘I think,’ Jonathan said slowly, ‘you would have survived,
Aunt Hannah or no Aunt Hannah. It’s a cruel world
for a youngster on her own with no parents . . .’

Their eyes turned towards Ella and Jonathan’s voice
dropped so low that she could scarcely hear his next
words. ‘But you had the spirit of survival in you, Esther,
and, thank the Good Lord, so has she.’ He smiled down at
Ella with tenderness in his blue eyes and, tightening his
arm about his wife’s shoulder, added, teasing gently, ‘Only
trouble is, trying to live with the pair of you.’

Esther laughed and, for a moment, some of the bitterness
and sadness left her face, making her look young
again.

Ella moved forward to stand on the opposite side of the
table.

‘Gran . . .’ As Esther met her steady gaze, the young girl
took a deep breath and, though her voice wobbled a little,
she said, ‘You – you can have Mum’s machine if you like.
It – it was amongst all the things they brought from ho—from Lincoln.’

Esther’s eyes softened and as she and Jonathan stood
looking down into her upturned face, Ella glanced from
one to the other and back again.

‘Your mum would want you to have her machine one
day, love.’

Ella shrugged. ‘I can’t use it. I don’t know how.’

Esther’s eyes widened. ‘Do you mean to tell me yar
mam didn’t teach you to sew?’

The girl shook her head. ‘She never had the time, Gran.
She was always too busy sewing for other people. It was
her job.’

Her grandmother tut-tutted and said, ‘Well, in that
case, Missy, it’s high time you learnt.’

Jonathan nodded. ‘Use Kate’s machine for a while,
Esther. Machines should be used anyway. It doesn’t do
them any good to be stood idle.’

Esther gave a snort, ‘Like people.’

‘And in the meantime, love, I’ll take your machine out
to the shed and take it to bits. Maybe I can clean it all up
and get it working again. But it’ll take a while. It’ll be a
fiddly job. I should have looked at it sooner . . .’ He swept
his hand through his hair in a gesture of tiredness. ‘But
there’s been so much to see to.’

‘I saw it as soon as the water went and knew it’d be
ruined.’ Esther sighed, still annoyed with herself.

‘I’m sure I’ll be able to do something with it, love,’
Jonathan tried to reassure her.

‘Of course you will.’ Esther smiled fondly at him, her
confidence in his ability boundless. ‘And you’ll love doing
it, won’t you?’ She tapped his cheek almost coquettishly.
‘You and your machines.’

‘Well, it’s not quite my usual size. I’m more used to
tractors and such.’

Kate’s sewing machine was carried down the narrow
stairs and set carefully on the living-room table. The three
of them stood looking at it and Ella felt a lump in her
throat. The machine had been such an important part of
Kate’s life – of their lives in Lincoln – that it was almost as
if her mother were there in the room. Now, mirroring her
grandmother’s action of a few moments ago with her own
old machine, Ella reached out and ran her hand over the
polished curve of the wooden lid.

Tears blinded her and rather than let them see her cry,
Ella turned and ran from the room and the house. She
heard her grandmother speak her name but Jonathan said,
‘Let her go, love, she needs to be on her own . . .’ and then
she was out of earshot.

In the darkness of the barn she hugged the little kitten
to her, her tears wetting its silky fur. Waiting until she
heard her grandparents come out of the house and go
towards the cowshed for evening milking, Ella slipped
back into the house and up the stairs to her bedroom, the
kitten hidden beneath her cardigan.

With Tibby snuggled under the bedclothes beside her,
that night was the first since her mother’s death that Ella
did not sob herself to sleep.

Early the following morning, before it was properly light,
Ella awoke to hear the sound of raised voices in the front
garden just below her window.

‘And who gave you leave to push ya way through me
hedge at this time of the morning, Aggie Souter?’

‘It’s that girl of yourn. Ya daughter’s bastard ya’ve
teken in. She’s hit our Jimmy and made ’is mouth bleed.
All swollen up, it is, this morning. She needs a good hiding,
Esther Hilton.’

‘Me name’s Esther Godfrey and has been for a long
time, Aggie Souter, and I’ll thank you to remember it.’

‘Aye, an’ I could tell ’em a thing about you, an’ all,
Esther Hilton,’ the woman persisted. ‘Couldn’t I just! Ya
no better than ya should be. Why, I remember—’

‘Pot calling kettle black, is it, Aggie? If it’s the past ya
want to rake up then I’ll start an’ all. Only five months
from your wedding day to the day young Jimmy was born,
wasn’t it?’

‘Ya’ve a wicked tongue on you, Esther Hilton, an’ no
mistake. Seems the young ’un teks after you, an’ all, from
what our Jimmy ses. Telled ’im to shut ’is gob else she’d
shut it for ’im. Very ladylike, I must say.’

Ella pressed her face closer to the window. Hilton? Why
did the woman keep calling her grandmother Esther
Hilton? That was Ella’s own name, hers and her mother’s
and, presumably, her father’s, but it wasn’t her grandmother’s.
So why . . .?

Mrs Souter was going now, back the way she had come
through the hole in the hedge and across the fields to the
west, yet the two women were still shouting after each
other.

‘. . . little bugger wants a good hiding . . .’

‘. . . you mind your business, an’ I’ll mind mine . . .’

As the sound of voices died away, Ella strained her ears
to listen for her grandmother coming back into the house,
for the door to bang and her footsteps mount the stairs . . .
She dressed hurriedly in her school clothes and tiptoed
downstairs. There was no one in the house and when she
opened the back door it was to hear the angry clattering of
pails and churns from the cowshed.

Ella tore back upstairs, fished the kitten out from the
bottom of the bed and put him outside the back door. His
fur fluffy from sleep, Tibby eyed her indignantly and tried
to slip back into the house.

‘No, no, you’ll have to stay outside. You’ll get me into
more bother and it sounds as if I’m going to be in enough
already this morning.’

‘You’ve had that cat in your bed, Ella Hilton. When I
changed the sheets I found cat hairs all over them, so don’t
try to deny it.’

Ella faced her grandmother and nodded. There was no
use denying it; besides, to do so would not even cross her
mind. She was often disobedient and wilful, but she was
never untruthful. Faced with one of her sins being found
out, Ella would face up openly, admit it and take her
punishment. She was surprised, however, that this was the
only wrong-doing with which she was being accused. So
far nothing had been said about Jimmy Souter and it had
been two days since the boy’s mother had stormed into
Brumbys’ Farm.

‘He – he keeps me company, Gran.’

‘A cat’s place is in the barn, not in your bed.’

‘Aw, Esther, don’t be too hard on the child.’ Jonathan,
from the chair by the range, lowered his paper. ‘The little
kitten’s doing no harm.’

‘Tain’t healthy,’ Esther retorted. ‘Besides, Ella disobeyed
me deliberately.’

Ella could see her grandfather struggling to make his
expression disapproving. ‘Well, now, Ella, you shouldn’t
have done that. You must always do what your grannie
tells you.’

‘Yes, Grandpa,’ she said meekly, but her eyes were full
of mischief as she met his gaze.

‘Off to bed with you now,’ her grandmother said. ‘And
no more sneaking that cat upstairs.’

As she bade them goodnight in turn, and left the
kitchen, Ella lingered in the living room through which she
had to pass to reach the stairs, to listen.

‘You’re too hard on the child, Esther love.’

‘She’s got to be made to behave herself. She’s a wilful
little tyke. Not a bit like her mam . . .’ For a moment,
Esther’s voice was low and full of sadness as she recalled
fond memories. ‘Kate was always biddable, but this
one . . .!’ There followed a click of exasperation and a sigh.

‘I wonder, then,’ Jonathan said pointedly, ‘who she
takes after.’

She heard her grandmother give a snort of laughter.
‘You rogue!’ she heard Esther say affectionately and then
she added, ‘Aye, you’re right though. Aggie Souter said as
much, an’ all. And I have to admit, I can see a lot of mesen
in the little lass.’

‘Then you should be able to understand her, Esther,
especially as she, too, has been left without parents,’ he
said gently.

At that moment, Ella heard one of them make a
movement towards the door into the room where she was
standing eavesdropping and the girl scuttled across the
room into the hall and up the stairs.

Alone in her bedroom, Ella sat up in the bed, hugging
her knees and staring into the darkness, thinking about her
grandmother. She was a funny woman, the girl thought.
One minute she was in a temper, her green eyes flashing,
her voice harsh, the next she was laughing and teasing, but
mainly, the girl acknowledged, the latter mood was with
Jonathan or Rob; never with her. And why was she taking
on so about the kitten and yet had said not a word about
her thumping Jimmy Souter?

Ella sighed, trying to understand her grandmother and
to sort out her own feelings about the woman. She had
vowed to dislike her – no, stronger than that, to hate her!
But with each passing day, she found it more difficult and
often found herself wishing that she could be on the
receiving end of one of Esther’s magnificent smiles, when
her whole face lit up and her eyes twinkled with merriment
and love. Oh, how Ella wished her grandmother would
smile at her like that.

She buried herself beneath the covers and, missing the
warmth of Tibby’s furry little body, fell asleep scheming as
to how she might get the kitten back into her room without
her grandmother finding out.

The day the head teacher called Ella out of class, the girl’s
heart thumped: she must be in trouble. Maybe Jimmy
Souter had told the teacher about her hitting him.

‘Now, dear,’ the headmistress began as she opened the
door of her office and ushered the girl in. Ella stepped into
the room dominated by a huge desk standing in the centre
on a square of carpet. Along the walls were bookshelves, a
long table and a green metal filing cabinet. The headmistress
drew Ella towards the table where there was a pile of
toys and books. ‘These have been sent by kind people all
over the country to the schools in this area for children
who were in the floods.’ Her voice, which Ella knew could
be sharply authoritative, was now softly sympathetic. ‘In
this school, there are only a few pupils whose homes were
affected, so your teacher and I thought you should have
first choice.’ Gently, she urged Ella forward. ‘Have a look,
dear, and if there’s anything you’d like . . .’

Ella’s gaze wandered over the items; dolls and teddy
bears, books and jigsaw puzzles, a puppet, toy cars and
boats . . . And then she saw it: a board and a small wooden
box. She reached out with fingers that trembled suddenly.

‘What is it, dear?’

‘We . . .’ Her voice shook, ‘Grandpa and me – we were
playing draughts when – when the sea came. The board –
it was on the floor and – and the water spoilt it.’

The headmistress pulled out the folded board and
opened it up. The black and yellow squares danced before
Ella’s eyes as she relived the moment again just before the
sea had come gushing into their home.

‘Do you want it, dear?’ the woman was asking and Ella,
unable to speak, nodded.

She carried it carefully all the way home, and no one,
not even Jimmy Souter, asked where she had got it. Maybe,
Ella thought shrewdly, the other children had been told
while I was out of the classroom. She could imagine her
class teacher saying, ‘Now, Ella Hilton has gone to choose
a toy sent for the flood victims. As you all know, Ella’s
mother was drowned in the flood . . .’ And now no one
would dare to question her.