The Fleethaven Trilogy (19 page)

As she laid the baby in Esther’s arms, she asked, ‘What ya going to call her, lass?’

Two bright spots of colour burned in Esther’s cheeks from her efforts, and sweat still shone on her face. There were dark shadows of exhaustion under her eyes, but she was smiling. ‘I don’t know, Ma, we – we haven’t talked about it.’

She heard Ma Harris give a soft sigh, but it was more the sound of understanding than of disapproval. ‘Men are never very good at making up their minds. Ya’ll end up deciding, lass, Ah can tell ya. So ya might as well think about it now. Just while I gets you sorted out. Now, we’ve got to get this afterbirth. Can you give a cough?’

Esther looked up in surprise. ‘What?’

‘Cough, lass. Just cough.’

Obediently, Esther coughed and felt the afterbirth slither from her. ‘Aye, that’s it. All nicely away. Good, good.’

Esther began to giggle helplessly, the emotion manifesting itself in a gentle hysteria. ‘I – I feel like Curly the pig,’ she spluttered.

Ma opened her mouth and laughed too. ‘Aye, lass, but I hope you’re not going to present me with as many as her.’

The two women shook with mirth, their happy laughter mingling with the wondrous sound of the newborn
baby’s wails.

Some time later, when Mrs Harris had washed her and the baby, and both were lying in clean linen, the infant in the crook of Esther’s arm, they heard the back door slam and Matthew’s voice. ‘Esther. Esther! Where are you, woman? Where’s me dinner?’

Ma Harris lifted the latch on the bedroom door and went out on to the top of the stairs. ‘Matthew,’ she called down. ‘Ya’d best come up here.’

Esther heard her husband come to the bottom of the stairs. ‘What? Oh, it’s you,’ she heard him say, then she heard his heavy footsteps mounting the stairs, almost reluctantly, it sounded to her. Ma Harris popped her head round the door.

‘Ah’ll be away now, lass, but Ah’ll be back later. An’ dun’t you fret, our Ernie’ll see to the milking and the dairy work.’

Her head disappeared and Esther heard her say to Matthew, ‘In ya go, lad, Ah’ll let her tell ya ’ersen.’

Slowly the bedroom door was pushed wider open and Matthew stepped into the room. Esther looked up at him and smiled. His face was expressionless as his glance passed over her and to the small bundle, now quietly asleep, in Esther’s arms.

‘You have a daughter, Matthew.’

She saw his mouth twist into a wry smile. ‘Huh, is that all ya can give me? A girl! What use is a girl?’

Esther gazed at him, conflicting emotions struggling on her face. But she said nothing. His reaction to her news had, for once, left her quite stunned and bereft of any answer.

He sniffed and passed the back of his hand across his mouth. ‘Well, ’tis a good job someone’s given me a son, ain’t it? What good is a girl to any man?’

He turned and went out of the bedroom.

Esther laid her cheek against the soft ginger-coloured down of her baby girl’s head. Her eyes glistened with unshed tears at his unkindness. Yet suddenly his brusque words reminded her of Sam Brumby on the day of her arrival here, and a smile trembled on her mouth at the memory.

She rubbed her cheek gently against the baby’s head. ‘That’s what I’ll call you, my little one. I’ll name you after old Sam’s sister, Katharine. Though perhaps,’ she added reflectively, ‘Kate would suit you better. Yes, that’s it. Kate Hilton.’

The baby stirred, wriggled a tiny finger in the air, and slept on.

T
OWARDS
the end of November, a sudden storm JL blew up. Lightning split the sky and thunder crashed directly overhead. High winds gusted the sea into a fury and the farmers rushed out to tie down their stacks before the wind tore them apart and scattered them. Doors and windows rattled and the cows moved towards the gateway leading from their field into the farmyard as if pleading for shelter.

‘Let ’em in the yard, Matthew,’ Esther said, ‘an’ leave the cowshed door open. Poor things. They don’t like the wind. Neither do I, come to that,’ she added, shuddering. It was the only weather she really didn’t like. She hated the way the wind clattered the roof tiles and shook the doors and windows. It sounded a live, vengeful, relentless being that wrought damage and disaster.

‘Sneck the door and come away in to the fire,’ she begged Matthew at dinner time as the wind howled around the lonely farmhouse. ‘Ya can’t do much out there in this lot until milking time. The bairn won’t stop crying. I reckon the wind is bothering her, too.’

Matthew slapped his hands together and blew on them to warm them, before sitting down on the wooden chair near the range to pull off his boots. He glanced towards the wicker cradle in the corner of the kitchen and then grinned up at Esther. ‘Her wind, or the gales, d’ya mean?’

Esther laughed. ‘Fool!’ she chafed him, but secretly she was pleased. It was the first time he’d made any sort of comment about the baby or taken any notice of her. Ever since her birth, Matthew had ignored her existence, even though the child had played her part in trying to arouse some sort of response from him by crying half the night. Resolutely he always turned over in their bed, pulled the covers over his ears and left the child to Esther.

‘I mean that racket outside. It’s enough to upset anyone.’ Esther shuddered. ‘I pity anyone who’s got to be out in this lot when it gets dark.’

They had eaten their midday meal and Esther was scuttling backwards and forwards between the kitchen and the draughty scullery with the pots, whilst the wind battered at the back door and blew in underneath it, when they heard a loud knocking.

Esther turned wide eyes on Matthew. ‘What . . . ? Who . . . ?’

‘How should I know, woman? Go an’ answer it.’

The wind snatched the door out of Esther’s hand as she unsnecked it, and almost lifted their visitor bodily and blew him into the house.

‘Ernie!’ Esther exclaimed. ‘Whatever’s the matter?’

‘Where’s the mester?’ the boy panted, his eyes dark with anxiety.

Esther pointed into the kitchen and then followed Ernie as he went through.

‘Hello, Ernie. What’s up?’ Matthew asked.

‘Me dad sent me to ask ya . . .’ He paused, shifting uneasily from one foot to the other.

‘Yes,’ Matthew prompted. ‘What?’

‘Well, he knows – well, he feels awk’ard asking you like . . .’

‘Get on with it, Ernie.’

The words came out in a jumbled rush. ‘It’s Mester Eland. His fishing boat’s about two miles offshore with a distress signal hoisted . . .’

Matthew was on his feet in a moment.

‘He’s out cod-fishing. Two fellers on the front saw his sails whipped away by the wind. Nobody knows what to do, ’im being coxswain, like. Me – me dad wants to launch the lifeboat. It’ll be hard work rowing in these seas, he ses, and – well – he needs you to – to make up the number.’

Matthew and the boy stared at each other whilst Esther gasped aloud. ‘No, oh no, not in this lot!’

‘Shut up, Esther, and go and get the ’osses ready. We’ll need them, and ours are nearer than going all the way to Willoughby’s. Ernie, run and tell yar dad and the others to get up to the station and I’ll come with me ’osses.’

Ernie’s eyes glowed. ‘Me dad says I can come on the boat if you agrees?’

Matthew regarded the young lad steadily for a moment. ‘You sure?’

Ernie nodded, unable to speak with excitement.

‘Right, then.’

Esther opened the back door and bent her head to the wind. ‘Fancy being fool enough to go fishin’ in this weather,’ she muttered to herself. To be fair, she realized, the gales had blown up suddenly and unexpectedly. At milking time that morning, which would have been roughly when Robert Eland had set sail in his boat, the weather had been deceptively calm.

Punch and Prince were reluctant to leave the warmth of their stable. They flattened their ears and bent their heads as Esther pulled on their harness and then coaxed them outside. They tossed their heads and clattered their hooves on the cobbles and tried to pull backwards into the stable again.

‘Stand.
Stand!
’ she bellowed, but the wind whipped the words from her mouth and hurled them away. Matthew appeared in the yard dressed in warm clothes. He came close to her, his mouth against her ear, so that she could hear him above the gale. ‘Ya’ll have to give me a leg up.’

She bent down and cupped her hands and as he put his knee in them, she hoisted him on to the back of the nearest horse. Taking the reins of both horses in his hands, he urged them out of the yard and turned to the left up the lane towards the boat-house set in the dunes nearer the town.

Esther shivered and went back into the house to be met by the wails of her baby girl. She picked her up and opened the front of her blouse for the child to suckle, crooning soothingly. For once, however, Esther’s thoughts were not on her hungry child, but on her husband.

As dusk fell the wind seemed to get even stronger, raging around the lonely farmhouse as if it would pluck it from the ground. Esther laid the now sleeping child in her cradle in the corner of the kitchen and pulled on her coat and boots. She checked the fire in the range and then went out into the wild night and across the yard to the byre. The cows were huddled together wild-eyed and restless, disturbed by the storm. With a calmness she did not feel inside herself, Esther crooned softly to each of the beasts in turn, dreading the moment when she would come to Clover who, in the end stall, was already lowing and stamping her feet. But strangely, when Esther came at last to the stall, and ran her hands caressingly over Clovers rump and uttered guttural noises deep in her throat, the animal seemed to quieten at once. The wind still rampaged and rattled the door and the rafters, yet inside the cowshed it seemed safe and warm. Docilely, Clover stood to be milked and as Esther rose and moved the milk away, the cow turned sorrowful eyes upon her.

‘I know, old girl, I don’t like this storm either, but ya’ll be all right snug and warm in here for the night. I aren’t going to turn you out into the field.’

Esther chuckled as the cow, seeming to understand, turned back to pluck some hay from the stall and chewed on it placidly.

Back in the kitchen where her baby slept soundly now, Esther threw more wood on the range fire and warmed her chilled body. She had quietened her child and soothed the restless animals. Now that there was nothing to busy herself with, it was Esther who felt unsettled and worried. There had been no word of how the rescue was going. Every nerve in her body seemed to be twitching so that she could not keep still. She paced the small space that was the hearth, walking across to the cradle and back again to the fire, hugging her shawl around her for comfort as much as for warmth.

Why didn’t someone come and tell her what was happening?

She paced the floor again. It was no good. Afraid as she was of the storm, it was far worse waiting here alone and not knowing what was going on. She glanced across at the cradle and bit her lip with indecision. There was no way she could take the child down to the shore on such a wild night, nor could she leave her here alone in the house.

The waiting was dreadful. In the darkness with the storm still raging round the farmhouse, Esther’s imagination ran riot. What if they were all drowned – Robert Eland and the men who had tried to rescue him? What a devastating effect it would have on this small community. Only widows and fatherless children would be left, and poor Ma Harris, she would lose both husband and son.

‘I know,’ she said aloud at the thought of Ma Harris, ‘she’ll look after her.’

If she wrapped the baby warmly, Esther told herself, and carried the wicker cradle to the cottages at the Point, Ma Harris would keep an eye on Kate, just for an hour or so whilst Esther went down to the beach.

‘I can’t bear this dreadful not knowing what’s happening any longer,’ she muttered.

Once her decision had been made, within minutes Esther was pulling the door to behind her. Hugging the cradle close to her, she struggled against the wind along the lane towards the Point and Ma Harris’s cottage.

The door was opened reluctantly by a thin-faced girl of about fourteen or so. It was ‘our Enid’ as Ma always called her. Esther smiled, ‘Is yar ma in?’

The girl shook her head. ‘Naw, she’s gone to the beach to see if she can see me dad . . .’

‘Aren’t they back yet?’

Another shake of the head.

‘Oh.’ For a moment Esther was uncertain.

‘What did ya want?’ the girl ventured.

‘I – I just wanted to go to the beach mesen, and I wondered if Ma – if ya mother – would keep an eye on the bairn for me.’

The girl’s white face broke into a smile. ‘Ah’ll look after her, missus.’ She opened the door wider inviting Esther to step inside. ‘The young ’uns are all in bed, so they’ll not disturb her and . . .’ She led the way into the living kitchen and pointed to another cradle set on a chair in the corner by the range, ‘Ah’m already looking after young Danny.’

Esther stopped abruptly in the doorway and drew breath sharply. She had never stopped to think that she might encounter Matthew’s other child.

‘Come in, missus,’ the girl was saying, her eyes on Esther’s face. ‘It’ll be all right, honest it will.’

Esther managed a weak smile, torn by conflicting emotions. She could hardly retreat without looking foolish, and she couldn’t bear to return home to continue that awful, lonely waiting.

She sighed and came to a decision. Living so close, she could not hope to avoid meeting the Eland family for ever, she supposed. Pressing her lips together she stepped determinedly into the room and placed her cradle on a chair in the opposite corner of the room. She stood a moment looking towards the other cradle.

‘Want to have a look, missus?’ Was there a note of slyness in the young girls voice? Did she know the full story? Esther sighed inwardly. She supposed so, and thought ruefully, who around here didn’t know?

Esther nodded and stepped closer as Enid drew back the blanket from the baby.

‘He’s a grand lad. Black hair, ’ee’s got, and the darkest brown eyes you ever saw in a bairn. He’ll break a few hearts when he’s grown.’