The Stony Path (21 page)

‘Aye, it is that, me bairn. But don’t blame your da, Polly. Your aunt was the one. Aye, she was. Even if she is me own daughter, she’s a fiend from hell, that one.’

Polly stared at her grandmother for a moment or two. She didn’t say what she wanted to ask, which was why? Why was her aunt like that? There must have been something that made her that way, surely? Instead she just inclined her head before setting her grandfather’s cup on the floor by her grandmother’s chair and quietly leaving the room. No one had mentioned Michael. Not once, since her Uncle Frederick had gone for the doctor in his horse and trap before taking her aunt home, had anyone referred to him. Not Luke or Arnold, who had stayed until the doctor had come; not even Miss Collins, who had paid a brief visit as the doctor was leaving. It was as though Michael had ceased to exist.
But he hadn’t.
And Polly wanted him, she so wanted to see his face and comfort him, love him. She was frightened for him, terribly frightened, because she had understood something this afternoon that had hitherto been hidden from her. Michael took after his da,
their
da. They were dreamers, impractical and gentle, in a world of their own half the time.

Polly opened the door of the bedroom she shared with Ruth and looked in on her sister, who was fast asleep and snoring gently under the covers, then she closed it again quietly, after taking her calico nightdress off her side of the bed. She didn’t open her mother’s door, neither did she call to her to ask if she was awake and wanted a cup of tea. There had been a scene between her mother and her grandmother after the doctor had left, and both women had said too much, the result of which being that Hilda had taken a heavy dose of laudanum and gone to bed, leaving them all to it.

On returning to the quiet shadowed kitchen, Polly poked the fire into a blaze and added some more wood, before pouring herself a strong cup of tea, which she drank straight down. She poured another, this time adding more milk as the previous one had burned her mouth, and drank this cup sitting on the saddle watching the leaping flames lick at a piece of partially burnt wood, which sizzled now and again. Then she took off all her clothes but her shift. There was something she had to do tonight before she tried to get some rest. It wasn’t sensible and it certainly wasn’t practical, but she had to do it nevertheless.

She pulled on her rough calico nightdress, which felt doubly stiff and shapeless after the soft, yielding material of the dress, and then her coat, as the night’s bitter chill was making itself felt. Then she returned to the saddle with the russet brocade dress in her hands, and slowly and systematically began to rip it to pieces. She burned the fragments on the fire one by one, watching steadily as they flared brightly for a few moments before dwindling away to ashes.

When nothing remained of the dress, she sat quietly for a full minute before reaching up to her hair and pulling the ribbon out of her tangled curls, but just as she was about to send it the same way as the dress, her hand stilled. Her da had gone all the way into Bishopswearmouth with instructions from Ruth about the ribbon, and he had bought her this. His face had been so bright, so proud this morning when he had seen her in all her finery. She ought to hate him for what he had done; she actually wanted to hate him because then this raw, gut-wrenching pain might lessen a little, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t. Her hand hovered for a moment more and then she rolled the ribbon up, thrusting it into the pocket of her coat.

One thing that would remain from this day, one thing she would wear proudly until her dying day was Michael’s ring. She sat staring down at her hands – the ring on the third finger of her right hand now – and the three small garnets in their band of gold twinkled back at her, their brightness mocking her misery. Michael was gone and her da – their da – was dead. The future that had been so radiant just hours before was now like the dress: destroyed, dark, nothing but a pile of ashes.

She lifted her head and glanced round the silent kitchen, and as she did so the weight of her family bowed her shoulders. Her da was gone and her grandda would never leave his bed again, although the doctor had indicated he might linger on for months if not years. There was her granny and Ruth, and her mother, and they had all – in their different ways – made it plain to her over the last few hours that they were looking to her. She didn’t mind that so much with her sister and her granny, one still so young and the other old and frail, but her mother ... Polly’s mouth hardened. She wasn’t at all sure just how ill her mother really was.

What was she to do? What was to become of them? It had been an uphill struggle even with her da alive and her grandda doing the odd job outside. They had sold off a couple of cows each winter just to get through, and even then, without Miss Collins’s rent money, they had barely managed. And now their once bonny herd was down to just six beasts and their winter feed all gone.

She would have to sell them at market. She shut her eyes tightly at the thought. All except Buttercup. She couldn’t bear to part with Buttercup, her favourite cow; besides which, they would need fresh milk each day. Buttercup would have to stay. But if they were to keep the two pigs and the hens and geese, the rest of the herd would have to go. There was her da’s funeral to pay for and the doctor’s bills, and her da had said only last week that the farmhouse roof needed attending to. With flour at two shillings and ninepence a stone and tea at sixpence a quarter-pound, they were going to be hard put to even buy the essentials. They would have to cut right down where they could.

She glanced at the flickering lamp on the table. No more lamp oil at over thruppence a quart, they could manage with candles from now on. And her mam could do without sugar in her tea, although no doubt she’d create a bit. For someone who was supposed to be constantly at death’s door, Mam held on fast to all the little luxuries the rest of them rarely tasted.

The urge to cry suddenly swept over her and she had the desire to put her head in her hands and give in to it, but something Luke had said more than once in the discussions on a Sunday afternoon came back to her. ‘No good bubblin’ about the injustices and the unfairness, that serves nothing. We’ve got to fight and do it without letting ’em crush us.’

Well, she felt crushed at the moment. She raised her head as though in protest to the thought. And all things considered, she had good reason for feeling so. Her chin moved a fraction higher. But all the self-pity in the world wouldn’t bring back her da or allow her to marry Michael or make her grandda like he had used to be. And if she thought of all those things now she wouldn’t be able to carry on, so ... she wouldn’t think of them. Not now. She would wait a while, that was what she would do.

She breathed out slowly through her nose and, pulling her coat tighter about her, walked out of the kitchen into the blackness of the yard. Through memory rather than sight she made her way to the privy, shivering now in the bitterly cold wind whipping across from the open fields beyond, but once she had finished and was outside in the yard again, her eyes having adjusted to the darkness, she stood still for a moment despite the raw night.

Luke was right, she had to fight, and bad as this was, there were others worse off the night. Look at the poor souls in the workhouses or those families living rough on the fells round Gateshead way. They might be mostly tinkers and hawkers and the like, but they died in their dozens during the winter in their makeshift dwellings of earth cottages with sod or turf roofs. Mind, she’d take her chance on the fells any day rather than set foot in the workhouse. She shivered, but it was more to do with her thoughts than the icy wind.

What was Michael doing right now? Was he awake too? Did he know about her da? The thoughts had sneaked into her mind unbidden but almost immediately she clamped down on them, saying out loud, ‘None of that, none of that.’ That wasn’t the way to be strong. She took a deep breath, her shoulders coming back under the old coat. She was glad Miss Collins had talked to Michael. Her eyes turned in the direction of their lodger’s cottage. And she would see her tomorrow ...

For the first time since she had decided to rent the cottage for the winter, Gwendoline Collins was experiencing a sensation of being confined on all sides. It had happened in the past several times before, but then it had been due to a physical restriction such as when she had been incarcerated in her cabin in a boat on one of her journeys, or yet still when she had made the mistake of venturing underground into a cave in Greece in order to see some fine specimens of stalactites and stalagmites. But there was no physical limitation now to make her feel so dreadful.

She twisted under the heaped covers on the bed, but on flinging one arm free quickly pulled it back under the blankets again as the cold hit. This place! She hadn’t known what real cold was until she had made the mistake of renting this cottage. It had seemed like an adventure in the autumn when the air had still been redolent with the remains of summer and the crisp, bracing nights had merely been enough to make the roaring fire seem cosy. But in the depths of winter ... How did Polly stand it? The hard, continuous grind, the harsh conditions, and it would all be a hundred times worse now her father had killed himself.
Killed himself.
Gwendoline’s thin mouth became thinner as her lips moved one on top of the other. The man was a weakling, a coward on top of his other sins. Or had been.

The last amendment brought her twisting again, and now she faced the reason for the agitation that had her wishing herself a million miles from the farm. She had broken her cardinal rule and got involved with the people about her. And it troubled her, it troubled her greatly, the more so since she was not at all sure how Polly would view matters when they spoke tomorrow. And Polly would expect her to expound at length on the conversation she had had with Michael after he had left the farm, that was only natural. Had she been right to advise the boy as she had? Her brows drew together, her face screwing up for a moment as though she was suffering pain. Here she was, a lapsed Catholic, and yet she had advised him as she had. But they had talked together at some length and the boy had been desperate; it had seemed right at the time. And he had a faith, there was no doubt about that. He was what her father would have called a good Catholic. Whatever that was.

Oh, what was the matter with her tonight? She made a little moue with her mouth in the pitch blackness. She had taken up residence here for a while because she had wanted to; no one had persuaded her into it, and it was she who had made the overtures of friendship towards Polly which had resulted in her becoming better acquainted with the workings within the family. She liked Polly. No, more than that, she admired her. The girl had a strong spirit that moreover was hungry for knowledge and enlightenment. Born to a better class with the benefits of education to set her free from narrow thinking, the girl could have gone far.

Gwendoline’s blue-grey eyes, which had a piercing quality all of their own and were her best feature, suddenly opened very wide. And why not? she thought excitedly. Why shouldn’t Polly have the chance to rise above the trappings of her working-class beginnings? Gwendoline herself could provide that chance. She had taken to the girl – her feelings hovering somewhere between those of a mentor and a friend – and certainly Polly was the only person she had met in a long, long time that she could envisage having as a permanent companion. The business with this boy who now turned out to be her half-brother had effectively finished all thoughts of romance for the time being, and if she took the girl in hand – gave her all the advantages of travel and experience and such – who knew what fine match she might make in the future when her heart had healed. If she was inclined towards matrimony, that was.

Of course, the matter of her family would have to be dealt with, but then it was clear they couldn’t carry on here without menfolk. The farm would have to be sold, and if there were any debts, as well there might be, they could be cleared and then a small dwelling of some kind purchased in the town of Bishopswearmouth. Failing that, there were places which catered for the old and infirm, as the grandparents undoubtedly were, and possibly the mother too, while the sister appeared old enough to be put into service or work of some other kind. So Gwendoline disposed of Polly’s family without a qualm, and after she had done so she fell immediately into a deep sleep.

‘I’m ... I’m sorry, Miss Collins. I don’t want to appear ungrateful.’

‘I’m aware of that.’ It was stiff and cold, nearly as cold as the black frost which had fallen the night before and turned the snow-covered ground into glass.

Polly sat back on her heels in front of the fire she had recently lit and which was beginning to blaze, and surveyed the figure sitting up in the bed with a thick eiderdown draped about it. Miss Collins was angry with her for refusing the offer to be her companion and travel the world. They had been discussing the matter for some five minutes since Miss Collins had first made the incredible suggestion, and although at first Miss Collins had been smiling and soft-voiced as she had countered Polly’s objections, she had gradually got stiffer and stiffer and was now very much the aristocrat.

She couldn’t deal with this today, not on top of everything else. For the first time since she had known the other woman, Polly felt a dart of dislike pierce the high regard she had for Miss Collins. It was like a mausoleum back there in the house and she had a hard day’s work in front of her; didn’t Miss Collins realise how things were? And she couldn’t just walk away from her family, the idea was unimaginable, but because she hadn’t immediately fallen in with the suggestion it was as if a wall had been erected between herself and this woman she had thought of as her friend.