Bitter Inheritance Read online

  Sally looked at him like an elder sister. ‘I suppose you’ve got to tell somebody. But, isn’t it time your family was told about it?’

  ‘Not yet!’ hissed Robin. ‘There’s a lot more to find out!’

  At one time Sally would have been thrilled that Robin was coming to visit them. But since the day on the moor her feelings had changed. She felt much older than he was somehow: still affectionate, but only as an old friend. She thought she must be in love with Marcus, but that was hopeless too. Better to forget about love and get on with farming.

  One cold evening Sally came in from the farmyard, planning to wash and then to prepare their supper. There were no lamps lit in the house and the kitchen fire was low. This was odd; Emma usually lit the lamps at dusk and kept the fires burning. Perhaps she was ill?

  ‘Emma! Emma!’ Sally went through the house, but Emma was not there. And then she noticed that the girl’s boots and coat were missing. Emma must have gone for a walk. But it was nearly dark and the girl never stayed out in the dark, frightened of losing her way. With relief, Sally heard the dog barking. Emma must be coming in. But it was Robin, clattering into the yard on his horse, coming to talk over his plans with them. When he heard that Emma was missing he immediately offered to look for her.

  ‘She’s maybe lost her way. Let’s take a couple of lanterns and go down the lane.’

  Robin stabled his horse quickly while Sally collected two lanterns. She put on the old grey shawl against the cold and they set off down the green lane, calling as they went.

  ‘Poor little lass, she’s not used to the country. She’s bound to be scared.’ Robin seemed quite worried about Emma.

  A dark thought came to Sally’s mind and she couldn’t get rid of it. Emma had been so low in spirits … what if she’d decided to end her life? She thought back quickly. The last time she’d seen the girl was about three o’clock that afternoon. She’d had time to go a long way since three.

  Hackfall was deep and dangerous, a ravine through which the Ure flowed on its way down to Ripon. It would be lethal at night. Please God, let Emma not die there before she had started to live. On they went and the night got darker as the path led them down to the river.

  They reached the oak wood, leafless now, the branches stark in the lantern light, beckoning like skinny fingers. Sally shuddered. Hackfall looked different at night, more sinister.

  ‘There’s a moon tonight, see it coming up yonder?’ said Robin cheerfully. They could hear the roar of the waterfalls in the distance as they drew nearer to the river. ‘Surely she wouldn’t go to the river?’ Robin sounded suddenly scared.

  Sally knew suddenly with great certainty that Emma had gone to the river. And she was afraid of what they might find there. A black pit seemed to open up as she imagined how bleak the girl’s mind and soul must be. Bleak enough to feel that life held nothing for her but pain and misery. When Emma was safe again, Sally vowed she would make sure the girl knew she was needed, that she had a place at Thorpe if she wanted it or help with finding work somewhere else. There were all sorts of things they could do together. When Emma was safe … but now it might be too late. She’d had a long head start.

  As they went, stumbling over tree roots, Sally felt she’d been too slow. Instead of waiting for Emma to recover she should have started to talk to her about future plans, to prevent a lapse into despair. But the girl had seemed so strong and in some ways she was so reticent even now.

  Brambles were tearing at them but Sally hardly felt the scratches. Her anger was rising, anger at a world that would make life so hard for a young girl. With Sally, anger was energy and she strode along, even overtaking Robin’s fast pace. There was a path down to the water. Sally scrambled down and just as she did so, the moon peeped over the top of the ridge above. She could hear Robin following her down the steep track. Something white caught Sally’s attention in the river far below, shining in the moonlight. Emma lay in a shallow pool in the river bed, under the water. The river lapped over her but her face was clear of the water. She looked young and peaceful, lying there. ‘She’s dead.’ Robin pronounced.

  Nothing more was said. Sally held her lantern up high, while Robin pulled Emma clear and on to the bank. He turned her limp body over, and water gushed from her mouth.

  ‘I think she’s breathing!’ Sally had caught a faint movement in her chest. Robin moved Emma’s arms energetically up and down, in and out and in a minute or two she coughed up more water and took a deep, shuddering breath. It took many minutes before Emma’s breathing became regular. She was extremely cold and had to be taken home quickly.

  ‘But we can’t carry her up that track!’ Sally looked in despair at the looming steep side of the valley. It seemed almost impossible now that they’d come down that way. They could never get back. At the top was Thorpe and safety.

  Robin clucked impatiently. ‘Sally, use your head, woman. We can make a seat with our hands and carry her along the level track, out on to the Masham road, the way the visitors come in to see the follies.’

  Sally nodded. She knew the way. Hack Fall was a local beauty spot and the owners had built paths for visitors, with curious little buildings along the way. It would be a long way round, but it was the best way to get Emma home.

  They left the lanterns near a big stone, Robin promising to collect them soon. Trusting to the moonlight they carried Emma between them. She was small and light, but after a while they had to stop to rest several times before the road was reached. Then Sally stayed with Emma while Robin trotted back to Badger’s Gill to collect Jed and the trap and at last they got Emma home. She was cold, bruised and sick, but she was alive.

  ‘Of course, you fell in by accident.’ Sally said quite firmly as she tucked the girl up in bed with three hot water bottles and some bread and milk.

  ‘No, Sally.’ Emma lay with closed eyes. ‘I am sorry to cause you so much trouble … I wanted to die, you see.’

  ‘To everybody else this was an accident! And please Emma, I hope you’ll stay and work with me. I have so many plans for the things we can do together!’

  ‘Dear Sally, thank you.’

  Emma didn’t want a doctor, so Sally gave her salve for the bruises and asked the herb woman for some treatment for damaged lungs. The girl was quite ill for a few days, feverish and restless. But gradually she improved and Sally told her how tough she was.

  Robin seemed to take Emma’s case as a personal challenge and visited nearly every day. She lay on the sofa in the parlour and Robin teased her and told her stories about Australia, and one day Sally heard her laughing.

  ‘She’s a tough little thing,’ Robin said admiringly to Sally. ‘And she’ll be very pretty when the bruises fade!’ Oh Robin, thought Sally, you would have made me feel jealous once. By mid-January Emma was quite recovered, and in much better spirits than Sally had ever seen her. Robin still visited them both, explaining that all was in order since they could chaperone each other.

  Emma had her duties in the house and helped Sally in whatever ways she could. Sally taught her bread-making and how to make Fat Rascals, the rich local scones full of currants. With Robin, Emma had duties of a different kind. He would bring her articles and books about Australia and then test her knowledge. Sally was quite critical, thinking that Robin was determined to see only all that was good in Australia, and disregard the rest. The summers even in Victoria were apparently hot and dusty and it was a long way to the nearest town for supplies, when you were out in ‘the bush’.

  Emma seemed unusually interested, even in the rigours of Australian life. A girl from a big town would surely find the life even more rugged, as Robin had called it, than someone who’d been brought up on a farm. Sally began to wonder whether Emma was getting fond of Robin; she rather hoped not. It was quite possible that his charm would influence her, but that in the end he would be just as detached as he had been with Sally herself. A slender little town girl who was afraid of animals would never meet the prescription for Robin�
�s future wife. Robin was likely to sail off to Melbourne without a backward glance. He would leave behind him a grieving family; Sally hoped that he wouldn’t also leave Emma with a broken heart. Emma was mending nicely at present and Sally felt an almost ferocious concern for her happiness.

  ELEVEN

  ‘Ma’s got another guest for you. What do you think?’ Robin asked, one day in February. ‘She says it will be good for the business. You’d better see her about it!’

  ‘Thank you Robin, I will.’ Sally was arranging snowdrops in a vase. Another guest would be a good idea – of the right type, of course. That night Sally had a talk to Emma as they sat by the fire. Emma was sewing and she put down her work and listened with great attention, as Sally explained her plan. ‘I thought of a sort of partnership for you and me. To run Badger’s Gill and make a profit!’

  A glimmer of a smile lit Emma’s small face. ‘But you’re a farmer, Sally. I’m still scared of cows!’

  ‘There’s the house as the guesthouse. You could help a lot with that. We could take another resident and maybe some walkers and holiday people in the summer. Mrs Scott says that walkers like good farm food, a clean bed and pleasant company … we can manage all that.’

  ‘So – you’re saying that I can earn a place here and work with you? And I needn’t look for employment?’

  ‘Exactly. And I won’t be on my own any more. We’ll both support each other! Mrs Scott has somebody else for us; I’ll go to see her tomorrow.’

  ‘Well, call me your assistant!’ Emma looked very young, her eyes round as she looked across at Sally. ‘I am far too young to be a partner, even though I’m nearly seventeen!’

  Already Sally was planning the necessary arrangements. ‘If you don’t mind a smaller bedroom Emma, we could put the new guest in the main bedroom.’

  It was good to have a new idea to think about. They worked on the house, moving furniture and changing things round as much as they could. Sally felt reasonably happy when she was busy, which was most of the time. But when she went to bed at night the image of Marcus often entered her mind. Since the afternoon of the accident and the time spent in his company, Sally had felt the pain of love without any hope for the future. So this was what happened when you fell in love. And it had happened so quickly! This was what inspired those sad pieces of music: she felt she could play them better now.

  Wryly, Sally realized that what she had felt for Robin was nothing like this. She desperately wanted to see Marcus Radford, to talk it all out, to work out some solution so that they could get to know each other better. But she understood, because she was from the High Side too, the depth of bitterness that quarrels could leave behind, lasting for many years. Sally believed that he was thinking of her position as well as his own. Her heart was in Thorpe; she would never want to leave and start a new life elsewhere. There was no way out of the situation.

  The pain was made worse by a small parcel that arrived in the post about ten days after the accident. Sally opened it in the privacy of her bedroom. Carefully wrapped in many layers of paper was a small Dresden china shepherdess complete with crook, with a tiny lamb at her side. There was a scrap of paper tucked under her arm. It said: ‘For Bo-Peep.’ That was all. The little figure was soon wet with Sally’s tears. How long was it going to take her to forget this man? Sometimes she wished that she’d never met the Roman soldier.

  ‘Welcome to Badger’s Gill!’ At Emma’s suggestion, remembering her own arrival at the farm, a rather formal reception committee consisting of Emma and Sally was waiting to greet the new guest. They wore businesslike black dresses and white aprons, and with little white caps Sally felt that they looked most professional, even though they were both too slightly built to look really imposing. Aunt Bertha was much better at that.

  Looking at Emma, Sally felt a glow of almost maternal pride. Her light brown hair shining with health and her complexion clear, Emma was a different person from the downtrodden little orphan who’d come to Badger’s Gill. The guesthouse too was entering another phase, with some new curtains and chair covers and a rug or two to brighten the old house. A little spare money made a lot of difference.

  Sally knew that the new guest’s health was failing and hoped he would not be too fractious and difficult. As the slim young man with fair hair came up the path, a stray shaft of sunshine lit the afternoon and he smiled. ‘What a lovely place!’ It was a good start. Would he, like Emma, find recovery in the quiet fields of Thorpe?

  Sally reviewed what she knew about the stranger. Simon Drury was a young man from a family of West Riding mill owners. At the age of twenty, four years ago, he had developed a heart defect after a fever and was no longer able to work. His doctor had suggested that the air of Bradford was not good for him and that his health might improve if he went to the country. His mother knew someone who knew the Scotts, and Mrs Scott had recommended Badger’s Gill.

  Sally was relieved that he wouldn’t need nursing. ‘He has no infection and no bandages,’ his mother had written rather tartly, when explaining her son’s requirements. ‘He is perfectly normal apart from excessive fatigue. He needs a quiet life, with no excitement.’

  ‘That should be easy enough. It sounds just like Thorpe,’ Sally commented as she read the letter to Emma. ‘Thorpe’s only excitement is the annual Sunday School treat.’

  However, Mrs Drury recognized that looking after her son was a responsibility and the pay was accordingly generous and delivered monthly in advance. The question was how he should be treated: as a house guest or a lodger?

  ‘You need to allow us some privacy. And we don’t yet know what he’ll be like. Let’s start off formally and see how we get on.’ Emma had smiled her new smile. ‘You’ve got me for company now, you know,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, but what about him? You know how lonely it was all by yourself in the dining-room!’ Sally had felt sorry for this poor sick lad even before they met.

  The first evening they all ate together round the big dining-table, with everybody at their most polite. ‘And what sort of farming do you practise, Miss Mason?’ The fair head turned attentively towards his host.

  ‘It’s a mixed farm, Mr Drury. Thorpe is on a ridge, with the moors above us and the Ure valley down below. We have both flat and hilly land.’ Sally stopped, afraid she was boring him.

  ‘I see. So you’ll have sheep, cattle, poultry, maybe a few pigs and some crops as well. I don’t know much about country life,’ and he smiled apologetically, ‘but I love country scenes. Village greens, ponds, old buildings … that kind of thing.’

  ‘Are you an artist?’ Emma asked curiously.

  ‘I’d like to be. I studied art in Bradford for a time, when it became clear that I couldn’t join the firm. My father’s business, that is. Drury & Sons are woollen manufacturers, as you may know.’

  Sally cleared the soup plates, wishing she knew more about the industrial West Riding. The Masons had always considered it a place to avoid.

  ‘Art will be a very good occupation for you while you stay here, Mr Drury. In summer artists often come to paint our local landscapes.’ Sally was glad he’d have something to do; the way Mr Drury’s eyes followed her round the room was disconcerting. She hoped he didn’t have ambitions to be a portrait painter. She could never sit still for more than five minutes.

  ‘There’s plenty of room in here for an easel and painting materials.’ Emma looked round the dining-room. ‘We could cover the carpet in case you make a mess!’

  The young man agreed. ‘Although I plan to make sketches, at first. And as the weather improves I may be able to work outside.’

  A new routine was established, with Emma helping to cook and serve the guest’s meals. It was a quiet time of year on the farm and in the garden, with everything waiting for the spring. With Joe’s help, Sally was managing to get through her farm work quite well. The new guest seemed to feel the cold, and ‘as the day lengthens, so the cold strengthens,’ as Martha quoted from her stock of old sayings
. Simon needed a fire in his bedroom as well as in the dining-room where he sat during the day.

  Simon was in the big master bedroom which looked out across the village green. He soon found that he could sit at the window and sketch the scene below him. He was quite talented and Sally admired his work. ‘I’ll do a proper drawing of your farmhouse when the weather’s warmer,’ he promised eagerly.

  Sometimes Simon ate with his hosts because it seemed lonely for him, dining in state at the big table. He said that he liked music. ‘Would you play for me?’ He looked at Sally wistfully one evening.

  ‘Yes, if you wish.’ So, that night they gathered in the panelled parlour, with its books and music, both of which interested the guest.

  ‘Have you read this one, Mr Drury?’ Sally asked, handing him a book of travels.

  ‘No, but I’d love to borrow it if I may. Travel appeals to me, perhaps because I’m not allowed to go very far these days.’ He looked up at Sally from his chair with sad grey eyes that seemed to be pleading for something. After a moment he said, ‘Would you mind, will you please call me Simon?’

  Emma frowned a little, but Sally’s warm nature took over. ‘Of course, so long as you remember that I’m Sally!’

  Emma got out the music and Sally played a slow Chopin nocturne. Perhaps it was a mistake; Simon looked more tragic than ever as the lovely notes floated through the house. Sally wondered how ill he was and whether he had a hope of recovery. It must be very hard for him, living such a restricted life.

  Musical evenings soon became a feature of life at Badger’s Gill and Sally enjoyed them. Robin continued his visits and the four young people had some pleasant hours around the piano. Sally still wondered whether Emma was the attraction for her old friend; he seemed much more animated these days, but it might be the prospect of Australia, which was growing nearer. Robin teased Emma and talked to her, but it seemed to Sally that with her he was no different; still smiling, detached, the elder brother, just as he was with Sally herself. This of course was what Emma needed.