Above the Harvest Moon (26 page)
‘I didn’t break in.’
‘Well, you weren’t invited so how else would you term it?’
He stared at her for one moment more and then stalked past her, his face black with rage. It wasn’t until the kitchen door had banged and silence had reigned for some long seconds that Hannah let out her breath in a shaking sigh and dropped onto one of the hard-backed chairs.
The things he had said, the way he had tried to blame everything on her. Of a sudden she jumped up and hurried to the door, sliding the bolts at the top and bottom before gathering Buttons in her arms and sitting in Jake’s armchair. She held the cat’s soft, warm body to her and cried and cried.
How could she have imagined she loved him? How? But she had. She had thought he was her sun, moon and stars.
Her eyes felt sore and her face was swollen after the bout of crying was exhausted.Telling herself she mustn’t let Jake or Joe know Adam had come to see her, she bathed her face for ten minutes in cold water before going to her room and brushing out her hair and fastening it once again into a bun at the back of her head.
What a Christmas Day! Every other Christmas Day afternoon she had spent with her Aunt Aggie, sitting on her bed while they read her aunt’s magazines and ate sugared almonds and chocolate. Had her aunt received the letters she had written since being at the farm? She hadn’t replied, so maybe not. Oh, why were people so horrible? Human beings could be so much worse than the animals. She had said this to Jake in the aftermath of finding out about Lily, and he had agreed with her.
She stuck the last pin in her hair and stared at her reflection in the spotted mirror of the dressing table. She didn’t ask herself at this moment which human beings belonged in this category but she knew Adam was only one of them. She felt tired, very tired but it wasn’t a physical thing.
But there were good folk too. She nodded to the girl in the mirror. Look how Clara and Frank treated Joe as one of their own, and Daniel had gone out of his way to show Joe the ropes. And then there was Jake. The thought of his big broad-shouldered figure made her wish he was home. She felt safe when he was around.
She would have a word with him about her Aunt Aggie. See if he could come up with a way she could make sure her letters got to her aunt. Perhaps Jake would agree to go round and put one in her aunt’s hand himself.
No. She immediately dismissed the thought. She couldn’t ask him to do that. It would be too much of an imposition. But neither could she go. It wasn’t the possibility of seeing her uncle and mother which deterred her. She could grit her teeth and cope with that, unpleasant though it would be. But if she saw her aunt face to face there was a chance the truth about her abrupt departure from the house might come out, and it would break Aunt Aggie’s heart. All in all, perhaps it was best to leave things as they were. But what must her aunt be thinking?
She shook her head at her muddled thoughts. Why did everything seem so complicated? Sometimes she felt her life was a battleground governed as much by her thinking as events. But she was not going to let her uncle and mother, or Adam either, spoil her life here. It was up to her how much she let past happenings dwell on her mind and she wasn’t going to give any of them the satisfaction of crumbling. This was a new life, a new start. She had to look at it like that and make the most of it.
She turned from the mirror and walked to the door. She was going to make a fresh pot of tea and sit in front of the fire with the cats for company and read the latest copy of the
Woman’s Weekly
Jake had bought her a few days ago when he’d gone into town. Admittedly there were a hundred and one things needing her attention but this was Christmas Day after all. Perhaps her aunt was reading the same magazine. ‘Happy Christmas, Aunt Aggie,’ she murmured, walking down the stairs. ‘Know I’m thinking about you today and that I love you.’
Woman’s Weekly
Jake had bought her a few days ago when he’d gone into town. Admittedly there were a hundred and one things needing her attention but this was Christmas Day after all. Perhaps her aunt was reading the same magazine. ‘Happy Christmas, Aunt Aggie,’ she murmured, walking down the stairs. ‘Know I’m thinking about you today and that I love you.’
In fact Hannah had been on Agatha’s mind all day. As the weeks had gone on, Agatha had become convinced an argument with Miriam wouldn’t have prevented Hannah from contacting them or at least writing. No, there was more to this than met the eye but with Edward and Miriam seemingly content with the current state of affairs, there was little she could do, bedridden as she was. But if she could just see Hannah, talk to her, she was sure she could convince her niece to come back home.
She said as much to Edward when he brought her an afternoon cup of tea but in a roundabout way. The last weeks had taught her her husband was touchy about the lass’s departure. She rather thought Edward looked at it as a personal insult, as though Hannah had thrown all their love and concern back in their faces.
Once he had seated himself at the side of the bed with his own tea, she let him take a couple of sips before she said, ‘I’ve been thinking about Hannah. She was right pleased with that bracelet you picked out for her last Christmas. Do you remember?’
‘Bracelet? Oh aye, that’s right.’
‘I wonder if she still wears it. I mean it’s not as if she fell out with us, is it? Just her mam.’
His eyes were staring at her now and he said quietly, ‘Likely she looks on the three of us as one and the same.’
‘I shouldn’t think so.’ There was a note of indignation in Agatha’s voice. ‘I for one always got on with her extremely well and so did you, didn’t you? She helped you in the shop, you worked together and never a cross word.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘So doesn’t it seem strange to you that she hasn’t at least written to us if not her mother?’
‘Strange? Not really.’
‘Well, it does to me.’
‘Aggie, we’ve had this conversation more times than I’ve had hot dinners.’ He paused, turning his eyes from her and looking to the other side of the room as he went on, ‘If Hannah doesn’t want to see us or write, that’s up to her. You have to accept that.’
‘Well, it seems to me you’ve certainly had no difficulty accepting it,’ she said sharply.‘Perhaps I can’t write folk out of my life so speedily as you.’ It was rare, almost unheard of for her to speak to him in such a fashion and for a moment the look on his face made her want to put out her hand and smooth his hair back from his brow and tell him it didn’t matter. But it did matter, and since she had become convinced Miriam was more to her husband than merely his sister-in-law, the tenderness she’d felt for him, a tenderness which had formed a large part of her love and which had been faintly maternal in its substance, had withered and died. And so she continued to sip her tea before she said, ‘I don’t believe Miriam, Edward. There, I’ve said it. You know I’ve thought it for weeks and now I’ve said it and you can think what you like. Miriam isn’t what she seems in more ways than one.’
His eyes shot to her face with the last words. ‘Now, now,’ he blustered, ‘don’t take on. I know Miriam can be a funny one at times but we’d have been hard pressed without her, lass. Fair’s fair.’
Aye, you might well look like that, thought Agatha. That’s put the wind up you, hasn’t it? ‘I don’t think we would have been hard pressed as you put it. What does she do that a part-time housekeeper couldn’t? I can wash myself and you see to the disposal of the chamber pot and things of that nature. For years Hannah helped out in the shop, and now you say Bart is doing well enough.You’re surely not run off your feet down there, Edward. Not with the way things are at present. No one’s got any money to throw about, that’s for sure. To put it bluntly, sometimes I think Miriam imagines she’s your wife. Not me.’
Now she had really rattled him; she could see him wondering what she knew. Edward paid great store by his reputation as a comfortably well-off shopkeeper and pillar of the community; she knew he had been angling to get on the town council for years. One whiff of scandal and that would be put paid to, along with half their business most likely.
‘That new doctor that’s taken over from Dr Heath, Dr Clark, you know,’ she waited for him to nod his head, ‘I might do what he suggested and see one of them consultant people at the infirmary in the new year. Dr Heath would have been content for me to stay in this bed for ever as long as he had his payment each month when he called, but this one is a different kettle of fish. Young, up to date with all the new advances and what have you. He seems to think they might be able to do something for me. It would be a long job, he said, with me having been bed-bound for so long, but he reckons once the bleeding and pain is seen to I’d find myself with a new lease of life. What do you say about that?’
She stopped speaking and looked him straight in the eye. He returned her glance but paused before bringing himself to say, ‘Why - why haven’t you mentioned this before? I - this is the first you’ve said about an operation. ’
Yes, because she had wanted to choose her moment. She knew what Miriam had had in mind for years.The woman was like a vulture willing her to die so she could pick the bones of everything that made up her life - her home, the business and not least her husband. Oh yes, she had Miriam’s measure. And this was her Christmas box to her sister-in-law.
She watched her husband trying to conceal his agitation. She had never thought herself to be a vindictive woman. Until the last few years she would have labelled herself nice, forgiving, even overly soft-hearted, but since Dr Clark’s visit two weeks ago when she had caught a glimpse of a way out of this soft, comfortable hell, she had been forced to recognise she hadn’t known herself very well.
Becoming aware Edward was waiting for an answer, she roused herself. ‘Why haven’t I mentioned this before?’ She shrugged. ‘I suppose I wanted to get it clear in my mind first whether I was prepared to go the route of an operation. It’s no good seeing a consultant unless I’d do what he might say, is it?’
She waited to see if he would swallow the explanation.
‘I see.’ His lips moved one over the other as if he was sucking something from them. ‘And you are quite sure you would?’
‘Oh yes, Edward. Quite sure.’
Even at this late stage if he had reached out and taken her into his arms, said something encouraging along the lines that of course she must take the chance and he would be with her all the way, even then she might have found it in her heart to try and love him again. As it was he continued to drink his tea before rising and saying, ‘We’ll speak to Dr Clark again, you and I together so I can hear what he says. These young doctors are all very well with their modern ideas but not everything new is necessarily beneficial. An operation carries a high degree of risk and is not something to be undertaken lightly.’
If she had been wavering, this would have made up her mind for her. But she was already sure. She marvelled he knew her so little after twenty-two years of marriage. But at the moment she was still stuck in this bed and at the mercy of them both and so she nodded and said, ‘Quite.’ She had said enough to Dr Clark for him to suspect her husband might be awkward to deal with. He was a canny lad, Dr Clark.
‘Would you care for another cup of tea?’
She nodded again, letting him reach the door before she said quietly, ‘The next time Rose Wood calls in the shop, ask her to come up and have a word with me, would you?’
‘Rose Wood?’ He swung round, his voice high with surprise.
‘She’s Jake Fletcher’s mother and likely she has news of Hannah if she’s still staying with him at the farm.’
She saw his eyes blink rapidly for a moment. ‘Mrs Wood rarely comes into the shop, they can’t afford much these days. Like some others I could name, that family does most of its shopping at the market late at night when stuff’s marked down. But . . . but if I see her passing I’ll ask.’
Aye, and pigs fly. Agatha let her eyes rest on her husband for some seconds before she said, ‘Thank you, Edward.’
He hesitated, looking as though he was about to say something more but then he nodded and left the room, closing the door gently behind him.
He did not walk through to the kitchen to pour his wife another cup of tea but instead joined Miriam in the sitting room. She was slouched in an armchair, a half-full box of chocolates at the side of her and a magazine in her hand. ‘What’s the matter?’ She stared at him as he stood just inside the room.
‘I’ll tell you what the matter is.You should have let her have Hannah’s letters like I told you. There was nothing in them she couldn’t have read.’
‘Well, we didn’t know that till I opened them, did we? And once I’d done that we couldn’t very well give her them then.’
‘She’s like a dog with a bone, she never lets up.’
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