Calico Road (8 page)

‘You damaged it on purpose,’ Meg shouted, ‘I know you did. I hate you, you wicked old hag!’

Netta went puce with fury, picked up the nearest object, which was a wooden bowl, and hurled it at her daughter, catching her on the temple.

The sobs cut off abruptly and Meg tumbled to the ground like a rag doll, lying still and frighteningly silent.

Jack rushed across the room to kneel and cradle his sister in his arms. ‘
What have you done, Mam?
’

‘She should have lent that shawl to me when I asked. I’m her mother and . . .
Jack!
’

But he wasn’t listening. He was holding his sister close, watching the blood run down her temple and praying she wasn’t badly hurt.

To his relief, her eyes fluttered open but she looked up at him as if she didn’t know where she was, her expression that of a child puzzled by the unkind world around her. He remembered suddenly what a bonny, mischievous little girl she had been. She wasn’t bonny now, she was gaunt, and her eyes had a bruised look to them, as if the world was dealing harshly with her. Well, it was. It had dealt harshly with all of them since his father’s death. But their mother didn’t make it any easier.

As she realised where she was, Meg’s vague expression vanished to be replaced by one of deep sadness. ‘I can’t stand any more of this. I’m going to ask Ben to take me away. Even if she won’t give permission for us to wed, anything will be better than living with
her
.’ She put up her hand to her forehead. ‘It hurts, Jack. Everything hurts.’

Determination to help her rose in him. She, at least, should escape the unpleasantness their mother seemed to generate. He helped Meg sit up, then went and poured some clean water from the bucket into a bowl, dampening a rag in it and wiping away the blood. After the wound was clean, he picked his sister up, ignoring his mother’s wailing and shaking her off as she tried to hold him back at the foot of the stairs.

‘What about me, Jack? What about me?’

‘You’re not the one who’s hurt.’ As she tried to push in front of him, he nudged her out of the way with his elbow and carried his sister up to her bedroom, setting Meg down gently on the bed next to Ginny. He took her hand and patted it as he said quietly, ‘There’s no need to run away, love. I’ll make sure she gives permission for you to marry Ben.’

‘She won’t do it. She’s told me that, taunted me about it.’ Meg lay back and let the tears run down her cheeks, making no attempt to wipe them away.

‘She
will
give permission because if she doesn’t, I’m leaving too.’

‘She’ll know you don’t mean that.’

‘But I do.’ His voice was quietly emphatic. ‘You’re not the only one who’s sick of all the upsets she causes. Why can’t she be happy like other women? We’ve enough to eat, haven’t we? A roof over our heads? What makes her so miserable?’

Outside the bedroom door Netta pressed one hand to her mouth and crept back downstairs.

Jack bent to kiss Meg’s cheek. ‘Leave it to me, love.’

When he’d gone, Ginny tugged Meg’s arm. ‘Our Jack won’t really leave us, will he?’

Meg leaned closer to whisper, ‘No. But don’t tell Mam that or he’ll never get her to do anything.’

When Jack went downstairs he found his mother sitting by the fire, shoulders hunched, staring into it. She didn’t look up as she said, ‘Meg was only knocked out for a minute. I don’t know what you’re making such a fuss about. It was just an accident.’

He sat down opposite her and said severely, ‘It wasn’t an accident and you well know it. You
meant
to hurt her and you’re making her life miserable, so I need to make a fuss about it. I’m the man of the house and it’s up to me to see that things are done properly in our family. I’ve decided it’ll be best for Meg to leave and make a new life for herself. The two of you are never going to get on. If you don’t give her permission to wed Ben Pearson, she’ll run away. And if that happens, I’ll leave too.’ He met her eyes steadily as he added, ‘I mean that. We can’t go on like this.’

Netta chewed on the knuckles of one hand, looking sideways at him and trying to gauge whether he really meant it. ‘We can’t manage without her money.’

‘We can and will. You save money each week, I know you do, even if it’s only a penny or two. If we can’t save for a while, it won’t matter.’

‘An’ if I let her marry that tosspot, you’ll stay with me, our Jack? Promise.’

He nodded. He knew he had no choice but to stay, no choice but to deny his own wish to go out walking with a certain pretty lass. His mother’s strident tones made him wince and her next words only made it more vital that he should help Meg get away from her.

‘That sister of yours is no good, you know. She’ll come to a bad end, you mark my words.’

‘Meg’s just a lass like any other, Mam. All she wants is to marry the fellow she loves. What’s so wrong with that?’

Netta began to sob noisily but he didn’t try to calm her down as usual, couldn’t bear to touch her if truth be told. Instead he took down the book Parson had lent him, lit an extra candle with a splinter of wood and set it down beside him. He started to read, though the words were meaningless. He heard his mother’s sobs falter to a halt and forced himself to finish the page before glancing up. She was scowling across at him, so he turned to the next page and bent his head over it, listening, waiting.

For a moment there was silence then she yelled suddenly, ‘Oh, very well! Let her get wed. She’ll soon find out marriage isn’t a bed of roses. And we’ll be better off without her. She’s setting them childer a bad example, egging them on to be cheeky to me.’

Jack stood up, setting the book down carefully on the mantelpiece because it was unthinkable to damage such a precious object, and blew out his reading candle. ‘We’ll go and see Parson about it this very evening.’

‘I can’t go tonight. I . . .’ Her voice trailed away at the anger on his face.

‘No more excuses, Mam. Get your shawl.’

‘It’s old an’ matted an’ I’m ’shamed to be seen out in it. No one gives
me
pretty new shawls.’

‘Are you coming or not?’ When she didn’t speak, he reached for his book again.

‘Oh, all right!’

When they got back, the wedding was booked and he’d paid for a special licence to hold the ceremony on the following Saturday afternoon because he was afraid his mother would change her mind if things were left longer. He went up to tell Meg but found her asleep, her long dark lashes still wet with tears.

Ginny stared at him from the bed. ‘She were crying,’ she whispered. ‘Our Meg doesn’t usually cry. An’ look at her forehead. It’s all bruised.’

He leaned forward to ruffle his little sister’s hair and, when her arms came up for a hug, he drew her to him and kissed her cheek before whispering back, ‘Meg won’t be crying when she hears my news in the morning. Now, get yourself to sleep, young lady.’

As he went down he told himself he was doing the right thing, that without him Ginny and Shad and Joe wouldn’t have a proper home. But that didn’t stop his desperate longing for a life of his own, a woman of his own to love – and a little peace in the evening after a hard day’s work.

Netta refused to go to the wedding but Jack took the children along to watch his sister make her vows to Ben Pearson. To his mother’s fury he had dipped even further into their small pot of savings to buy Meg a new outfit from Roper’s pawn shop: a skirt in a rich maroon colour and a bodice of a soft pink.

She washed and mended them carefully after work, drying them in front of the fire. He’d seen his mother eyeing them with a sour expression and had warned her not to lay a finger on them.

The ceremony was brief but the happiness in both bride and groom’s faces warmed Jack’s heart. He kissed Meg, wished her happy and shook Ben’s hand, then went to his reading classes while the children ran off to play. They all spent as much of their free time out of the house as they could.

Arm in arm, the newly weds walked back to pick up Meg’s clothes. They found them scattered on the doorstep, trailing in the muck of the street. Ben looked at his wife in shock, seeing the happiness fade and tears well in her eyes.

Her voice was tight with pain. ‘I’d folded them up neatly. Now I shall have to wash them again.’

He helped her pick up the pieces of clothing, surprised by how little she owned. He didn’t know how to comfort her. ‘Eh, she’s a nasty old bitch, your mam.’

‘Why do you think I’m so glad to be leaving?’

He looked at her anxiously, blurting out the question that had occurred to him more than once.

‘You’ve not wed me just to get away from her?’

‘Of course not.’ But she did sometimes wonder if she’d have married him otherwise – or at least, so quickly. He was a kind fellow but he didn’t make her pulse beat faster. She’d heard the other lasses talking and they seemed much more taken with their young men than she was with Ben. Oh, she was being silly! Asking for the moon. He was a good man who worked hard and she was lucky he wanted her.

Together they carried her bundle back to the lodgings they’d rented from a fellow Ben knew. They had the front room downstairs of a two-up, two-down house near the lower end of Weavers Lane and that’d have to do until they could afford something better or he found a job elsewhere. Meg was still determined to leave Northby and, until they managed that, she’d carry on working so that they could save some money and buy a few things for the house. All they owned now was a bed, two rickety old chairs, a table and a few dishes.

When they went to bed that night Meg felt so nervous she didn’t know what to do with herself until Ben gathered her in his arms and laughed softly in her ear.

‘What do you think’s going to happen, lass? I’m going to love you, not beat you senseless.’ He trailed one finger down her cheek. ‘I’ll be gentle, I promise. You might even like it.’

He was gentle but she didn’t really enjoy the lovemaking. At least it was over quite quickly and didn’t hurt as her mother had told her it would. Ben enjoyed it, though, so from then on Meg pretended to like it, which seemed to make him happy.

What
she
enjoyed most was the way he held her in his arms afterwards and talked about his dreams for their future. He filled her so full of hope. Surely life couldn’t help but get better now that she was married and away from
her?

Toby looked round the tap room, trying not to let his feelings show on his face. So far the folk here in Calico weren’t giving him a chance to settle into the community and make friends. They were polite enough, but conversations stopped whenever he went near a group and no one ever made a real attempt to chat to him, even when he was alone in the bar with a customer. At Christmas they’d been cool with him, though many of them had grabbed Phoebe and planted kisses on her cheeks in honour of the season.

She said it was early days yet and you had to give folk time to get used to you, but he wondered if she knew more than she was telling him.

So he thought, to hell with it, and went for a stroll round the unused and dilapidated part of the house. The rooms in the middle area were as dusty and depressing as ever. Some contained a few pieces of furniture, though they were heavy and old-fashioned, covered in thick dust. If there’d been any demand for bedrooms, he’d have got some of them cleaned out and ready. But there wasn’t.

The better class of traveller, whether in their own carriage or on horseback, mostly went straight past the inn. It was a good thing in one way because the stables were run down and there was no spare fodder for customers’ animals. When he asked Phoebe what she and Hal had done if someone had a horse, she frowned for a minute then said, ‘Sent for some fodder off Ross or Jim. Eh, it’s a long time since that happened.’

‘Well, I think we’ll buy a bit extra in, just in case.’ Toby was finding he had a shilling or two to spare each week and was saving his money carefully, making do with the wood that was lying round when he wanted to do repairs, making every nail count.

The less affluent travellers sometimes called in for a drink and often wanted food. Phoebe always managed to find them something, telling Toby many a time how much easier her life was with the new stove to cook on and provide her with hot water by simply turning on the boiler tap. To her it was the most marvellous thing he’d done, putting in that stove.

During the warmer weather he’d do something about the outside of the house, he decided, but in the meantime he’d continue checking the place over. It stood to reason that he needed to keep it weatherproof. He found a room in the middle part where rain was getting in through a warped window frame and another where there were water stains on the ceiling. When he went outside he could see slates hanging awry on a small sideways sloping piece of roof. He climbed up and fixed them. Such a small job. Why the hell hadn’t Hal Dixon done things like that? What had been wrong with the man?

‘I’m going to work on the back part of the house today,’ he said to Phoebe one morning, once the front and middle were fully weatherproof. Alarm flickered in her eyes, he could have sworn it, but she didn’t say anything.

As she watched him gather his tools, she wrapped her arms round herself and continued to look worried.

‘You don’t like me working on the back part, do you?’ he ventured, hoping to draw her out about it.

‘No, I don’t. I’ve told you, it fair gives me the shivers.’

He waited but she didn’t elaborate and he decided not to push her for an explanation. She was a lovely woman, like an aunt to him now, but everyone had their secrets and he didn’t feel he had a right to pry into hers.

Jethro was sitting in his carriage, being driven home after visiting a machinery manufacturer, when the carriage slowed down to negotiate a bend and he saw her. He stared out of the window as the horses clopped past the formal gardens of a large house which he knew belonged to the Goddbys, an old-established county family who, if rumours were true, had fallen on hard times. She was standing by the gate, laughing at something another young woman was saying. Her brown hair was gilded by the sun, her face so plump and pretty he could feel something inside him yearn to touch her. But mostly it was the warmth of her smile that attracted him.