Down an English Lane (13 page)

Their eyes met and held for a few seconds. ‘Maisie…’ said Bruce. He was not sure what he was about to say to her, the moment was so full of poignancy; but it was interrupted by the ping of the shop doorbell and the entrance of Lily.

‘Hello there, Bruce,’ she called brightly. ‘Nice to see you.’ He turned to greet her, and the moment of magic was broken.

‘Hello, Lily,’ he said. ‘I’m catching up with old friends, as you see. And I’ve been hearing about your exciting news. Congratulations on your engagement! I’m sure you and Arthur will be very happy.’

‘Thank you, Bruce,’ she replied. ‘That’s very kind of you. I’m sure we will too…’

‘I’ve tidied the boxes of ribbons, Mum,’ Maisie broke in, ‘and dusted the shelves, like you said. I’ll go upstairs now that you’re back, if you don’t mind. I’ve a few things to sort out…for next week.’ She moved out from behind the counter towards the door that led to the upstairs rooms.

‘OK, love,’ said Lily. ‘You’ve been a good help.’

‘Cheerio then, Bruce. Good to see you.’ Maisie turned to take her leave of him. ‘See you tomorrow then. What time did we say?’

‘We didn’t,’ he replied. ‘Two o’clock suit you? At the village green?’

‘Fine, I’ll tell the others. See you then…’

Maisie averted her face as she left the shop and hurried up the stairs. To her shame and annoyance, she could feel tears pricking at the back of her eyes. ‘You silly, stupid idiot!’ she castigated herself. She had been getting over it very nicely, or so she had thought. For all she had known, Bruce had already returned to his camp; and then to come face to face with him like that, it had been too much.

She had conducted herself very well, though, she thought. She had been determined that nothing in her demeanour – either the tone of her voice or the look in her eyes – would give him a hint of how she felt about him. Because one glance at him had told her that she still cared very deeply.

Everything had been going on all right, then he had looked at her and said her name…and that had been her undoing. If her mother had not come in at that moment she felt that she might well have blurted it all out, about how much she thought about him and how upset she had been on seeing him with Christine. It was just as well that they had been interrupted; saved by the bell, you might say. She felt her cheeks start to flush now when she considered what a fool she might have made of herself.

And yet there had been that look that had passed between them. What had it meant? She doubted that she would ever know. She flung herself down in an armchair, biting her lips and blinking hard. No, no, no! She was not going to give way to tears
again. Her mother might well come upstairs at any moment, and she must find her acting perfectly normally. As she had said, there were things she had to sort out for next week for the return to school; books, pens and pencils and so on, and her school uniform. There was no use in sitting here moping, or dreaming of what might have been… She sighed deeply, then stood up with an air of resolution and climbed the second flight of stairs which led to the attic.

Her room was at the back – the one she had chosen when they had first moved in – and from the high vantage point she could see over the rooftops of the houses which lay at the back of the High Street, and over to the distant hills. Not too far distant, though. The ruins of Middleburgh Castle were only a couple of miles away, on top of one of the nearer hills. Down below she could see the silver stream rippling through the meadows, a tributary of the river which ran through the dale. And just visible above a clump of trees, the tall chimney stacks of Tremaine House where the squire and his family had always lived…and where Bruce lived at the moment.

Had it been foolish of her, she wondered, to agree so readily to go on a ramble with him? But it might have seemed churlish to refuse, to say that she was too busy, especially as the invitation had been given to her friends as well. She was determined, however, that she would keep her distance from Bruce. She
would walk with Audrey, and Doris, if she was able to go with them, and allow Bruce and Timothy to have some time together. Tim, she knew, hero-worshipped the young pilot who had served in the latter years of the war and had – thank God – come back safe and sound. If Bruce wanted to speak to her personally, then he would have to make the opportunity to do so. And if he didn’t…then she would know that the look that had passed between them had meant very little to him. Bruce was just a good friend, and that was how she would make herself think of him.

The day started well with everyone in high spirits. They met outside the Rectory gate; Maisie, Audrey and Timothy, and Bruce and his collie dog, Prince. They were to meet Doris, who fortunately could be spared for a few hours, at her farm gate, just up the lane behind the church.

They took the short cut through the churchyard to the small gate at the back. The warm summer weather was still continuing, but now, with the start of September, the sun was lower in the sky, shining more directly into their eyes and seeming more powerful than it had at the height of summer, although the long shadows cast by the gravestones across the grass and the path told that autumn was not far away.

In the lane which led to the Nixons’ farm the
blackberries hung in the bramble hedges, purple-ripe and glistening; deep red hawthorn berries too, and large juicy rose-hips, loved by the birds. ‘But dangerous for us to eat,’ Maisie remembered that Doris had warned them, the ‘townies’ from Leeds, when they had first arrived. She had been their tutor in many aspects of country lore. So unschooled had they been, she and Audrey, that they had scarcely been able to tell an oak tree from an ash; or differentiate between cows and bulls, she recalled, much to Doris’s amusement.

It had been during the same week of the year as it was now that they had taken their first walk along this very lane. Now, as then, the outer leaves on the trees were yellowing, the start of the time of year known in the country as ‘back-end’. ‘It’s feeling a bit back-endish…’ was a phrase often heard on the lips of country folk. It was the time of year when the farmers had to be prepared for anything. The mellow sunny days might last a while and give an Indian summer, or the autumn rain might start and continue in a deluge, filling the rivers and streams and even overflowing to flood the fields.

As they climbed the first stile, Prince bounding over ahead of them all, they could see Doris waving to them from the farm gate.

‘Glad you could make it,’ said Bruce, when they drew near to her, ‘although it’s quite a busy time on the farm now, isn’t it?’

‘All seasons are busy, one way or another,’ replied Doris. She was already an experienced farmhand, just as willing and able as her brother, Ted – so Ada, her mother, had admitted to Maisie – and Joe, who had recently left the RAF to resume his work on the farm again. ‘Ted and Joe are getting the last of the hay into t’ barn.’ In the nearest fields they could see the tripods holding the pyramids of pale yellow hay, and at the back a barn door stood open revealing the hay stacked high inside.

‘Our Ted and Joe did a fair bit of grumbling, mind,’ said Doris, ‘’cause me mam was letting me go, but she said it could count as me half-day; I usually have it on Saturday, y’see. But I dare say she’ll let me have Saturday off an’ all. I’ve been helping her with the cheese-making this morning, and that’s summat that our Ted and Joe are no good at. Aye, it’s a busy time sure enough. There’s potatoes and root crops to be gathered, and the last of the apples and pears. I’ll have to get stuck in again tomorrer, but it’s nice to have a bit of freedom… Where are we going then?’

‘Oh, up to the castle, I think, if everybody agrees,’ said Bruce. ‘I intended going up there with Christine on Sunday, but we didn’t get any further than the waterfall. It was such a nice day, so we just sat and took our ease.’

It was the first time he had mentioned Christine, and no one made any comment, except to agree that they would climb up to the castle ruins. I bet
she didn’t want to walk so far, that Christine, Maisie thought to herself. She didn’t look as though she was well suited to a country life.

Their path took them through a little wood, no more than a copse, where oak and sycamore trees grew closely together. On the fringes grew the mountain ash, making a vivid splash of colour with their bright red berries and feathery pale green leaves against the dark shadows in the middle of the coppice.

Then they were at the waterfall, not a huge cascading torrent but a much more gentle splashing and tumbling of foaming water over peat brown rocks and boulders. As they had done many times before, they crossed the river by the stepping stones, knowing just which ones to choose to avoid getting their feet wet. Prince did not care about wet feet. He bounded ahead and arrived on the opposite bank before any of them, shaking himself and wagging his tail and panting; laughing at them it seemed as he watched them tread much more carefully than he had done across the glistening stones.

The moorland ahead of them was brown with bracken and the heather which had almost finished its flowering. Here and there, though, there was still a patch of purple, sheltered by an outcrop of rock, and the golden gorse bushes added a touch of brightness to the dark-hued landscape. Dull and sombre it might appear in the dark shades of early autumn, but Maisie had learned to love the
moorland in each and every season of the year.

Now, walking on her own for a while as they took the path across the moor, she found pleasure, as always, in the scene around her; the criss-cross pattern of drystone walls separating the further fields and the lazy, seemingly motionless, sheep grazing on the distant hills. She could hear the rippling sound of the waterfall and the river they had crossed, the far distant hoot of a train, although from here no railway line was visible, and the lone cry of a moorland bird – Bruce had once told her it was a curlew – wheeling high above.

She felt the wind more keenly on her face as they climbed higher although the sun was still shining. But the clouds were no longer still as they had been an hour or so ago; they were racing across the sky and the approaching ones were edged with grey.

‘D’you think it’s going to rain,’ said Audrey, hurrying to catch up with her.

‘I don’t know; I hope not,’ replied Maisie. ‘I’m not really prepared for it, are you? I’ve got a headscarf and my cardigan, but not a proper coat. It didn’t look as though we would need one.’

‘No, nor have I,’ said Audrey. ‘Aren’t we silly? You’d think with living in the country for so long that we would remember how quickly the weather can change. But it was such a lovely day earlier on. I bet Doris has come well prepared though.’

‘What’s that?’ said Doris. She had been walking behind with Bruce and Timothy, and now they all
stood together in a little group. ‘Come prepared for the rain? Is that what you mean? You bet I have. I’ve got me waterproof jacket in here.’ She patted the haversack on her back. ‘Be prepared, that’s my motto, like the Boy Scouts.’ She laughed. ‘Haven’t you got any raincoats?’ They shook their heads. ‘Oh dear; you’re still a couple of town mice, aren’t you?’

‘’Fraid so,’ said Maisie, with a shrug. ‘What about you boys? But I don’t suppose a drop of rain will worry you, will it?’

‘My jacket’s waterproof,’ said Timothy precisely.

‘And so is mine,’ said Bruce. ‘But let’s look on the bright side, eh? The clouds are still quite high in the sky. Come on, best foot forward everyone; we’ll soon be at the top…’

The view, when they reached the ruins of Middleburgh Castle was well worth the climb. There was Middlebeck, nestling in the valley and the silver ribbon of the river. They could make out the tower of the church, the roof and tall chimneys of Bruce’s home and Doris’s squat grey farmhouse.

‘Shall we eat our picnic?’ said Doris, who was always hungry. ‘Come on, before it rains,’ she giggled.

‘Don’t keep saying that!’ said Audrey, glancing anxiously at the sky. ‘You’ll make it rain… Actually, I think the sky’s clearing a bit…’

‘Wishful thinking,’ said Doris, through a mouthful of bread. She was already seated on a
rock with her coat as a cushion, tucking into a ham sandwich and taking a gulp from a bottle of Tizer. The rest of them made themselves comfortable and took out the provisions they had brought.