Eve and Her Sisters (13 page)

Before the revelation of that afternoon, his concern would have warmed her, now it was tying her stomach in knots and only confirming her fears. But Mary was still so young, she told herself for the umpteenth time that day. And whatever Caleb’s feelings were, he had made it plain he considered her sister had a lot of growing up to do. By the time he felt able to say anything, things could have changed.
He
could have changed.

They had almost reached the quaint whitewashed riverside tea room before they spotted Mary. She and Kitty were standing in a group of people which included Kitty’s parents and they were laughing and talking animatedly. As Mary caught sight of them, Eve saw her say something to Kitty before she darted to meet them, calling, ‘I’m sorry, I’m really sorry but Kitty’s mam’s sister and her family happened to come along and they’ve been talking and the time just went.’

Eve glanced at Caleb. She had seen his eyes scan the group which consisted of Kitty’s parents and a younger couple, along with the other couple’s six children, ranging from a babe in arms to a girl with bright auburn hair who looked to be Mary’s age.

She knew what he had been fearing. She, too, had been worried that Mary might have been talking to young men.The Girdle Cake was renowned for being a trysting place, among other things. But it was with quite a different voice to the one with which he had been speaking as they’d walked that he said, ‘We were concerned, it’s after seven. You promised Eve to be home by five.’

‘I’m sorry, really I am.’ Mary’s face was alight as it always was when she had been out somewhere enjoying herself. Linking her arm in Caleb’s with an ease Eve envied, she said, ‘I’ll work extra hard tomorrow to make up. How about that?’

Caleb shook his head but the action was more rueful than angry. ‘I told you, it’s not about that. We were worried.’

‘But I was with Kitty and her mam an’ da.’

‘You might have got separated.’

The two continued talking as they began to walk and Eve fell into step slightly behind them. Mary had barely glanced at her, her sister’s apologies had been for Caleb, and now Nell’s words came back to her. ‘When are you going to learn that by being as nice as you are, you just get walked over?’ Well, she was beginning to learn. Aye, she was. And in spite of all his ranting on the way here, Caleb had said nothing to Mary about letting her down in the kitchen. She had worked like a Trojan all day but that was nothing compared to one look from Mary’s blue eyes.

And then she caught the thought, hating herself for feeling jealous of her baby sister.

But Mary was not a baby any longer. She glanced at her sister’s profile. Mary’s beautiful face was bright and teasing and as she said something, Caleb threw back his head and laughed. Nell was right. There were going to have to be changes made at home and she, for one, was going to have to do her share in rethinking a few things.

It proved to be a difficult summer. Mary did not take kindly to having her freedom curtailed. She had been used to being Mildred’s pet lamb and doing as little as possible once she was home from school. Now she was a schoolgirl no longer and although she liked receiving a wage, she didn’t like the work which went with it. More than once the kitchen was rocked by the rows inside it but Eve stuck to her guns. She asked no more of Mary than she had asked of Nell when Nell had worked with her, but Mary was convinced she was being victimised and Mildred did nothing to pour oil on troubled waters.

Nell’s support and - surprisingly - Caleb’s got Eve through more than one sticky patch, however, and by the time the beech trees surrounding the village turned from copper to orange and the birds were once again gathering in flocks as they sensed the approach of winter, Mary seemed to have accepted her lot and harmony was restored. Most of the time.

October was a wet month and November one of hard frosts by night and icy mists by day, but the bad weather seemed to curb Mary’s restlessness and she appeared more content as Christmas approached. She took her half-day when it was her turn on a Sunday and made it stretch a little, leaving to meet Kitty before lunch and only returning in time to go to bed, but Eve did not mind this. She knew where Mary was and she trusted Kitty’s parents to see Mary home safely. Besides, she was now in the habit of using her own free time too. In the summer she would walk for miles, not returning until ten o’clock when twilight was falling. Now, as the days got shorter, she still made sure she left the inn after lunch and walked for most of the afternoon, unless the weather was really bad, knowing that once she was home again she would invariably start work. She could have gone up to their attic room and read one of the magazines she treated herself to each week since the events of the summer, but reading by the light of the oil lamp in the freezing room had proved no pleasure.

Late one Sunday afternoon, as the cold winter sun was setting, casting fleeting wisps of silver and feeble glimmers of yellow into the pearly grey sky, she came across Caleb a mile or so from the village. He was leaning against an old five-bar gate at the entrance to a barren field. It had snowed lightly during the day and a whisper-thin layer had settled in the ploughed furrows; the field was devoid of life apart from a huge oak tree standing in magnificent solitude in the dying light, several crows outlined against the bare branches. Their raucous cries must have disguised the sound of her footsteps because as she reached him, he jumped violently, dropping something over the gate. He turned to face her, his attitude almost shamefaced.

‘Eve.’Aware his face had turned a ruddy red, Caleb tried to salvage something from the situation, saying, ‘You surprised me. It’s those fairy feet of yours.’

‘You draw.’ She couldn’t believe her eyes.

Her amazement as she gazed down at his open sketch pad did nothing to alleviate his hot colour. ‘It’s nothing.’ Hastily he bent down and reached under the gate, drawing the pad to him and closing it and then stuffing his piece of charcoal into the pocket of his coat. ‘Where have you been walking?’ he asked inanely. ‘It’s a lovely afternoon, isn’t it?’

‘Can I see?’

She held out her hand as she spoke and as he gazed into the clear green eyes he considered exceptionally striking, he knew she wouldn’t take no for an answer. Another girl might have allowed herself to be deflected when confronted with his obvious reluctance, but not Eve. Cursing himself for not keeping a better watch out, he said curtly, ‘I scribble a little, that’s all,’ as he passed her the sketch pad.

He watched her as she opened the pad and proceeded to examine the drawings on each page. She took her time, pausing for a full minute on one drawing he had made of her and Mary and Nell. He had been particularly pleased with that sketch, feeling he had caught the essence of each girl in the portrait. Mary’s beauty and vivacity, Nell’s solid warmth and Eve’s mercurial plainness which at times transfigured into something lovely.

When she came to the view in front of them, she turned and surveyed it whilst dropping her glance to the sketch pad several times. ‘I can’t believe you can draw like this,’ she murmured, a break in her voice. ‘This is wonderful, they are all wonderful.You have an incredible talent.’

The colour which had begun to die down surged into his face again, his voice gruff as he said, ‘It’s nothing.’

‘It is
not
nothing.’ She lifted shining eyes to his and no one could have called her plain in that moment. ‘Why have you never said? I had no idea.’

He shrugged. Her admiration both warmed and embarrassed him. From a young lad he had viewed his desire to draw and paint as something faintly girlish, not manly, and certainly if any of his peers had found out, he knew his life wouldn’t have been worth living. If he had tried to explain to anyone how the different shades of bark fungi or the thick masses of old-man’s-beard festooned on bramble bushes made him itch to get out his pencil and capture what he saw on paper, he would have been a laughing stock. Landscapes, people, droplets of freezing winter rain chilled by a bitter wind and encrusting wild haws with ice, they were all equally fascinating. But lads played football in their spare time, or joined the Boy’s Brigade or played marbles and suchlike in the back alleys. Lads didn’t draw pictures.

‘How long have you been doing this?’ Eve asked softly.

‘As long as I can remember.’ He paused. ‘But I’d prefer it not to be known, all right? It’s just something I do for my own pleasure, that’s all.’

‘Does your mother know?’

His mam? He almost laughed out loud. He remembered the one time he had shown her something. He couldn’t have been more than six or seven, and he’d been as pleased as punch with a drawing he had done of some wood anemones poking their coy heads round the bottom of an old tree. He had felt he had caught the delicate white flowers perfectly as they had danced in the March breeze. She had stared at the drawing before she had ripped it in two, her voice strident as she’d said, ‘If you’ve time to waste on such nonsense, you’ve time to help your da more. Flowers indeed, a lad of your age drawing flowers. By, there’s times, m’boy, when I wonder what I’ve bred when I look at you.’

Aware of Eve’s eyes on him, he said flatly, ‘No, my mother doesn’t know. Like I said, no one does and I’d prefer it to stay that way.’

‘I won’t say anything, of course I won’t, but if I could draw like this I’d be shouting it from the rooftops.’

Again her enthusiasm warmed him and now he smiled. ‘Thank you.’ He took the pad from her and thrust it into the deep pocket of his old coat. ‘We’d better be getting back, it’s nearly dark and I can smell more snow in the wind. We’ve been lucky up to yet but it’s going to come and come hard by the look of it.’

They had walked some distance before she said in a small voice, ‘Do you really see . . .’ She hesitated. ‘Us like that?’

He glanced at her but her head was lowered and he couldn’t see the expression on her face.‘Like what?’

‘I-I don’t know how to explain it. I mean you captured Mary exactly, she looks beautiful, and Nell too, she was just right, but . . .’

Her voice trailed away and he waited a moment for her to continue. When she didn’t speak, he said, ‘But what?’ He didn’t understand what she was getting at. ‘What do you mean, Eve?’

‘I’m not . . .’ She paused again. ‘Were you being kind when you drew me?’ She kept her head down as she spoke.

‘Kind?’ He was genuinely puzzled. ‘I draw what I see, Eve. That’s all. That’s the only way I
can
draw.’

Her voice little more than a whisper, she said, ‘I know what
I
see when I look in the mirror and it’s not like you drew me. I wish it was,’ her voice broke for a moment and he felt a stab of acute embarrassment, ‘but it’s not. I think you were being kind.’

‘Why would I when I didn’t think anyone would ever see the picture?’ he asked reasonably, trying to disguise the immense pity which had sprung into being at her words. He’d had no idea she saw herself in such a negative way.

‘I don’t know.’ She cleared her throat. ‘But . . . thank you anyway.’

‘You don’t have to thank me for seeing you as you are.’ He knew his voice was too hearty but he didn’t know how else to pass this off. He had never credited Eve with being concerned about her appearance. She was so practical, so down to earth. This new side to her had thrown him and made him realise he didn’t know her as well as he had thought he did.

They walked back to Washington in silence. Caleb felt he ought to make conversation but for once it was beyond him. As they reached the inn and walked into the yard, the snow began to fall, big fat feathery flakes which immediately settled on the cobbles. ‘Looks like we’re in for a packet.’ Caleb glanced up into the laden sky. ‘Beautiful, though, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, it is.’ His artist’s eye would have more of an appreciation of beauty than most men’s.The thought was like a knife turning in Eve’s breast. She had no chance with him and it was no good thinking otherwise just because he had drawn her so sensitively. Whatever he said, that had been Caleb being kind. Perhaps he had thought an ugly duckling between two swans would be too cruel, not that he had made her - or Nell - a swan exactly but he had certainly attributed something to her face she had never seen.

Caleb opened the scullery door. Slamming the lid on her thoughts, Eve went past him into the inn. She took off her coat and hat and shook them after she’d wiped her feet on the big cork mat. As she opened the door into the kitchen, warmth and the comforting smell of food hit her, but in the next second she was aware of Mary and Nell facing each other across the kitchen table, both their faces scarlet with temper.

What now? Feeling she couldn’t stand one of her sisters’ rows tonight of all nights, she was about to say something to that effect when Nell said hotly, ‘Here they are. Now you tell them what you told me and see if they believe you.’

‘Why should I bother? I’m sure everyone will think the worst, they always do.’

‘What’s going on?’ Caleb moved forward, his gaze going from one girl to the other.‘What’s the matter?’

Nell was so angry she was shaking. ‘Mary had a gentleman caller a little while ago and he was forty odd if he was a day. Came into the inn as bold as brass asking for her with his arms full of flowers and chocolate.’ Nell jerked her head across the room and there on one of the smaller tables lay a beautifully wrapped bunch of what looked like hothouse blooms and a large box of expensive chocolates. ‘I asked him what business he had with her and he looked me up and down as if I was something he’d trodden in and told me to be quick and fetch her. Well, we had a few words’ - Nell’s tone left the listeners in no doubt as to the nature of the exchange - ‘and it appears he’d been told that m’lady here was the daughter of the innkeeper and seventeen years old to boot. Now who do you think could have told him that?’

With one accord they all looked at Mary who glared back defiantly, her face burning and her breast heaving. Such was the expression in her eyes she did look far older than her years.