Larkrigg Fell (29 page)

Andrew was a good man but not for a moment could she consider telling him the whole truth about her relationship with Pietro. What would he say if he knew that he still stole kisses from her whenever they were alone? If she admitted that she’d allowed him in to her bed and let him make love to her? Beth knew in her heart that he would disapprove, and her own shame would never allow her to mention it, a part of her afraid of losing his respect.

‘It won’t last.’ The words had popped out before she had time to stop herself.

Andrew glared at her. ‘What won’t last?’

She flushed deep pink. ‘This affair between Sarah and Pietro.’

A long tense silence grew between them. ‘You imagine he’ll come back to you, is that it?’

Beth bravely met his accusing gaze with a steady one of her own. ‘I know that he will. Sarah grows bored with everything in the end. She always has. And Pietro still likes me. He’s said so.’ She didn’t say love, afraid he’d mock her even more.

He gave something very like a growl deep in his throat. ‘You’re obsessed with him. You both are.’

Beth bridled. ‘Absolutely not. Anyway, even if it were true, is that such a crime?’ She bit down hard on her sandwich, not tasting it.
 

Andrew Barton was a quiet man, kept his own council in a way she found hard to deal with at times but he’d come to be an important part of Beth’s life. There’d been moments during these last months when she’d wished they could love each other, instead of other people. Life would be so much less complicated for them both. But you couldn’t plan the way you felt about a person.

Pietro made her feel good. With him all her shyness evaporated, life was happy and exciting, almost with an edge of danger which was thrilling. He kept insisting it would be perfectly fine for them to be lovers too because twins always share things.

So far, she had managed to resist these persuasions.

She just had to be patient. Until Sarah let him go.

Pietro was in Brockbarrow Wood. He lay beneath a low canopy of hazel, well hidden from sight. From here he could see right across the dale: Broombank nestling in the cleft of the hill, Meg moving about in the farm yard, calling to Tam to come inside. He felt a burning resentment for their obvious contentment, envied them their comfortable life. Why should they have so much and he so little? That could have been him down there. That should be his house. Instead of which he’d been forced to suffer his stepfather’s scathing remarks, constantly telling him how useless he was.

He was not useless, he was deprived. He had been deprived long ago of his true heritage, to live here, in these beautiful green mountains and learn the land of his forefathers. Family is all important as every Italian knows. His grandfather had lost out because of this ambitious, avaricious woman.

He heard Meg laugh at something Tam said, as if she hadn’t a care in the world. Then the Irishman put his arms about her and kissed her cheek as if she were a girl still.

This woman was happily married yet his mother had known nothing but trouble. How could she, such a beautiful lady, have been expected to be content with life as a simple baker’s wife, struggling to find every penny? She was a woman of great pride. His father had failed her, as his father, Jack, had in turn failed them all. No wonder she had left him for another, richer man, which had ruined all their lives. The moment she left them, his father had become a broken man, the family in ruins.

The source of these great troubles lay here, at Broombank. In their past.

His mother would have been happy here, with much money and family about her. With space and beauty and good air to breathe, instead of the poverty in their poor village, the small overcrowded house and long hours of grinding hard work. No wonder she left with the first man who offered her freedom and a comfortable life.

And so he must take his revenge. For the sake of his father who had lost everything. For the sake of his mother who had been forced by deprivation to take the course that she had. For the sake of himself. And at the same time, Pietro would enjoy proving to his stepfather that he too could be a man of action, and perhaps substance, one day.

‘What d’you think you’re doing?’

He started at the stern voice behind him, rolled over to look up into Ellen’s curious, brown-eyed stare.

‘Looking for deer,’ he said, grabbing the first idea which came to mind.
 

Ellen frowned her disbelief. She’d watched this young man often while she went quietly about her business in the woods. Not that he’d ever noticed her, but there was something about his behaviour that didn’t ring true. She could always smell suspicious behaviour in an animal, and a man wasn’t much different.

‘You don’t get many deer so near to habitation at this time of year. You’ve no glasses? You won’t see much without a good pair of binoculars. They like to keep their distance.’

She sank to her knees beside him in the long grass and gazed out across the fell tops, eyes studying the skyline, combing the craggy outcrops, the sheep cropped turf. ‘Where is he then? Stag is it, or a hind with a young un?’

‘He’s gone.’ Pietro got quickly to his feet. ‘And I must go too.’

‘He must’ve gone quickly.’ Something caught Ellen’s eye. Meg and Tam moving about some distance below in Broombank yard, their voices carrying with easy clarity on the soft breeze. She watched them for a moment then her eyes slid back to Pietro and as their gazes locked an understanding dawned. ‘You get a good view of Broombank too from here.’

‘Yes,’ he said, holding her gaze.

‘And you watch.’

‘Is it the crime that I watch the twins’ family at work?’

Ellen got stiffly to her feet and brushed her hands on the seat of her trousers. ‘Depends why you’re doing it. And what you were thinking as you watched.’

‘I think nothing. What should I think?’

Still Ellen held fast to his gaze, studying him with the same keen observation with which she studied her wild creatures. ‘Good folk, the O’Cleary’s. Friends of mine.’

‘Mine too.’ He half turned away, dropping his gaze, avoiding the shrewd gaze that seemed to peer right into his soul. ‘I must go. I have the work to do. I should not even be here.’

‘No, you shouldn’t.’

And with a brisk nod he hurried off in the direction of Larkrigg. But Ellen was thoughtful. He’d not liked her curiosity. It had caused him great discomfort. Were she a more fanciful woman, she’d imagine his expression in the second before he’d broken that telling gaze, to be one of enmity.

When Beth reached Ellen’s cottage after her walk, Ellen asked if she had seen Pietro.

‘No, should I have done?’

She shrugged her shoulders. ‘I wondered.’

Beth shook her head. ‘He’s working at the petrol station today, won’t be back until late.’

‘Ah.’

‘I saw Andrew.’

Keen brown eyes pierced her. ‘How was he?’

‘Fine.’

‘You two speaking again, are you?’

‘Why shouldn’t we be?’ Beth grinned. ‘Andrew and I are good friends, but don’t start your match-making. We’re not a couple of your strays. We’ll organise our own lives, thanks very much.’

‘Aye, and a right mess you’ll make of it.’ Ellen turned away, briskly changing the subject. ‘Are you free to help an old woman?’

Beth glanced teasingly about her. ‘I don’t see any around.’

‘Flatterer.’ Ellen laughingly handed her a bag of scraps. ‘Injured swan, settled on the tarn. He won’t stop long, probably lost his mate but he needs a bit of feeding up to help him mend. Take care now, he’s not a pet. They can go for you can swans.’

Beth took the bag and went happily off to the tarn, the old goose with half a beak, dubbed Georgie Girl, waddled along beside her and she stopped, confused. ‘Oh dear, I’m not sure if you're allowed to come.'

Ellen cackled with laughter. ‘It's all right. She enjoys a swim and she'll come back when she wants to.’

Scarcely a ripple marred the glasslike surface of the tam, save for the swan who swam serenely across to Beth the moment he spotted his dinner. Georgie Girl made a dash for the water, keeping her distance from the tarn’s new occupant and began to flap about and bathe the dust from her wings. Laughing, Beth kept one eye on her as she fed the injured swan, now padding about on the shore, opening his big black beak in greedy anticipation.

When the scraps were all gone and the corn with it, she sat on a hummock of grass and watched him preen. Ellen was right, he must once have been a fine looking bird but was now a bit haggard and thin, and walked with a limp. Perhaps someone had taken a pot-shot at him as well as killing his mate. Sad, when you think that swans mated for life. Which again turned her mind back to her own problem. Pietro was as sleekly handsome as the swan but with human complexities. He claimed to love two people, a fact that for the moment she must accept.

‘We’ll have to call you Pegleg,’ she told the swan, and as if mortally offended by the very idea, he turned his back upon her, wagged his tail with displeasure and sank smoothly back into the water.

Summer was passing and the mellow golden days of September were upon them. The Lakeland scenery was a blaze of colour, the air filled with the hard, dry-throated cough of stags as they staked out their territory for the coming mating season. Down in the woods goldenrod and white hemp nettle bloomed, and blue harebells where it wasn’t too wet. And out on the fells the bracken grew thick, a never-ending nuisance for the farmer but for secret lovers, even relatively innocent ones, a blissful mattress of seclusion.

After a long day working the garden and tending her poultry, she would prepare supper then leave the moment Sarah and Pietra arrived home and escape to Rowan cottage. Often, alone in her bed, listening to the snorts and barks of Ellen’s animals through the open cottage window, Beth thought how the old Gemini Stones prophecy had come so terribly true.

‘No two people of the same blood would ever be able to live in harmony together within Larkrigg’s four walls.’

So said the old myth, which seemed, all too terribly, to be coming true.

Leaving the house she had devoted so much of her time and dreams to had torn her apart. But continuing to live with her sister within its walls had proved quite impossible. Any other woman except Sarah, who was so full of her own pride and self-importance, would have guessed the real reason behind Beth’s decision to move. As it was, they kept up a facade of politeness, managing to communicate about practical matters appertaining to the renovation of the house and the smallholding, while underneath the air positively crackled with tension.

Yet neither spoke of it.

It was a relief to get away, and Cathra Crag remained one of her favourite places.

On this particular afternoon the sun was shining and Beth felt happy and content. The three men each enjoyed two every morning with their breakfast, and she’d gone over to Cathra Crag with four dozen new-laid eggs, as she often did on a Friday. Beth collected the weekend milk from the dairy then settled for a chat and a cup of tea with old Seth. She’d brought newly baked scones too and he was telling her the story of his boyhood again, so it took a while. Later, she helped Andrew’s father feed the calves. The afternoon light was waning by the time she’d bid her goodbyes and was ready to set off back up the fell.

‘If you see Andrew, tell him it’s his job to make supper tonight,’ Billy said.

Beth grinned. ‘Right.’

‘We need a woman around t’place. Time he got wed,’ Seth said, and Beth laughed and quickly escaped.

She met Andrew, as expected, working on the endless task of repairing dry-stone walls, and stood and chatted with him for a while, watching him work. His movements were methodical and slow as he carefully chose the right stone for the job, putting the wall back together like a complicated jig-saw without resource to a scrap of mortar.

A double wall of stone narrowing towards the top, the centre filled with rubble, through stones holding the whole together. It leaned slightly into the prevailing wind while on top were the cams, smooth and flat.

Fascinated as she was to watch this grand old craft in action Beth found herself oddly fascinated by the easy rhythm of his body, the muscles rippling in his back as he worked in shirt sleeves despite the gathering cool of the autumn evening. The sight of him brought to mind the memory of his strip wash in the kitchen and her cheeks flared on a rush of embarrassment. What was the matter with her?

Andrew half turned and caught her studying him. Her colour deepened, as if she were a schoolgirl still. She could have kicked herself.

‘Who taught you?’ she asked, desperate to cover her confusion, for of course she knew well enough that the craft had been passed on from father to son through the generations.

Perhaps for this reason he didn’t trouble to answer her question but took a step towards her, his grey eyes luminous in the evening light. ‘Beth, there’s something I need to say. Something I think we should discuss.’

‘Oh?’ She felt oddly flustered and half turned away to glance at her watch. ‘Make it quick then. I have to get back. Sarah and Pietro will be home soon and there’ll be hell to pay if there isn’t food on the table.’