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Authors: Freda Lightfoot

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BOOK: Larkrigg Fell
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Beth frowned. ‘What bombshell? Correspondence?’

‘From the bank. You haven’t been making your mortgage payments, beyond the first month. Despite our letters the problem has been ignored, even recent, more pressing notices. I’m sorry to say that the bank has no alternative but to take possession. Unless you can find the money owed within seven days, you will lose Larkrigg Hall.’

 

Beth was shaking with shock, and it took her every ounce of strength she possessed to race up the fellside to Larkrigg Hall.

It was quite empty. She ran from room to room in a daze calling for Sarah, and for Pietro. There was no answer but the echo of her own voice.

‘I don’t understand, they should be here. It’s late. Where can they be?’

Then she saw it, a letter lying in the centre of the kitchen table. She opened the envelope with trembling fingers and drew out a single sheet of paper. Somehow she knew what it would say even before she read it. They had gone. They had taken Pietro’s Renault and gone away.

‘I can’t bear trouble, Beth darling,’ the letter said. ‘You can sort things out much better than me, without ever losing your temper. And Pietro thinks a good long holiday will make me myself again. You did agree that I should take one. I really can’t take any more stress. You don’t mind, do you? Will write again when we get there. Your ever loving sister, Sarah.’

 

It was several hours later and Beth was sitting in the kitchen at Broombank, her head in her hands. In one short afternoon her entire world had collapsed. Sarah and Pietro were gone. Ellen was seriously ill, and she faced the possibility of losing her home, everything she’d worked for. The implications were only slowly sinking in.

‘That’s the end then,’ Meg said, her voice bleak. She sat slumped in her chair, more weary than Beth had ever seen her. ‘I’m afraid we can’t find the money to prop it up, love. I can’t risk putting any more strain on Broombank’s finances.’

‘I wouldn’t ask you to.’

Beth felt enough guilt weighing upon her shoulders. How could this have happened?
 

‘Why didn’t the silly girl make the payments? She had a good job, as did Pietro? Perhaps this is what he wanted, to damage us.’

‘Don’t say that.’ Beth was appalled by Meg’s opinion of Pietro. ‘He would never do such a thing when he knows how much I love the house. Sarah, on the other hand, has never wanted to live at Larkrigg, didn’t really want to come to Lakeland in the first place. She was only interested in it as an investment, for a profit.’

Tam said, ‘Then she should have kept up the payments, instead of spending her money on frivolous things.’

Beth couldn’t deny it. She too was furious with Sarah, but where did anger get her? She got wearily to her feet, wanting to escape. The worst part, which she couldn’t explain to her grandmother, was losing Pietro. She assumed they’d gone to Italy, to the sun, and freedom. Bags had been packed, wardrobes stood empty, money taken and Larkrigg Hall stood as empty as their bank accounts.

Was she expected to put everything right so that Sarah could return at the end of her holiday, tanned and lovely as ever, with all problems solved?

Meg offered her a room at Broombank, of course, but Beth declined. She wanted to be independent, not intrude on her grandparent’s lives.

She needed time to think things through, slowly and calmly. Right now she felt anything but calm. Nothing seemed quite real.

As the family grimly examined the list of debts, the full realisation of her own negligence finally dawned upon Beth. Ignorance was no excuse. Her own lack of interest lately filled her with shame. Her obsession with a romantic country dream, and with an unfulfilled love affair made her cringe with fresh guilt. The structures which made up their lives had been crumbling around her and she hadn’t even noticed.

‘How could I have been so blind?’

Meg stretched out a hand to console her. ‘We all were. Don’t blame yourself, Beth. We should all have taken more notice. It’s easy to be wise in retrospect.’

The next day Beth went to the bank and again faced Mr Groves, the pompous young bank official. He courteously enquired after Ellen’s health and then Beth explained, as carefully as she could, how she had no money to pay for any of these debts. No money at all.

 

‘They won’t let me out yet,’ Ellen told her from her hospital bed. ‘I feel like I’m in prison here.’

‘No complaints. You’re my piece of good news,’ Beth said, relieved to find her friend so perky. ‘At least you’re on the mend.’

Ellen pulled a wry face. ‘They’ve decided to give me a good going over while I’m here. Talking about a bit of angina. They want to make sure that the shock hasn’t affected the old ticker. Lot of daft fuss.’

‘No, it isn’t. Get a good rest. See, I’ve brought you some grapes.’ And they both laughed.

‘What will you do if you lose the house?’ Ellen asked in her usual blunt manner, which for once quite took Beth’s breath away. It took some minutes before she could reply.

‘I haven’t given up hope yet.’

A small silence. ‘You can stay on with me as long as you like.’

‘I know, but you need to rest first.’

‘Aye, I might have to take up my sister’s offer of a bed for a while. Not that it’s any sinecure living out on the fells in an unheated cottage. Think what would have happened if that dratted bank chap hadn’t arrived when he did.’

They both thought about that for a minute and fell silent. Beth wanted to say how the young man had partly been responsible for the accident, but knew that would have been unfair. He’d done his best in difficult circumstances, as had she. And Ellen’s point was valid. Life in such circumstances out on the fells was difficult and lonely. In the few months Beth had spent at the tiny cottage, she’d already learned about the hardships of country life in cold reality. Ellen was an individual, an eccentric, content to shut herself away with her animals with little if any contact with modem living. But she was getting older, how much longer could she continue to do that?
 

So what was the answer? What did the future hold for her now?

 

Chapter Eighteen

The short, sharp days of winter were growing longer. May was upon them and the breeze almost mild. The panoply of mountains stood tranquil, pale and snow-capped in the distance. Striding Edge, Bowfell, Crinkle Crags and Harter Fell, while all around the cottage, spears of green daffodils were bursting into golden bloom. Deep in Brockbarrow Wood a cuckoo called, expressing content with its lot, as Beth could not.

She’d taken her time this morning, walking round by Whinstone Force to sit for a while and watch the plunging waters fall into the ghyll below, enjoying the ice cold spray on her face. She cupped her hand, scooping and drinking from the crystal cold water. It tasted wonderfully fresh and tingling. She paused to speak to Pegleg, still in lone residence at the tarn, then crossed the open fell to Larkrigg. She intended to collect her personal belongings, a task she’d postponed long enough.

She walked up the long drive by the Gemini Stones and thought again how true the legend had proved to be, then smothered the thought in the more practical one of how they never had got around to pruning these old trees. Though she’d planted a few new ones.

The air had grown cooler as she climbed, whipping colour in to her pale cheeks, tossing her hair about and Beth recalled how she’d always used to wear it clipped back with an unbecoming slide. A feature that only Andrew had liked. Dear Andrew, she really must go and see him soon. She’d avoided him because she hated to talk about her troubles with anyone.

She trailed a hand on a lichen covered stone wall, the feel of it rough against the soft palms of her hands. Beth couldn’t bear even to look at the house as she struggled to blink the tears from her eyes. How far away that day seemed, the day they had first come to Larkrigg and she had persuaded Sarah to make it their home. As she let herself in the back door, her shoes echoing eerily on the tiled floor, she smiled at the now gleaming old range as if meeting an old friend. She rubbed a hand over the scrubbed pine table, the pristine paintwork, the polished copper piping, and remembered how it had been when they’d first seen the house, so neglected and dirty, unloved and uncared for.

Someone else would now work in her kitchen, sit in the small sitting room, and sleep in her bed. Someone else would achieve her rural dream.

Beth smiled to remember how they had first set eyes on Jonty and Pietro lying naked in a shaft of sun light. The picnics, the swimming in the tarn, the fun and laughter. What a chain of events had unfolded since that day. And what had their youthful exuberance brought them? Precious little happiness. All those hopes, dreams and promise gone to waste.

Jonty was largely confined to a wheelchair, though valiantly struggling with rigorous physiotherapy in the hope he might walk again. Tessa helping him, no doubt tolerating his increasing ill temper. Oh, how she would welcome Tessa’s lively company right now.

And poor Andrew more alone than ever.

For herself, a triangle of love that could never hope to work out to anyone’s satisfaction. Succeeding only in betraying her own sister. Sarah had run mad with money and hidden the consequences of her folly from everyone, as she always did. What a coil of misery.

Beth packed as quickly as she could, desperate to spare herself any more agony. She took only her most precious items, and absolute essentials. Even so there was more than she realised.

She loaded an old wheelbarrow and trundled the boxes down to Ellen’s cottage. It took several trips, and since there was little space in the tiny bedroom she stacked them up without unpacking. She’d just have to dip in for whatever she needed. The rest were to be collected by Tam in the Land Rover and stowed away in the great loft at Broombank, where they would probably remain, forgotten and neglected.

She filled Ellen’s larder with the countless jars of preserves and pickles, and the residue of her store of vegetables. They could live on jam, bread and chutney if nothing else, Beth thought, with a wry touch of humour.

The worst moment was parting with the animals. Ellen couldn’t afford to take them on. The Herdwicks would be returned to Andrew but Meg took most of the hens and ducks. Jan took the geese. The rest had to be sold. It was like parting with old friends, symbolising the end of her dream. There would be no smallholding now, no Jersey cow, no clotted cream.

And deep inside she felt a rare and burning anger against Sarah. She’d behaved with complete selfishness, been recklessly careless without a thought for the effect upon others of her spendthrift ways. Yet even as Beth quietly seethed, guilt also played a part. If she hadn’t been so taken up with her own feelings for Pietro, she might have paid more attention to what was going on. If only they hadn’t been at such cross-purposes the whole time, with the kind of tension that prevented any sort of worthwhile communication.

And what was she supposed to do with her life now that everything worthwhile had vanished from it? How was she expected to pick up the pieces without Pietro or even Sarah beside her? Where could she live? How could she earn a living? So many decisions still to be made.

Then she locked the great front door for the last time and walked away from Larkrigg without a backward glance.

 

As the days and weeks passed she came no nearer to finding a solution. Much as Beth might pretend to fight it, she nursed the memory of Pietro like a wound. His face haunted her dreams and the scent and feel of him was like a physical presence beside her throughout each long day and night.

She asked all the local farmers if they needed help, a housekeeper or dairymaid perhaps, but those days were long gone. Most had a wife to care for them and those who didn’t, couldn’t afford the luxury of paying for their house to be swept.

They were all of them concerned and tried to help, asking what she knew about milking, or lambing or bringing on a good calf. She was forced to admit that she knew very little. All her confidence had gone and Beth felt sure she’d be useless on a farm. She hadn’t even managed to look after one goat. She would have to look further afield, in Kendal or Windermere, if she meant to stay.

As she struggled to make up her mind, money became a problem and she hated to be beholden to Ellen for anything. She worked as hard as she could in the garden and with the animals, desperate at least to pay for her keep that way. But she couldn’t go on like this. Beth knew that if she didn’t find any work here in Lakeland, then there was only one solution. She would have to accept defeat and go home, to Boston.

She woke one sunny morning to the glorious sound of the dawn chorus and decided, on impulse, that today she would talk to Andrew. She felt a great need for the comfort of his friendship. If he had no advice to offer, then she could at least say her goodbyes before she left for America. He deserved that much, at least.

She made an effort with her appearance for once, putting on a flowered skirt and pretty blue blouse that brought out the colour in her eyes, and set off to walk over the fell to Cathra Crag, enjoying the briskness of the breeze in her face.

It would be good to see old Seth again. She’d neglected him during her troubles.

Oh, but she would miss all of this, back in Boston. The way cloud shadows chased each other across the backs of green mountains. Those mornings when spiky black trees emerged ethereally through the white veil of a ground mist, the soaring song of the skylark and the damp, dewy smell of fresh new grass.

BOOK: Larkrigg Fell
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