The Black Mountains Read online

  Rebecca’s heart turned over, but Marjorie looked the picture of innocence.

  “Yes, of course, Mr Church. That was all a misunderstanding. It won’t happen again.”

  If only I could be like her! thought Rebecca.

  At last they got away, and Rebecca persuaded Marjorie to trot down the hill. “ If he’s keen enough, he’ll wait,” Marjorie grumbled, but Rebecca was taking no chances.

  “What are you going to do with yourself?” she asked breathlessly as they hurried past Farmer Brent’s fields opposite the church and followed the road along one loop of the horseshoe of shops towards the town’s centre.

  Marjorie laughed. “Have you ever heard of Esperanto? It’s a sort of universal language. There’s a class tonight in the rooms above the bicycle shop. I thought I might go.”

  “Whatever for?” Rebecca asked, surprised.

  “It would be nice to be able to talk to foreigners. There might not be a war going on now if we’d been able to talk to the Germans,” Marjorie said seriously, then, seeing Rebecca’s expression, she laughed again. “ I know you’re thinking that doesn’t sound much like me, so I might as well tell the truth. I should like to be able to talk to those Belgian refugees that are billeted at the farm at the end of our lane. They’re rather good-looking boys, aren’t they?”

  “You’re impossible, Marjie!” Rebecca told her, shaking her head.

  Marjorie added, “ So if you want me to cover up for you again, make it a Tuesday or a Thursday. Then you’ll be doing me a favour. My mother thinks you’re learning Esperanto, too.”

  “Just as long as she doesn’t expect me to speak it!” Rebecca said, and they both began to giggle. They were still giggling as they crossed the first set of railway lines, and the square silhouette of the George came into view. Instantly, Rebecca was sobered. Her heart thudded painfully against her ribs. Would he be there? And did she even want him to be?

  Over the second set of railway lines they went. There were a few people about, but no one who looked in the least like Ted Hall.

  “Can you see him?” Marjorie asked.

  Rebecca shook her head, unable to find her voice for the lump in her throat. And then a figure detached itself from the doorway of the George, coming across the dark market forecourt towards them, and her nervousness disappeared. It was him. Even in the dark, even though she had seen him only twice before, she would have known him anywhere. She saw him hesitate, puzzled by the fact that there were two of them, and she turned to Marjorie catching at her arm and stopping her.

  “I’ll be back here at nine o’clock. All right?”

  Marjorie smiled and nodded, looking at the boy who was coming towards them. “All right, Becky.” Then she had gone, back across the railway lines, the heels of her boots tapping more and more faintly until they could no longer hear them.

  Into the awkward silence, Ted said, “I didn’t think you were coming.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to keep you waiting …”

  He had been smoking. Now he threw away the cigarette butt and ground it out. Unknown to her, he was wondering how they could spend the evening. Until the moment he’d seen her come across the railway lines with her friend, he had thought she might not come. Now, he realized he couldn’t ask a girl like her to have a drink, and it was too late for the picture show at the Palace.

  “I don’t know what we’re going to do,” he said. “ It’s not a very nice night.”

  She smiled, taking courage from his uncertainty.

  “It’s not so bad. I don’t think it’s as cold as it was, and at least the stars are shining.”

  “You mean, you wouldn’t mind going for a walk?”

  “As long as it’s somewhere quiet, where I’m not likely to meet anyone I know.”

  It crossed his mind to warn her she shouldn’t trust men she didn’t really know, but he decided against it.

  “Don’t you really want anyone to know you’re with me?” he asked.

  Her face was very small and serious. “I told you. If my father found out, he’d kill me!”

  “Well, in that case, we’d better go down to Glebe Bottoms,” he said. “Once we get past the Palace and Lower Pit, we aren’t likely to meet anybody, and if we do, it’s dark.”

  She nodded agreement, and, as they crossed the road to the sloping lane that led away from the town centre, he wondered if he should take her arm. It seemed the most natural thing to do, yet he couldn’t help wondering if she would think it presumptuous of him. He decided to risk it, and to his relief she did not move away. But when two men came into sight, walking up the high pavement towards them, she ducked her head, turning it so that it was almost buried in her collar, and her whole body tensed with apprehension.

  She really was scared that her father might find out, Ted thought. He was surprised that in this day and age a girl should be so much under her father’s thumb, yet he could understand the older man’s motives. She was so vulnerable.

  They drew level with the entrance to Lower Pit, and she looked with interest across the yard to the pithead buildings and the great wheels, still now, and silhouetted against the dark sky.

  “Is that where you work?”

  “No, I work at South Hill Pit”

  “Are you a collier?”

  He hesitated, torn between basic honesty and the temptation to impress. Honesty won.

  “No, I’m a carting boy.”

  “But you’re not a boy.“

  He laughed, but it pleased him all the same.

  “It’s just an expression. It doesn’t matter how old you are. I know carting boys in their twenties. But I would be a collier now if I’d gone to Wales.”

  “Wales?” she repeated, puzzled.

  “I was going to. I might still one day. But I cart for my father. He couldn’t manage without me.” Talking to her, his awkwardness faded and his old breezy confidence returned. Being with Rebecca made him feel good, as if the world were his and anything he wanted to do was within reach. Everything looked different, somehow. He could even talk about the job he was tied to and not mind.

  He released her arm, and reached instead for her hand. She gave him a quick, half-frightened glance, then her fingers curled round his.

  “What about you?” he said. “I don’t know anything about you.”

  “There’s not much to tell,” she said, but when he pressed her she told him about her family, and the house where they had lived before moving to Hillsbridge, and her dream of having a nursery school of her own, where she could teach and look after the small children she adored.

  “You should talk to my brother—he’s going to be a schoolmaster,” he said with pride, and the conversation turned to Jack, and Fred, and the rest of the family. As they talked, their steps grew slower, and so engrossed in one another were they that it was only when the first outlying cottages at the end of Glebe Bottoms came into view that they realized how far they had walked.

  They stopped then, leaning against a gate that led to an isolated farm track.

  “I will see you again, won’t I, Rebecca?” Ted asked.

  In the darkness, she flushed happily.

  “Yes … well, I hope so. There are Esperanto classes started in the room over the bicycle shop. Marjorie’s gone to one now, and I think Father would let me, too.”

  “Esperanto?” Ted said doubtfully. “I’ve never thought of learning Esperanto.”

  “Oh, I didn’t mean that,” she explained, embarrassed without knowing why. “I suppose I’d have to go once or twice, to pick up a smattering, but Father can’t speak it anyway, so he wouldn’t know any different…”

  Her voice tailed away as guilt returned. Why did it have to be this way? Why couldn’t she arrange to meet Ted openly? But she knew that if her father suspected for an instant that she might be interested in a boy, she would never be allowed outside the front door unaccompanied. And the thought of never seeing Ted again was unbearable.

  “When are these classes,
then?” Ted asked.

  “Well, Tuesdays, like tonight, and Thursdays, Marjorie says.”

  “Could you come on Thursday?”

  “I don’t know,” she said doubtfully. “ It’s a bit soon. Listen, could you see Marjie? She works at Fords, the drapers, in South Hill. I’ll give her a message. Only you’ll have to be careful how you do it Mrs Ford wouldn’t like to think her shop was being used for message carrying.”

  “She wouldn’t know,” Ted said with a laugh. “She’d think it was this Marjorie I was after.”

  “Oh!” Rebecca said, dismayed, and he realized she was wondering whether that might actually happen.

  Gently he turned her towards him. “Don’t worry, it’s you I want to see,” he said roughly. “ I wouldn’t go to all this trouble for anyone else, you know.”

  “Wouldn’t you?” Her lower lip was thrust out and trembling slightly, but there was muted wonder sparkling in her eyes. The moonlight had made her skin pale and translucent; a tendril of hair had escaped and fallen on to her cheek in a loose curl.

  “Rebecca,” he said softly.

  She did not move or answer. For a moment suspended in time they looked at one another, then he stretched out his hand, tucking the curl behind her ear and sliding his fingers around her neck.

  Still she did not move. She might have been carved in alabaster. But when he leaned closer, touching her lips with his, she sighed, a tiny, whispering sigh like a summer breeze in the grass, and her lashes drooped on to her cheeks.

  Across the valley, a train whistled as it shunted slowly out of the town, and in the fields that ran down to the river, a cow lowed mournfully. But they might have been in another world. To Ted and Rebecca, reality was the gentle brush of lips on lips, sending out shivers to make them ache with unbearable sweetness. There they stood, cocooned in magic, and it was only when they heard the town clock strike the hour that the spell shattered.

  Rebecca twisted away, her head cocked on one side as if she could hardly believe her own ears, and her eyes had gone round with fear.

  “Is that nine o’clock?” she asked. “Oh, surely it can’t be!”

  Ted tried to pull her back for one more kiss, but she wriggled away, tugging at his sleeve.

  “There’ll be other times,” she promised. “But not if I miss Marjie!”

  Holding each other’s hands, they started back.

  WHEN REBECCA had left the house with Marjorie that evening, Alfred had stood at the window, watching her go, and trying to identify the mixture of emotions he was experiencing.

  Marjorie always unsettled him. There was something about her that aroused in him sensations he would rather not feel. Perhaps that was the reason for his unrest every time he looked at Rebecca. She was about the same age as Marjorie and, in her own way, just as pretty. Or perhaps it was the way Rupert had openly admired Rebecca on Christmas Day, jumping at the chance to be alone with her. Rupert he approved of, welcomed even, but if he found her attractive, it was not likely he would be the only one. There might be others, less suitable, who would lead her into the ways of sin.

  Staring out at the clear, frosty night, Alfred thought of his plans for Rebecca. He had always hoped she and Rupert might make a match, but now he felt a sense of urgency that had not been there before. It would be some years before Rupert could seriously think of settling down. Supposing in the meantime Rebecca took up with someone else? For years Alfred had suffered the nightmare of thinking she might meet the fate of his father’s servant girl, and now, inexplicably, the fear was mounting. Perhaps it was time to nudge circumstances along in the direction he desired.

  Long ago he had decided how he would reward Rupert for taking responsibility for Rebecca’s future. Alfred had no sons of his own, something he bitterly regretted. There was only Rebecca, and women he considered neither fit nor able to look after a family’s heritage. So to Rupert he would endow everything he possessed— his nest-egg, his house, and the family treasures. He would not expect him to wait for them. He would make over a lump sum to him as soon as he had his agreement on the proposal, and a further lump sum on marriage.

  Rupert would find such an inducement irresistible, Alfred was sure. The Thornes were well-to-do but not really rich. They liked to live in a style which ate up most of their income, and Rupert must be finding it difficult to survive as an articled clerk. Besides this, he wasn’t the one to pass up a good opportunity when it was offered. And it wasn’t as if he didn’t think Rebecca attractive.

  He smiled, drumming his fingers together and wishing he had broached the subject when Rupert had been here a few days ago. Still, no matter. Perhaps it would be better explained in writing. Rupert would know then that he had no intention of going back on his word.

  He went to his writing desk, taking out a sheet of ivory notepaper, pen and ink. Then, in his beautiful copper plate script, he set down his proposal to Rupert. Half an hour later, when Winifred looked in, he was just setting his signature at the bottom.

  “I thought you were lost,” she quavered. “Whatever are you doing?”

  Alfred smiled, slyly.

  “Settling Rebecca’s future,” he told her.

  I’LL NEVER forget, thought Rebecca.

  She had called her good-nights to Marjorie from the front door, and paused for a moment in the frosty air to compose herself. She was so happy she felt sure it must show, and she was anxious suddenly about the glow of her cheeks and the dizzying thud of her heart. Still, she could not stay out there all night. She opened the door, taking off her coat and hat and patting at her hair in front of the mirror in the hall. Then she went into the living-room.

  Both her parents were there, sitting in the old familiar way, yet somehow they were subtly different. She couldn’t have explained it—she didn’t try. On the chiffonier was a white envelope addressed to Rupert Thorne, and it crossed her mind to wonder idly why her father should be writing to him. But the thought was gone almost as soon as it came. It was unreal, as unreal as her parents’ questions about the concert and her own evasive answers. The only reality was the happiness bubbling inside her.

  It might be difficult, it might be dangerous, it might mean bribing Marjie and lying to her parents. But whatever was necessary in order to see Ted again, she would do it. Anything … anything …

  Alfred boomed with unaccustomed benevolence, Winifred twittered, but almost unaware of them, Rebecca dreamed on.

  I’ll never forget, she thought again. As long as I live, I’ll never forget.

  Chapter Eleven

  In the New Year, Fred marched into a Bath recruiting office, just as he had promised, and signed on as a soldier, for “ four years or the duration of the war.”

  “Well, there you are, I don’t suppose it’ll go on anything like that long,” Ada Clements comforted Charlotte when they met in the gardens, each hanging out their washing in the wintry sunshine, but Charlotte only snorted impatiently. When this thing had started, everyone had said it would be over by Christmas, but they were wrong.

  “You must feel proud of him, anyway, Lotty,” Ada said. “ That was a lovely photo of him in the paper.”

  “I’d rather it didn’t have to be there, Ada,” Charlotte said shortly.

  As soon as he’d enlisted, the Mercury had printed a photograph of Fred in uniform under the headline PATRIOTIC FAMILIES. It had become a regular feature, giving news of all the local boys serving in France, but Charlotte had noticed that too often the same photographs reappeared a few months later in the ROLL OF HONOUR column for the dead and wounded.

  Already, there was hardly a family in Hillsbridge who had not suffered the loss of a relative. And as the relentless winter gave way to spring, the list grew longer. Fighting had broken out fiercely again at Neuve Chapelle, the Navy were skirmishing around Gallipoli and the Dardanelles, and in every engagement, it seemed, was somebody’s son, or cousin, or nephew. And the deaths of people they knew seemed to go on and on.

  “Sergeant Eyles’s other so
n has been killed now,” James told them one night when he came in from work. “That’s both of them gone.”

  Charlotte turned cold. Poor Sergeant Eyles, to lose not one boy, but two!

  “That’s terrible!” she said, with feeling, and to the surprise of all of them, Amy burst into tears.

  “What’s the matter with you? You didn’t know him did you?” Ted asked her.

  “No, but… oh, Mammy, it just reminded me, that’s all,” she sobbed. “ Mr Davies said today he’s starting a scroll at school for all those old pupils that have been killed, and I thought how awful it would be if…”

  She broke off, covering her face with her hands, and they all knew exactly what she had been going to say.

  “Oh, I don’t know why he had to go!” Charlotte said, plonking the teapot down with such force that tea spurted from the spout and splashed on to the tablecloth. “There was no sense in it”

  “No sense at all,” James agreed, and Amy wailed again.

  “Oh, Mammy, he won’t be killed, will he?”

  Her only answer was Harry drumming his spoon on his plate as he waited for his food, and Amy went on: “Supposing we were never to see him again—ever!”

  “Oh, Amy, be quiet, do!” Charlotte snapped. “I expect they’ll let him come home before they send him off to France.”

  Harry, thoroughly frustrated by the delay, now gave a hearty kick to the high chair standing at the corner of the table. He didn’t use it any more, but Charlotte had kept it for Alex, whom Sarah had brought over that afternoon. It had spindly legs and was easily tipped, and under Harry’s well-aimed onslaught it toppled over with a crash.

  When Charlotte had righted it, smacked Harry, and sent Nipper out, James said thoughtfully, “ How would you all like to go and see our Fred?”

  “See Fred?” Charlotte repeated. “How could we?”

  “Well,” James said slowly, “ I was thinking we could hire a motor car.”

  “What?”

  Even Jack, who was home this week, and was on the settle with his nose in a book, looked up in amazement.

  “Us—hire a motor?” she said again. “Oh, James, don’t talk so silly.”