Samela's stories: Two Houses, Alike in Dignity Chapter 1 A Rowansford story

Bryony heard one of the twins start crying while she was in the bathroom: there must be something about going to the toilet, she thought! As soon as you sit down, the phone rings or the doorbell goes, or the baby wakes up. But as she got to the bedroom door, the crying stopped. Matthew, her stepson, and the twins’ half brother had got there first. Bryony could hear him talking to Megan.

“There, there, it’s all right. No need to cry – I’m here. And I always will be. No-one’s going to run off and leave you. You’re quite safe, you know.”

Bryony paused outside the door, her heart contracting with an odd mixture of love and pride and sorrow, and then crept away again, before returning more noisily.

Later that day, with Matthew safely out with his friends Hanako and Charlie, Bryony told Donald what she’d overheard. As usual, Donald thought carefully before he spoke.
“I think that’s so promising,” he said eventually. “I think he’s really coming to terms with what his mother did to him, how unjust it was. And he’s loving being a big brother. You’ve given us all so much with those girls of yours.”
“These girls of ours,” Bryony retorted. “You had quite a lot to do with us having them, in case you’ve forgotten!”

Donald finally persuaded Sarah to burp, and came and sat down next to Bryony and Megan, still thinking about Matthew, and Lucilla, his beautiful, spoilt and devious ex-wife.
“I think seeing Lucilla again, getting to ask her why she walked out on us, and seeing that she had no good answer – that helped. He’s been storing that question up for years. And he’s very fond of Alice and Jacob – rescuing them from Lucilla’s clutches was a good thing to do.”

Just as Sarah settled down, Megan began to wail, and it was Bryony’s turn to stand up.
“I want to go over and see Alice and Jacob tomorrow and take Sarah with me.”
Sarah had been named after Alice and Jacob’s daughter, Bryony’s own best friend from childhood up. Sarah had died after the Saint Mark had gone down, died from the injuries she’d received helping a party of schoolchildren get to safety.
“When can you get home from work?”
“How about if I work from home in the afternoon? I’ve got to go into the lab in the morning, to take some more readings, but I can easily be finished by lunchtime. Matthew’ll be back from school soon after, and between the two of us, we can handle most things.”

“Bryony! How lovely to see you! And Sarah as well.”
Alice could tell the twins apart, Bryony noticed – not everyone could. She noticed something else too – the big farmhouse kitchen was looking much better these days. And Alice herself had more life back in her eyes and her face.

“How’s Luke doing? I’ve asked him to be Sarah’s godfather.”
“I know. He was – eventually – so pleased about that. Once he got past the sorrow.” Alice paused, thinking about her unhappy son. “He’s written you an acceptance – he thought you’d like a proper letter that you could keep. And he liked your letter to him, telling him why you wanted him, why you’d named Sarah after our Sarah.”
“Oh good. I was wondering if I’d said the wrong thing. Or if he wasn’t speaking to me because Matthew blew the whistle on Lucilla.”
“No. But finding out that Lucilla only wanted him for his money – well, not even his money. She only wanted him so she could get her hands on our farm. It was a huge blow to him. He thought that she loved him.”
A silence fell between the two of them, broken only by Sarah’s drowsy murmurings. “Poor Luke,” Bryony said with feeling.
“I know. I’d love to see him happily settled…”

Sarah began to fall asleep in earnest and Bryony took her upstairs and laid her down in the cot. The room still looked shabby, but the cot and the bed were clean and welcoming, ready for Anita and her little girl Amy if they stayed over.

“Has she gone off okay?”
“Out like a light! I did time this visit round her normal nap time in the hope that this would happen. So go on about Luke. You’d like to see him happily settled…”
“Yes.” Alice sighed deeply. “I did hope at one time that you and Luke…”
“Sarah was like a sister to me. And Luke was like a brother. And that’s all he ever thought of me as too – a sister, I mean. Not a brother.”
“I know. He got quite fond of one of the Battisford girls, but you know what their grandfather was like.”
“He was an odd man.”
“I know. They couldn’t call their lives their own. Both girls emigrated in the end, and the old man was furious. I think their older brother, Mike, helped them get away.”

Bryony remembered Albert Battisford: a rather frightening old man, who’d glared at her when she’d had to deliver a message one time when she was young.
“Didn’t he have some sort of feud going on with someone?”
“Someone? He was so grumpy, he’d get across anybody! But yes, you’re right. There’s been a feud between him and the Waterfolds since he was a young man. Something to do with a piece of land, I think.”

“I don’t associate the Waterfolds with feuds. They seem too happy-go-lucky for that.”
“Oh they didn’t keep the feud up! In fact they tried to sort the dispute out when it arose. But old Ezekiel Battisford wasn’t one to let go of a good grudge, and Albert turned out just like his father. He still won’t speak to a Waterfold, wouldn’t let his children or grandchildren do so either.”
“How did he manage about school? He can’t have spied on the children there,” Bryony asked, intrigued in spite of herself at the thought of this generations-old feud.

“The Waterfolds have always gone to the old grammar school. So the Battisfords went to the other school – the one your Matthew and Charlie and Hanako all go to.”
That figured, Bryony thought. The two schools were very different – age, uniform, traditions – and on opposite sides of Rowansford. Even though the Waterfolds lived just up the road from Charlie’s house, and Matthew was there as often as he was at home, he still didn’t know them very well. That school uniform really was unusual, though! Traditional, everyone said…

Bryony visited again a few days later, when Luke was there too. He took his god-daughter in his arms, to show her round.
“Thank you – for saying yes to being her godfather.”
“Thank you, Bryony – for naming her after Sarah.”
Luke paused, feeling for words, but Bryony could read him: she’d known him for as long as she could remember.
“I can’t bring Sarah back. And I still miss her so much. But calling my daughter after her, you being her godfather…It’s not all wasted.”

“Your mum and I were talking about the Battisfords – do you remember them?”
“Oh yes! And that weird old bat of a grandfather, who wouldn’t let Eliza go out with me! Mike left first – he was older than me. Got married and never came back, but he got his sisters out of there too – found jobs for them both and then just came and drove them off with him. They went abroad, both of them: I think they wanted to be a long, long way away from old Albert. Then Mike died – and his widow and children came back here. Maybe age and loneliness softened Albert.”
He cuddled Sarah to himself, and Bryony thought: yes, and you’re softening too. The ice you’ve wrapped around your heart since your twin sister died is beginning to melt, isn’t it.

Age and loneliness did soften some people. But not Albert Battisford, Martha thought, as she made his bed.She tried not to remember the past, but sometimes the memories would come surging back. The first time Mike had brought her to Rowansford, for example.

“Here you are – this is the oldest bit of Rowansford, and you’re standing right in the middle of it.”
And she’d looked into those amazing green eyes and wondered if this was a Really Significant Moment.

Then he’d hugged her, and she’d known that yes, it was. And then he’d proposed. Proposed, fixed a date and admitted that he’d already been to see her parents, and asked for her hand in marriage.
“I knew your dad would like it if I did that, and there are both such sweeties.”
She’d loved Mike for not minding that her father was elderly, with old-fashioned ideals.

“The farm? Over there, through those trees – you can see it from here in the winter, but not now. There’s no point in inviting my grandfather and my sisters to our wedding. He won’t come and he won’t let them go either.”

He’d held her hands, his hands warm and strong, enclosing and protecting hers.
“We won’t come back to Rowansford again, and we’re not going near my grandfather. I know him. He’ll find some way to keep us there, and I’ve got away now. And we’re going to find a way to get my sisters out of there too.”
“Is he really that evil?”
“Evil? That’s a strong word. Controlling, though, definitely.” He looked around him. “It’s a shame we won’t be coming back – there’s a lot I love about Rowansford. But not Nedging Tye, not with my grandfather there. Luckily, any children we have will have your parents for grandparents. Much nicer.”
Only in the end, her mother had died first, from a sudden heart attack. Her father’s subsequent stroke had been brought on by his broken heart, she always thought, and he’d slowly faded away in the nursing home, living just long enough to see his second grand-daughter. They’d called her Georgina, in memory of him.
“Another Georgie,” he’d said, with difficulty, and for a moment there’d been a spark of his old self showing in his eyes.

Martha pulled herself back to the present with difficulty. She couldn’t help contrasting this warm, comfortable room with the bare and basic bedroom she shared with her son, with Timothy.

Timothy. She’d been pregnant with him – just – when Mike had been killed by that drunken driver, the landlord had said they had to be out of their rented house in six weeks’ time and Albert Battisford had somehow got them all to go down to the farm to stay.
“For a while. Until you find your feet again.”
But once Timothy had been born, it had become clear that he wanted them to stay.
“A Battisford. To take over the farm when I’m gone. There’s always been Battisfords at Nedging Tye and there always will be.” And his mouth had shut like a trap on the end of the sentence.

Four years since they’d come here, and it was like a trap, Claire thought as she and Georgina lined up in the hall to be inspected before they left for school. It was the same every school day. One thing out of place, and it would be bed with no dinner that evening. Claire had protested at the beginning, and her great-grandfather had taken her to one side and explained to her just how things stood.
“If you make a fuss to anyone, where will you all go? Look at your mother. Do you think she could look after you all? Get a job?”
Claire had taken a good look at her pale and silent mother, exhausted by both her grief and the demands of a new baby.
“And I’ll keep Timothy here. He’s going to inherit the farm.”

Sometimes, though, she just couldn’t bear it anymore, and she’d creep off somewhere private to cry. She wasn’t going to give her great-grandfather the satisfaction of seeing her upset. The barn was off-limits to her – the farm worker, or hired hand as her great-grandfather called him – slept in the flat above it, but that did mean that her great grandfather wouldn’t look for her here. He would never dream that she would disobey him. And after school, both the farm worker and great-grandfather would be out working: here she could have a little privacy. Claire didn’t want to upset her mother by crying in front of her.

Suddenly she heard the ladder that led up to the flat creak under the weight of someone’s feet. She spun round, horrified, then relieved that it was only Blake, the farmhand, a dark-haired sullen-faced man who only ever looked at her with contempt in his eyes. Better him than her great-grandfather though.
“Please don’t tell him I was here,” she begged as Blake Kersey strode up to her.

“Scared of him are you?” he asked, sneering slightly. She’d never spoken to Blake before – great-grandfather didn’t believe in the family mixing with the farm workers – and his speech surprised her. She’d expected something rougher, more in keeping with his appearance.

She straightened up, suddenly angry. Green eyes met grey.
“No! But he’ll take it out on Mum somehow or another, and I don’t want to make her life any harder than it already is. Not if I can help it.”

His face changed as he looked at the girl squaring up to him so valiantly. Blake knew what Albert Battisford was like as an employer – but he needed this job. He’d assumed that Albert was different with his family though.
“You mean you’re not just some spoilt little rich kid afraid of losing her privileges? Maybe having no TV for a day?”

“A day? We don’t have TV at all. Great-grandfather does, but we’re not allowed into his sitting room to watch it. You should see the bedroom I share with my sister – and no, before you say anything, I don’t mind sharing, but there couldn’t be less in it and it couldn’t be plainer.”
“Worse than this?”

Claire followed him up the ladder – breaking even more rules in the process – and looked round his living quarters. They were pretty spartan.
“Not quite. But close. And at least you can leave if you want to.”
“Well why don’t you?”
“I’m too young!”
“No, all of you.”
“Where would we go? What would we live off? Mum would need a job – and he would never let her get one.”

“You know, I thought you lot were all too stuck up to speak to the likes of me. That you thought I was dirt, like he does. Maybe I was wrong. I won’t tell about you being here.”
“We’re not stuck up! But he won’t let us speak to you…”
Blake almost smiled. He quite liked this defiant girl.
“I’ll check the coast’s clear before you leave. We don’t want him to know you were here. You’re quite a little fighter, aren’t you?”

Sitting at the kitchen table, doing her homework as her mum made dinner for them, Claire thought about Blake’s words: “You’re a fighter, aren’t you?” Maybe I am, she thought. Like Dad, I guess. Dad fought back against great-grandfather. He got away – and he got his sisters away too. But Mum’s not a fighter. She’s too gentle, too kind. (Too overwhelmed, had Claire but known.)
So how can things ever change? she asked, silently and desperately.

The Rowansford stories.

Samela's stories

Thursday, 24 March 2016

Two Houses, Alike in Dignity Chapter 1 A Rowansford story

2 comments: