CHAPTER TWO

PREGNANT, BELLA THOUGHT, and Ma hasn’t told my father! Why hasn’t she? Bella gazed out of her attic window across the paddock and over the hummocky plain of Holderness, her eyes following the winding road that led to the sea.

Holderness, east of the town of Hull, was a low-lying area, once a marshy land of lakes and meres which, though still prone to flooding after heavy rain, was now ditched and drained. The Woodman Inn, perched on higher ground on the edge of a village, overlooked this fertile arable farmland.

The tiny room in the attic was her own personal sanctuary, one she had chosen for herself when she had outgrown sharing with her brothers. Her sister had a larger room but it was off the one which Joe and William shared and likely to be invaded by them.

She had chosen the attic not only for the privacy it afforded but also for the well-loved view: a panorama which changed with the seasons, where the winter snow dazzled in its icy brightness, and the fresh growth of pale green shoots turned to a richer verdant hue as the weather became warmer, before becoming vibrant golden corn.

In early summer she could smell the meadow hay and helped with the haymaking, turning it with a wooden rake and, once it was dry, raking it into swathes before it was heaped into large stacks which, until she knew better, she used to climb up and slide down.

Once the corn was ready she watched the harvesters too and had seen changes even in her short lifetime. She loved to see the line of scythe men, their shirtsleeves rolled up their sinewy arms to their elbows as they began their journey across the golden fields. With her window open she could hear the steady swish swish of the blades as the men, with their dying art, cut the corn, and see the village women, and children too who took time out of school to earn a copper, gather it up into sheaves.

Now, however, mechanical machinery was being increasingly used: the sail reapers pulled by two horses and driven by only one man were becoming a threat to the rural population, and to the families who welcomed the work not only for the men but their wives and children too.

Up here Bella could see the birds: flocks of starlings who flew in formation in their thousands across the wide sky; screeching herring gulls who blew in from the coast warning of bad weather; pigeons who ate the corn and owls who roosted in the ancient ash tree down at the bottom of their land and called to her at nightfall.

She turned from the window and sat on her narrow bed. She felt devastated after being told she couldn’t stay on at school and yet didn’t quite, didn’t want to, believe it. She was shocked, too, at Sarah’s news and could barely credit that her mother could be pregnant. Nell is eleven! And why hasn’t Ma told Father that she’s expecting a child? Does she think it will worry him when he’s not well? But surely once he’s better he’ll have to know; it’s not something that she can hide. And that, Bella surmised, must be the main reason why I can’t stay on at school. Ma won’t be able to work in the inn once she begins to show, and, she thought with increasing gloom, I’ll have to help Annie with the washing and ironing as well as the cleaning.

Annie was a village woman who came in twice a week to help her mother with general housework; she filled the copper for the washing of sheets once a fortnight, and scrubbed the tiled floor of the long narrow entrance hall and the wide floorboards of the numerous rooms off it. The inn was a square brick building but the inside meandered as if built without any intended plan, but on a whim of the original owner; some of the rooms led into others and then via a passageway looped back on themselves.

If Annie came in for one more day a week, Bella considered, then maybe I could study at home in between helping Ma. I think I might suggest it, but not yet. I’ve got all summer to persuade them to let me go back.

She heard her mother calling her to come down. They hadn’t eaten yet and the food was still on the table. Her father had been asleep when she’d looked in to tell him that supper was ready and her mother had said to leave him for another half-hour.

When she went into the kitchen her father was sitting at the table drinking tea out of his own very large teacup. Bella was shocked at how pale he looked. He was usually so robust.

‘Are you feeling better, Father?’ she asked. ‘Ma said you were poorly.’

‘I’m all right,’ he said. ‘It’s that fool of a doctor who said that I wasn’t.’

William took a bite of bread. ‘Why, what did he say was wrong wi’ you?’

Joseph paused for only a second before saying, ‘He didn’t. He said I’d been overdoing it and had to rest for a bit. It was hauling on that barrel of ale that did it. I should have let ’drayman do it like he’s paid to. I’ve pulled a muscle in my chest, I think.’ He looked first at Joe, who was staring into space, and then at William. ‘You two lads’ll have to do more of the heavy work. Can’t expect your ma to do it.’

They both looked at him and then at each other. William said nothing and went on eating but Joe broke out with an exclamation.

‘I already work in ’cellar, Da! I’m forever down there; hardly ever see ’light o’ day.’

‘Then you’d best take a lamp wi’ a longer wick next time you go down cos it’s your job from now on. And,’ his father went on, after a short gasping breath, ‘I’m going to apprentice you both to a trade. You’ll go to John Wilkins ’carpenter, and William to Harry ’blacksmith. I’ve already arranged it and you both start next week so don’t even attempt to argue.’

‘But you just said that we’d have to do more work at home,’ Joe objected. ‘We can’t do both.’

‘Yes, you can,’ Joseph said. ‘Get on wi’ your tea and let me get on wi’ mine. I’ll tell you after what we’re going to do.’

Bella glanced at her mother and raised her eyebrows, but her mother gave a shake of her head and she stayed silent. Only Nell, who assumed her father’s plan had nothing to do with her, hummed a tuneless ditty in between mouthfuls of bread and beef.

‘For goodness’ sake, Nell,’ Bella said at last. ‘Will you stop that din? You’re making my head ache.’

‘It’s not a din.’ Nell pulled a virtuous expression. ‘I’m practising.’

‘For what?’

‘To be a singer.’ Nell buttered another piece of bread. ‘I’m going on ’stage when I’m old enough.’

‘Over my dead body,’ her father said, and as he spoke his face creased and he closed his eyes, and their mother fell into a fit of coughing and hastily got up from the table.

Bella felt a cold shiver down her spine. She looked at her father and saw a shadow on his face: a shadow of grief.

He really is ill, she thought. What did the doctor say to him? It’s serious, and that’s why Ma hasn’t told him about the child. She felt suddenly sick. Her mouth was dry, her hunger gone, and she pushed her plate away. She wanted to cry, to be a child again, like Nell; she wanted to be comforted and told that everything would be all right. But it wouldn’t be; she was grown up or nearly, her childhood gone at a stroke. At thirteen she must put away her dreams. She was an adult.

The chair legs squealed on the oilcloth as she pushed back her chair. She picked up her plate and took it to the sink where her mother was standing facing the small square window that looked out over the yard.

‘Go and finish your supper, Ma,’ Bella said quietly. ‘Go on, and I’ll make a fresh pot of tea.’

Her mother nodded but didn’t answer and turned back to the table. She sat down facing Joseph. ‘We could ask Fred Topham to give a hand wi’ casks,’ she said in a low voice. ‘He’d be glad of ’extra cash.’

‘Aye, and so we’ll be,’ Joseph muttered. ‘No. Draymen can do it. It’s their job to mek sure they’re delivered and stacked.’

‘Will we be paid, Father?’ Joe asked. ‘If we’re to be working extra?’

His father appeared to consider, then said soberly, ‘Well, your ma and me have been discussing that wi’ your board and lodging going up, and wi’ extra for washing and ironing your shirts, it’ll work out that you owe us money, but if you put in a couple of hours more every day it should just about even out.’

Both youths stopped eating and gazed at their father, each wondering if he was joking and each deciding that he wasn’t. William paused for only a second before giving a slight nod and continuing to eat, but Joe stared at his father and then cast a glance at his mother, who simply raised her eyebrows and returned his gaze.

‘What about Nell?’ Joe asked. ‘Is she to do owt or is she just to swan about like she usually does?’

‘Nell’s onny a bairn,’ his father replied, ‘but she’ll help Bella wi’ some jobs after school. Your ma will be ’innkeeper for a bit until – until I’m able to get back on my feet. After that, well, we’ll see how we get along.’

‘But apprenticeship, Father?’ William said. ‘Why now? We should have started when we left school. We allus thought you wanted us to tek over from you at ’Woodman.’

‘Aye, so I did.’ Joseph took another breath. ‘But things are changing and it’s as well to have another trade at your fingertips. There’s allus a need for a joiner or a blacksmith; there’ll be plenty of work in that direction if ’beer trade falls off.’

William said nothing in reply and Bella, watching and listening, knew that he was thinking of his own plan and realizing that a working knowledge of the blacksmith’s trade wouldn’t go amiss.

‘How long?’ Bella asked her mother, as they stood alone in the kitchen that night after everyone else had retired upstairs. Bella had checked the bolts and locks on the doors and windows; her mother had raked the fire and set the table for breakfast. ‘How long has Father got? I need to know, Ma,’ she pleaded. ‘To prepare myself.’

Her mother sat down abruptly. ‘How is it possible?’ she said in a low voice. ‘How’s it possible to be prepared for such a thing?’ She gazed into the damped-down fire and spoke as if to herself. ‘Your father and me have been married for sixteen years. I never wanted another man, though I had my chances. Now he’s being snatched away.’

‘Doctor might be mistaken,’ Bella ventured. ‘They don’t know everything.’

‘Six months, he said.’ Sarah looked up at her daughter. ‘A year at most. They can’t do anything for a weak heart, everybody knows that.’

‘If he rests,’ Bella said. ‘If we all pull together.’

Sarah gave a grimace. ‘What sort of existence is that for a man like your father? To be an invalid, tied to an armchair for ’rest of his life?’ She got up and absently rubbed her hands together. ‘No. He’ll forget what ’doctor said to him and carry on as usual – and then, and then …’

‘Will you tell him about ’bairn?’ Bella asked.

Her mother shook her head. ‘Not unless he notices.’ She gave a slight smile. ‘And he won’t. Never has done afore, no reason why he should now. I’ll tell him when I’m in labour.’

She turned her head away, and Bella realized that her mother didn’t expect that situation to arise.

They were busy for the next few weeks. The weather was perfect for haymaking and the workers came in after a full day’s work to slake their thirst and enjoy a slice of Sarah’s ham and egg pie or fruitcake. Some of the casual day labourers, who were hired at especially busy times and were not local, couldn’t always be accommodated on the farms and so stayed at the inn. The loft at the back of the building was fitted out as a dormitory and held six beds, though it was rarely completely full. It meant extra money for Sarah, but also extra work; although the room was basic she always fed the men well and provided clean fustian sheets and blankets. Some of them had been coming for years.

Joe and William would normally have been taken on as extra field hands, but instead they were thrust into the busy lives of carpenter’s shop and blacksmith’s forge. Joe rebelled, though didn’t tell his father. He was essentially lazy and clumsy and received a sharp rebuke from his employer on his very first day, which made him irritable and antagonistic. William sweated in the blacksmith’s forge but didn’t complain, determined to listen, look and learn and turn the lessons to his advantage. Both of them, if they had anything to say or grumble about, chose to say it to Bella.

‘It’s for your own good,’ she told Joe after an outburst. ‘Father’s only thinking of your future.’

‘My future’s here,’ he snapped. ‘I’ll be ’innkeeper one day.’

She wanted to explain; explain that if the doctor’s prognosis was correct, then he would be too young to be a landlord, and if their mother wasn’t allowed to hold the licence for the inn they would all have to leave.

William whispered to her that he couldn’t believe his luck. ‘I’ll be one up when I join ’military. Harry ’blacksmith is a farrier as well as a smith. He’ll teach me to shoe horses as well as meld iron. And I’ll build up muscle, cos I’ve to strike wi’ sledgehammer an’ it’s that heavy you wouldn’t even be able to lift it, Bella.’

Bella looked at him and thought muscle would be an advantage to William, being so stick thin, unlike Joe who was broad and sturdy. She herself was plump and curvy and Nell looked as if she would be the same once she had grown out of childhood.

Their father, during his short enforced convalescence, had been filling his time with thinking and organizing, and as soon as he thought he was fit he made an appointment to see the local licensing magistrate.

‘I’ve applied for a joint tenancy licence, Sarah,’ he said on his return. ‘I told Saunders that as you did half of ’work and saw to ’food and accommodation it was onny right that you should be named as landlord as well as me. He agreed and stamped ’licence there an’ then.’ He heaved a sigh of satisfaction. ‘So that’s one worry out of ’way. We’ll get both our names put ower ’door this weekend.’