Bessie didn’t sleep well after her confrontation with Amy and Hadley. Try as she might, she couldn’t stop the thoughts that whirled round inside her head although, as yet, she had no proof of their validity. Her fears could be totally unfounded, she told herself, as she lay staring at the ceiling. There could be any number of young lads called Leas from Bird’s Well – a nephew of Henry’s perhaps, or maybe Leas was a surname common to that area; she just didn’t know.
She dozed, but when she wakened her thoughts returned to the same problem, and a day some twenty years before. She’d been out collecting eggs from the chicken coops when a man carrying a bundle close to his chest came into the farmyard. Now, as she tried to find a cool place on her pillow to rest her aching head, she recalled how she’d stopped dead, her heart thudding wildly, and a flush of blood springing to her cheeks; she had thought it was Raffy Lovell. What the devil was he doing here after all this time, she’d asked herself. What did he want?
Then, a sudden gust of wind catching the man’s long cloak and swinging it wide, she’d puffed out her cheeks, her breath whistling through her teeth. Relief mixed with disappointment as she’d realised it wasn’t him; this man wasn’t as lean as Raffy.
The man had raised his free arm and waved, white teeth flashing a broad smile. ‘Bessie, my love, my beautiful Bessie,’ he’d called across the distance. The lilting tones achingly familiar, she’d dropped the egg basket, her hands flying to her face as she’d struggled to control pleasure and panic.
Then he was by her side, his boots trammelling the shells and splattered yolks at her feet. She’d felt his closeness, the heat from his body and the musky scent she remembered so well. Craving for him to hold her, she’d felt her pulse quickening and her stomach clenching. He’d reached out to touch her. Like a frightened hare she’d leapt away, springing back even further as the bundle against his shoulder writhed and bawled. The burlap had fallen away to reveal an angry, red face, eyes tight shut and the mouth an ugly shouting ‘O’ – it was a baby.
Bessie inched her way to the edge of the bed, Hadley rolling into the space warmed by her body and then noisily breaking wind. She swung her legs from under the covers and planted her feet on the floor, urged on by the noxious smell wafting from under the covers as much as the need to drink a strong cup of tea, and think. Could that baby now be the young man her daughter had fallen for? The baby boy she had given away to her friend Jenny? If so, she had to put a stop to Amy’s romance before it went any further.
Downstairs in the kitchen she sat at the table, tea scalding her trembling lips. A poor, motherless boyo, Raffy had called him, his son by a poor dead Welsh girl. She’d been jealous then, thinking of him giving himself to someone else. On cue, the baby had squalled, as though he understood the parlous state of his short life. She had begged Raffy to leave immediately, before the children arrived home from school but, too late, they had caught her in the yard, Bessie arguing for him to go, he prevaricating and begging for a place to rest for the night.
The children had stared, goggle-eyed, and she had pretended he was selling pegs. Raffy had greeted the children cheerily, laughing when they enquired as to why he had an earring in his ear. ‘Cos I’s a king,’ he had said, his black eyes twinkling wickedly. Then he’d looked closely at the little girl with swarthy skin and black hair, so unlike her pink-skinned, fair-haired brothers.
He’d crossed the yard, Bessie at his heels telling him to be gone, and when they were out of the children’s earshot he’d said, ‘The little missy – she’s mine, isn’t she? ’Twas like looking in a mirror, looking at her.’
‘Keep your mouth shut,’ Bessie had warned. ‘Say nothing. I’ve too much to lose.’
‘And what if I don’t?’ he’d replied mischievously.
She’d hidden Raffy and the baby in a disused pig crib, telling him he could stay there for the night. Later, she’d taken milk for the child and food for Raffy, giving him strict orders to leave before Hadley wakened and learned of his presence. She had intended to walk away smartly but Raffy had smiled endearingly, his eyes crinkling at the corners, just how she remembered. Blood singing in her ears, she had stayed until daybreak.
When she had wakened, Raffy was sleeping, his long, greasy locks snaking the straw under his head, and his long black lashes, pretty as any girl’s, fanning the hollows beneath his almond-shaped eyes. He looked like an Asian prince from some exotic land far across the sea. His face was more lined than she remembered it, his hair not so lustrous, yet he was still the handsomest man she’d ever known. Oh, but she had loved the boy he had been when first they met, still did if she were honest. Hadn’t he filled her dreams often enough, and how many nights in the bed she shared with Hadley had she pretended that it were Raffy making love to her. But that was the past, and rising quickly to her feet, Bessie did as she had always done and dealt with the present.
Then she’d glanced down at the sleeping child, her blue eyes glinting spitefully. Raffy had left his mark. Below the child’s left ear was the same bluish heart-shaped patch as was on Raffy’s neck. Her daughter also bore it, but Bessie hadn’t told him that. As far as she was concerned Beatrice was Hadley’s, and Raffy must never be allowed to think he had any claim on her. Not now, not ever.
She had wakened him with a kick. ‘Take yourself off,’ she’d flared, running as fast as she could back to the farmhouse.
By now, her tea grown cold, Bessie glanced at the clock on the dresser. Hadley would wake anytime soon. She stood, and stirring the embers in the range she tried to clear her head, but the secrets she had buried in the deeper regions of her mind refused to shift, the memories still rising to the surface, sharp and clear.
She sliced strips of bacon, whisked eggs and plopped a blob of lard into the frying pan. As it melted and began to spit, she stiffened, recalling Hadley’s stern expression of the night before. Was he, after all this time, letting her know he wasn’t the fool she’d played him for? She shuddered.
At the breakfast table Hadley was still wearing that same authoritative face he had worn the night before, and as Bessie served him with bacon, eggs and fried bread he neither thanked nor engaged her in his usual early morning banter. Her heart fluttered uncomfortably as, every now and then, she caught him looking at her in a strange, thoughtful way.
Samuel shuffled into the kitchen, bleary-eyed and surly. He slumped into his chair at the table, and as Bessie set a plate of bacon and eggs in front of him, Hadley said, ‘Don’t take all morning over it. That barn roof needs fixing. I want it done. Today.’
Samuel’s eyes boggled, not so much at the order but at Hadley’s curt delivery. His eyes slid to meet Bessie’s, as if to say: what’s eating him? Bessie shook her head. She needed to get away, sort out her problems and clear her head.
‘I’m going into town. We’re out of dried fruit and flour. I’ll bake your favourite fruit loaf when I come back, Hadley,’ she said, trying to sound cheery. She threw her husband an endearing smile.
Hadley responded with a brief nod, and pushing back his chair he bent and began to lace his boots. Thomas blundered into the kitchen, smiling stupidly as though surprised to see his family there. ‘Is me breakfast ready?’ he asked.
‘It is,’ said Hadley, ‘and when you’ve had it, get out there and help Samuel fix that barn roof.’ He stamped towards the outside door and then paused, his hand on the latch. ‘And if you’re thinking of baking, Bessie, make something nice for when our Amy brings her young man for his tea on Sunday.’ He slammed the door behind him.
Samuel’s eyes boggled for the second time that morning. ‘Is our Amy bringing that collier here?’
‘Not if I have anything to do with it,’ snapped Bessie.
*
It was a bright, crisp morning and the fields and trees were bathed in autumn’s final glow, but Bessie saw none of this as she drove the trap into Barnborough. Amy’s romance had opened up a can of worms and if she, Bessie, was to prevent them snaking into Hadley’s mind she had to put a lid on it, and soon.
Now, as the pony clip-clopped along the road at a steady pace with Bessie at the reins, she recalled another day and another journey she had made twenty years before, not to Barnborough, but to Bird’s Well.
That day, she had risen at first light and rushed out to the pig crib to make sure Raffy had done as she had ordered. When she saw that he and his pack were gone, she’d sagged with relief. Then she’d screamed. The baby screamed too.
Panicked as to how she would explain the baby’s presence, she’d hared back to the farmhouse, and as she warmed a pan of milk and sought out some clean rags, she did what she had done before: she hatched a plan to save her reputation.
Within the hour she was on the road to Bird’s Well, with the baby – now fed and his soiled nappy hidden in the straw in the pig crib – sleeping in a clothesbasket in the bottom of the trap. It was ten years since she had last visited her old friend, Jenny Leas, but local gossip had kept her privy to the fact that Jenny was still childless.
‘I thought of you straight off,’ she’d said, as soon as she had arrived at the remote smallholding that Jenny now lived in with her husband Henry. As Bessie explained the reason for her visit, she had gazed at the woman some two years her senior, thinking that time had not been kind. Whereas her own hair was still bright as summer corn and her plump cheeks smooth as a peach, Jenny’s hair was streaked with grey, her face lined and drawn. These thoughts in mind, Bessie said, ‘He’ll put new life in you; make you feel young again. He’s a blessing from heaven, Jenny, someone to care of you in your old age.’
To Bessie’s distress, Jenny had prevaricated. ‘But what about his own kinfolk? Surely he…’ Jenny got no further.
‘It’s like I’ve already said; the poor girl fell for the child with a travelling man. An orphan she was, with not a soul to care for her. I did what I could but she died on me when this mite was but two months old.’ The lies had tripped off Bessie’s tongue.
Jenny had stroked the baby’s swarthy cheek, her forefinger sliding into the folds of his neck, gently pushing aside a straggle of black, greasy curls. ‘Oh, look, he’s been kissed by an angel,’ she’d gasped, tracing the purple, heart-shaped mark below the child’s left ear. ‘Motherless he might be but that’s a sign of good luck if ever I saw one,’ she’d said, the words coming out on her breath.
Bessie had inwardly rejoiced. ‘So you’ll keep him then?’
‘Henry will have the final word.’
Bessie’s heart sank. She was itching to be on the road home.
Jenny had then lifted the child from the basket, and bidding Bessie to take a seat, she sat also, dandling the child on her knee. ‘Your Beatrice has a similar mark,’ she said, innocently enough, ‘and she come early as I remember, very early.’ Bessie had bristled but Jenny had not taken notice. Her brow had wrinkled thoughtfully and she’d gazed hard at the child. ‘He’s a proper little prince. Do you know, he not only puts me in mind of your Beatrice, he has a look of…’ Her eyes had brightened and she’d given Bessie a sly wink before whispering, ‘That lad at the fair, the one who… what was his name? The one who stole your virg—’
Bessie’s blood had run cold. ‘Can’t say as I remember,’ she’d said, through gritted teeth. ‘And as for names, you can call this one whatever you choose, for he has no name as yet.’ Jenny had smiled at that, the smile fading when Bessie had rounded on her, telling her in no uncertain terms that Beatrice was Hadley’s, and that she took after his grandmother for her dark looks. Jenny hadn’t looked convinced. She’d shrugged apologetically, saying, ‘Must be my memory playing tricks again.’
But Bessie hadn’t been appeased. ‘I got a good man when I married Hadley, one who’s given me four fine children,’ she’d said, the spiteful remark sharp as an arrow.
It had taken some artful persuasion on her part, but in the end she had convinced her childless friend to keep the child. ‘It’s best you say nothing to anyone about how you came by the child. You don’t want to encourage gossip,’ she’d advised, ‘and I’ll not expect you to keep in touch.’ This last remark sounding rather like a threat, Bessie had left the Leas’ little cottage, and thankful for its remoteness, she had rattled merrily along the roads back to Barnborough and Intake farm.
Now, as she drove into the centre of Barnborough and parked the trap in the inn yard, she wondered how much Jenny and Henry Leas had told their son about the true nature of his birth and how they had come by him.
Still, I have no proof the lad’s the one I gave to Jenny, she thought, as she impatiently watched the grocer weigh out raisins and currants. But what if he is? said an insidious little voice inside her head. By now, she was sweating so profusely that the coins she had taken from her purse slipped from her fingers and scattered. Making no attempt to gather them up, Bessie grabbed her provisions and dashed out of the shop, leaving the grocer staring after her.
Out on the street, Bessie paused to ease the thudding in her chest. Panicking like this wasn’t good for her, it could give her a heart attack, she told herself crossly, and to lessen the palpitations she took several deep breaths, trying to convince herself that her fears were unfounded. It was a chance in a million that Amy’s young man was Raffy Lovell’s son. That sort of coincidence only happened in the penny dreadfuls she sometimes read. Feeling foolish at allowing her imagination to get the better of her – it wasn’t one bit like her – Bessie stepped smartly along the pavement.
Then she saw them.
Amy and Jude were walking hand in hand towards her, laughing at something one or the other had said.
Bessie came to a standstill.
So did they, Jude swinging Amy into a loose embrace and pecking her cheek. They lingered for a moment and then resumed walking, not a care in the world or so it appeared.
Bessie drew breath so sharply it pierced her throat, all the optimism she had fostered in the past few minutes snuffed out like a candle in the wind. Her brow and palms turned clammy again, fear mixed with burning anger bubbling in her chest.
Now there was no escaping the fact. That same tall, rangy stature and the aquiline features were the mirror of Raffy Lovell’s, even the way the lad had caught Amy up in his arms made him his father’s son. Without a doubt he was the boy child she had handed over to her friend Jenny Leas, some twenty years before. Bessie thought to take flight, cross the street, avoid Amy and Jude’s path, but her feet refused to budge and before she knew it, they were face to face with her.
‘Mother!’ Amy’s cry was high with surprise. ‘I didn’t expect to see you in town.’
‘Apparently not,’ Bessie replied acerbically. ‘Otherwise you wouldn’t have been canoodling in the street for all the world to see.’ Her steely tones caused Jude to raise his brows, his comical expression making Amy giggle and then give an exasperated sigh before saying, ‘Oh, Mam, we were hardly doing that.’
Amy tugged at Jude’s hand, drawing him forward. ‘Allow me to introduce you,’ she said, mockingly formal. ‘Mrs Bessie Elliot, meet Mr Jude Leas.’ Bessie heard the pride in her voice.
‘Good afternoon, Mrs Elliot, pleased to make your acquaintance at last.’ Jude proffered his hand. Bessie ignored it. Was there implication in the way he had said ‘at last’ or was it just her imagination, she wondered? Had Jenny told him about her? Had he remembered the name and made a connection? Jude met her gaze, a half-smile playing at the corners of his mouth.
‘Mother!’ Amy cried, annoyed by Bessie’s rudeness. Then, attempting to dispel the unpleasantness she said, ‘I’ve told Jude that you’ve invited him for tea on Sunday.’
‘And I’m more than pleased to accept,’ said Jude, giving Bessie a warm smile.
Unappeased, Bessie looked sour.
‘Mother!’ Amy’s cry bit the air. ‘Why are you being so unpleasant?’
Bessie had neither the desire nor the integrity to divulge the reason for her unseemly behaviour. ‘I’m late. I have to get home,’ she said, and looking pointedly at Amy she added, ‘and you’d better come with me.’
‘I’m going back to work. This is my dinner break.’ Amy linked her arm through Jude’s. ‘Come on, I don’t want to be late.’
Bessie swung on her heel and strutted down the street.
‘Good day, Mrs Elliot,’ Jude called cheerily at Bessie’s rigid back. He gave Amy a rueful smile. ‘That didn’t go too well, did it?’
‘Our Sammy’s to blame for that,’ Amy said, her cheeks flaming. ‘He’s turned her against you even before she met you.’
Jude pulled her close. ‘Don’t fret. I’ll win her round. Nothing and nobody will come between us.’ He dropped a kiss on Amy’s drooping head. Amy leaned her head on his chest, felt the thud of his heart and told herself that she loved Jude Leas with every breath in her body. He let her go. ‘Now, let’s get you back to the library and me to bed so I can catch some sleep before I go on the night shift.’
*
Deep in thought, Bessie walked to where she had left the trap. In the yard behind the Red Lion public house, she saw a dishevelled young thug leaning against the wall. She didn’t know him personally but she knew all about him, and the very sight of him set her thoughts and her pulses racing. Deliberately fiddling with her shopping as she set it in the trap, and giving herself time to think things through, she decided he might be the solution to her problem. Hopeful that he was sober, she walked over to him.
‘Is your brother out of prison?’ she asked. ‘Because if he is, I’ve a bit of business to put his way. Yours too, if you want the job.’
After a few brief, whispered words, Bessie drove out of Barnborough assured that the thug and his brother knew exactly what to do, and to whom they should do it. Her purse was several shillings lighter but she felt rather pleased with herself. She had always made it her business to know everybody else’s, and even though she would have denied it, she knew who did what in Barnborough. Now it was paying off.
Unfortunately, her euphoria was short lived. What if her plan failed? What if she was found out? Bessie drove on in a state of morbid confusion, oblivious to the road and the speed at which she travelled, panic rising with every covered mile. It’s well this pony knows its way home, she thought, as the little horse clattered into the yard at Intake Farm.
*
Late that same day, Jude picked up his snap tin and headed for the door; he was going on the nightshift.
‘Don’t work too hard,’ Lily quipped, ‘you’ll need all your strength for dealing with Amy’s mother now that you’ve been invited to tea on Sunday.’
Jude paused, his hand on the latch. ‘I’ll give her some of me old charm. It works on you so why not her?’
‘Because Bessie Elliot’s a stuck-up piece of work. Ever since she married Hadley, she’s given herself airs and graces – and why I don’t know. She was three months gone when she got wed – he had to marry her.’
Jude raised his eyebrows, surprised by this piece of information about his prospective mother-in-law, but having no time to linger and learn more he stepped outside. A chill wind had brought a touch of frost to the pavement, the slabs glistening in the light from the streetlamp outside the pub on the corner. Under it he spotted two lads. Although he had only lived in Barnborough a short while he knew them from the pub, and knew also of their reputations. Bob and Jed Benson were petty criminals: a couple of brawlers. Paying them no heed he took the short cut up a back lane to the colliery, his warm breath pluming into clouds of vapour in front of his face.
Jude hadn’t walked far when he sensed someone behind him. He glanced over his shoulder, expecting to see a fellow miner also making his way to the pit. The figure that ran at him wielded a short, stout length of wood. It connected with Jude’s shoulder. He leapt back, and then righting himself he charged forwards, fists raised. As he lashed out, his assailant swung the piece of wood again. It clouted Jude’s cheekbone at the same time as he felt soft flesh under his knuckles and heard the satisfying crunch of bones. Bob dropped his weapon, his hands clutching at his broken nose as he slumped to his knees. Then Jed barrelled forward, Jude instinctively raising his right foot and kicking out, his heavy pit boot catching the lad between his legs. Howling, Jed staggered backwards, frantic hands groping his injured manhood as he turned and tottered into the darkness.
By now, Bob was back on his feet but there was no fight left in him. As he turned to follow his brother, he gasped, ‘You’re to keep away from Amy Elliot if you know what’s good for you.’ This so incensed Jude that he considered going after them but, common sense telling him there was little to be gained by prolonging the fight, and that he was already late for his shift, he hurried to the pit.
‘Eeh! Somebody’s not happy wi’ you.’ Bert pointed to Jude’s swollen cheek and blackened eye. ‘I hope you gave ’em as good as you got.’
‘I think I did better than that,’ growled Jude. He told Bert what had happened, and then said, ‘If you ask me why, I’d say it smells like some of Samuel’s dirty work.’
*
Bessie woke next morning with a headache. Beside her, in the huge double bed with its iron and brass ends, Hadley’s rumbling snores reverberated in the darkened room. Outside, a moaning wind shivered against the windowpanes. Its sound made Bessie tremble. She had slept intermittently, the face of the young man she had met in town the previous day haunting every waking moment. Jude Leas – Raffy’s son.
Now, sweat moistening her brow and armpits, she watched the first lights of dawn peek through the gap in the curtains as she mulled over what she had done. Whatever had she been thinking of? She must have been crazy to pay those thugs to give him a beating. That was all she had wanted them to do, to frighten him off, but supposing they had killed him?
Her head thumped mercilessly at the dreadful thought, tears seeping from her eye corners and trickling into her ears. She’d been a fool, and it was all Raffy Lovell’s fault. He’d brought her to this, him and his wily ways. She wished she’d never met him. But then, she sadly told herself, she would never have known what it was to really be in love – and it had been wonderful whilst it lasted. She could never love Hadley like she loved Raffy.
Almost as though he knew he was in her thoughts Hadley heaved his bulk towards her and broke wind. Bessie rolled to the edge of the bed, the foul smell wafting from beneath the loosened bedclothes breaking her last reserve. She leapt out of bed and went downstairs.
In the cold light of morning, pottering about the kitchen, Bessie looked back on her madness as though she had been some other woman when she had planned the attack. And what for, she asked herself? If Jude knew anything about his birth, he’d have told Amy, and surely she would have mentioned it. Consoled by this thought, Bessie sliced rashers of bacon and put them in a pan.
Bessie’s head still ached, and as the bacon began to sizzle so did her brain. But what if, when Jenny had told Jude she wasn’t his natural mother she had then told him the detail of how her old friend, Bessie Elliot from Barnborough, had brought him to Bird’s Well? Furthermore – Bessie shuddered at the thought – had Jenny gossiped about Raffy Lovell and Beatrice’s birth? Bessie’s heart missed a beat. God forbid Jude told Hadley.
The smell of burning fat brought her back to the present, and flinging the burned rashers into the slop bucket she replenished the pan whilst firmly telling herself to gain control of her emotions before she gave the game away. After all, tomorrow afternoon Jude Leas would be here in her kitchen. What then?
*
‘Oh, my dear God, what happened to you?’ cried Lily Tinker, as Jude entered his lodgings the next morning. ‘Did you get in t’way of a flying lump o’ coal?’
‘Aye, summat like that,’ replied Jude, shedding his jacket and then dumping it outside the open kitchen door for Lily to beat against the wall. Knocking the dust out of a collier’s pit clothes was usually a wife’s job but, Jude being single, Lily insisted on performing the task in the same way she did for her own son, Tommy.
When Lily went outside, Jude stripped and stepped into the tin bath in front of the fire. He’d let Lily believe the lie. Accidents happened down the pit all the time, and he didn’t want her gossiping to her neighbours about his altercation with the thugs. Lily came back inside, and fishing his trousers from the floor, she went out again to beat them also. As Jude washed away layers of coal dust and towelled himself dry, he decided to tell the same lie to Amy; he didn’t want her worrying over what Samuel might do next.
‘Are you decent?’ Lily popped her head round the door and found Jude sitting at the table dressed in the clean underwear and shirt she had left out for him. Two minutes later, she set a plate of meat and potato pie, cabbage and gravy in front of him. ‘Tuck into that, and when you’ve finished, I’ll put some salve on them,’ she said, pointing to Jude’s grazed cheek and his blackened eye. ‘You’ve got a right shiner, lad. You need to be more careful.’
‘I will be, next time,’ Jude grunted, wondering if and when the next time might be.
*
On Saturday afternoon, Jude waited for Amy outside the library. She was shocked when she saw his battered face and, like Lily, believed he had sustained the injuries at work. Jude didn’t disabuse her. ‘You poor darling,’ she said, tenderly stroking his bruised eye and then lightly kissing his grazed jaw.
They walked to Jude’s lodgings, Jude keeping a sharp eye out for the Benson brothers should they strike again. He didn’t think they would, but it did no harm to be vigilant. Seated by the fire in Lily’s cosy parlour, he asked Amy if Samuel was friendly with them, dropping it casually into a made-up story about something that had happened in the pub.
‘Good Lord, no! Our Sammy wouldn’t go within a mile of them.’ She giggled before adding, ‘that’s because when they were at school together, they bullied him. Besides, our Sammy thinks he’s far too good to bother with the likes of the Bensons.’
Deeply puzzled, Jude dropped the subject but, for the rest of the evening, his thoughts kept toying with the fact that the Bensons had been hired to attack him – and that the reason was this lovely girl nestled in his arms. If it wasn’t Samuel Elliot, then who the hell was it?