Cover

Title page

Dedication page

For Dennis, Mandy and Zoë

One

LINCOLNSHIRE, 1910

‘A GIRL! A chit of a girl is no use to me.’

Esther Everatt stood before the glowering man and ignored his insult. Inside she was quivering, but she wasn’t going to let the old man know that. Her firm chin jutted out resolutely. ‘Well, mester, it looks like I’m all ya’ve got. An’ from what I’ve heard, all ya’re going to get.’

‘Why you cheeky young wench, Ah’ll . . .’ Sam Brumby raised his hand and stepped forward as if to strike her. The girl did not flinch. Her green eyes stared at him steadfastly. Her feet were planted firmly on the cobbles of his farmyard as if already she intended to put her roots down in this place.

‘Aye,’ she said softly now, ‘ya can hit me if ya like. I’m used to it. One more blow’ll mek no difference.’

Sam’s arm sliced the empty air inches from her face. ‘Be off with you,’ he muttered and turned away, but not before she had seen the momentary shame in his eyes. She guessed it was the first time he had ever raised his hand to a woman, but her impertinence had angered him.

‘Ah’ve no use for the likes of you here,’ he was saying gruffly as he went back towards the cowshed. ‘It’s a strong farm lad Ah want – not a lady’s maid!’

Her laughter rang out clear and sweet in the misty, early morning air. ‘Mr Brumby – do I look like a lady’s maid?’ Her mouth softened when she laughed; even so, it was a mouth that could harden into an unyielding line of determination.

Despite his insistence that he had no interest in her, he glanced back over his shoulder. She was still standing there, hands on hips, watching him. There was a feline stillness about her. Her feet were encased in boots which had known better days long before her ownership of them. Dust from the road she had travelled encrusted the hem of her long, coarse skirt. She was slim, yet there was an aura of physical strength about her. Her hair was a dark tangle of curls with strands plastered damply to her forehead. Her hands and face were tanned by wind and sun.

But it was her eyes that caught and held the attention of anyone who dared to meet that bold, green gaze. They were still staring at Sam, willing him to listen to her, holding him from turning away.

She saw his moment of hesitation, could almost read on his face the question that was forming in his mind. Where had a young girl like her come from at this early hour? She saw Sam Brumby open his mouth, then clamp his jaw shut again. He was afraid to show even the slightest interest in such a cheeky baggage – she thought, inwardly amused – in case it gave her more ideas.

But Esther Everatt did not need anyone to give her ideas – she had plenty of her own. As Sam Brumby turned away and disappeared into the cowshed, she picked up the meagre bundle of her belongings she had dropped to the ground and marched after him. Outwardly, she was displaying a confidence she did not feel inside. She was determined that this old man should not guess how desperately she needed work and a place to live. She wanted to tell him that she would work morning, noon and night for him if only he would let her stay. But grovelling was not part of Esther Everatt’s nature, nor, she guessed, would it find favour with this gruff old man. He would see it as weakness and despise her for it.

At this moment she knew far more about Sam Brumby than he did about her. He had never married and had no family to carry on the farm now that his once-strong limbs were painfully misshapen with rheumatism.

‘He needs help,’ Will Benson, the carrier, had told her. ‘But the miserable old devil’s too stubborn to admit it. He needs someone young and strong and not afraid of hard work. Someone like you, lass. And it would get you away from this!’ Will had jerked his head towards the cottage where Esther lived with her aunt and uncle and their large brood of children. She had stared up at Will as he sat on the high seat on the front of his carrier’s cart, hope rising within her. Threading the reins backwards and forwards through his fingers, not looking at her, he had murmured, ‘I’ve always known what a rough life you’ve got, lass, with yar aunt, an’ I’ve often wished I could do summat to help you.’ He had lifted his head and smiled. ‘Then last week when I went on me usual trip out to Fleethaven Point and saw how old Sam’s getting more bent and slow ev’ry time I sees him, well, I thought to mesen, “he needs a young ’un about the place” and, o’ course, I thought of you, lass.’

Now she was here, had walked all through the night to get here, and with all her being she wanted Sam Brumby to need her.

As she followed him towards the cowshed, he banged the lower half of the door behind him, right in her face, but she merely dropped her bundle against the wall, waited a moment or two then drew in a deep breath, lifted the latch and stepped inside. She stood quite still breathing in the pungent smell of the warm beasts – oh how she loved it! She reached out and touched the back of the nearest cow, making soothing noises deep in her throat, standing quietly while Sam Brumby worked.

At last he stretched his aching limbs and stood up from where he had been crouching to finish milking the first of the two cows. Esther saw him rub his knuckles, swollen with rheumatism.

‘’Ere,’ he growled, ‘since you’re so keen, you can ’ave a go with her – Clover.’

Was she mistaken, Esther thought shrewdly, or did she detect a wicked gleam in the old man’s eyes? Her mouth twitched, but she said nothing and moved towards the cow tethered in the corner. Clover turned wild eyes towards her. Again came Esther’s soft, pacifying murmur. She ran her hand over the cow’s rump, down her legs and along her rounded sides. Down and round and under the cow’s stomach until tenderly she touched the bursting udder, all the while her voice crooning softly. She sat down upon the three-legged stool, leant her head against the beast’s belly and began to draw milk with steady, rhythmic movements.

Esther refused to look up but sensed that Sam was watching from under his shaggy white eyebrows that shadowed watery hazel eyes. The white stubble on the old man’s face scarcely concealed the hollowness of his cheeks and his wispy hair stuck out from underneath his cap. His clothes – a striped, collarless shirt with the sleeves rolled up above his elbows, black waistcoat and thick corduroy trousers with leather leggings from knee to ankle – hung loosely on him, as if, when new, it had been a much stronger, straighter man who had worn them. Sam was now bent with age, his shoulders permanently rounded, his legs bowed. Each step he took seemed painful; the hobnailed boots too heavy for him to lift.

She heard him sniff and wipe the back of his hand across his mouth. ‘You can finish milking her before . . .’ he added pointedly, ‘you go.’ Sam was testing her, she knew it. Esther sensed that Clover was a difficult cow.

‘Yes, Mr Brumby, right you are,’ she replied, pretending meekness.

As he left the cowshed, closing the half-door quietly behind him, Esther allowed herself a wry smile against the soft hide of the animal. For the first time in her young life she had cause to thank the bad-tempered woman who had reared her. Everything she knew – not only household duties, but all aspects of work on the farm – had been learnt under her aunt’s cruel tongue and harsh hand.

Thanks to Aunt Hannah, it would take more than a temperamental cow for Sam Brumby to rid himself of Esther Everatt.

Half an hour later, Esther tapped on the back door of the house. It opened into Sam Brumby’s back scullery. At least Esther presumed it to be the scullery though it bore no resemblance to her Aunt Hannah’s, always so neat and clean you could see your face in the shining copper pans hanging on the wall. This place was filthy; unwashed pots and pans were piled in the deep sink and bits of mouldy food littered the draining board.

In front of her was the door leading into the main kitchen. This room was no better than the outer one. To her right she noticed another door leading out of the kitchen and down some steps into what she guessed would be the pantry.

Sam Brumby was standing at the cluttered kitchen table hacking at a lump of fat bacon. He glanced up. ‘You still here?’

Esther eyed the food hungrily. She hadn’t eaten since the previous day and even Sam Brumby’s unappetizing fat bacon in his dirty kitchen looked good to her.

‘’Ere, sit down and eat,’ he said grudgingly and almost threw her a wedge of meat and a hunk of coarse, grey bread. ‘Then you can be on your way, wench.’

‘Thank you, Mr Brumby.’ All politeness now, she sat at his table and ate the food he offered. When she had finished she thanked him, stood up and left the house. But she did not leave the farm. If Sam Brumby wanted her gone, he would have to carry her bodily off his land – and even then, there would be nothing to stop her returning.

She had nowhere else to go. Not now. Not since she had bundled her few possessions into a square of cloth, and, tying the corners together, had crept from her pallet bed in the draughty loft and out into the night. Esther had walked away from the only home she had ever known without looking back. Now, as she stood near the wall of the cowshed, watching the back door of the house but ready to dodge out of sight when Sam appeared, she thought briefly of her journey through the previous night, leaving the village on the edge of the Wolds that had been her home for the first sixteen years of her life. She had left without a trace of sorrow. There was no one she would really miss; certainly not her Aunt Hannah nor her seven cousins, from Mary, the eldest – a pudding-faced, sullen girl – right down through boys and girls of varying ages to the youngest girl – a spoilt, whining brat! Taking the lead from their mother, they had alternately ridiculed Esther or used her to do their share of the chores.

Perhaps her Uncle George was the only one whom Esther would remember with affection. A strong ox of a man, he was kindly but slow-witted and no match for his wife’s sharp tongue. He was even overawed by his growing children. Esther had watched his efforts to be close to his family meet with derision. Somehow, she thought, there was a streak of cruelty in all of Hannah’s children – and they did not inherit it from their father!

When she saw Sam come out of the back door and go towards the barn, Esther collected the milk and carried it back into the house. She stood at the top of the three steps down into the pantry and surveyed the long, cool room with its red brick floor. At one end similar red bricks formed a raised gantry. Round the walls were shelves cluttered with all manner of stone jars, earthenware basins and bowls, enamelled jugs, scales and weights, knives, spoons and ladles – the conglomeration of years of neglect. On the top shelf was a row of glass preserving jars still holding fruit that was grey with age, a thick layer of dust lining the greased paper tops. Cobwebs festooned the shelves, looped between the jars and spiders scuttled away at her approach.

Her glance came to rest – with a final expression of disgust – upon the dairy equipment on the gantry.

‘It’s a wonder the folks drinking this milk don’t die of disease,’ Esther muttered aloud and with pursed lips set herself to clean the bowls, milk cans and the barrel-shaped butter churn. By the time Sam returned, she was pouring the milk into a spotless separating bowl, broad and shallow for the cream to rise to the top.

‘Thought I told you to go?’ he said, standing at the top of the pantry steps.

‘Just thought I’d do this for you, Mr Brumby. After all, this is woman’s work. I’m sure there’s something else waiting that needs a man’s brawn.’

He gave an angry snort. ‘Cheeky young wench!’ he growled and shook his fist at her before turning away. ‘Just dun’t let me catch you still here next time Ah gets back. That’s all!’

Esther straightened up and eased her aching back. With one last glance of satisfaction at the change she had already wrought in the pantry, even though it had taken her nearly the whole day, she went outside again. She saw Sam disappearing into the cowshed. She stood outside the back door of the house and looked about her.

Just how, she asked herself, was she going to get this stubborn old man to admit that he needed help about his farm? Her help!

Straight opposite her across the yard were some stables, the cowshed and between the two, a small barn. The stables were littered with an accumulation of rubbish slung in carelessly; tools, empty sacks, a barrow and harness badly in need of cleaning and polishing. So, thought Esther, there’ve been no horses in here recently.

On the right hand side of the yard was a row of small, brick buildings – three pigsties and a tool shed. Beyond that was a large barn with a hayloft.

Four geese headed by a gander came waddling towards her, protesting loudly. The gander spread his wings. Flapping and shrieking, he thrust out his neck and came rushing towards her, his webbed feet slapping the cobbles. Esther stood her ground, hands on hips and faced the fearsome bird.

‘Ya can stop that racket!’

He stopped, his vicious beak only inches from her. The wings settled back and, fluffing his feathers, he regarded her with tiny bright eyes. Behind him his mates squawked encouragement from a safe distance. With one last strident screech of disapproval, he turned and, gabbling to his wives, he waddled away. Dutifully, the geese fell into step behind him.

Esther glanced across the yard and saw that Sam was looking out over the half-door of the cowshed, presumably to see what was causing all the noise. For a moment he stared at her, then, even from this distance, she heard him sniff and saw him scratch his white stubble thoughtfully. He glanced at the departing gander and then back at Esther before turning away.

Already the sun was setting, throwing shafts of golden April sunlight across the fenland fields that stretched westward, flat as far as the eye could see till they touched the glowing sky. As dusk closed in on the farm, the tiredness swamped her. She hadn’t slept for over thirty-six hours and though the work she’d done that day had hardly been strenuous even in her own estimation, every bone and muscle in her body ached to lie down and rest.

But the work was not done yet. From the cowshed she could hear the sounds of evening milking. She leant on the half-door watching Sam, listening to his rasping breath as he worked. She saw him lever himself up from the low milking stool and a grunt of pain escaped his lips.

As he moved towards Clover in the end stall, the animal lashed her tail and kicked out sideways with her back leg, catching Sam a painful blow on the shin. The old man swore volubly and then, suddenly becoming aware of Esther’s shadow at the door, turned his anger on her. ‘Ah told you to clear off. Ah dun’t want you here. Ah dun’t need no help.’

He snatched a leather thong from a hook on the wall and strapped it round the cow’s back legs. Now Clover was forced to stand still an submit to being milked.

‘ “Kicker” would be a better name for that ’un, mester,’ Esther grinned saucily and, picking up her bundle, she turned away.

She stood uncertainly in the yard for a moment, breathing in the soft air with a hint of the sea in it. The barn, and its hayloft, loomed before her in the gathering dusk and promised warmth and rest. She glanced back over her shoulder. Let him struggle tonight, she thought, but tomorrow – I’ll show him! Esther smiled to herself and went towards the barn.

Two

SHE became aware of the early morning light filtering through the cocoon of hay she had made for herself. There was a rustling close beside her. Rats! Esther thought. Her drowsiness vanished. Not that she was afraid of them but she didn’t want them running over her whilst she slept.

Without warning the sharp tines of a pitchfork were driven into the hay only inches from her throat. She gave a shriek, flung back the hay covering her and scrambled to her feet. A young man stood there, open-mouthed, the fork he held still embedded in the hay. They stared at each other for a moment before both spoke at once.

‘What the ’ell . . . ?’

‘Can’t you be more careful with that thing? You nearly speared my neck!’

‘You shouldn’t be ’ere,’ he retorted defensively, then as his initial shock faded, he grinned and his gaze travelled up and down her lithe body. ‘Oh, I don’t know, though.’

He let go of the pitchfork and moved towards her. Esther stood her ground, her eyes challenging him. He was standing close now, too close, but she did not move. He was no taller than she was, but stockily built, the width of his shoulders proclaiming their muscular strength. He wore an open-necked shirt, the rolled-up sleeves showing his arms covered with black hairs. A red kerchief was knotted at his throat, but he wore no waistcoat. His trousers were the usual corduroy with a length of twine tied below each knee. His cap perched uneasily on top of his thick, curly black hair and his skin was swarthy. Three days’ growth of stubble darkened his face even more, but his brown eyes glinted as their gaze rested on the gentle swell of her bosom. He ran his tongue around his lips and then grinned showing white, even teeth. He put out his hand to touch her throat where the top button of her blouse was undone. ‘It’d be a pity to wound such a lovely neck as—’

Her arm came up smartly to smack his hand away before his fingers could touch her skin. ‘Keep ya hands to ya’sen – boy!’ She uttered the final word with scathing derision. His eyes blazed and a flush of anger spread across his dark features.

‘I aren’t going to let a little tramp talk to me like that . . .’ he muttered. His strong hands gripped her shoulders bruising her skin and digging into her flesh. Instantly she brought her arms up to knock his sideways, loosening his grip on her. Then she tugged on his right sleeve at the same time as she kicked his shin with her sturdy boot. He found himself lying on his back in the hay, staring up at her. The fall had knocked the breath from him. He could make no answer as she said, ‘Next time I’ll let you have it where it really hurts – boy!’

With that she climbed down the ladder.

As Esther sluiced the sleep from her eyes under the icy water from the pump, she heard behind her the clatter of hooves on the cobbles of the yard and turned to see Sam bringing two of his three cows through the farm gate and towards the cowshed. She wondered why he didn’t milk the cows in the field like her aunt had done, but watching his hobbling, bow-legged gait, she realized it was easier for him to bring the cows to the byre than to be chasing each one around the field to milk it – especially the temperamental Clover.

As he passed her, she thought he hadn’t noticed her until he said, ‘What sort of time do ya call this? ’Tis halfway through the day. Ah thought the work’d be too much for a slip of a wench.’

Esther opened her mouth to retort, but for once she thought better of it. She wasn’t one to make excuses. Let him think what he liked. Instead she said, ‘What do ya want me to do, Mester Brumby?’

He was moving away from her now, but over his shoulder he grunted, ‘Ah want you to go, that’s what Ah want you to do!’ He paused, one hand on the door of the cowshed, then turning to look at her, added, ‘But seein’ as how Ah dun’t expect you’ll tek any notice of me – you can get on with milking this pair.’

He let his hand fall from the door and began to go towards the house. ‘When you’ve done, turn ’em out into North Marsh Field. Ah’ll show you when you’re ready. Ah’m off up Top End, but Ah’ll be back by you’re done.’

There was no further sign of the ‘boy’. Who was he, Esther wondered, and what had he to do with Brumbys’ Farm? She wrinkled her brow thoughtfully. Maybe what Will had told her wasn’t true after all. Maybe Sam Brumby had got some help about the farm. If so, her argument about being the only one he could get to stay would lose its effectiveness.

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