A Time Like No Other Read online

  ‘The perambulator, is it? Well, I can see where it might be a bit awkward fer yer. Why don’t us give a ’and across this little stream? Come on, Ham, don’t just stand there.’

  The little stream to which he alluded was almost dried up and anyone, even small boys, could easily step across it. The light in the glade was still shady despite the falling of the autumn leaves but the sun was lower in the sky. The drift of leaves had begun to litter the ground and the recent wet weather had made it slippery.

  ‘Don’t touch that perambulator,’ Susan said sharply and both men stopped, then the one who must be Jed, since he had called the second man Ham, smiled, a menacing sort of smile which matched his next words.

  ‘That’s a mighty pretty babby yer’ve got there, missis. Be a shame ter jiggle it across this bit o’ stream. No, us two’ll gerrit across. We wouldn’t want ter ’urt babby, would we? ’Ere, Ham, ger ’old o’ that end an’ us’ll ’ave it across in no time . . .’ And before either woman could protest the equipage was wrenched from their protective hands, tossed across the narrow trench of the stream and placed carelessly on the other side. Both Lally and Susan leaped across and huddled defensively over the baby who had begun to wail in distress but the men merely laughed, shouldering their rifles and marching off down the track.

  ‘Glad ter be of ’elp, ladies,’ Jed shouted over his shoulder, then they disappeared into the trees. The man addressed as Ham had not spoken one word and Lally had time to wonder if he was half-witted.

  Both women were trembling when they reached Folly, though they did their best to conceal it. The three boys were sitting round Polly’s well-scrubbed table tucking into gingerbread men and a glass of milk each, though Polly was standing anxiously at the door looking out for the two women and the perambulator with the precious baby in it. Cat was still crying and though both women had longed to stop and pick her up and comfort her they were eager to get to the safety of Folly Farm. Polly plucked the infant out of the perambulator and held her in loving arms.

  ‘Wheer yer bin?’ she asked accusingly as though the pair of them had been up to no good. ‘Us was wonderin’ where yer’d got to. Them boys an’t lass ’ave bin ’ere a good ten minutes.’

  ‘Don’t say anything, Susan,’ Lally had whispered as they approached the farm, ‘or she’ll have Sean and Denny out after the Weavers and I don’t want any trouble.’

  ‘But, Lally, you can’t mean to—’

  ‘Harry will deal with it. He means to turn them off and I’ll make sure he does it.’

  She was very quiet on the way home, she and Susan almost running, with Dora in some confusion behind, but the dogs were with them, keeping close to the perambulator for, as animals do, they sensed some tension in the helter-skelter dash through the woodland. Dora carried the protesting Jamie while Alec and Jack were jammed in with Cat and the kittens and they did not stop until the familiar gate into the stable yard came into sight.

  ‘Why, what’s ter do, Miss Lally?’ Carly asked her apprehensively but she did her best to smile and shake her head. What with one thing and another she did not feel that she could even answer Biddy’s anxious questions. First the appalling intimidation when Roly had threatened to expose her and Harry to a scandal of terrible proportions and now this meance from the Weaver brothers who seemed to be promising trouble, for it appeared they meant actual harm to her children.

  ‘No, it’s nothing, Biddy, really. We just wanted to get home but I’d be obliged if you would ask Carly to ride up to High Clough and fetch my husband home.’

  ‘Fetch Mr Sinclair home?’ Biddy was astonished and so were the maids who were scattered about the kitchen at their various tasks. They had all stopped, of course, turning to stare at Mrs Sinclair. Nobody fetched Mr Sinclair anywhere! He was the master and as such came and went as he pleased and they waited expectantly for further enlightenment.

  The children were being hurried, fractious and vociferous with it, through the door to the hallway on their way to the nursery, Susan doing her best to keep them from the inevitable questions that she knew Mrs Stevens would ask. Mrs Stevens had a special place in this household, since before Susan came to reside in it and had become, or so Lally said, her friend, Mrs Stevens had been Lally’s confidante. They were still close and Mrs Stevens thought it her right to treat Lally as she might a relative. She had not taken kindly to Susan’s inclusion in one or two dinner parties given by Mr and Mrs Sinclair, those that had also included John Burton, and had been heard to say that some people should be careful not to get above themselves. It was none of Susan’s doing, naturally, but who could stand against Lally when she made up her mind to do something?

  Picking up the baby from the perambulator which had been lifted into the kitchen, she shepherded her charges before her. Jack was awkward. He wanted to be picked up too, since after all she was his mother, or his mama as he was being taught to call her, so with some difficulty she lifted him with her other arm and hurriedly left the room.

  ‘Now then, lass, what’s all this?’ Biddy began, but Lally lifted her head imperiously, repeating her request that Mr Sinclair be brought home at once. She had been badly shaken by the confrontation with the Weaver brothers, for the implication had been that they might harm her children and that really did frighten her.

  ‘I shall have them arrested at once,’ Harry shouted, for once his calm, rather remote demeanour scattered to the wind. He had been meaning to instruct Cameron to give a month’s notice to the rabble who rented Foxwell Farm and had been musing whether to offer it to Denny McGinley, son of Sean and Polly. Folly Farm was well run and profitable and kept the two men, father and son, fully occupied, but now that Denny was a family man he might appreciate a farm of his own. They could help each other, he and his father, and with casual manual labour could easily manage the two farms. Foxwell was in a poor state but Denny was a hard worker, willing to do anything on his father’s farm and would be exactly right to put Foxwell back to how it should be. Harry would give him some help to rebuild the farmhouse and the byres. The land was half derelict so he would ask no rent for the first four quarters and since he was not getting rent from the Weavers as he should he would not be out of pocket.

  ‘No, Harry, don’t get the police involved, please. Just turn the family out and make sure they leave the district. They . . . they made no actual threat today but Susan and I were . . . were startled. They had evidently been out with their guns, poaching, though they had nothing on them . . .’ remembering Jed’s brazen offer to be searched.

  ‘They had probably hidden what they had poached but nevertheless I feel—’

  ‘Please, Harry, it will only make them more . . . more . . .’ She was going to say more menacing but decided it was not a word she should use to her husband. ‘Just let’s get them off our property and that will be enough. They did us no harm.’

  ‘But they might do.’

  ‘No, I promise we will not walk that way again until they are gone from the district or unless one of the men is with us.’

  Harry brooded on this for several minutes then took a deep breath. ‘I shall ride over with Cameron tomorrow and give them all notice,’ then began to tell her of his plans for Denny McGinley of which she approved heartily.

  ‘Now,’ she said hesitantly, ‘what of . . . of Roly? Did you speak to him?’

  Harry’s face hardened and Lally felt her heart sink. How were they to discuss this terrible dilemma if every time Roly’s name was mentioned Harry turned away from her, and if they were not to talk about it how was she to know what was happening? She could hardly ask Roly himself and if her husband did not relent and well . . . she supposed forgive her, how would it be resolved?

  ‘No, I did not since he did not appear at any of the mills and was not at Mill House when I called. He threatened you with a solicitor so I presume that is where he has gone.’

  ‘Oh, Harry, what is it he can want?’ she asked disconsolately, her face sad. They were sitting in their lovely drawi
ng room drinking their after-luncheon coffee, for Harry had come like a madman on Piper when he received the news that the mistress wanted him at once. They were both unaware that Jenny had gone back to the kitchen with a long face after serving them, saying that there was something badly wrong with Miss Lally and Mr Harry.

  At once Biddy turned on her, her own face filled with worry. She had questioned Miss Lally this morning on the strangeness of her and Susan’s entrance into the kitchen and their obvious concern over something that had happened while they were out with the children but she had got nowhere, brushed off with a vague excuse about the children being tired and now there was this. Jenny, who had been employed at the Priory for years, could exactly gauge the moods, the worries, the state of affairs – even if she did not know their cause – of the family and there was definitely something happening that she was not being told about. Biddy was the head of the female servants and was on good terms with the outside men and if there was any trouble she was usually the first to hear of it, if not from Miss Lally herself, then from the rest of the staff who might whisper about it. She did not believe in gossip and in fact firmly opposed it. Nevertheless she did like to know what was going on!

  The scene at Foxwell Farm the next day became extremely dangerous and as Harry stood up to Jed Weaver he was glad he had not sent Cameron to evict the tenants on his own and that as an added precaution he had taken one of the finest hunting rifles money could buy, made by James Purdey, which both the Weaver boys, who were lounging by the fire, recognised at once.

  They stood up slowly, ready to say or do anything that might put them in a good light, for they thought Mr Sinclair had come here to complain over yesterday’s incident. They had only helped the ladies with the child’s carriage, they would say, for the stream was wide and certainly had not meant to give offence. But they were not given the chance.

  ‘Is your father about?’ was all their landlord said. Cameron, who was not a coward, stood shoulder to shoulder with him in the debris and dirt of the farm kitchen. An appetising smell came from a pan simmering on the fire and Harry almost smiled, for in it would be one of the rabbits off the Priory estate. They did not go short of food in the Weaver household.

  The question took the two big men by surprise. What had their pa to do with what happened yesterday?

  ‘Reckon ’e’s digging vegetable garden,’ one of them said, doing his best to appear polite. The Weavers were not farmers but down-at-heel vagrants, living on their wits and what the girls earned on their backs, and when Arty Weaver, warned by one of the women, came in, simpering and rubbing his hands as though overjoyed to see his landlord, it was all Harry could do not to break into a laugh. There were hens perched on the filthy table and Harry declined to sit down and partake of a jug of cider.

  ‘I’m not here on a social visit, Weaver. You have been warned time and again that if you did not pay your rent and keep this farm in good order I would evict you. As you have done neither I have no option but to do so. I am giving you a month’s notice to quit. By the end of the year I shall expect you to have gone. Note I am allowing you some leeway. Have I made myself clear?’ He shifted his rifle, which was broken over his arm, to another position, drawing their attention to the fact that he meant business. Cameron, who had his own rifle though not as good as the Purdey, also lifted his to his shoulder.

  For a moment there was total silence then Mrs Weaver, who had dragged herself in behind her husband, began to wail but the sound of her cries of where should they go, and how should they manage and what had they done to deserve this was drowned by the furious bellows of the two boys.

  ‘This is ’cause of them two bloody women, innit?’ Jed roared. ‘Just ’cause we give ’em a ’and wi’ that there carriage what babby sat in she took agin us. Keep yer bloody ’ands off us who’s way above the likes of you an’ your kind. Well, yer can bloody well rot ’cause we’re not movin from ’ere, are we, lad?’ turning to his brother who, being slower than Jed, had not quite caught up with what was happening. Mrs Weaver had sat down in the moth-eaten chair, her head in her hands, for though she was not as daft as Ham or as mad as Jed she knew that this was the end and there was nothing any of them could do about it. Arty was bobbing and weaving, wringing his hands and explaining that he would have the rent in Mr Sinclair’s hand this very day but as he had told him a while back he needed the loan of a plough-horse if he was to make anything of the fields about the farm and really, he did think Mr Sinclair might give them a bit of warning . . .

  ‘I’m giving you warning now, Weaver. Over a month’s notice for you to find somewhere else. And’ – he turned suddenly on Jed who was straining to escape his brother’s hand, his language foul and threatening – ‘if you don’t curb your tongue and rein in that temper of yours I shall be forced to do it for you.’

  Cameron began to look anxious. He was willing to stand beside his employer while notice was given but he was not really prepared to become involved in fisticuffs. Mr Sinclair was tall but he was not built like Jed Weaver who had been known to fell Jack Eccles, the blacksmith in Moorend who had done a bit of prize-fighting in his youth. Mr Sinclair was lean, wiry, strong, there was no doubt of it but hardly capable of taking on Jed Weaver.

  Harry deliberately raised his rifle and aimed it at Jed Weaver whose vitriolic language dried up at once but Cameron still felt uneasy, for though his words had stopped, the deadly expression in his eyes had not gone away. Mr Sinclair waved the rifle and indicated that the Weaver brothers were to leave the filthy kitchen and move outside. Mrs Weaver’s wails became even more hysterical and the old man dithered by her side.

  ‘I want you all out of here today,’ Harry growled. ‘Not only have you failed completely to keep my property in good order, paid no rent and poached my game, you have insulted my wife and her companion. Pack up your belongings . . .’ allowing his gaze to wander round the room, for what in this foetid place could possibly be worth taking? It was this that was his undoing. The moment his eyes left Jed Weaver the man leaped forward with a roar of outrage, his shoulder hitting Harry in his midriff. The gun went off, the shot harmlessly entering the ceiling. Jed wrested the gun away and threw it into the corner and then with maddened care proceeded to land blow after blow about Harry’s head and face, kicking him with his heavy boots as he fell. Cameron, like them all, was stunned for a moment but as Jed’s boot broke Harry’s nose and blood flowed across his face he lifted his own rifle and struck Jed in the head with the butt, knocking him semi-conscious. He rolled away to land at his mother’s feet. She screamed. Ham stood turned to stone, for without Jed to guide him he was no more than a shambling child.

  ‘’Ere . . . ’ere . . . let’s ’ave no punch-ups,’ Arty Weaver foolishly remonstrated, as Harry was lifted to his feet, even going as far as to hold out a helping hand, ready to brush him down if needed. Harry took the arm Cameron held out to him and without another word they shuffled from the kitchen and out into the fresh air. Their horses were tethered to the broken fence and silently Cameron helped his employer on to Piper’s back, mounted his own animal, took Piper’s reins and led the bay out of the clearing and on to the track that led towards the Priory. Harry was barely conscious. Blood streamed from his broken nose and he only just managed to keep his seat on the horse.

  The maids in the kitchen had screamed as long and as piercingly as Mrs Weaver when Cameron, with Carly to help him, half carried their master across the threshold. Carly had saddled both Piper and Jasper, Mr Cameron’s mount, and had known where they were going and like the maids had felt a great desire to yell in consternation when he had spied them ambling slowly back across the field that led to the stable-yard gate. The commotion in the kitchen reminded Biddy of bedlam, she was to say afterwards, though she had never been inside one. The mistress was ready to shriek with the rest of them but, give her her due, she steadied herself and with a curt nod at Carly told him to ride like the devil for Doctor Burton and when he had done that he was to go directly
to the police station in Ward’s End and bring back the constable, for evidently murder had been attempted and they all knew who had attempted it.

  Lally felt the pain of Harry’s injuries as though they had been inflicted on her though her pain was in a different place. In her chest where her heart lay was a steady throbbing, a dull and heavy feeling of shame that she had not really recognised and acknowledged Harry’s special understanding for those less fortunate than himself. He had saved Susan from a life of poverty, relieved her suffering when Sam died, and it was well known in Moorend that his school at High Clough and what might almost be called a nursery for working mothers at his mills relieved the worry of those who worked his looms. He had done what no man would do that she knew of and that was marry the woman who had dishonoured him with his own brother, accepting the resulting child as his own. This good man had done nothing to deserve what those Weaver brothers had done to him. He had given them chance after chance, leaving them for months to muddle through, to work the farm, to pay the owing rents, and turned a blind eye to their poaching. He had shown his beneficence in a hundred ways to scores of folk but if it was spoken about he would get angry and deny his good deeds as though they were something to be ashamed of. His poor battered face, hardly recognisable as the one she had kissed the night before, lay on the pillow. His blackened eyes were closed, his long eyelashes – why had she not recognised how long and thick they were? – made a fan on his bruised cheek and with a gentle movement she leaned over him and kissed them. He was deep under the sedative Doctor John had given him and did not wake but his mouth lifted at the corner in a half smile.

  She was sitting by his bedside after Doctor John had left, holding his hand and her mind went back over all the quiet, unobserved acts of caring her husband had performed. He showed a face of calmness, steady and even remote, but his heart was warm, decent, generous and that warmth was beginning to percolate into her own heart where before only Chris had resided. In the last few days he had done his best to allay her fears in respect of his brother who was intimidating their calm lives and the lives of her children. He had ridden out to Foxwell, again in her defence, to rid them of the menace of the Weaver family and here he lay, battered and unconscious and still he was threatened by Roly Sinclair. Still he was to know no peace.