Apple Tree Lean Down (The Apple Tree Saga Book 1) Read online

  Apple Tree Lean Down

  The Apple Tree Saga Book 1

  Mary E. Pearce

  Copyright © 2017 The Estate of Mary E. Pearce

  This edition published 2018 by Wyndham Books

  (Wyndham Media Ltd)

  27, Old Gloucester Street, London WC1N 3AX

  First published 1973

  www.wyndhambooks.com/mary-e-pearce

  The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, organisations and events are a product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, organisations and events is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  Cover artwork images: © Period Images / Yevhenii Chulovskyi

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  The Apple Tree Saga

  from Wyndham Books

  Apple Tree Lean Down

  Jack Mercybright

  The Sorrowing Wind

  The Land Endures

  Seedtime and Harvest

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Preview: Jack Mercybright by Mary E. Pearce

  Preview: Wyndham Books

  Ah! I do think, as I do tread,

  Theäse paeth, wi’ elems auverhead,

  A-climèn slowly up from Brudge,

  By easy steps, to Broadoak Rudge,

  That all theäse roads that we do bruise

  Wi’ hosses’ shoes, or heavy loads;

  And hedges’ bands, where trees in row

  Do rise an’ grow aroun’ the lands,

  Be works that we’ve a-found a-wrought

  By our forefathers’ care and thought.

  William Barnes

  Chapter One

  To Beth, for the first eleven years of her life, Grandfather Tewke was merely a strange old man who sometimes passed through the village, driving a smart little pony and trap. He never came to call at the cottage, nor even glanced towards it, but drove past with his gaze fixed on the road, his head held back, and his billycock tilted over his eyes. ‘There goes your grandpa, cross as two sticks and twice as snappy,’ Kate would say. ‘Somebody’s in for a sharp bit of business this morning, I shouldn’t wonder.’ And John Tewke, coming home from Capleton or Chepsworth, would sometimes say he had passed the old man on the road. ‘He gave me a nod and I did the same for him and that was all that was said between us!’

  Once, when Beth was sitting on the front doorstep, shelling peas, Grandfather Tewke went by on foot, across the green and up to the church. He passed so close that Beth could hear the squeak of his boots and the jingle of coins on his watch-chain, and could see the silver hairs that sprouted from his long fine nose. But even then, passing so close that his shadow fell across her, he took care not to glance her way. Beth was seven or eight by then, and beginning to ask questions.

  ‘Seems like Grandfather Tewke don’t know who I am,’ she said when she went indoors. ‘He don’t never nod nor nothing when he goes by.’

  ‘He knows who you are well enough,’ Kate said. ‘He couldn’t well fail to, seeing that you’re the spitten image of your dad. But he’s queer with us. He likes to pretend we don’t exist.’

  ‘Why does he?’

  ‘You ask your father,’ Kate said. ‘He’s the one for telling stories, sitting there with nothing to do. Here, give me them peas!’

  Kate was always too busy to stop and talk, but John Tewke would always make time, and now, having put aside his paper, he drew Beth onto his knees.

  ‘Let’s have a look at you,’ he said. ‘Your mother says you’re the spitten image of me, but I dunno about that, I’m sure. You’ve got a corn-thatch of fair hair like mine, it’s true, but you ent got a beard, have you? Eh? You ent got a fine set of gingery whiskers like mine?’

  ‘Such nonsense you talk!’ Kate said. ‘Such nonsense you talk, instead of telling the child what she wants to know.’

  ‘All right. Anything for a quiet life.’ He leant back in his chair, leaving Beth to balance as best she could on his knees. ‘Your grandpa and me fell out,’ he said. ‘Years ago, before you was born, and all on account of my leaving the carpenters’ shop.’

  ‘Where is the carpenters’ shop?’ Beth asked. ‘Is it far from here?’

  ‘Laws, no! It’s only the other end of Huntlip, out by the Middening turn. There’s a house there called Cobbs and there’s ten acres of land, too, left over from the days when the Tewkes was farmers. Your grandpa turned the old stables into a workshop and over the years he’s built up a tidy business there. That’s why he took it so hard when I cut loose like I did.’

  ‘Why did you cut loose?’

  ‘Because I didn’t want to be a carpenter all my life, that’s why. I wasn’t happy, whittling away at old bits of wood all day. That went against the grain with me somehow.’

  He looked at her with a little smile, but she remained perfectly solemn, ignoring his joke and waiting for him to go on with his story.

  ‘Mind you, I served my time,’ he said proudly. ‘I could turn my hand to any carpentry job you care to mention. Ah, and make a better showing than most, I dare say.’

  Kate was rattling spoons and forks on the table.

  ‘Hark at you!’ she said. ‘I’ve got a washboard there that’s all worn to splinters, and I’ve got a chair with its arms broke off. In fact, there’s a score of jobs just crying out for you to show your famous skill, John Tewke.’

  ‘I know! I know! And I’ll tackle the lot together one day, when the spirit moves me.’ He winked at Beth. ‘Your mother don’t understand,’ he said. ‘But that’s murder to me, taking a tool in my hands after all them years in the workshop. It gives me the creeps just to think about it.’

  ‘It’s a pity for you!’ Kate said. ‘It’s a crying shame, it is, really!’

  ‘Now horses is something different,’ he said. ‘There’s something about an untrained horse that makes me just itch to work him. I dunno why it is, but I’ve got a feeling for horses that I never had for timber, and hardly a day goes by that I don’t thank my lucky stars I’m out of that workshop. But I’m sorry the old man’s as sore as he is.’

  ‘The old man is silly,’ Beth declared.

  ‘Oh, I dunno. He likes his own way, that’s all. I’m the same, only I get my way with the horses, you see, and that’s enough to keep me happy. Which is just as well, ’cos I don’t get much of a say at home, do I? Your mother’s the gaffer here and no mistake!’

 
And he nodded and winked, making faces and wagging his beard until Beth had to laugh even though she knew that his nonsense vexed her mother. He liked to pretend that Kate ruled him, that he was under her thumb, but the truth was, that although she nagged and grumbled, Kate very rarely had her own way. He was the one who made the decisions, and she obeyed his slightest wish.

  There were often quarrels between them because she, according to him, had no sense of fun, and he, according to her, had far more than his proper share. There were quarrels, too, because he was foolish with money.

  ‘Kate, you look as though all the woes of the world’ve sat theirselves down on your shoulders.’

  ‘So I might, with a husband who comes home market-merry, stinking of beer and refusing good food.’

  ‘Dammit! A man’s entitled to a little celebration, surely? Specially after a day’s successful business. How much d’you think I got for that mare and her foal?’

  ‘I’ve no notion, but I hope it was more than you paid out on feed, that’s all.’

  ‘More! Of course it was more! Here, take these two sovereigns and put them away in your purse. I rely on you to make them last.’

  ‘And where’s the rest gone to, I wonder?’

  ‘Ploughed back into the business, that’s where. I bought a couple of cobs from a Welshman. And here, Kate, you’ll never guess who I saw at Ross!’

  ‘Who?’ Kate asked.

  ‘Everybody I looked at!’ he said.

  ‘Oh, get away, you great tipsy fool!’

  ‘Beth! Your mother’s as grave as a churchyard today. How did I come to marry a woman like her?’

  ‘Nobody else wouldn’t have you, I don’t suppose.’

  ‘Hah! So now my daughter’s turning against me and all! Well, that’s a pity, that is, for it means she won’t want the present I’ve bought her.’

  ‘What present?’ Beth said.

  ‘Oh, just a little work-basket with needles and coloured threads and a little tambour, that’s all. It’s nothing much. I reckon I’ll give it to Hetty Minchin.’

  ‘No!’ Beth said. ‘You must give it to me.’

  ‘Well, what do I get in exchange, then, eh? Don’t I get a kiss? And what do I get from my wife for this nice plaid shawl I bought her? Oh, that’s smiles all round now, ent it? It’s a wonderful thing, the way the women know how to get round a man. They’re nearly human, the way they know!’

  ‘That’s all very fine,’ Kate said. ‘But you ought to save your money, seeing we never know where the next lot is coming from, nor when. Shawls indeed! No wonder I’m grey.’

  Always, after the horse-market or horse-fair, the scene was the same. Kate knew she would never change him and yet she continued to scold. But Beth, although she began, as a small child will, by echoing all her mother’s complaints, soon learnt instead to accept him as he was. He was her father, and that was enough. He brought warmth and colour into her life, and comforted her when she was sad.

  ‘Where’s the sun today, then? Gone behind the clouds? Ah, I’ll soon make you laugh, you see if I don’t! How much do you bet? A shilling on the nose or a penny for every nail in a shoe? There, that’s better! That’s the face I like to see!’

  Sometimes, in the evenings, she sat on his lap, mending the rents in his clothes or sewing on his buttons. She went through his pockets, removing the contents, blowing them clean of dust and fluff, sorting and making them tidy, and then restoring them one by one.

  ‘That’s my tobacco-pouch, and a bit thin in tobacco, too,’ he would say. ‘And that’s my twitch. Ah, and that there is a knob of coal I found in the road this evening. Put it back. It might bring me luck.’

  When the weather was bad, he stayed at home and was lazy. He sat in his chair, with his feet on the hob, his hands tucked in the waist of his breeches, letting Kate struggle in with pails of water or bundles of wood. But out on the common, working his horses, he often drove himself until he was numb with exhaustion, and at these times, it was Beth’s duty to fetch him home and stop him from falling asleep in a ditch on the way. Often, he walked twenty miles to a sale, and coming home, leading a couple of raw new colts, perhaps, his arms would be bruised black and blue all the way to the shoulders. ‘The beggars led me a dance,’ he would say, ‘but I’ll do the same for them in the morning.’

  Farmers all around Huntlip respected him for his honesty and for his judgment. They entrusted their money to him, to buy good horses for work in the fields, and they often asked him to doctor their cows. Beth, if she could, went with him on these errands about the farms, and once, when they were taking a cart-horse to Middening, he pointed out the place where Grandfather Tewke lived and carried on his business.

  ‘There you are. That’s Cobbs, where I was born, and there’s the carpenters’ shop I told you about that time.’

  He preferred to avoid meeting the old man, and so he stood well past the gateway, in a place where the hedge grew high. But Beth, sitting up on the horse, could see right over. She could see the house, with its black timbers and its panels of warm red brick and its twisty chimneys, half in sunshine, half in the shade of surrounding oaks and elms. She could see the big workshop yard, with its stacks of planking all around, and the sawyers at work in a cloud of dust in the sawpit. And she could see the carpenters moving about within the long, low workshop. The sound of their hammering came through the open doors and echoed all around the enclosure, and the sound of the saw was like the voice of some great tireless chiffchaff.

  ‘Laws, what a din!’ her father said. ‘Specially your grandpa. There’s nothing he likes better than that old ding-dong all day long. Here, Beth, can you see him anywhere about?’

  ‘No, but I reckon he’s there somewhere, the way the men are shifting theirselves in the workshop.’

  ‘I’m glad it’s them and not me!’

  ‘I can see Sam Lovage,’ Beth said. ‘And Bobby Green. They’re hopping about like crumbs on a griddle.’

  ‘Can you see the big oak growing there in the yard?’

  ‘I should think I just can! The size it is, I couldn’t hardly miss it, could I?’

  ‘That’s been there since domesday, that old oak tree. It’s been there ever since the house was built and that’s going back a year or two.’

  ‘Grandfather Tewke’s come out of the door,’ Beth said. ‘He’s looking this way with a bit of a squint. I suppose he thinks I’m walking on hopstilts, up in the air like this.’

  ‘Time we moved on, then,’ her father said, and pulled at the bridle. ‘We don’t want him to think we’re snooping, do we, eh? Even if we are.’

  ‘Does he live all alone in that big house?’

  ‘Yes, he does, and he must be lonely sometimes.’

  ‘That’s his own fault,’ Beth said.

  ‘Maybe it is, but I’m sorry for him all the same. And I’m sorry for you, too, ’cos I’ve gone and done you out of a grandpa.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ Beth said.

  When she was not at school, she spent her days up on the common, watching her father at work. But she had to be good, and keep away from the horses. She had to be quiet, and not make a fuss when he used his whip. She must sit like a little mouse, he told her, and then, when they ate their dinner together, she should have a share of his beer.

  In spring, the upper slopes of the common were yellow with flowering gorse. The colour leapt and danced in the sun. The scent was rich on the changing air. Beth would be out day after day, from the first blink of light to the last, till her father came and swept her up in his arms and carried her home in a trance to bed. She swam to sleep with the singing of larks in her ears, and the taste of the day still sweet on her tongue, and the yellow flare of the gorse blossom would go with her into her dreams.

  In summer, she had to be careful to wear a hat. Her mother was very strict about it. But her fair skin always burnt just the same, and the freckles would smother her cheeks and nose. She never cared, however much her mother scolded, for she liked to feel the heat of
the sunshine stored in her skin.

  As she grew older, her father began to give her a few little duties to perform. He let her reward the horses with bits of oil-cake. He allowed her to mix their feed. But he never allowed her to ride them, even when they were broken in to the saddle.

  ‘No, not Paddy. No, nor Tessa, neither. They’re too full of fire. Look at that Paddy! Just look at the way he rolls his eyes. Why, if you was to get on his back, he’d pitch you into that there pond in no time at all.’

  ‘Why would he?’

  ‘Well, he’s bigger than you for a start, and he’s got his pride, too, you see. He’d think you had a sauce, getting up on his back, an oddity bit of a girl like you.’

  ‘But he’s bigger than you, too.’

  ‘Ah, and a lot better looking, I dare say?’

  ‘He lets you ride him,’ Beth said.

  ‘Only just! It’s touch and go oftentimes. But he’s getting to know that I mean to be master, and he knows I’ve got the answer to all his tricks. Here! I’ll tell you what! One of these days,’ he’d say, ‘I’ll fix you up with a nice polite little pony of your own, and teach you to ride like a proper lady, side-sitting saddle and crop and all. How’s that?’

  ‘When?’

  ‘One of these days! You’ll see.’

  Later the pony was duly bought at Capleton Mop. His name was Silas, and he was a four-year-old gelding, sooty brown about the body, sooty black in mane and tail. He was mild as milk and already schooled. Beth learnt to ride in a saddle, specially made for her by James Bluff, and to carry her crop with a certain air. But what she liked best was to mount the pony just whenever the impulse moved her, and to sway along, letting him carry her slowly about as he pleased. She liked the feel of the rough mane between her fingers, and she liked to feel the shape and strength of his body surging beneath her.

  ‘Oh, you’ll break my heart,’ her father said. ‘You’ve got no style. You’ve got no seat. Don’t you want to ride like a lady?’

  ‘No,’ Beth said. ‘I just want to be what I am.’