The Land Endures (The Apple Tree Saga Book 4) Read online

  ‘No!’ she said. ‘You leave him alone!’

  ‘He can play if he wants to, bossy thing!’

  ‘He doesn’t want to. He’s talking to me.’

  ‘Bossy old thing!’ said Evie Wilkes. ‘You ent his sister or anything!’

  ‘I’m his friend.’

  But the children had hold of Robert’s arms, and he was pulled from Emma’s grasp. In another moment he was part of their ring, dancing with them across the playground.

  Emma sat on the toolshed step. Winnie Aston joined her there.

  ‘I dreamt my tooth came out last night and when I woke up it really had.’ She drew back her lip and revealed the gap. ‘I planted it in the garden,’ she said. ‘It’ll grow to be twopence in a day or two.’

  ‘How will it?’ Emma asked.

  ‘Mum will put the money there.’ Winnie sucked at the space in her mouth. ‘Do you ever dream much, Emma?’ she asked.

  ‘Sometimes I do,’ Emma said.

  ‘What sort of things do you dream about?’

  ‘All sorts of things, the same as you.’

  ‘Yes, but what? Can’t you remember?’

  ‘Once I dreamt about Aunt Doe’s violin.’

  ‘Yes? What happened?’ Winnie asked.

  ‘I dreamt I could play it, that’s all.’

  ‘You can’t really, I don’t suppose.’

  ‘No,’ Emma said, ‘it was only a dream.’

  Her apple was just a core now. She threw it into the nettles nearby.

  ‘Can you play the violin?’ she asked.

  Winnie Aston gave a shrug.

  ‘I could if I wanted to,’ she said.

  At home these days, when Emma talked, they noticed a change in her way of speech. Working out a sum aloud, ‘It’s fivepence-three-fardens!’ she announced, and, talking of the spaniel, Sam, who was sick, ‘He’s off his fettles,’ she explained.

  Chris and Jamesy were much amused.

  ‘Our little Emma is getting quite broad.’

  ‘Broad your own-self!’ Emma said.

  The two boys were beside themselves, but Joanna fiercely disapproved.

  ‘Don’t encourage her!’ she said. ‘She shouldn’t be allowed to talk like that. “Coal-skiddle” and “cloe’s-hoss”! That’s what she’s picking up at school!’

  ‘If she picks up no worse than that,’ said Aunt Doe, ‘I for one will not be too worried.’

  And Stephen, taking his cue from her, smiled at Emma across the table.

  ‘Emma’s doing well at school. She got ten out of ten for Scripture today and nine out of ten for composition. She’s quite a good scholar, aren’t you, Emma?’

  He worried about her, all the same, because he had thrust her into a school where the children were an unknown quantity. He would have to keep an eye on her, especially in these early days.

  But this was September, and he was busy. The weather was open so far, and ploughing was going on apace. Often, with the other men, he ploughed from first light to mid-afternoon, and sometimes, with a fresh team, carried on until darkness fell. He was putting more and more land down to grass; growing more rape, more kale, more swedes; and planning to grow more sugar-beet. The open weather could not last for ever. There was much to be done before it broke.

  ‘If we had a tractor,’ Chris said, ‘we could get done in no time at all.’

  ‘I can’t afford one,’ Stephen said.

  On Chepsworth Fair Day the weather broke and from then onwards there was endless rain. All land work was at a halt and Stephen had time for other things. He had time to think of his little daughter, setting out for school every morning, dressed in her oilskins and rubber boots. Was she happy at the school? It was difficult to tell.

  ‘Next year when I’m eight,’ she said to him, ‘I shall be in Miss Izzard’s class.’

  Chapter Six

  Joanna had a new ambition. She thought she would like to be an actress. Aunt Doe was inclined to approve; she had had some experience of amateur theatricals in her youth; and she suggested that the children should put on a play for Christmas, inviting all the men from the farm, with their wives and families. Joanna was taken with the idea, but what play could they perform with the limited cast that they could muster?

  ‘When I was a girl,’ said Aunt Doe, ‘we always used to write our own.’

  Once again she had sown a seed, and this was how Joanna and Jamesy, one Saturday morning in November, came to be sitting in the attic, biting their pens. It was a dark and dreary day. The little lamp had been lit on the table. Emma was trying to knit a scarf.

  ‘Am I going to be in the play?’

  ‘No, you’re too small,’ Joanna said.

  ‘Can I help to write it, then?’

  ‘Don’t be silly. You wouldn’t know how.’

  ‘I would if you showed me,’ Emma said.

  ‘Do be quiet! I’m trying to think.’

  Chris, who had a few minutes to spare, found his way up to the attic.

  ‘What’s it about, this play of yours?’

  ‘Pirates, for one thing,’ Jamesy said.

  ‘Oh no it isn’t!’ Joanna said.

  ‘Well, the bit I’ve written is, so there!’

  ‘What’s it going to be called?’ asked Chris.

  ‘Captain Terror,’ Jamesy said. He had been to the cinema recently, and Douglas Fairbanks was his god.

  ‘Really! I ask you!’ Joanna said, spreading her hands to Chris in dismay. ‘How can I act in a play about pirates?’

  ‘That’s easy,’ Chris said. ‘You’ll be the plucky heroine, held to ransom on the high seas. A proud, beautiful haughty girl.’

  ‘Why don’t you join us and write it down?’

  But Chris was a man now; he worked on the farm; the writing of plays was kids’ stuff. What little leisure time he had was spent upon more robust pursuits.

  ‘I’m waiting for Gerald as a matter of fact. I only looked in for a moment or two. But you’re quite welcome to use my ideas.’

  ‘Rats to you!’ Jamesy said.

  He threw his bunjy at the closing door and went back to biting his pen. Joanna by now was making notes. Emma, on her knees under the table, was disentangling her ball of wool, which had rolled around the legs of her chair.

  ‘Do stop jogging!’ Joanna said. ‘Can’t you see I’m trying to write?’

  Emma put her wool on its needles, dropped her knitting into its bag, and slipped quietly out of the room. The other two hardly heard her go.

  There was an old disused quarry between Holland Farm and Outlands. Thorn trees and rowans grew from its sides, with clumps of bramble and gorse and briar, and water collected in its bottom. Up on the rim, against the fence, a spindle tree grew, leaning over the edge.

  Emma had to climb onto the fence and stand on the topmost rickety bar, leaning out over the quarry, before she could reach the spindleberries. The tree shook when she broke off the sprays, and a shower of raindrops fell on her. The fence creaked under her and one of its bars, breaking with a crack, let her down suddenly. Her arms and legs were badly scratched, but she had her sprays of spindleberries, and she was well pleased. She walked along the path skirting the quarry and down into Stoney Lane.

  There was a cottage in the lane. A tiny place, in need of repair. One of its windows hung awry, and its roof was patched with a piece of tin. The little boy, Robert Mercybright, stood perched on a ledge inside the gate, leaning over it, dangling his arms. Emma stopped and stared at him.

  ‘Is this where you live?’ she asked, surprised.

  Robert answered with a nod.

  ‘Is your mother indoors?’ she asked.

  ‘No, she’s gone to the shop,’ he said. ‘Granddad’s at work. The thresher’s come.’

  The noise of the threshing machine could be heard, throbbing away over at Outlands, and smoke could be seen among the trees. Emma looked at the little boy and showed him the sprays of spindleberries, coral-coloured, waxy, smooth, breaking from their rough pink husks, among t
he russet-coloured leaves.

  ‘I’m going down to the village,’ she said. ‘You can come with me if you like.’

  ‘No, I mustn’t,’ Robert said.

  ‘Come just a little way, down the lane.’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘I dussn’t dare.’

  ‘Your mother won’t mind. I’m sure she won’t. I shall look after you, little boy.’

  ‘Mother always says to stay.’

  ‘I daresay we’ll meet her, if we go down. We’ll be able to help her to carry things. She’s probably nearly home by now.’

  It took a long time to persuade Robert to open the gate and step out into the lane with her. He looked at her with anxious eyes. But Emma took him by the hand and he went with her down past the farm; then up the track to the wicket gate; and out onto the open hill.

  He really was very small, and the way he put his hand into hers, tiny fingers finding their way, stealing in warmly and clinging to hers, made her feel very grown-up. She looked down at him from a greater height, and he looked up at her, dark-eyed and grave. She liked his dark eyes and straight black hair, and she liked his small features, so neatly made. Her only wish was to see him smile.

  ‘They used to have Punch and Judy shows up here. That’s why they call it Puppet Hill. A long time ago, my father says.’

  ‘I want to go back now,’ Robert said.

  ‘Come just a little way further on.’

  ‘How much further on?’ he asked.

  ‘Down to those chestnut trees in that lane.’

  Kicking through the leaves in Cricketers Lane, Robert forgot about going back. He became absorbed in watching his feet, moving forward so rapidly, stirring up the damp dead leaves so that their colours were constantly changing, a red-brown flurry around his legs. Emma too kicked up the leaves, and they danced together along the lane, the wetness soaking the front of their clothes.

  All the way across the village playing-field, they saw no sign of Robert’s mother, nor was she coming along the road. They stood outside the gate for a while, but the road was empty in both directions. The village lay to the left of them. Emma turned towards the right.

  ‘No!’ Robert said. ‘I want to go home.’

  ‘You can’t go home by yourself,’ Emma said. ‘Don’t be silly. Come along.’

  ‘This ent the way to the shop,’ he said. ‘We should’ve gone the other way.’

  But Emma’s strength was greater than his. She was able to pull him along. And soon they stood at two tall gates, peering through the bars into a yard, stacked up high with timber planking. To the right of the gate, above the hedge, stood a large wooden notice-board, painted boldly in black on white. Tewke and Izzard, carpenters, est. 1850; and beyond the great square stacks of timber, stood the old carpenter’s workshop, backed by bushes and nut-trees.

  This was Saturday, nearly lunch-time. There was not much activity in the workshop; only the sound of a man sawing wood and the jaunty whistling of a tune. Emma and Robert moved on, turned left down a narrow lane, and stood at yet another gate. Beyond stood a big old timbered house. It had enormous twisted chimneys. Smoke rose from one of them.

  ‘Do you know this place?’ Emma asked.

  Robert nodded. He looked at her.

  ‘Whose house is it?’ Emma asked.

  ‘Auntie Betony’s house,’ he said.

  ‘Does anybody else live there?’

  ‘Uncle Jesse. Auntie Beth.’

  ‘Anyone else besides them?’

  ‘Uncle Dicky. Granna Kate.’ Robert thought for a moment or two. ‘Great-grumpa Tewke, he lives there too.’

  Emma stood and frowned at the house. A great many people lived in it. Were they all at home today? Its windows, shadowed, gave no clue.

  ‘Why don’t you go and knock on the door?’

  ‘No,’ Robert said. He resisted her shove.

  ‘Are you frightened?’ Emma asked.

  Robert’s gaze was deep and still.

  ‘I ent frightened. No, no not me.’

  ‘Why won’t you go and knock, then?’

  ‘I don’t want to. I want to go home.’

  ‘Don’t you want to see your auntie Betony?’

  ‘I seen her yesterday, in school.’

  Emma, reluctantly, turned away. She took the little boy’s hand again.

  Betony had spent the morning in Chepsworth, selling poppies from door to door, raising money for Earl Haig’s Fund founded to help ex-servicemen. For today was the eve of Armistice Day, when people everywhere would remember their dead, and some would spare a thought for the living.

  At one house, in Albion Square, a well-dressed woman of middle age sighed as she searched her purse for a coin.

  ‘Five years afterwards,’ she said, ‘and we’re still paying for that dreadful war!’

  Across the square, on the other side, two old soldiers stood in the gutter, one on crutches, the other blind. The blind man played an accordion, the man on crutches played a flute. A collection box stood on the ground and on it the one word ‘Passchendaele’.

  ‘They are the ones who are still paying,’ Betony thought as she crossed the square.

  Just before lunch-time she was driving through Huntlip on her way home. She had passed over Millery Bridge when she saw the two children, Robert and Emma, coming towards her along the road. She stopped the trap and spoke to them.

  ‘You’re a long way from home,’ she said. ‘What are you doing right out here?’

  ‘We’ve been for a walk,’ Emma said.

  ‘Just by yourselves, the two of you?’

  ‘Yes. We came over Puppet Hill.’

  Betony looked at the little boy and saw the anxiety in his eyes.

  ‘Does your mother know where you are, Robert?’

  ‘His mother wasn’t there,’ Emma said. ‘She’d gone out and left him all by himself.’

  ‘So you decided to take him for a walk?’

  Emma nodded. She looked away. Her small face was blank, abstracted, still.

  ‘You shouldn’t have brought him away like that,’ Betony said quietly. ‘His mother will worry when she gets home.’

  ‘His mother’s gone to the shop,’ Emma said. ‘We thought we’d meet her on the way.’ She looked directly at Betony. ‘You said I was to be his special friend.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. So I did.’

  ‘I brought him to see you. We went to your house. But Robert was shy. He wouldn’t knock.’

  ‘Why did you bring him to see me?’

  ‘I don’t know. I just thought I would.’

  ‘Well,’ said Betony, hiding a smile, ‘I think it’s time you were both back home.’

  She took them up into the trap and turned back into the village. There was no sign of Linn on the way. The shop, when they passed it, was closed for lunch. She drove out to School Lane and turned off up Holland Bank. The two children sat close to her, Emma with her sprays of spindleberries cradled in the crook of her arm.

  ‘What beautiful spindleberries ‒ where did you find them?’ Betony asked.

  ‘Up by the edge of the old quarry.’

  ‘Isn’t it dangerous up there?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ Emma said.

  When they reached the track leading off to the farm, Betony stopped and let the child down.

  ‘Wait, you’ve left your berries,’ she said.

  She picked up the sprays from the seat of the trap and leant down to give them to the child. Emma refused them. She shook her head.

  ‘I don’t want them. I picked them for you.’

  She turned and went dancing up the track.

  Betony, as she drove on, put her arm round the little boy and gave him a reassuring squeeze. His face was still puckered with anxiety and when, on nearing Lilac Cottage, he saw his mother out in the lane, his hand crept into Betony’s.

  ‘Where have you been, you naughty boy? How dare you disobey me like that?’ Linn’s angry gaze switched to Betony. She stood accusingly by the trap. ‘What do you mean by com
ing here, waiting until my back is turned, and taking my son away with you? I’ve been worried out of my mind. Coming home to an empty house! Nothing to tell me where he’d gone! If such a thing ever happens again.’

  ‘I didn’t take him,’ Betony said. ‘He went for a walk with Emma Wayman. It seems she passed here, earlier on, and persuaded Robert to go with her.’

  ‘Emma Wayman?’ Linn said.

  ‘One of the children from Holland Farm.’

  ‘She had no right to do such a thing!’

  ‘They took the pathway over the hill. They thought they’d meet you on your way back from the shop.’

  ‘I didn’t come across the hill. I had a lift in Ricks’s cart.’ Linn reached up to her small son and lifted him down with a show of roughness. She leant over him, straightening his clothes.

  ‘You’re a naughty boy, going off like that! I’ve always trusted you before and now you’ve gone and let me down! I’m disappointed in you. It seems I can’t trust you after all.’ Robert was silent. He hung his head.

  ‘You’d better go in now and wash your hands.’ She sent him on his way with a gentle push. ‘I’ll have more to say to you presently.’

  ‘Don’t be too hard on him,’ Betony said.

  ‘He really must be made to obey.’

  ‘I’m sure it’ll never happen again.’

  ‘What about this Wayman child? Why should she come and entice him away?’

  ‘I suppose she wanted company. She knows Robert at school, you see, and I asked her to be his special friend.’

  ‘What are her family thinking of, letting her wander about like that, right away from her own home?’

  ‘Lots of children go out alone. It isn’t so very far after all.’

  ‘She’s only a little thing, isn’t she? Supposing something had happened to her?’

  ‘Nothing did happen,’ Betony said. ‘I’ve just delivered her at the farm.’

  ‘But things do happen. You know they do. Mr Wayman’s wife, for a start. She was suffocated in the mud of a pond, in broad daylight, on a summer’s day, and no one around to hear her call. There’s a lot of carelessness, if you ask me, up there at Holland Farm.’

  ‘You may be right,’ Betony said. She thought of Emma, out alone, picking sprays of spindleberries from a tree that grew by the edge of the quarry. ‘Things do happen, as you say.’