Tangled Threads Read online

  Margaret Dickinson

  Tangled Threads

  PAN BOOKS

  Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Forty-Four

  Forty-Five

  Forty-Six

  Forty-Seven

  Forty-Eight

  Forty-Nine

  Fifty

  Fifty-One

  Fifty-Two

  Fifty-Three

  Fifty-Four

  Fifty-Five

  Fifty-Six

  Fifty-Seven

  Fifty-Eight

  Fifty-Nine

  Sixty

  One

  1900

  ‘I saw you with him near Bernby Covert,’ Jimmy Hardcastle teased his sister when he brought the cows into the byre for evening milking. ‘Wait ’til I tell our mam.’ He paused for greater effect and then added, ‘and Dad.’

  Eveleen grabbed hold of him, her fingers digging into his skinny arm. ‘Don’t you dare,’ she hissed.

  Jimmy laughed disdainfully as he twisted free of her grasp. ‘Stephen Dunsmore’ll never marry the likes of you. Oh, he might get you into trouble, but then he’d be off like a rabbit with a ferret on its tail.’

  Eveleen’s eyes narrowed. ‘What about you getting some poor girl into trouble? I’ve heard about you chasing after Alice Parks. I don’t think Mam’ll be best pleased to hear about that either.’

  ‘She wouldn’t believe you.’

  The brother and sister glared at each other. They were remarkably alike. Seeing them together for the first time, strangers could be forgiven for mistaking them for twins. They were equal in height, even though Jimmy, at sixteen, was a year younger than his sister. They had the same dark brown eyes and the same well-shaped nose that on Eveleen was maybe just a fraction too large for true beauty. Their mouths were wide and generous and usually stretched in ready laughter. They even had the same curly hair, a rich chestnut colour, but while Jimmy’s was cut short, Eveleen’s was a cloud of tangled curls about her face. Though she brushed it one hundred times every night in front of the speckled mirror in the privacy of her bedroom, she could never quite tame it into neatness.

  ‘But I have got nice eyes,’ she would murmur. Eveleen’s soft and gentle eyes, fringed with long dark lashes, belied a mischievous spirit which her mother, however hard she tried, could not quite quell.

  ‘Besides,’ Jimmy went on, ‘if anyone said I’d fathered a child—’ he stepped back out of her reach as he added, ‘I’d say it wasn’t mine.’

  Eveleen gasped. ‘You wouldn’t!’

  ‘’Course I would. It’s what all the lads’d do. Ted told me.’

  Ted Morton was twenty and, in Eveleen’s opinion, not a good influence on her brother. Ted flirted with her, but Eveleen kept him at arm’s length. Literally, for he had never been able even to steal a kiss. She never gave him the chance though she always managed to answer his saucy comments with good-humoured teasing. She had no wish to fall out with Ted. They had grown up together and their fathers, living and working on the same farm estate, were good friends. But Ted Morton was not for her.

  Now Stephen Dunsmore, she was thinking, he’s a different matter. Her knees trembled at the mere thought of him.

  Jimmy’s voice broke into her daydreaming. ‘It’s different for a girl. If you got in the family way, Mam’d go daft. ’Specially if it was with him. You know what she’s like about “knowing our place”.’ The youth gave a fair impression of their mother’s prim tones. ‘And she wouldn’t think you walking out with our employer’s son was “seemly”.’

  ‘Why ever not?’ Eveleen flashed back. ‘Stephen’s father and our dad used to work side by side in the fields and their fathers before them.’

  ‘I know all about Dad’s tales,’ Jimmy mocked. ‘But now we work for ’em, not with ’em.’ There was resentment in Jimmy’s tone and it deepened as he went on. ‘You don’t see Mr Dunsmore getting his hands dirty nowadays and as for Master Stephen, all he’s good for is riding about the estate all day in his posh clothes handing out his orders. I bet he doesn’t even know how to milk a cow. He’s never had to work from morning ’til night like our dad.’

  To that, Eveleen had no reply. What Jimmy said was true. Ernest Dunsmore, his wife and their son Stephen lived in a large mansion, Fairfield House, just across the fields from the Hardcastles’ home. They had live-in servants and all the men employed on their farm lived in tied farmhouses or cottages. And yet Eveleen had always thought of Stephen as one of them. As a young boy, home for the holidays from boarding school, on warm summer evenings he had joined the games of the children living on his family’s farmland. In the field behind the big house leading down to the beck he had run races with them and played tiggy-off-ground, leaping onto tree stumps or hanging from the branches of trees to avoid being caught and tigged. Then, as the balmy evenings had shadowed into dusk and the younger children had been called in, he had held Eveleen’s hand and walked her home.

  But now they were grown and when they met he held her in his arms and kissed her. He did not walk her home any more in case they were seen. By mutual, silent consent, their recent meetings had been secret.

  Until this moment.

  ‘We were only talking,’ she said now to Jimmy, mentally crossing her fingers.

  ‘Oh aye?’ Jimmy sneered. ‘Why were you hiding in the trees then?’ He shoved his hands in his pockets and walked away, a swagger in his step. He called back over his shoulder. ‘You wait ’til I tell ’em at suppertime.’

  His shrill, nonchalant whistling echoed round the yard as he walked towards the barn.

  Eveleen stared after him. There was nothing she could do. If Jimmy carried out his threat then she was going to be in trouble.

  Two

  At the supper table, Eveleen pushed the food around her plate. Her appetite had deserted her. Was Jimmy really going to carry out his threat?

  ‘What’s the matter, love?’ Walter Hardcastle asked his daughter. ‘Aren’t you hungry?’

  At their father’s tender concern for her, Eveleen saw the spark of jealousy in her brother’s eyes and before she could answer, Jimmy said, ‘She’s in love. That’s what’s up with her.’

  Mary, coming in from the scullery carrying a plate of buttered plum bread, heard only her son’s remark. ‘What’s that? Some girl got her eye on you, Jimmy?’ She sat down next to him and nudged him playfully. ‘Well, I’m not surprised. A handsome young man like you. She’ll be a lucky girl to get you for a husband.’

  Eveleen, despite her growing fear, exchanged a glance with her father and they both had to control their laughter as they saw the horrified expression on Jimmy’s face. ‘Married? Me?’ he spluttered.

  ‘G
ive the lad time, Mary,’ Walter said.

  Mary smiled at her son, reached out and smoothed back the hair from his forehead. ‘I’m only teasing, love. I don’t want to lose you yet a while.’

  Playing up to her as always, Jimmy said artfully, ‘I’ll never find anyone who can cook as good as you, Mam.’

  ‘Oh, go on with you,’ Mary said, but her cheeks were pink with pleasure. It was only as she turned to her daughter that her tone sharpened. ‘Eveleen, eat your supper.’

  Beneath the table, Eveleen swung her foot to kick his shins, but Jimmy kept his feet tucked under his chair. He said no more and, as the meal ended and she began to clear away the dishes, Eveleen thought she had escaped.

  With the sigh of a weary man at the end of a long working day, Walter Hardcastle lowered himself into the wooden chair at the side of the range. He leaned his head against the back of the chair and closed his eyes. Eveleen watched him for a moment, concern in her dark eyes.

  Her father was a tall, thin man with a slight stoop. At forty-three his once dark hair was prematurely grey and deep lines gouged his weather-beaten face. He had removed his heavy boots but still wore the striped shirt, black trousers and waistcoat that were his working clothes. As he warmed his aching feet against the fender, he gave another sigh, but this time it was one of contentment.

  Eveleen smiled fondly and quietly began to stack the dishes.

  Mary fussed around her husband, setting his pipe and tobacco tin within easy reach before she took off the long white apron she had worn all day and sat down opposite him. Then she picked up her pillow lace and bent her head over her work.

  Mary looked much younger than Walter although only three years separated them. Her brown hair, pulled back into a neat bun, had only wisps of grey at the temples. The blue and black striped blouse fitted her still slim figure, assisted to even greater shapeliness by her tightly laced corset, and her neat waist was accentuated by a wide belt fastened with silver clips. But there were lines of strain around her blue eyes and her mouth was often pursed with disapproval. Eveleen, carrying the dishes out into the scullery, knew she was often the focus of this disapproval.

  As she passed Jimmy, still hovering near the door, Eveleen hissed, ‘Well, go if you’re going.’

  Jimmy glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. ‘When I’m good an’ ready.’

  ‘Jimmy,’ came Mary’s voice. ‘Close the door, dear. There’s a draught round my feet.’

  ‘I’m off out, Mam. To Ted’s.’ He knew there would be no objection to him visiting the Mortons just down the lane.

  Mary glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece above the range. ‘Half an hour, then.’ She smiled indulgently at him. ‘Make sure you’re home by ten.’

  Jimmy would take no notice. Eveleen knew she would hear him creeping up the stairs at midnight or later, but she would not tell tales of him. She was holding her breath now, willing him to say no more and go. But her brother was not so loyal.

  ‘I reckon Master Stephen is sweet on our Eveleen,’ he said into the comfortable peace of the room. ‘Can’t think why. I’ve seen better clothes on that scarecrow Ted’s put up in Ten Acre Field.’

  Mary’s fingers were suspended, momentarily idle, above the pillow lace. Eveleen held her breath as her mother glanced at her. Mary’s mouth was suddenly tight.

  Eveleen laughed nervously and said quickly, ‘He’s teasing, Mam.’

  ‘I hope so.’ The creases between Mary’s eyebrows deepened.

  ‘So why’s this part of the farm suddenly needing a great deal of Master Stephen’s attention these days?’ Jimmy asked.

  ‘Could be he’s keeping an eye on you,’ Eveleen countered. ‘Just making sure you’re not slipping off to flirt with one of the milkmaids. Alice, for instance.’

  ‘You’re the only milkmaid in our crewyard,’ Jimmy pointed out. ‘And it’s not me doing the flirting.’

  ‘Thanks, Jimmy,’ Eveleen muttered. He had deliberately ensnared her in a web of trouble.

  ‘I’m off,’ Jimmy said airily. ‘I’ll let you know, Evie, if he’s lurking about the cowhouse waiting to catch sight of you.’ Then he was gone, slamming the door behind him. They heard his whistling fade as he walked across the yard and out into the lane.

  Walter opened his eyes and lifted his head. ‘Dun’t that lad know how to shut a door quietly?’ he murmured, but without real irritation. He began to close his eyes and lean back again, but Mary had no intention now of letting him rest.

  ‘Did you hear what Jimmy said?’ she demanded and then snapped at Eveleen. ‘And just you put those plates down, miss, and come back here. I want an explanation.’

  Eveleen set the plates near the sink in the scullery and, taking a deep breath, returned to the kitchen.

  She heard her father’s deep sigh as he said, ‘What’s the matter now?’

  ‘Jimmy says Master Stephen’s sweet on Eveleen.’ The words were repeated scathingly, as if such a thing could not, should not, be possible. ‘I won’t have it, Walter. I won’t have her getting ideas above herself. It’ll all end in tears.’ Mary leant towards him, her gaze holding his as she added meaningfully, ‘You know it will.’

  Walter leant forward in his chair, his kindly, concerned glance upon his daughter. ‘Has Stephen Dunsmore been bothering you, Eveleen?’

  Now Eveleen could laugh with ease and say, ‘Of course he hasn’t, Dad. Master Stephen’s too nice to do that.’ She ran her tongue around her lips that were suddenly dry as she said carefully, ‘But I can hardly ignore him if he – if he wants to – to talk to me, can I? We’ve been friends for years. Remember how he used to play with us when we were kids?’

  ‘Only because there were no other children from his own class nearby.’

  ‘Oh come now, Mary love,’ Walter remonstrated gently. ‘The Dunsmores aren’t snobs. You can’t accuse them of that. Why, the old man used to work alongside us in the fields. That was Stephen’s grandfather, of course. George. I was only a lad then. Miles and miles he’d walk behind the two shire horses at ploughing time.’

  ‘That’s as maybe,’ Mary snapped, for once impatient with Walter’s reminiscing. ‘But now his son and grandson ride around the estate on a horse instead of walking behind it.’

  Walter shrugged, his kindly, placid nature ready to accept change without a trace of bitterness. ‘Ernest worked hard as a lad, I’ll say that for him, but they’ve done well for themselves, Mary, that’s all. They’ve a big estate to run now.’

  ‘And you really think that the Dunsmores would allow their son to court the daughter of their gathman?’ Mary asked.

  Eveleen felt her father’s gaze upon her. He smiled. ‘Why ever not? She’d make a grand wife for him. Stephen’s a fine young man.’

  Mary leaned forward. ‘I shouldn’t think for a moment that marriage is what the “fine young man” has in mind.’

  Now Walter swivelled his gaze to meet his wife’s angry eyes. The smile left his face and he frowned, concerned now at Mary’s insinuations. He glanced worriedly back to his daughter. ‘Eveleen, has Stephen suggested anything – anything that’s not – not . . .’ he seemed to be struggling to find the right word, ‘proper.’

  Mary too was watching her, awaiting her answer. Eveleen trembled at the memory of Stephen’s kisses beneath the shadows of the trees in Bernby Covert. The way he held her close and murmured in her ear. ‘Oh, Eveleen, how I want you.’

  She ran her tongue around her lips once more but was thankful that she was able to meet their eyes steadily and say, quite truthfully, ‘No, Dad, he hasn’t.’

  ‘Well, mind you never give him the chance,’ Mary snapped.

  ‘Eveleen won’t – what I mean is – she’s . . .’ Walter began.

  A long look passed between her mother and father, a look of mutual understanding and something even more. Memories, perhaps, that their daughter could not share.

  Walter reached across the hearth to touch his wife’s hand in a tender gesture. ‘She’ll be all ri
ght, love. Eveleen will be all right.’

  For a moment Mary held his gaze, then she nodded and lowered her head over her work again, but not before Eveleen had seen unshed tears glistening in her mother’s eyes.

  Three

  Pear Tree Farm, the Hardcastles’ home, was larger than the cottages occupied by the other workers on the estate. It had a large crewyard and cowhouse, two barns, a henhouse and two pigsties. The weekly wash was done in the washhouse attached to the end of the house where a brick copper built into the corner boiled the clothes, and where Eveleen laboured over the rinsing tub and the mangle. The back door of the house itself opened into the scullery and then into the kitchen where the family ate their meals and sat at night near the range which provided heat and hot water and cooked their food. In this one room Mary cooked and baked and ironed. In the centre of the room was a plain wooden table and to one side stood a dresser holding the pots and pans they used every day. In the drawers Mary kept her lace-edged table linen. Down two steps out of the kitchen, the pantry shelves were lined with bottled fruit, home-made jams, chutneys and pickles, and from hooks in the ceiling hung cured hams wrapped in muslin.

  In the far corner of the kitchen, a door led into a small hallway and then into Mary’s best room – the parlour – only used on Sundays and at Christmas. This room, by any farm labourer’s standards, was grand. The walls were papered with heavily patterned green paper and pictures adorned each wall. In a corner cupboard was Mary’s prize possession, a willow-patterned tea service. Above the fireplace was a mantelpiece draped in green fabric to blend with the wallpaper and above that an oval mirror with an elaborately carved wooden frame. A dining table covered with a plush green cloth and four chairs stood in the centre of the room. From the hallway between the two rooms, the staircase led up to the master bedroom, a second smaller room that was Eveleen’s and, beyond that, a long, narrow room with a sloping ceiling where Jimmy slept.

  Only Eveleen ever heard her brother creeping up the stairs late at night and tiptoeing through her room to reach his own.

  Not knowing what had transpired, it was ironic that Stephen chose the very next morning to visit Pear Tree Farm quite openly. Eveleen was in the warm barn, gently turning the eggs in the incubator. Dust floated in the shaft of sunlight slanting through a hole in the rafters and the rays highlighted her chestnut hair with golden tints.