Eve and Her Sisters (12 page)

Eve was staring at him with some concern and uncomfortably he explained away his grimace by saying, ‘A tooth’s giving me some gyp. It catches me now and again, that’s all.’

‘Oil of cloves is good for toothache. I’ve got some in the kitchen somewhere. I’ll sort it out for you.’

‘I’d as soon have a cup of tea if it’s all the same to you.’

‘Come on then.’ Smiling, she washed her hands in one of the deep stone sinks and then followed Caleb into the kitchen. He was sitting at the table and at the sight of him her heart flooded with the feeling she was finding more and more difficult to hide. She had first become aware of it a few months after they had been at the inn. They had been alone one night, Nell had begun the first of her monthlies and had retired early to bed with tummy ache. They had been sitting very much like this, having a cup of tea and a slice of cake together, and she had asked him if he would help her send for her father’s trunk which they had left with a neighbour. One thing had led to another and she had found herself telling him the whole story bit by bit, even the fact that she and Nell weren’t as old as she had claimed.

He had been very kind and gentle with her, drying her eyes when she had cried over Mary and telling her it wasn’t her fault. The next day he had gone himself to fetch the trunk and when he had returned she had noticed the knuckles on his right hand were raw and bleeding. He never told her exactly what had happened, merely stating that Josiah Finnigan wouldn’t touch another bairn for many a long day. It was then she had known she was falling in love with him and the feeling had grown month by month until now it was such a part of her she couldn’t imagine feeling any other way. It was hopeless, she knew that. Caleb did not love her and never would but he did see her as a friend and confidante and with that she was content.

The ridiculousness of such a thought made her movements abrupt as she mashed a pot of tea and brought out a fruit cake she’d made the day before. How could she be content, loving him as she did? One day he would take up with a lass, there had been more than one who had thrown herself at him since she had known him but none had lasted long. But there
would
be a lass he wouldn’t grow tired of, a girl who would capture his heart. But she’d face that when the time came.

If only she had something about her. She sliced the fruit cake and put two thick shives on a plate and pushed it towards Caleb. Nell would always be plump but as her sister had matured, the wealth of her bust and the generous curve of her hips had drawn some lads’ eyes to her, and Nell had an easy manner, she was witty, warm. Mary was already a beauty.Tall and slim, with a mass of golden hair, she’d have the lads falling over themselves to walk out with her. But she herself had neither Nell’s womanliness nor Mary’s beauty. She wasn’t ugly: perhaps it would have been better if she had been because her plainness made her unnoticable. At least ugly people got a reaction of sorts. And she had long since ceased hoping her small breasts would bud into something fuller. Tall and thin, she had no shape at all.

‘This is grand.’ Caleb had already finished one slice of cake and now reached for his mug of tea. ‘You’re a canny cook, Eve Baxter. Everything you make melts in the mouth.’

‘And you’ve a silver tongue, Caleb Travis.’

‘Not so. Even my mother has been forced to concede your fruit cake is second to none.’

‘Not in my hearing.’ Since the time she had stood up to Mildred a state of war had existed between them and would until the day one of them died. Only the fact that the trouble with Caleb’s mother’s back had proved to be a permanent thing which confined her to bed most of the time had enabled Eve to stay at the inn. She had little to do with the older woman, rarely venturing into Mildred’s room. She cooked her meals but it was Caleb or Mary who served them. Eve knew that had she been forced into greater contact with Mildred she would not have been able to stand it. Mildred was a spiteful woman, cold and calculating, and she knew from various comments Mary had let drop during the last three years that Caleb’s mother had done her best to turn Mary against her.

Mary herself was well aware of Mildred’s strategies and found them amusing, taking everything she said with a pinch of salt whilst being careful to keep the older woman happy. Mary benefited from this in various ways. Mildred had given her the odd trinket or two, along with a fine brooch which had been Caleb’s grandmother’s. Barely a month passed without Mary receiving a monetary gift from her benefactor for some little thing she had her eye on. Things she made sure Mildred heard about.

‘What would we do without you, Eve.’ Caleb took another big bite of cake.‘You walked into this kitchen and took over as though you’d been born here. I think that’s what really riles my mother. She’d have felt better about it if you’d struggled.’

‘I did at first.’ And at his raised eyebrows, ‘No, I really did, Caleb, but I suppose I’d been running things at home for so long and then with working at the vicarage I’d got used to cooking for a lot of folk when they had their dinner parties. I was off school more than I was at it when I was a bairn.’

‘But you can read and write well.’

Eve shrugged. ‘I suppose so.’ She did not add that the older she had become, the more she understood the thirst for knowledge which William had displayed and lamented her lack of schooling. In spite of being a kind man, Caleb was solid working class. She had heard him speak scathingly of the suffragette movement, especially in the wake of the trouble last year when women had smashed windows in government buildings and business premises. And when more violence had erupted a few weeks ago in June he had expressed the view that a woman’s place was in the home and not meddling with matters they did not,
could not
understand.

It had been one of the few occasions in the last three years when he had made her truly angry. The outcome of the somewhat loud and terse discussion which had followed had been an agreement between the two of them to disagree. She knew that if she said now that reading and writing well was not enough for her, that she wanted to learn so much more about so many things it made her head whirl when she thought about it, he would not understand. It was fine for a woman like Marie Curie to win her second Nobel Prize for her work on radium in Caleb’s eyes. She was one of the gentry and furthermore a foreigner. But an English working-class woman? That was different altogether. It was even more galling to admit that had he for even the slightest moment been attracted to her, she would gladly have put aside any longing for self-betterment like a shot.

‘What’s the matter?’ As she lifted her eyes from her cup of tea, she saw that his deep brown gaze was fixed on her face. ‘My mother hasn’t upset you, has she?’

‘Not at all,’ she answered truthfully.

‘What is it then? Something’s put that look on your face.’

‘I can’t help my face, Caleb.’ Her earlier ruminations gave the words an edge and quickly she added, ‘I suppose I worry about Mary when she’s out, that’s all. She’s too impetuous and she’s not a little bairn any longer.’

‘What do you mean?’ It was sharp.

‘Just that she’s growing up fast. I know some girls look older than they are but it’s not just that with Mary. It’s her manner, the way she is. And she attracts folk to her.’

‘Has she said anything to make you concerned?’

‘No, no, she hasn’t.’ She was sorry she had said anything. Caleb had always assumed the role of a big brother with Mary and Nell and she knew he was protective of them all.

‘She hasn’t mentioned anyone’s been after her? A lad? She’s far too young for anything like that, especially after what happened in Stanley. She’s still a child at heart.’

‘I know that.’ She smiled at him, but he wasn’t looking at her. His eyes were fixed on Mary’s old straw bonnet which was hanging on the back of a chair. His mother had presented Mary with a new one for her birthday.

She stared at him, taking in the look on his face. Her heart began to race, a little whimper deep inside crying, no, no, it’s not true. No, not Mary. She must be imagining things.

And then his eyes left the bonnet and he raked back his hair. He stood up and finished the last of his tea in one gulp. When he glanced at her, it was the old Caleb again. ‘Well, between us we can keep an eye on her, eh? Likely it’ll be easier now she’s working here all day although if I know anything about Mary, you might have to crack the whip now and again.’

He grinned at her and it took more effort than he would ever know for her to smile back and say, ‘I’ve bought one special.’

‘I’d best get on.’ He turned at the door. ‘What time did you say she’d be back?’

‘I didn’t.’ She kept her face blank and her voice even. ‘But I told her to be home by five, there’s plenty to do.’

He nodded. His voice thoughtful, he said, ‘I might take a wander later and make sure she’s not late. What do you think?’

‘I’m sure Mr and Mrs Lindsay will look after her. They’re nice people.’

‘Aye. Aye, you’re probably right.’ He nodded again. ‘You usually are.’

She didn’t want to be right. She didn’t want to be reliable Eve with, as Caleb often said, an old head on young shoulders. It was with gritted teeth she returned to the scullery.

 

‘You’re barmy.You know that, don’t you? She’ll take advantage. Now you’ve let her get away with it once she’ll be off every Saturday afternoon.You mark my words, Eve.’

‘No she won’t. I made it plain I’m allowing it this once because it’s her birthday.’

‘Suffering cat-tails!’ Nell closed her eyes for a moment. ‘Her birthday. The whole inn’s heard nowt but her birthday for the last week an’ more. Anyone would think she was five years old.’

‘Don’t start, Nell.’

‘
Me
start? That’s rich. I bite my tongue every day, lass.’

‘I know she can be difficult—’

‘Difficult? That’s the understatement of the year. Look, Eve,’ Nell bent forward, facing her across the kitchen table, ‘she’s got to pull her weight now she’s left school. I’m out the front now and you can’t do the lot out here. It was never supposed to be that way. She knows that well enough too.’

‘It isn’t. It won’t be.’

Nell shook her head slowly. ‘How often in the past twelve months have you took your half day? Just answer me that.’

Eve flushed.‘What’s that got to do with anything?’ ‘It was arranged with Caleb we’d have Sunday afternoons off, me one week and you the next so there was always someone in the kitchen, but I can count the number of times you’ve took yours on one hand.You’re daft, our Eve. When are you going to learn that by being as nice as you are, you just get walked over?’

‘Who’s walking over me now? Mary or Caleb?’ She was smiling as she said it, trying to diffuse the situation, but Nell was having none of it.

‘There’s more to life than these four walls and the folk in ’em. The world doesn’t revolve around the Sun Inn, Eve.’

‘I know that, Nell.’

‘I’m not sure you do.’ Nell picked up the four steaming bowls of soup Eve had ladled out and placed them on a large tray, along with shives of thickly cut, crusty bread. ‘I’d better take these through. Oh, by the way,’ she said over her shoulder, opening the door into the passageway, ‘one of them lads from Glebe’s pit, Toby Grant, has asked me to walk out with him.’

Eve stared at her sister in surprise. ‘What did you say?’

‘That I was too young to have a lad yet. And he said he was going to keep asking me every week until I decided I was old enough. Saucy devil, he is.’ And with that Nell let the door close behind her.

 

Mary was not home by five o’clock. She wasn’t home by six. And at seven Nell took over in the kitchen while Eve and Caleb went looking for her.

It was a lovely summer’s evening. The July day had been hot, and as they left the inn behind them and walked along Washington Lane towards Fatfield, they passed pale shimmering fields of freshly mown hay which made a mosaic against grain fields which had mellowed to the bronze of harvest. The still air was heavy with the scent of eglantine and hedgerow flowers, and Eve thought that but for the churning worry about Mary she would have taken this evening and Caleb’s unexpected company as a precious gift. As it was, Caleb strode along with a frown on his face and twice she had to ask him to slow down so she could keep up with his long legs.

‘She wants a good hiding, that’s what she needs,’ he muttered as he measured his footsteps to hers for the second time. ‘You’re too lenient with her, Eve. She gets away with murder.’

‘Me?’ The unfairness of it was too much. ‘I’m hardly the only one. You spoil her to death and so does your mother.’ He had given Mary a beautiful little music box that morning which had a ballerina that twirled and danced when you lifted the lid. But then they had all given Mary gifts. Even Nell had bought her three fine lawn handkerchiefs in a little box, saying, ‘Here. You’ve made such a song and dance about it being your birthday, none of us could forget it, more’s the pity.’ That was the thing with Mary. She was selfish and fanciful but you couldn’t help loving her even as your fingers itched to slap some sense into her.

‘Aye, well, it’s going to stop. She has to learn some responsibility. She’s left school now, she has to understand that.’

‘I couldn’t agree more.’

‘She’ll do the work she’s getting paid for, same as everyone else. The running of the inn only works if everyone does their bit.’

‘You might have to inform your mother of that. She’ll still expect Mary to spend most evenings with her.’ Mildred and Mary would sit looking through Mildred’s
People’s Friend
or
The Lady
magazines whilst munching their way through a box of chocolates more often than not.

‘I’ll see to my mother,’ he said grimly. ‘Have no worry on that score. We’re not having a palaver like this every other week. Mary will knuckle down and toe the line, same as everyone else.’