Whispers (15 page)

‘I . . . I don’t really feel up to it,’ Mel muttered, keeping her eyes averted from her mother’s.

‘Rubbish! It’s just what we both need.’ Jess wasn’t going to give up without a fight. ‘You were right about one thing – I
have
been too busy on this house and I feel as if I’ve neglected you. So please come . . . if it’s only for me.’

Sensing victory when Mel didn’t immediately refuse, Jess added,
‘We
could go and have a bit of lunch too and take a look in that cut-price jeweller’s you like so much.’

Still no refusal, so Jess decided to quit while she was ahead and rushed for the door. ‘Right, eat your breakfast and get a quick shower and we’ll go in about an hour.’ Flashing a smile in Mel’s direction, she scurried away to get ready.

Mel finally appeared in the kitchen some time later with a closed look on her face, but at least she was clean and tidy.

‘I’m looking forward to this,’ Jess trilled falsely, snatching up the car keys. ‘Come on, let’s go while the going’s good. We’ve got loads of time before Jo gets home from school.’

Mel reluctantly pulled a sweatshirt over her T-shirt and slid her feet into the trainers at the side of the door before following her mother out to the KA.

On the way into Coventry Jess tried to engage her daughter in conversation but they had barely passed the Bedworth bypass when it became apparent that she might as well bang her head up a brick wall. Mel was staring off out of the window, completely ignoring her, so eventually she gave up and concentrated on her driving. When they arrived in Coventry, Jess put a parking ticket on the car and they headed for the city centre. They visited all Mel’s favourite shops and Jess treated her to new jeans, two new tops and a pair of new trainers, but even these treats didn’t manage to put a smile on the girl’s face and Jess’s patience began to wear thin.

‘How about we go in here for a bit of lunch?’ she suggested, peering through the huge plate-glass window of a very posh-looking Chinese restaurant. Mel loved Chinese food and would normally have jumped at the chance.

‘Actually, I’m not that hungry,’ Mel mumbled, shifting her shopping bags from one hand to the other and looking completely disinterested.

‘Well, that’s tough luck because
I
am.’ Jess pushed the door open and glowered at Mel until she stepped past her. A small Chinese waiter instantly ushered them into a window seat and Jess lifted the menu. ‘Hmm, now what shall we have? Is there anything you particularly fancy, or do you want me to order for you?’

Slouching in her seat with her arms firmly crossed, Mel shrugged but with an effort Jess kept the smile on her face fixed firmly in place. ‘Right, I think we’ll have some chicken chow-mein, some beansprouts and some egg fried rice, please. Oh, and we’ll have a bottle of sparkling water too.’
The
waiter wrote furiously in his book then bowing slightly he scuttled away in the direction of the kitchen as Jess looked at Mel solemnly.

‘So, are you ready to talk to me yet?’ she asked softly.

‘What about?’

‘Oh, come on, Mel. About why you ran away for a start! Do you have
any
idea at all how worried your father and I were? Something must have made you do it. Can’t you tell me about it? I want to help you.’

‘Nobody can help me,’ Mel whispered bleakly as her eyes welled with tears.

Jess felt as if someone had slapped her in the face. Whatever the problem was, it was clearly much more serious than she had thought. She would have probed further but just then the waiter reappeared with their drinks and began to lay out their cutlery. They barely touched their meal. Jess was glad when it was over and hastily paid the bill and ushered Mel outside.

‘Is there anything else you need?’ she asked, wondering why she had thought that this was such a good idea in the first place. It had hardly turned out to be a roaring success.

Mel shook her head and they headed back to the car in silence. Jess sensed that Mel wasn’t ready to confide in her yet, so wisely held her tongue all the way home. The instant they arrived back, Mel flung the bags containing her new clothes onto a chair and shot off to her room, leaving Jess to stare helplessly after her. There was still well over an hour until it was time to fetch Jo from school and she didn’t feel like starting any household chores, so she too went upstairs, hoping that reading a little more of Martha’s journal would help take her mind off her own troubles.

10 September

Something terrible happened today. I had been working in the dairy as Phoebe is ill. She lost her baby last week and Granny says it is through worrying what will become of them if the Master gets rid of them. They will have nowhere to go and Hal fears that he will not be able to get work . . .

‘That’s all the vegetables chopped, Granny.’ Martha stood and rubbed her back as Granny Reid looked up from the pastry she was rolling. ‘What would you like me to do now? Shall I pop along to the cottage and see how Phoebe is?’

‘No, not yet, lass. Go into the dairy an’ see to what needs doin’ there then you can take one o’ these hare pies over to Phoebe later on. Bless ’er. She won’t be in no fit state fer cookin, havin’ just lost the baby.’ She shook her head sadly. ‘Truth be told, the Tolleys could ill afford another mouth to feed but it’s a terrible thing to lose a child all the same. I blame that one in there.’ She cocked her head towards the green baize door.

Martha chewed on her lip as she nodded in agreement.

‘I’ve no doubt him indoors will moan about hare pie fer his dinner an’ all,’ Granny went on. ‘But he’s lucky to have that, if he did but know it. Our supplies are dwindlin’ by the day.’ Looking out onto the yard, she advised Martha: ‘You just mind as yer don’t go yer length out there. The whole place is like a mudslide what wi’ all the rain we’ve had, an’ it don’t show no sign o’ ceasin’ yet neither.’

Martha nodded as she lifted her shawl from a hook on the back of the door, then lifting it over her head she set off through the driving rain. It was as she was passing the barn with her head bent that a piercing scream brought her to a shuddering halt. She looked towards the great wooden doors just as another scream sounded, and sped across the cobbles, avoiding the puddles as best she could.

Once in the barn she paused for a second as her eyes adjusted to the dim light and then the sight that met her eyes made her hand spring to her mouth. The Master had young Joey Tolley bent across a hay bale with his shirt lifted and his trousers round his ankles, and he was whipping him cruelly, the sound of the leather whip slicing through the air. Without stopping to think, Martha ran forward and caught the Master’s arm just in time to stop the next blow landing on the small boy’s bare buttocks.

‘Eeh, Master, whatever are yer doin’?’ she sobbed breathlessly. ‘You’ll kill the poor lad. For God’s sake stop now!’

‘Get off, you interfering little bitch,’ the master ground out, throwing her off his arm. Martha fell heavily and then before she knew what was happening he had turned the whip on her and it was she that was screaming now as Joey slid into a heap on the ground.

Seconds later, the barn door flew open yet again, and seeing what was happening Bertie launched himself at the Master as Martha lay in a whimpering heap. Bertie snatched the whip from the Master’s hand and flung it into a far corner and then the two men were grappling with each other as obscenities spewed from Bertie’s mouth.

‘You cruel, perverted bastard,’ he spat. It was then that Granny and
Grace
appeared, and taking in the situation at a glance, they sprang forward and somehow managed to drag the two men apart. It took both Granny and Grace all their time to hold Bertie back and as the Master rose to his feet, wiping a smear of blood from his lip, he sneered.

‘I won’t be the only bastard about here soon, will I?’ he taunted. ‘Not when Grace drops that load she’s carryin’.
My
bastard will be poddlin’ about here then too, won’t it?’

Bertie was like a man possessed and it was all Grace and Granny could do to hold him now as the Master laughed in his face. He then brushed himself down and strode away without another word.

‘I’ll kill that swine if it’s the last thing I do,’ Bertie vowed to Grace as she took him in her arms. ‘And let’s hope as yer lose that bastard growin’ inside you an’ all!’

With tears pouring down her ashen cheeks, Grace looked soundlessly back at him.

‘Never mind yer threats fer now,’ Granny barked as Martha looked on in confusion. ‘Little Joey looks to be in a bad way.’

The child was unconscious. The Master had whipped the skin from his back and his shirt was in tatters.

‘Grace, stop yer blubbin’ an’ get out to the pump,’ Granny told her. ‘Fetch me a bucket o’ water. We’ll need to clean the poor lad up a bit afore we send him back to Phoebe. An’ God alone knows what Hal will do when he sees what that cruel bugger has done to his lad.’

Minutes later, Granny gently sponged the worst of the lad’s injuries as blood ran freely down his back. She was still in the process of doing this when he started to rouse round and Granny asked him gently, ‘What did yer do to upset the Master so?’

‘I . . . I stole an apple from them stacked in the barrels at the back o’ the barn,’ Joey whimpered. ‘I’m sorry, Granny Reid, but I were hungry.’

Granny’s breath came out on a hiss. ‘An’ he did this all fer an apple?’ she said disbelievingly. ‘I’m beginnin’ to think that life on the road might not be so bad, after all. It would be better than havin’ to pander to that wicked sod!’ she sat back on her heels as she wrung the bloody cloth out in the bucket then, gently drawing the shirt down over the open wounds, she wrapped him in her woollen shawl and told Bertie, ‘You’d best carry him back to the cottage, lad. Tell Phoebe she’ll need to keep the wounds clean in case of infection an’ say I’ll be over as soon as I can.’

With that she patted Joey on the head and struggling painfully to her knees she set off back to the kitchen as Bertie lifted Joey as if he weighed no more than a feather and strode out into the rain.

Meanwhile, Martha rose and brushed the hay from her brown serge skirt as she looked towards Grace who was leaning heavily against the wall.

‘What did Bertie mean when he said he hoped you’d lose the baby, Grace?’ she asked in a small voice. ‘Isn’t he looking forward to it being born?’

Grace suddenly let out a sob and with her hand across her mouth she skittered away, her drab work skirts billowing around her, leaving Martha to shake her head in bewilderment.

Slowly now she made her way to the dairy, and while she churned, she tried to take her mind off what had happened. Once the butter was made, she placed it on the cool shelf and hurried back to the kitchen.

Striding inside, she threw off her wet shawl and demanded, ‘What’s going on, Granny? I’m not a child any more and I want to know. What did the Master mean when he said that there would be another bastard about the place when Grace has her baby?’

Martha had never stood up to her Granny before and half-expected to get her ear skelped, but instead the old woman kept her eyes downcast. And then suddenly the meaning of the Master’s words hit Martha like a blow between the eyes: Grace was carrying the Master’s child! But her sister was married to Bertie and they loved each other . . . didn’t they? How could Grace have done such a thing?

‘The penny’s dropped, ’as it?’ Granny asked wearily. ‘Now don’t you get layin’ no blame at your sister’s door. The poor lamb had no choice in the matter. The Master believes that it’s his right to take the virginity of any servant girl in his employ afore she weds, and poor Grace went to him like a Christian to the lions.’

Martha felt vomit rise in her throat. Would the Master consider that he could have first right with her too if he discovered that she was walking out with Jimmy? It didn’t bear thinking about, and Martha was suddenly glad that she had kept their relationship a secret. On many occasions she had been aware of the Master coupling with women who had come from the town, but she had never dreamed that he could have done such a thing to her own sister. Poor Grace . . . and poor Bertie too. No wonder he hated the Master so much. What man wouldn’t in that situation?

‘Between you an’ me, on his afternoon off Bertie’s been scourin’ the town an’ the neighbourin’ farms fer work wi’ livin’ accommodation included, but up to now he’s had no luck,’ Granny confided.

Suddenly, Martha understood why Bertie had seemed so sad on the day of their wedding and why he had been so snappy lately. She could only imagine how awful it must be for him to know that another man’s child was growing inside the woman he loved. It was then that another terrible thought occurred to her. It was no secret that the Master had never forgiven the Mistress for not giving him a son and heir. Would he want to claim the child for his own when it was born, if it was a boy?

She was just about to ask Granny what she thought when the kitchen door was suddenly swung so wide that it struck the wall and danced on its hinges.

Hal Tolley stood there, rain dripping off his hair and his face contorted with rage.

‘Where is he?’ he ground out, his fists clenching and unclenching as Bertie followed him in. ‘I’m goin’ to kill him fer what he’s done to my lad, so ’elp me God. An’ all fer a stinkin’ apple!’

‘Calm down, Hal. I know exactly how yer feel, man, but think what yer doin’. You an’ yer family’ll be out on yer arses an’ on the road if yer raise yer hand to ’im.’

‘The lad’s developin’ a fever.’ Hal’s shoulders sagged. ‘What’ll it do to Phoebe if we lose Joey so soon after losin’ the baby? The poor little sod’ll be scarred fer life even if he does survive.’

‘Just bide yer time,’ Bertie urged. ‘We’ll have our day wi’ that lousy swine, you just see if we don’t. But fer now we ’ave to be patient.’

He took Hal’s elbow and led him away as Martha chewed on her knuckles. Whatever was going to become of them all? The only place where she could be really safe was in her little room in the attic. There was a stout lock on the door and from now on she intended to use it. But would the lock be strong enough to keep the Master out if he decided that it was her turn to be taken down? Martha could only pray now that Bertie would find them somewhere else to go – and as soon as possible.