Nobody's Child Read online

  She was; her hands were red with the cold, and she put on his large gloves and felt the warmth of his fingers as if he was holding her hands.

  They trotted on in silence until they reached the lane end at Welwick Thorpe. She thought he would rein in and drop her off to walk the rest of the way, but he turned onto the beaten track and continued.

  ‘You can drop me here,’ she began. ‘I can walk ’rest.’

  ‘Might as well take you,’ he said. ‘You’re halfway up the lane, aren’t you? There’s only one cottage there.’

  Mary-Ellen thought that if the Ellises were considering buying the land, as Jack Terrison had said, then perhaps he would have looked it over at some time without their knowledge, for she had never seen anyone around.

  He reined in at the cottage and she wondered what he thought of it. In the dank November day, it looked little more than a hovel. But then, she pondered, that is what it is. But it’s got a sound roof and we’ve got a good fire, and, as Da says, what more do we want? But it wasn’t enough, she admitted to herself as she slid down from Ebony’s back, and waited for Joseph Ellis to unfasten his bag and hand over her parcels. It isn’t enough, but it is all I shall get.

  He dismounted and made a great show of taking off his knapsack and opening it and handing out her belongings. Then he looked at her. ‘Are you not going to ask me in for a moment, before I go on my way?’

  He saw a sudden caution in her eyes and anger too and cursed himself for his stupidity. Of course she was vulnerable. There was no-one about in this lonely landscape and she would be completely defenceless, though he guessed that she would put up a fight if she had to.

  ‘Is your father not at home?’ He found himself stammering awkwardly. ‘I must meet him sometime. My father and I are thinking of buying the title deeds for the land at Welwick Thorpe.’

  ‘I’d heard,’ she muttered. ‘But he’s not at home. He’ll be still at Patrington, I expect.’

  ‘Ah! In that case I’ll not inconvenience you. Do you have a fire to warm yourself?’

  She swallowed but lifted her chin and said defiantly, ‘Yes – of course! That is,’ she added grudgingly, ‘if it’s kept in. I banked it up before I left.’

  ‘Then let me collect some kindling for you,’ he said, glancing round at the bare landscape. ‘It’ll only take a minute.’

  She smiled and he thought how her face lit up from within when she did so. She doesn’t have much to smile about, he mused, and was surprised when she said teasingly, ‘It’s all right, Mr Ellis. I’ve got dry kindling inside. We have to be prepared for every situation.’ She hesitated for a moment, and then said, ‘You can come in for a minute and warm yourself if you like. I don’t mind.’

  He gazed at her as she stood in front of him. Her soaked shawl clung to her shoulders and her wet bodice to her breasts. Her hair looked blacker than ever because it was so damp and tendrils corkscrewed round her cheeks. He suppressed a sigh that seemed to come from deep within him.

  ‘I think,’ he said softly, ‘that perhaps I’d better not.’

  He mounted again and wheeled round without looking back, but at the end of the track he raised a hand to Jack Terrison, who looked up from unloading the sack of potatoes from the waggon and watched him as he cantered away.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Mary-Ellen stripped off her shawl, bodice and skirt. She was shivering, her teeth chattering with cold. Her cotton shift was damp where the rain had soaked through her skirt. She drew it up above her head and rubbed it over her naked body to dry herself, then reached for the coarse cloth that she used for a towel and dried her dripping hair. She took a blanket from her bed in the corner of the room and, wrapping it round herself, bent to stir the fire.

  There was still a red glow beneath the banked-up moss and she carefully fed it with the small dry twigs and dried leaves which were kept at the side of the hearth; then, as the flame grew brighter, she put on bigger pieces of light rotten wood so that the fire soon burned merrily. She sat back on her haunches and considered. What would have happened if she had let Joseph Ellis in? She had wanted him to come in. Not at first. At first she had been startled and afraid of his attentions. She had seen the admiration in his eyes and was wary. But then he seemed to realize that what he had said was improper and had retracted.

  But if he had come in, she thought. What would they have talked of? She couldn’t have offered him a pot of tea, for the fire would have taken too long to boil the water. And besides, what would her father have said about offering their precious tea to visitors?

  No, they would have just stood there in their wet clothes. He would have been embarrassed at their poverty and tried to think of an excuse to leave as quickly as possible. And she, she would have been either tongue-tied in her confusion or curt and scornful as she knew she could sometimes be if she thought she was being belittled.

  Yet, she thought of how he had looked at her as he stopped his mount, and of how her heart had hammered as she had ridden behind him. She could smell the wet leather of his hat and the steamy odour of the horse, the two aromas mingling, and as she put her head down to avoid the rain she had felt the warmth from his back and wanted to lay her face against him and let his body heat enfold her.

  She stood up from the fire and the blanket slipped down to her waist. She opened it out and let one end drop and ran her hand over her body. She touched her throat, her breasts and flat belly, and felt a quickening of her pulse, a shortness of breath and dryness in her mouth. She ran her tongue round her lips to moisten them. Is this what he wanted? Was it desire she had seen in his eyes? Or was it simply lust for a girl who wouldn’t have been able to object? It was not! She drew the blanket tightly about her. It was something more; otherwise he would have come in and not backed away when he saw her wariness.

  By choice she was still a virgin. She could have had her pick of village boys or men, but she scorned them all. She had seen and heard their fumbling attempts to attract her, and when she had withered them with a glance or a sharp word their compliments had turned to derision and contempt. But today she had met Jack Terrison again, and to him she had been kinder. He had not attempted to be anything more than a friend, though she had sensed that perhaps he was more interested in her than he had shown.

  She had made the stew, eaten and gone to her bed before her father came home. The room was warm now and her wet clothes were steaming in front of the fire. She was almost asleep when she heard the rattle of the sneck. Her father stumbled in, cursing as he fell over the ragged mat that she kept by the door.

  ‘You asleep, Mary-Ellen?’ She didn’t answer, but he called again. ‘Mary-Ellen! You asleep?’

  ‘Yes,’ she answered drowsily. ‘There’s beef stew keeping warm on ’hearth.’

  ‘Nay, I want nowt. I’m full up with ale and mutton.’ She heard the rattle of the pan lid as he lifted it. ‘Smells good, though. Mebbe I’ll have a drop. Just gravy and some bread.’

  ‘Help yourself,’ she murmured. ‘There’s bread on ’table.’

  ‘What sort o’ daughter are you?’ he snapped. ‘Get up and get it for me.’ She heard him collapse into a chair and by the firelight saw him struggling to remove his boots.

  ‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘I’ve got no clothes on. Mine are still wet from when I got back.’

  He grunted and heaved off his boots. ‘Then wrap a blanket round thee. Don’t give me excuses.’

  Sighing, she pulled the blanket round her and rolled out of her bed. Since she had come home from Aunt Lol’s to live with her father, they had respected each other’s privacy. Whenever either of them wanted an all-over wash, the other would go outside. Mary-Ellen was usually the first to bed, after visiting the earth closet at the end of the vegetable plot. When she was in bed on her palliasse on the floor, she would turn her face to the wall while her father undressed and got into the bed he had once shared with her mother. He had never brought another woman home, and for this Mary-Ellen was thankful.

  S
he spooned some of the beef broth into a tin bowl and broke off a chunk of bread, and placed them in front of him. ‘Did you get work?’ she asked, sitting opposite him. ‘I didn’t see you in Patrington.’

  ‘Aye, I did. But I went to Patrington Haven. There’s nowt much on ’land at ’minute so I thought I’d try for some fishing ower ’winter. Parrotts have tekken me on; they’re a bit shorthanded on ’shrimp boats.’

  The Parrotts were a well-known fishing family who operated out of the small haven a mile or so from Patrington which ran directly into the Humber.

  ‘You’ll not make much money,’ she said.

  ‘It’ll last us for a month or two, then I’ll go back on ’land.’ He slurped his broth and dipped the bread into it. ‘We’ll manage.’

  She hesitated for a moment, unsure of whether to tell him about meeting Joseph Ellis. But if he found out and she hadn’t told him he would want to know why.

  ‘I got a lift into Patrington with Jack Terrison,’ she said. ‘I don’t suppose you remember him. He was at Welwick school when I was.’

  ‘Oh, aye!’ he grunted.

  ‘He works for ’Ellises at Skeffling. I met him when I was sheltering from ’rain.’

  Her father lifted his eyes to hers, but went on eating. Then he said, ‘Met who?’

  ‘Joseph Ellis. The son. They’re thinking of buying ’title deeds of Welwick Thorpe.’

  Her father frowned. ‘Did he tell you that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He’d no right. He should discuss it wi’ me, not a lass like you. What would you know about it?’

  ‘He doesn’t have to discuss it with you either,’ she reminded him. ‘They could just send a letter to tell you that they’ve taken over.’

  He burped loudly. ‘But they’re gentry, aren’t they? It’s onny common courtesy that they would come and tell folk that there’s been a change of ownership. Onny right. Besides, not everybody can read a letter.’

  Mary-Ellen got back into bed, wrapping the blanket up about her ears. Perhaps he’ll come back, she thought, when they’ve decided. Or maybe his father will. But no, she reflected. Of course they won’t. They’ll send their agent, or else Mr Bennett will tell us that we’ve got new landlords.

  It was three days later and her father had left for work at Patrington Haven. It was a dry morning, though cold, and she was coaxing the cow to give milk when she heard someone coming along the track. She moved the half-filled pail so that the cow wouldn’t kick it over, and wiped her hands on her apron, then came out of the cow shelter. Joseph Ellis was riding towards the cottage. He was wearing his leather hat and a tweed jacket with cord breeches and riding boots. He had a wool scarf round his neck and carried his knapsack over his shoulder.

  He dismounted and removed his hat. ‘Good day to you, Miss Page. I trust I find you well and no worse for your soaking?’

  ‘I ail little,’ she muttered, staring at him.

  He nodded and for a moment seemed lost for words. ‘I – er, I hope you will not take offence, but I noticed that—’ He swallowed, and she wondered what he was going to say. ‘I saw that your shawl had become very wet and wondered if perhaps it had been damaged beyond repair.’ He started to fumble with the clasp on his knapsack and brought out a brown paper parcel which he thrust towards her. ‘I wondered – if you don’t think me forward – if this would be of any use to you.’

  Her eyes narrowed, but she took it. ‘What is it?’ She turned the parcel over.

  ‘It’s a shawl – I had reason to visit Patrington again and saw it in the draper’s.’

  Slowly she opened the package, and saw the colour of a cream shawl. She touched it briefly with her fingers. It was light and as soft as thistledown, yet she knew it would be warmer than anything she had ever possessed. She handed it back to him. ‘I don’t accept gifts from—’

  ‘Strangers.’ He finished for her. ‘I realize that.’ He flushed slightly. ‘It’s just that when I saw it—’

  She lifted her chin and glared at him. ‘You thought, I know a poor lass who’d be grateful for such a splendid thing!’

  He looked back at her, his eyes flickering over her face. ‘I thought how well it would suit you and how much warmer it would be than the one you’d been wearing.’

  She sneered. ‘Are you in ’habit of giving out shawls to every village lass you come across?’

  ‘Never! Never in my life have I done such a thing. A mental aberration!’ he said abruptly. ‘I must have taken leave of my senses.’

  ‘Indeed you did, Mr Ellis.’ Her voice was scornful. ‘Whatever possessed you to think I could accept something from you? I suggest you take it back to ’shop, or else give it to your mother.’

  He pushed it back into his knapsack with an angry jerk. ‘I purchased it in good faith,’ he snapped. ‘There was no ulterior motive!’

  ‘No?’ she scoffed. ‘My father wouldn’t have thought so had he seen me sporting it! He’d have thought I’d got it by shameful means.’

  He pressed his lips tightly together to avoid another retort. It had crossed his mind that her father would question her, but then he had reasoned that he and his father never observed whether the female members of their family were wearing something new, or something they had had a long time and had adapted with a different collar or piece of lace. He had hoped that Mr Page wouldn’t notice either. Now he realized how foolish he had been. Mary-Ellen quite possibly didn’t have any other garments than those she was wearing now.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and took hold of his mount’s reins. ‘I apologize if I’ve offended you. That wasn’t my intention.’

  ‘Tell me, Mr Ellis, for I don’t know about these matters.’ Her voice was light and vaguely derisory. ‘If you’d given such a gift to a lady of your acquaintance – I mean a lady of … distinction – what meaning, what understanding would she have put on your giving her such a gift?’

  He took a deep breath. He wouldn’t, of course, have done any such thing, unless it was to an older married woman, an aunt perhaps, who would have been delighted to receive the acknowledgement.

  ‘A young lady,’ he said slowly and emphatically, ‘would have thought I had serious intentions towards her, and I would have had, first of all, to ask her mother’s permission to offer it.’

  Her cheeks coloured and he saw the slight movement in her throat as she swallowed. ‘But you didn’t think that a lass from a hovel such as this’ – she indicated behind her – ‘would expect such politeness as that?’

  Joseph hesitated. What had been his intentions? He had seen how cold she was and how thin her shawl; and when he had spotted the cream shawl in the draper’s where he had gone once again to replace the spoiled and bloodied silks for his mother, he had instantly thought of Mary-Ellen. Indeed, she had never been far from his thoughts. He had seen how the softness of the colour would contrast with her black hair and enhance her green-blue eyes, and knew he had to buy it. He would keep it, he decided now, if she wouldn’t accept it, and not give it away. Keep it and think of her each time he opened the drawer where it was hidden and work out some other way that he could maintain a bond with her.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Burstall House, it was said, was named after the hamlet of Burstall where once stood an ancient priory close to the Humber estuary. Where the boundary between Burstall and the village of Skeffling lay no-one knew, and as for the priory, that had long ago disappeared beneath the turbulent waters of the Humber. Joseph’s great-grandfather, when deciding to abandon the family tradition of wool manufacturing in the West Riding of Yorkshire and take up farming, came in the eighteenth century to look at Holderness in the East Riding; he read the history of the area, where the land had once been owned by the Crown, the church and the abbeys, and had subsequently been sold into the hands of farmers and estate owners.

  He saw the vast acreage, the mighty waters of the Humber which ran into the German ocean, and the boundless infinite sky. He was captivated by the openness of the countr
yside, the possibility of river transport for the corn which he would grow and ship, but most of all seduced by the silence, broken only by the bird call and the ripple of the river against the bank of the land which was for sale.

  I shall come here to Skeffling, he considered, and found my own succession of farmers. He was young and inclined to be of a romantic nature, and had visited the area when the sun was shining, the corn was golden, and the cottagers from their open doors had greeted him cordially and deferentially as he rode by. He was departing from the home where his family had lived for generations, leaving the hated thud and boom of machinery, the clatter of looms, and the noisy hustle of the busy towns. Besides, he was subservient to his two older brothers, who had already been in the manufacture of wool for many years and did not welcome an upstart with fresh ideas of his own.

  He came, married a local farmer’s daughter, bought an old farmhouse and converted it into a splendid mansion which he named Burstall House after the said priory, fathered three sons and two daughters, and discovered that the low land he had bought was so close to the Humber that it constantly flooded. He dug drains and ditches and eventually a moat to keep the water out of his house and garden. He died a relatively satisfied man and had achieved most of what he had set out to do. All his sons went into farming, his eldest grandson ran the Skeffling estate and in time his great-grandsons would be expected to keep up the tradition, marry well and father more sons.

  Joseph cantered over the moat bridge. He was in a foul temper and behind with his work because of the extra trip into Patrington. His mother had looked at her silks and exclaimed that she couldn’t possibly use them as they were so soiled. ‘I shall write a note to the draper,’ she had said crossly. ‘How dare she sell such shabby goods? Janet will return them first thing in the morning with my strongest complaint.’