Leah removed her shawl and hung it on a peg set into the scullery door. Then she took a cloth from the line of string stretched from wall to wall and began drying ladles and pans Ann was washing.
‘It be a sad business,’ she said, ‘poor Mary Carter be beside ’erself, young Luke were the apple of ’er eye.’
‘I would have liked to call on her but I feel maybe that would not have been the best thing to do with having known the family for such a short time.’
‘Mary’ll understand, wench.’ Leah placed dried ladles on a wooden tray. ‘If y’be agreein’ then we could stand together outside of the chapel come Sunday; Mary and ’er family will see and appreciate that when they attends the service Thomas Thorpe be holdin’ in remembrance of their lad, they’ll know we be showin’ respect.’
Thorpe. Ann shuddered. How could she be there, how could she look at the man who had almost raped her?
‘Won’t be no need of waitin’ ’til the service be over.’ Leah had seen the tremor ripple through the slender figure but knew that breaking off abruptly would disclose the fact and maybe cause Ann embarrassment, so she went on. ‘Ain’t like there be any coffin to be carried along of the cemetery, like so many more folk robbed of their loved ones by this war, Mary Carter won’t never know where it be ’er son lies.’
Like you not knowing where Joshua and Daniel are buried, wanting in your heart to believe a service was held for them, yet fearing deep down the continuous onslaught of battle would have made that virtually impossible.
Ann kept her thoughts to herself.
‘Do Alec be back yet?’
Thankful Leah had changed the subject Ann placed the last scrubbed utensil on the draining board. ‘No.’ She draped the wrung-out dish cloth over the edge of the shallow stone sink. ‘Probably got to talking with Mr Langley and forgot the time.’
‘He likes Edward, the two of them gets on well together.’ The drying finished, Leah returned the damp cloth to the line then as Ann was about to carry the bowl of dishwater to the drain in the yard said, ‘Edward an’ me talked some time since wi’ regard to Hill Rise an’ this place being brought together as one. I’d thought of it often after Joshua an’ Daniel were killed and then with Deborah . . .’
For a moment it seemed Leah would say nothing more, but with a quick indrawn breath she went on.
‘. . . well with my own children gone and Edward being like a son—’
‘I understand,’ Ann cut in quickly, ‘I will speak with Alec as soon as he returns.’
‘P’raps you does then again p’raps you don’t understand, but I don’t be goin’ to discuss that over a bowl of dirty water, so you finish up in ’ere an’ I’ll go brew a pot of tea.’
It was obvious. Empty bowl in hand, Ann stared across the yard to the open field. Leah was ready to join her holding to Hill Rise but while Edward Langley loved and respected her as he would his own mother, he could not be expected to accept Alec and herself.
‘Like I was a sayin’,’ Leah poured tea as Ann entered the living room. ‘Edward an’ me talked some time back about his place an’ mine becomin’ one – wait!’
She held up a hand silencing Ann’s intervention. ‘You hear me out afore you go sayin’ any more. I put it to Edward it be sens-ible but he refused; said right out as he wouldn’t tek this place, weren’t no surprise to me nor were the next thing he said, that bein’ the dairy an’ all that be along of it should go to you.’
‘Me!’ Ann was aghast. ‘But that is impossible.’
‘Ain’t naught impossible about it.’
Ann stared at the flat contradiction. This house, the dairy, it was all of Leah’s life, it held her every memory. Resolve settled firm. Her answer must be no – yet it must be given gently.
‘Edward . . .’ she began tentatively. ‘You have known him from birth, you have said yourself he is more son than friend, I . . .’ She paused, wanting to find words which would express her feelings while not sounding ungrateful. ‘I can only be a friend, a friend who values that relationship far too much ever to take advantage of it. Perhaps Mr Langley does not quite understand or he would never have made such a suggestion.’
Edward Langley understands a lot more than we oftime give him credit for. But then so did Leah Marshall. It were his thinking that to give the dairy to Ann Spencer would be to keep her here in Wednesbury.
‘Edward do be like a son,’ Leah agreed as she refilled the cups, ‘and like a son he be entitled to mek his own choice, if that be to refuse to join his place to mine then so be it, but,’ she glanced over the cup with a tender smile, ‘like I would to a daughter I says to you think careful wench, not just of today but all the days lyin’ ahead.’
‘I have thought,’ Ann answered quietly, ‘I’ve thought many times but always with the same answer. Once this war is ended Alec will begin to search for his relatives and I shall stay with him until he does.’
Why had Edward Langley said she and not himself should be given Leah’s property? Emptying the teapot on to the heap of sleck, coal dust and fine chippings with which the living room fire was banked every night to keep it slumbering until morning, Ann heard the questions in her mind. Was it meant as some kind of test? Did he think her friendship with Leah had some ulterior motive? That she had deliberately worried her way into that woman’s affection in order to steal her home and business?
Her gaze wandered beyond the yard, resentment rising swift and hot as it panned across the pasture to rest on the figure striding across the adjoining field.
‘
Mother were gone to the Carter house, they had word today of their Luke being killed in action, Mother wanted to say her sym-pathy; I feels sorry for the Carters, o’ course I do, but it meant I could slip away without her being any the wiser.
’
His cassock hung in the wardrobe his mother had spent half her life polishing, collar and stole were folded carefully and placed in the matching chest. Thomas Thorpe’s smile was one of pure satisfaction.
The girl had been waiting in the place he had specified. Waiting for him to take her on to Darlaston to speak with a minister. Fool, he laughed aloud, fool to think a man of Thomas Thorpe’s standing would marry a common working-class woman.
‘
Nobody don’t know where I be going; I done exactly like you said, I kept our secret.
’
He had forced himself to smile, to take her hands, to say her trust made him happy. They had walked a little way as she gabbled on about the surprise her parents would have on learning their girl was to marry Thomas Thorpe, while he carefully watched that no other person was to be seen. They had drawn level with St Peter’s Church, the old building almost entirely surrounded by open heath. He had drawn her into the lee of its high walls holding her close, not, as she giggled, to snatch a kiss and a few moments of cuddle, but to give him the opportunity to further scan the heath. There had been no one. Releasing her, he had adopted a look of regret as he said he had not as yet a ring to place on her finger but for just a little while perhaps this other small gift would serve to mark his love.
She had cried her delight as he took the necklace from his pocket, happily lifting her hair so he could fasten it about her neck.
He had fastened it well and truly, pulling it so hard the pretty bauble had bitten into the flesh of her throat. How long had he held it, twisting its length like a garrotte, how long until she had stopped struggling? He had held her upright, his body supporting the weight slumped against it, waited those few vital seconds with the cord tight about her throat, then he loosed it, stepping away as the limp figure slid to the ground. But he could not leave right away; first he must make sure she was dead. He had touched the hollow at the base of her throat and then had come the thought. It must seem she had been brought here against her will, that she had been the victim of rape. Minutes later he was gone, leaving her clothing half torn away, her legs spread wide apart.
He had felt no sense of urgency, no pressure to hurry from the scene. The body would be found but nothing would link him to the killing. How could it! He smiled. He was heaven-protected, that had been proved over and again with Deborah Marshall, then with the man thrown into the Devil’s Pool; and again today when it had led him to find that trinket. He would have passed without seeing it but at that moment the sun’s rays had glinted on the small glass beads, a necklace dropped by one of the gypsies who had camped on the patch of open ground. It had gleamed up at him and in that instant he had felt heaven’s smile, had known he was being provided with the means whereby to dispose of the problem that was Sarah Clews.
Back in the tiny living room of his cramped terraced home Thorpe’s eye lighted on the black leather valise lying open on the table. There had been no comeback from that quarter and there would be none from tonight’s activity.
He snapped the clasps of the bag shut and closed his eyes, luxuriating in the glow spreading through his body. The angels of the Almighty had been given guardianship of Thomas Thorpe, they would let no breath of suspicion touch him, not now nor when he dealt the same to Edward Langley and – he took a long deep breath of satisfaction – when he took what was owed by Ann Spencer.
‘Why did you tell Leah she should make me heir to her property?’ Ann’s fury lashed the shadows. ‘Was it your way of proving to her and to yourself that I am nothing more than a thief, that I pretend to feel for her in the hope of getting all she owns? Well sorry as I am to prick your balloon, Mr Langley, you are once again entirely wrong in your assumptions. Leah knows and now I am telling you, there is nothing here I want other than the friendship of Leah Marshall, the memory of which will stay with me when I leave with Alec to search for his family.’
‘Now you hold on a minute!’ Edward grabbed at her as she turned away from him, making the teapot wobble precariously. ‘You might feel no more than friendship but Leah’s feeling runs deeper than that, she loves you as her own, as she would a daughter. It is for that reason I asked she take you as partner in the dairy; I thought with the home you had with your grandmother now gone you might make a permanent one with Leah, that it would keep her from the bitterness of losing someone she loves. But as you have made very clear, I am wrong. You go your way, Miss Spencer,’ he loosed his hold, ‘never mind the grief you leave behind.’
‘Be a bit late for you don’t it lad?’ Leah looked up from her sewing as Edward came into the living room, then catching the glint of anger in his eyes asked, ‘Be there summat amiss along of Hill Rise, summat wrong with the cows?’
‘No.’ Edward shook his head. ‘There’s nothing wrong at Hill Rise.’
‘The Lord be thanked for that.’ Leah laid aside the cheesecloth she was hemming. ‘So why is it you’ve called? Not that you don’t be welcome whatever the hour.’
‘I just wanted to be sure Alec was all right.’
At the entrance to the scullery Ann looked towards the man who minutes before had summarily brushed her aside. ‘Alec!’ she said quickly, ‘he went to Hill Rise, he . . . he’s supposed to be with you.’
‘So he was until a couple of hours ago. We sat talking for a while then I left him reading the evening paper while I went to make a last check on the cows. When I returned some twenty minutes or so later he was gone.’
‘You means the lad never wished you goodnight, that he just up and took hisself off? That don’t be like Alec.’
Edward saw the sudden leap of fear in Ann’s eyes; her hands holding the old brown teapot trembled convulsively. He could go to her, hold her, tell her everything was fine, that it was in every lad’s blood to dawdle on the way home, but that would incur another taste of her displeasure.
‘I thought the same,’ he agreed. ‘It is not Alec’s way to leave without a word. At first I put it down to the fact he had simply realised the time, that he had stayed longer than was meant and wanted to be back here before either of you got to worrying for him.’
Alec had left Hill Rise two hours ago! Ann stared at the pot clutched in her hands. But he had not returned home.
‘
. . . male or female, woman or boy, either is acceptable.
’
With Thomas Thorpe’s threat ringing in her mind the pot fell from her hands.
Chapter 32
‘Sit you there wench, rest you a while.’ Leah eased Ann into a chair after Edward had caught her from falling, then to the man hovering at her side said, ‘I tells her again and again her be workin’ too hard.’
It wasn’t work alone had this effect, something had frightened Ann Spencer. But what? There had been that confrontation in the yard but she had shown no sign of fright at that yet it was there in her eyes, real visible fear.
‘I’m sorry.’ Ann smiled weakly. ‘I . . . I felt a little dizzy.’
Something of the truth. Edward picked up the fallen pot. Now how about the rest, that which is really troubling you?
‘Oh!’ Ann was staring at the pot. ‘Oh Leah, the teapot, I’m so sorry.’
‘No need to be, wench,’ Leah chuckled, restoring the lid to the pot before taking it from Edward. ‘This here pot’s had more knocks than a man’s had hot dinners.’
‘It isn’t broken?’
Leah turned a glance to the rug laid in front of the hearth.
‘With three lads rough and tumblin’ every minute my back were turned,’ she looked fondly at Edward, ‘it were needed to ’ave a rug thick enough to save elbows and knees. I pegged that one with every pair of worn-out trousers, every jacket that couldn’t no more be seen decent on either of them scoundrels and it’s saved many a limb and many a dish.’