Classic Bestsellers from Josephine Cox: Bumper Collection

‘That’s what you are,’ she teased. ‘And when you can’t find a good argument as to why I should let you get out of your sickbed and risk catching pneumonia, you then start on about the Good Lord, and how you pray He might let you live to see little Cathleen have childer of her own. Playing on my sympathies, so you are – making out you’re hard done by. Same as you allus do.’

He groaned. ‘Yer a fierce woman, Aggie Ramsden. A poor old fella like meself don’t know how to take yer from one minute to the next.’

‘There you go again!’ Aggie cried. ‘Calling yourself a poor old fella, when we all know you’re as crafty as a wagonload o’ monkeys!’ She gave a hearty chuckle. ‘But I can’t blame you for wanting to see the lass blow out her two candles. Moreover, she wouldn’t be happy unless you were there and neither would me or Emily.’ She tried another tack to keep him in his bed. ‘Mind you, we could allus fetch the child and her cake up here to you?’

‘Oh no, you don’t!’ he retorted. ‘I’m coming down. I’ve had enough o’ lying in this damned bed.’

Aggie took a deep, invigorating breath. ‘It doesn’t look like I’ve got much choice.’

‘At last!’ His face lit up like a beacon. ‘So you agree? I’m to be taken downstairs the first minute you get?’

‘We’ll see.’ She knew how to play her father-in-law at his own game. It was asking for trouble to let him win too easily.

‘What d’yer mean, “we’ll see”?’ Opening the palm of his hand, he twirled the porcelain balls on the head of his bed, until they danced and jangled like a band playing a tune. ‘One way or another, I’m going down them stairs, an’ that’s that!’

Knowing how stubborn he could be when the mood took him, Aggie relented. ‘All right, then. But the minute I see you looking peaky, I’ll have you back up these stairs and into that bed afore you know it!’

‘Oh, will yer now?’ Giving her a cheeky wink, he laughed. ‘By! It’s been a long time since a woman made me an offer like that, I can tell yer.’

Aggie, too, laughed out loud. ‘Behave yourself.’ She craftily turned the tables on him. ‘By! I wonder how I’ll get on, carrying you down them stairs?’ she groaned. ‘I mean, you’re not as fit and slim as you were. Come to think of it, you’re an awkward lump. It wouldn’t surprise me if I had to let go of you halfway down. Then what would we do, eh? You could break a leg or summat.’

‘Tormenting me now, is it?’ he said with a twinkle in his eye. ‘You’ll ’ave me down them stairs no trouble,’ he declared. ‘Wi’ you on the one side and Emily on the other, I’ll be safe as ’ouses.’

‘Well, I certainly hope so,’ she answered. ‘Look, there’s no need to be getting out of yer bed just yet.’ Glancing at the mantelpiece clock she told him, ‘It’s only just gone ten past six. The child is still fast and hard asleep, bless her little heart. What’s more, our Emily only put the cake in the oven an hour ago. We’re not setting the birthday table until twelve o’clock, so you’ve time enough to get another few hours’ sleep.’

But the old fella didn’t like that idea at all. ‘How can I sleep when I’m not tired?’

‘I don’t know,’ Aggie replied. ‘But you might as well try, ’cause you’re not coming down them stairs for a while yet. And that’s an end to it.’ She repeated her warning in a serious voice. ‘You’re not to tire yourself out, Dad. And if I say you need to get back to your bed, I don’t want no argument. All right?’

Ignoring her pointed question, he asked, ‘Will he be there?’

Aggie was momentarily thrown. ‘Who?’

‘You know who,’ he retorted. ‘That ugly brother o’ yourn.’

Aggie visibly bristled. ‘I’ve no idea where Clem is,’ she answered in a hard voice. ‘What’s more, I don’t care.’ She glanced at the window, her eyes glittering with hatred. ‘If somebody came to the door and told me he’d had an accident and there was no hope for him, I’d throw my hat up in the air.’

‘Good God!’ In all the time he’d known this lovely, caring woman, he had never witnessed such loathing in her eyes. ‘D’yer really hate him that much, lass?’

For a moment he thought she had not heard, because now, as she wandered to the window and stared out, her thoughts appeared to be miles away.

‘Aggie?’ His voice was probing but gentle.

She turned, a quizzical look on her face. ‘What is it, Dad?’

He smiled. ‘I asked … d’yer really hate him that much?’

Giving a wry little smile, she answered, ‘Yes, I hate him that much,’ then added, ‘more than you’ll ever know.’ Then, fearing she had given too much away, she strode back to the bedside. ‘I asked you a question,’ she reminded him. ‘And I still haven’t got an answer.’

He grimaced. ‘I can’t recall you asking me no question.’

‘Right then,’ she declared. ‘I’ll ask it again, and this time I’d like an answer.’ Leaning forward, she stared him in the eye, the smallest of smiles on her face. ‘I asked if you might be thinking of giving me trouble, should I decide you ought to be back in your bed?’

‘By! Yer a persistent devil.’ Taking in a long, deep breath, he blew it out through swollen cheeks. ‘Go on then. I promise.’

Back downstairs, Emily was nowhere to be seen. ‘Where is the lass?’ Realising she must be outside, Aggie set about her tasks. She checked the fire and opened one window slightly to let the fumes from the burning coals disperse. She then replaced the fire-screen and going to the oven, checked the cake which was rising nicely.

When that was done, she went outside to find Emily.

The girl was in the outhouse, her sleeves rolled back, and up to her elbows in the washing tub. ‘I can’t seem to get these stains out,’ she said, rubbing hard at a corner of the bedsheet. ‘I’ve soaked them with a blue bag and scrubbed them with soda, and rubbed them over the washboard until my knuckles are raw, but they just won’t shift.’

Dropping the sheet back into the copper boiler, she blew away a wisp of hair. Wiping an arm over her brow, she leaned against the wall, her face glowing pink and wet from the heat. ‘It’s the last time I let Gramps have beef broth in his bed,’ she said.

Aggie had warned her at the time. ‘I told you,’ she chided. ‘I said not to let him hold the soup-bowl himself.’

‘He threw a fit when I tried to spoon-feed him!’ Emily recalled the occasion well. ‘He said I had no right treating him like a babby and that he was more than capable of holding his own soup-bowl an’ spoon.’

Aggie chuckled and said, imitating Thomas Isaac’s voice: ‘If you can’t trust me to feed meself, then I’ll not eat at all. In fact, yer can take the damned soup away and fetch me some milky-pobs. That’s what yer give babbies, ain’t it?’

Emily laughed. ‘All right, don’t rub it in. He caught me good and proper, but from now on, I’ll be one step ahead of him, the old devil.’ She couldn’t help but feel for him though. ‘It’s his poor old fingers. Some days they’re no problem at all, and other times he can’t even grip the sheet to pull it up over himself.’

‘Aye, lass.’ Aggie felt the same compassion for her father-in-law. ‘That’s what comes of working out in all weathers for the best part of your life.’

Even Aggie couldn’t get the stain of beef broth out of the sheet. ‘Leave it to soak in saltwater,’ she told Emily. ‘You can have another go at it later on. We’d best get on. There’s a cake to be iced and sprinkled wi’ hundreds and thousands, a few cheese straws to make, sandwiches and little fancies to be got ready. Oh, and you’d best preserve your strength,’ she warned. ‘I promised Grandad we’d fetch him down for the occasion.’

With that in mind the two of them set off, back to the scullery and the excitement of the day.

Keeping his distance, Clem Jackson watched them go back into the farmhouse. ‘Bloody women!’ he cursed. ‘I’d just as soon do away with the lot of ’em!’

Recalling how he had attacked Emily in the barn, he had no shame or guilt, but when he realised he had got her with child, he had suffered a few sleepless nights, but only because he was afraid his sister Aggie would find out, and take revenge. Given the right circumstances, she was capable enough. When the blame fell on John Hanley, he was relieved – though up to now he had been wise enough to keep his distance from Emily.

From afar he had watched his daughter grow into a little person, and he was oddly fascinated – though he was not foolish enough to lay claim to her. He was a man who enjoyed his fun, but refused to take the consequences.

Slinging the shotgun across his shoulder, he whistled to his dog and thought, To hell with them all. The taste of John’s name on his tongue was bitter. That young bugger had a lot of gall. At one point, Clem had really feared he might be getting the better of him, and that would never have done, oh no! He recalled how even when he was torn open and bleeding, John had kept coming back at him. That one was dangerous, he mused grudgingly. A man to be reckoned with.

He congratulated himself on having seen the last of John Hanley. One thing was for sure: it would make his life that much easier, now Emily had picked up with the milkman – especially as the man seemed besotted enough to take on the bastard as his own.

All in all, Clem thought he had been clever enough to turn the whole situation to his own advantage. And if ever he felt the need for another tumble in the hay with Emily, he would have no compunction about helping himself.

She would know better than to blab: if she so much as hinted at what had gone on between them, he would make damned sure they would all suffer. She was intelligent enough to know that.

For now though, he had a ‘friend’ of his own in the barmaid at the Red Lion. Bold and brassy, Betty Warwick was more than capable of satisfying his carnal needs for the time being.

As he came up to the top field and his prize-bulls, he leaned on the fence, his proud gaze focused on the great beasts. ‘I knew you were winners right off,’ he told them. ‘Another season an’ you’ll be the best there is. What! I’ll be the envy of every breeder for miles around.’

Nodding with satisfaction he drew such a large breath his chest expanded to twice its size. With the confidence of a man who believes himself to be above the proudest beast, he bade the dog stay where he was, lest he spooked the bulls, then climbed the fence and swaggered past them.

He was not deterred by the sly, watchful look in their eyes. Nor by the reason he had got them at a low price. The cowman’s son at an adjacent farm was nearly trampled to death by them. As it was, he’d been kicked in the thigh and would always walk with a limp. He’d tripped over in his haste to escape, and being a skinny lad, had just managed to roll under the fence in time, their stink in his nostrils, before he’d fainted.