A Last Goodbye Read online

  Lifting the cast-iron pot from the warming oven, Ellen gave the porridge another stir before ladling out a generous helping each for her father and Tom and a smaller one for herself.

  Och, lassie, you’ll need to eat more than that if you’re to spend the day at the shearing with us.’

  ‘Oh, Feyther, don’t make such a fuss. Sit yourselves down and eat up while it’s hot.’

  Tom pulled out a chair and joined Duncan, and the two men ate in silence. Ellen joined them and made a start on her porridge, but then she was up again, removing warm potato scones from the oven, fetching butter and honey, filling the big teapot with boiling water. Tom was aware of her swift supple movements as she bustled round the kitchen. It felt good to be surrounded by this comforting domesticity. Most mornings he padded around in his own bare kitchen, not bothering to cook a breakfast, filling himself with whatever happened to be left over from the previous day, even if it were only a crust of bread, thick and solid and toughening round the edges. Duncan had invited him to join them regularly for breakfast but he declined. Today, though, was different, this first day of the shearing ritual.

  Tom glanced at the clock. It was nearly seven. He rose abruptly.

  ‘We better be making the most of the good weather, boss.’

  ‘Aye, lad. You’re right.’ Duncan nodded. ‘What I wouldn’t give to be young again.’ He scraped back his chair and followed Tom to the door.

  They worked steadily over the first hour and a half, talking little. Ellen went between them, rolling each fleece as it fell discarded to the ground. They paused for a mug of tea, before continuing, for a further similar length of time. By their second break, Tom’s back was already aching. He knew, though, that by the end of shearing he would have become hardened to the stoop of his back and the struggle of each sheep as it sought to free itself from between his legs.

  By twelve o’clock, they had shorn seventy-five sheep between them, almost exactly a half of the number that Tom had brought off the hill that morning, he thought with satisfaction. It had been a good morning’s work. Tom knew that Duncan was not as fast as he. He was not as fast with any of the jobs on the farm as he used to be. The younger man did not blame him. Over the years, he had seen the effect that the continual burden of heavy work had on farmers and shepherds… how once strong, upright men became bent with the rheumatics before their time, how their wrists and knuckles swelled and their fingers stiffened and ached. He put down the shears and stretched, pushing his strong hands into the small of his back to ease the aching.

  The two shepherds walked side by side to the shade of the cottage and sat a while to ease their aching backs. Kenneth’s wife brought out bread and cheese and made large mugs of strong tea. Ellen had baked an apple pie and the three men ate hungrily.

  ‘She’s a good lassie,’ Duncan commented, when his daughter had taken their mugs into the cottage to refill them. ‘Don’t know how I’d have managed without her all these years.’

  ‘Aye, I can see that. She certainly makes a grand apple pie’, Tom smiled.

  ‘What’s that about my apple pie?’ Ellen appeared around the corner of the cottage. ‘Are you wanting more?’

  ‘Well, now, if you’re offering, I’m not one for refusing.’

  Ellen laughed and cut another generous slice. They sat in silence while Tom ate. In the distance the river gurgled companionably, and the mew of a pair of buzzards came to them, their circling forms no more than dots in the blue sky.

  *

  When shearing resumed in the unaccustomed afternoon sunshine, Duncan began to dreamily recall the summer preceding Ellen’s birth. Ellen was fascinated. She had never heard her father talk so freely about a time that must hold so many painful memories.

  ‘Did you have only one summer together, Father?’

  Duncan lay down the shears and helped the ewe to her feet. Ellen opened the gate of the pen and the ewe bounded away over the grass, to join the rest of the flock, similarly shorn, on the other side of the field.

  ‘Aye, lassie.’

  Kenneth fed another sheep through from the holding pen and Duncan took hold of the ewe by her horns, dragging her onto the clipping stool and twisting her onto her back. Ellen took the fleece that had been removed from the last sheep and began to roll it.

  ‘Aye,’ Duncan continued, holding his shears poised to start clipping. ‘We had only the one summer together as man and wife.’ He sighed. ‘Of course, there were a few years before, when we were getting to know one another. But that’s not the same as being married. I mean, there’s certain things you cannae do.’

  Tom, bent double over a particularly recalcitrant ewe, listened in silence. Was this Duncan’s idea of talking to his daughter about the facts of life?

  ‘Why did Mother die? Is it so hard to have a baby?’

  ‘Aye, it can be. Look at the sheep. Think how many of them we lose each year, not to mention their lambs. Aye, it’s a dangerous thing is childbirth. But it’s getting safer all the time, thanks to doctors learning more about it.’

  Tom’s clipping never faltered, but, at this mention of the medical profession, he clenched his teeth tightly and silently buried his chin into the steaming flank of the sheep. Four month's silence from Clara had done nothing to diminish his feelings for her.

  They were shearing more slowly now, a combination of tiredness and the telling of old stories lending an easy-going feel to the afternoon’s activities.

  Duncan glanced across at his daughter. She had gone quite pale and was sitting on the floor of the barn next to an unrolled fleece.

  ‘Is there anything wrong, lassie?’ Duncan asked quickly, hurrying to finish the half-shorn sheep.

  ‘Just a wee bit tired, Father. Give me a minute and I’ll be fine again.’

  ‘Like I said this morning, you don’t eat enough. This is heavy work and you have to have energy for this job. Tom, give the lass a hand, if you’ve finished that one.’

  ‘Don’t fuss, Father. I’ll be all right.’ Ellen said testily, but Tom had stepped over to her and, putting his arm round her waist, escorted her to the wooden seat outside the cottage.

  ‘There, lass. Stay here for a bit. We can manage. I’ll call Mrs Douglas to put t’ kettle on.’ His eyes lingered on her. ‘We can’t have you falling by the wayside on the very first day of shearing.’ He leaned over and gave her shoulders a friendly squeeze, before straitening up and going off in search of the farmer’s wife.

  He found Elizabeth Douglas in the kitchen making bread, the regular slap and punch of the dough rekindling childhood days in the Yorkshire farmhouse.

  ‘Gracious, Tom. Is it time for tea already? I was fair carried away with all my baking.’

  ‘No, it’s us, not you. Well, it’s Ellen. She’s in need of a cup of tea. We wondered if you could put the kettle on.’

  ‘Aye, of course I can. She’s growing up fast, that one, outgrowing her strength. She needs to eat more.’

  Tom looked round the kitchen. ‘Shall I get out the mugs? You look as though you’ve enough on with the bread.’

  ‘Aye, that would be helpful.’ Elizabeth divided the dough with a sharp knife, shaped each into a rough rectangle, gave them a final dusting with flour and slapped them into the loaf tins. The oven sent out a blast of hot air as she slotted them quickly onto the shelf and slammed shut the iron door. ‘So what about you, Tom? Are you happy here? Are you missing home?’

  Tom gave a short laugh. ‘Yes to both! I like the work here. They’re good to work with, the blackface. And I’m given plenty of responsibility. Aye, I do miss home though. I worry about my mother. She were never strong, you know. And it’s hard, the job of a farmer’s wife.’

  ‘I can vouch for that! So what made you decide to come up here? Don’t get me wrong… we’re glad you did. But couldn’t you have gained the knowledge you needed by staying in Yorkshire?’

  ‘Aye, ’appen I could. The truth is… there’s a girl. We were friends at home. She studies in Glasgow now and
I thought, well, if I was nearer, I might be able to see her.’ He paused, then went on. ‘You see, I was hoping that one day we might get wed… but I’m not so sure she feels the same way.’

  ‘Well, there’s only one way to find out. Why don’t you invite her over one weekend? It’ll give you time together’

  ‘I wanted to… in fact I asked her. But she was too busy with her studies. She did say she might come at the end of the year though.’

  ‘Good! Then we’ll have to make the end of the year one to remember, won’t we!’

  *

  They finished shearing just over a week later. Amazingly there had been no rain during the whole of the week and their work had progressed without hindrance. Just over one thousand one hundred sheep had been through their hands at the end of this time. To celebrate a job well done, there came an invitation from Kenneth Douglas to eat with him and his wife that evening.

  Tom locked the door and heaved the tin bath from where it lay on its side in the hall. He had heated enough water over the fire to give him an adequate, though not luxurious bath. Strong as he was, his back and limbs ached with the exertion of the last few days. He lay back in the bath, willing himself to relax in the tepid water, and gave himself over to thoughts of Clara.

  In the four months since her letter had arrived his feelings had flicked uncontrollably from love to anger, to hate and rejection and now to a dull pain verging on acceptance. He would have to face the fact that he had lost her for good.

  There was a knock at the door and he sat up abruptly, causing a tidal wave of scummy water to slosh over the side of the bath.

  ‘Are you ready, Tom? Father’s gone ahead. I said I’d call for you.’

  ‘I’ll be right in a minute or two. You go on and I’ll join you.’

  He lay down to rinse the soap off his complaining body and climbed out dripping into the puddle of water on the tiles. He dried and dressed quickly, searching for a hairbrush as he buttoned his shirt. He had not intended spending so long soaking himself and was anxious not to keep the farmer waiting.

  Ellen was sitting on the grass outside his cottage when he emerged. She had on a long blue skirt and white blouse and her hair, newly washed and still damp, hung loose over her shoulders.

  ‘I told you not to wait,’ Tom said gruffly, closing the door with a bang.

  She shrugged. ‘I thought I might as well.’

  ‘I'm glad you did,' he said. 'You look grand.'

  Ellen smiled. ‘It’s good to feel clean again after all those smelly sheep. It’s the best part of it, when it comes to an end.’ She wrinkled her nose in disgust, then laughed. ‘Farmer Douglas always gets in a jug of ale for the end of shearing, so we better hurry before Father drinks it all.’

  ‘I’ve to go up the hill later to check that the ewes know their way back to where they belong, so I’ll have to go steady on the ale, any road.’

  Duncan hadn’t drunk all the ale and Tom didn’t go particularly steady with it. By the time the mutton stew was placed in the middle of the table and the big bowls of potatoes and carrots joined it, the lad was beginning to relax. He looked at Ellen through a haze of goodwill and alcohol. She was turning into a beautiful woman. Her eyes, he noticed, matched the colour of her skirt, and her hair was the colour of spun silk. He shook his head, laughing to himself. Good heavens! Whatever was getting into him, all this waxing lyrical about a mere strip of a girl?

  He gazed at the softness of Ellen’s hair, and a picture of Clara’s dark curls framing her serious face unexpectedly replaced the gentler one of the girl before him. His mind turned for the thousandth time to that letter…to the message it had contained and to the manner in which it had been written. Cold-hearted bitch, he thought now and scowled.

  He looked at Ellen again and the memory of that time he had lain with her in the barn came back to him. Previously he had forced the scene away whenever it impinged on his consciousness, but now he resurrected it, savoured it even. She was no cold-hearted bitch, he was sure of that. His features softened. He lifted his head and regarded her across the table. She was smiling at him and didn’t look away. He felt the familiar twinge of desire.

  *

  It was nine o’clock when Tom rose a little unsteadily and explained that he must check on the sheep. Those sheared latterly had been taken from the furthest reaches of the hirsel and could take several days to reach the hill on which they had been born and raised, so Tom was anxious that none should go astray and end up lost.

  The evening air cleared his muzzy head and he strode over to the cottage to change into his stronger boots and then to the barn to release Nell.

  She barked and scampered ahead. Looking up, Tom could see Ellen in the distance. He approached, watching as she fondled Nell’s soft head, seeing the way her fair hair cascaded around her face as she bent forward., and the soft folds of her dress flowed over her supple body.

  ‘What are you doing out here?’ His voice was hoarse. ‘Isn’t it time you were tucked up in bed. You must be o’er tired after all your hard work. I’m off to check on the sheep. Do you fancy a walk because, if you do, I wouldn’t mind some company?’ His tone was casual, offhand even.

  ‘Aye, that would be good.’ She ran over and slipped her arm through his.

  He glanced at her briefly and her eyes, looking back at him, held a challenge. It struck him that she might have drunk some of the ale, though he had seen none pass her lips.

  Watching for rabbit holes or rocks over which they might trip, he started to traverse the rough ground of the lower slopes. His mind was racing. It was as if she were enticing him to repeat what had passed between them earlier in the year. He felt her arm tighten on his. There was no mistaking her intention. And what man was there who could resist such an invitation?

  ‘Let’s climb to the top of the hill,’ Ellen said impulsively and, letting go of his arm, set off up the steep slope at a run.

  He watched her climb, tripping at times over her skirt, stumbling over the tussocks of grass that were becoming indistinct in the dusk. She turned and laughed and her skin was a pink glow in the setting sun. Her hair was on fire. In a turmoil of longing he set off up the hill after her.

  8

  The Brightest Star

  By the beginning of December there had already been two heavy falls of snow, the second lasting a week and causing considerable disruption to the smooth running of the farm. Tom struggled through the deep drifts, digging for sheep with his bare hands, finding them safely trapped in the pockets of air, which gave them temporary respite. Others of the flock he found sheltering in the stells, the circular, drystone structure which ensured that the snow was unable to build up a drift but instead was blown away by the prevailing wind. They lost none of the sheep, though Duncan acknowledged that if the snow had come later when the harsh winds of January could freeze the drifts into solid ice, they would have fared a lot worse.

  When the snow cleared, Ellen resolved to shop for extra supplies in case of further inclement weather. Christmas was fast approaching and then Tom’s friend would be with them. It was exciting, though somewhat daunting, to have someone so prestigious to visit. A doctor… or nearly so! And, what was more, a woman! Duncan had muttered something under his breath about women no longer knowing their place in society. He had not said this within Tom’s hearing, but Ellen had caught his words and, turning away, given a secret smile. She admired Clara’s bravery. She had never heard of a woman doctor before, much less come into contact with one. Ellen supposed that her head must be full of knowledge and her time full with her studies and her hospital work.

  But it was strange, this friendship between a shepherd and a doctor. And although the opportunity of meeting such an important personage excited her, she was uncomfortably aware that Tom’s full attention was focused on the forthcoming visitor. For the last year and a half Ellen had been his friend… his only friend, she had always considered. Now that this earlier alliance had been revealed, she felt a twinge of some
thing previously alien to her… jealousy. Surely, what she and Tom had shared was special. She loved Tom and she thought he loved her – though he never said so. Now she wasn't so sure about his feelings. She suspected that Clara occupied the greater part of Tom’s thoughts, for his behaviour could veer from distraction to excitement in the blink of an eye.

  Ellen stood in front of the mirror fastening her hat, the face looking back at her from the mirror as pale and drawn as the landscape outside.

  A knock came at the door and she hurried to open it. Tom’s form was indistinct in the pre-dawn darkness.

  ‘Are you ready, lass? We’ll have to hurry or we’ll miss the early train to market. And make sure you’ve got enough clothes. It’s reet cold out here.’

  Ellen grabbed a long woollen scarf off the peg and wrapped it round her neck and mouth before stepping out into the raw morning and slithering down the track at the side of Tom. She struggled to keep up with him on the frosty surface of the path, miserably considering that she might be any farm worker going along to assist the shepherd at market, and not the girl whom he had desired on that rare day of summer warmth.

  ‘I’ll have to leave you to travel back by yourself after you’ve finished buying what you need. I’ve some shopping to do in town. Is that all right with you, lass?’

  ‘Aye, I suppose so. But I’ll no be able to carry everything back to the farm myself.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ he said more kindly. ‘Leave it at the station and I’ll pick it up on t’ way back or when I fetch Clara.’