Lucy said nothing, but she was filled with anger and annoyance at them, for not trusting her and Adam.
‘Are you listening to your mother? If it’s right, what she thinks, then we don’t want you to work for him no more. And you’ll have to make yourself useful around the house or find some work in Keighley. I know it was me who got you the job, but I didn’t foresee this happening.’ Bill looked at his daughter and saw that her eyes were filled with tears, but at the same time Lucy looked defiant.
‘You don’t trust me or him – you never will. Well, it is right: I do love Adam and he loves me. You can go and ask him yourself, because he is a gentleman and is thoughtful and loving, and he would never take advantage of me. And I’d rather be living with him – wed or unwedded – than living here in this stinking hovel, where I’m just used.’ Lucy spat out the words, not worrying that they hurt the parents she loved and had always cared for. Adam was her world, her future, and she didn’t care if they knew it now. No one was going to stop her from seeing him.
‘You are talking rubbish, lass. What would he want with a slip of a lass like you? Your mother’s right: you’ll not be going back and working for him. I’m not having you trailing back here carrying his baby, because that’ll be what happens.’ Bill looked across at Dorothy, who was beside herself at Lucy’s admission of love.
‘He’s not like that. Adam’s never touched me in that way. He’s not like you, always getting my mother with child and then burying them in the lime pit. That’ll not happen to me or mine. You think I don’t know about the babies that over the years have been buried there. And it wasn’t only me; Thomas Farrington knew, but he can’t say owt, now he’s dead. You’ll not stop me from seeing Adam and working for him, else I’ll tell someone everything I know,’ Lucy raged. How dare they think her so low as to lift her skirts up that easily. She loved her Adam, and that would only happen when she was wed to him.
‘Get your bloody self to bed, madam, and don’t show your face to us until you’ve thought about what you’ve said. By God, our Lucy, you’ve a fearful tongue on you. One that’s hurt your mother. I never thought you could turn on your parents like that. Your mother and I were heartbroken over the babies we lost, but they didn’t deserve a Christian burial because they were not born right. But for you to throw it in our faces, like you have done tonight, just for the sake of fighting for a fella that’ll no more love you than look at you – I don’t know if we will ever forgive you. If you were younger, I’d take my belt to you. As it is, get up the stairs out of my sight and your mother’s.’ Bill stood up, shaking with anger, and looked at Dorothy, who sat sobbing and shaking. ‘Bugger off – get out of my sight, before I think better of giving your hide a good tanning.’
Lucy pushed back her chair, making it clatter and fall on the hard stone flags of the kitchen floor. Tears overcame her and she sobbed as she ran up to the safety of her bedroom, flinging herself onto her bed and crying into her pillow. She tried to muffle the noise of her grief, as Susie stirred in her bed. She must not wake her up, else she’d be in for another barrage of words from her parents. But she hurt, she hurt so badly. She had to be allowed to see her Adam; she loved him and she was not about to lose him. However, she knew that the words she had said in anger had hurt her mother the most, and she shouldn’t have said them. It had been mean and cruel, and she shouldn’t have lowered herself to coming out with such words.
Lucy closed her eyes and sobbed. The happiness that she had felt a few hours ago had disappeared, and now she was mortified and beside herself with shame, and with the knowledge that she would probably not be allowed back to Black Moss Farm again. Would Adam realize what had happened and come and look for her, or should she run away to him and defy her parents? She only knew that she couldn’t live without him in her life, and that she had to be near him.
24
‘Just listen to her, Bill, she’s still crying,’ Dorothy whispered and listened through the bedroom wall to the sobs that had been heard all night. Susie lay between the couple, after being woken by her big sister’s grief, and stirred gently as Bill replied.
‘So she bloody should be. Coming out with what she did, and threatening to tell everyone our business if we don’t do as she wants. I’ve a good mind to go in and give her a good belting.’ Bill looked up at the ceiling. ‘That bloody Thomas Farrington was always creeping about the yard, knowing everybody’s business, and Lucy’s right when she says he’s best dead.’
‘It came out in anger, Bill, she didn’t mean it. We’ve all said something we didn’t mean, when roused. She was only fighting her corner. Perhaps Lucy does love Adam Brooksbank, but does he love her? I can’t see it myself; she’ll have read it wrong, and she’s only young yet. It’s best she has no more to do with him, although it sounds as if she is heartbroken. But he’s not right for her, and she should have nothing
