Remembrance Day. Leah Fleming

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СКАЧАТЬ It was one of the hottest afternoons in the whole summer. Doors were wide open onto the street with strips of beaded rope pinned over the lintels, waving in the breeze to discourage the flies, windows propped up with bedding hanging out to bleach in the sunshine, stools set outside in the shade to catch passers-by for crumbs of gossip. Dogs panted in the shade and the forge cat, Jezebel, was curled up under a hedge.

      The rooks were silent for once, high up in the ash trees of St Wilfred’s, West Sharland as Selma scuttled through the ginnel short cut between Main Street and the forge, her striped cotton shirt clinging to her liberty bodice, her long skirt and petticoats sticking to her thin legs. She was boiling hot and dying for a swim.

      ‘I’m going down to the Foss,’ she announced when she brought in the paper and the change. Essie was laying down the best rug for the Sabbath, tidying away the bread, cheese and pickle dinner. It was too hot for a full meal. There was a pot jug of lemonade on the dresser, covered with a beaded cloth ready to be put back on the slate shelf under the stairs; the coolest place in the cottage.

      ‘Not on your own, you’re not,’ Essie replied. ‘You’ll wait while Frank and Newt do their chores. You know I don’t like you going down there alone. It’s private land. I don’t want her ladyship on my doorstep again and her with such a down on chapelgoers.’

      The Cantrells owned everything in Sharland. They didn’t mix in the village; they were more gentry folk than farmers. The colonel was serving in the army and his boys were away at school. They were churchers not chapellers, and lived at Waterloo House with their sons, servants and a carriage. Lady Hester was queen of the district: Father said she was above herself. Selma had never seen her sons except far down the field in the annual cricket match between the school and the village.

      ‘Mam, I’m boiling in all these clothes and they’ll be ages yet!’ Selma protested. If only she could strip off like her brothers, who jumped in the water in their undershorts or, better still, with no clothes at all. As the youngest and the only girl she had to tag along with them to school, to chapel. Her best friends, Sybil and Annie, lived on scattered farms and it was over a two-mile walk uphill to play with them.

      The path from the village to the Foss was well trodden by village children. It was a secret cavern, a hideaway, where the beck cascaded over silver stone shelves, falling headlong into a deep pool overhung with trees and bracken, a hiding place for salmon and trout, and the slabs were cool to bare feet. There was always lots of splashing and fooling about, but the water was cold and shallow in parts and fathoms deep in others. You had to know where to jump in. It was supposed to be haunted by a highwayman who fell to his death when chased by the squire’s men in the good old days.

      Half an hour later, Selma was trudging behind her brothers. They could hear squeals of laughter ahead echoing across the rocks. There would be the usual gang of village lads all vying for a good jumping-off point, with silly girls giggling, eyeing them up. Selma shivered by the cool shade of the trees. She thought all that romancing was embarrassing. She never knew where to look when the boys took off their shorts.

      Now there were strangers in their pool, picnicking across the bank, boys she’d never seen before, dressed in proper one-piece swimming costumes, with a basket of food on a rug. They stared across at the intruders, nodded but said nothing.

      ‘It must be them twinnies of Cantrells’, alike as two peas,’ whispered Newt with a respectful nod in their direction.

      Selma eyed them up with interest. They were tall and gangly, about fifteen or so, fair-haired and slender as willows, not rugged and leathered like her brothers. She’d never seen a proper bathing suit before on a lad.

      Newt and Frank stripped off their workday shirts and breeches to splash in the water. None of the Bartleys was a strong swimmer but they were good at diving underwater, turning circles and coming up somewhere far away from where they’d gone in. Selma dipped her toes in the water and screamed.

      Not to be outdone, the two boys on the far bank started shouting. ‘Fancy a diving match?’ one of them turned and yelled. ‘Come on, let’s show these bumpkins how to dive!’

      The other brother hung back, watching as first Newt and then Frank, intent on their own fun, ignored the jibe by jumping off the ledge midway. Selma edged herself into the water, embarrassed to take her clothes off now there was an audience. Better to paddle and not show off Monday’s washing to strangers.

      One of the boys swam across the beck and climbed up onto the slate ledge jutting out above where Newt had jumped in. Selma gawped up as the boy postured on the edge and made a perfect dive into the pool. He rose to the surface grinning, and that was the first time she clapped eyes on Guy Cantrell. The other twin was already clambering up even higher to the topmost shelf that none of them had dared use before.

      Frank shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t go that high, chum. It’s not safe.’

      ‘I’m not your chum,’ the boy pouted.

      ‘Don’t be a fool, Angus. Do what the young man says,’ yelled his brother.

      ‘Come on, Newt, can’t let them toffs show us up!’ Frank shouted in defiance.

      ‘I never took you for a coward, Guy!’ yelled his brother from his rocky perch.

      It was then that Selma knew that something awful was about to happen and she couldn’t stop it. ‘Don’t jump, please, Frank, on our mam’s life. Showing off’s not worth it!’ Selma screamed. Frank hovered, shocked at her outburst, and backed off just as Angus Cantrell took a flying leap from the highest ledge, plunging down into the dark abyss, down and down and not bobbing up again.

      Everyone was in the water, sensing something was wrong. Guy was splashing about, unsure of his bearings now. Selma pulled off her skirts and dived deep, opening her eyes to get her bearings. Newt was already down there, coming up for air, gasping before diving down again. It was Frank who spotted the boy curled up on the rock floor. Selma and Newt dived in to grab him but he was wedged.

      ‘Over here!’ she screamed to Guy, who dived with them to rescue his brother, pulling and tugging to set the boy free.

      They dragged him to the surface. There was a gash on the side of his head. He was not breathing. Guy took over, turning him on his stomach, lifting his arms to raise his chest. ‘Come on, Angus! Someone go and get help! Give me a hand,’ he ordered Selma, while Frank ran off as bid. It felt like hours before the boy coughed and spluttered but then promptly fell back into unconsciousness.

      ‘He’s alive!’ said the boy with the ink-blue eyes glinting with fear and relief as he looked up at the Bartleys with gratitude.

      Selma swam across the beck and waded back with the picnic rug over her head to cover Angus’s cold body.

      ‘What a daft thing to do!’ Newt said.

      Selma wanted to kick him. ‘Shut yer gob! Let’s get some warmth into his limbs. He’s so cold. Pile all our clothes on him.’ She felt so helpless. They must keep him warm and dry while they waited. That was what you did with a sick horse.

      It was an age before the servants from the House arrived with a flurry of blankets and Angus was passed from arm to arm until he could be placed on a dog cart. Still he made no movement.

      ‘Hell’s bells! Mother will kill us for this,’ sighed Guy, who looked close to tears.

      Selma resisted the urge to reach her arm out to him. ‘Praise God, he’s alive and that’s all that matters,’ she whispered.

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