***chapter 37***

***Bertha***

The bouquet of flowers almost dwarfed Bertha Smith as she entered Whistledown Cemetery. She was eighty now, but she never forgot Jimmy's birthday. Nobody at Follyfoot did and she was very much a part of Follyfoot. One of the lost and lonely people who had at last found somewhere to belong.

Some years before Dora was born, and prior to the horrific car crash that killed Jimmy Turner's daughter, son-in-law and only grandchild, Prudence and Arthur Maddocks, being in nostalgic mood, had toyed with the idea of a three-month holiday at Follyfoot Farm. Back in the 1930s, as newlyweds and newly-inherited property owners, they had, after quaffing several celebratory glasses of vintage champagne, decided it would be "a super jape" to spend a short time at Follyfoot "living among country yokels". Of course they intended to, and did, lord it over their subjects and doubtless would have done with or without their titles of Lord and Lady Maddocks. But who knows what magic of Follyfoot spun its charm and kept them under its spell? Who knows why anyone Follyfoot has ever touched is drawn back again and again to enchanted memories?

Because that short time turned into years and if it hadn't been for the Second World War they may have been there still and the whole background of our story rewritten. They even added, without ever discovering that they had, a new word to Yorkshire colloquialisms, pruarty, meaning snobbish. But the locals took them to their hearts despite their uppity ways and their open dislike of children (a sign at the gates sternly proclaimed "Strictly No Children Allowed") for they were very generous employers and this in a time of the Great Depression.

The staff remained loyal, and in particular Jimmy Turner became a great friend, being hired quite by chance one cold January day as snowflakes fluttered in the wind and Prudence and Arthur were riding out of Follyfoot's wrought iron gates (which were later removed to provide material for munitions) on their beautiful black horses, Beauty and Magic. At first Arthur said truthfully that there they were already fully staffed, but upon hearing his name…

"Wait! The Jimmy Turner of Loppington? Little Cowboy Jimmy? Why, we heard about you but two days ago. How very quaint!"

Jimmy, who was hired first as a groom and later as chauffeur, had acquired his nickname as a boy while earning a few precious coppers for his family by helping Alfie Archer deliver milk transported by horse and cart. One day poor Dolly, startled by a cruelly thrown firework, reared, and was about to bolt through a crowded outdoor market when Jimmy quickly leapt on her back and amazingly managed to calm her.

The Yorkshire tale of brave "Little Cowboy Jimmy" and his prowess and empathy with horses has been handed down through generations.

But as time passed by, history books occupied themselves with stories of two world wars and most of those who remembered Little Cowboy Jimmy, or were told the tale when children themselves, had grown old and passed away. Even youngsters like Tommy Jackson, with elderly relatives who often reminisced about yesteryear, heard instead how the evacuees came from their city schools to live in Whistledown, or how the land girls didn't know the first thing about milking cows, or how Phyllis Baker received news her fiancé had been killed in action, only to discover it was all a mistake the day she was attending Sunday service, and wasn't her face a picture of delight, and didn't everybody, even the vicar,clap and cheer and weep for joy, when he walked into Whistledown Church?

Sadly, to Jimmy's disappointment, the holiday at Follyfoot never did come about. Prudence, who had never been as keen as Arthur on the idea, declared "one would quite prefer to go somewhere hot where one can be pampered, and not to a backwoods knee deep in mud". But, in readiness, while the plans were still in the air, they had arranged for their agent Finlay Patterson to hire some staff so that the manor house could be ready for their grand arrival…

XXXXX

How Bertha First Came to Follyfoot

Bertha Smith had woken early as usual, and when she finally drew back the thick curtains after lighting the gas fire, feeding the cat, and eating breakfast, she was pleasantly surprised by the unexpected brightness that streamed inside. It was a perfect day to go to Ashtree, she thought.

A fine, frost-glittering morning, caught between winter and spring, with cotton wool snow glistening on blades of grass and droplets of ice dripping down from trees, as if to remind everybody that only last week a blanket of snow had fallen over Yorkshire and folk would do well not to forget the weather could be as wicked as it wished. But now the sun, determined to impress those hardy Yorkshire folk too, glimmered a pale gold, and stretched trembling, tentative fingers of light through windows that had been coated with icy whiteness for so long.

Yet Bertha's cottage felt somehow cold and empty despite the clogging warmth of the gas fire and the black cat curled up on the rag rug before it. A daintily embroidered tablecloth was spread over a small, round table, on top of which stood a large teapot covered by a hand-knitted tea cosy and the remains of breakfast: a plate of home-baked bread, dish of yellow butter, jug of creamy milk, sugar-bowl, egg cup and china teacup and saucer, all prettily patterned with tiny red rosebuds, and all crowded on only one side of the table, making the chair opposite seem strangely forsaken. As though someone else was meant to join in the homely little feast but couldn't quite make it. The whole cottage had an air of waiting.

You see, the people who were meant to come - well, they never arrived.

There was a teddy with a blue ribbon round its neck and a teddy with a pink ribbon round its neck still sitting atop the wardrobe on an upside-down cradle made out of a wooden orange crate. There were knitting patterns, knitting needles, balls of wool and quarter-finished, half-finished and completed knitting projects of baby clothes and baby blankets spilling out of an enormous box in the cupboard, out of the way of Sooty Mr Cat (this was his official name; his friends knew him simply as Sooty). There was a very special tin, a sky blue tin with pictures of butterflies and flowers, kept on the mantelshelf next to her late husband's photo and next to her heart. Inside this very special sky blue tin were scraps of paper covered in Bertha's old-fashioned looped handwriting, dates and times, memories and poems, hopes and wishes and dreams, each and every one dedicated to the babies who were meant to grow up happy, secure and loved in this little cottage, and each and every one smeared with tears.

Bertha was a widow now, a sprightly woman in her fifties, with a ready smile and only the shadow that crossed her face, every now and then when she thought nobody saw, gave any hint of her sad tale.

How as a young, slim bride of nineteen, with sleek black hair, bright blue eyes and flawless complexion, she had been carried over the threshold of the Tockwith cottage by her one and only true love, Freddie Smith, tall, dark and handsome, just as the fortune teller predicted. How they had often talked and laughed about the large family they would have and wondered where on earth they would put everybody and made up their minds they would have to sleep them top and tail.

But the "eight beautiful children" also foretold never happened although the fortune teller promised the eldest girl would sing like a lark and the next-but-youngest boy would become a doctor.

Miscarriage after miscarriage, year after year, broke Bertha's heart. Lovingly knitted layettes, cosy pram blankets, tiny woollen cardigans and jumpers, all were passed on, with bright smiles and hidden tears, to charity shops, churches and hospitals, in towns where nobody knew her and never knew her heartache. The Great War came. Freddie went off to fight for his country and Bertha knitted for the troops and the children whose Daddies were away. The Armistice was signed. Freddie returned home and the young couple made plans once more, in tears and whispers now, and once more Bertha knitted, but still the little ones would not stay. Again she caught the tram to faraway towns with a bag full of baby clothes and wrote another tear-smeared poem for an infant lost.

Freddie died before the outbreak of a second terrible war. Bertha knitted again for the troops, for the children whose Daddies were away, and for the ragamuffins evacuated from smoky cities to the fresh, clean air of Yorkshire, pouring all her love for the babies who never were into every stitch.

The dark days of war ended and still Bertha knitted, for friends and neighbours, for the poor and orphans at home and abroad, for any mother-to-be or youngster she met. It was often said, and perhaps not without a hint of truth, that every child born in Tockwith and the surrounding villages of Froglea, Whistledown, Foxhill, Kettlefield, Haydingle, Hillingwood and Loppington, owned at least one pair of bootees or mittens or pram blanket or bonnet knitted by Bertha.

Bertha always liked to keep herself busy. And this was the very reason she was going to Ashtree today.

Charlie the postie, who was a fount of all village knowledge, had told her that Edna Baines said her sister Joan mentioned her friend Audrey, who worked at Ashtree's telephone exchange, had recently overheard a very interesting telephone conversation. Apparently, for a period of three months, a housekeeper, gardener, cook and butler, plus additional kitchen and household staff, were all required for Lord and Lady Maddocks' long abandoned manor house at Follyfoot Farm. (Overheard must surely have been a euphemism for eavesdropping, for Audrey always did seem to know an awful lot, from the name, weight and exact time of birth of Mrs Pickett's new arrival to a detailed description of the hat Esther Woods would wear to her son's wedding.)

Audrey had further "overheard" that Finlay Patterson, Lord and Lady Maddocks' representative, had set up office in Follyfoot's nearest town of Ashtree, No 20 High Street to be precise, in order to conduct the interviews. Which weren't due to start officially till next week, Audrey explained, but Finlay would be getting the office ready on Tuesday. Today.

Bertha clicked off the gas fire, scratched the loudly purring Sooty Mr Cat's chin in farewell, wrapped a hand-knitted scarf around her neck and tugged on her coat. It was a brisk fifteen minute walk to Tockwith Library, where she could catch a tram directly to Ashtree High Street, some twenty-five miles away. And though Follyfoot Farm was ten miles from the village of Tockwith, it was only four if she took out a large chunk of the journey by using the short cuts, first along the narrow bridle path, and then across Robinson's Farm. Within easy walking distance really, and she was well used to walking. Folk who couldn't afford tram fares and didn't own a horse or cycle had walked everywhere back in her day, unlike the young nowadays, who had been fortunate enough to be born into a new world. Why, there were even whispers that in the near future there would be no charge at all to visit a doctor, and of course very few youngsters went into the incredibly hard work of domestic service these days because there were very few establishments that required them.

And what Bertha didn't know about working in a big house wasn't worth knowing. Her late Aunt Winnie had been, for many years, housekeeper for Squire Peacock of Loppington, and as a schoolgirl and before her marriage, Bertha had often gone to help out. The skills she learnt then proved invaluable in later years. After Freddie's death, and inbetween her knitting, she had earned a living with all manner of jobs, from cleaner to laundrywoman, from parlourmaid to dishwasher, from cook to seamstress. She didn't particularly mind what job she did at Follyfoot manor house, but she had always been curious about The Haunted Farm, as everybody called it locally.

Bertha herself had seen something once.

It had been a foggy November Sunday during the War, the freezing air stealing her breath with its sting, her footsteps scrunching through hard snow as she made her way to Whistledown Church. As she passed by Whistledown Lane, something, she never knew what, made her look towards the distant silhouette of Follyfoot Farm. And just for a moment she was sure she saw, on the periphery of her vision, two ghostly black horses galloping noiselessly into the swirling mist. All was silent. Save for the whistling wind.

"Come home! Come home! Come home!" It seemed to scream across the moors.