Sons and Daughters by Margaret Dickinson Page B

be buried.’
    ‘Ah, yes. I remember now. Your mother’s not buried here, is she? Taken to – Lincoln, was it?’
    Joe nodded slowly, his brow creasing. ‘He – wouldn’t let – any of us go,’ he said haltingly. ‘He reckoned Ma wanted to be with her own folks. She was from near Lincoln. He insisted that only he accompanied her coffin to the interment there.’
    ‘You had a service in the church here, though, didn’t you? I seem to remember it was somewhere around the same time that poor Alice Crawford died. Didn’t we have two funerals within a couple of days of each other?’
    ‘That’s right. Mam died two days before Mrs Crawford.’
    ‘I wasn’t called to Buckthorn Farm when she died so suddenly.’
    Joe detected the note of bewilderment, even hurt, in the devoted doctor’s tone, even after all these years. ‘I’d always been the family’s doctor, yet Osbert Crawford chose to call a doctor from Lynthorpe. I never did understand why.’
    ‘Aye, he’s an odd one, doctor, I don’t mind telling you, even though I work for him. I could never understand why he wouldn’t let any women go to his wife’s funeral. Poor Mary Morgan was heartbroken, so my Peg said at the time.’
    ‘Ah well,’ Dr Markham shrugged philosophically, ‘ours not to reason why, eh, Joe? Long time ago now. What we’ve to do now is to find out what’s troubling your poor old dad. I’d like to see him go peacefully. Go in and have a word. If it’s Iveson he needs to see, then send for him. But’ – his voice dropped – ‘don’t delay, lad. Don’t delay.’
    As the doctor left, Joe and Peggy went upstairs to Harry Warren’s bedroom. The old man had suffered cruelly over several years with arthritis and he was a shrunken, pain-racked shadow of his former self. Now Harry clutched Peggy’s apron with a skeletal hand. ‘Get the vicar,’ he rasped. ‘I need – to speak to him.’
    ‘I’ll go, Dad,’ Joe answered him. ‘I’ll go this minute. Don’t fret. Lie quietly. I’ll get him.’
    Reminded of his mother’s passing by his conversation with the doctor, Joe realized that Harry’s health had deteriorated from that time. Only five years after her death Harry had handed the foreman’s reins to Joe and for the last sixteen years he’d lived the life of an invalid, sitting hunched in his chair by the fire or lying in bed. The only person able to raise a smile, apart from his own grandchildren, had been Miss Charlotte. He’d relished her visits, transported back to happier times in his reminiscing.
    Joe touched Peggy’s shoulder lightly as he hurried from the room, murmuring, ‘I won’t be long, love.’
    Mr Iveson arrived, his pale, round face solemn, ready to take the dying man’s confession. Though neither he nor many of the locals were of the Catholic faith, he’d already found during his short ministry that the dying often wished to confide in him in their last, frightening moments.
    As he sat down beside the bed, Harry, calling on his last reserves of strength, pulled himself up. He waved Joe and Peggy away. ‘Go. This is – private.’
    Joe shrugged. ‘We’ll be just downstairs, Vicar, if you need us.’
    Cuthbert Iveson nodded and took the old man’s hand in his.
    Joe closed the door and he and Peggy went down the narrow stairs.
    ‘We should get Jackson to fetch Lily home. And find John too?’ Peggy said. ‘They’d never forgive us if—’
    ‘You’re right. I’ll call him. He’s digging the vegetable patch as if there’s no tomorrow.’
    ‘He likes to keep busy when there’s trouble,’ Peggy murmured. ‘It’s his way of coping.’
    ‘Me an’ all. I’d like nothing better than to get on me horse and gallop round the farm. But I know me duty’s to stay here. I wouldn’t leave ya on yar own, lass, to cope with . . .’ His voice faltered. Peggy squeezed his arm comfortingly.
    She mashed a pot of tea and they sat either side of the range waiting for what seemed a long time before