The coffin containing his beloved Edie had been taken by road, in the hearse, to Glydesdale in the next valley where she would be buried, but Jed had chosen to walk the old way, the traditional route over the hills, to reach the church.
‘All right, lass?’ he asked Stella, and received a mute nod in reply. The poor mite, of course she was missing her ma. No child of ten years old ought to be left motherless. No child of two, either, Jed thought, thinking of little Jessie whom he’d left behind in Brackendale Green being cared for by a neighbour. But Edie had died, of cancer, leaving Jed and the two girls alone.
It broke his heart that they could not bury her in St Isidore’s Church in Brackendale Green, where generations of his family had been buried. But the dam-building had begun, there were compulsory purchase orders on every house in Brackendale, and the village’s days were numbered. In another year or maybe even less everyone would have to move out. Where he, Stella and Jessie would go or what he would do for a living Jed had no idea. He could not think that far ahead. The last year had been taken up with caring for Edie, and now she was gone he would need to figure out how he could manage to look after the girls and still work. And then there was his father, Isaac, who was increasingly frail and also dependent on Jed for support.
Well, all those worries would have to wait until Edie was safe underground in Glydesdale churchyard. He took a deep breath. At least the weather was fine for her burial. It was the kind of day Edie had always loved – springtime, with blue skies, clear air, bright green foliage on the trees and bushes, and down in the valleys, an abundance of fluffy black Herdwick lambs on their spindly legs. A time of rebirth and hope for the future. But not this year. This year it was a time of death and fear of what was to come.
‘Is it much further?’ Stella asked. She was usually a good little walker, but the past few weeks had been hard on her. Jed had relied on her to prepare food and look after her sister, while he sat at Edie’s side.
‘Not so far now,’ he replied with a reassuring smile. They walked on in silence, but a moment later when Stella stumbled on a rough section of the track, he scooped her up onto his broad shoulders. ‘I’ll carry you for a bit, lass, to give you a rest.’
‘Thanks, Pa,’ she said, as she tucked her feet under his arms and held his upraised hands for balance. He gritted his teeth with the effort of walking uphill with her weight on his shoulders. He’d not carried her like this since she was smaller, and it was tough going, but she was his daughter so she could not be a burden. He could do this.
‘Stella, get down, you’re a big enough girl to walk it yourself without making your father carry you.’ It was Maggie, Jed’s neighbour, who’d caught up alongside them.
‘Ah, she’s all right up there, Maggie. The poor lass is exhausted so I don’t mind carrying her a while.’ Maggie had been a good friend throughout Edie’s illness. She’d helped nurse her, she’d brought in pots of mutton stew for their dinner, and once, she’d cared for Jessie while Stella was at school, to allow Jed to stay with Edie.
‘She looks so heavy, such a burden for you. Well, we’re almost at the top – then perhaps she can walk by herself. You can’t be carried all the way to your own mother’s funeral, now can you?’
‘Pa, I’ll walk now,’ Stella said wearily, and Jed hoisted her down again. The child hung back behind him with some of the other mourners, as Maggie fell into step alongside him. Stella didn’t much like Maggie, he knew.
‘That’s better,’ Maggie said. ‘Now we can talk as adults. Jed, you’ll need help managing the girls, won’t you? I mean, I’ll do what I can for you, but long term, you’ll need someone living in. You’ll need to take another wife.’
‘For the Lord’s sake, Maggie, I’ve not yet buried my first wife!’ Jed could not help blurting out the words. ‘Give me a chance, woman.’
Maggie had the grace to hang her head. ‘I’m sorry. You know me, Jed. Sometimes I speak my mind before I think it through properly.’ She reached out to touch his arm. ‘I want only the best for you, never forget that.’
Jed softened his expression. ‘Aye, Maggie, I know that.’
They walked on. Maggie paused to flick a stone out of her shoe, and Stella then ran up to take her place beside Jed once more, slipping her little hand into his roughened one.
‘I was thinking, Pa, that Ma would have liked this walk, and with all the village coming too. Perhaps we should have carried her over this way to the church.’
‘It’d have been a struggle, lass. But you know, a hundred years ago that’s what the people of Brackendale did with their dead. Before St Isidore’s graveyard was consecrated, coffins were carried over here all the way to Glydesdale for burial. That’s why it’s called the Old Corpse Road. See that flat stone, there?’
Stella looked where he was pointing, at a large flat-topped stone just off the path.
‘It’s a lych-stone. The men would have placed the coffin there for a rest. There are a few of them on this route, and then the final one in the lych-gate of the Glydesdale church.’
Stella shuddered. ‘Are there ghosts up here, then? If so many dead bodies were carried along this path?’
Jed smiled sadly at her. ‘Who knows, lass? Perhaps there are. Well, we need to walk a bit faster if we’re to get to Glydesdale in time to meet your ma’s coffin there. Can you manage it?’
She nodded solemnly, and quickened her pace. Jed matched it, and the crowd behind did too. So many from the village were coming to the funeral. Everyone except Janie Earnshaw, Maggie’s mother, who’d offered to stay behind and take care of little Jessie as she had to stay to look after her sister Susie anyway. A funeral was no place for someone like poor Susie.
The sun was climbing higher and the day was warming up from its frosty start. Jed checked his pocket watch – the one that his father, Isaac, had passed on to him. They would be on time, as long as they didn’t slow up at all. In any case, the vicar would surely not start the service without them. Jed was still glad he had chosen to walk rather than ride in the hearse with Edie, or in a motorcar following it. The fresh air and exercise after the days stuck indoors at Edie’s sickbed were doing him good, helping him to realise that life would still go on and it was up to him, for the sake of the girls, to make the best of it. Though how he would manage it he didn’t know. He’d lost his wife and soon he would lose his home, his workshop, his business as a mechanic, and indeed his whole community, the village where he was born and had lived all his life. Times were tough. But he’d promised Edie, as she lay dying, that he would give the girls a good life. They’d want for nothing, if it was within his power to provide it.
Stella tugged on his hand. ‘Look!’ She was pointing high above them, where a skylark was singing its heart out. ‘It’s Ma. She’s telling us she’s all right, and that it doesn’t hurt any more, and that she wants us to be happy.’
Jed looked up, and blinked against the bright sunlight. ‘Yes, lass, perhaps it is your ma. We’ll do our best to be happy, eh, after today at any rate.’ His voice broke a little as he spoke. He hadn’t yet told Stella that they would have to move out of their home in a year. She knew about the dam, of course – she’d seen the land where it was to be sited being prepared, the new road being built for the workmen to use. And it had been impossible to prevent her from hearing the talk in the village. It had been almost the only topic of conversation for months, ever since that first meeting when officials from the water board had called the villagers together in the Lost Sheep and told them their valley was to be flooded to build a reservoir. The water would be piped all the way to Manchester. So Stella knew, but whether she had worked out that they would not have long left in the village Jed didn’t know. And now was not the time to talk about it.
They were descending now, into the Glydesdale valley. The familiar mountains surrounding Brackendale were out of sight, and instead there was a new vista – steep screes tumbling down to meet the lush fields of Glydesdale, a few farms dotted through the valley and a little cluster of cottages surrounding the church. Soon they would join