Inherit the Skies by Janet Tanner Page A

will a girl like that be to me I’d like to know?’ Bertha demanded. ‘I don’t s’pose she knows the first thing about hard work! And what if she turns out like her mother? That would be a pretty kettle of fish!’
    â€˜Her mother was a nice enough woman.’
    â€˜Nice? Nice ? Oh, she was nice to somebody, right enough.’
    â€˜Her husband died in India, didn’t he?’
    â€˜So she said. Did anybody ever set eyes on him? No, they did not. She comes here to a respectable place with a baby and no husband, putting on her airs and graces and then … What did she die of, eh? That’s something I’d like to know!’ she added darkly.
    The implication had the effect of sending Amos back into his shell. If there was one thing he disliked more than Bertha’s constant nagging it was gossip and aspersions cast without foundation on the character of those against whom he held no grudge for Amos liked to think only the best of his fellow human beings. Perhaps it was this inherent good nature which had enabled him to endure Bertha’s tantrums for fifteen years without ever turning on her and telling her to stop her clacking. Faced with a disagreement, or what he called ‘ unpleasantness’, Amos simply walked away – or if he was unable to do that, retreated to a mental sanctuary where there were no decisions to be made except those that concerned the land, no enemies but the foxes, the crows or inclement weather and certainly no shrill-voiced Bertha.
    â€˜I hope the weather holds out for another day or two,’ he said thoughtfully, gazing out at the purpling sky. ‘Another day or two and we can get that hay in. But I don’t care for the look of the sky. It’s very black over Bill’s mother’s.’
    The blatant change of subject infuriated Bertha past the point of control and she banged on the table in a frenzy so that the sugar basin raided and the knives and forks jumped up and down on the plates.
    â€˜Amos Pugh, sometimes I don’t think you’m all there! You let Gilbert Morse walk all over you and then when I’m trying to talk sensible to you about what you’ve gone and done all you can think of is your hay!’
    Amos did not reply. He could have told Bertha the hay was the single most important thing at the moment; without it the animals would go hungry when winter came. And she had been a farmer’s wife long enough to know that life revolved around the weather. But to point this out would be to add fuel to the fire; leave Bertha alone and she would burn herself out in the end, though she had worked herself up into a rare old tizzy this time and no mistake!
    He was still staring solidly out of the window when he heard the bub-bub-bub of an engine and Gilbert Morse’s ‘motee car’ turned into the farmyard. Gilbert was behind the wheel, clad in his cap, goggles and dustcoat, and beside him on the bucket seat was the small forlorn figure of Sarah.
    â€˜They’m here,’ he announced impassively.
    â€˜ What ?’ Bertha’s voice reached a new pitch.
    â€˜They’m here – Mr Morse and young Sarah.’
    She flew to the window as if refusing to take his word for it, her anger becoming something close to panic.
    â€˜ Here ? You didn’t say nothing about them coming tonight! Oh my lord, just look at the state we’m in! Whatever is the matter with you, Amos?’
    She rushed to the table, bundling the plates together with the knives and forks still between and depositing them hastily in the big stone sink. She could not bear to be caught at a disadvantage – she kept a good tidy house and she certainly did not want the Squire to think any different. As she dropped the half-eaten loaf of bread into the crock in the pantry she heard the knock on the back door; quickly she brushed the crumbs from the breadplate with her hand and stacked it on the slab behind the cheese