Two Sisters

TWO SISTERS

Josephine Cox

with GILLY MIDDLETON

Copyright

HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2020

Copyright © Josephine Cox 2020

Josephine Cox asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

Gilly Middleton is acknowledged as the co-author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008128593

Ebook Edition © 2020 ISBN: 9780008128432

Version: 2020-10-08

Dedication

For my Ken, as always.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

The Letter from Jo

Part One: Gina May 1956–August 1956

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Part Two: Ellen March 1957–November 1957

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Praise

Josephine Cox effect

Memorial page

Keep Reading …

About the Author

Also by Josephine Cox

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

ELLEN ARNOLD LAY back on the grass, one arm shielding her eyes from the intense brightness of the spring sky. She heard the calling of ewes to their lambs in the next field and then eventually the rustle of her sister’s skirt as Georgina sat down beside her.

‘You were a while closing that gate,’ Ellen said, not looking round. There was a long pause. ‘Gina?’

‘I got the rope all twisted …’

They were silent and still for a few minutes.

‘It’s lovely here … so peaceful,’ murmured Ellen.

‘If you like peaceful. Sometimes I reckon the countryside can be a bit quiet.’

‘I don’t mind quiet. It doesn’t have to be … I don’t know … small. Mr Beveridge can have quiet whenever he wants to as it’s his farm. Mr Stellion, at the Hall, goes all over the place on business but he’s always got that lovely garden to return to.’

‘Mm …’ Gina thought of Grindle Hall, the biggest house she’d ever seen. But it was still in the village of Little Grindle, still stuck out here on the Lancashire fells, where nothing ever happened.

‘Good of Mr Beveridge to give me the afternoon off,’ Ellen said.

‘Yes, wasn’t it?’ said Gina heavily. ‘Pity he was too mean to give me a little holiday as well.’

‘But you took it anyway.’ Ellen smiled. Her sister had the cheek of the devil sometimes.

‘’Course I did. I had summat I wanted to see to earlier. What’s he going to do about it, anyway?’

‘Well, he might give you the sack.’

Gina considered this. ‘He might but I bet he won’t. If Mr and Mrs B were going to sack me, they’d have done so long since.’

‘Probably. Still, such a lovely afternoon. I wish every day could be like today is right now,’ Ellen said. ‘No hens to see to …’

‘No water troughs to unblock …’

‘No smelly straw to clear out …’

‘No sheep to check on …’

‘Oh, I like the sheep,’ Ellen smiled, then laughed as a loud baa sounded from over the dry-stone wall. ‘The lambs are so bonny when they’re tiny.’

‘You’re daft, Nell – daft as they are,’ Gina said mildly, turning her face to follow an oddly shaped passing cloud. It looked … like a dancing figure with long, spiky limbs, strangely menacing in such a gloriously blue sky. Where had it sprung from? The sky had been cloudless when they’d reached the field gate. ‘I’ll ask you whether you like the sheep next winter when the snow’s coming in and Dad wants you to help get them down from the fell.’

‘Mebbe. Might not be helping on the farm then.’ Now was the time to tell Gina her news. If it all worked out, Gina would have to know anyway, and Ellen didn’t want to look as if she’d kept it from her sister. She’d put off telling her long enough. ‘Uncle Tom wants a new assistant – Young Lionel’s left to work somewhere the other side of Whalley with Old Lionel – and Uncle Tom’s asking Mr Stellion today if I could try out for it; see if it suits me.’

‘You lucky beggar! I think Uncle Tom could have mentioned it to me! That’s not fair. I could work at Grindle Hall. Why didn’t he ask me?’

‘Mebbe because I’m older,’ Ellen said diplomatically. She’d guessed this might be Gina’s reaction.

‘And I’d rather work with Uncle Tom than Dad any day.’

‘Aye, Uncle Tom’s very agreeable, and I reckon I might prefer a garden to the farm. It’d be nice to grow flowers and learn how to cut bushes into those fancy shapes that they have at the Hall.’

The sisters were silent for long minutes, Ellen thinking about the garden at Grindle Hall, Gina sulking and brooding on this missed opportunity. A bee droned in the clover flowers dotting the grass around them. Ellen had her eyes closed still; Gina watched as the cloud-figure grew grotesque features before its head detached from its crooked body and formed into … a round and benign baby cloud.

‘Oh, but it’d be grand never to have to work again at all,’ Gina said after a while. ‘That’s what I’d really like: to have owt I wanted and never have to graft for it.’

Ellen turned to her sister to see if she were serious. ‘Now who’s daft? How can you have owt without working for it?’

‘Stellion has.’

‘It’s Mr Stellion to you, Gina, and his family worked for years to build up the brewery business. He didn’t just come by Grindle Hall and the lovely garden and his car and all, you know. He still runs the brewery, though I do reckon he just turns up and tells other folk what to do these days.’

‘Exactly. I could tell folk what to do. What kind of a job is “telling other folk what to do” anyway, compared to real work, like being a farm hand?’

‘Dad’s the farm hand; we’re the farm hand’s farm hands,’ Ellen pointed out.

They both laughed.

‘But seriously,’ Ellen went on, ‘the brewery is Mr Stellion’s family business and his work is taking responsibility. There’s many a man – and some women, too – relying on his decisions for their livelihood.’

‘Like Mrs Stellion, you mean?’

‘Ah, poor lady. Mum was saying as how she was in bed again last week. It’s a shame to live in such a grand house, warm all winter and full of nice things, time to do whatever you want, but to feel too poorly to enjoy it.’

‘True.’ Gina rolled onto her front and looked Ellen in the face. ‘But it’s all rather wasted on her, isn’t it?’ she said seriously. ‘I reckon if I lived at Grindle Hall I’d be driving that big shiny car myself, or having parties in those enormous rooms, with dancing and a record player, and … I don’t know … banquets, with port to drink instead of Stellion’s beer.’

‘Port? What do you know about port, or even Stellion’s beer, for that matter, Georgina Arnold?’ scoffed Ellen.

‘Well, I wouldn’t mind giving it a try. Mum says Mrs Stellion eats only tasteless wet stuff when she’s feeling poorly – an “invalid’s diet”, she calls it.’ Gina sounded contemptuous. ‘If I were as rich as the Stellions, I’d have roast beef every single day, and Mum’s roast potatoes.’

‘Mebbe Mrs Stellion would like roast beef but she doesn’t feel well enough to stomach it,’ Ellen suggested. ‘It’s not right to be coveting other folk’s things, thinking you’re more deserving of them, just ’cos you’re in better health.’

‘I was only thinking about it, Nell, that’s all. Just daydreaming. No need to get all preachy.’

‘Everyone can dream – and it’s good to have summat to lift the spirits and even to aim for, if you work hard and are lucky with your chances in life – but there’s no sense in you dreaming of big houses and cars and … banquets, ’cos those dreams are never going to come true for folk like us.’

‘Folk like you, you mean?’ snapped Gina, suddenly angry at having the cold water of reality poured over her precious daydreams. ‘Stupid little people that can see no further than a life of drudgery on some pathetic farm in the back of beyond.’

Ellen sighed. ‘No, Gina, I mean ordinary people who have to work hard for their living and mebbe don’t have many advantages, that’s all.’

‘But, Nell, you have to dream big dreams if you want to get on in life. You have to think differently, think new things are possible. You may work as hard as you can, for as long as you can, but in the end you’ll earn nowt but more work to do, if that’s all you can see ahead.’

‘No—’

‘Yes! You have to dream bigger than this life, or this life is all you’ll ever know. Little Grindle is all you’ll ever know. D’you think Little Grindle is all there is … really?’

‘Gina, I don’t—’

‘Look at Mum, going off to Grindle Hall of a morning to clean up after the Stellions. She must see all those beautiful things in that house – see how rich folk live – and what does she do but come home, all worn out, to our cottage – which we live in only because it comes with Dad’s job on the farm – and she doesn’t even mind. How can she not mind? It’s like she’s given up.’

‘Gina, that’s enough. Mebbe I am a “stupid little person” in your eyes – and thank you very much but I don’t want your opinion – but I hate to hear you criticising Mum. Don’t you think she’s got a lot on her plate, with Dad the way he is, without you getting all envious and covetous and discontented, too? In fact, I think you’re beginning to sound a bit like Dad.’

‘No I’m not,’ Gina snapped, eyes wide with shock.

‘Yes,’ Ellen insisted. ‘You were ranting, Gina,’ she added more gently. ‘Come on now … We were having such a lovely afternoon. Let’s not spoil it with arguing.’

Gina stuck out her lower lip and looked away.

‘Come on, love,’ Ellen said again after a few moments’ pause to allow Gina to calm herself. ‘Let’s go back now. Mebbe Mum will be home and have some good news for me about the job at the Hall.’

Gina sighed dramatically and rose to her feet. ‘If that’s what you want …’ she murmured.

In silence they walked towards the field gate, brushing grass off their skirts.

As Gina lifted the loop that secured the five-bar gate to the post, Ellen suddenly exclaimed, ‘Oh, what’s this? There’s summat stuffed into the gap between the stones. Looks like a little bottle with … mebbe some kind of thread tied around the neck.’

She reached towards the dry-stone wall but, just as she had almost grasped the find, Gina hit her hand away with a loud slap.

‘Ow, that hurt. What did you do that for?’

‘Don’t touch it, Nell.’

‘What do you mean? I was only going to look, not drink it or anything.’ Ellen made to take it again.

Gina grabbed her sister’s wrist and held it away from the dark-coloured phial, the stopper of which was bound with a few strands of brown hair.

‘It’s not safe. I mean it, Nell. It’s … it looks like it’s … mebbe part of a spell,’ Gina said quietly. ‘You mustn’t pick it up or the spell could get to work on you … I’ve heard of such things.’

‘A spell? What, like a witch’s?’ Ellen tried to keep her voice light and shrug off her sister’s grasp, but Gina held on to her so tightly that Ellen realised she really meant what she said. In an instant the atmosphere became strange and foreboding.

‘Exactly. Just leave it right where it is. Forget you even saw it. It’s nowt to do with you.’

‘Gina, you’re scaring me. And what’s it got to do with you? How do you know all this?’

Gina said nothing but let go of Ellen’s arm. She knew it was safe to do so now.

‘Tell me!’

‘Because I put it there,’ Gina said defiantly.

Ellen opened her mouth to reply but found herself speechless. She looked into her sister’s violet eyes, so like her own, except now the expression in them was as hard as flint. She wanted to tell Gina to stop being silly, that this kind of trick wasn’t funny and she was spoiling their afternoon, but even as she thought this, a cloud passed before the sun, the bright May day grew instantly chilly and she shivered to see the change in Gina’s face as a shadow passed over it, her prettiness transformed. She looked dangerous. Worse, she looked unhinged.

Without another word, both girls passed through the gate and Gina placed the loop back over the post to secure it. Ellen avoided even a glance at the cleft in the wall. Gina strode determinedly off down the track towards the henhouses, scattering hens as she approached, while Ellen followed slowly, fearful of what she had seen and heard. It was like a bad daydream that had tainted the day.

When she reached the back door of Highview Cottage, Gina was already in the garden watering the herb bed from a heavy metal can, pointedly ignoring her, and Ellen lifted the latch and went inside alone, her mind buzzing with questions she knew better than to ask just yet.

Dora Arnold opened the back door to her home to be greeted with the smell of baking bread.

‘Hello, Mum. All right? I thought I’d get a loaf on as Mr Beveridge gave Gina and me the afternoon off,’ said Ellen, deliberately not quite telling the entire truth about the half-day holiday. She knew her mother worried that Gina would never come to any good with her poor attitude to work, and she didn’t want to stir up trouble now, with Dora looking so tired.

‘You’re a good lass, Nellie. And is that a fresh pot of tea under the cosy? Better and better …’

Dora pulled off her outdoor shoes and put on the sandals she wore around the house, sighing and groaning as she eased her tired feet and then her weary back.

‘Here, Mum.’ Ellen handed her mother a mug of copper-coloured tea with plenty of sugar in it. ‘Don’t keep me in suspense. Did Uncle Tom tell Mr Stellion I wanted to try out as his assistant in the garden?’

‘He asked Mr Stellion if he’d agree to give you a chance, yes. And he said … he would!’

‘Ooh, I’m that glad. Thank you, Mum. And thank Uncle Tom, too, won’t you?’

‘You can thank him yourself when you start tomorrow morning. As the job helping your dad is little more than a casual thing, I reckon you needn’t give formal notice to Albert Beveridge – they’ll still have Gina helping out and it won’t do her any harm to work a bit harder – but you might just want to go up to the house and mention it. It’d be only polite, like.’

‘I will. And I’m to start tomorrow! We can walk to Grindle Hall together of a morning. It’ll be fun.’

Dora smiled. ‘I don’t know about fun, lass. The gardening will be hard work, and Uncle Tom will expect you to make the same effort as if you weren’t his niece, but I’ll be glad of your company on the walk.’ She took a sip of her tea. ‘Where’s Gina?’

‘She was watering the garden earlier.’

‘I didn’t see her. Mebbe she’s gone off somewhere. She’ll be back at teatime, no doubt.’

‘I’ll just nip up to see Mr Beveridge now, Mum.’

As Ellen turned into the lane to go to the farmhouse, she looked for Gina over the hedge but there was no one in the garden. She remembered the frightening moment by the gate and that ugly, mad look on Gina’s face. All that talk about witches and spells had been horrible, but now the sun was shining again and, with the good news of her job raising her spirits, the unpleasantness of the incident was receding. Already it seemed like an absurd imagined moment, almost as if it was something she’d read about in a library book.

Ellen thought about her difficult younger sister. Gina could be so wilful and immature. They were very close in age, with Ellen only fifteen months the elder, and they were very alike in appearance, both with long dark brown hair and unusual violet-blue eyes. They were also identical in height and figure, being tall and strong looking, so that they were sometimes mistaken for each other around the village. However, one subtle difference was that Gina had an odd little birthmark behind her ear, hidden under her hair. It looked like a tiny crescent moon. Ellen had long thought it must be a family thing, because Uncle Tom had exactly the same birthmark on the inside of his forearm …

Yes, it was very odd about that mysterious little bottle in the wall by the gate. But Gina was given to saying fanciful things and getting worked up over nothing. Ellen had once heard their mother describe Gina as ‘highly strung’. She was certainly quick to anger and prone to moods. Very like their father, really … which was odd, as Gina and their dad were rarely at peace with each other. Mind, Philip wasn’t really at peace with anyone, though Gina bore the brunt of his ill temper.

As if her thoughts had conjured him up, Philip Arnold came in sight as Ellen walked the turn in the lane and passed the sign that said ‘Highview Farm’. Jute, Mr Beveridge’s sheepdog, wandered over to greet her, circled round behind her as she approached as if gently rounding her up, then went back to sit in the shade.

‘Dad, hello.’

Philip was sweeping the path into the farmyard but stopped and rested on his broom. ‘What’s the news? Tom taking you on, is he?’

‘I’m to start tomorrow.’

‘Oh, aye? So I’m to lose my help to your Uncle Tom, am I?’

‘You could congratulate me, Dad. It’s a proper job with prospects. You’ll still have Gina, and the arrangement here was only helping out anyway.’

‘Ha, Gina’s taken up with whatever nonsense is in her head half the time. She doesn’t put in half the effort you do, and well you know it.’

‘Mebbe she will now, Dad.’

‘Hmm.’

Well, what did I expect? Dad’s never been an optimist, Ellen thought. Or generous.

‘And it’ll be better when I have a proper wage. You know Gina and me only earn a little bit here,’ she said, determined to jolly him along, hoping for the slightest evidence of his pleasure in her new opportunity. ‘You won’t miss me really, Dad. There’s Edward and Mr Beveridge, and he always brings in casuals for the shearing and that. And Mrs Beveridge likes to be in charge of the hens, with Gina to help, so you never have to see to them.’

‘Hens … bloomin’ useless birds: daft. They’re like sheep that way, but with wings.’

‘And eggs,’ laughed Ellen.

‘But just as keen to be dying of one thing or another.’ Philip didn’t smile.

‘Not your problem. I’m just going in to tell Mr and Mrs B about my job.’

‘Aye. It’s just her who’s in.’

Ellen went round the back of the farmhouse, knocked on the open door and stepped inside. Mrs Beveridge was standing at the kitchen table, wiping eggs with a damp cloth and placing them in a cardboard tray. Ellen told her about the gardening job at Grindle Hall.

‘Well, we’ll miss you, Ellen, no doubt about that, but our loss is Mr Stellion’s gain. And your Uncle Tom’s. You’re a good worker and deserve a more formal job, like, after all this time, mebbe with a bit of training.’

‘Thank you, Mrs Beveridge.’

‘And our Edward’ll be sorry not to see you about the place, too, though you’ll always be at the end of the lane.’

Ellen smiled. ‘Of course. We’re all pleased to see Ed whenever he wants to drop by.’

‘Here, take this for your pay, and there’s a bit extra as thanks for your efforts. And I’ve a few cracked eggs here I won’t be able to sell, so you can have those for your mum, if she’d like them.’

‘She would, I’m sure. Thank you, Mrs Beveridge. And thanks for the pay. My regards and thanks to Mr Beveridge … and to Ed, too.’

‘I’ll tell them you said so, love.’

As Ellen walked out across the yard, carefully carrying the tray of eggs, she saw her father glance her way then disappear behind the hay barn. He was avoiding her, seemingly resentful of her new job – or maybe of her working with Uncle Tom. She sighed: nothing to do with her. Dad and Uncle Tom had never got on well. Mum was on good terms with her brother-in-law, though, and of course they saw a lot of each other, both working up at the Hall.

When she’d finished watering the herbs, Gina went back to the field where she and Ellen had lain in the sun earlier. At the gate she stopped to take the little phial from the recess, thinking she couldn’t risk her sister coming back to investigate it. She held it tightly in her clenched fist and wished with all her heart that the spell she had conjured was real and would work. She hoped to feel something happening, experience a sign that powerful forces were at work – she was sure she’d felt the presence of some kind of power when she’d cast the spell in the bedroom she shared with Ellen earlier that afternoon – but the phial just looked like an ordinary tiny glass medicine bottle in which she’d placed a drop of blood from a pricked finger, the stopper bound round with a few strands of hair she’d combed out of her hairbrush. The exact incantation she’d recited – what a word that was: in-can-ta-tion; she said it aloud, liking the sound – was forgotten now, and the shabby little volume she’d filched from a second-hand bookstall and in which she’d discovered the so-called spell was hidden in her clothes drawer and not to hand. She’d moved the phial now, so she was certain the spell had lost its power.