When Sarah awoke in the morning, the chill of the room struck her at once. The low fire that she had left to burn in the bedroom grate overnight had long since gone out and she could see her breath in the air. She took a moment or two to gather her resolve, then she swung her legs out from beneath the covers, pulled on her boots and wrapped a thick shawl around her shoulders before heading downstairs to the kitchen.
Focused as she was on raking out the coals in the range and restoring the fire to bring some heat into the room, she didn’t hear Daniel enter the kitchen. She almost dropped the ash bucket in shock when he spoke. She spun round, hand clamped over her mouth to stifle a gasp.
‘Forgive me. I have startled you!’ Daniel said.
‘I had forgotten that you were here.’ Sarah was mortified, aware of how she must look in her nightgown and boots, a shawl around her shoulders and her hair in disarray. She thought that Daniel looked hurt and she hastened to add, ‘We are so unaccustomed to visitors and you are so unassuming. I do hope you slept well?’
‘Indeed.’ Daniel smiled. ‘I feel thoroughly refreshed. I don’t believe that any more snow has fallen overnight so perhaps I should try my luck at the station.’
They both looked out of the window. While it was true that no more snow had fallen, the previous day’s fall still lay deep across the garden, so that it was hard to make out its features. The path and the gate were half-buried in a crisp white drift, now sparkling under winter sun.
‘It’s possible that the train may be running down in the valley,’ Sarah conceded, ‘but your difficulty will be in making your way there. Perhaps you should wait a little to see whether the sun will bring with it any chance of a thaw?’
She excused herself and hurried upstairs to dress. She remembered too late the water that she had set to boil on the range as she dipped her hand into the iciness of her bedroom water jug. She hesitated, then poured a little into the bowl and splashed her face, gasping as she did so. Having hastily dressed, she brushed her hair and then twisted it into a semblance of a top-knot. Back downstairs she made tea, moving around Daniel, who clearly didn’t know what to do with himself in this small domestic space.
‘Sit,’ she commanded eventually, as he paced between the range and the window. ‘There’s nothing that you can do for the moment so you may as well have tea and some bread and butter.’
Daniel sighed and did as he was bid. Sarah poured tea from the big brown pot and laid out a cup and plate in readiness for Ada. As she poured milk into a jug a sudden wave of nausea overtook her and she had to stop, bent forward, the back of one hand pressed to her mouth as she supported herself on the table with the other.
‘Are you all right?’ Daniel half-rose to his feet in concern.
Sarah nodded her head and grimaced, hoping that the feeling would pass as quickly as it had come. It had started to afflict her in the mornings and Ada had promised that they would make a herbal tea that would, she felt, ease the symptoms.
‘I’m all right, thank you. Just a little … sickness.’ She hesitated, wondering how much to reveal, then added in a rush, ‘I’m expecting a baby.’ She caught Daniel’s quick glance at her belly and lowered her hand there in a protective reflex.
Daniel looked puzzled. ‘Did your husband not leave for work before your wedding night?’
There was a silence, during which Sarah felt a hot flush rise to her cheeks, mirrored on Daniel’s countenance.
‘I am so sorry,’ he said, looking aghast. ‘That was most rude and thoughtless of me. Please forgive me.’
When Ada came down to breakfast a few minutes later she found them sitting in an awkward silence, both their faces still bearing traces of their mutual embarrassment. She looked from one to the other but didn’t comment, and the moment quickly passed as Sarah poured tea for her and they discussed what Daniel should do for the best. Ada was in favour of him waiting to see whether the sunshine would bring a thaw but Daniel was impatient to be doing something and, when he announced his intention of attempting to reach the mill, Sarah was secretly thankful.
‘It’s more than likely that the workforce have already made their way there this morning,’ Daniel reasoned. ‘They won’t want to lose a day’s wages. So there’ll be some sort of passable route from the village. And once I am there I’ll wager I can discover whether or not the trains are running from Nortonstall.’
He pushed his chair back from the table. ‘I’ve imposed on your hospitality long enough. My boots are stout – I’m sure they will see me through a bit of snow.’
Ada tried to demur but Sarah quietly gathered together some bread and cheese and parcelled them up for him.
‘Here, take this with you,’ she said. ‘If you reach the mill you’ll be needing something to get you through the day.’
Daniel was already at the door, winding a muffler around his neck and preparing to slide back the bolts. He took the package gratefully with a nod of thanks then, promising Ada that he would return if the snow should prevent him making his way home to Manchester, he opened the door and stepped outside. The air was icy and, despite the sunshine, a hard frost still crisped the surface of the snow.
Daniel’s progress was comical; his first steps were on top of the snow before suddenly his foot plunged through the layers, pitching him forward. He flung his arms wide to keep his balance, just managing to hold on to his lunch, before he took a few more steps on the surface only for the same thing to happen again. He turned at the gate, lifted his cap and gave them a cheery wave. His cheeks were glowing from the cold, Sarah noticed, but he was smiling broadly and clearly enjoying himself. She felt a pang of envy. He was heading off on an adventure while she could only wave back and close the door, in accordance with Ada’s wishes that she should stop letting out all the warmth.
Whilst the novelty of a visitor had been very welcome, Daniel’s visit had raised a sense of dissatisfaction in Sarah that hadn’t been there before. She hoped it was something that would quickly pass. If the snow remained, she could see that she would be in her grandmother’s company for the foreseeable future, following the same daily routine. Something that had once seemed so pleasurable now felt confining.
Chapter 17
That same evening, once her day of practical study was over and it was time to start preparing something for their supper, Sarah thought back to the previous evening and was reminded once more of the pleasure created by the change to their routine. A thunderous knocking at the door caused her to start so violently that she almost dropped the cooking pot that she was about to set on the range.
Her thoughts flew to Daniel as she wiped her hands on her apron. He must have found himself unable to return to Manchester after all and had returned to spend another night with them. Despite their earlier embarrassment, she found herself glad at the thought and opened the door with his name already on her lips, only to find a stranger standing there. Snow was falling again and a wind had got up, so that the figure was temporarily hidden from her in a blizzard of flakes and she could not make him out.
‘Well,’ the figure demanded. ‘Will ye let me in or am I to freeze to death here on t’doorstep?’
‘Joe!’ His name came out as a gasp.
‘Aye. Your loving husband. And who else might it be at this hour?’
Joe was through the door now, and shaking the snow off himself so that it settled on the flagstones and quickly turned into a puddle.
‘It really is you!’ All thoughts of Daniel were now banished by Sarah’s sudden joy at seeing her husband after all this time. His hair was longer, his skin paler and his beard bushier than when she had last seen him but his eyes were the same vivid blue and they crinkled with pleasure at the sight of her.
‘Well now, what a journey I’ve had for the pleasure of seeing you,’ he said, sitting heavily in a chair that he had pulled out to face the range. ‘My fingers are fair frozen. You’ll have to get these off me,’ and he indicated his boots.
Sarah knelt down and unlaced hi
s boots then pulled them off, feeing the chill of his feet through his socks as she did so. ‘Here,’ she said, raising his feet to set them on the hearth of the range, ‘sit closer. Your feet are like blocks of ice. Have you walked far?’
‘Aye, all the way up from canal near Rawton’s Wood, just to have sight of you,’ Joe said. He laughed. ‘And a right trip it proved to be. Why, I sat down on my arse more times than I care to count. The ice that has canal in its grip is a sight worse up here.’
‘The canal has iced over?’ Sarah was glad that her grandmother wasn’t in the room to hear Joe’s profanity. She wondered momentarily whether Daniel had been able to leave Nortonstall at all. It would be awkward if he should suddenly turn up on the doorstep, too.
‘Is that Daniel back again?’ It was her grandmother, calling down the stairs from her bedroom, where she had been resting.
‘Daniel?’ Joe said, looking at Sarah with raised brows. ‘And who might he be?’
Sarah was tempted to say that it was someone from the village in need of a remedy, then wondered why she had thought to lie. She supposed it would be easier if she didn’t have to explain about Daniel right now, for it would only lead to her having to tell Joe about her sisters and her mother. She wanted to be able to focus on him, and his life over the last few weeks. She decided on a half-truth, giving him his full name, Daniel Whittaker, and describing him as an unexpected visitor from Manchester and a friend of her grandmother.
Hearing Ada coming down the stairs, Sarah went through to stand at the bottom. ‘It’s Joe, Gran. And a terrible journey he’s had of it, it seems. The snow is coming down heavily now.’
‘Do you have a glass of ale?’ Joe called after her. He greeted Ada’s entrance into the kitchen by rising to his feet and making a mock serious bow. ‘A pleasure to see you again, Mrs Randall.’
He caught Sarah around the waist as she passed by and pulled her onto his lap. ‘Now, I passed up on chance of a drink in Northwaite, to be sure of seeing you all the sooner. So can you find a thirsty man some refreshment now?’
‘Not in this house, I’m afraid, Mr Bancroft,’ Ada said crisply, moving past him to set the kettle on the hob. ‘I hope some hot tea will be welcome on such a cold night?’
Sarah felt Joe’s grip on her tighten momentarily and she saw that he was glowering at Ada’s back. Then she felt him relax.
‘Joe, ma’am, since we’re to be under same roof.’
‘How long is your visit to be?’ Ada’s tone was polite, but the implication was that the shorter the visit, the better. Joe was unmoved.
‘Happen that’s down to t’weather. Boat’s stuck in canal and there it stays until t’ice be gone.’
‘So you’re not moored in Nortonstall?’
Sarah felt uncomfortable sitting on Joe’s lap in her grandmother’s kitchen; it seemed impolite and she wriggled free to busy herself with the supper.
‘Nay. We left there on Wednesday on way back to Leeds but afore too long we found ourselves iced in.’
‘Wednesday?’ Sarah swung round to look at him. ‘So you’ve already been back to Nortonstall but didn’t think to come to visit?’ She was puzzled and hurt.
‘Nay.’ Joe shifted uncomfortably in his chair. ‘’Twas a lack of time. We were straight on way back with t’next load.’
Sarah wondered whether he’d found the time to visit the Packhorse Inn in Nortonstall but made no comment. He was here now and she must make the most of it before the thaw set in and sent him on his way.
‘I wish I’d known you were coming,’ she said. ‘I could have made a special supper: the wedding celebration that we never had. Instead, soup is all we have to offer.’ She looked despondent.
‘No matter.’ Joe was cheerful. ‘’Twill be enough of a treat to have food cooked by someone else. ’Tis a trial to have the boat out on t’water for a full day, then to have to scrat around for supper come evening.’
He sat there, facing the range, his legs stretched full-length, while the two women worked around him, Ada taking over the cooking while Sarah went to set a fire in the parlour. It was an extravagance to have a fire in there two nights running, but it seemed churlish to light one for Daniel and not one for her own husband, whom she hadn’t seen in many a long week.
Chapter 18
With Christmas finally upon them, her first one as a married woman, Sarah felt a sense of nervous anticipation about Joe’s second visit. He’d been able to spend so little time with her when she’d last seen him, just less than a month ago. She’d found it strange to have him there, and she had been uneasy about having him in her bed the whole night through, with her grandmother sleeping so close by. But Joe had fallen asleep before she had even joined him there, then snored the whole night, so what with the disturbance and the novelty of it all, she hadn’t slept a wink.
Dawn had brought with it a steady ‘drip, drip, drip’ from outside and she had peeped out to discover that a thaw had set in overnight. The temperature had risen as quickly as it had fallen and Joe, on waking, had announced that he’d need to return to the canal, and his narrow-boat, right away.
He’d pulled her back down beside him on the bed and nuzzled her neck, then drawn his finger along the length of her nose, kissed her full on the lips and pushed her away again.
‘I can’t tarry. But I’ll be back to spend Christmas so make sure you have a nice dish of beef for me, an’ a slice or two of plum pudding.’
She trailed a length of ivy across the parlour mantel and tucked the last sprig of holly behind the one picture on the wall, a painting of the river below Nortonstall where it was crossed by the packhorse bridge. It had been painted by her great-grandmother, signed Catherine Abbot and dated 1805. Sarah examined it closely for the first time: it was an accomplished piece. She wondered whether other works by her great-grandmother existed and resolved to ask Ada about it, but first she stood back and looked critically around.
The scent of the foliage brought a sense of the crisp outdoors into the room. The dark-green glossy leaves and the red berries added a festive air, but it wasn’t quite enough, she decided. A few more sprigs of holly to go in a jug, perhaps, then with the fire lit it would truly feel like Christmas Eve.
She took the scissors from the table as she passed through the kitchen, threw a shawl around her shoulders and slipped her feet into her boots before stepping outside. The chill of the air struck her. Surely it hadn’t been this cold when she had been outside earlier that afternoon?
She glanced up at the sky; the clouds of earlier in the day had vanished and now the sky was shaded from palest blue over in the west to inky blue above her head, where a couple of stars were just peeping out. She knew her way well enough around the garden to have no need of extra light to locate the holly bush, and she swiftly cut a few more stems, sucking her finger where the spines on the leaves pierced her skin and drew blood. She was just trying to remember whether, in legend, the berries were meant to represent drops of blood when, deep in thought, she was startled by something hard hitting her full in the face.
She stepped back, dropping the holly as she did so, heart thumping. Then she started to laugh. Her assailant was a towel, hung out on the line earlier. Forgotten about, it had frozen and now hung there, stiff as a board. Sarah unpegged it and frowned at the rigid cloth, then she laid it on the ground and used it as a tray to carry the holly inside.
‘What on earth have you got there?’ Ada asked. She’d been resting upstairs, something that she had got into the habit of doing regularly of late.
‘It’s the kitchen towel, frozen solid,’ Sarah said, standing the rigid piece of cloth on the draining board. ‘We’re going to have a hard frost tonight. I hope Joe gets here before the hill out of the village becomes too icy.’
‘Well, I daresay he’ll be none too steady on his feet, in any case,’ Ada observed drily. ‘No doubt he’s made it as far as The Old Bell but stopped to wish a merry Christmas to one and all.’
Sarah ignored the comment a
nd went through to the parlour to finish her holly decorations. Then it would be time to prepare the evening meal, which they would normally have had after midnight service in the chapel, but this year, for the first time, Ada had decided not to go.
‘It’s a way to walk there and back in the cold and dark. I’ll content myself with the Christmas Day service this year,’ she’d said.
Sarah had been puzzled. Ada had always enjoyed attending the evening service; the streets on the way there and back were busy with people all muffled against the cold and offering the season’s greetings to each other. The abundance of lanterns, set on walls and in windows and carried by the churchgoers, added a magical feel and Sarah would be sorry not to see it. But Joe would be coming and she had a feeling that, once indoors, he would have little enthusiasm for heading out again to go to the chapel.
They were to have Ada’s special beef broth for Christmas Eve night, along with a slice or two of ham and some pickles to add to the bread, freshly baked that afternoon. A few apples from their store in the outhouse and a bit of cheese would complete the meal.
‘Not too much cheese,’ Ada would always counsel. ‘Otherwise you’ll be complaining of the wildness of your dreams in the morning.’
Sarah began to lay the table, bringing out the best china and cutlery from the parlour cupboard. These things saw the light of day at Christmas, Easter and on birthdays, and the rarity of the exposure always made the event seem extra special. She took a linen cloth and polished the cutlery and glasses until they shone. Joe had only dined with them once before but tonight’s table, which she’d also decorated with ivy, would impress him, she thought.
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