Sarah oversaw the placing of the last few items and boxes, then tried to decide which room to begin unpacking first. The kitchen seemed like the obvious choice and so she set to, filling the dresser with the china so recently packed away and hanging the pans on the hooks to the side of the range. Ada came back into the kitchen, fired up with enthusiasm and ready to get to work on planting her herb beds at once. She’d brought as much as she could in the way of cuttings and seedlings with her.
‘If I don’t get them into the ground they’ll wilt. Do we have the garden tools packed away somewhere?’
Sarah, standing in the middle of the kitchen surrounded by bags and boxes, opened her mouth to speak and burst into tears instead.
Ada looked at her in consternation. ‘Why, whatever is the matter?’
Sarah wasn’t sure that she could rightly say. Her head ached, as did her shoulders, and it felt as though everything she had bottled up over the last few weeks was now rising to the surface and must burst forth. There had been the shock of being given notice on Hill Farm Cottage, the uncertainty of whether they could take a lease on Lane End Cottage, the necessity of putting a brave face on things to convince her grandmother that they could turn it into a home despite its condition, the achieving of this goal and the effort involved in packing up their lives.
Now that all was successfully concluded and they were here, she should have felt happy – but Sarah had been fretting all the while she was unpacking. Her thoughts had turned to Joe and whether he would be able to find them now that they had moved, then to Alice. Her baby was barely two months old and Sarah felt as though she had neglected her badly over the last month. She had been so distracted by everything that needed organising that she’d handed Alice over to her grandmother or Martha with barely a moment’s hesitation. Had it been a relief to do so? Had she been irritated when she had to devote time to giving her a feed? Was she, in fact, much like her own mother, unsuited to motherhood? She’d entered into the state with barely a thought as to what it entailed and now she didn’t know how to go on with it.
Sarah became aware that Ada, watching her with concern as she sobbed, was waiting for an answer. She couldn’t tell her the truth. It had dawned on her today that their roles had been reversed, apparently without either of them noticing. Her grandmother had become reliant on her for organising their lives. Was this the way it was to be from now on? It would only upset Ada to point it out to her, she felt sure. She sniffed and struggled hard to get her feelings under control.
‘I can’t believe we’re finally here, that’s all.’ She wiped her eyes on the corner of her apron. ‘I wondered whether it would ever happen but it has and we’ve been so lucky with all the help we’ve had.’ The thought of this, and how on earth they could have managed without, threatened to make Sarah’s tears well up all over again.
‘Is that all?’ Ada looked relieved. ‘I thought something bad had happened. And now I see that you’ve been busy unpacking while I’ve been indulging myself with dreaming. Have we the makings of a cup of tea, I wonder? Let’s take it into the garden and then I can help you set the kitchen to rights. My foolish nonsense about planting can wait until the weekend. Daniel says he will be with us on Saturday afternoon and he’ll be glad to be outside after a working week in the mill, I’ll be bound.’
Ada bustled around making tea while Sarah sank into a chair, taking Alice onto her lap and feeling as though her life was back on its rightful track once more. She was eighteen years old and a married woman with a baby, but for once it felt good to be just a granddaughter once more. The tea revived her and with two cupfuls poured and drunk she was ready to return to the unpacking once more.
‘I’ll finish up in the kitchen,’ Ada said firmly. ‘You go and set your room to rights. Alice will be unsettled enough tonight, what with her crib in a strange place and her no doubt picking up on your mood. You’ll not want to make that any worse by trying to unpack around her as she sleeps.’
Her grandmother clearly knew what she was talking about, Sarah thought ruefully that night as she paced the floor with a cross and wailing baby. Alice hadn’t taken her last feed well, seeming distracted, and Sarah, who was impatient to be off to do some more unpacking, had tried hard to appear calm and serene so that Alice wouldn’t sense this. Later, she’d barely been in bed beyond an hour before Alice’s wails roused her. Her daughter was not going to be pacified by another feed; she seemed alert to the difference in the room, refusing to feed for more than a minute before her eyes were drawn to the moonlight coming through the curtainless window, then craning her neck towards the shadows it cast on the floorboards.
‘Well, little one,’ Sarah whispered, ‘there’s no sleep to be had while you’re in this mood.’
Pausing only to throw a shawl over her nightgown, she went quietly downstairs and let herself out into the garden. ‘Look how bright the moon is,’ she said, holding Alice in front of her so that she could see it. Alice waved her arms and kicked her legs with some force, making Sarah laugh in surprise.
‘You’re a strong one. You’ll be walking before you think of crawling, I’ll be bound.’ She walked slowly around the garden, holding Alice so that she could see everything around her. ‘Your father will see a difference in you when he’s home,’ she whispered into Alice’s ear, drinking in her baby scent and loving the sensation of her little warm and wriggling body. Sarah felt Joe’s absence keenly now. It wasn’t just that there were jobs to be done around the place that were better suited to a man’s strength. She didn’t like to count how many days they’d spent together as man and wife in nine months of marriage but she feared it couldn’t even amount to a month. It wasn’t how she had imagined it would be and she missed him.
Sarah had returned Alice to her shoulder and was circling the garden, rhythmically patting her on the back. It was only when weariness caused her to stumble that Sarah realised her daughter was sleeping peacefully now and so she crept back up the stairs, fearful that a change in her rhythm of movement would wake her. She slipped Alice back into the crib and fell thankfully into bed.
Cooing cries that threatened to turn into a grumble and then a full-blown wail woke her to soft sunshine the next morning. Six hours had passed and although Sarah would have relished more, she was thankful for the rest she’d had.
Chapter 35
Despite the best season for planting having passed, Ada had such experience with herbs that her confidence in the cuttings and seedlings she had brought with her from Hill Farm Cottage had been rewarded. She’d worked with Daniel over the first weekend of their residence to mark out the beds, of which there were four in all, consisting of two rectangular ones on each side of the central path leading down the garden. She’d earmarked the borders along the hedges at the sides for fruit and vegetables and to grow herbs that required shade.
‘There’s no substitute for woodland, though,’ Ada had declared, a month after planting. Assiduous watering had seen all but five or six of the seedlings take to their new home and the herb beds were beginning to prosper, although they were a long way off what she had enjoyed at Hill Farm Cottage. The plants that required moist shade had no place in the garden, and so Sarah still found herself despatched to search these out.
She had also managed, before they had moved, to find the time to broker a deal with Farmer Platt, the owner of Hill Farm Cottage. Swallowing her anger over what she viewed as their summary dismissal after having been good tenants for such a long time, Sarah had approached Farmer Platt to see whether they might be permitted to continue to harvest some of the herbs from the garden they were leaving behind.
Farmer Platt, a large, ruddy-faced man who looked at home in his working gear, but always appeared to be in danger of bursting out of his Sunday best when he was in chapel, was even redder in the face than usual when Sarah was shown into the farmhouse parlour. He wouldn’t meet her eyes at first, but ran his hands through his thinning grey hair and confessed to being mortified at what had come to pass
.
‘I hope I can rely on you to assure your grandmother, Mrs Randall, that if I had my way you’d be tenants still down the hill,’ he said, having sat silently through Mrs Platt’s cooing over Alice. Dressed in her prettiest sun-bonnet, Alice was on her best behaviour and quite entranced by Farmer Platt’s number one sheepdog, Bonnie, who was the farmer’s constant companion.
‘Aye, if it were up to me you should have been tenants until she had no more need of the place,’ he went on. ‘’Tis my son who is the cause of all this bother. He’s after coming back to take up farming, having decided that life in yon city –’ Farmer Platt jerked his head in the general direction of Leeds ‘– don’t have half the charm of country life. He’s only gone and got himself a wife and four mouths to feed, the littlest ’un not a day older than your little lass, I’ll wager. Mrs Platt was all for finding place for them here, but if truth be told it’s his wife Eliza who’ll have nowt to do with that. She’s had her heart set on Hill Farm Cottage since Sam tell’t her about it and as soon as she clapped eyes on it, why, she never let up. If I’m to keep peace in Sam’s house then I must go agen my own wishes and give in to t’lady and forget being a master in me own home.’
Mrs Platt, quite taken aback by her husband’s most unusual eloquence, and concerned by the fiery colour of his face, attempted to create a distraction by pouring tea and offering slices of seed-cake.
‘Aye, but I want thy grandmother to know,’ the farmer burst out again, as soon as every last crumb of cake was cleared from his plate, ‘that I’ve not forgot her great kindness to my mother throughout all her years of pain, plagued with rheumatics as she was. She’ll be turning in her grave at the way things are.’
The farmer subsided with a sigh and looked so miserable that Sarah seized her chance.
‘It would be a great kindness if you would consider a request from my grandmother,’ she said, swiftly fashioning a plea where none had existed. ‘She’d be in your debt if you would consider allowing her to harvest from the herb beds when they fall ready. Provided Mrs Sam has no need of them, of course,’ she added hastily.
‘It would be a comfort to me,’ the farmer said, the deep furrow in his brow easing a little. ‘Mrs Sam will be told that any ideas she has for planting must be set aside until you have tek whatever you need. And she must grant you access with good grace, too,’ he added grimly, no doubt thinking ahead to the prospect of a battle with his daughter-in-law.
So it was that Ada experienced little interruption to the supply of the essential ingredients to her trade. And her new home brought her additional business, from those who had previously used market days in Nortonstall as an excuse to visit the herbalist, but now found it more convenient to visit Ada in Northwaite.
Sarah had followed Ada around the garden on Daniel’s third visit to Lane End Cottage, at the end of May, while Ada listed the plants she wanted to add to those already beginning to take root in the soil, which was proving pleasingly fertile.
‘I thought blackcurrants here, at the back of the vegetable patch, so we can have leaves for a diuretic and berries to ease the throat. We already have blackthorn here.’ Ada pointed to the hedge dividing the garden from the field, which swept down towards the valley and the mill hidden from view below. ‘I can use the flowers, the berries and the bark.’
Ada turned to the new beds, nearer the house. ‘I thought comfrey or knitbone here, along with feverfew for headaches and fever, coltsfoot to ease coughs, foxglove to help heal the heart, ground-ivy for nervous complaints, and St John’s wort, of course. Then we’ll have sorrel, lovage, sage, rosemary and thyme here …’
Sarah lost track of her grandmother’s plans as she wandered over to the fence and looked out across the fields. Was Joe out there somewhere, down on the canal in the valley, making his way back to find her? It had been eight long weeks now – she hoped he would be home soon.
Chapter 36
‘Well, she’s a skinny, mealy-mouthed piece of work!’ Sarah came into the kitchen to find Joe seated at the table, looking somewhat ruffled and in the throes of regaling her grandmother with a tale that Ada thankfully seemed to be finding amusing.
‘Why could you not have tell’t me that tha’d moved?’ Joe demanded on seeing Sarah.
‘And how was I to do that,’ she fired back, ‘when I never know where to find you from one day to the next? Where would I have sent word?’
Joe subsided into indecipherable muttering, which Sarah took to be recognition that his wife was right but he had no intention of acknowledging it.
‘Let’s not start with a quarrel,’ Sarah said, swallowing down the feelings that his words had raised and focusing instead on her gladness at having her husband home.
‘Joe was just telling me how he discovered our whereabouts,’ Ada said, trying to suppress a smile. ‘He’s just had an encounter with Mrs Sam.’
‘Ah, that explains your ill humour!’ Sarah exclaimed. ‘Farmer Platt has had a lucky escape. If he’d had to put up with that woman sharing his farmhouse, as Mrs Platt wished, he’d have taken to sleeping in the cowshed, I’ll be bound.’
Sarah and her grandmother had developed such a fondness for Lane End Cottage that they could talk of their previous home now without any sense of loss. The trips to harvest herbs had become less and less frequent as neither Sarah nor Ada could abide Mrs Sam, who followed them around the garden throughout their visit as though she feared they might take a blade of grass more than they were entitled to.
‘I’ve got no time to be minding your plant-picking, with a family to be fed and a husband who makes more washing than any wife has a right to expect,’ Mrs Sam grumbled at every visit.
‘There’s no need to stay by me. I can manage very well and let you know when I’m leaving,’ Sarah suggested reasonably on her first visit.
‘What, and have you traipsing over my grass and trampling my borders? I think not. I can’t imagine where Sam’s father got the idea that it makes any sort of sense to allow this arrangement. The sooner the growing season is over and I don’t have to put up with this insult the better,’ Mrs Sam said, hands on hips and her thin frame all but shaking at the indignity of it all.
Sarah had judged it best to bend to her work and pay no heed to these words, which were repeated on every visit as if learnt by heart. It didn’t take long before she regretted ever having made the agreement with Farmer Platt, but until they no longer had need of these regular harvests she found herself unable to bring them to a premature end.
‘Do you think you might dig up a little of the woundwort?’ Ada asked her granddaughter prior to one visit. ‘It’s such a strong plant and I quite forgot to bring any of it with me. I’d be sad to lose it altogether.’
‘You know how it is, Gran,’ Sarah replied. ‘Mrs Sam stands over me and watches me like a hawk. I’m sure she’ll not let me take a plant from her garden, although come the autumn and the end of our arrangement I doubt that she’ll keep a single thing growing there. She moans constantly about what a mess the beds are and wonders why anyone would want to grow such things. She’ll have Sam dig everything out and plant cabbages and potatoes as soon as she can.’
Ada sighed but, as it turned out, she had no need to resign herself to the loss of her woundwort. On the next visit, Mrs Sam stood over Sarah as usual until the wails and cries from the infants within the cottage reached such a crescendo that she was forced to abandon her post, muttering a warning that she would be back directly. In her absence, Sarah managed to uproot a portion of the woundwort and hide it below the herbs in her basket, disguising the hole in the bed by overlaying it with lush foliage. She also took the chance to have a word with the robin, who’d hopped down from the ivy hedge with the departure of Mrs Sam and was now perched close by, observing Sarah with his head crooked.
‘I’m sorry,’ Sarah said to the bird, ‘I fear there’ll be no more crumbs for you. Your new mistress is a harridan.’
‘Who were you talking to?’ Mrs Sam enquired, havin
g arrived back in time to catch Sarah speaking but luckily without appearing to hear her words.
‘Ah, just the robin. He’s very friendly. I used to save a few crumbs for him every day.’
‘Tssk! There’ll be none of that now.’ Mrs Sam’s mouth was set in a thin line. ‘Now, I’m going to have to ask you to leave. Charley has fallen and he has a swelling the size of an egg on his forehead. I need to be indoors with him.’
‘I’ve quite finished anyway,’ Sarah said, picking up her basket. ‘And when I get home I will ask my grandmother for an ointment for Charley’s bruises. I’ll return with it at once.’ She had waved away Mrs Sam’s protestations that she had no need of it as she would be paying a visit to the apothecary. She hadn’t seen Mrs Sam since she had left the medicines with her but clearly her mood hadn’t mellowed, judging by Joe’s mood after his encounter.
‘The woman can’t keep a civil tongue,’ Joe said, with some heat. ‘I was shocked to find you gone, and when I asked who the devil she was and what she had done with my wife and family she laughed in my face and said, “Some wife if she hasn’t chosen to let you know she has moved away.” And then she said that she neither knew nor cared where you might be living now but she hoped you might be done with her garden. It was only when she gave me to understand that ’twas her father-in-law, Farmer Platt, at farm on hill, that had put some arrangement with you in place that I saw where I might get a clue as to where you were. Farmer Platt put me right and so here I am.’
Joe looked around. ‘You’ve fallen on your feet, I see.’ He pressed on before Ada and Sarah had the chance to correct his mistaken impression that their home had been in this condition when they had taken it on. ‘But tell me, do you not find it a little inconvenient to be so close to t’village after Hill Farm Cottage, which was nicely set away from prying eyes?’
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