Sarah's Story

by Lynne Francis

  Despite Edie’s bluster she looked delighted and Sarah noticed Will walking home by Carrie’s side that evening, his head bent down to listen to her and a slightly stunned expression on his face. Sarah chuckled at the sight and nudged Edie.

  ‘See, I tell’t you!’ Edie exclaimed. ‘It beggars belief. An’ I never heard that Carrie utter a word afore, yet now our Will can’t get a word in edgewise, the daft fool.’ It was said with great affection. Sarah felt sure that some Christmas magic had rubbed off on the pair and she already had high hopes for their future.

  As Edie had predicted, the workers were let off early on Christmas Eve and, as everyone hurried to shut down their machines and tidy their work areas there was a hum of excited chatter. Sarah came down from the carding room and caught up with Edie in the yard.

  ‘It’s slinging it down,’ Edie complained, as the driving rain looked set to dampen everyone’s spirits for the homeward journey.

  ‘Aye, it’ll be snow afore long.’ Will and Carrie had caught up with them. Sarah shivered. She wondered whether he was right. The air was much colder than it had been on the way to work that morning and the thought of the fireside at home was very appealing. The walk back to Northwaite was quieter than usual, everyone concentrating their energy on staying upright on a path made slippery by rain and mud. As Sarah reached Lane End Cottage, the first house on the route back into the village, she was startled to receive a chorus of Christmas wishes from her fellow workers.

  Holding back sudden tears, Sarah stopped at the gate, holding her lantern high, and called, ‘And a merry Christmas to you all,’ to their retreating backs. Edie, Will and Carrie waved before hunching against the rain and hurrying on.

  Sarah hastened up the path, unlatched the kitchen door and stepped into a kitchen full of delicious aromas of nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves.

  ‘Now, you’re not to lift a finger,’ Ada said before Sarah could speak. ‘Get those wet things off you and go and sit by the fire in the parlour. I’ve made you a hot drink to see off that cough of yours and we’ve all sorts of good things to eat.’ Ada’s health was much improved and she was determined to demonstrate this to Sarah by taking on the burden of all the Christmas preparations.

  Sarah didn’t argue but went upstairs and changed out of her work clothes into her second-best dress in honour of Christmas Eve, then she went down to the parlour to find Martha and Alice already settled there. Alice held out her arms to her mother and Sarah scooped her up and seated her on her lap. A paroxysm of coughing seized her as she did so and Martha frowned, then rose, went out to the kitchen and returned with a steaming glass of dark-coloured liquid. As Martha set it down beside her, Sarah caught a waft of the aroma she had noticed as she entered the kitchen.

  ‘There, something special made by Ada for Christmas,’ Martha said, before adding in a lower tone, ‘with the addition of a nip of brandy from me. To help your cough.’ She winked at Sarah who was prevented from replying by the entrance of Ada bearing a plate of mince pies.

  ‘Mmm, these smell good.’ Sarah took one for herself and one for Alice from the plate. ‘Were they a gift from one of your patients?’

  Ada shook her head. ‘They were from Daniel.’

  ‘From Daniel?’ Sarah was startled. ‘But he’s in America, surely?’

  ‘It seems not.’ Ada took a note from the pocket of her apron. ‘He writes to say his departure has been delayed as the mill in Manchester still requires his presence. So he has sent us a parcel of all sorts of good things and he says …’ Here she paused to put on her spectacles to read his letter. ‘He says that he now hopes to depart before the summer is out and in the meantime he sends Christmas wishes to one and all.’

  Ada looked downcast for a moment. ‘Why didn’t he come to spend Christmas with us, as he has done for the last few years, I wonder?’

  ‘No doubt he has good reason,’ Martha said briskly. ‘Now, can I try one of those mince pies? And Sarah, drink up before it gets cold.’

  Sarah took a deep draught of the drink and was grateful for its soothing effect and the warmth that spread through her as the alcohol took hold. She was shaken by the news of Daniel, having thought him long gone away. It unsettled her to know that he was still here, not too many miles distant in Manchester. Or was he perhaps spending Christmas elsewhere, with his fiancée’s family? It was a most unwelcome thought.

  Chapter 50

  That night, perhaps prompted by the brandy – another measure of which Martha had succeeded in adding to a second glass of the spiced Christmas punch – Sarah dreamt that Joe and Daniel, combined into one man, had arrived on the doorstep on Christmas Day. She was perturbed by the merging of their facial characteristics, Daniel’s pale skin combined with Joe’s dark curls, while Joe’s teasing charm sounded odd issuing from a mouth shaped like Daniel’s. Her initial delight soon turned to uncertainty and then alarm, due to the unnerving behaviour of this person who appeared to be both friend and husband, yet was actually a stranger.

  Sarah woke with a start, uncertain whether she had actually cried out or not, but Alice slept on undisturbed in her small bed by the window and there was no sound from Ada’s room. It was still dark so Sarah attempted to compose herself to sleep, morning clearly being some way off, but a fear of tumbling back into the nightmare kept her awake for a while longer. When she came to again it was to find Alice snuggled into bed beside her, whispering loudly, ‘Wake up!’

  The day passed well enough, despite Sarah’s worries that her grandmother and daughter would find it dull without Joe or Daniel present. Ada was determined to keep Sarah out of the kitchen as much as possible and the day started with a special breakfast of ham and eggs, eaten in a leisurely fashion and a far cry from the rushed bowl of porridge that Sarah had become accustomed to before heading to the mill each morning.

  By the time they had finished, the bells were ringing to call the villagers to church and chapel but Ada had remained steadfast in spurning religion since her daughter and granddaughters had died. Sarah felt no inclination to take Alice along, but Martha called by on her way to church, with a promise to come and help with the dinner as soon as she returned.

  Martha’s husband had proved the village gossip correct by simply failing to return from Leeds the previous Christmas. He had eventually sent word to say that he wouldn’t be coming back, and although it became apparent that he had moved in with a lady-friend, Martha didn’t seem unduly put out. She professed herself better off without him, taking in laundry to supplement the little she earned from her part-time care of Alice.

  ‘He was a lazy good-for-nothing when he was here,’ she said. ‘I do very nicely on my own, thank you.’ Her children had long grown up and moved away, and would not be with her for Christmas, so she was joining Ada, Sarah and Alice, who were more than happy to have her company.

  By the time Martha returned from the Christmas Day service, a light fall of snow sprinkled the ground. The joint of beef was cooking in the oven, the vegetables were all prepared and the plum pudding was steaming gently on the range. Alice and Sarah were kneeling in front of the parlour fire, a large box open before them while Ada, seated by the fire, looked on. Martha came to sit with them, a small glass of brandy in her hand. Her cheeks were flushed from the cold outside but also, as she confessed, because she had joined some of her fellow churchgoers for a glass of something festive at The Old Bell on the way home.

  Sarah saw Ada give Martha a sharp look but her attention was distracted by Alice, now burrowing into the box to see what she could find. It contained the Christmas gifts from Daniel, all varieties of food so far, much to Alice’s disappointment, but Ada assured her there was something in there that she would like. After pulling out a jar of marmalade, a box of dates and a tin of pilchards, she had been partly mollified by a wooden box containing jellied fruits, attracted by their bright colours and sugary coating. A packet of tea, despite its pretty packaging, was not considered worthy of notice, while a tin of toffees with a Lakeland scene
painted on the lid was set aside to be opened after dinner.

  Finally, just one package remained, taking up the whole of the bottom of the box. Sarah helped Alice to lift it out and was surprised by how light it was. Surely it must be empty? She hoped her daughter wasn’t going to be sorely disappointed, although she could think of no good reason why Daniel might have enclosed an empty box in his Christmas parcel.

  As Ada and Martha watched, Sarah helped Alice to lift the lid and they both exclaimed at the contents. Cylinders of crepe paper, in alternating bright red and green, lay within, each one with a brightly coloured paper wrapper around its middle, illustrated with a different scene. There was a perky robin, a church in a snowy landscape, children in bright coats throwing snowballs, a pile of wrapped gifts, a sprig of holly and a candle, burning strongly and dripping wax.

  ‘What are they?’ Martha asked, leaning over to look more closely as Sarah lifted one of the cylinders from the box. Each one was pinched in above and below the illustrated wrapper and when Alice lifted another one up and shook it, it rattled.

  Sarah picked up the lid of the box. ‘Christmas Crackers. A gift and a motto in every one. Make your Christmas go with a bang.’ She looked doubtful. ‘I’m not sure what that means.’

  She looked again. ‘Oh, there’s a drawing. See, Alice. The crackers are piled in the middle of the dining table. Then it looks as though two people each take one end of a cracker and pull.’

  Alice seized a red cracker and held it out to her mother, looking hopeful.

  ‘I suppose we can try one. There are six crackers so there will still be enough for one each.’ Sarah was herself keen to see how this was going to work so she grasped one end of the cracker firmly, telling Alice to hold her end with both hands.

  ‘One, two, three, pull!’ she instructed. There was a bang, Alice fell backwards, Ada screamed and Martha nearly dropped her drink.

  ‘Goodness!’ Ada said. ‘Whatever was Daniel thinking of? Does he want to frighten us out of our wits? I’m sure I don’t want one of those things, thank you.’ She went quite pink in the face but looked less cross as Sarah quickly shook out the contents of the cracker in an attempt to mollify Alice, who looked as though she was going to burst into tears from the shock.

  ‘What’s this, I wonder?’ Sarah unrolled a tube of gold paper that had fallen from the cracker. ‘A crown. For princess Alice.’ She smoothed out the folds and set it on Alice’s head, where it promptly slid down over her face.

  ‘Mummy wear it,’ Alice said firmly. Sarah set the crown on her own head and retrieved a brightly coloured piece of metal that had fallen beneath Ada’s chair. Further investigation proved it to be a tinplate frog, which leapt high in the air when pressed on its back. Sarah read the motto then slipped it into her pocket, unobserved, as Martha and Ada got up to cook the vegetables and make the gravy. The words – The magic spell of love can never die, Its spirit floats o’er earth and sky – seemed too personal to share, somehow, on a day when there would be absences from the dinner-table.

  ‘Come on, Alice, let’s put the rest of the crackers on the table,’ Sarah said.

  Alice, however, was content playing with the frog so Sarah left her to it and piled them in the middle of the table herself, noticing as she did so that Martha was pouring herself another drink from the brandy bottle that she had tucked into the lower shelf of the kitchen dresser.

  The Christmas dinner felt very special after all the effort Ada had put into it and they all sat over it for a long time, apart from Alice. She was excused to play with her frog, as well as all the other little gifts that had come out of the crackers. Ada had eventually been persuaded to pull one, shutting her eyes as she did so and professing herself delighted with the miniature pack of playing cards, which she immediately donated to a hopeful Alice.

  The crackers were a thoughtful gift on Daniel’s part, Sarah reflected; an exciting novelty for the adults, they had produced six small gifts that had entertained Alice far more than a single larger present might have done. She also treasured all the wrapper illustrations, carefully peeling them away from the paper crackers and smoothing them flat. Sarah had promised to make a scrapbook for her and stick them in.

  Ada refused Martha’s offer of a drink but Sarah had a couple of small glasses, more out of a wish to please Martha and to save her from drinking the whole bottle to herself, than out of any desire for it. The plum pudding had to be saved until the evening, when it was served with dates and nuts – another gift from Daniel – as everyone was too full to consider eating it after such a splendid dinner.

  Ada and Sarah declined all offers of help with the washing-up from Martha, and watched without comment as she made her unsteady way home at the end of the evening. Alice went to sleep with her treasures from the day lined up on the bedroom windowsill so that they would be the first things she saw on waking the next morning. Seeing how exhausted her grandmother looked, Sarah sent Ada to bed shortly after her daughter, then finished tidying up before sitting in front of the dying embers of the fire.

  She had one more day before it was work as usual: something to savour. It was hard to contemplate the resumption of her routine after such a lovely Christmas Day, but there it was. At least the working week would be short and there was still the New Year to look forward to. She found it hard to imagine how Joe would have spent the day in prison, although his letters in previous years had spoken of a relaxing of the regime with no hard labour and meat served in recognisable portions at dinner-time. A carol service in the evening provided a welcome distraction and a chance to stay up later than usual.

  Joe had served over two years of his sentence now, but there were still nearly four years left to go. So much had changed already in the time that he had been away – what might still be to come? Sarah sat on and stared into the dying fire, wondering just what the future might hold.

  Chapter 51

  Winter turned to spring and spring to summer, when there was at least some joy in being out and about so early, with warmth already in the air, the birds singing joyously and sunshine creating the illusion that better things were on the horizon. Ada, only too aware of Sarah’s great unhappiness at the mill, despite her best efforts to disguise it, tried to persuade her to give it up.

  ‘I’m fully recovered,’ she said. ‘I don’t see the need for you to carry on. I’m looking after Alice most days now, without Martha’s help. I can bring in enough of an income – and a little bit extra if you are there to help me, too.’

  Sarah, though, despite her dislike of the work, had got the taste for setting money by and became stubborn when her grandmother pressed her case.

  ‘I’ll give it another month or two,’ she conceded in the end. But the months passed and before Sarah knew it, another whole year had gone by. The year 1878 became 1879 and winter was on the horizon once more, yet Sarah still remained at the mill. Her cough had become persistent with the damp autumn weather, refusing to respond to the coltsfoot syrup that her grandmother had made up for her, which had proved efficacious in the past.

  ‘It will pass,’ she said. ‘There’s a lot of coughing to be heard all around the mill. It’s just the change in the weather.’

  Sarah and Ada both knew, though, that the cotton fibres that floated in the air at the mill had started to affect her lungs. At night, Sarah lay in bed attempting to stifle her coughing, to avoid waking Alice and hoping that her grandmother couldn’t hear. It would only reopen the debate about her continuing to work, while it had also become apparent to Sarah that once again Ada wasn’t as well as she could be. The colder, damper months had brought her rheumatism back and Sarah worried about leaving her in charge of Alice although Ada was adamant that she could manage. Sarah feared that Ada was hiding something worse from her, for she seemed to be growing frailer, but her own obstinate desire to prove her worth by bringing in an income from the mill caused her to put this down to the simple fact that her grandmother was getting older. Martha promised to keep an eye on thing
s, which provided a little reassurance, although Sarah was unsure just how much her neighbour might be drinking during the day.

  In the end, it was Edie who talked some sense into her.

  ‘Some women are never rid once the cough takes hold,’ she warned. ‘And some of them find themselves staring into an early grave. You’ve got a bairn to take care of and you’re the only one she’s got, what with your husband put away and Ada getting on in years. You must consider whether you can make ends meet any other way.’

  It was quite a speech for Edie and Sarah was suitably chastened. She promised her workmate that if the end of the month came and the cough was no better she would take her advice. Fate, however, intervened before the month was through.

  Sarah made her way up to Northwaite from the valley as fast she could, the words of the overlooker ringing in her ears.

  ‘There’s been a message come to the office. You’re to get yourself home as fast as you can.’

  He shrugged when Sarah asked for more details. Had something befallen Alice? Or Ada?

  ‘I can’t rightly say. But you’d best be on your way.’

  Sarah wasn’t sure whether he simply didn’t know what was wrong, or did know but wasn’t prepared to tell her. One thing was for sure: his usual sharpness had been replaced by a gruffness that was the closest he came to showing he had a softer side. As she hurried to collect her shawl and her lamp, even though they wouldn’t be needed for the journey home today given the early hour, he called after her, ‘Don’t be worrying ’bout getting in to work tomorrow, neither.’

  The wind caught her full in the face as the path began to flatten out at the crest of the valley. The icy blast of it burnt her cheeks and froze what she realised were tears trickling down them. All the way along the path up the valley the overlooker’s words had been worrying away at her. What could be wrong? It must be something serious. No one was ever sent home, let alone excused work for a second day, over some trivial issue. Ada? Alice?… The names ran on a loop in her brain and it was only when she stopped, gasping for breath with a stitch in her side, that she thought to add another name to the litany. Joe. Could something have happened to Joe? It had been several months since his last letter but there was nothing unusual in that. Or was it longer than that? She tried to think back: the repetitious daily toil at the mill seemed to have robbed her of all sense of the passage of time.