‘No, no, please, don’t trouble on my account. If you don’t mind, when I’ve washed the pots, I’ll go to bed. I – I am rather tired.’
‘Of course,’ Percy said, understanding. ‘You can’t have been sleeping very well for the past few nights.’ He put his head on one side. ‘Just how long have you been sleeping at the shop?’
Meg bit her lip. ‘Nearly four weeks. For the first two nights I slept in the scullery.’
‘You must have been frozen out there.’ Percy was appalled. ‘Even summer nights can be very cold. Why ever didn’t you tell me?’
‘I wish now I had, but – but—’
Gently he said, ‘You thought I would send you back to the workhouse.’
Meg nodded and Percy sighed. ‘Well,’ he said slowly, ‘if I’m honest with you, that’s very well what I might have done. At least, I would have encouraged you to go back there until we could have sorted out somewhere for you to live.’
‘I was – I was going to ask you if we could both live above the shop. My mother and me. But when I got back to the workhouse, on the very night I was going to tell her of my idea, well, she’d – she’d—’
Percy patted her hand. ‘There, there, don’t distress yourself. Now, you get to bed. I’ll see to the pots—’
‘No, no, please let me do them.’
‘Very well. But then you must get some rest.’
The following morning Meg awoke with a sore throat and a throbbing head. Her nose itched until she sneezed again and again and her eyes watered.
She dressed and went downstairs.
‘My dear girl,’ Percy said at once when he saw her. ‘You look dreadful.’ Then swiftly he rephrased his tactless remark. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, but you do look ill.’
‘I think I have a cold cubbing,’ she said thickly and sneezed again.
Percy stepped back quickly. ‘Oh dear, I do hope the sheets weren’t damp. Look, you must stay at home today.’
‘No, I’ll be all right,’ Meg said, wiping her eyes and sniffing loudly.
‘No, no, I insist. Besides,’ he added swiftly as he saw she was about to argue once more, ‘it doesn’t do to be in the shop with a heavy cold. I know because I’ve had to be there on a couple of occasions when I really should have stayed away. The customers don’t like it.’ Then hastily, lest she should think that all he cared about was his customers, he added, ‘And you’ll get better much quicker if you rest. Have a day in bed, Meg.’
‘A day in bed!’ Meg squeaked. Usually a healthy child, she could not remember ever having stayed in bed during the daytime.
Percy smiled and nodded. ‘Yes, go on. Spoil yourself. Tell you what, before I go to the shop I’ll fetch you some fresh lemons. Put the juice in some hot water and drink it as hot as you can. And I think –’ he went towards a kitchen cupboard and pulled open the door – ‘ah yes, I thought so.’ He picked up a jar and held it out to her. ‘There’s some honey here. Hot lemon and honey. That’ll help.’
Meg wiped her eyes. Whether her tears were a result of her cold or sprang from his thoughtfulness, even she could not tell.
Meg slept most of the day away, but towards late afternoon she had two visitors. The first was Clara Finch, who banged on the door until, woken from a deep sleep, Meg staggered downstairs to open the front door. Bleary-eyed, her hair hanging unkempt about her face and dressed only in her nightgown, Meg opened the door, to be pushed roughly aside as the other woman barged her way in.
Slamming the door behind her, Clara leant against it and surveyed the barefoot girl before her.
‘This is a fine how-de-do.’ Her mouth tight, her cold eyes raked Meg from head to toe. ‘No wonder Percy was reluctant to tell me where you were. Well, you might fool him, miss, but you don’t fool me. You can get your things together and get out of this house this minute.’
Meg sneezed, loudly and juicily. Clara pressed herself back against the door, but there was nowhere to go. ‘Really, girl,’ she admonished, ‘haven’t you a handkerchief?’ Meg sniffed and Clara answered her own question with an exasperated sigh. ‘No, I don’t suppose you have. Here, take mine.’
Meg took the clean delicate lace handkerchief that Clara held out to her. She blew her nose, saturating the tiny square of linen in seconds.
‘Thank you,’ she said politely. All her ‘ems’ sounded like ‘bees’ as she added, ‘But I’b not going anywhere. Mr Rodwell gave be perbission to stay in bed today. I’b sure I’ll be a lot better toborrow. I’b only staying here till the roobs above the shop are ready.’
Clara’s mouth turned down at the corners. ‘If you think I’m going to stand by and let you move in over the shop, you’d better think again.’ She took a step towards Meg and then, remembering the girl’s cold, pulled back. ‘The workhouse is where you belong, girl. You and your kind. And I’ll see you back there, no matter how long it takes me. I know what you’re up to. You think you can wheedle your way into Percy’s affections. Getting him to feel sorry for you and bringing you home with him. What will people say? Have you stopped to think what harm it might do to his reputation? To his business, even? When folks get to know you’re here – alone in this house with him – his business will suffer. Specially, this new venture of his with ladies’ apparel. What self-respecting lady is going to frequent his establishment with a little slut like you behind the counter to serve them?’ Her beady eyes narrowed. ‘I can see your game. You think he’s a good catch, don’t you? A bachelor with a nice little business. You’re no better than your mother.’
‘I’b not like by bother,’ Meg cried thickly. She sneezed and, to her frustration, tears ran down her face. She didn’t want Clara Finch to think she was crying, but this heavy cold was making her feel wretched.
‘No?’ Clara raised her eyebrows. ‘So you intend to try to get a ring on your finger, do you?’ She held out her bony fingers, on one of which was a solid gold band inlaid with the blue enamel initials CF and PR. Between the two sets of letters were two tiny stones, a ruby and an emerald. ‘Well, this is his ring and that’s where it’s staying. On my finger.’
Before she could stop herself, Meg said, ‘He doesn’t seeb in buch of a hurry to get the wedding ring to go with it onto your finger, though, does he?’
Shocked, Clara gasped. ‘How dare you? Just wait till I tell Percy how rude you’ve been to me. You might as well pack your bags this very minute. You’ll be out on the street by nightfall.’ She smiled maliciously. ‘Back in the workhouse even quicker than I could have hoped.’ With that, she pulled open the door and left, slamming it behind her.
Meg sneezed and groaned aloud. How could she have let her foolish tongue run away with her? She went into the kitchen and cut one of the two lemons which Percy had left on the table. Then she squeezed the juice into a mug and added a teaspoonful of honey and poured hot water into it from the kettle that was kept permanently on the hob. Carefully, she carried the mug back up the stairs and snuggled back beneath the bedclothes. Sipping the liquid, she found that the tang of the lemon cleared her blocked nose and the honey eased her sore throat. The fire, built up that morning by Percy before he left for work and added to by Meg with the coal he had left, was still casting a warm glow about the room. It crackled comfortingly and shadows danced on the ceiling and walls as the daylight faded.
Meg leant back against the pillows and sighed. Warm and drowsy, she was about to drift into sleep when another knocking at the front door roused her.
‘If it’s that old biddy back again, I’m just not answering it,’ she muttered, frowning, and pushed herself further beneath the bedclothes. But the knocking persisted and then she heard a voice calling – a young voice, a voice she recognized. ‘Meg? Meg, where are you?’
‘Jake!’ She sat up, flung back the covers and swung her feet to the floor. ‘I’m coming,’ she called. ‘I’m coming.’
‘What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be at work?’ she asked as she opened the front door. ‘Come in, quick, before all the gossipin
g old biddies down the street see you.’
Jake stepped inside and pulled off his cap. He glanced around the small hallway and peered through the half-open doorway into the front room. ‘Nice little place, Meg. Getting your feet under the table, are you?’
Did she imagine it, or was there a trace of sarcasm to his tone?
‘Don’t you start,’ she pouted. ‘I’ve just had that dragon of a fiancée of his round here telling me to pack mi bags.’
‘Can’t blame her. News travels fast – half the town’s talking about the pretty young lass old Mester Rodwell has taken on in his shop and moved into his house an’ all.’
‘He’s not that old,’ Meg retorted.
Jake stared at her, his face sober now. ‘I was only joking. Oh, Meg, you’re not really setting your cap at him, are you?’
Meg stared back. The thought hadn’t entered her head. Oh yes, she’d made up to him, but only to get a job, to get the rooms over the shop to live in. She’d never thought about anything further than that.
But now she did. First Miss Finch and now Jake was suggesting so much more. Meg’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully and a slow smile began to spread across her face.
‘And what if I am?’ she said softly.
Disgust flitted across his face. ‘You’re not serious?’
Her only answer was to shrug.
‘How can you even think of doing such a thing? Specially after the way you’ve treated your own mam. You’ve called her all sorts and yet now you’re thinking of climbing into an old man’s bed. Ugh!’
‘I wouldn’t do what mi mam’s doing,’ she cried hotly. ‘Oh no! If I get into Percy Rodwell’s bed – or any other man’s – there’ll be a wedding ring on mi finger first. You can take bets on that, Jake Bosley!’
Twenty-Five
‘You have today off as well,’ Percy insisted the following morning.
‘But I feel much better.’
‘And you look much better, but I’d be happier if you had at least another day’s rest. We don’t want it turning into a nasty cough.’
Meg giggled. ‘Well, you could always rub my chest for me.’
Percy blinked and stared at her for a moment.
‘I’m sorry – I shouldn’t have said that. It – it was a family joke if anyone got a bad cough. Mam used to rub goose grease on to our chests and – and—’ She let tears fill her eyes and she turned away, saying in a husky, trembling voice, ‘I forgot where I was for the moment. I’m so sorry.’
Yet again, he patted her shoulder awkwardly. ‘There, there, don’t let it upset you.’
Meg was not upset. She was angry – with herself. She had been too forward, too bold. Percy wasn’t the sort of man she could joke with like that. Not like Isaac Pendleton, she thought wryly. He’d’ve been only too ready to take her up on the offer! The thought made her shudder. She still could not believe that her pretty young mother could become the mistress of such a man.
‘You stay here – just for today, at any rate, and we’ll see how you are in the morning.’
‘All right,’ she agreed meekly, but her mind was busy. She’d had a restless night that was not altogether caused by her cold. Nothing had been said about Miss Finch’s visit either to the shop or to the house. Percy had not remarked on it and Meg had no intention of telling him about either of her visitors. But their remarks, their insinuations, had given her ideas. Ideas she meant to put into practice that very day.
Percy Rodwell opened the door to his home in the evening and thought he had stepped into the wrong house. An appetizing smell of cooking drifted into the hallway from the kitchen and through the open door into the front room he could see a fire blazing in the grate. On the small table in the window stood a vase of flowers. Percy blinked and reeled, momentarily unsteady on his feet. It felt as if he had stepped back into his childhood and he half expected, when he stepped into the kitchen, to see his mother bending down to take a crusty brown loaf out of the range oven. But, as he pushed open the door, it was Meg who straightened up, her face flushed – not with fever now but from the heat of the oven. In her hands she held a tin of sizzling roast potatoes. A stew bubbled in a pan on the hob.
‘Oh,’ she said, catching sight of him. ‘I’d hoped to have it all on the table by the time you came in. But it’s all nearly ready. Sit down.’
‘Meg – what . . .?’
‘I wanted to thank you for all you’ve done for me. All I could find was a bit of stewing beef and a few vegetables. But there was flour and fat in the pantry and some fallen apples. Did someone give you those?’
Mesmerized, Percy nodded absently, but he did as she bade him and sat down at the table.
‘I’ve made some pastry so there’s apple pie for afters.’
In a dream, Percy picked up his knife and fork and began to eat. Then, blinking as if to bring himself back to reality, he said, ‘I’m sorry, I haven’t asked how you’re feeling.’
‘Much better,’ she said, sitting down opposite him. ‘How was your day? Have you been busy in the shop?’
‘Mm,’ he nodded, his mouth full. ‘Two or three ladies came in and asked specifically for you.’
Meg looked up at him, her eyes wide. ‘Did they really?’
‘Mm,’ he said once more and did not speak again until his plate was clear. ‘My, that was good. I never seem to get my stews to taste like that. Whatever do you put in it to give it that . . . that . . . ? Oh, I don’t know. It’s just got a special taste.’
‘Ah,’ said Meg, gathering the dirty plates together and bending down to bring the apple pie out of the oven to the table. ‘Now that would be telling. We women have to have our little secrets,’ she said coyly. ‘Or you’d be able to do very nicely without us, wouldn’t you?’
Percy smiled. ‘I don’t think so, Meg,’ he murmured appreciatively as the smell of hot apple pie assailed his nostrils. To his surprise he heard himself saying rashly, ‘I don’t think I’d even want to try to manage without you now.’
Meg hid her triumphant smile. ‘I feel so much better, I’ll come back to work tomorrow. I can’t have my lady customers kept waiting.’
‘There’s no hurry. I told them you might not be back until the beginning of next week. They all said they’d call again then.’
Carefully, Meg said, ‘So – er – who were these ladies?’
Percy wrinkled his forehead as he recalled their names. ‘Miss Robinson – you know, the fussy little spinster?’ Meg nodded. ‘She didn’t want me to serve her. She was blushing as she came into the shop, and when she saw there was only me behind the counter she got very flustered.’
Meg laughed. ‘Oh, poor thing. Who else?’
‘Let me see – Mrs Newton and – oh yes – there was that young woman who’s the schoolmistress at the – erm – at the workhouse.’
Meg’s head shot up. ‘Louisa? Miss Daley? She came into the shop?’
‘Yes. She asked for you, but she didn’t say why she wanted you. I supposed it was to buy something.’
‘Maybe,’ Meg said thoughtfully.
‘Unless, of course, it was a message from your mother.’
Meg’s mouth hardened. ‘Whatever it was, I don’t want to know. I don’t want messages from my mother and I certainly don’t want to see Louisa Daley.’
‘Why? I thought she seemed quite a nice girl. The sort that might be a nice friend for you.’
‘I thought she was my friend – once upon a time. But she betrayed me.’
‘Betrayed you?’
Meg bit her lip, wondering whether she dared to confide in Percy. Was she taking too much of a risk? Would he believe her or begin to think that perhaps his fiancée was right after all?
She took a deep breath and the words came spilling out. She told him how she had been left in charge of Betsy and all that had happened.
‘She accused me – me! – of taking her father’s watch,’ Meg finished indignantly and her eyes blazed. ‘And no one – no one – accuses me of theft.’
In the face of her vehemence, Percy blinked.
The following morning, Percy said, ‘Why don’t you have another day off?’ He smiled sheepishly. ‘It – it was rather nice to come home to a warm house and a meal ready and waiting.’
Meg laughed. ‘I’ll do the same for you tonight. It’ll be a pleasure, but—’ She bit her lip.
‘But what?’ Percy asked anxiously.
‘There’s not much food left and – I’m sorry – but I haven’t any money—’
‘Oh, good heavens. What am I thinking of? Wait a moment . . .’
He went back up the stairs and Meg heard him opening a drawer in the chest in his bedroom. Moments later he returned and pressed several coins into her hand. ‘Buy whatever you need.’ He put his hand up. ‘Don’t tell me. It’ll be a nice surprise.’
‘Is there anything you don’t like?’
Percy wrinkled his brow. ‘I can’t think of anything. I’m not a fussy eater.’
They smiled at each other.
Percy opened the door of his house eagerly that night. For the first time in years – not since before his mother had died – it felt like a home. He sniffed the air appreciatively. Something smelt good, but he couldn’t decide just what it was . . .
‘Roast pork, sage and onion stuffing and apple sauce,’ Meg told him moments later as he stood in the kitchen watching her. ‘I used the rest of those fallen apples.’ Her cheeks were rosy, her eyes bright. And, he realized with a jolt, she looked completely at home in his tiny kitchen.
‘Sit down. I won’t be a minute . . .’
‘Not before I’ve put this outside the back door to chill.’ Percy smiled as he produced a bottle of white wine from the bag he was carrying.
Without Sin Page 17