Читать книгу Sarah’s Story: An emotional family saga that you won’t be able to put down - Lynne Francis - Страница 13

Within a week of Joe’s return, summer was back. He’d joked that the skies had been crying over his departure but now all was well, and it was certainly true that each day brought increased sunshine, a rise in the temperatures and a rapid drying up of the mud.

Sarah used the excuse of needing to see how the herbs that she collected from the wild had fared during the rain as a reason to absent herself from the house. This, along with the delivery of remedies around the area, found her able to arrange meetings with Joe nearly every other day. Ada, absorbed in the nurturing of the herb beds at home, and in the creation of the ointments and remedies, didn’t seem to notice the length of Sarah’s absences. But Sarah found herself made greedy. She had so longed for Joe’s return that now she had him back, an hour or so of his company two or three times a week wasn’t enough for her. She wanted to spend more time with him, to do ordinary things with him. Although she didn’t regret one minute of their fevered assignations, she did find herself wondering what it might be like to sit across the table from him at breakfast, or to prepare a meal for him at the end of the day.

As July and then August passed, and the weather held out, she waited for Joe to speak again of their marriage. Come September, as the month wore on and the leaves started to fall, colder, wetter weather swept in. Outdoor meetings would soon be impossible, Sarah reasoned, and she resolved to raise the subject of marriage with Joe once more. Two events forced her hand. As she straightened her skirt and buttoned her blouse one autumnal afternoon, sheltered this time from the blustery winds by the enclosed nature of the deer pool, which had become their regular trysting place, Joe spoke. He had his back to her as he pulled on his jacket and his voice was casual.

‘I’ll be away from next week. There’s work to be had for a while.’

Sarah stilled her fingers. ‘Will we be married before you go?’ she asked.

Joe still had his back to her when he spoke again. ‘Nay, why the hurry? We can talk on it when I’m back.’

Sarah felt her colour rise along with a rush of anger. ‘And when will that be?’ she demanded.

Joe swung round to face her. ‘Why, tha’ knows I canna say for sure.’

By now, Sarah knew that Joe worked on the canal, taking boats with their loads of cotton, wool and coal up to Manchester. She’d been shocked at first; her grandmother always spoke badly of the canal dwellers, deeming them uneducated, low and thieving folk. Sarah would have liked to be able to refute this but Joe had described his life on the canal to her in the time that they were able to spare for talking when they met. He’d joked about the vegetables that they took from the gardens alongside the canal, and of his prowess as a poacher. He’d offered her pheasants and rabbits but Sarah had laughingly refused, asking him just how did he think she could explain them away to her grandmother?

He’d told her how jobs on the canal could run on for weeks and months, when the arrival of a delivery at its destination could be met with a demand for the boat to transport a new cargo back to the other end of the canal. He’d declined work over the summer in order to be free to spend time with Sarah, he’d said, but could no longer afford to miss the wages.

This time, Sarah had a pressing need to be sure of his return date.

‘I’ve a baby on the way,’ she said.

Joe looked at her with an expression she couldn’t fathom. She would have hazarded a guess at a mixture of pleased, alarmed and wary.

When he didn’t speak, she pressed on.

‘I don’t think I can wait five or six weeks for your return, Joe. I will be showing by then.’

He nodded slowly. ‘Afore I go, then. Afore I go, we will marry.’

He stood up and pulled her to her feet and hugged her close to him. They both stood without speaking for some time, wrapped in their own thoughts.

‘Must I tell my grandmother?’ Sarah spoke hesitantly. She could see no way round it, but couldn’t bear to guess at Ada’s reaction.

‘Nay, lass. Not yet. Let me think on it.’

In fact, it was Sarah who went home that day to think about it. And her thoughts persuaded her that it might be foolish to wait for Joe to organise their wedding, with so little time remaining before he was to go away again. With no idea herself, though, of how to go about organising such a thing, she could see no alternative to telling her grandmother of what had befallen her. This was not an easy conclusion to reach and she passed a restless night, with a good deal of it spent watching the shadows change on the wall as the darkness of the night lifted to reveal a grey dawn.

Even with breakfast on the table, Sarah was no clearer in her mind as to how to approach the topic. She only knew that Ada was likely to be angry; indeed, very angry. Would she forbid the wedding? Sarah wasn’t sure, but she would have to endure much scolding before it could be agreed upon. She could see little point in waiting any longer though. So, as soon as Ada had taken her seat and Sarah had poured tea into her cup, she spoke.

‘I’m to be wed.’

Ada laid down her knife and the piece of bread she was about to butter.

‘I don’t believe I can have heard you correctly. I thought you said you were about to be wed.’

‘Indeed I did,’ said Sarah.

‘And am I to know the name of the bridegroom?’ Ada’s calm reaction was not what Sarah had been expecting.

‘Joe Bancroft. From …’ Sarah hesitated, reluctant to mention Joe’s abode, which would reveal his line of work. ‘From Nortonstall.’

‘And where did you meet this Joe Bancroft?’

‘While I was out gathering lungwort and comfrey.’

Ada picked up her bread and buttered it carefully before speaking. ‘You’re too young, Sarah. You may ask this Joe Bancroft to come to the house to meet me, to see whether he might be a suitable match. With your father and mother away it falls to me to decide such things.’

Sarah looked down at her plate, concentrating hard on the faded painted twists of flowers around the edge while she fought back tears. ‘I must be wed. And within the week.’

Ada’s knife slipped from her fingers and clattered down, striking her plate and falling to the floor.

‘Am I to understand …’ She couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence.

‘There’s to be a baby, yes.’ Sarah tried hard to stay in control but her voice shook and tears spilled down her cheeks.

‘Have you no sense? No shame? Like your mother before you. As if I hadn’t already been shamed once in my own community.’ Ada shook her head. ‘You’re throwing your life away. Like as not he’s a ne’er-do-well, or you wouldn’t find yourself in this situation.’ Her voice rose along with her anger. ‘And why married within the week, might I ask?’

‘He’s to go away for work,’ Sarah said, her voice dwindling almost to a whisper. ‘By the time he gets back, the baby will be well on the way.’

‘Aye, and how well that will look before the altar. So, do you think he’s going to stand by you? Or has he made off already?’

‘No!’ Sarah protested. ‘He said he would arrange things. But I thought …’

‘It’s as well you did, my girl.’ Ada’s tone was grim. ‘I think we had better find this Joe Bancroft and make sure he does right by you.’ She pushed her chair back from the table, tea now cold and her breakfast untouched. ‘Where does he live?’

‘I don’t rightly know.’ Sarah faltered. ‘By the canal, I think.’

Ada’s mouth tightened into a thin line. ‘By the canal? Or do you mean on the canal? Is he one of those narrow-boat folk?’ She almost spat out the words.

Sarah could only nod. ‘But he’s a good man,’ she countered. ‘Thoughtful, kind and gentle.’

‘Aye, no doubt,’ Ada said. ‘And how will he provide for you and a baby? Where will you live? Are you to join the boating folk?’

Sarah was startled. She hadn’t considered this. It had never occurred to her that she might live on the canal. She’d spent her whole life in this hilltop village, surrounded by fields and wide-open skies. Narrow-boat life, down in the damp, dank valley, suddenly seemed restrictive and, if truth be told, frightening.

‘I thought I’d live here,’ she said in a small voice.

‘It seems to me that thought has had very little to do with any of this,’ Ada said, tying on her bonnet and shrugging off Sarah’s attempts to help her fasten her shawl in place.

‘I’ll thank you for staying here for the day and keeping house,’ she said. ‘If you’d done more of that and less gallivanting off over hill and dale you might not be in the position you find yourself in.’ And Ada left the house, shutting the door with some force behind her.

Sarah cleared up the breakfast things, glancing constantly out of the window as if she expected her grandmother to reappear at any moment with a shamefaced Joe in tow. What had seemed such a delightful secret over the last two months felt shabby and demeaning now that it was revealed to public scrutiny. And could her grandmother be right? Was it possible that Joe had already left?