Читать книгу Iron and Smoke - Sheila Kaye-Smith - Страница 22

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So Jenny’s visit to Slapewath was not a happy one in spite of her expectations. The shadow lay deep over her days. Now that her father had spoken, others spoke. She had long, sad conversations with Timothy and others shorter and less sad with her mother. Mrs Bastow saw herself back in the Middlesbrough street—six rooms and a backyard, and a little slut in the kitchen. She saw herself running across the road with a shawl over her head, to have a crack with her mother and Sister Alice. In time Jenny became queerly convinced that her mother was not unhappy in these anticipations.

“There’s sure to be a house going somewhere near your Granny’s. I can keep some furniture out of the servants’ rooms when the other things are sold. That ull do us nicely—much better than anything grand. And maybe little wee Tibbie ud come with us, her they’ve just got in the kitchen. She’s a nice little thing, with no airs, like some of the others. I’d be glad to have her with us when we go.”

“But, Mother, perhaps we never shall go. Dad and Mr Routh may pull the business round yet. He said so.”

“I think not, dearie. I believe they’re expecting a lot of trouble at the general meeting next month.”

“Anyhow, it won’t be so bad as you think. We’ll have to give up Slapewath, but it won’t mean us being really poor.”

“Much better to live homely and save the money, dear.”

Jenny would do no more to shatter such an enviable frame of mind. Her own was very different. Her chief preoccupation was the thought of Humphrey’s arrival and his probable reception of the bad news. Even when she had silenced the more sinister of her doubts, she still knew how angry he would be and how just a cause he would have for anger. Sometimes she thought of writing a warning letter—it seemed to her inevitable that some sort of preparation should be made. But she lacked the skill and courage. Her letters might have told him that something was amiss by their utter flatness, their complete lack of news, but she could not and dared not put her fears into the definite shape of words.

Perverse harvests delayed Humphrey’s coming till the end of the month, and he would not be able to do much more than fetch her home in time for the hop-picking. But before he arrived the whole situation had changed, or rather had been complicated by a new element. At first Jenny had thought that her feeling of being tired and out of sorts was simply due to care, but a talk with her mother shed a new light on the matter. They went together to see the family doctor, who confirmed Mrs Bastow’s opinion. Jenny was going to do what was expected of her, after all.

The joy and relief were almost overwhelming. It seemed to her that here at last was a way out of her troubles as far as Humphrey was concerned. When he heard her good news she could not believe that he would persist in his anger about a mere matter of finance. A child would fulfill all his dearest hopes. Oh, how she prayed that it might be a boy!

She made her mother promise to tell no one till she had told Humphrey.