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Daniel appeared embarrassed and clearly reluctant to impart too much in answer to the queries. Sarah had a suspicion that he was focusing on describing his own work to prevent further probing. He explained that he lived in the same lodgings as Mary and her daughters and worked at the same mill, but his skill with machinery had kept him away from the mill floor and in the office, where he was engaged in working with the owner on some new designs to improve the efficiency of the waterwheel. It was on the pretext of visiting a mill in the area, which was known to have recently made major improvements in its output, that he had managed to make his visit that day.
‘But surely you will be in trouble on your return if you do not have the expected information?’ Sarah said, not a little troubled on Daniel’s behalf. She wondered also why he was so willing to undertake this journey on her mother’s behalf.
‘I was able to make the visit this morning,’ Daniel said. ‘I had fully expected to be turned away but, in fact, they were keen to show me around. It was this, and my mistake in going to the church, that caused me to be later in finding the chapel than I had intended.’
‘And the affliction affecting Mary and the children?’ Ada asked. ‘Is she receiving treatment?’
Daniel looked uncomfortable.
‘It is something that has swept through the mill and troubled the women most particularly. I think their lungs are weakened by constant exposure to the cotton dust. Mrs Gibson was perhaps not in the best of health when she fell ill and she has taken it hard.’
‘And my father?’ Sarah demanded. ‘Where is he? Can he not help?’
Daniel looked even more uncomfortable.
‘Ah, Mr Gibson no longer lives at the lodgings. I think perhaps he has gone to work at a mill on the other side of town and taken lodgings there for convenience.’ Despite his best attempts to dress up the truth, it soon became apparent that Mary had revealed less than she might have done in her most recent letter.
There was a silence while Sarah and Ada digested this news then Ada said crisply, ‘Do you mean he has left the family, Daniel? Is that what has happened?’
Daniel blushed scarlet. ‘I really couldn’t say for certain, Mrs Randall.’
‘Humph!’ Ada looked down at her plate, chasing a few crumbs around with her fingertips, then reached a decision. ‘I must go to Manchester. Sarah, you will be all right here on your own for a few days, won’t you? I think that I must see with my own eyes what is happening.’
The half-hour before the carter was due to arrive passed in a flurry of activity. Sarah tried hard to maintain polite conversation with Daniel whilst running up and down the stairs, helping Ada to pack a few things together and searching in the larder for provisions to send to her mother and sisters.
‘Why was she not more honest in her letter?’ Ada was hunting through her cupboard of remedies. ‘I could have prepared something for her if I’d had a better idea of the situation, and of their struggles. As it is, I will just have to take whatever I think may come in useful.’
Sarah barely had time to tie the remedies securely into a cloth bundle before the carter was at the door.
‘Sarah, take care.’ Ada, distracted, was tying on her bonnet as Sarah handed her another shawl for the journey. ‘I’m sorry to leave you like this but hope to be back before the week is out.’
Sarah, overwhelmed by all that had happened that afternoon, tried very hard to remember her manners. ‘Daniel, it was very nice to meet you and so good of you to have come all this way.’
‘I can assure you, the pleasure was all mine. I wish you every happiness in your marriage, Mrs Bancroft, and hope that I may be lucky enough to be in a position to visit again.’
‘Do come. Perhaps you may have cause for another visit to the mill here.’ Sarah was preoccupied, speaking half over her shoulder as she handed her grandmother’s belongings up to her while she settled herself behind the carter.
Daniel sprang up into the front seat and doffed his cap. ‘Goodbye. Goodbye,’ he called. She sensed that he wished to say more but the carter shook the reins and they were off. Sarah watched the lamp on the cart as it dwindled away into the gathering dusk and was visible no more, then she went into the kitchen and began clearing up through force of habit.
She looked out into the darkness, aware that she needed to light the lamps inside, and thought of both her husband and her grandmother somewhere out there, wending their separate ways to great cities. Now she was left totally alone on her wedding day and it seemed like a cruel blow. She sat down suddenly at the table, rested her head on her arms and burst into tears.
PART TWO (#ulink_4bcf2f58-37b4-575e-b032-882f60fc3163)
Chapter 12 (#ulink_d9170905-f9dd-51ed-b75b-ee4494f9b180)
While Ada was away a spell of damp, cold weather swept in. It brought with it a morning fog that frequently lingered until midday unless there was any autumn sunshine to burn it away. Darkness seemed to arrive each day by five o’clock, and on some days it felt as though it barely got light at all.
The change in the weather also brought a steady stream of visitors, all looking for Ada. Mostly elderly, they were out of breath by the time they had climbed the hill out of the village to reach Hill Farm Cottage. At first, Sarah wondered whether their appearance was due to curiosity at the state of affairs surrounding her marriage, but she quickly realised that in all cases the visit was prompted by a need for a consultation with her grandmother, caused by a flare-up of rheumatism or the onset of a troubling cough.
Sarah invited in each arrival and, when they had regained their breath and offered their congratulations on her newly married state, they had (without exception) turned querulous over Ada’s unexpected absence. Sarah could only reassure them that she was expected back any day now and offer to pass on a message about the nature of their illness to her grandmother as soon as she returned.
It wasn’t long before Sarah was regretting, yet again, her lack of literacy. If she had only paid attention to her letters she could have written down the name of everyone who called, as well as the nature of their business. As it was, she was reduced to memorising the details and forcing herself to recite them out loud each morning on waking.
The arrival of the week’s end found Sarah in a state of anxiety. She had expected her grandmother’s return by now, but there was no sign of her and no word from her. Once again, Sarah had cause to regret her inability to read and write. Otherwise Ada might, perhaps, have sent her a note of explanation. But she knew only too well that her granddaughter would be unable to read it.
Sarah took to imagining what might be happening in Manchester. She convinced herself that Ada must have felt the need to stay on to nurse her daughter and granddaughters back to health. Surely there could be no other explanation? But as a new week began, her conviction was sorely tested. She found it hard to put on a brave face for the trickle of visitors who continued to arrive and her assertion that she expected her grandmother’s return any day now sounded, even to her, as though it had a hollow ring to it.
She tried not to dwell too much on the fact that, although she was married now, it had made no difference at all to the way she lived her life. She was lonely by day, with Ada away, and lonely at night, when her thoughts turned to Joe. How cruel it was that her new husband was forced to be away from her at this time, when she had need of him! Her vision of how contented they would be in their domestic routine remained untested; indeed, her own routine fell to pieces with no structure to her days and too much time to spend in wild imaginings.
By the time Ada did come home, one week and a day after her departure, Sarah was frantic with worry over what might have happened to her family. She had also become consumed with anxiety as to how she would be able to pay the rent or afford food and household necessities should her grandmother fail to reappear.
One look at Ada’s face, however, was enough to make the angry words that had rushed to Sarah’s lips die there. Her grandmother was in no fit state to be on the receiving end of Sarah’s distress at being left without news for so long. Ada’s face was grey with fatigue and her eyes were sunken hollows, suggesting that she had struggled to get enough sleep while she had been away. She had lost weight; as Sarah helped remove her travelling shawl she could feel the sharpness of her grandmother’s collarbones beneath her hands and, on giving her a wordless hug of welcome, she was startled by how frail Ada felt.
‘Come and sit by the range. You look worn out by your journey. The kettle has not long boiled. I’ll make some fresh tea.’
Sarah bustled about, filling her grandmother’s silence with a pointless running commentary on mundane domestic things. She was desperate to ask about her sisters and her mother but Ada’s continued silence didn’t encourage questions. Finally, with tea set down in front of her grandmother, along with a slice of bread and butter on her favourite plate, Sarah felt she could wait no longer.
‘How are they?’ she asked tentatively. ‘You were gone so long I became worried. Were they very sick?’
Ada sighed deeply. Sarah was sure that she must be thirsty after her journey but she hadn’t even reached for her cup.
‘Yes, they were,’ she said.
Sarah waited expectantly.
‘Yes, very sick,’ Ada repeated. ‘Daniel was quite right to come and fetch me, although he was clever enough to make it appear that Mary had asked him to come. In fact, from what I could gather, she had done no such thing.’
Ada paused and finally reached for her cup. Sarah noticed that her hands were trembling so that the cup rattled against its saucer before she raised it to her lips. Her wedding ring, still worn in memory of her husband Harry, was too big now, slipping along her finger and barely kept in place by her knuckle.
Ada rested the cup on her lap, gazing at the range before speaking again.
‘I do not know how they came to be in such a sorry state. Although it’s easy to guess.’ There was a sudden flash of anger. ‘William Gibson had cleared off and left them, sharing one small room, nay, even reduced to sharing one bed in their lodging house. It’s not surprising that they fell ill one after the other. Too sick to work, they had run out of food by the time I arrived and what little bit of coal they had to heat the room must have come from Daniel. If it wasn’t for the kindness of the neighbours, sharing a bit of soup with them of an evening, I don’t know what they would have done.’
Ada sat on, staring at the range as if she saw something there other than an austere black-leaded stove, its fire safely housed within. Sarah shifted in her seat, waiting for her grandmother to speak again. She was conscious of the wind gusting outside and she shivered involuntarily. She hoped no one was struggling up the hill in expectation of finding Ada at home. Her grandmother did not look well enough to be listening to someone else describe their ailments; in fact, she looked as though she might be sickening for something herself.
‘Would you like to go up to bed?’ Sarah asked gently. ‘I can light the fire in your room. You look worn out. Perhaps a rest would see you right.’
‘It will take more than a rest.’ The edge in her grandmother’s voice made Sarah start back in her chair. Ada noticed her reaction.
‘I’m sorry, Sarah,’ she said. ‘I didn’t intend that to sound as it did.’ She shook her head slowly from side to side.
‘So how are they now?’ Sarah asked. ‘Were they well when you left? Were you able to heal their sickness?’
Ada turned an uncomprehending look on Sarah before she shook her head again.
‘I’m so sorry. It feels as though I have been away a lifetime. Of course, why would you know what has been going on?’
She stopped and Sarah waited, frowning. Her grandmother was talking in riddles.
‘Sarah, they’ve gone.’ Ada’s voice caught on a sob.
It was Sarah’s turn to look baffled. Gone where? What did she mean? Had they moved somewhere else to find work?
‘Sarah, they’re dead. They lasted barely two days after I arrived. First Mary, for she must have fallen sick first, then Jane, then Ellen. Daniel and I took it in turns to sit up with them through the night but there was nothing to be done. They were too weak when I got there. If that useless wastrel of a father of yours had only thought to get in touch, perhaps I would have got there earlier and things might have been different. But he was too concerned with protecting himself. He scarpered at the first sign of illness. Went off to his fancy woman on the other side of town, by all accounts.’
Ada’s voice was scornful, then her tone softened. ‘I thought Daniel’s heart would break when Ellen left us. Turned out he was sweet on her even though she’s –’ Ada paused and corrected herself ‘– she was but fifteen years old.’
Sarah had sat in numbed silence throughout. Was she hearing aright? Had she really lost her mother and sisters for ever? She swallowed hard and tried to find her voice, but it came out as a croak.
‘Where … How … Are they …?’ She couldn’t put into words what she wanted to ask.
‘They’re buried,’ Ada said. ‘I was able to save them from a pauper’s grave, at least. They’re in the churchyard at St Faith’s. It turns out that Mary had been known to go there on occasion. It seems she felt more of a welcome there than at the Methodist chapel, on account of her drinking.’ Ada’s mouth had twisted into a grimace.
‘All buried?’ Sarah’s voice was little more than a whisper. She couldn’t believe that she would never see Ellen or Jane again. She could see her sisters as clear as day, just as they were the last time she had seen them as she was waving them off to start their new lives in Manchester. They were surrounded by sunlight and waving and blowing kisses from the back of the cart, promising to come and visit soon, telling her to come and see them as soon as they were settled.
‘Yesterday,’ Ada said. ‘I’m sorry that there was no time to send word.’ She spoke flatly; the last few days had drained her of all emotion.
Sarah got up slowly, went over to her grandmother and wrapped her arms around her.
‘Was it terrible?’ she asked.
‘Yes. Indeed it was.’
Ada clung to her granddaughter, who stayed there, awkwardly bent over her. Neither of them shed a tear but both of them were staring into their own personal abyss of horror, Ada’s consisting of what she had witnessed, Sarah’s of what she imagined.
Chapter 13 (#ulink_8073ee3c-4857-50d1-9a01-a234b9582897)
That night Ada, exhausted by her journey and the emotion of the last few days, slept well. Sarah, in the bedroom next door, paced the floor and wept. The fire in the bedroom grate cast a welcome glow around the room, which only served to remind Sarah of how her siblings had ended their days. Starved of food and heat, and so stricken by poverty they were huddled together in the same bed in the one room they had to call their own. How had they arrived at such a state?
She felt a surge of hatred towards her father, whose callous behaviour had surely made a bad situation much, much worse. Other than him, Sarah wasn’t sure where next to direct her anger. Towards the mill-owners? She felt sure they had overworked her sisters and her mother until they were exhausted, their health damaged to such an extent that they were unable to fight off the sickness that afflicted them. Towards her mother? Why had she failed to protect her family? Towards her grandmother? Why had she not thought to visit and to check on her daughter and granddaughters?
Finally, Sarah chastised herself. Why had she not gone to see the family in all the time that they had been in Manchester? She’d sent messages in the letters that her grandmother wrote and she’d often thought about Jane and Ellen as she’d gone about her daily business. A walk over the fields on a hot day had reminded her of the time when she and her sisters had set about picking every flower in that particular field that they could find. When they’d arrived home with armfuls of blooms, most of them wilted beyond help, they’d been roundly scolded by Ada. She had explained to them that their actions might prevent the same flowers growing in the field in future years because they’d robbed them of the chance to set seed.
Whenever Sarah passed that way in the summer now she would automatically check, with a sense of anxiety, how many flowers she could see. She would mentally tick them off: yellow rattle, field scabious, hedge parsley, creeping buttercup, ox-eye daisy, meadow saxifrage, tufted vetch.
She could visualise the scene on that day now, as if she was watching it from above with herself within it. Three young girls, dressed in faded pinafores and summer blouses, their hair different shades of brown and pulled back into pigtails and a little unruly, with curls escaping and sticking damply to their foreheads and necks under the heat of the sun. She could hear their squeals and giggles as they darted here and there, in search of new varieties to add to their flower bunches, batting away the bees that followed them, puzzled by the constantly moving sources of pollen.
Ellen, who had something of the artist in her, had contrived a bunch in which the different shapes and colours of the flowers somehow seemed to complement each other, and she’d surrounded the bunch with feathery grasses picked from the edge of the field. Jane and Sarah had simply greedily grabbed everything they could find and the result was a mishmash of colour, quickly spoilt by the tightness of the grip of their small hands.
It was Sarah, as the eldest, who had got into the most trouble for their actions that day. Now, nearly ten years on, she was pierced by a terrible sense of failure. As the eldest, why hadn’t she made it her business to know what was going on in her sisters’ lives? If she’d imagined their life in the city at all she’d thought it must be better than her own, had assumed that they were earning enough money to live reasonably well.
Now she wondered why some sixth sense hadn’t told her what was happening. She’d been disappointed that they had been unable to come to her wedding and now … now, she was faced with the knowledge of what they had been going through in their own lives while she’d been oblivious to it, selfishly focused on herself. When she finally climbed into bed she tossed and turned, racked with guilt. Why was she still alive while they were dead?
Dead – she found it hard to even contemplate the idea, the fact that she would never see them again. She was alone in the world now, or so it felt. Her father was still alive, but what part had he played in her upbringing? None that she could recall. He was as good as a stranger to her. So now she just had her grandmother.
With a sense of shock, Sarah recalled that she was a married woman now. She had a husband, and soon she would have a child. The memory surfaced of how she had felt over the past few days, while her grandmother was away. She remembered the sense of desperation she had experienced, of not knowing how to provide for herself. Drifting into a fitful sleep as the grey fingers of dawn edged around the curtains, she resolved that she could not be reliant on her grandmother or on Joe. She needed to be sure that she could take care of herself.
It seemed that Ada had been prey to much the same thoughts. When Sarah came down to a late breakfast, her eyes gritty from lack of sleep, she found Ada already at the table with a sheet of paper set before her, a list written on it in her neat copperplate hand.
‘How did you sleep?’ Ada gave her a concerned look.
‘Not well.’ Sarah rubbed her eyes hard with the heel of her palm. ‘There was a lot to think about. And many questions I want to ask. But first, you ought to know that we had a lot of visitors while you were away, all in need of your help.’
She cast a glance out of the window, where a clear, cold blue sky promised a much brighter day than of late. ‘I’m sure that some of them will be back now that the weather has improved. But these are the ones who came,’ and she reeled off the list that she had memorised.
‘Goodness!’ Ada seemed quite taken aback. ‘Let me have the names again, but more slowly this time so that I can write them down.’
Once she had finished she looked over the list, and shook her head. ‘It will be a lot of work,’ she said, clearly thinking of all the remedies that would be required. Then she looked at Sarah. ‘This brings me to something that I have been wanting to say to you.’
Sarah had cut herself a slice of bread and was about to butter it but laid down her knife at the seriousness of Ada’s tone.
‘Don’t look so worried. There’s nothing to fear.’ Ada paused. ‘Now, I know you have just got married and so you can expect your husband to provide.’ She hesitated. ‘I don’t wish to speak out of turn but, since your husband’s work will take him away a great deal your income may, perhaps, be … unreliable.’
It was clear to Sarah that her grandmother was picking her words with unusual care.
‘And if, God forbid, an accident should befall him, well … in a few months’ time you will have an extra mouth to feed. And I won’t be here for ever.’
Ada held up her hand as Sarah started to protest. ‘No, I’m not as spry as I used to be and, after what has befallen the family in the last week, well, it has made me think how important it is for you to learn some skills, so that you are able to earn money and look after yourself in the future, should the need arise.’
Sarah interrupted her. ‘I had been thinking much the same thing. While you were away I was so worried. What if you never came back? And it made me cross with myself that I had never learned to read and write. I had no way of making contact with you. I could have made that list for you –’ she gestured at the piece of paper ‘– if only I had learnt my letters. But, apart from learning how to read and write now, what else can I do?’
‘Well, I have a plan.’ Ada drew towards her the piece of paper that had been on the table when Sarah came down for breakfast and outlined the idea that she had formulated during her long hours of vigil over her daughter and granddaughters.
‘I will teach you how to read and write. And I will instruct you in the art of herbalism. I won’t be able to do what I do for ever and someone must take over from me when I am gone. There is much to learn but I am sure that you will be up to the task.’
Ada made the last declaration in the manner of someone who was trying to convince herself.
‘But do you really think I can?’ Sarah was doubtful. She knew that her grandmother was disappointed in the lack of interest that she had shown in her profession; collecting herbs as instructed and decanting remedies into bottles made up the extent of her knowledge to date.
‘I don’t think there’s an alternative, do you?’ Ada said, after a short pause. ‘Not with a baby on the way.’
They were both silent, considering her words. Then Sarah spoke.
‘We must make a start today. Letters each morning, herbal instruction in the afternoon. Does this sound possible?’
‘Indeed it does.’ Ada managed a small smile, the first one since her return from Manchester. ‘Now, let’s eat something. You’ll need a good breakfast inside you before we make a start.’
Chapter 14 (#ulink_0b9f3774-8d49-54b4-8793-a8101d136f6d)
So it was that Sarah, for the first time in her life, applied herself to work in a way that she never had before. Each morning, once the basic chores were out of the way, she and Ada sat down at the table and Sarah, with a grim determination, focused on learning how to read and write. She was encouraged and delighted to find that learning her letters proved relatively easy, and that she could write and recite the alphabet with ease by the end of the first week. But when it came to putting letters together into words, and words into sentences, Sarah’s delight turned to despair.
‘I don’t think I will ever be the master of this,’ she said, flinging her slate and chalk down on the table. ‘It makes no sense to me. I can neither see nor hear how the letters are strung together into words.’ Tears of frustration sprang to her eyes. ‘And if I can’t do it that means I will never learn to be a herbalist, either. If I can’t write a label for a remedy, or note down how to make it, or record what has been prescribed for a patient …’ Sarah broke down in sobs of frustration, her head in her hands, overcome by the enormity of what lay ahead.
‘Ssh. Ssh,’ Ada soothed. ‘Don’t let difficulties over one kind of learning be a bar to another. You can learn the ways of herbalism without needing to write down a word. So much of it has been passed on over the years by word of mouth. How do you think I learnt my skills? Although it is the way today to expect that everything must be written down, why, women have known these things for generations and passed them on, mother to daughter.’
Sarah stopped crying and considered. She’d never thought about how Ada might have come by her knowledge.
‘Take your great-grandmother, Catherine Abbot, my mother. She was famous for miles around. Not just for her remedies, mind, but she was the one all the mothers turned to when their time had come. She must have delivered every baby in the area for nigh on twenty years. And she did all of this without knowing how to read or write.’
