‘I have. I have good news.’
Margaret placed a laden tray at the end of the table. ‘Will the news keep a little while longer, sir?’ she asked. ‘Your appearance has caused some excitement.’
‘I shall not apologise for my enthusiasm,’ Beth protested. ‘But neither shall I neglect our guest. We shall have tea before we talk further.’
‘I’ll bring more hot water,’ Margaret suggested and returned to the kitchen.
Beth took his hat and coat to the cupboard by the front door then cleared her sewing notions into a commodious sewing box. Abel watched her fondly and reflected on how much he loved her.
‘Come and sit at the table while I pour. We have ginger parkin today.’
Abel saw her hand shake a little as she served the tea and she noticed too. ‘It’s you,’ she explained. ‘You are making me nervous.’
‘I don’t mean to.’
Margaret returned with hot water and butter. ‘Do you know,’ she said. ‘I don’t feel at all hungry yet. I’ll go out and see if there are any eggs.’
When they were alone, Beth cut a thick slice of parkin and slid it onto a china plate for Abel. ‘Tell me before I burst,’ she begged him.
‘I know where they are,’ he said.
‘Both of them? Are they safe? Are they well?’
‘I cannot say for sure. Your son has been brought up as the future Lord Redfern.’
‘He has? Is he happy? And my Daisy? How has she grown? Is she pretty?’
‘I – I have not made contact with her yet. But I shall, quite soon.’
‘I so desperately want to see them both. Will you bring them here?’ She was frowning, a deep despairing frown that marred her beauty and worried Abel. Was she being totally honest about her recovery?
‘How often are you troubled by the dark times,’ he asked.
She sighed. ‘When I think of my children and wonder how they are growing without me.’ Her eyes grew shiny with tears again. ‘I try not to let my thoughts dwell on them
but they are
my children
– I cannot forget them.’ She lapsed into silence. A tear welled over her lower eyelid and ran down her cheek.
His heart crumbled as he grieved with her. ‘I shall bring them to you, I promise. I am close but they must trust me first, otherwise I may frighten them away.’ He picked up her cup and saucer. ‘Drink your tea. It will calm you.’
They drank and ate in silence until Beth said quietly, ‘I wish you could stay with me all the time.’
He could not deny he wanted the same. ‘I dare not,’ he answered. ‘It would risk your freedom.’
‘Edgar does not care what I do.’
‘He would if he found out that I was here with you. Even this visit is dangerous for you. I must be seen in Settle by nightfall to avoid any gossip.’
‘Then we have not long together. Hold me, Abel.’
They stood up and walked to the end of the table, moving as one to the shadows cast by the firelight. He clutched her tightly at first and then more gently as his lips traced the contours of her face and finally rested on her mouth. For a brief snatched second they shared a moment of bliss and then the sound of Margaret’s footsteps on the flags forced them apart and they turned towards the fire again. A clock chimed the hour.
‘Is that the time? I must be on my way.’ Abel took Beth’s hand and kissed it. ‘Remember my promise,’ he said.
Beth nodded and went to fetch his coat and hat. She stood at the front door and watched him ride down the track until the failing light enveloped him. ‘I love you,’ she whispered to the darkness.
Daisy had always looked forward to visiting Redfern Village from the Abbey because it was alive with ordinary working folk. The main street had carts and carriages going backwards and forwards and groups of people talking outside the shops. She could close her eyes and know where she was on the street by the smell. However, as she approached the butcher’s shop with Annie’s letter in her pocket, the sickly salty bloody aroma gave her misgivings.
The butcher’s, like others suppliers in this prosperous village, was housed in the downstairs of a stone-built house on the main road. On the days Mr Farrow slaughtered a beast, the pongs coming from round the back had made Daisy retch until she was well past the shop. But today an appetising aroma of baking pies wafted through an open side window onto the street and she was relieved. She walked through the open front door.
‘I heard you wanted a girl to help in the tripe shed,’ she ventured.
Mr Farrow was a florid-faced man with a round belly covered by a dark blood-stained apron. He stopped sawing at leg of beef and wiped the back of his hand over his brow.
‘Mrs Farrow,’ he called.
‘What is it now?’
Mrs Farrow appeared from the back of the shop with a thick cloth in her hands and smudges of flour on her face.
‘There’s a lass to see you, looking for work,’ her husband said and went back to his sawing.
‘Well, I’ve plenty o’ that. Who are you and where are you from?’
‘I’m Daisy Higgins. I’ve been helping out at the Abbey. Mrs Brown wrote this for you.’ She handed her the letter.
As she waited, Daisy’s gaze wandered to the large pieces of animal carcass hanging from hooks in the ceiling and dripping blood that coloured the sawdust strewn across the floor. That must be from the wood mill down by the cut, she thought. The narrow canal connected to the main navigation and took away timber from estate forests as well as coal from nearby pits. The Redfern estate sat on a coal field and mining villages recognisable by their pithead winding gear were dotted across the land. Colliers’ families needed food and clothing and Redfern Village was nearer than town which was five or six miles distant on the navigation.
Mrs Farrow rubbed her reddened hands down the sides of her once-white apron and unfolded the paper. ‘Annie Brown, eh? Why is she letting you go?’ She read to the end and then cast her eyes over the writing a second time.
‘How come you fetched up at the Abbey all on your own?’
‘I came with my brother. He got work at Home Farm. He’s been moved to the stables now.’
Mrs Farrow scrutinised her appearance. ‘How old are you?’
‘Eighteen. I – I haven’t got any other family.’
‘Or any lodgings, I see. Mr Farrow would have to be responsible for you then.’
‘My brother is one and twenty, ma’am.’
‘Aye, but he can’t take care of you or you wouldn’t be here.’
Daisy chewed on her lip anxiously.
‘Have you worked in a tripe shed before?’
‘No, ma’am.’
Mrs Farrow gave an impatient sigh and refolded the letter.
‘I used to wash the chitterlings for my – I mean before – before.’ She stopped. Oh lord, she’d been caught out in a fib and went on, ‘We used to keep a pig when I was little.’
‘Round here?’
‘No, ma’am, we hail from the other side of the Riding.’
‘Well, Annie writes well of you and she knows a good worker when she sees one. Show us your boots.’
Daisy lifted her skirts. She had polished them as best she could but she would need new ones for next winter. Mrs Farrow grunted her approval. ‘Are you wearing wool flannel under your skirt?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘You’ll need it for being out in the back yard. It’s where my husband does his slaughtering and it can be perishing when you’re standing washing the entrails at the trough. We use a lot of water here and we have our own pump. Mind you,’ Mrs Farrow added with a wry smile, ‘it’s warm in the tripe shed when I’m boiling up.’
‘I’ve not dressed tripe before, ma’am.’
‘I’ll show you. See how you do with ox innards. Is that bundle all you’ve got?’
‘My brother’s made me a travelling box to put them in. He – he’ll bring it over when – when I find somewhere.’
Mrs Farrow had diverted her attention to her husband. ‘What do you say, Mr Farrow?’
‘She looks sturdy enough to me. Has she a follower?’
‘No, sir,’ Daisy replied.
‘See how she gets on then.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘Follow me, lass.’
Mrs Farrow led the way through the back of the shop to a lobby with a staircase. ‘Take your things upstairs to the small attic overlooking the yard. Then come and find me in the kitchen and I’ll show you the cellar.’
Daisy’s heart was thumping and it was not due to all the stairs she had to climb. Excitement bubbled through her and she could not wait to see Boyd and tell him about her good luck. Mr Farrow was respectable and had a reputation as a tripe purveyor that spread across the county. It was cheap and nourishing and those who had a taste for it travelled to Redfern for their tripe even if they had moved as far as town. The more prosperous sent their servants to buy it and word soon spread when Mr Farrow had killed a beast.
Mrs Farrow toiled as hard as her husband in the yard, kitchen and cellar, but her back and legs were feeling their age. Her children had grown. Mr Farrow’s profits had purchased a farm tenancy for his elder son who reared stock for his father to slaughter. The younger had excelled at school and worked in town as a clerk while all three daughters had made good marriages and lived at some distance from the village.
Redfern was a prosperous village boasting an inn, the Redfern Arms, and an ale house. Not only did it provide for
its own but it sold its reputable produce to men of commerce who had business in town and to servants of successful tradesmen who came out in dog carts to purchase for their employers. Even the poorer villagers, who could not grow enough to warrant the journey to market, sold excess fruit from their garden gates, surprised that there were folk with money in their pockets to buy it.
Daisy knew the draper’s shop best. She had spent many a spare hour rummaging through his back-room table for a piece of muslin or lace. The sweetshop was run by two spinster ladies who served tea in china cups in their back room and boiled sugar in their scullery. She had had little call to go into the provisions merchant’s whose wife purchased sides of cured pig meat to cut up and sell. A blacksmith and farrier’s forge was situated further away, on the road to the wood mill. Next to him lived a cordwainer who kept a cobbling shop round the back where he employed a journey man to mend the boots of the poorer people. Like the draper, he also sold castoffs from the better-off who left their old boots with him when they collected their new ones. Overlooking all this activity stood the church with its tall spire that could be seen for miles around. It sat majestically on a small hill behind the main street and, together with its nearby rectory, dominated the village.
Redfern had its share of poor folk too. They lived in small damp cottages near the cut or in terraces of small houses built by Lord Redfern for his farm labourers, wood hewers and coal miners. His lordship, of course, was the village landlord and provided the clergyman’s living too. On the whole, he was considered a good landlord. He had endowed a row of almshouses for his tenants who grew old and sick so they might avoid the ultimate stigma of the workhouse.
Daisy’s thrill at living in Redfern made it worth the vomiting she experienced at her first ox butchering. Carrying buckets of warm blood for Mrs Farrow to make into black puddings was not too bad. But the smell of the steaming mound of entrails that slid from the carcass was too much for her and it was worse when Mrs Farrow took away one of the ox stomachs and showed her how to clean out its contents.
When her own stomach had emptied, she drank water from the pump and tried hard to suppress any further retching. But it seemed as though the smell would not go from her nostrils and she carried it with her to bed that night along with the sight of ox innards that was imprinted under her eyelids. But she had persevered and felt proud of herself. Mrs Farrow seemed satisfied. She had watched her closely and at the end of the day given her a bitter herbal brew sweetened with honey to help her sleep. Thankfully, it worked.
The days turned into weeks and soon they were into December and Daisy’s time was spent moving between a freezing cold back yard and cellar, or a warmer tripe shed and kitchen. But Mr and Mrs Farrow seemed to take well to her and treated her more as one of the family than as a servant. It was the middle of the day and she was pumping and carrying buckets of water to refill the boiler in the scullery. She heard Mr Farrow come down the creaky stairs and say, ‘Watch the counter, Mrs Farrow. I’ll just nip over to the Reddy Arms to slake my thirst.’
Mrs Farrow called, ‘Daisy, come in here and see to the dinner. He’ll be back in an hour or two with an appetite.’
‘What is there to do, Mrs Farrow?’
‘Well now, let me see. There’s a leg o’ mutton boiling over the fire so I’ll need a bowl of onion sauce. Fill that pan with
vegetables and set them to boil on the plate then make an apple pudding to bake in the oven. Be sure to chop the suet real fine for the crust.’
‘Yes, Mrs Farrow.’
When everything was ready, Daisy set the table in the kitchen and presented herself to Mrs Farrow in the shop.
‘Good lass. You take over here while I draw some ale. I’ve a new barrel needs tapping.’ She surveyed the marble slab and worn wooden counter. ‘Not much left to sell now so you can let everything go for a tanner.’
‘Even that hare? He’s a big fellow, Mrs Farrow.’
‘Aye, only let him go to one o’ the village families, mind. They’ll be along soon to see what we have left. As soon as the slab’s clear, wash it down and shut up shop. Oh, and give me a shout when you see Mr Farrow walking down the road.’
‘Yes, Mrs Farrow.’
Daisy stood at the open door and watched Mr Farrow amble back from the Redfern Arms in conversation with another man. She’d been in the village long enough to recognise most of the inhabitants and she didn’t know this one. He was wearing a tall hat, the sort she had seen on the heads of gentlemen from town. He seemed very friendly with Mr Farrow. They were talking and laughing together, occasionally swaying as they walked. Mr Farrow didn’t overdo the drink like some she knew and ‘a jar at the Reddy’, as he called it, always put him in a good mood.
Daisy frowned. The stranger could be the man who, Boyd said, had stared at her in church a while back. Her back stiffened. Had he been sent by Father to find her and take her home? She clutched at the edge of the meat counter and prayed that Mrs Farrow would not let her go.