It was on one such day as they were walking along Abbey Street that Amy tugged on Molly’s hand and pointed ahead excitedly. ‘Look, Gran, look at the lovely horse and carriage.’ She almost dragged Molly along in her haste as Molly smiled indulgently.
‘Aye, I can see it, but slow down, love, or you’ll have me over.’
The carriage was some way away, stood outside the hat shop. When they were still some yards from it, Samuel Forrester suddenly stepped from inside the shop and, walking round to the other side of the carriage, he climbed inside, nodding to the driver as he did so to move on.
Amy was still dragging Molly along, intent on catching a closer look at the beautiful dapple-grey mare before it pulled away.
It was as they passed the fine carriage that Molly caught a glimpse of the woman inside. She supposed that this must be Josephine, Samuel Forrester’s wife, out on one of her rare outings, and instantly all the stories that Molly had ever heard of her were proven to be true. Josephine Forrester was indeed a beauty. Even as she was thinking it, the woman suddenly turned from saying something to her husband and glanced out of the window. What happened next shook Molly to her very core. As the woman’s eyes latched on to Amy, every ounce of colour seemed to drain from her face and she leaned forward to stare at the child more closely.
At the same time the child looked up and for an instant their eyes locked. Amy flashed her a huge smile but then with a clatter of hooves on the cobblestones, the carriage pulled away.
‘Eeh, Gran, did you see that lovely lady?’ Amy said excitedly, her young imagination fired.
Molly nodded as the child rambled on, ‘She were just like the princess in the fairy story Toby read to me last night, and did you see how she was dressed? By, her bonnet was lovely and that gown she was wearin’ must have been real velvet.’
Amy sighed dreamily. To her, Josephine Forrester in her fine clothes was a world away from the rest of the women who were walking about in their drab dresses and dull shawls. But for some reason the joy had suddenly gone from the day for Molly, and tugging at the little girl’s hand, she said, ‘Come on, love, let’s get away home, me feet are aching.’
‘Aw, Gran – we haven’t done all our shopping yet, nor even been to the pie stall.’ Disappointment clouded her face but Molly was adamant. She was more than used to people looking at Amy, yet there was something in the way that Josephine Forrester had stared at her that had rung a warning bell in her mind.
‘Never mind the rest o’ the shopping, we’ll do that tomorrow,’ she said firmly.
‘All right, Gran,’ agreed the little girl, never one to sulk, and with her mind full of the beautiful lady she had just seen, she skipped merrily ahead longing to get home now so that she could tell Beatrice all about it.
Molly had told Amy when she was very small that she was her gran. She said that she had taken her in when her mother died after her father had been killed in an accident, and Amy never queried why she had the same last name as her gran. Every day the old women prayed to God for forgiveness for the lies she had told, but just as Bessie had once predicted, Amy and anyone else who knew her never doubted her word. But for some reason today, for the very first time in a long while, Molly found herself thinking back to that fateful Christmas Eve, and the lies she had told lay heavy on her heart.
Some time later, after throwing her coat across the back of a silk chaiselongue in the deep bay window at Forrester’s Folly, Josephine Forrester crossed to a bell-pull and tugged it. Within seconds, a maid in a frilly white apron appeared as if by magic.
‘Yes, ma’am?’ The girl bobbed her knee respectfully and Josephine said, ‘Tea, Lily, if you please.’
‘Yes, ma’am – straight away.’ The girl backed towards the door and scuttled away as if her life depended on it.
‘Is anything wrong, Mother? You look pale.’
Looking across to her son, Adam, who was sitting on a settee with his wife, Josephine shook her head distractedly and replied, ‘No, dear, I’m quite all right. It’s just …’
As her voice trailed away and she gazed from the window across the lush green lawns, her husband exchanged a worried glance with their son.
‘Your mother isn’t feeling too well, Adam, despite what she says. I was hoping a ride out in the carriage and a little fresh air would do her good, but unfortunately we had got no further than the hat factory in the town when she decided she wanted to come home.’
Turning suddenly as if she hadn’t heard a single word he had said, Josephine demanded, ‘Samuel, you
must
have seen the child. She was …’ She struggled to find the right words. ‘She was standing outside the hat shop with an old woman. She smiled at me and it was almost like looking at Jessica when she was that age. She had the same red hair – the same dark eyes. She even had Jessica’s smile.’
A deep frown creased Adam’s brow and Eugenie pouted, as they silently watched Josephine pacing the floor.
‘There must be
hundreds
of children about with red hair, Mother,’ Adam patiently pointed out. ‘And every time you see a young woman or a child who looks even remotely like Jessica we have this same thing.’
At that moment, there came a tap to the door and Lily reappeared pushing a laden tea-trolley.
‘I’m going to my room for a rest before dinner. Are you coming?’ Eugenie stared at her husband imperiously but for once she did not have Adam’s undivided attention; his eyes remained on his mother.
‘I’ll be up shortly, darling,’ he replied. ‘You go ahead.’
Flouncing from the room in a swish of silk skirts, she closed the door resoundingly behind her.
Taking his wife’s elbow, Samuel led her to a chair and pressed her gently into it as Lily poured out the tea.
‘Look, darling, you’re letting your imagination run away with you again.’ His voice was heavy with sadness and regret. ‘As Adam pointed out, it’s the same every time you see anyone with red hair or dark eyes who looks anything at all like Jessica.’
Leaning forward in his chair, Adam asked, ‘How old was this child anyway, Mother?’
Josephine sighed as a picture of the lovely faced flashed before her eyes. ‘About five or six, I should say,’ she replied eventually.
Waving aside the tea that Lily held out to him, Adam quickly rose from his seat and strode towards the door. ‘I’ve just remembered I have something I need to do,’ he said curtly, and without another word he too left the room, much as his wife had done only moments before him.
The kitchen door had barely closed behind Lily when she gabbled out, ‘There’s goin’ to be ructions back there again. Miss Eugenie’s just stormed out o’ the room in a rare old strop an’ fer once Mr Adam didn’t go chasin’ after her skirts.’
The staff were enjoying a well-earned tea break at the enormous scrubbed table and they all looked towards her, eager to hear whatever gossip she had to impart.
‘What’s goin’ on now then?’ Cook was the first to give in to curiosity.
‘Well …’ Smoothing down her starched white apron and straightening her frilly mop cap, Lily approached the table. ‘Seems like the mistress went out fer a ride wi’ the master an’ while they were out he called in at the hat shop in town. The mistress got herself all worked up ’cos she saw a little girl who put her in mind o’ Miss Jessica standin’ outside it. But soon as ever the mistress mentioned Miss Jessica’s name, Miss Eugenie were off.’
‘Hmph, that I can well believe,’ the rosy-cheeked Cook grumbled. ‘If it weren’t fer that spoiled little madam then I’ve no doubt poor Miss Jessica would be here still. That little strumpet never could stand Miss Jessica – but then she never liked anyone who Master Adam paid any attention to.’
Mary’s eyes were almost starting from her head as she listened. This had certainly put some spice into the day and she could hardly wait for Lily to go on. At this rate she’d have lots of gossip to take home to her mam and Molly this coming weekend. However, much to her disappointment, the untimely entrance of Mrs Benn, the housekeeper, stopped the gossip mid-flow.
‘What’s this then?’ As she looked sternly from Lily to her rapt audience around the table, Lily stammered, ‘I were just sayin’ as how there’s trouble back there in the drawin’ room, Mrs Benn. The mistress had gone an’ got herself into a state ’cos—’
‘LILY – that is quite enough! I will
not
have you gossiping about the master and mistress’s affairs, do you hear me?’
Lily flushed a dull brick-red and dropped her eyes guiltily from the housekeeper’s furious face.
‘Yes, Mrs Benn,’ she mumbled, almost shaking in her shoes.
‘As for the rest of you,’ Mrs Benn’s eyes swept the table, ‘have none of you any work to do? I’m sure if you haven’t, I could find you all some extra jobs.’
There was the sound of chairs scraping across the red quarry tiles as everyone rose hastily from their seats and scurried off in different directions. Muttering oaths beneath her breath, Mary made her way back to the laundry. Damn and blast Mrs Benn. She had just been starting to enjoy herself. Not only that, she’d made such a hasty exit that she’d left half of one of Cook’s home-made scones on her plate. She pictured it, all dripping with butter and freshly made strawberry jam …
‘That Mrs Benn’s a bit of a tartar, ain’t she?’ she remarked to Alice, who was helping her with a particularly heavy batch of laundry. ‘Makes me wonder who
is
the boss in this house, her or the mistress.’
Alice giggled. ‘I reckon it’s Mrs Benn every time. One word from her an’ the lot of us jump. It’s her that’s responsible fer the hirin’ and firin’ so no one wants to upset her.’
‘An’ what about this here Miss Jessica?’
The smile slid from Alice’s face as she quickly looked around the yard to make sure that they couldn’t be overheard. ‘Least said about her the better. If the master so much as hears her name mentioned he goes off into a mood an’ the poor mistress falls into one o’ her swoons.’
‘But why?’ The sound of the laundry-room door slamming behind Alice was Mary’s only answer. Shrugging her shoulders she followed her.
1845
Grabbing the handles of the old perambulator salvaged from Bessie’s coalhouse, Amy gave it a mighty tug and dragged it across the step and into the kitchen. The rain was coming down in great blistering sheets and both she and Molly were soaked to the skin.
Molly looked totally worn out, so leading her to the old rocking chair at the side of the hearth, Amy took off her gran’s outer clothing and then pressed her down on to it. She then took up the bellows and blew life into the fading embers before throwing a log on to the weak flames. Once she was sure that the flames had caught, she pushed the kettle into the heart of the fire.
You know, Gran, you shouldn’t have gone out in this weather. I’m quite capable of pickin’ a few logs and a bit of coal by myself.’ She was undoing the laces of Molly’s well-worn boots as she spoke and Molly smiled at her gratefully as she pushed her frozen feet towards the warmth of the flames.
‘Stop frettin’. There’s nothing much wrong wi’ me, lass. I’m just tired, that’s all.’
Amy was not so sure, but she had no time to comment because just then Toby entered, slamming the door shut behind him.
‘By, it’s wicked out there!’ he exclaimed, shivering. ‘It’s raining cats an’ dogs.’ Then, as he noted Amy’s wet clothes, ‘You’ve never been out in this, have yer?’ he asked, eyeing the contents of the pram, then without waiting for an answer he said sternly, ‘There was no need for you to go out an’ get that. You know I’d have gone and got it for you.’
‘I know you would, Toby, but I’m quite able to pick coal meself. I just wish Gran hadn’t insisted on coming along, that’s all. Besides, you already do enough for us as it is.’
Toby sighed. ‘Stubborn as mules you both are, that’s your trouble,’ he grumbled, although he was smiling. He could never help but smile when he looked at Amy, for even with her hair soaked and flat to her head, she was beautiful. He still came as regular as clockwork every evening, and over the last months, Amy didn’t know what she would have done without him – or Molly, for that matter.
Of late, Molly’s hands had become twisted with arthritis and she was forced to sit longer and longer at her loom each day to make ends meet. It had happened gradually over the last two or three years, and Amy was gravely concerned about her. Even after she had finished the steaming hot tea that Amy placed in her hands, she still looked all in and the girl patted her arm lovingly.
‘Why don’t you turn in, Gran?’ she suggested. ‘I’ll fill that stone bottle with nice hot water and bring it up to you, eh?’
Molly nodded; if she were honest with herself she was feeling far from well and wishing that she hadn’t ventured out today. Amy had begged her not to go but she had been saving the money she usually gave to the coalman by coalpicking from the slagheaps. She had seen a lovely woollen coat in a pretty shade of burgundy in a shop in town and had been saving the money so that she could surprise Amy with the coat for a combined birthday and Christmas present.
‘I’ll warm that stew up before you go to bed so that you get something hot inside you, shall I?’ Amy offered, but Molly shook her head as she struggled from the chair.
‘No thanks, lass. To be honest I ain’t hungry. Just me bed’s all I need, you’ll see. I’ll be fit as a fiddle in the mornin’ after a good night’s sleep. I’ve just picked up a bit of a cold.’
Amy’s troubled eyes caught Toby’s as Molly hobbled off to the stairs. Her bed was upstairs in the tiny room next to the one that housed her loom.
‘See yer lock up now when Toby’s gone,’ Molly ordered as she climbed the wooden staircase. ‘Goodnight, me darlin’s.’ Every step was an effort. She felt as if she was climbing a mountain and ached in every bone in her body.
The two young people watched her slow progress, and when she was out of sight, Amy said worriedly, ‘She does too much.’ Pushing the plug into the large stone bottle she had just filled from the kettle, she wrapped it in an old pillowcase, saying, ‘I’ll just take this up to Gran and then I’ll show you the sketches I did last night.’