A Time for Courage by Margaret Graham Page B

dark and creaked with every step and she tugged at her tight bodice, pulling it well down, tucking it into her skirt. There had been no breakfast gong and she could hear no voices as she reached the bottom of the thinly carpeted stairs, but there was a door to the left which stood ajar. She knocked and then entered. It was the dining-room but the table was not laid and the sideboard held no covered silver dishes. The room felt damp and was dark though the curtains which hung at the small window were open. She stood, unsure now, wanting to be with someone she knew, somewhere that was familiar. ‘We eat in the kitchen, Hannah. You’ll prefer it.’ It was the son, Joe, standing behind her in the doorway, rolling the words in his strange drawl and he made her start because she had been lost deep in her longings.
    He had met the cart last night, down at the gate about a hundred yards from the cottage and had leapt up into it once he had latched the gate behind him and shaken her hand while he talked and laughed with Eliza. His hand had been hard and rough and in the fading light he had looked brown and strong. Eliza had told her that he was seventeen.
    He held the door wide now, sweeping his hand in a mock bow. ‘It’s damp and gloomy in here, don’t you think?’
    She paused, not knowing whether to nod. It seemed rude somehow to criticise the house and she must practise being polite or she might never return to her mother.
    They walked past the bottom of the stairs, but this time she saw the passage which ran alongside and ended in a white-painted door.
    Joe edged past her and opened it, pressing back for her to go before him. She shook her head and looked first at him and then back into the room. The light was vivid after the dark and she could see the corner of a deal table and the open garden door. She had never been in a kitchen before. ‘Do please go first,’ she said, keeping her voice to a whisper.
    Joe smiled. ‘It’s difficult the first time in a new place, ain’t it,’ he whispered. ‘Follow me, but remember that Mother doesn’t eat girls, not on Thursdays anyway.’
    She felt the smile begin as she walked in behind him. His voice was gentle and his smile was so wide that it seemed to take up half his face. His fair hair was tinged with red and he had freckles on the bridge of his nose. Her shoulders began to relax as she followed his broad back.
    Joe’s mother was standing by the sink, wringing out some washing. She turned. ‘Come in, my dear. There’s bread on the table, butter and marmalade. Joe, you help Hannah find her way around and I’ll make some tea.’
    Her smile was also broad and her voice drawled like Joe’s. She was dressed much as last night in clothes that flowed about her body instead of pinning everything up inside like a suit of armour. Hannah pulled at her bodice again. Mrs Arness wore her hair in a long loose plait which hung down her back, not coiled round her head as it had been when she had stood at the doorway with the oil lamp blowing in the evening breeze. Now, in daylight, Hannah saw that it was the same russet colour as the blouse she was wearing, a blouse that was undone at the neck. Her skirt was red and full. Hannah felt her collar. Yes, it was safely buttoned. She hardly dared look at Mrs Arness again, at her open neck which her parents would recoil from and claim was indecent.
    ‘Sit down then,’ Joe said, pulling out a chair from the table. He sat opposite in his tweed suit, the jacket of which had leather patches on the elbows, and pushed the wooden board that held the round cottage loaf over to her.
    Hannah took a piece, covering her confusion with action, intrigued by the newness of this way of life. Was this how all Americans lived? Where was the silver toast rack and the servants who quietly served them? Where was the tension of correct behaviour? Beads of water pushed to the surface as she spread some butter, still ridged from the wooden platters. Joe pushed