then there's the noise. I can't 'ave it near my guests .. The noise! That soft gurgling of laughter she and Catriona shared, the nuzzling contented sounds as she settled at Annie's breast .
.. an' there's no doubt you'd be neglecting yer work runnin' up an' downstairs to it every five minutes, wouldn't yer?"
“ No, ma'am, I wouldn't. She's a very good baby, really she is. A quieter baby never breathed. She sleeps a lot and I could feed her when I'm eating my meals. I would never neglect my duties ... "
“ Where did yer learn ter speak like that, me duck? Yer not from these parts, are yer?"
“ No, Cumberland."
“ Well I never. I'd no idea they spoke so posh up there." "Would you have a job for me then? Anything .. . scrubbing, bar work . . . ?"
“ Well .. ."
“ I would work for very little."
“ Well . . . ”
For the next two years it was the same, working wherever and whenever she could, mostly in the bar-parlours of country inns where folk were kinder than those in the bigger towns. She brought trade with her lovely face and lively tongue but she also brought trouble since there was not a man who drank the pint of ale she put in his hand who did not want her as well, and not a few were willing to fight over it, with each other or with her when she would not allow what they often considered to be part of her duties. Time and again she was asked to move on, she and her child who had learned to be good and quiet in the attic rooms which were allotted them and where Annie was forced to leave her for hours on end. Catriona was to learn that she must wait patiently for her mother's return. That she must not stamp about or shout as other children were allowed to do but must play with the rag dolly Annie had made for her out of scraps of material, sitting quite still in the middle of the straw pallet. She dozed and crawled, then crept on her little faltering legs into a walk and when Annie came up, there she would be, the light from Annie's candle falling on her lovely, blinking eyes, her eager, expectant face, the riot of her soft, bright curls, so like her mother's.
“ See what mother's brought for her good girl tonight," Annie would say, popping broken custard tart into her child's mouth, morsels of the daintiest food scraps she could find left over from the dining room and all the while praying that the landlady of the inn at Brigstock or Desborough, at Clipston, Naseby, Rothwell, wherever it was she had tramped to in the hope of finding work, would not blame her for the black eye Jim Sorrell had given to Harry Appleton in the yard as they fought one another ferociously over who had more right to Annie Abbott's favours .
She was in Market Harborough when she saw the newspaper. She had worked for the past week in the kitchen of The Plough in the Market Square, scrubbing, peeling potatoes by the bushel, cleaning vegetables, washing and drying the mountain of dirty crockery and glasses which came from the dining room and bar-parlour by the hour. She wore a bodice and skirt she had bought from a market stall, grey, much mended, too big in order to hide her shapely figure, and round her head she had bound a length of colourless cotton. An enormous apron made of sacking enveloped her from neck to ankle and up in the roof in a space too tiny even to be called an attic, her daughter lay apathetically on a grubby palliasse. She was almost three years old and the life she and Annie had been forced into was slowly reducing her from a placid but bright and contented infant who could, because she slept for a good deal of the day, accept her restricted life, into a dull, spiritless little ghost who scarcely turned her head when Annie crept into the room, the cupboard in which they slept. Annie despaired over her, rocking her in passionately tender arms, whispering into the dazed little face until the child responded, telling her tales about her own childhood which now, in contrast to her daughter's, seemed rosy indeed .
But
.. an' there's no doubt you'd be neglecting yer work runnin' up an' downstairs to it every five minutes, wouldn't yer?"
“ No, ma'am, I wouldn't. She's a very good baby, really she is. A quieter baby never breathed. She sleeps a lot and I could feed her when I'm eating my meals. I would never neglect my duties ... "
“ Where did yer learn ter speak like that, me duck? Yer not from these parts, are yer?"
“ No, Cumberland."
“ Well I never. I'd no idea they spoke so posh up there." "Would you have a job for me then? Anything .. . scrubbing, bar work . . . ?"
“ Well .. ."
“ I would work for very little."
“ Well . . . ”
For the next two years it was the same, working wherever and whenever she could, mostly in the bar-parlours of country inns where folk were kinder than those in the bigger towns. She brought trade with her lovely face and lively tongue but she also brought trouble since there was not a man who drank the pint of ale she put in his hand who did not want her as well, and not a few were willing to fight over it, with each other or with her when she would not allow what they often considered to be part of her duties. Time and again she was asked to move on, she and her child who had learned to be good and quiet in the attic rooms which were allotted them and where Annie was forced to leave her for hours on end. Catriona was to learn that she must wait patiently for her mother's return. That she must not stamp about or shout as other children were allowed to do but must play with the rag dolly Annie had made for her out of scraps of material, sitting quite still in the middle of the straw pallet. She dozed and crawled, then crept on her little faltering legs into a walk and when Annie came up, there she would be, the light from Annie's candle falling on her lovely, blinking eyes, her eager, expectant face, the riot of her soft, bright curls, so like her mother's.
“ See what mother's brought for her good girl tonight," Annie would say, popping broken custard tart into her child's mouth, morsels of the daintiest food scraps she could find left over from the dining room and all the while praying that the landlady of the inn at Brigstock or Desborough, at Clipston, Naseby, Rothwell, wherever it was she had tramped to in the hope of finding work, would not blame her for the black eye Jim Sorrell had given to Harry Appleton in the yard as they fought one another ferociously over who had more right to Annie Abbott's favours .
She was in Market Harborough when she saw the newspaper. She had worked for the past week in the kitchen of The Plough in the Market Square, scrubbing, peeling potatoes by the bushel, cleaning vegetables, washing and drying the mountain of dirty crockery and glasses which came from the dining room and bar-parlour by the hour. She wore a bodice and skirt she had bought from a market stall, grey, much mended, too big in order to hide her shapely figure, and round her head she had bound a length of colourless cotton. An enormous apron made of sacking enveloped her from neck to ankle and up in the roof in a space too tiny even to be called an attic, her daughter lay apathetically on a grubby palliasse. She was almost three years old and the life she and Annie had been forced into was slowly reducing her from a placid but bright and contented infant who could, because she slept for a good deal of the day, accept her restricted life, into a dull, spiritless little ghost who scarcely turned her head when Annie crept into the room, the cupboard in which they slept. Annie despaired over her, rocking her in passionately tender arms, whispering into the dazed little face until the child responded, telling her tales about her own childhood which now, in contrast to her daughter's, seemed rosy indeed .
But
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