Feathers in the Fire by Catherine Cookson Page B

you’re cared for,’ but instead she said, ‘Run on ahead, Molly. Go down to the brook and see if she’s there; I’ll have to take my time. But you be careful too.’ She smiled at the girl, but it brought no response for when she passed her she hung her head, and she noted that she kept it down as she ran along the lane. She watched her sit atop the drystone wall that hemmed in the burn bank and kept the cattle from straying; she saw her swing her legs over one after the other; then she was lost from view.
    She herself was very hot and feeling weary. Her step slowed. She hoped that Molly found Jane down there and also that she had got over her distress. She was a highly sensitive child, very young in some ways for her years, yet in others she was old beyond her years. She had a great fund of natural sympathy and affection, but she had one shortcoming in that she was given to wild fits of temper. This trait, she was sure, her daughter did not inherit from herself, for no matter what her own feelings, she was always able to conceal them. And she certainly did not inherit it from her father; Angus might get angry, but it was a controlled anger.
    Sometimes she thought that the free life her daughter led might tend to make her become wilful; it was with the thought of erasing any possibility of this that she had suggested Madam Lovell’s school to her husband. In making this suggestion, she had made a personal sacrifice, because up to now Jane was the only proof she had to show that she was capable of bearing a child. So, therefore, she loved her very much. And the child had always given her affection and comfort . . . but never, she knew, love . . . that she had kept for her father.
    She started as she heard Jane’s voice, high and shrill now, coming from the direction of the burn. It was as if she was crying, and in distress. She hurried along the lane to the spot where Molly had crossed the wall, but to make her descent she herself had to go much further along the winding path to where a gap gave way to natural slate steps down to the burn itself; and all the while she hurried she could hear her daughter’s voice.
    When she reached the gap she looked down the slope and the sight that met her eyes astounded her. Jane was actually fighting Molly, striking out at her with both hands and feet. She had never witnessed anything like it. Molly was protesting, but not loudly, just warding off the blows, saying, ‘Aw, Miss, give over, give over. For God’s sake, Miss. Aw, for God’s sake, Miss, be quiet, it’ll cause trouble. Aw, Miss, Miss, come on away, come on up home.’
    ‘Don’t touch me, don’t dare touch me, you’re filthy, filthy. Molly Geary, you’re filthy.’
    Delia was about to call out, command her daughter to stop making such an unladylike spectacle of herself and demand to know the reason for the scene, when Jane’s next words gave it to her without further questioning. ‘I hate you, Molly Geary. You and Father . . . I saw you both. I saw you in the malt house. You were horrible, and you let him whip you while all the time you knew it was him . . . YOU ARE HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE.’
    Delia stood transfixed looking down on them. Her daughter was still gabbling and Molly still pushing off her hands and feet.
    Like someone sleepwalking she slowly descended the shallow steps where they turned in a half moon towards the burn. Jane was now spluttering, ‘Planning with Father to make Davie marry you, pretending it was him. You are horrible, dirty. I hate you, Molly Geary.’
    ‘Jane!’ Delia had not spoken loudly; she was amazed herself at the quiet tone that issued from her lips, for inside her head her thoughts were whirling and screaming.
    They both turned towards her now, Jane staring up at her, her face dirty, tear-stained and, in this moment, ugly; but Molly, after one glance at her mistress, drooped her head on to her chest and stood limp, her arms hanging downwards away from her body as if she had no