The Maid's Secret by Val Wood Page A

they were hard to come by. She sighed. I suppose I must count my blessings and be thankful that I managed to find extra work at ’hostelry, she thought, but even so I don’t see how I can manage to pay ’rent, not if we want to eat. If I’d been nicer to ’mill foreman he might have kept me on full time, but his wandering hands are worse than ’hostelry customers’, and him with a wife and four bairns. So he punished me and has put me on half time, until I change my mind, which I won’t. Instead, she had taken the job at the George, even though she didn’t like being out late in the evening when her mother was so ill. The older woman hadn’t eaten for days but even so she still retched, although she brought up nothing but green bile. I’m going to ask if I can leave early tonight. I wish . . . what do I wish?
    She turned into the yard. This was an ancient inn, one of the oldest in Hull and in the oldest street in the town, set close by the River Hull where the November fog drifted in from the sea and floated amongst the houses and alleyways. I don’t wish for riches, but it would be nice to have enough to eat, and not have to worry about paying ’landlord, and – to have a good man in my life, one who spoke softly, and would look after me and my mother. And I would tek care of him. Was there such a man, she wondered.
    Two weeks earlier a stranger had come into the inn. He wasn’t local; she knew all the regular customers by sight if not by name, and she hadn’t seen this man before. He’d been polite, asked for food as well as ale, and she’d thought . . . well, she’d thought that he seemed pleasant. He’d asked for fresh bread as if he was used to eating good food, and although he hadn’t been flippant or saucy he’d seemed interested in her, for she’d caught him glancing to see if she was wearing a wedding ring, and there’d been something he said. What was it, she thought. Something about a husband. That was it: had I a husband to go home to? But I didn’t answer; I’m not in ’habit of discussing my life with a stranger. He was in Hull on business, he said, so he must live out of ’district. It would be nice if he came back like he said he would, and then I might find out who he is, does he have a wife, where does he live, is he in regular work? She let out a breath of resignation. But no use daydreaming, Harriet. This is your life, such as it is.
    She swung open the door. There was a bright fire burning and already men standing by it warming their backsides. The landlord’s wife stood behind the bar counter with an expression so brittle it could shatter glass. ‘You’re late,’ she said.
    ‘I know,’ Harriet replied. ‘I’m sorry.’
    Anger coursed through his veins. It had for as long as he could remember, though he didn’t know why; but it was his retaliation, his way of dealing with what he considered to be injustice, his way of coping with long-standing rejection.
    Noah Tuke rode the stallion hard, testing its health and strength. He’d bought him cheap, doing a shady deal with the owner who was pressed for money and had cursed him for his meanness. This would be Noah’s second visit to Hull and when his quest was done he had no intention of ever going back to the town again.
    He’d gone there seeking a wife in the middle of October, and reckoned that he might have found one. With a bit of luck and a few choice words he might get as good a bargain as he had with the stallion.
    He needed a woman who could work, and although he could have gone to Goole or Brough, both nearer to his marshland home than Hull, Goole was a new company town of no more than four or five hundred people, built for the shipping industry and attracting few women apart from the dockers’ wives; and in the small community of Brough someone might have recognized the son of one of the farmers from the waterlogged wastes outside the town, and the last thing he wanted was raised eyebrows or inevitable