A Mistletoe Kiss (10 page)

‘Ha ha ha,' Hetty said sarcastically. ‘I just hope your perishin' face hurts even more than mine does. Only of course it can't, because you've only got a few stings and I've got hundreds.'

‘Aye, you're right there,' Harry agreed. One of the wasps had stung his eyelid and now he slanted a look at Hetty, the swollen lid making him look slyer than ever, she thought. ‘What'll we say about the milk to your gran, though? I know I've gorra tell about the wasps' nest, but I dunno what to do about the milk. It ain't as if I can offer to let your gran take the milk money out o' me wages, because I don't get none.'

They began to walk along the lane together, heading
for the cut. ‘You could tell Gran you'd go without two meals and use the money she saves for more milk,' Hetty suggested cruelly, for she knew how fond Harry was of his food. But when she saw his face fall, she relented and broke into speech once more. ‘Oh, it's all right, Harry. When we tell her it was an accident, she'll understand. She was going to make an egg custard – it's one of my favourite things – but now she'll probably make an omelette instead; you can do that without milk.'

‘Oh, good,' Harry said gloomily. ‘But when she hears about the wasps' nest and sees your face, if she don't turn me off the barge an' tell me to go back to the
Swift
, then she'll likely crucify me, mebbe put the word around that no one else should employ me, norreven if I teaches 'em all I know about engines.'

Hetty looked at him thoughtfully, then looked ahead to where they could already see the water of the cut gleaming through the trees. ‘I've had an idea, Harry,' she said, speaking stiffly through her painful and swollen lips. ‘If you'll agree to it, I swear I'll not say a word about you egging me on to wallop the wasps' nest. I'll say it fell down while we were looking at it and when we ran away one of us – we don't know which – knocked over the bucket and lost the milk.'

Harry looked at her with deep suspicion. ‘If I'll agree to what?' he demanded. ‘What's this bright idea of yours? If it's something horrible …'

‘It isn't; it's not horrible, I mean,' Hetty said quickly. ‘Look, I know you can't read or write, and why should you, because I bet your mam and dad never worked
out their route on the canal so you could go to school when you moored near a village. I was one of the lucky ones, though. Gramps taught me to read and write before I even started school. If you'll agree to it, I'd like to teach you to read, honest to God I would, and once you're reading, writing is dead easy. Well? Will you give it a go? Or would you rather I told Gramps and Gran that it's your fault my face looks like a pumpkin and we've got no milk?'

Hetty had realised, quite soon after joining the
Sprite
, that Harry was bitterly envious of her ability to read and write, but knew that he would be reluctant to allow someone three years younger than himself – and a girl at that – to teach him anything. On the other hand, when they were sitting in the cabin in the evenings, Gramps and she would take it in turns to read bits out of the newspaper aloud, and Hetty had not been able to help noticing how avidly Harry listened and appeared to enjoy knowing such snippets of information on local affairs as she and her grandfather culled from old copies of the
Echo
or the
Yorkshire Post
.

Now, she looked hopefully at Harry as they reached the towpath. ‘Well?' she said rather impatiently when he did not immediately answer. ‘I'm warning you, Harry, if you won't agree I'm going to tell Gran and Gramps just what you did, so you can choose: you can either learn to read and write, or take the consequences of getting me in such a pickle,'cos I shan't be much good to anyone for days and days, with my face all swolled up like a balloon.'

She half expected to Harry to argue and was
pleasantly surprised when he gave her a lopsided grin and nodded his head vigorously. ‘I'll do me best to learn,' he said gruffly. ‘Tell you what, I'll teach you a bit about the engine an' all – it's a National and not such a bad old thing – provided you don't try an' take my job away.' He spat on his hand, then held it out. ‘Shall we shake on it?'

They shook as they reached the towpath and began to hurry along it in the wake of the
Sprite
. ‘It's a pity about the milk,' Hetty panted as her companion broke into a run. ‘But it can't be helped and I'm sure Gran will forgive us when she sees our wasp stings.'

Hetty was right; Gran fussed round them with blue-bag and a soothing remedy and scarcely bothered about the lost milk. ‘Your poor little face, Hetty my love,' she cooed, placing cold compresses on her granddaughter's burning cheeks and brow. ‘Why, Harry, you must have run like the wind to avoid the sort of stings young Hetty has suffered.'

‘I did,' Harry admitted. ‘And I'm real sorry about the milk, Miz Hesketh, but we was eager to gerrout o' the way o' the wasps, and me legs is longer than young Hetty's here.'

Gran agreed with this, and if Hetty occasionally saw her giving Harry a rather quizzical glance she said nothing and seemed to heartily approve when Hetty explained that she and Harry meant to take a look at the newspapers when they had a spare moment. Hetty had harboured secret doubts that Harry would find reading easy, but she was wrong. He was a good deal brighter than he appeared and was soon picking out
words, then sentences, then whole paragraphs, and when they reached Leeds Gramps went ashore and came back with a number of books which he had got from the tuppenny box in St Ann Street, thinking they might prove of interest both to his engineer, as he persisted in calling Harry, and to his granddaughter.

After this, Hetty began to enjoy her time on the
Water Sprite
, now that she and Harry were no longer at loggerheads. She knew that they were not pals, exactly, still regarding each other too warily for that, but there were times when Harry was explaining something about the engine, or they were exploring the countryside together, when they got on pretty well. She knew Harry was jealous of the warm relationship between her and her grandparents, but understood that the contrast between the Heskeths' affection for her and the Collinses' for Harry must be painful to the boy. However, despite such feelings, he taught her as much as he could about the engine and she did her best to absorb the information, while always quick to assure Harry that she did not mean to do him out of a job by using her new knowledge except in an emergency.

The reading was a different matter, for once Harry was reasonably proficient he scarcely needed her help at all, save when he came across long words whose meanings he did not understand. Quite often, Hetty did not understand them either and was glad to borrow the Heskeths' dictionary, so they both became more knowledgeable as a result.

Despite Harry's having been on the Leeds and
Liverpool canal for most of his life, he had little knowledge of the countryside beyond the towpath itself and some of the fields nearest at hand. Though he and his brothers had searched the hedgerows for nuts, berries, wild plums and crab apples, had dug up root vegetables and no doubt robbed waterside orchards and hen roosts, they had not gone further inland in their search for food. Hetty, who had always been given much more freedom than the Collinses had allowed their sons, was happy to show Harry where the fattest blackberries could be found when autumn came, as well as the best nuts, and where they might find hens' nests deep in the hedgerows and help themselves to the odd egg or two.

She was, in fact, delighted to take up her old life where it had left off, and though she missed Guinness it was nice not to have to watch Gramps legging his way under low bridges or long tunnels whilst she or Gran untacked the horse, gathered in the towrope and tacked him up again when the
Water Sprite
had emerged. Once, she had dreamed wistfully of the time when she would be grown up and could lie flat on her back on the roof of the
Sprite
, put her legs in the air and “walk” the barge along under the narrow bridges as Gramps did, but now she realised that such a task would probably be beyond her strength. Harry with his long, strong legs might have managed it, but she was pretty sure it would have proved too much for her. She knew also that it had been getting too much for Gramps, for though he never complained she had seen how tired he had been as he scrambled upright
when they emerged from beneath the bridges, and how worried Gran had looked when they approached another.

With the engine, however, legging through the tunnels was now a thing of the past. And it was the engine which had enabled them to reach Leeds in record time and would mean that she could spend her whole month on the canal, for in previous summers she had sometimes had to leave the
Water Sprite
and catch a train back to Liverpool in order not to miss the start of the autumn term.

That had occasionally happened even when she was on the canal for the whole of the summer holidays, since when they were carrying a mixed cargo and stopping off at every village with supplies for local shops and inhabitants, their journey had taken considerably longer. Once, Guinness had cast a shoe, and when they reached the nearest blacksmith it had been discovered that the horse had developed a foot abscess, which had needed treatment and rest. On another occasion, Gran had been injured when a gale had sprung up and slammed the cabin door on her hand; they had had to turn the
Sprite
round and go back to the infirmary in Leeds, where the wound had needed cleaning and stitching. But now it was amazing how much less time the journey took, with the engine put-putting away and even able to continue to do so after dark, if the Number One so wished.

It was three weeks before Hetty's face was more or less back to normal, which coincided with their return
to Liverpool once more, and the end of her holiday. The time had flown and she had felt the usual little ache of disappointment at the thought of school and life ashore. But now, she reminded herself, there was the Everton library and her friend Miss Preece, so though she would miss the
Water Sprite
and Gramps and Gran, she did have something nice to return to. When they reached the wharf, they would unload the cargo they had carried from Leeds – it was cotton – and take aboard their new cargo of sugar. Hetty had a strong suspicion that as soon as they were ashore Gran would give her a note and send her hurrying off to Salisbury Street to let Aunt Phoebe know that they had arrived. Loading and unloading both the
Water Sprite
and her butty boat always took time; there were papers to be filled in, people to see and of course money to change hands. Whilst all this was taking place, Gran would be making a delicious meal in the
Sprite
's little cabin and Hetty knew that the letter she would be carrying would also include an invitation to Aunt Phoebe, Uncle Alf and the boys to come down to the wharf and have supper with the Heskeths.

Since it was a weekday, Uncle Alf would certainly be working, though he might get home in time to join them later in the evening. Aunt Phoebe would be working as well, of course, but Hetty knew that she would cast aside her ironing in good time to join her parents and niece on board the
Water Sprite
. Like Hetty's mother, Aunt Phoebe had been brought up on the canal and thoroughly enjoyed visiting the barge when she was in Liverpool.

Hetty's thoughts were interrupted by her grandfather's voice addressing her. ‘Hetty, my love, get ready to moor up as soon as we near the wharf. You go to the bows and my engineer here will see to the stern.' Gramps grinned cheerfully at his youthful crew. ‘Harry, you'll know best when to cut the engine so we don't ram the boat in front, because there's bound to be a queue waiting to unload. I dare say you'll want to visit your mam and dad if they're moored up ahead of us. Want to go along and take a look?'

Hetty saw Harry pull a face and guessed that he had no desire to find his parents, but as soon as the boat was moored he jumped on to the towpath and walked slowly off towards the wharf. Hetty was about to follow him, since she was curious to see what sort of greeting he would receive from his family, when Gran called her. ‘Hetty love, I've a letter here for your Aunt Phoebe. We'll be here a while – you know what it's like when we're changing cargo – so I'd be much obliged if you'd take this note along to Salisbury Street right away.' Her grandmother nipped nimbly off the boat and thrust the letter into her granddaughter's hand, along with a number of pennies and ha'pennies. She beamed at Hetty. ‘You know what's in the letter because it's the same as always. I've made a rabbit stew, something you don't get often when you live in Salisbury Street, and I'm asking the family to come down to the old
Water Sprite
and share it. Your aunt and uncle are both rare fond of rabbit stew, and there's Bakewell tart for afters.'

‘And the pennies? What's the pennies for?' Hetty
asked, though she knew perfectly well, for this had also become a ritual when she was leaving the
Water Sprite
.

Gran chuckled and dug Hetty in the ribs. ‘As if you didn't know! It's to buy some sweeties for your cousins. It's a good job Bill and Tom aren't really interested in the canal, otherwise we'd have to take them to Leeds and back instead of you,' she added teasingly. ‘Now off with you, girl, and don't linger, because the stew will be cooked to a turn in an hour. Since it's a fine bright evening, we shan't all have to cram into the cabin, but can eat our food sitting on the decking.'

‘I'll hurry,' Hetty promised. ‘I know Bill and Tom are more interested in cars and buses than in barges, but they enjoy visiting the
Sprite.
'

Gran smiled and nodded. ‘Oh aye, mebbe you're right, but there's plenty of time for that. Now off with you, and don't go handin' over the sweets the minute you see your cousins, else they won't have no room in their stomachs for my rabbit stew.'