A Mother's Sacrifice (8 page)

Laura, who had caught up with them, added sourly,‘He wants more than that.’

They said goodbye to the sergeant and he sat on a dry-stone wall in the rays of a rising sun until they had disappeared from view. As they trudged through Swinborough, they passed a few villagers who were gathering early, waiting for kin to walk to market, or for the morning carrier to take them into town. One or two nodded in their direction and Quinta was aware of whispering as they moved on. It reminded her that Patrick Ross was a stranger and she knew very little about him or his father. As she walked beside him she experienced, again, a fearfulness that sent a shiver down her back.

After the village, the road climbed Potters Hill past the Hall. The cart was heavy, filled with baskets and sacks, some hanging over the side, held on with every last rusting nail and piece of twine they could find.

‘I’ll help you push, Mr Ross,’ Quinta volunteered.

‘There is no need. But if you wish . . .’ He handed one of the shafts to her.

She bent her back into the task and pushed. ‘It would not be such a burden if you had not chopped so much wood.Who will pay you money for all this?’

‘Innkeepers. Housekeepers in merchants’ houses. Towns are full of people who have to eat. How are they to cook their food?’

‘They have coal, of course.’

‘So they need wood to light it.’

‘But surely they can chop kindling for themselves? Even I can manage that!’

‘I do not doubt that. Many town folk are not as resourceful as you, Miss Quinta.’

She was silenced. He had proved her wrong and flattered her at the same time. Her breathing became laboured as they approached the summit.

‘I’ll take over now,’ he said. ‘Your mother needs your arm.’

They stopped for rest at the top. The town sprawled below them: smoking chimneys and furnaces, a glint of water from the navigation and brick terraces of labourers’ cottages snaking through the bustle. Already carriers and merchants were gathering to water their horses at the spring by the crossroads.

‘Not far now,’ Quinta observed.

Mr Ross narrowed his eyes and nodded. He said very little. He didn’t smile much either. She wondered what sort of life he had led up until now and the kind of man he really was. Normally so withdrawn, she noticed that he seemed to cheer as they drew near to town.While Quinta and her mother were displaying their produce in the marketplace he said, ‘I’ll take the cart and make haste to sell the wood. I must visit the Dispensary for my father.’

‘My mother has need of a stronger medicine to ease her chest,’ Quinta said. ‘Will you get some for her?’

‘Does she not wish to talk to the apothecary herself?’

‘She is tired from this walk and will have to rest.You know how her cough sounds.’

‘Very well.’ He disappeared with their cart into the market crowds.

Chapter 6

‘There are so many people! Where do they come from?’ Quinta stood at the corner of the market square and gazed in wonder at the throng.

‘All the manufactories you can see down by the canal, and from the pit villages round and about. Look at those beasts over there! The butchers’ll be busy tomorrow.’

‘Do you think we’ll be able to buy a bit of butcher’s meat tonight, Mother?’

‘We’ll see.You hold on tight to the purse for me and watch your back. Midsummer Eve attracts all sorts.’

They had a pitch by a corner and next to an alley that led away from the square. Quinta and her mother were kept busy all morning selling their produce while Patrick took his kindling wood off in the cart, heading up the hill to where fine houses had been built for the owners of the new manufactories. These newcomers were not gentry, but they had servants and carriages that were paid for by their profits.

It was a fine day, warm and sunny, and they sold everything before noon. They had enough for the rent and to buy flour. Quinta stowed her takings safely in a drawstring pouch under her skirts, then stacked her baskets and empty sacks by the wall behind them. Laura coughed as she helped and Quinta wondered when Patrick would be back with the medicine.

‘You look pale, Mother,’ Quinta said. ‘Rest a while. I’ll fetch dinner from a pie-seller.’

When she returned with hot meat pies, Laura was asleep on the sacking in front of their baskets and she hadn’t the heart to waken her. She left her pies behind the baskets and joined a crowd to watch a juggler throwing lighted flares in the air. Then she sat on a low stone wall in the shade, near to where her mother was still sleeping, to eat her dinner.

She had noticed a group of three people arrive in the square and walk backwards and forwards without any obvious interest in buying. The gentleman, who wore a smart coat and a tall hat over very straggly hair, and the younger of the two women eventually departed in the direction of the inn and the older woman picked her way across the market debris to where Quinta was sitting. She was dressed in a very fancy gown embellished with pleats and bows and had on a bonnet trimmed with matching ribbons. Quinta thought she was gentry and stopped chewing as the woman approached her.

‘On yer own, are yer?’ She didn’t speak like a lady.

‘No.’

‘Looking fer work, eh?’

‘No.’ Not now, she thought, aware of her full purse safely hidden away.

‘I know where a lass like you can earn a sovereign a week. Think of that. A whole sovereign. It’s enough fer yer ter buy a new gown and bonnet whenever yer want.’

Quinta didn’t believe her, but she wondered what she was talking about. ‘Where’s that then?’ she asked.

The woman stretched out her hand. ‘Come wi’ me and I’ll show yer.’

Quinta recoiled, staring at her hand. It was gnarled and knobbly but adorned with several glittery rings.‘No, thank you. Go away,’ she said firmly.

The woman persisted. ‘Look at all these gent’men around yer. All wi’ money in their pockets.Where do they come from?’

‘They live here, don’t they?’

‘Aye, lass, they do. They work in the mines and manufactories or fer the railway company. Some are proper gentry, spending their pa’s riches. Plenty ter go round, yer see.’

Quinta didn’t see and went back to eating her pie.

The woman looked impatient and then curiously intent. She took a step closer and asked, ‘’Ave you never ’ad a sweetheart?’

She shook her head as she chewed and remembered the sergeant asking her the same question.

‘Never? You still a maid, then?’

‘Of course I am!’ Quinta replied indignantly.

The woman’s bony fingers enclosed her wrist. ‘Come wi’ me, ducks.’

Quinta tugged at her hand but the woman would not release her. She dropped her pie in the struggle and muttered, ‘Let me go, I don’t like you.’

And then the woman whistled.
She put her finger and thumb between her lips and whistled like a man!
Quinta’s eyes widened as the younger woman she had noticed earlier loomed close, apparently from nowhere. She was very pretty and had rouge on her cheeks and lips and - and, oh, Quinta realised she had rouged her bosoms where they thrust out of her gown without any muslin to cover them. She wore coloured feathers in her tangled hair and reminded Quinta of the travelling players that visited from time to time.

The girl took hold of her other wrist with fingers that felt like iron bands and jerked her forward. Quinta half fell off the wall.

‘Leave me alone. I’m not coming with you!’

‘Get her down the alley quick,’ the older woman said. Her tone had changed from wheedling to anger and she began to haul Quinta after her.When Quinta resisted, the woman seethed at her companion, ‘Put yer back into it, girl.’

‘No!’ Quinta pulled against both of them as they dragged her away. She turned her head and yelled, ‘Mother! Wake up, Mother! Help me!’

‘What’s going on?’ Mrs Haig roused from her slumber and rolled to her knees.‘You leave my Quinta alone,’ she called.Then she stood up and raised her voice and, between coughs, wheezed, ‘They’re taking my Quinta. Stop them! Somebody help her!’

A small crowd gathered to stare and the older woman turned a bright smile on them and said, ‘Don’t listen ter ’er. This girl is my daughter and that drunk over there was trying ter steal ’er from me.’

‘That’s not true!’ Quinta protested loudly. ‘She isn’t a drunk, she’s my mother!’

‘Yes, I am!’ Laura echoed. ‘I was asleep, that’s all, and this - this
madam
is stealing my Quinta.’ By now Mother was on her feet and lunging at the older woman, prising her fingers from Quinta’s wrist. At the same time Quinta kicked at the younger one and bit her arm. The girl yelped and let go. With her free hand, Quinta curled her fingers into a ball and punched at the woman, catching her on the side of her nose.

The woman gave an anguished cry and put both her hands over her face. ‘You little witch. I’ll ’ave yer fer that! You see if I don’t.’ She turned quickly and disappeared down the alley, closely followed by her rouged companion.

Quinta turned anxiously to her mother. ‘Mother, are you all right?’

‘Are you?’ Mother held on to her tightly and buried her face in her shoulder so her voice was muffled.‘They were going to take you away from me. Oh, Quinta my love, I don’t like being in the town. Let’s go home now.’

‘Mr Ross hasn’t come back with our cart yet,’ Quinta protested.

‘He’ll catch us up, I’m sure.’

‘I’d rather wait. Look, this place is full of butchers, so why don’t I buy some meat trimmings while we wait? We have enough money and it’ll make us a nice pudding tomorrow.’

‘We-e-ll, I suppose you could. But be quick, dear, and leave the purse with me, just to be on the safe side. I’ve got a pocket in my drawers.’

Quinta glanced around before hitching up her skirt to untie the leather thong securing her purse on her underskirt tapes. Then she handed it to her mother who bunched up her own skirts and hid the purse from view.

‘I won’t be long.’ Quinta smiled, picking up a basket. She hurried away, lifting the edges of her gown clear of the rotting vegetables and animal droppings that littered the cobbled square. The taverns were already noisy with farmers and traders celebrating their successful trading.

She found a row of small stone houses just off the High Street. A large red-faced buxom woman stood outside one of them in front of a slate-topped table. She caught Quinta’s attention with her bloody fingers and raucous voice. ‘Ox skirt and meat trimmings,’ she yelled. ‘Gotta clear this lot afore nightfall, me ducks.’ She laughed, hacking away with a large knife. ‘Got a fine forequarter hanging in the back yard ready for my slab and another ox beast standing.’

‘Have you baked any pies today?’ Quinta asked. Mother’s dinner had been crushed in her scramble to help, and Quinta had only eaten half of her own.

‘Have I baked? Nonstop night and day! But they’ve all gone by now. Sold the last one hours ago.’

Quinta bought a chunk of ox kidney and suet which the butcher’s wife wrapped up in a generous piece of beef skirt and tied it round with twine. She was pleased with her bargain and cheered by the prospect of meat pudding tomorrow. She placed her precious purchase in the bottom of her basket and slung it over her arm.

Laura sat on the empty sacks as she waited and felt uneasy when she glanced down the alley. A man was looming out of the shadows. She had noticed him earlier in the square with the women who had tried to steal her daughter. He was young and brawny-looking and his presence made her nervous. Oh Lord, he was walking towards her! Where was Quinta?

‘Good evening, missus. A very pleasant one it is, too. ’Ave you ’ad a good day at the market?’

‘Who are you?’ she asked. As she did her hand went automatically to confirm her purse was still there under her skirts in the pocket of her drawers. He smiled at her with fleshy lips and she took an instant dislike to him. He was a thick-set and burly, an ox of a man with a dark swarthy skin and black eyes. But he was well shod and wore a fancy waistcoat with an elaborate necktie. It was the showy kind of dress favoured by the new manufacturing gentry in town. He didn’t sound like them, though. He spoke roughly like one of Farmer Bilton’s itinerant labourers.

‘What do you want?’ she demanded.

‘Nothing, excepting a bit o’ conversation.’

Laura sat stiffly in silence.

‘’Ave you far ter get ’ome?’ he asked.

‘No. Have you? I’ve not seen you in the marketplace before.’

He smiled at her with his fat lips but not with his glittery dark eyes. They stared at her piercingly and she wished that he’d move on. She wondered why Quinta was taking so long to fetch the meat. His manner was shifty and he had a crooked nose, one that had been broken at some time. In a fight, she didn’t doubt. She had a close view of his boots and saw they were the kind favoured by Sir William himself, black with a natural tanned cuff and dear to buy.Very smart, too, she thought, but the hair escaping from his tall hat was tangled and greasy.

‘I’m new ter town,’ he volunteered. ‘I’m still finding my way around. I saw you selling yer vegetables in the marketplace earlier, with a girl.’

‘Not me,’ she answered shortly.

His eyelids narrowed and his fleshy lips pressed together. ‘Well now, I am sure I did, missus.’

‘What is it you want?’ she demanded shortly. She was beginning to feel uneasy about this fellow and wondered whether to call out for someone. She decided not. He might turn nasty.

‘I know ’ow ’ard it is ter get by these days, what wi’ rents and the price of flour going up all the time. I got work in the town fer yer lass, you know, wi’ proper wages and a decent ’ouse ter live in.’

‘Decent house?’ That’s not what Laura Haig had seen. Ordinary working folk lived squashed together in rows of damp hovels no better than their cowshed.

‘Aye,’ he went on. ‘A big ’ouse ’as ter ’ave a lot o’ lasses to keep it straight fer the folk that live there.’