Sarah's Story

by Lynne Francis

  Sarah slid between the sheets and shivered in the chill that she found there. She knew sleep would not come now and so she concentrated on remembering every moment of the night just gone, to store and treasure into the future. She blushed as she remembered her own behaviour, then she allowed herself a small smile. What she and Daniel had done was wrong, without a doubt, but she wouldn’t take back a moment of it. She hoped Daniel felt the same.

  PART SEVEN

  September 1881 – August 1882

  Chapter 55

  Sarah nursed her secret, fobbing off Martha’s questions. It hurt her to do so but she wanted no word of Daniel’s overnight stay being spread around The Old Bell by her old friend. Instead, she explained to Martha that his return journey to the States was imminent, without explicitly stating when he had left, and distracted her by repeating Daniel’s tales of the wonders of New York.

  ‘It’s a shame you didn’t marry him rather than your Joe,’ Martha exclaimed. ‘Why, just imagine, it could be you living the high life out there with him.’

  Sarah smiled but made no response. Despite Daniel’s best efforts to describe it to her, such a life as he was living was beyond her ken. She would keep him safe here in Yorkshire instead, in her heart.

  It was just a few days later, as she rolled out the pastry for a rabbit pie, that she heard someone coming up the path, whistling. The footsteps paused briefly at the kitchen door, there was a knock, then, before she had time to answer, the door swung open and a figure stepped inside.

  For a moment, Sarah had the absurd belief that it was Daniel, unable to bring himself to depart from Liverpool, returning to her. A split second later she recognised the visitor as her husband, paler, gaunt and with a bushier beard than when she had last seen him. Lines were etched deeply in his face and he looked weary.

  ‘Joe!’ She let the rolling pin fall from her hands, clattering to the table from where it bounced to the floor. The noise brought Alice down from the bedroom, where she had been putting Tilly, who had apparently been very naughty, to bed without any supper.

  ‘Well now, who’s this then?’ Joe said, stopped in his tracks at the sight of his daughter. ‘You’ll not be telling me ’tis Alice, a bairn barely bigger than a hand’s breadth when I last clapped eyes on her?’

  Sarah, rendered speechless by Joe’s unexpected appearance, could only nod. Joe’s face broke into a grin and Sarah noticed the gaps in his smile, where teeth had been lost.

  ‘Come say hello, then.’ Joe held out his arms as Alice shrank back.

  Fearing that Alice’s shyness might upset or anger Joe, Sarah quietly pulled out a chair for her husband.

  ‘Sit down and I’ll make us some tea. Why didn’t you tell me that you’d be back? We’d have been ready to give you a proper welcome.’

  ‘Aye, she don’t remember me.’ Joe, made despondent by Alice’s reaction, sank into the chair. ‘Not that I can blame her, with me gone so long.’ He looked around the room, taking it in as though he’d never set eyes on it before, as Sarah busied herself making tea.

  ‘Did you not get my letter, then? I tell’t you of my return in it.’

  Sarah shook her head. ‘No letter. If only I’d known …’ She looked at the mess of flour and half-rolled pastry on the table. ‘This can hardly be the welcome you were expecting.’

  ‘I’ll be bound that thieving rascal in prison took my post money and kept it, knowing he wouldn’t see me again. No wonder you had no letter.’ Joe’s flash of anger subsided as suddenly as it had appeared. He took Sarah’s hand. ‘Anyways, it makes no odds. If you knew how much I’d longed for my freedom …’ He couldn’t go on, his eyes filling with tears, and Sarah found herself wiping her own eyes with the corner of her floury apron.

  ‘Here,’ she beckoned to Alice. ‘Come and get to know your father again.’

  Alice hung back at first, her eyes like saucers, but when Sarah suggested that Tilly could be reprieved from her punishment and brought to meet Joe, she was quick to hurry upstairs to fetch her doll.

  Sarah cleared the flour and pastry aside and sat down at the table with Joe. She had often wondered how she would feel on seeing her husband after so long apart. Now that he was here unexpectedly, with no chance for her to prepare herself, it felt mainly as though he had been away on one of his long trips. He was changed, though. He looked a good deal older, and she noticed a tremor in his hand as he raised his cup to his lips. She was at a loss as to what to say to him. Reminding him of his spell in prison by asking him about it didn’t feel like the right thing to do.

  She wanted to avert questions about her own life, though – the remembrance of Daniel’s recent visit bringing a blush to her cheeks as she thought of it. Alice was the obvious diversion: she busied herself describing their daughter’s last six years to the father who had missed all but the tiniest fraction of it.

  Alice herself listened in, fascinated and full of questions, and by the time Sarah had finished she was standing close to the seated Joe, clearly taken with his luxurious beard. At the end of Sarah’s history of Alice, Joe sat a while and then yawned, stretched and declared himself in need of a rest after his journey home.

  As he climbed the stairs, Sarah reflected uneasily on the changes she would need to make. It would be best to move Alice out of the bedroom, for a start. It made no sense for the three of them to be sharing one room with two others available. As she finished making the rabbit pie, thankful at least that there would be some good food to offer Joe that evening, her thoughts turned to Daniel. He would no doubt be halfway across the seas, heading back to his home. She pushed the thought aside. Joe was home now and he must be her priority. She must direct her energies to making sure that they could be happy as a family, although she was fearful it wouldn’t be easy.

  Despite having no forewarning of his homecoming, Sarah made a big effort to make Joe’s first evening back with them as welcoming as it could be. She lit the fire in the parlour and resolved not to be resentful if he disappeared off to The Old Bell before the pie was cooked. But when Joe came downstairs again after his nap he seemed subdued and showed no signs of wanting to do anything other than stay home.

  ‘Where are your belongings?’ Sarah asked, wondering whether he had left them outside –for there was no sign of any bag in the house.

  ‘I have none,’ Joe said.

  ‘Nothing at all?’ Sarah was astonished.

  ‘We wore a uniform inside and anything else that I had was but rags after six years inside. I threw it away. I have what I stand up in.’

  Sarah was diverted from further questioning by the urgent memory of something she needed to say.

  ‘Joe, I’m sorry that I didn’t come to visit you. You refused to let me come at first but I should have persisted.’ She felt guilty as she spoke, remembering how easily she had given up on the idea.

  Joe looked uncomfortable. ‘Aye, well, I didn’t want you to have to trek all that way to find yoursen in such a place. ’Tain’t for the likes of you.’

  ‘Even so, I’m your wife. I should have been there for you.’ Sarah felt the truth of this keenly as she spoke.

  ‘Nay.’ Joe was emphatic. ‘’Tis me that’s at fault. I shouldn’t have got meself into such a mess, what wi’ you and the lass to provide for.’ He was silent for a moment. ‘I can’t blame you if you’re mad at me. I left you to tek care of everything.’

  Sarah considered. She wasn’t angry and she wasn’t sure why. She supposed that she had been, when times had been particularly hard and she had felt so alone – when she had been forced to take work at the mill, or when Ada died. Now, though, she had learnt the hard way not to expect too much from Joe.

  He was fast asleep when she finally slipped into bed that night, after she had cleared up the kitchen, tidied the parlour and been next door to check on Martha for the night. Sarah lay awake a while, listening to his breathing, before turning on her side and falling into a fitful sleep. She was awoken again by the sensation of Joe’s arms around
her. She thought to deter him by pretending to sleep on, then thought better of it and turned towards him.

  ‘How often I thought of thee,’ Joe murmured in her ear, moving to kiss her cheek and then her lips.

  Sarah fought hard to erase the memory of Daniel and tried instead to conjure the excitement of her early, secret meetings with Joe. ‘He’s my husband,’ she told herself. ‘God knows what he has had to endure these past few years.’

  She put her arms around his neck and kissed him back and, cloaked by the darkness, they were once again the lovers who sought out the hidden reaches of the deer pool, all traces of the tribulations of the last few years briefly erased.

  Chapter 56

  When Sarah awoke later that morning, she could hear voices from downstairs. Neither Joe nor Alice was in the bedroom so she lay for a while, dozing in the warmth of the bed. It wouldn’t hurt them to get to know each other a little better, she decided. Just as Sarah was thinking that she really should get up, Alice ran up the stairs and into the room.

  ‘Come and see. We have a surprise for you!’ Sarah, realising that Alice was about to blurt out what it was, clapped her hands over her ears and shook her head at her daughter.

  ‘I’m coming now,’ she said as Alice rushed down the stairs ahead of her.

  Father and daughter had been busy. The table was laid for breakfast, the tea was already in the pot and Joe was cooking eggs on the range. A new loaf of bread had been cut, albeit into rather thick slabs, and Alice proudly pointed out the arrangement of leaves, autumn flowers and berries that she had created in a jug on the table. Chattering away all the while, she used all her strength to drag out one of the heavy wooden chairs so that Sarah could sit down. As Joe turned from the range with the eggs, Sarah met his eyes and smiled. If this was a glimpse of the future, it would suit her very well.

  It was soon apparent, though, that Joe’s return to his family wasn’t going to be as straightforward as it first appeared. He managed to be sociable and happy for two or three hours at a time, then he would withdraw, taking himself off into the garden to chop wood, or to go for a walk. Sarah watched him go, observing that he didn’t turn towards The Old Bell but instead took the road that headed either out into the country or down into the valley.

  She thought about it and decided not to question him. He probably needed time to adjust to life outside prison, she reasoned, where he had been constantly surrounded by other prisoners and had to abide by the daily routine. She told herself that he just needed to get used to his old life once more.

  At the end of the first week, Joe announced that he would be gone for a night or two. He was going in search of his old master, to try for work.

  ‘But I can support us well enough for now,’ Sarah protested. ‘Having one extra mouth to feed makes no difference.’

  ‘That’s as may be but I can’t just be sitting all day watching you. A man needs to work.’ Joe was quite firm.

  Although Sarah understood his feelings, she didn’t want him to return to the canal. She didn’t want him to be away for lengthy periods, as before, and – if truth be told – she feared that he might fall into the same trap of stealing once he was back in his old routine.

  When she put this to him, they came close to having their first quarrel since his return.

  ‘Don’t you think I’ve learnt my lesson? I’ll not be caught a second time.’

  It struck Sarah that he didn’t say he wouldn’t thieve again – just that he wouldn’t be caught – but, before she could take him up on this, Joe was talking again, banging the table to emphasise his points.

  ‘And what would you have me do, if not work the canals? I’m not fit for owt else.’

  ‘You could work on the land. Or get a job at the mill,’ Sarah suggested.

  ‘Aye, earn a pittance on t’farm and be out of work half the year. What use is that? As for mill, nay, that’s not for me. Trapped indoors all day – ’twill be too much like prison.’

  Joe refused to discuss it any further and, sick at heart, Sarah watched him go off.

  ‘Where’s Daddy going?’ Alice, having so recently found a new playmate, looked disconsolate.

  ‘He’s looking for work. He’ll be back in a day or two,’ Sarah promised.

  Joe was as good as his word, reappearing a couple of days later and seemingly in much better humour. He hugged his wife and daughter, before sharing the news that he would be away again within the week.

  ‘So you’ve found work on the canals?’ Sarah tried hard to keep the disapproval out of her voice.

  ‘Aye, it’s what I know best. It’s the right work for a man like me. The boss is right happy to have me back.’ Joe caught Sarah round the waist and waltzed her around the kitchen while Alice squealed in delight at the sight.

  ‘Can you ask him to let you do shorter runs?’ Sarah asked when she had got her breath back. With Joe so recently home, she was determined to try to maintain some semblance of a family life.

  ‘Aye, I can ask but I’m not in best position to bargain.’ Joe chuckled.

  Sarah sighed, her dreams of a family life with Joe, the sort of life she had so rarely experienced, vanishing into dust once more. They would go back to the way they had been before, only this time at least she knew what to expect. And this time she knew that she could provide for her daughter.

  A day later Joe came to her, somewhat shamefaced.

  ‘Canst thou loan me some money?’ he asked. ‘I’ve a need to buy some clothes to tek with me on canal.’

  Sarah felt a mixture of emotions. Guilt, at not having thought that he might be in need of money after leaving prison, tinged with anger that they were falling into old habits so soon.

  ‘I’ll pay it back,’ Joe added.

  Sarah went to her cashbox, where she kept the payments made by her patients. As she unlocked it, a sudden memory came to her of the discussion she had had with Daniel about her legacy. She extracted a handful of coins from the box, resolving to visit the Post Office in Nortonstall the following week, once Joe had departed on his trip.

  ‘Will this be enough?’ she asked, handing over the coins. Joe barely glanced at them before pocketing them and kissing her on the lips, causing her to protest and him to laugh.

  His good humour extended over the following days and showed itself as ardour at night. It was as if he needed to reacquaint himself with every inch of her body and to store the memory of it for when he was away. Sarah was thankful that she had moved Alice into Daniel’s old room, for she was finding the transition from live-alone mother to wife and lover a hard one to make.

  In the end, she was relieved to wave Joe off to start work, his bag of newly acquired clothes slung across his back. He had been an intense companion over the last few days, full of wild humour and outlandish schemes to amuse her and Alice. She was glad of the chance to return to the more settled routine they had had before. Until, that is, she opened her cashbox to take payment for a remedy and discovered it to be all but empty.

  Trying to disguise her shock in front of her patient, Mrs Burton, she wondered how such a thing could have happened. There was only one explanation: Joe must have taken the key from her chest of drawers one night while she slept, replacing it before she awoke. Her thought flew to Ada’s legacy, tucked away beneath the floorboards. She could hardly bear to wait for Mrs Burton to leave before rushing into the parlour and raising the rug. A fine film of chalk dust at the end of one of the floorboards suggested that her inheritance remained untouched but she didn’t feel secure until she had levered up the board, removed the box and checked inside it.

  That night, she slept with the box in Joe’s place beside her in bed and the next morning found her in Nortonstall, following Daniel’s advice and relinquishing her sovereigns to the care of the Post Office.

  Chapter 57

  Sarah’s anger simmered for days. How could Joe have just taken the money? What did he expect his family to live on? She wondered briefly whether someone else might be respons
ible. Could they have got into the house and stolen it? She even considered Martha and then felt ashamed. It didn’t take her long to realise that if someone else had been responsible they would either have taken the whole cashbox or just smashed it open. Only Joe knew where she kept the key.

  It was lucky that several patients paid in instalments and so, gradually, she was able to amass the money again, but not before an anxious couple of weeks had passed in which Sarah and Alice had dined mainly on the vegetables that were growing in the garden, along with whatever was in the larder. Alice didn’t seem to be bothered but at night, when Sarah lay in bed, stomach growling for lack of proper sustenance, she raged against Joe and rehearsed what she would say to him when next he showed his face in the house.

  Her vengeful plans were disrupted when, less than six weeks after Joe’s departure, she realised that she was with child again. By this time, the household was back on an even keel. The dark days and nights of winter were upon them but Sarah was working hard and there was food on the table. As the reality of her position dawned on her, though, she felt fearful. How would she manage with a new baby to care for, this time without her grandmother to help her? Martha, who had been so reliable last time, looked likely to be worse than useless. Sarah’s night-time ruminations, previously all channelled into her anger at Joe’s actions, found a new focus.

  Yet, as the weeks progressed Sarah gradually became accustomed to the idea and began to put practical plans in place. Alice would be seven years old when the baby was born. She was a calm and sensible child and Sarah felt sure that she would be a help to her. After five months, when it was no longer possible to disguise her shape under the bulky layers of winter clothes, she told her daughter that she would have a baby brother or sister before too long. Alice was delighted and immediately set to planning where the baby might sleep and whether or not she might share Tilly with him or her.