Pauper's Gold

by Margaret Dickinson

  Ernest Scarsfield turned to Hannah. ‘Can you start in the morning, lass?’

  Hannah nodded. ‘I think so, if I can find some lodgings close by.’

  ‘Try in the village. Go out of here and up the hill. Several houses take in lodgers – all mill workers.’

  ‘Oh, what about—’ Hannah bit her tongue. She’d almost asked about the apprentice house, but had remembered just in time. She stumbled for a moment and then altered her words to ask, ‘My . . . my hours of working and . . . and my wage?’ It seemed reasonable to ask and when Mr Scarsfield answered, she nodded and said, ‘I’ll be here in the morning, sir.’

  ‘Oh, you don’t call me “sir”.’ Ernest laughed and, just as he’d told her before, he added, ‘You call me “Mr Scarsfield”.’

  She smiled at him. ‘Thank you, Mr Scarsfield.’ Then she turned to Adam and held out her hand. ‘And thank you too, Mr Adam. I’ll not let you down.’

  He took her slim hand in his in a warm, firm handshake. ‘I know you won’t,’ he said softly.

  As she turned and walked away from them, Hannah was well aware that both men stood gazing after her, the one with admiration, the other with a puzzled look on his face.

  ‘Mr Grundy – how lovely to see you again. And you too, Ted.’

  The big man held out his arms and, without thinking, Hannah ran into his rough embrace.

  ‘Eh, what about me? I wouldn’t mind a bit of that, if there’s hugs being given out.’

  Hannah leaned back to look up into Ollie’s face, her eyes twinkling with mischief. ‘Seems your nephew wants a hug off you, an’ all . . .’

  ‘Not off him, silly. You!’ Ted was quick to say, but then he saw she was teasing him and they all laughed together. Releasing herself from Ollie Grundy’s strong arms, she hugged Ted too. He held her close and buried his face against her hair.

  ‘It’s great to see you again. But what’s with the hair colour change? You had lovely fair hair.’

  Hannah pulled away, almost having to prise herself out of his embrace. Ted was reluctant to let her go. The feel of her young, firm body in his arms had set the young man’s pulses racing and his senses reeling.

  ‘I didn’t want anyone to recognize me.’

  ‘Not recognize you? Some hope!’ he laughed. ‘I’d’ve known you anywhere, blonde or redhead. You can’t hide them lovely eyes or that smile.’

  Hannah’s face fell. ‘Really? Do you really think people will know me?’

  ‘’Course they won’t,’ Lily said, placing a meat and potato pie on the table. ‘Now come and eat – all of you. There’s my special treacle tart for afters.’

  ‘I don’t suppose,’ Hannah said as she sat down, suddenly feeling very hungry, ‘that you know anyone in the village who’d take a lodger, do you?’

  ‘You’re staying then?’ Lily’s face lit up.

  Hannah nodded. ‘I got meself a job at the mill this afternoon. I start tomorrow morning.’

  ‘And did anyone recognize you?’ Ted asked, passing his plate to his aunt to be loaded up with a generous helping of pie and vegetables.

  Hannah shook her head, but a fleeting anxious look was in her eyes. ‘No. But then I only saw Mr Adam and Mr Scarsfield. Oh, and Mr Roper, but I kept my head turned away from him. I . . . I saw Daniel – you know, Luke’s brother – but he never looked up from his work.’

  ‘He’ll know you.’ Ted nodded with certainty.

  ‘Mmm, maybe, but I think Daniel will keep my secret. He’ll understand – if anyone will – why I’ve come back.’

  Ted gaped at her, his fork suspended midway between his plate and his mouth. ‘Why have you come back?’ He grinned suddenly. ‘I thought it was to see me.’

  ‘Well, of course it was.’ She smiled, playing up to him. Then her smile faded. ‘But there’s a much more serious reason.’

  ‘Yes, and I’m not too happy about it,’ Lily put in. ‘I reckon the lass could be stacking up a load of trouble for ’erself.’

  ‘Why?’ Ollie and Ted chorused the question.

  ‘She wants revenge on Mr Edmund, because of the accident and the death of her . . . well . . . of Luke.’

  ‘More than just that,’ Hannah said quietly and found that, suddenly, her appetite had left her. ‘There’s Nell too.’

  ‘Who’s Nell?’ Ollie asked, still eating heartily but listening nonetheless.

  ‘She came from the same workhouse as me, but a few years earlier. I never knew her there, but we got friendly at the mill. Then suddenly, she disappeared. None of us in the apprentice house knew what had happened to her, though I have a feeling Mrs Bramwell did. I mean, she hadn’t even served out her indenture. One or two thought she’d run away.’

  ‘And had she?’

  ‘No.’ Hannah’s mouth was tight. ‘She’d been sent back to the workhouse in Macclesfield because she was expecting a child.’ She paused and added significantly, ‘Mr Edmund’s child.’

  To her surprise, Lily only shrugged and the two men looked down at their plates. ‘Aye, well, she wasn’t the first and I don’t suppose she’ll be the last.’

  ‘Well, it’s high time she was. It’s high time something was done about that man. That’s how Luke was killed, because he was trying to protect me. Mr Edmund was after me.’

  Now all three looked at her.

  ‘Trouble is, love,’ Ollie said in his growly voice. ‘He will be again, if you don’t watch out.’

  ‘That’s just what I think, Ollie,’ Lily remarked, triumphant to hear her husband agree with her.

  ‘Then he’ll have me to deal with,’ Ted said stoutly and flexed his muscles.

  The other three stared at him and then burst out laughing. Pint-sized Ted, though strong and sturdy, would be no match for the tall, well-built Edmund Critchlow, but Hannah was touched by his chivalrous gesture. Wiping the tears from her eyes, she touched his arm. ‘Thank you, Ted. I’ll not forget that.’

  The tension in the room broken, Hannah picked up her knife and fork. All at once her hunger had returned. ‘By the way,’ she asked as she ate, ‘what happened to the Bramwells?’

  ‘He sacked them,’ Lily replied tartly. ‘They’d run that apprentice house for over twenty years for the Critchlows, and just because Mr Edmund gave up the system about two years ago, they was out on their ear. He didn’t even try to find them work in the mill. And I’m sure Arthur could’ve turned his hand to something, don’t you, Ollie?’

  ‘’Course he could.’

  ‘Where are they now?’

  ‘Went away. To Manchester, I reckon. I ’ad one letter off Ethel, but things didn’t sound too good and I’ve never heard again.’

  ‘What happened to all the apprentices? Come to think of it,’ she stopped eating, ‘d’you know, I never thought about it before, but there weren’t as many apprentices in the house by the time I left as there had been when we came. And there were no more paupers from the workhouse came after us. We were the last. I’d never realized it before, but now you mention it . . .’

  Lily shook her head. ‘No. As they finished their term, he didn’t replace them and the last few that were there still with time to serve, he found lodgings for them in the village when he closed the house.’

  ‘Poor Mr and Mrs Bramwell,’ Hannah murmured. ‘I quite liked them, you know.’

  ‘So did we,’ Lily agreed. ‘I just hope they’re all right.’

  There was only one more thing that had to be done that night and Lily settled it as she rose to clear the table. ‘You don’t need to go looking for lodgings in the village. Not unless you want to, of course. You can stay here. Ollie and me’s agreed. We had a little chat while you was up at the mill, when I told him you was back an’ that you might be stayin’.’

  ‘Oh, thank you, Mrs Grundy. That’d be perfect.’

  Behind her, Ted beamed.

  Hannah slipped into the work she was given with ease; it was as if she’d never been away. Several of the youngsters – now young men and women like herself �
� who’d been apprentices at the house when Hannah had lived there still worked in the mill, but no one seemed to recognize her.

  There were now only two people she dreaded coming face to face with: Daniel and Mr Edmund Critchlow. And she wasn’t sure which incited the most fear in her.

  There were one or two other people she’d recognized, but no one to whom she’d been close. She hadn’t seen Joe or Millie, and of course she couldn’t ask about them. Maybe they’d left when they’d served their term.

  Despite the reason for her return, Hannah was happy. She’d always liked the work at the mill, and now she was older, it was much easier. She was treated by the Grundys as a daughter and she had Ted as a friend, though he, she thought with a frown, might be trying to become a little too friendly. And her ruse seemed to be working: no one had recognized her.

  But then, she met Daniel.

  She was running up the stone stairs to the workroom early one morning, holding her skirts high so that she did not trip. And she was singing just as she used to, her pure voice echoing clearly up the staircase. Daniel, coming down, stopped and stared at her climbing towards him, her eyes downcast. He stepped in front of her, barring her way, and she would have cannoned into him and might have fallen backwards down the stairs if he hadn’t grasped her strongly by the shoulder. She gave a little cry of alarm. As she looked up and saw who was holding her, her heart sank.

  How could she have been so foolish as to be singing? Daniel, more than anyone else, would remember her singing. It’d been a joke between the three of them – four counting poor little Jane.

  Daniel wouldn’t have forgotten the girl who sang.

  Now he was looking down into her face, into her clear, blue eyes.

  ‘You! It is you. I thought I was hearing things.’ He flung her away from him so that she stumbled and fell heavily against the wall and only just prevented herself from tumbling down the stairs. ‘Why’ve you come back?’ he asked bitterly. There was no pleasure in his tone at seeing her, no welcome in his eyes.

  Hannah’s eyes glinted and her mouth tightened. ‘I’ve unfinished business. I told you I’d come back one day. That he wouldn’t get away with . . . with what he did.’

  Daniel’s face was a sneer. ‘Oh aye? And what d’you reckon you can do to a powerful man like Edmund Critchlow? Don’t you think that if there’d been a way, I’d’ve found it?’

  Now that she was close to him, she could see that the years had treated Daniel harshly. His grief at the loss of his twin and the bitterness in his heart had twisted his handsome, boyish features, had eaten into his soul and made him older than his years. He was only eighteen, yet he could have been mistaken for thirty.

  ‘Oh, Daniel,’ Hannah said sadly.

  He saw the sympathy in her eyes and spat, ‘Don’t pity me. I don’t need your pity or anyone else’s. You shouldn’t have come back.’

  ‘You told me before that I shouldn’t be going away.’

  ‘No, you shouldn’t. Not then. You left me to cope alone.’

  ‘But . . . but you blamed me. Said it was my fault. I . . . I thought it was better if I went.’

  Daniel ran his hand through his hair. He was unsure now what he really felt. Seeing Hannah again had confused him and awakened feelings in him which he’d worked so hard to bury. But seeing her again – the girl his brother had loved, the girl that Luke had given his life to protect – had brought back all the pain and suffering. He hated her. She’d ruined his life. He’d never been able to love another human being the same as he’d loved his brother. He would never love anyone else the way he’d loved Luke.

  The way he had loved Hannah.

  Unbidden, the realization came to him with a jolt.

  He’d watched them together and been consumed with jealousy. Older now, he recognized the feeling, and those old emotions were flooding through him again at the sight of her. He’d never known – and with a shock he realized that he still didn’t know – whether the jealousy was directed at her because Luke had loved her and she’d come between the twins, or whether it was because she’d loved Luke and not him. Had be been jealous of his own brother?

  Even after all these years, Daniel still did not know.

  ‘Get out of my way,’ he growled, and pushed past her to continue on his way down the stairs. ‘And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay out of my way.’

  Stricken, Hannah stared after him for a moment. Then lightly she ran down the stairs after him and caught hold of his arm. ‘Daniel, wait a minute. Please.’

  He stopped. ‘What?’

  ‘Please, Daniel, don’t give me away.’

  He stared at her for a long moment, gave a brief nod, pulled himself from her grasp and continued down the stairs without another word.

  Hannah leaned against the wall, closed her eyes and breathed a sigh of relief.

  Now – there was only Mr Edmund to face.

  Thirty-Nine

  ‘So – how’s it going?’

  Adam was smiling down at her as she stood in front of her machine. As she glanced up at him, she was struck once more by his likeness to his father and yet there was a difference. A very important difference. His brown eyes were warm and friendly, not cold and disdainful. His mouth curved in a smile, not in a cruel sneer.

  ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘I think Mr Scarsfield is pleased with my work.’

  ‘He is,’ Adam nodded. ‘That’s what I’ve come to tell you. Your appointment is confirmed. You’re no longer on trial.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. Thank you very much.’

  He leaned closer, speaking above the noise of the machinery, yet only for her to hear. ‘I’d like it if you called me Adam. And would you . . . would you come out with me some evening?’

  She stared at him, wide-eyed for a moment. And then quite suddenly, like a revelation, she saw her way to get revenge on Edmund Critchlow.

  ‘I’d love to,’ she said huskily.

  ‘Saturday? You’ll finish earlier on a Saturday afternoon.’ He knew her hours better than she did. Hannah nodded.

  ‘I’ll meet you near the waterfall behind the mill. Do you know it?’

  She nodded. She’d been here a month now. There’d been time enough for her to do a little exploring in the area. He wouldn’t question it.

  ‘I must go. See you Saturday.’

  ‘Saturday,’ she murmured.

  ‘You gonner let me take you for a ride in Auntie’s pony and trap on Sunday?’

  Hannah nodded. ‘That’d be nice, Ted. Where are we going?’

  Ted shrugged. ‘Where you like. Take you into Bakewell, if you like – if the old pony can manage the hills.’

  ‘There won’t be any shops open on a Sunday,’ she said impishly.

  ‘Oho, don’t tell me you like the shops? Uh-huh! There I was, thinking I’d found me a nice girl and I find she’s a spendthrift.’

  Hannah laughed. ‘I would be if I had the money, but I haven’t.’

  ‘Mebbe Sunday’s the safest day to take you into town then.’

  She chuckled. ‘Mebbe you’re right.’

  ‘I’ll come for you about three?’

  Hannah nodded. ‘Sunday it is.’

  Who’d’ve thought it? Two young men in the space of two days. And what, she wondered, would each one say about the other when they found out?

  And find out they surely would.

  Saturday evening was dull with heavy April showers threatening. As she took the narrow path behind the mill and came to the footbridge across the river near the waterfall, she saw Adam waiting for her.

  ‘I brought my father’s big black umbrella,’ he greeted her. ‘It looks like rain.’

  He took her arm and guided her along the narrow path at the side of the River Wye. On their right was the sheer face of the cliff. ‘The village is on the top of this cliff. Millersbrook – it gets its name from the brook that runs in front of the mill. But I’m forgetting, you must know the village by now.’

  She hesitated
only a moment. ‘Not – not ever so well. But I’m learning.’

  ‘I presume you found some lodgings all right?’

  ‘Oh yes, thank you.’ Hannah bit her lip. She’d better be truthful about where she was living. ‘I’m staying with the Grundys at Rushwater Farm.’

  ‘Really?’ Was she imagining a slight change in the tone of his voice at the mention of the Grundys’ name? ‘I didn’t know they took in lodgers.’ Then he murmured, so low that she could scarcely hear, ‘Especially anyone working at the mill.’

  ‘Don’t they?’ Hannah feigned surprise. ‘Oh! Well, I don’t know then. I only know that I first met them when I arrived here. I walked down the hill . . .’ She was describing her arrival of years earlier, but Adam wasn’t to know that. ‘And I called to ask the way.’ She glanced up at him. ‘The carter just told us – I mean, me – that the mill was at the end of the dale, but when I came to the fork in the road, I didn’t know which way to go, so . . .’ She shrugged to indicate the simplicity of what had happened. ‘I knocked on the back door of the farmhouse to ask the way, and this kind woman invited me in and fed me stew and dumplings.’ She faltered at the memory of the four of them sitting around Lily Grundy’s table, little knowing what lay in store for them. How innocent they’d all been then!

  ‘And I suppose she liked the look of you.’ He took hold of her arm on the pretext of steering her round a muddy puddle, but when they’d skirted it, he did not let go. Instead, he took her hand and tucked it through his arm. ‘Can’t say I blame her.’

  They walked in silence, watching the ducks swimming and diving for food and the fish lying just below the surface, their heads facing upstream.

  They had walked some distance when they came out of the trees overhanging the path. Before them was a building at the side of the river.