Cast a Long Shadow_A heartwarming saga of marriage and friendship in a small country town by Mary E. Pearce

Author:Mary E. Pearce [Pearce, Mary E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: family sagas, historical romance, victorian romance, small town romance, rural saga, rural romance, 1800s fiction, country life, country living
Publisher: Wyndham Books (Family Saga)
Published: 2018-11-13T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

However hard Ellen worked, keeping the cottage cleaned and scrubbed, she could never quite get rid of the smell of the smithy, even when the two doors between were kept firmly closed. There was always a hint of it in the air, a faint smokiness hanging over everything, and Ellen knew without fail when a hot shoe was laid on a hoof.

One morning when Will had been into the cottage in a hurry, he left both doors ajar behind him, and Ellen, coming in from shopping, found the kitchen full of smoke. Newly laundered clothes, hanging on the airer, were all covered in black smuts, and so were pastries cooling on the table. She went through to the smithy and called out to Will.

‘I wish you’d remember to close these doors! The whole house is full of blacks!’

She closed both doors on that side and opened the others to let out the fumes. The smeech, she knew, would hang for hours.

Will, in the smithy, had to endure the inevitable teasing. Ben Tozer was there and so were the grooms from Dinnis Hall.

‘Seems as if housekeepers is pretty much the same as wives, the way you get it in the neck, Will. The next thing you know, she’ll be stopping you going to The Old Tap.’

‘Not with a thirst like mine,’ Will said.

‘You ent there so much as you used to be, however,’

‘Maybe he’s got something better to do,’ Tozer said thoughtfully, ‘or maybe he’s thinking of signing the Pledge.’

‘Maybe I’m tired of the folk there,’ Will said, ‘with their everlasting nodding and winking.’

But his tone and his glance were just as good-humoured as usual. No one ever got a rise out of Will, even when they worked at it.

It was certainly true that he spent less time at the inn these days. A couple of pints and a game of skittles were just about his limit now and sometimes indeed, as winter came in and the days shortened, he stayed at home the whole evening, chatting to John after supper, telling him stories about the smithy, and perhaps seeing him up to bed. Afterwards he would sit by the fire, occupied with some small task, such as scraping the soot from the old kettle or mending the leg of a kitchen chair. Ellen noticed the change in his habits and one evening she mentioned it.

‘I hope you don’t keep away from the inn just because of me,’ she said.

‘I was there on Monday,’ Will said. ‘I go when I want to, never fear.’

‘You used to go every night, either here or Sutton Crabtree. You used to stay till they closed the doors.’

‘It’s a fine thing, I must say, when a man gets nagged for not drinking!’

‘So long as you’re not denying yourself.’

‘I don’t need to go to the inn now I got someone to chat to at home. Besides, I’m too busy nowadays.’ And he held up the new potato-masher that he was making out of wood. ‘There’s no end to the jobs a man has to do when there’s a woman in the house.

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