Dark Days for the Tobacco Girls by Lizzie Lane

Author:Lizzie Lane [LANE, LIZZIE]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Boldwood Books

Bridget had fully expected to stay and help her mother, but the racing clouds and warm breeze enticed her outside. Her mother suggested that if she wanted to go for a walk she should do so.

‘I’m used to cooking for an army,’ her mother reminded her. ‘All the preparations are done, and I thank you for that. Now you go and explore. I know you want to.’

The sound of a pendulum ticking, then bonging as though it had escaped from its casing, sounded behind Bridget as she went out the open door.

School was now closed for the long summer break and all the children, having got over the excitement of seeing their parents again, had gone off to play amongst the hay ricks.

Bridget’s feet were enticed along a footpath around the rim of a field. In the distance, she glimpsed a church tower surrounded by trees. It looked peaceful, sanctuary in the midst of war. She made her way towards it through a field of cow parsley and long grass that nodded in the breeze.

A low stone wall surrounded the churchyard where springy grass quivered in the slight breeze and was crushed under black-footed shoes.

It seemed to her as though the whole village had turned out to mourn this man’s passing. A woman in a veil led the procession between gnarled gravestones, head bent, dabbing at her eyes, and trailed by three equally tearful children, one barely old enough for school.

Seeing them filled Bridget with sadness. With the exception of witnessing her mother’s miscarriage, she had not been this close to grief or the remains of a family broken forever.

James, in his uniform, was easy to discern. Everyone else, with the exception of the widow and children, looked like so many black crows.

Tears stinging her eyes, and somehow touched with a stranger’s grief, Bridget turned on her heel and headed back for the farmhouse, her parents and her family.

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