The Black Velvet Gown by Catherine Cookson

Author:Catherine Cookson [Cookson, Catherine]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9781780360393
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

So that was it. She still hankered after him. But he had his woman, and she looked nice. That had incensed her ma. Here her mind jumped off at a tangent as she thought, I’m thinking like the master, using words in me mind like incensed.

‘Him preaching to me what I should do when his whoring is the talk of the place.’

Whoring. She had never heard her mother use that word before. It was a bad word. But the young woman hadn’t looked bad, she had looked pleasant. She wondered why Tol didn’t marry her. What did whoring really mean? She’d have to look that up. She should have brought the dictionary with her. Yes, that’s the book she should have brought with her. She would get it next time when she got her leave.

The thought of leave brought her mind back to what lay before her and she tried to visualise not only the laundry, but the house and the people in it. She had no idea what to expect. Faintly she recalled the church service when gentry filed into their special seats that were set in a kind of gallery to the right of the pulpit. But they had been dim distant figures. She had seen the rows of servants who sat in the pews at the back, and one thing she remembered about them was that they were nearly all dressed alike. One of the village girls told her that her mother supplied the hot bricks for the gentry’s feet, and that at one time they used to have a stove in the gallery, but the smoke from it made them cough, so now they only had hot bricks in velvet covers.

They had reached the main gates, and as if their coming had been announced the lodgekeeper Bert Johnson was throwing open the gates, and so Riah, going up to him, said, ‘We are making for the house, we’ve got to meet the housekeeper at half past nine.’

‘Get out of the way! Go on, outside!’ As he flung his arm wide they retreated hastily backwards. And now he cried at them, ‘Get out of sight!’

‘Out of sight? Why?’

‘Why?’ He now came towards them, his face thrust out. ‘The coach is coming down the drive, that’s why. It’s the mistress. Move yourself!’

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