The Market Girl (The Cavanah Family series) by Ashworth Libby

Author:Ashworth, Libby [Ashworth, Libby]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781405962056
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2024-08-01T00:00:00+00:00

18

Kitty walked slowly down to Butcher’s Court. She wanted to give Agnes and Patrick enough time alone to agree that they would be married. She’d been angry with Agnes when she’d gone out with the barrow that morning instead of attending mass, and she’d been embarrassed when she’d had to explain to the Ryans that they couldn’t come for tea because her daughter had gone out on an errand.

Bridie had obviously been put out and Kitty was terrified that she might begin having second thoughts about the wedding. If Agnes lost this chance, she might never have such a good one again, and Kitty wished that she could make her daughter realize that. If only her father were here. He would have been able to make her see sense. She’d made the mistake of relying too heavily on her daughter and making a friend of her. It made it much harder to talk to her as a parent.

In the end she’d compromised by asking Patrick to call to take his tea with them, saying that she was sure Agnes wouldn’t be late home. But she’d waited and waited, making small talk with her prospective son-in-law until she was at a loss to know what else to say. And Patrick was no conversationalist. He’d sat in the best chair by the fire and looked awkward and ill-at-ease until Kitty had been reduced to praying silently that Agnes would come. Then, when she did, she’d brought all that cheese and Kitty had been forced to pretend that it was a normal thing to do and that she didn’t mind when she wasn’t sure who she was the most annoyed with – Agnes for buying it, or Mr Anderton for lending her the money when she’d expressly begged him not to.

‘Everything all right?’ Aileen asked her when she arrived at the Walshes’ home.

‘I hope so,’ she replied. ‘I’ve left them to it,’ she told her friend, ‘and I pray to God that they’ll have agreed it between themselves by the time I get back.’

‘I’m sure they will have,’ Aileen reassured her. ‘I’ve fed the little ones. Timothy wouldn’t have anything.’

‘Oh, thank you,’ said Kitty. ‘You didn’t need to do that.’ She knew that the Walshes had no more to spare than she had, and she thought guiltily of all the sandwiches that she’d made – more than she could really afford because she didn’t want Patrick to think she was ungenerous or grudging in her invitation. She would send Timothy back with some of them later, she decided.

As they walked home, the church bells fell silent as the evening services began and the streets were quiet for once. Kitty relished the unusual silence. She often found herself longing for the peace of the rolling hillsides in the land of her birth, but she knew that she would never see it again, and tears threatened at the unbidden loss.

She shushed the children as they reached the door on Mary Ellen Street.

‘We have a visitor,’ she warned them before they went in.

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