Nobody's Child by Valerie Wood

Author:Valerie Wood [Wood, Valerie]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Historical Saga
ISBN: 9781446436325
Google: Og9tHpM58_4C
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2011-06-29T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Jane waited at midday for Susannah to appear, but the time ticked on and she didn’t come. The women had little time to eat their dinner and use the privy before they had to be back at their work stations, so she went to take her parcel of food from her coat pocket and found the note. She burst into tears on reading it, blaming herself for suggesting to Susannah that she should run away. ‘Poor bairn,’ she kept muttering. ‘Poor bairn.’

She couldn’t eat her food, and because she then felt unwell with hunger and stifled by the heat of the drying room she passed out and had to be taken outside to recover. There was a steady downpour of drizzle and this only increased her misery as she thought of Susannah tramping along some road, cold and wet and alone. She read the note again and then took it to the boiler room and asked one of the men there to put it in the fire.

‘You don’t want your husband to read it, is that it?’ he said saucily.

‘Yes,’ she said, sniffing away her tears. ‘He’d kill me if he found out.’

He took a long iron pole and pushed the note into the flames. ‘There you are then,’ he said, grinning at her. ‘I think I deserve a kiss for that, don’t you?’

His face was glistening with sweat and black with coal dust. ‘If you like,’ she said flatly. ‘I don’t mind.’

He bent to kiss her cheek. She could feel the heat emanating from him and he pinched her thin bottom with his strong fingers. ‘I shan’t tell if you won’t,’ he murmured, and she was reminded that Wilf had said the same thing when he’d first followed her into Ellis’s kitchen garden.

‘I won’t tell,’ she said. The man though brawny was short. ‘He’s a lot bigger than you,’ she lied. ‘He’d make mincemeat of us both,’ and had the satisfaction of seeing him back away.

She tramped home along the long dark road, weeping with misery, saw the addressed envelope on the table, but didn’t read it, ate a lonely supper and went to bed. She rose the next morning and prepared for work, leaving the letter on the table for Wilf to find when he came to collect their wages, hers and Susannah’s.

He was waiting at the door when she arrived home that night. ‘Get inside, you!’ he said viciously. ‘What’s going on? Where is she?’

‘Susannah?’ She stumbled through the door, Wilf’s hand grasping her shoulder. ‘She’s gone to meet a friend. She said I hadn’t to wait for her.’

‘So what’s this?’ He waved the letter at her.

‘What?’ She pretended ignorance. ‘Has ’postie been? Who’s it from? We never get letters!’

‘’Postie hasn’t brought this,’ he said, thumping the table. ‘She’s left it. Telling us she’s run off!’

Jane simulated a gasp. ‘Never!’ she said. ‘She never would.’ She snatched the letter from him. ‘What does it mean? I can’t read it properly. I’m not a good reader.’

‘Daft bitch!’ he spat out.

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