Pauper's Child by Hutchinson Meg

Author:Hutchinson, Meg [Hutchinson, Meg]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
ISBN: 9781789542752
Publisher: Head of Zeus
Published: 2019-05-15T16:00:00+00:00

*

‘I should ’ave knowed, I seen from the ’alf-starved look of ’er, from the clothes…’

‘Don’t do no good to go blamin’ yourself, I reckons the wench would ’ave refused any hand were offered.’

‘But I med no offer.’ Daniel Roberts looked at his wife busily setting bowl and spoon onto a gaudily enamelled tray. ‘I should ’ave done but I d’ain’t. It were obvious to a blind man ’er had no place to go…’

‘And it be obvious to a blind man I be busy enough without ’aving to pick my way about a man sat in my kitchen, so you be off back to your work and leave me to mine.’

‘But the wench…’

‘Won’t be going nowhere for a while yet so there be naught you can do as ain’t already been done.’

‘I should ’ave offered but I let ’er go, same as I let them go.’

Seeing the slump of those once fine shoulders, the droop of the head once held high with pride, Abigail Roberts felt the heart twist in her chest. He was still paying for those few hasty words, the pain of their consequence deep inside.

‘You were both headstrong.’ Going to his side she touched a hand to his face, a gentle tender touch which spoke the heartache of years. ‘He as much as you.’

Grasping the hand touching his whiskered cheek Daniel Roberts pressed it to his mouth, whispering against the fingers. ‘You’ve bin my strength, Abbie, my stay. Without you I couldn’t ’ave gone on, forgive me… forgive me.’

A sheen glinting over soft brown eyes, Abigail smiled into the blue ones lifting to her. He must not see her tears, they must stay locked away until he was gone, to be shed as they had been shed for so many years: in secret.

‘I’ve never judged there be any need of forgivin’ you, Daniel, and I’ve never stopped loving you,’ she answered softly. ‘We are each other’s strength and while it is in me to give, mine will always be yours.’

‘Abbie…’ Pressing his wife’s hand once more to his kiss Daniel left the kitchen.

He was a proud man and that pride had been hurt. Abigail watched the man she had married thirty years ago, a figure slightly stooped from years of bending over a potter’s wheel. But pride had exacted a terrible price, one Daniel Roberts would never cease to pay, one like to be taken with him into the grave.

Turning once more to the business of setting a meal onto the garish tin tray she stroked a finger over its too brightly painted surface.

‘… it be a bird…’ Words returned from the silence of memory sounded clear in Abbie’s brain. ‘The pedlar said it were a feenix, he said it be burned but rises from its own ashes, be that true. Mother… be it true?’

A phoenix. The Reverend Allis had smiled at the child asking that same question after the Sunday service at St James’s. It is what we call a myth, he had said, a kind of fairy story, no more than that.

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