Tizzie by P.D.R. Lindsay

Author:P.D.R. Lindsay
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: friendship, family life, a womans story, heart warming, quality fiction, writers choice, history 1887, serious history, victorian yorkshire 1887, english 19th century
Publisher: P.D.R. Lindsay

Summer

July 1887

Hot July brings cooling showers,

Apricots and gillyflowers.

Friday, July 1st

A high blue sky, little cloud, aye, a grand day for hay making, and all the dale’s sappy new greenness sucked away these past weeks, transformed by June’s bursts of sun to a stronger, sustaining green. Hay green the old men called it, and it came early this year to the grass. The missing spring rains might soak the rest of July and spoil the crop, but then, happen this dry spell’d become a drought. Whatever it would be, she could do nowt about it. Tizzie dropped the curtain, blocking out the daylight, stood in the gloom, thinking. Agnes’d sneak in shortly. Poor lass, her last time at school today. Tizzie curled her bare toes in the knotted pile of her rug. Oh, school broke up now to let everyone finish clipping the sheep, get in the hay and harvest the corn, but all Agnes’s friends would start back in September. Then the lass’d begin to fret, but Night School continued summer through. Gooseberries, strawberries and raspberries needed preserving, red currants turning into jelly, peas and beans to dry, windfalls turned to juice or dried, fattened poultry to dress, who’d have time to go? Not Tizzie, with Maggie demanding her aid the minute she left the dairy, and those extra orders for clotted cream to make this week. Agnes weren’t allowed to Night School now without her aunt, so Tizzie must stir out at night whatever, though she sometimes felt that tired, she could fall into bed. She twitched back her curtains and let the day announce itself.

“Aunt?” Agnes snecked the latch, stuck her head round the door, and whispered. Her face lacked its usual smile.

Now what ailed the lass? “Come in, poppet. Tell me all about it. By, lass, That’s the face your great gran pulled when she went after summat.”

“I never knew my Great Gran.”

“Aye, but tha’s a bonny look of her. Her eyes and smile, and the same good hand in the dairy. She’d help us too. Always kept the poultry money for herself, and a share of market day’s takings. ‘What you earn, you keep,’ she’d say.” Tizzie sat on the edge of her bed and sought her thick boot socks, hiding under her quilt at the foot of the bed.

Agnes ran over and jumped onto the bed. She beckoned Tizzie closer, caught her arm and pressed her lips to her aunt’s ear. “If my Da knew I were planning on leaving home....” She ceased mouthing in Tizzie’s ear and stared at her aunt.

Aye, those big brown eyes weren’t just determined. The lass were terrified. And rightly. If her Mam or Da even guessed that she planned to leave home they’d lock her up forever.

Her ear sightly moist and tickled by the huffed in words, Tizzie responded by putting her own lips to Agne’s ear. “Well, your Da don't and he won't. Don’t you let on, not by look nor sigh. Don’t snap out in temper, poppet, and let your plan slip.

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