Take this Woman

by Josephine Cox

Genres: Family Life; Sagas

Synopsis

After growing up in bitterness, can she overcome past events to find the happiness she deserves?

Take This Woman is a powerful saga about learning to put your past behind you in the pursuit of happiness, from bestselling author Josephine Cox. Perfect for fans of Rosie Goodwin and Kitty Neale.

Blackburn, 1947. In the tiny front parlour fourteen-year-old Laura Blake watches her beloved father die. But not before he tells her she will make something of her life. Laura never forgets his words. Yet her path to success proves to be a rocky one. Forced to trundle a cart around the back streets, selling other folk's cast-offs to support her family, Laura learns enough to start work in her uncle's furniture shop. But then fate deals another cruel blow when Laura is brutally raped. Bearing the child of her attacker in secret, she vows to make the world pay for its injustice towards her.

As she grows older her protective shell hardens even as her beauty blossoms, and her new toughness helps her forge a successful career in the antiques business. But it is in affairs of the heart that Laura stumbles, and before she can find fulfilment, she must learn to put the past behind her, and give as well as take.

What readers are saying about Take This Woman:

'Has you gripped from first page onwards. You get lost in amongst the characters, feeling like you are there with them every inch of the way'

'The story was full of twists and turns. I found it difficult to put down, reading well into the night sometimes! Brilliant'

'Loved it. Fantastic read and very exciting'

Release date: December 23, 2010

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 483

Sample

Hurrying along the flagged pavement, Laura did not look back. Instead, she hastened towards the small picket gate which would take her up the church path and on into the stark grey building, where she hoped to find a measure of comfort.

In the dim interior of the church, Laura stood for a while, her dark brooding gaze sweeping the empty pews, the white-clothed altar and the magnificent golden crucifix high up on the wall behind. Finally, her gaze came to rest on the confessional box to her left. With a surge of relief she noticed there was no one waiting to see the priest, although a glance at the heavy velvet curtain drawn across the cubicle nearby told Laura that she would have to be patient for a few minutes at least.

With a small impatient sigh, she moved forward, the splitting facets of light shimmering through the tall stained-glass window onto her lovely face and illuminating the troubled look in her amber eyes.

To the outside world, and to those who knew her, Laura’s calm and composed countenance was an indication of her great strength of character, remarkable for her tender years. Yet inside, Laura’s peace was shattered and her strength sorely tried. Night or day, there was no stemming the grief or crippling resentment which tore at her heart and racked her faith for her father, whom she loved fiercely, was losing his fight for life. It was a bitter justice, which Laura found hard to accept.

Laura edged into the pew, then undid her headscarf, and allowed her wayward auburn hair to fall about her shoulders in a luxuriant mass. Next she bowed her head forward and collected the straying hair beneath the confines of her scarf, then tightened the knot beneath her chin and sank to kneel into the plump red cushion on the flagstoned floor before her. She leant forward and rested her elbows on the wooden hymn-book rack, lowered her head and muttered a heartfelt prayer.

The echo of departing feet made her turn around and the sight of a woman’s figure retreating from the now empty cubicle told her that the priest would be waiting.

Laura suddenly felt afraid and unsure of herself and she made no move to rise from her knees. Instead, she watched the departing woman, taking stock of the stout black walking shoes and the long, like-coloured skirt that swirled against the dark-stockinged ankles. The woman turned just once at the head of the aisle, where she bobbed down quickly on one knee, to face the altar and make a small sign of the cross on her forehead. Then she lifted the heavy grey shawl that draped her figure and wrapped it about her hair. She clutched it tightly at her neck, and nodded a friendly greeting towards Laura, before disappearing towards the outer door and in a moment she was gone.

Laura had absent-mindedly noted that the woman, aged about sixty, was of the old Lancashire stock who dressed as their parents and grandparents before had dressed, and who would never be persuaded to discard their long flouncing skirts and shawls to follow the ‘new-fangled’ fashions that the younger women liked so much. This stubborn resistance amongst the old to fight any change seemed to Laura to have strengthened since the end of the War in 1945, two years ago.

Laura closed her eyes, summoned up a semblance of courage, and focused her wandering thoughts on the purpose of her visit to the church. Rising from her knees, she moved slowly towards the confessional box, entered quietly and reached out to pull the curtain across behind her. She sat on the hard wooden chair and hoped that the rest of the world had been effectively shut out.

‘Yes child?’ The voice, with its soft persuasive tones; broke the silence and Laura looked up. The small grill, inserted at face level in the partition that separated her from the priest, was made of narrow, twisting pieces of wood that curled and snaked to form an intricate pattern. Laura was thankful that it concealed the face of the priest from her and protected her own anonymity.

For a long moment, she didn’t reply, and it crossed her mind to leave as silently as she had arrived. How could she tell this devoted priest that she had come to doubt his God? That the awful war, responsible for her father’s pain and imminent death, could have been created by a powerful evil over which even his God had no control. If there was a God who believed in compassion, then why had he allowed such a thing to happen, and why did she feel that her searching questions were sinful?

A great anger took hold of her heart, and drawing a deep weary breath, she got to her feet. There is no peace, she thought, not even here. Pausing only to lift the curtains aside, she murmured, ‘Forgive me, Father,’ and stepping into the aisle to face the altar, she bowed her head as though in shame and turned to walk away.

Outside in the cold light of a February day, Laura felt surprised and not a little afraid at her boldness in leaving the confessional box. It was only when the voice of Father Clayton called out to her, that she realized the extent of her deep anger. Laura paused, waiting for the priest who hurried towards her, his long black frock billowing slightly from the cold gusts of wind. The long rosary hanging around his portly waist whipped and danced in the air, and the thin strands of greying hair that belied his youthful face were being blown about in feathered chaos.

‘Laura . . . Laura,’ his pale eyes filled with concern as he asked quietly, ‘so you couldn’t find it in your heart to confide in me, eh?’

Briefly, their eyes met and neither of them spoke, and the priest was both saddened and inspired by the sorrow and proud defiance that scarred those beautiful searching eyes that stared at him with such accusation, making his heart heavy. The same questions that had brought this young girl to his church and hurried her angrily away from it, often raked his own mind with painful persistence, for he too needed answers.

‘I know what’s in your heart, Laura, and you are never far from my prayers, but the answers to your questions aren’t so easy to find. It’s in yourself and in the strength of your faith that you’ll find peace. You must believe that.’

Laura kept her eyes fixed on his kindly face and she listened to his words, but she found nothing there to comfort her. His words were firm and there was no doubting his concern. But his words held no conviction, and in spite of herself, Laura recalled the talk that had been rampant in Blackburn town these last few months. Father Clayton had served his country as countless other men had done during the War years. But there were those among his faithful and forgiving flock who claimed that the priest had gone to War a brave, dedicated man and had returned disillusioned, filled with crippling doubt and aged before his time.

Laura’s heart ached for him, but if this priest didn’t believe in what he was saying, then how could she be expected to? Her voice was strong and cold as she said, ‘And my father? What of him?’

‘How is Jud?’ The priest smiled at her and Laura despised him for avoiding her question.

‘He’s dying,’ she said quietly, ‘my father’s dying.’ She turned from him. ‘I have to go now.’

As she closed the gate behind her, Laura heard him call out, ‘I’ll be along shortly. Tell your father, Laura.’

Laura nodded and hurried away, the sturdy heels of her shoes cutting an angry pattern into the thin layer of snow beneath her feet. A short way along the low wall that fronted the church she collected the small, bright girl who had been patiently waiting for her sister’s return.

The priest watched the two young girls as they went away down King Street, and when he could no longer see the bright blue headscarf and well-worn grey woollen coat, or the smaller girl with long flowing fair hair, tightly clasping her sister’s hand, he shook his head slowly, rolled his eyes upwards and murmured. ‘Will you be there when they need you?’ Then with a heavy heart, he made his way back up the path towards the sanctity of his church.

Once out of sight of Father Clayton, whom she felt was watching her, Laura slowed down, but it was only when the small child at her side almost stumbled, that the thoughtlessness of her angry retreat dawned on her. She stopped and looked down on the girl’s anxious face. ‘I’m sorry, Netti. Are you all right?’ she said, pulling the girl into her embrace.

Netti ignored Laura’s question, shook free from her sister’s arms and asked in a firm, accusing voice, ‘Can we go to the canal now?’

‘Oh Netti! I think we ought to be getting back to our dad.’ Laura pictured her father watching the door of his sickroom, looking for her. But then she remembered that he had stopped recognizing her these last few weeks; indeed, she often wondered whether he even knew that she was there at all. In a way, Laura knew it was a blessing that he wasn’t aware of how his own wife avoided the sight of his wasting away, his diseased lungs gasping for every breath. Ruth Blake was only too willing to let that unpleasant burden fall onto her daughter’s young shoulders, and for Laura’s part, she wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

‘Please Laura, you promised!’

Laura felt Netti’s determined fingers tugging at her own, as she continued towards home. Yet her conscience bothered her. It was true, she had promised to take Netti along the canal; but she begrudged every minute spent away from her father who needed her. However, she was painfully aware of her sister’s needs too. Ruth Blake’s love had shrivelled not only from her dying husband, but from her two daughters as well, and so it was to Laura that Netti now looked for warmth and guidance.

‘Come on then,’ Laura shouted, and the glowing smile of gratitude that greeted her decision was more than reward enough.

Tugging the girl behind her, Laura drew up at the kerb-edge where they waited patiently for the assortment of traffic to trundle past. Then with a shout of ‘Run, Netti!’ they quickly crossed to the far side. Saturday was always a busy day and King Street was a lively thoroughfare of trams, various horse-drawn flat carts and wagons. Countless folk still plied a living by carting and rag-a-boning in Blackburn, and the trusted horses remained a familiar sight. But the more adventurous of the small tradesmen were beginning to desert the old ideas, and it saddened Laura to see the increasing volume of cars and lorries whose belching fumes tainted the air.

Laura and Netti walked almost the length of King Street; past numerous pubs, which were said to draw more of a congregation on a Friday night than Father Clayton’s church ever did on a Sunday; then along by the devastation that Laura remembered to be a neat little row of terraced buildings before the War; over the bridge that spanned Blakewater, filled now with rubble from the adjacent derelict and since neglected buildings, and onto Brown Street.

The canal and surrounding open fields were a delight to Laura, who hadn’t forgotten the wonderful times before the War, when her father would bring her here; the last time just before he’d gone to be a soldier.

Laura had cried for weeks after his departure and it was only when she was told of Netti’s impending arrival, that she began to look forward with determination to her father’s return. But that was to be years later, and the man who came home after a long torturous confinement in a Japanese Prisoner of War camp was only a broken shadow of the father she remembered. Yet she loved him all the more, and it was only in these last few months that Laura had been forced to accept that her prayers for his recovery were not to be answered; and that knowledge sorely tested everything she had ever believed in.

At the sight of the open steps leading down to the canal, Netti ran ahead, laughing and shouting with excitement to Laura, who urged, ‘Watch the steps! It’s slippery.’

Sitting herself on a boulder embedded in the snow-covered grass of the bank, Laura watched the sparrows pecking at the isolated patches of bare earth and she sympathized with their busy and futile antics. ‘Poor little things,’ she said out loud. She looked towards Netti, who was scraping up the fast-thawing snow and kneading it into small round balls; some of which she promptly threw into the water and the others she piled into a neat little pyramid. As Laura watched, a great surge of love moved within her. She mustn’t begrudge her sister’s innocent laughter and joy, for Netti had never known their real father, not the man he had once been. Netti had only ever known the tortured delicate soul in a sick-bed from which he could find no strength to rise.

As she listened to her sister’s bubbling laughter, Laura could vividly remember her own. It was here, to this canal, when she was younger than Netti was now, here to this very spot that her father had brought her, that day before he went away. All that morning they had chatted to the kindly barge-people, who’d invited them into their small gaily painted houses in the end of their boats. Then she and her father had run beside the great horses along the towpath, watching them pull the barges through the water. It had been a wonderful day and that night when her father had spoken of going away, Laura was enthused by his obvious excitement at what he said was ‘a worthwhile job that must be done’. Neither of them could have envisaged what that ‘worthwhile job’ was to cost him – him and countless others.

Laura pushed the painful thoughts from her mind. It was at the very moment she got to her feet that she saw the dog, a small brown and white terrier. The dog was bounding towards Netti, and close on its heels was a man whom she recognized as a friend of her father’s, now selling papers and rat-catching. The man’s face was a deep purple shade of anger as he waved and shook what looked to be a sack. His voice was angry and hoarse. ‘Yer bloody fool! Come back ’ere or I’ll’ave yer sodding arse!’ As he drew closer, he caught sight of Jud Blake’s two daughters and momentarily looked sheepish. He grabbed the cap from his head and murmured, ‘’Ow do, lasses. My regards to Jud.’

Just then the dog doubled back round in a circle, ran at Netti’s legs, bowled her over, then streaked past Laura, carrying in its mouth what she took to be a rat. Netti got to her feet as Laura ran forward to steady her, and the two of them stood staring after the dog, who seemed to think it was all some sort of game.

‘Bloody silly cur!’ In spite of his obvious rage, the man looked a comical sight. Ramming his flat nebbed cap well over his ears, he stopped, gasping for air greedily. ‘Five bob! Five bloody bob I forked out for that there dog! Grand rat-catcher, I were told! Well, I intend to ’ave me money back, I’ll tell thi!’ His enormously fat belly rose and fell as he shouted. ‘That sodding dog’s no more a rat-catcher than yon lass,’ he nodded towards Netti who, to Laura’s consternation, had started to giggle. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand, then pointed to the dog, who had turned in its tracks to race back towards them, and shouted, ‘Look yon! The bugger’s mekkin back!’ He then opened the mouth of the sack, whereupon he proceeded to scrape it along the ground, in an effort to line it up with the approaching animal. ‘Watch out,’ he shouted, ‘for Christ sakes, don’t let the bugger get past yer! You see what the silly sod’s done, eh? Don’t even know what a bloody rat looks like! That’s my prize ferret caught ’atween ’is teeth. I’ll ’ave the bugger fer that I will!’

At that point, everything seemed to happen at once. The man, over anxious to catch the dog in his sack, lost his balance, and with his legs hopelessly entangled in the trailing sack, he fell over. As the dog shot past, Netti began jumping and shouting ‘Go on dog! Go on!’ and in spite of the poor man’s distress, Laura found herself laughing out loud.

‘It’s no bloody laughin’ matter, young Blake!’ The man struggled to his feet and took off in pursuit of both dog and prize-ferret, leaving Netti and Laura to find their way from the canal, still helpless with laughter, and for the briefest of moments, Laura’s sorrow was pushed aside by the rare experience of pure childish joy.

Skirting the busier part of town, Laura took the way past the clutch of cotton mills that stood high on Cicely Banks and looked down over Blackburn town like monstrous sentries of Victorian times, then on through the narrow ginnel that would take them into Penny Street and home to No 9.

Penny Street was a long snaking cobbled road, flanked by terraces of shops and two-up, two-downers, each with its own identical white-stoned front doorslab at the top of a flight of steps leading down to the cellar; and at the back of each house was a small flagstoned back yard and the privy.

Netti caught sight of a long rope hanging down from the arm of a gas-lamp standard in front of No 9, perhaps left their by some forgetful child. ‘Can I play swinging, Laura, eh?’ she shouted, then without waiting for a reply, she left Laura’s grasp and looped the rope into a seat beneath her. ‘Just a few goes,’ she promised, levering her feet against the lamp-standard to push her weight into a dizzy swinging spiral around and around the metal column.

Laura didn’t reply, but shrugged her shoulders, wondering why it was that two-thirds of Blackburn had been graced with tall elegant columns of new electric lighting, while poorer areas such as Penny Street appeared to have been forgotten.

Pulling at the string hanging in the letter-box, Laura grasped the key which dangled on the end, then glancing along Penny Street, she thought how unusually quiet it seemed. It crossed her mind that folk had probably kept the noisiest of their children inside, as a mark of respect for the ailing Jud Blake. Laura let herself into the narrow front passage and took off her coat and scarf. Then she hurried towards the bottom of the passage, cautiously entering the first of two rooms to the left of the stairway.

The air struck cold as Laura quickly crossed to the small canopied fireplace, where she collected two knobs of coal from the black iron scuttle, placing them onto the dying embers in the fire-grate and opening out the damper some way up the chimney. And now the coal caught fire, emitting a degree of warmth and lending a cheery air to the miserable room which skulked in the dim light from the tall narrow windows, almost smothered by the lace curtains and heavy tapestry drapes.

Laura looked towards the huge bed, its glossy brass surround twinkling like gold in the slit of light that struggled in from the window. That same daylight bathed her father’s face, yet Laura could see no twinkle there. Crossing to kneel beside the bed, she gazed lovingly at the sallow complexion of his lean features and some deep inner instinct told her that he had gone further away from her. She moved the thick brown lock of hair from his forehead and, taking a hankie from her pocket, she wiped away the beads of sweat that covered his brow. He gave no response, and Laura walked to the window where she looked out at Netti, still swinging around the gas-lamp, and the whisper of a smile brightened her face. Laura turned back to the room and looked about the parlour.

‘I should hate this room,’ she murmured softly, taking stock of the faded flowered wallpaper and the narrow chest of drawers; upon which rested a huge jug and matching bowl and a neatly folded towel with a bar of carbolic soap on top. Nearer to her father’s bed stood a well-polished sideboard of dark mahogany. It held three clocks; two small mantelpiece clocks of sturdy design and a beautiful tall chiming clock, arched at the top and scooped into dainty little claw feet at the bottom. In the centre of the sideboard stood a magnificent bronze sculpture of an eagle in flight. These things were Jud Blake’s pride and joy. The only other piece of furniture in the room was a rush-seated stand-chair by the head of the bed, on which rested a copy of the Bible, and a half-burned candle securely wedged into a circular brass holder with a hook for carrying. It was a room without hope, and it had about it an air of desolation that flooded Laura’s heart whenever she entered it. She could have hated this room, for she needed to fix her rage and frustration onto something. But then she recalled all the precious, private hours spent in here with her father, when the two of them would talk until he became too tired to go on; then Laura would tell him things of the outside world, stories that she had gathered from the ‘carting round’ that had been Jud’s and he would listen gratefully, often falling asleep before she could finish them. Those times belonged only to her, and she knew she could never hate this room.

Laura sensed the door opening, and she raised her eyes to meet the disapproving scowl on her mother’s face.

Ruth Blake, even in her condition of advanced pregnancy, was a woman of considerable beauty, with the same wild profusion of auburn hair as the girl whose gaze now met her own. The eyes too were the same deep-speckled amber, but where Laura’s eyes were steadfast and strong, her mother’s were shallow and weak, filled with doubt and fear. Dressed in a woollen calf-length skirt of bottle-green, and a pretty high-necked blouse of paisley print, loosely gathered into the wrists, she boasted a vibrant figure that belied her imminent birthing and her thirty-ninth year. Yet Laura could remember some eight or nine years back, when her mother had dressed not unlike the woman she had seen in the church; her slim straight shoulders draped in a finely crocheted shawl that covered a dress of fitting bodice and full swinging skirt. The memory was a pleasant one, because her mother had been a much happier person then, and life was warm and wonderful. Things were so very different now, and even though her mother was much the same in appearance, if a little older, there was no joy or warmth to light the beauty of her face, and often in her mother’s unguarded moments, Laura had glimpsed a dark expression that portrayed some terrible haunting anxiety, and at those times Laura was filled with inexplicable dread.

Ruth Blake stepped into the room, then suddenly seemed to become aware of the fact that she and Laura were not the only two people there. Her eyes narrowed, and she furtively glanced towards the bed where Jud Blake lay still as death, his breathing intermittent and rasping. Ruth Blake recoiled from the sight of her husband and stared at Laura, a look of contempt twisting her features. Stepping backwards out of the doorway, she gestured with a pointed finger down the passage and towards the back parlour. She spoke but one word, ‘Out!’ yet the menacing tone of her voice and the wrath that had darkened her eyes, spoke volumes.

Laura looked once more at her father and, satisfied that she could do nothing further for the time being, she crossed the room, and in a moment she had passed her mother to hurry the few yards along the passage into the back parlour. She waited by the one small window that overlooked the outer yard. Retreating footsteps told her that her mother was moving up the passage and towards the front door; then there was the sound of the door being opened, and Ruth Blake’s voice cut sharply into the quietness of the parlour. ‘Netti! Get yourself in here!’

Laura hoped there wasn’t going to be another scene, especially not in front of Netti. But when she heard the determined shrillness of her mother’s voice and Netti’s mumbled replies, Laura knew that there would be no escape from yet another ugly confrontation.

Setting her slight shoulders in an attitude of defence, Laura sighed, waiting for the imminent verbal whipping, and took strength from the familiar and well-loved things that surrounded her in this room. The small circular table for example, with its drop sides and pretty barley-twist legs, one of two that her father had collected on his first carting round the streets some fourteen years ago. He had sold one, but this particular table he had kept to strip, mend and wax until it was restored to its original beauty. Then he had presented it to his young bride, as a mark of love and gratitude on the birth of the first child, Laura. The table, draped now in a cream lace cloth, stood in the far corner, a resting place for the round topped wireless that had stood silent these last months. The only light came into the room through the one tiny window and there was a certain hostility about the cold flagstone floor, the faded cream emulsion on the walls, and the glass lamp-shade blackened by the fumes from the coal fire.

To Laura, however, this room was the heart of the house and she loved it. She loved the big black shiny fireplace with its deep side oven, the colourful rag-pegged rug in front of the hearth, and the clothes’ rack high above, ever filled with neatly folded clothes for airing. Laura enjoyed polishing the long narrow sideboard that stood against the far wall, and she even remembered the day some kind person on the carting round had given her father that green cornice cloth, whose big silken bobbles danced and leaped in the heat from the fire. Strange how the cloth had exactly matched the one that covered the huge square table in the centre of the room, surrounded by four hard wooden stand-chairs, and decorated with a pot jardinière containing a large fern plant. Situated on either side of the fireplace were two tall backed chairs of black prickly horsehair and deep rolled arms; the one on the right her mother’s place, and the one on the left her father’s.

It occurred to Laura at that moment that she might never again delight in the familiar sight of her father resting in that chair by the fire, and with the thought came an unbearable sadness that cut deep into her mind, causing her to lose awareness of the present situation. It was only when Netti pulled at her hand that Laura sensed her mother’s presence.

Ruth Blake shook her head in anger, spitting out the words, ‘Answer me, my girl!’ She thrust her face towards Laura’s. ‘And don’t lie, because I’ve already talked to that one!’ She pointed an accusing finger towards Netti, who had run to half hide behind Laura, and who was now pushing her tearful face deep into the folds of Laura’s skirt.

‘I won’t lie, Mam.’ Laura stood up straight, moving one hand behind her to stroke Netti’s hair in a soothing manner.

‘No, and you’d better not, if you know what’s good for you! Is that right you’ve been to see Father Clayton, is it, eh?’

‘I went to confession. Father Clayton followed me outside.’

At Laura’s words, Ruth Blake’s mouth fell open and in an instant, she raised her hand way above her head, then with a shout of, ‘You little bitch!’ she brought the flat of her hand down in a sweeping arc that thudded hard into the side of Laura’s head. ‘What are you up to, eh?’ She raised her hand again, to swing it with vehemence into Laura’s face; then undaunted by the sudden gush of blood that spurted from Laura’s nose, she demanded, ‘You’ve been talking about me! You have, haven’t you?’ She stood over Laura now, her eyes bulbous and accusing.

‘No Mam! No!’ Laura was shocked and confused, and suddenly afraid for this demented creature that was her mother. ‘Nobody even mentioned you.’

‘Leave her alone! You leave my Laura be.’ Netti had dived from behind Laura, to grasp at her mother’s skirt and shake herself back and forth, swaying them both off balance, the tears borne of fear now replaced by a fierce love and anger. ‘Leave her alone!’ she screamed. ‘I hate you!’

Laura pulled the child away, and clutching her face to stem the steady trickle of blood that now stained her nostrils and mouth, she looked up to meet her mother’s hostile glare, and in a quiet steady voice she told her, ‘Father Clayton just asked after Dad, that’s all.’

‘Well I’ll not have you talking to no priest! D’ya hear me? You’re nobbut fourteen, Laura Blake. You’ll learn to do as you’re told! And in future, I’ll tell you when to burn precious coal in that sickroom – it doesn’t come free!’

Laura recalled the dampness of the front parlour and the fire almost dead in the grate, and at that moment, she felt nothing but contempt for this woman before her. Yet she didn’t reply. Instead, she drew herself up, took the sobbing Netti by the hand and walked away into the adjoining scullery with as much dignity as she could muster.

The scullery was a cold forbidding place, separated from the parlour by a heavy brown curtain at the doorway. It was some eight feet square, consisting of an old gas-cooker, a single wooden cupboard with several shelves above it, and a deep stone sink beneath the window. Built into the corner was a brick container, housing a copper washtub and closed at the top by a large circular lid of wooden slatted design.

Releasing her hand, Laura reached down to lift her small sister up onto the washtub. Then she washed her face clean, wiped a wet cloth over Netti’s tear-stained face and bent to kiss the shining forehead, saying in a secretive whisper, ‘If you give us a smile, I’ll take you down to the corner pub next Friday and we can stand near the window. Old Peg-Leg Tandy plays the piano of a Friday night. We’d be able to hear right well if we stood right up against the window,’ she nudged the girl’s shoulder playfully, ‘but I don’t expect you’d wa