The Weaver's Glory

Book 3: The Weavers Trilogy

by Lilian Harry

Genres: Sagas; Romance

Synopsis

The Weaver's Glory was first published in paperback under the name Donna Baker. It is 1837. When Rebecca looks back at her life, she has seen much change - and much sorrow. Still young, it is hard for her to believe she has gone from scullery maid to mistress of Pagnel House. But without her husband at her side, can she make the dreams they had for the future still come true? Still reeling from her loss, she must find a way of carrying on. Her husband's cousin, Vivian, is appalled at the idea of a woman running a business. Should she - for the sake of her sons and her business - accept Vivian's offer of marriage? It will take all her strength and all her courage to discover where her future lies - and whether it is rooted in the land and people around her, or if the memory of a man now toiling on the other side of the world in Australia will change her destiny.

Release date: April 14, 2016

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 426

Sample

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

March, in the year of Our Lord 1837, and the daffodils were opening their golden trumpets as if in silent fanfare to the spring. But for Rebecca Pagnel, sitting in the drawing
room of her house at the top of Mount Pleasant and gazing down over the rust-red roofs of Kidderminster, it was winter still. And for ever would remain so, she thought as she watched the pale
sunlight gleam through racing clouds. For winter had come into her life, and no bright sunbeam, no golden flower, could ever melt the ice that had frozen around her heart.

Below stairs at Pagnel House, much had changed since Rebecca had first come there as scullerymaid, almost twenty years ago. Polly, who had gladly relinquished her job at the
sink, washing an endless supply of dirty dishes, was now housekeeper. Mrs Hudd, who had taken Rebecca on because of a fondness for the child’s mother, had retired with her savings and a
pension to a small cottage on the outskirts of Kidderminster. Mrs Atkins, the cook who had supplied Rebecca with most of those dirty dishes, had died making bread one morning, clutching at her
pillowy bosom as she slipped sideways to the floor. There was a new butler, Mr Bessel, who held sway in much the same manner as his predecessor. Billy the Boots had risen to the heights of Odd-job,
and a new footman and two new maids giggled and flirted whenever they thought they could get away with it.

And Rebecca, who had married Francis Pagnel, was now mistress over them all.

‘Poor soul,’ Polly commented that morning in spring as the household prepared for the saddest day since old Mr Pagnel had died. ‘She looks as if she don’t rightly know
where she is. It’s hit her real hard.’

‘Not as if she weren’t expecting it, is it?’ the cook remarked. She slapped a huge wad of pastry on the table and began to roll it out, muscles knotting in her bare forearms.
‘Bin sickly for years, ’adn’t ’e? Like to pop off any time, from what I ’eard, and he’s never looked right all the time I bin ’ere.’

‘It still hits you hard when someone dies, all the same,’ Polly said. ‘’Specially when you think as much of ’em as Beck – Mrs Pagnel – thought of Mr
Francis.’

The maids were listening, wide-eyed. They had been up even earlier than usual that morning, scrubbing, sweeping and polishing, and had only just finished their breakfast. In a few minutes they
would be sent about their work again but for the moment it seemed there was a chance of a short respite.

‘You knew ’em when they was young, didn’t you, Mrs Barlow?’ the kitchenmaid asked. ‘When Mrs Pagnel worked here, in this very kitchen.’ She looked around the
cavernous room, awed. ‘Coo, it seems funny, don’t it, to think of her working here, just like one of us? And then marrying the master.’ She sighed sentimentally. ‘Childhood
sweethearts, they were, and never had eyes for nobody else. It was a real love story.’

‘Tell us about it, Mrs Barlow,’ the parlourmaid begged. ‘I likes a nice love story, ’specially when it ends up sad. Is it true they used to –’

‘No, it’s not, whatever it is,’ Polly said sharply. ‘And I’ll thank the two of you to remember just what day it is. The master’s going to be buried today, and
it’s no time to be gossiping about him and the mistress. It ent fitting – and there’s too much to be done. I don’t know what you think you’re doing, Meg and Annie,
lolling about here as if it’s Christmas. Now get on with your work or you’ll have more to think about than love stories. You’ll be thinking about how to get yourselves new jobs
without a character, that’s what you’ll be thinking.’

The two girls scuttled away, one to the scullery to peel vegetables, the other to the butler’s pantry to help with polishing some of the family silver brought out for the occasion. Polly
looked after them grimly and then turned back to the cook, who was slapping her pastry into a row of pie dishes.

‘Girls today! I don’t know what would hev happened to me and Becky if we’d dared take liberties like those two do. We never had more than a minute to ourselves all day. But
there, we had to work hard and I suppose that’s made the difference. She remembers what it’s like.’

Mrs Bentley nodded. ‘It’s not often you finds a mistress like Mrs Pagnel. Most of ’em don’t even seem to know where their own kitchen is. As for what goes on there, they
don’t care a tinker’s cuss so long as the work gets done, not even if the servants has to stay up ’til four in the morning and get up again at five. Why, there was one I worked
for in London, before I come ’ere, I swear she didn’t even know she ’ad servants. Thought the ’ouse swept and polished itself and the meals got theirselves ready,
she did.’ She scooped veal and ham mixture from a large bowl, distributing it amongst the pies, then looked at Polly. ‘Mind, it do seem a bit like a story,’ she said. ‘The
master marrying the maid, I mean. Was it really like that?’

‘Except that Mr Francis weren’t the master, I suppose it was,’ Polly said. ‘He was a cousin then, you see – nobody knew he was Mr Jeremiah’s son. Of course,
it all come out later – caused a lot of talk at the time. But there, everyone respected Mr Jeremiah, and Mr Francis was grown up by then, and somehow it all seemed to come out all right. And
Mr Jeremiah never went back on his word to make Mr Vivian the heir to the carpet business – that was agreed when he wed Mr Vivian’s mother. But that’s why he left Mr Francis the
house.’

‘So Mrs Pagnel come back ’ere as mistress.’ The cook sighed, much as young Annie had. ‘And now he’s died, and she’s a widow. And two little boys to look
after, an’ all. An’ only – what? Not thirty yet, I’ll be bound.’

‘Just over,’ Polly said, forgetting that she’d thought gossip ill fitting. ‘Still, she won’t hev it hard like her own folk would’ve done. She’ll be well
off. Her boys won’t want for nothing, not the way Becky and her family did when they fell on hard times.’

She stood for a moment lost in thought, remembering the skinny waif who had come to stand on a box at the scullery sink, scrubbing all day with only a breath of fresh air when she had to go out
to the rubbish heap with scraps. Who would have thought that she could have become wife to one of the brightest young carpet manufacturers in Kidderminster? Or that she would, just a few short
years later, find herself his widow?

In the drawing room, Rebecca sat alone, gazing into the fire. Outside, the sun shone from a sky of tender blue, lighting up the daffodils in the garden, bringing a shimmer of
silvery green to the winter-bare branches of the trees. But here in Pagnel House, the air was chill with death and loss and sadness, and Rebecca shivered and drew her fine wool shawl more closely
around her shoulders.

There had been so much death in her life. Her parents, perishing in the poverty of a weaver’s hovel. Her sister Bessie, dying slowly over the years of the dreadful disease of her life in
London. Her little son, Geoffrey, his bright, eager life extinguished by the muddy waters of the Stour. Jeremiah, Francis’s natural father, who had shown her kindness and welcomed her into
his family; and his brother, old Geoffrey, who had brought Francis up as his son.

And now Francis. Francis, her husband, her first, her only sweetheart, who had given her his love, who had accepted hers and cherished it. Francis, her other half.

Rebecca rose to her feet and walked restlessly about the room, as if activity could shake off her grief. But it would not be shaken away. It bore down upon her like the weight of all the world,
crushing her, a relentless pressure on heart and mind.

I can’t, she thought desperately, I can’t live with this misery for the rest of my life. For how many years? Thirty, forty, fifty? Alone, bereft, suffering this incessant clawing
torment until the grave claims me at last? She shook her head. It was not possible.

And yet what other course was there for her? Her body would not die simply because she willed it. And she could not will it yet, anyway. Not until the boys grew up. Not until they needed her no
longer. Not until their own children . . .

No! Again, she shook her head. No, she would not look ahead so far, she would not think of Daniel and William grown, with children of their own. Children who would call her Grandmother, who
would have called Francis Grandfather . . .

She thrust her hands forwards, palms outwards, her arms stiff as if pushing uselessly at some powerful force. But the pain, the grief, the bewilderment of loss, all stayed with her and she could
see no end to any of them.

The door opened and she turned slowly, wearily, as if all her strength had been used up in the struggle.

‘Tom.’

Her brother came into the room. He closed the door behind him and crossed the room to take her in his arms. She looked up into his face and saw the compassion there, the concern, and knew that
she had to answer it with strength. Tom too had suffered his loss.

‘Oh, Tom,’ she said, and let her head fall against his chest.

He stroked her hair, murmuring softly but saying little, and she knew that there was little for him to say. The same thoughts, the same futile questions were in both their minds. The same
useless railing against nature, against the inexorability of life and death.

‘It was London,’ Rebecca said, as if he had asked the question aloud. ‘London killed Francis, Tom, just as it killed Bessie.’

She felt his arms tighten about her. Nobody ever talked about the cause of Bessie’s death. Everyone knew that it was because of the life she had led – been forced to lead –
when she and Tom had first fled to London. Everyone knew that if Bessie had not been compelled to earn her living in the only way left to a woman when all else fails, she would not have wasted away
so terribly before their eyes.

But Francis had not suffered from the disease that had ravaged Bessie. His death had been brought about by an even more insidious agent, one that struck at rich and poor alike. And the cough
that had troubled him during the past few years, sometimes almost disappearing, at others bringing a lump of fear to Rebecca’s throat, had finally won. With one last gush of bright, pulsing
blood, the life had soaked away into the white pillow, and he had died as he loved best to live, in Rebecca’s arms.

‘They say that living in cities is dangerous,’ she said bitterly. ‘I knew it too. When we came back to Kidderminster, I thought everything would be all right. But it was too
late, Tom – too late for Bessie and too late for Francis. Too late for any of us,’ she added brokenly, and wept against his coat.

‘Time’s getting on, Becky,’ he said at last, and she raised her head and looked at him with drenched brown eyes. ‘The hearse’ll be here soon. D’you want to
take one last look at him?’

Rebecca closed her eyes and her body trembled under the black shawl she still held about herself. She nodded slowly and they turned towards the door and went down the stairs to the library.

It was in this room, where they had first met, that Rebecca had asked that Francis should lie. A fire burned in the hearth where she used to come to clear the ashes in the early mornings and on
the shelves were ranged the books that Francis had slipped down to read while the household slept. The bier stood in the middle of the darkened room, the coffin as yet unsealed, and Rebecca
released Tom’s hand and went slowly towards it.

Francis lay as if sleeping in the silken shroud. His face was pale as marble, yet without the two spots of hectic red that had so often shown like warning flags in his cheeks, and his eyes were
closed. His hair had been brushed and lay like worn gold on his brow, and his long, thin hands were folded over his breast.

Those hands would never touch her again in the loving they had shared. Those lips would never again brush hers, that golden hair never twine between her fingers. Those arms would never hold her,
and the voice that had whispered in the night would never again speak of the love he bore her.

Francis’s body lay here still, but Francis himself had gone. His body would be buried, but his spirit had departed. And she could only pray that wherever his new journey had taken him, he
would wait for her there.

Tom touched her arm and she turned. His face was grave.

‘The undertaker is here, Rebecca,’ he said quietly, and she knew that this was the final moment, her last chance to look upon her husband’s face, for soon they would nail on
the lid of his coffin and take him away from her for ever. And she moved close to the bier and touched his face with her fingers and bent her lips to his, cold as they were, and knew that this was
her last goodbye. From this moment, she was alone.

Tom led her away from the library where she had seen Francis for the first time and the last. He led her back to the drawing room, back to her chair by the fire. And there, he knelt beside her
and took her once more into his arms and let her weep.

The funeral over, Rebecca was composed and calm as she moved among those who had come to the house to pay their last respects to Francis Pagnel. She moved quietly, only her
pallor and a slight heaviness of the eyes betraying her grief. Now and then her eyes would seek those of her brother and when Tom caught her glance they would exchange a look of understanding, and
Rebecca would feel comforted.

But her sorrow was never far away and after a while she felt the need to escape from the gathering. Quietly, she slipped out of the room and went to the library where Francis had lain until such
a short time ago, and there she sat down in his favourite chair by the fire and rested her head against its strong back.

It was here that Vivian found her, her eyes closed. He stood for a moment, regarding her thoughtfully, and then she stirred and her eyelids lifted. She met his dark, brooding gaze and felt a
moment of unease, almost fear. Then, quickly, she dismissed it. Had Vivian not proved a good friend to her in recent years? Could there really be either need or reason for remembering the dread he
had inspired in her years ago?

‘You look weary,’ he said quietly, and she nodded, then made to rise.

‘I’d better go back. They’ll be wondering –’

He put out a hand. ‘Stay there, Rebecca. Nobody will wonder where you are or why you’ve left them. You’re a widow, you’ve suffered, you’re entitled to want to be
alone. Nobody will think it strange.’

She hesitated, then sank back with a little sigh. Perhaps she could just stay a little longer. The thought of facing them all again, knowing that she might break down in tears at any moment, was
more than she could bear. ‘I must confess, I’d rather not go back. Everyone’s very kind but –’ her voice shook a little ‘– somehow that makes it all the
harder to bear. It makes it seem more real. I know it’s real. I know Francis is dead, but somehow I seem to want to pretend he’s not. Just for a little while. Just until I’ve got
used to the idea.’ Used to the idea! she thought with bitter incredulity. How could she ever get ‘used to the idea’?

Vivian nodded. ‘I know. I understand.’

She looked up at him, ready to refute his words. How could anyone understand what she was suffering now? But something in Vivian’s face took her back over the years and stopped her
words.

‘Of course, you would. You’ve suffered it yourself.’ But even as she spoke, a part of her wondered just how true that was. Vivian’s wife, Maria, had died in childbirth
many years ago, leaving him with six daughters. Yet Vivian had never seemed as heartbroken as Rebecca felt now. Nor had he ever seemed to feel the same deep love that she had felt for Francis. The
marriage of Vivian and Maria had always been one of convenience, one intended to produce sons to inherit the business, to carry on the Pagnel name.

It had not been Maria’s fault that no sons were produced, but Vivian had always seemed to blame her for not giving him his heirs. And that resentment had deepened when old Jeremiah had
died, leaving the business to his adopted son as he’d always promised – but Pagnel House to Francis.

Rebecca would not have been surprised if the rift, sometimes deep, sometimes shallow, that had always existed between the cousins had not become a gulf during the years that had followed. To see
Francis and the wife who had once been the lowliest of scullerymaids, now master and mistress of the house he had always believed would be his, must have been galling in the extreme. And Vivian was
not a man to take such a rebuff lightly. For a long time, Rebecca had treated him with caution, certain that beneath his apparent acceptance must seethe a turmoil of hostile envy.

But Vivian, after the first shock, had shown little of this feeling. From time to time, she had caught a strange look in his eyes as they rested upon his cousin – a term tacitly accepted
by all, inaccurately though it described the odd relationship between them. But although he had never been warmly friendly, preferring instead to continue with the patronising condescension with
which he had always treated Francis, he had kept any animosity to himself. And Rebecca, after her early hesitation, had continued to look after his daughters as she had done ever since their
mother’s death.

Yes, Vivian was a past master at hiding his feelings. So perhaps they ran deeper than anyone realised. Perhaps he had indeed suffered when Maria had died, and did understand exactly how Rebecca
was feeling now.

‘It doesn’t seem possible that he’s gone,’ she said, looking into the fire. ‘Just last week he was here, sitting in this very chair – feeling better, he said.
And I hoped – I tried to hope – that perhaps he would get well again. People do.’ She looked up at Vivian, her dark brown eyes almost black. ‘People have recovered,
with care. And I did try to take care.’ It was hard to speak through her aching throat. ‘I tried so hard to keep him well.’

‘Nobody could have tried harder,’ Vivian said. He took a chair from beside the long table and drew it close so that he could sit beside her. She could feel the warmth of his body as
he took her hand in his. ‘Nobody ever had a better wife than you, Rebecca. Frank must have known that. Indeed, I heard him say so, many times.’

‘A selfish wife,’ she said in a low tone. ‘I wanted to keep him well so that he would stay alive for me. I couldn’t bear the thought of losing him. And now . . .
he’s gone anyway.’

Vivian stroked her hand gently. ‘It’s a sad time. A sad and bitter time. You’ll grieve for him – it’s right and natural. But you’re young still, Rebecca. One
day the skies will seem brighter and you’ll begin to live again. And when you do –’

He paused and Rebecca looked up at him, startled. But his eyes told her nothing. He smiled slightly and continued, ‘When you do – until you do – I’ll be here. As your
friend. I hope you’ll always think of me as your friend.’

She nodded. ‘I do, Vivian. You’ve been a good friend to me, even if you and Francis didn’t always see eye to eye. I’ve never forgotten your kindness when Geoffrey
–’ But the memory of her dead son, coming at such a time, was too much for her and she broke down completely, burying her face in her hands and weeping without restraint.

She felt Vivian lay his arm about her shoulders and draw her close. Almost instinctively, she turned towards him, accepting the comfort he was offering.

‘He was a good husband to me,’ she said brokenly. ‘He never passed a day without thinking of me above himself. He helped me when my mother died, you know. He brought her here
to Pagnel House and told Mrs Hudd she was to let her stay in the kitchen – she was almost dead then and many people would have left her where she was, in the hovel with my father’s
body. But it was so bitterly cold that day in the snow – she would have died even sooner and in even greater misery. And Francis brought her here and defied his aunt to keep her here.’
She stopped abruptly, remembering that the aunt Francis had opposed was in fact Vivian’s mother. And neither Isabella nor Vivian himself had been in the least sympathetic over that
episode.

But Vivian had apparently forgotten his own attitude. He nodded. ‘I remember it. And he would have done more, but for the trouble over Isabel. Poor child, she was deluded – she
thought Francis loved her and when she found that he didn’t, she lost her mind. It was very sad.’

‘Yes,’ Rebecca said a little doubtfully. She didn’t recall the incident in those terms, remembering instead that Isabel, the youngest of the Pagnels, had gone into a decline
which nobody had been able to halt. From her first refusal to eat, she had become apparently unable to swallow even a morsel, so that when she finally died her body was as thin as a stick and
unable to perform any of its proper functions. It was as if she had given up living; as if, unable to have Francis, she had decided there was nothing to live for.

Perhaps Vivian was right; perhaps she had lost her mind.

Icy, skeletal fingers clutched at Rebecca’s heart. Would this happen to her as well? Would her body, deprived of her husband’s love, decide that there was nothing left to live for,
that it might as well die? Would she too find herself unable to eat, unable even to drink . . . ?

But I do have a reason for living, she told herself with sudden urgency. I have several reasons for living. My children. My family. Tom and Nancy. The co-operative. Even – she glanced up
at the man who held her close – even Vivian’s children. They need me, even as much as I need them.

The door opened and she turned her head to see her son, Daniel. Her eldest child, her first-born, conceived on the first occasion when Francis and she had made love together. The child she had
once doubted if she would live to bear, and had believed would never see his father.

‘Daniel.’ She stretched out a hand. ‘Daniel, come here.’

He came slowly across the room towards her. He looked more than fifteen years old today, she thought sadly, seeing the sombreness of the dark eyes so much like her own. His mourning clothes
deepened the pallor of his cheeks and there were traces of his own grief in his taut expression. But he held himself upright and there was a new air of responsibility about him, as if the many
people who had told him that he was now the man of the family had persuaded him that it was true.

I shouldn’t have allowed it, Rebecca thought with sudden regret. He’s too young for it. He’s still no more than a child, and he’s already had too much taken away from
him. He’ll never learn to laugh now.

But her tears began again all the same, as if there were an inexhaustible supply, and she bowed her head over his hand and sobbed at the thought that he and his brother William were now
fatherless.

‘Don’t cry so, Mamma,’ Daniel said in a low voice, not far from tears himself. ‘You’ll make yourself ill.’

Rebecca caught at his hand and gripped it hard as she struggled to control herself. To weep like this in front of her son! But the thought of all that they had lost, she and her sons, was too
much for her. Francis – Geoffrey – Jeremiah. Even Enid and old Geoffrey, who had been as extra grandparents to the children. No wonder Daniel was more like a man of forty than a
fifteen-year-old boy.

The door opened again and her sister-in-law Nancy came in. As pale as the rest, her light brown hair drawn tightly back from her small-featured face, she looked nevertheless as if she at least
had everything under control, including her own feelings. She came swiftly forwards and took Daniel’s hand.

‘Come on, Danny, it’s time you and William was back in your own quarters. Your ma’s got enough to worry her.’ She gave Rebecca an anxious glance. ‘I told you I
didn’t think the boys oughter come down. It’s upset ’em both and young Will’s playing up already.’

‘We’ve always shared everything with the boys,’ Rebecca said wearily. ‘Good and bad. And I shan’t stay here any longer, being sorry for myself. I’ll come and
say goodbye to everyone and then I’ll go up to the nursery myself and have tea with them. Daniel, you can take William and change back into your everyday clothes and go out into the garden
for a while. You’ve been cooped up in the house ever since – for days now.’

‘In the garden?’ Vivian said, scandalised. ‘Rebecca, do you really think –’

‘That it’s fitting?’ She stood up and her swollen mouth twisted a little. ‘No, Vivian, I don’t suppose it’s at all fitting. But then, Francis and I never did
do what was fitting, did we? And I don’t suppose I’ll start now.’ She gave her son a smile. ‘Don’t look so solemn, Daniel. Go out and enjoy the fresh air for
a while. And don’t be afraid to play your games. Your father wouldn’t have wanted you to be miserable.’

She watched as the boy went uncertainly from the room, and stood for a moment quite still, struggling within herself to gain the release she had offered him. But for her, it was impossible. Her
wounds were still too raw, the pain too severe.

All she could do was act. But that, at least, she could do well. For hadn’t she been doing it all these months, as Francis’s disease gripped him ever more tightly in its harsh grip?
Hadn’t she forced herself to go calmly through the days, pretending there was nothing wrong, never letting her own fear show? Hadn’t she been determined to keep the full horror from
him, so that he could live without fear, without dread?

And if she could do all that, couldn’t she now go back amongst her friends with her head held high, her eyes dry and her manner calm? And if her strength had indeed left her,
couldn’t she at least pretend it was still there?

The day was over at last. Vivian had gone home to the house Jeremiah had built for him when he married Maria, to the daughters who had each been a more bitter disappointment to
him. His sisters Jane, Enid and Sarah had departed with their husbands, their going no less a relief to Rebecca than it was to them. And those whom Rebecca and Francis had counted as true friends
– Tom and Nancy, the men he worked with in the co-operative, some of his friends from schooldays – had left more reluctantly, each aware that this moment was the end of an era, the
beginning of a different and unwelcome life for Rebecca.

There was one friend, however, who had not come, and it was he whom Rebecca would have welcomed most. Matthew Farrell, bright-eyed and laughing yet serious enough when the occasion warranted,
who had been Francis’s best friend through their schooldays, who had disappeared to travel the world and turned up on their doorstep one windy March morning and become as one of the
family.

She thought of him now, sadly, remembering the times she had walked with him, talked with him. That first morning when he had entertained her and Edith with wildly exaggerated tales of his
adventures abroad. The day she had gone to inspect the foundations of his new house; the day he had gone out with Francis to celebrate Lawless Hour, when she had begun her labour with baby William,
an ordeal that had nearly killed them both. The day he had been injured in the riots of the Great Strike, and the horror of the night, when he had accidentally shot and killed Bill Bucknell . .
.

And the grimness of the weeks that had followed. Matthew, thrown into prison, awaiting trial while poor Bessie, the unwitting instrument of the accident, had died in her own squalid cell. The
trial, with its constant attendant fear that he would be judged guilty and hanged. The mixture of emotions – relief, dismay, dread – when he had been sentenced to transportation.

And now he was in Australia, having survived the voyage. Occasionally a letter would arrive from him, telling of strange sights, of animals it was difficult to imagine, of savages who ranged in
wild, untamed country and killed any convict desperate enough to try to escape. Of long, hard days spent clearing the forests, cultivating the land, scraping a living from a country that seemed
reluctant to provide it.

What would Matthew feel when he learned of the death of his boyhood friend? But she would have to write and tell him. For Matthew was her friend as well, with a bond between them that distance
could not sever.

‘I don’t like leaving you on your own,’ Tom said as, last to go, he and Nancy had stood by the door. ‘Why don’t you let us stop a few nights, just ’til
– ’til –’

‘’Til I get used to it?’ Rebecca supplied wryly, and shook her head. ‘Tom, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to being without Francis. Just as you’d
never get used to being without your right arm. But I have to learn to deal with it, and I may as well begin now. Tonight, next week, next month, in a year – it will be just the same. There
has to be a moment when you go out of that door and leave me here.’ She smiled. ‘And I’m not alone. I have the b