A Place Called Freedom - Ken Follett [161]
“I’ll tell you when it started for me, Down the pit, when you fell into my arms, and I accidentally felt your breast and realized who you were.”
She chuckled. “Did you hold me a bit longer than you really needed to?”
He looked bashful in the firelight. “No. But afterward I wished I had.”
“Now you can hold me as much as you like.”
“Yes.” He put his arms around her and drew her to him. They lay silent for a long while, and in that position they went to sleep.
Next day they crossed a mountain range by a pass then dropped down into the plain beyond. Lizzie and Peg rode the wagon downhill while Mack ranged ahead on one of the spare horses. Lizzie ached from sleeping on the ground, and she was beginning to feel the lack of good food. But she would have to get used to it: they had a long way to go. She gritted her teeth and thought of the future.
She could tell that Peg had something on her mind. Lizzie was fond of Peg. Whenever she looked at the girl she thought of the baby who had died. Peg had once been a tiny baby, loved by her mother. For the sake of that mother, Lizzie would love and care for Peg.
“What’s troubling you?” Lizzie asked her.
“These hill farms remind me of Burgo Marler’s place.”
It must be dreadful, Lizzie thought, to have murdered someone; but she felt there was something else, and before long Peg came out with it. “Why did you decide to run away with us?”
It was hard to find a simple answer to that question. Lizzie thought about it and eventually replied: “Mainly because my husband doesn’t love me anymore, I suppose.” Something in Peg’s expression made her add: “You seem to wish I had stayed at home.”
“Well, you can’t eat our food and you don’t like sleeping on the ground, and if we didn’t have you we wouldn’t have the wagon and we could go faster.”
“I’ll get used to the conditions. And the supplies on the wagon will make it a lot easier for us to set up home in the wilderness.”
Peg still looked sulky, and Lizzie guessed there was more to come. Sure enough, after a silence Peg said: “You’re in love with Mack, aren’t you?”
“Of course!”
“But you’ve only just got rid of your husband—isn’t it a bit soon?”
Lizzie winced. She herself felt this was true, in moments of self-doubt; but it was galling to hear the criticism from a child. “My husband hasn’t touched me for six months—how long do you think I should wait?”
“Mack loves me.”
This was becoming complicated. “He loves us both, I think,” Lizzie said. “But in different ways.”
Peg shook her head. “He loves me. I know it.”
“He’s been like a father to you. And I’ll try to be like a mother, if you’ll let me.”
“No!” Peg said angrily. “That’s not how it’s going to be!”
Lizzie was at a loss to know what to say to her. Looking ahead, she saw a shallow river with a low wooden building beside it. Obviously the road crossed the river by a ford just here, and the building was a tavern used by travelers. Mack was tying his horse to a tree outside the building.
She pulled up the wagon. A big, roughly dressed man came out wearing buckskin trousers, no shirt, and a battered three-cornered hat. “We need to buy oats for our horses,” Mack said.
The man replied with a question. “You folks going to rest your team and step inside and take a drink?”
Suddenly Lizzie felt a tankard of beer was the most desirable thing on earth. She had brought money from Mockjack Hall—not much, but enough for essential purchases on the journey. “Yes,” she said decisively, and she swung down from the wagon.
“I’m Barney Tobold—they call me Baz,” said the tavern keeper. He looked quizzically at Lizzie. She was wearing men’s clothing, but she had not completed the disguise and her face was obviously female. However, he made no comment but led the way inside.
When her eyes