Hope - Lesley Pearse [102]
It was still pitch dark when she got up. The room stank and Mole was snoring so loudly she couldn’t stand another minute in there. She always slept in her clothes because it was so cold at nights, and picking up her boots and her cape, which she used as a blanket, and one of the sacks she’d been lying on, she crept out, side-stepping all the sleeping bodies.
Lamb Lane was treacherous with snow on the cobbles, and as silent as the grave because it was so early, but thankfully it seemed slightly warmer than the day before. She reckoned she would need to sell five or six loads of wood a day to make a living at it. That was an awful lot of walking and a full sack was very heavy. But she could do it if she put her mind to it.
Chapter Eleven
Matt stumbled sleepily down the stairs. It was five in the morning, still dark and raining very hard. It was days like this when he wished he was anything but a farmer and could stay in bed with Amy for at least another hour.
He heard the kettle boiling even before he opened the kitchen door. Nell was sitting hunched up on a stool by the stove and had clearly been there for some time.
His heart sank as she turned to him and he saw her eyes were swollen with crying. He couldn’t cope with her misery first thing in the morning.
‘You must stop this, Nell,’ he blurted out before he could stop himself. ‘There’s no call for you to be up so early.’
‘I’ve always risen early,’ she retorted in a whining tone. ‘Amy will be busy enough with the children all day. The least I can do is get the stove going for her.’
Matt sighed and sat down at the table. When Amy complained that she felt Nell was usurping her position, he always told her that doing chores was Nell’s way of showing her appreciation they’d taken her in. Amy retorted that she was sick and tired of appreciation, what she wanted was her kitchen back.
‘I wasn’t talking about you fixing the stove or making my breakfast,’ he said wearily. ‘You’ve got to stop brooding about Hope.’
‘How can I when I know she’s been murdered and the man who did it is as free as a bird?’ Nell asked sharply. ‘And I seem to be the only person who cares.’
‘Don’t be foolish, you know that’s not true.’ Matt ran his fingers distractedly through his tousled hair. ‘We’ve all just accepted that she ran off with her lover, and you must too.’
‘I’ll never accept that,’ Nell said indignantly. ‘That’s what Albert wants us to believe. You agreed with me that her letter didn’t sound right.’
Matt groaned; it was too early in the morning for this. He’d told her his views on that letter dozens of times, but once again he repeated that Hope had been in a hurry. And that no amount of explaining herself to Nell was going to make her hurt less.
‘But she would have written again later to stop us all worrying.’ Nell’s eyes filled with tears yet again. ‘You know she would, Matt.’
As always when Matt saw the pain in Nell’s eyes, he was sorry he’d been sharp and irritated with her. He got up and put his arms around her, holding her to his shoulder and patting her back comfortingly. ‘Maybe she’s too ashamed? I know if I skipped off the way she did and caused all this trouble I’d just want to stay missing.’
Matt wished his feelings were as clear-cut as that explanation. He lurched from extreme anxiety for Hope to near hatred for what she’d done to Nell and the embarrassment to his family.
It was understandable that people were shocked by Hope running off with a soldier; after all, the Rentons had always been steady, sober and well-respected people who never caused scandals. But it would have been just a nine-day wonder if Nell hadn’t reacted so dramatically about it. Leaving her husband and Briargate had created all kinds of suspicions, and the way Nell had acted since then only added more fuel to the fire. Many people thought she had gone mad, others thought Albert or even Sir William must have ravished Hope. Hardly a day passed without Matt or Amy being cornered by someone determined to get to the bottom of what they considered a sinister