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By Root 671 0

followed by bottled raspberries from the garden, and it was a joyful meal with a great deal of chatter and laughter. Matt had recently begun walking out with Amy Merchant, a farmer’s daughter from Woolard, who had been Nell’s friend when they were small and attended the Reverend Gosling’s lessons in the parsonage. Meg and Silas were clearly very hopeful that this would lead to marriage, for they not only liked Amy, but her tenant farmer father was relatively prosperous, and he had only daughters. Meg teased Matt about polishing up his best boots before he walked over to her place in the evenings. That brought Silas around to telling them all how he used to walk over ten miles to court Meg, and he joked that he only asked her to marry him because he couldn’t stand it in bad weather.

Matt said goodbye at four because he was going to meet Amy, and the three young children went off to play by the river, leaving Nell, Meg and Silas half-dozing under the apple tree at the back of the cottage.

It was only when Meg mentioned Hope’s weekly visit to Briargate that Silas sat up.

‘I dunno that we ought to let this be a regular thing,’ he said. ‘It can only end in trouble.’

‘He’s right,’ Meg agreed, nodding her head. ‘I know Hope loves to go, but it’s turning her head. She’ll be thinking she’s too grand for us soon. Only the other day she asked why we didn’t have pretty china cups and plates. It’s Briargate this, Briargate that. Lady Harvey’s got a pink dress, or Rufus is getting a pony. Where’s it all going to end, Nell?’

‘I’m sure I don’t know.’ Nell frowned. ‘I told you I weren’t happy about it in the first place. But how can we put a stop to it without upsetting Master Rufus?’

‘How does Lady Harvey treat ’er?’ Silas asked, an anxious look in his dark eyes.

‘Very kindly, she really likes her. Everyone does at Briargate.’

‘She’s bound to like her, she’s her own flesh and blood after all, and that’s where the danger lies,’ Silas sighed.

Nell was just about to say she couldn’t see any danger in someone liking a child, but then she had a sudden picture of the way Lady Harvey laughed with Hope, smoothed her hair and touched her cheeks.

‘You think she may get to like Hope too much?’

Once again she saw her parents looking at each other. ‘Are you afraid she’ll take Hope from you?’ Nell asked incredulously. ‘She wouldn’t do that! She couldn’t.’

‘There’s more than one way to take your child from you,’ Meg said darkly. ‘There’s putting notions in her little head that she’s different, there’s making her want more than she’ll ever get. And we can’t be sure Bridie didn’t tell Lady Harvey her babby lived.’

‘No!’ Nell shook her head. ‘Bridie would never have done that.’

‘Everything Bridie did was for her mistress,’ Meg retorted. ‘She let you bring the babby here because she thought that was best for Lady Harvey, but maybe later when the woman was still grievin’ she told her the truth because she thought that was best too.’

‘I don’t believe that,’ Nell said stoutly. ‘If she had, Lady Harvey would have been asking me questions about us all, and she’s never done that.’

‘Gentry ain’t like us,’ Silas said contemptuously. ‘They’s born cunning. Anyways, she don’t have to ask you nothing, Ruth tells her plenty.’

Nell was about to deny that, but all at once she realized her father was probably right, at least about Ruth. She had been with Rufus daily since he was born, her knowledge of caring for babies all based on watching and helping her mother with her younger brothers and sisters. What could be more natural than saying, ‘Mother did this with our Henry’, or ‘Mother did that with our Hope’? And Ruth had no reason to be suspicious of any questions that followed.

‘There in’t any way this can end happy,’ Silas said sadly. ‘Even if Lady Harvey knows the truth, she ain’t going to risk her secret getting out by giving our Hope a leg up in life. An’ if she don’t know, but she grows to care for our girl, she’ll jest turn her little head more by makin’ a fuss o’ her. Either way, Hope’s going to be the loser, cos she’ll be neither fish nor fowl.