Hope - Lesley Pearse [42]
Hope said nothing, and continued to tie her bootlaces at the same leisurely pace. Albert liked to ape the gentry, insisting Nell should lay the breakfast table properly every morning and wait on him. He also expected Hope to be completely ready for work before joining him at the table.
She thought it was ridiculous laying the table when there was nothing more to eat than a slice of bread. Her father used to swig his tea down as he got dressed, then grab the bread and eat it on the way to his work. But then, he preferred to spend an extra ten minutes cuddling her mother in bed, and he wouldn’t have dreamt of giving her the extra work of laying the table at five in the morning.
Hope couldn’t voice her opinion because Albert would take it out on Nell, so the only form of protest open to her was to be so slow getting ready that she didn’t have to sit there with him.
Albert got up, his chair scraping on the stone floor. ‘Right! Nothing for you,’ he snapped at her. ‘Nell, clear the table. She’s got to learn the hard way.’
Hope stifled a giggle. She didn’t want any bread anyway; when she got to the big house Cook would give her porridge with honey on it.
Nell had put his coat in front of the fire to warm it, another thing Albert insisted on. He snatched it up, then turned to his wife. ‘Don’t you dare give her anything,’ he said, pointing a finger at Hope. ‘I shall check the bread when I come back later.’
He left without a goodbye, and slammed the door behind him. Hope giggled.
Nell half-smiled, for she knew about the porridge – she always had some herself too. ‘I wish you wouldn’t tease him that way. Can’t you do what he wants, just for me?’
‘I would if it made him nicer,’ Hope said wistfully, and she went to her sister and hugged her. ‘I’m never going to get married if that’s what men are like.’
‘They aren’t all like it,’ Nell reminded her. ‘Remember Father, and look at the way Matt is. But you’d better go, or you’ll be late.’
‘Not me,’ Hope grinned. ‘I’ll be there before Albert.’
Once outside the cottage door, Hope broke into a run. Albert was half-way up the drive, but she knew she could beat him to the house easily. She liked running, especially on a frosty February morning like this one, even if it wasn’t considered ladylike. She would arrive at Briargate with rosy cheeks, warm inside and out, and it would even make her forget how much she hated her brother-in-law.
She ran past him at full pelt, and once she was well out of his reach turned round to face him and waved cheekily. With luck he would be freezing cold all day working outside. If he’d only learn to be nice to people, Cook would let him into the kitchen to get warmed up and give him porridge too.
It was only four months since her parents had died, but it seemed like years. Some days the ache for them was so acute she thought she could die of it. Their faces were imprinted on her mind, she heard their voices inside her head, and curiously, it was the things that she’d hardly noticed when they were alive that she missed most. The way Father would cluck her under the chin when he came in from work or Mother would always kiss her forehead when she’d finished brushing her hair. This was tangible evidence of their love for her, for neither of her parents was the type to put their feelings into words.
Yet they had been so big on communication in the family. They wanted to know everything everyone had done each day; no one ever escaped being questioned about who they’d seen or talked to.
Nell had been just the same before she married Albert. Every time she came to the cottage she wanted to know every single thing that had happened since her last visit. Hope’s earliest memories were of vying with Joe and Henry to get to her lap first and Nell sitting on the floor so all three of them could have a bit of her. She was so gay and fun-loving, always ready to play with them, but so tender and caring too.
Hope thought she wouldn’t miss her parents so much if Nell had still been that person, but she was tense and watchful now, rarely laughing when Albert was there,