Hope - Lesley Pearse [9]
Once through the woods, Nell made her way across the common. Fortunately the Rentons’ cottage was this side of the village; had it been right down by the church she might have been spotted by someone going into the Crown Inn.
An owl hooted from the big oak tree by the cottage, but that and the gurgling of the river down below were the only sounds.
‘Nell!’ Meg Renton exclaimed as she came through the door. ‘What brings you here so late?’
The tiny cottage was lit only by a single candle and the fire was just a dull red glow. A stranger coming in would assume Meg was all alone, but in fact it was full of sleeping bodies. Nell’s father was in the bed at the back of the room with Henry, the youngest child, in beside him. The other eight children were in the loft room above, reached by steep steps with a length of rope for a banister.
One of the things Nell had found hardest to adjust to when she first went to work at Briargate was that she couldn’t go to bed at sundown as she’d always done at home. Gentry stayed up late, but then they could afford dozens of candles and oil lamps, and they didn’t have to rise at dawn.
Yet her mother had never gone to bed with the rest of the family, even though she worked harder than anyone else. She would sit by the fire for an hour or two, with one candle. She said it was the only time she had a bit of peace.
Seeing her mother’s worn face in the candlelight, Nell felt a stab of remorse at burdening her with still more work. Meg was thirty-four, and ten children along with one stillbirth too had robbed her of the vitality and strength Nell remembered when she was small. Her hair was still thick and dark, but her once slender body had thickened and her face was becoming lined and saggy. The nightgown she wore was one of Bridie’s hand-me-downs, darned and patched flannel, so thin in places it looked as though with one more wash it would fall apart.
‘I’ve brought you a baby,’ Nell said simply, unable to think of a less blunt way of introducing Hope, and she took off her cloak and untied the shawl the baby was cradled in. ‘I knew you wouldn’t like to see her left at the church or the workhouse, and they were the only other choices.’
Hope stirred as she lifted her out and began sucking on her fist. As briefly as possible Nell explained how she came by the infant and that she needed feeding or she would die.
Meg silently unbuttoned her nightgown, held out her arms for Hope and put her to her breast without saying a word. It took a few seconds for the baby to latch on to her nipple; and it was only once she’d begun sucking in earnest that Meg spoke.
‘Your mistress should be ashamed of herself,’ she said in a low voice. ‘It is never right for her to expect that her maid should take responsibility for her wickedness.’
Afraid her father would wake, Nell pulled up a stool close to her mother and whispered the fuller explanation, including the fact that Lady Harvey thought her child had died. ‘She’s a good woman, you know that, Mother,’ she finished up. ‘Bridie and I couldn’t let her be disgraced, could we?’
‘Would she have spared a thought for you if you’d been in the same way?’ Meg asked, her lips quivering with emotion. ‘No, she’d have turned you out on to the parish!’
Nell shrugged her shoulders. ‘After what I’ve seen today I won’t let a man do that to me,’ she said.
A ghost of a smile played at Meg’s lips. ‘Just mind you remember that when you find a sweetheart!’ she said tartly. ‘But she’s a married woman! And she’s had learning too – what was she thinking of?’
‘Maybe he forced her,’ Nell suggested.
Meg tossed her head. ‘Who would