By the time that Thomas, Annie and Beattie came through the door, heavily muffled against the cold, the room was filled with the aroma of the stew that was gently bubbling on the range which seemed to take up most of the tiny kitchen. The small scale of the house had unsettled Ella at first. Without realising it, she had grown accustomed to the grand rooms of Grange House. The high ceilings, fireplaces and windows now seemed vast in comparison to this tiny space. Ella found herself wondering how they were all going to fit in the house overnight; Thomas and Annie in particular had grown so tall since she had last seen them. Now aged eighteen, Thomas had become a man while sixteen-year-old Annie had blossomed into a young woman. The thought was but a fleeting one, for the excitement her appearance had caused was infectious and soon everyone was talking nineteen-to-the-dozen, questions and answers flying between Ella and her siblings.
‘Why are you here?’ ‘How long can you stay?’ ‘Will you listen to me sing?’ ‘How big you have grown!’ No one seemed to pause long enough to take in the answer they had been given and eventually Sarah could bear the cacophony no longer. She clapped her hands over her ears.
‘Stop!’ The chatter died. ‘Let’s eat. And let’s try to talk to each other nicely while we do. No, you sit down, Ella. Thomas and Annie, set up the table. Beattie, fetch the spoons and a knife for the bread. Beth, you sit over by the fire with Ella until we’re ready.’
And with that the table was set up, almost filling the tiny sitting room, leaving just enough space around it for chairs and stools. Beth, who had shown no sign of wanting to be parted from Ella since she had arrived, sat on Ella’s knee, leaning her head back to rest it under Ella’s chin, and observed the proceedings solemnly, sucking her thumb. Ella could tell she was tired, and thought she must be falling asleep in the warmth of the fire until she removed her thumb and tipped her head back to look up at Ella’s face.
‘Are you my mummy’s sister too?’
Sarah heard, and glanced apologetically at Ella.
‘She’s been asking a good deal about Alice. Trying to understand where her mummy is and where she fits into the family. Because you’ve been away, I’ve been trying to talk about you as well as about Alice. I think she links the two of you together.’
Ella suddenly felt an acute sense of Alice’s loss. How different might the evening’s gathering have been if Alice were still alive? If she hadn’t died in prison before she could even be tried, languishing sick and alone and denied all access to her family, her baby. If the clock could be turned back, maybe the mill would still be open and maybe Alice would be working there too, with Ella. They would still have been living in Northwaite, at Lane End Cottage, with their garden and fields all around, not squeezed into this tiny house in Nortonstall with nothing but a yard to speak of. And there would have been two lots of full-time wages, not just the one… Ella drew in her breath. Not even just the one now…
Sarah glanced sharply at her.
‘Come and eat. I expect you’ve had nothing since morning. If I’d known you’d be here I would have made something special. Instead, it’s just our usual weekday stew.’
Once Ella was wedged in amongst the others around the table, the talk turned to the New Year. Ella felt a pang. She was sure there would be celebrations at Grange House. A party perhaps? She’d never felt less like celebrating in her life, although spending this evening with her much-missed family was going some way to making up for the loss of her Christmas to incarceration.
The evening sped by in a whirl of chatter and catching up on news. Bedtime was long past when Sarah finally lifted a sleeping Beth off the armchair and carried her up the steep staircase, hidden behind a door next to the fireplace.
‘The rest of you can be getting yourselves ready, too,’ Sarah warned. ‘Ella, you can take my bed and I’ll make up a bed down here.’
But Ella wouldn’t hear of it. She could see how worn Sarah looked, and she herself was more than ready for sleep. The events of the last few days had taken it out of her.
As she gazed into the glow of the fire’s embers, eyelids drooping, feeling very cosy under the quilt that her mother had insisted she should have from the bed, she reflected that it was perhaps no bad thing she was home for a bit. Sarah looked in need of a break, and the one good thing about Ella’s enforced return was that she was going to be able to provide that respite.