February 1887
‘February brings the rain,
Thaws the frozen lake again.’
Thursday, February 3rd
The first days of February brought more snow. Tizzie’d soaked her feet when she sneaked off to church to get her candles blessed at the Candlemas service, but thought the look of the snow made up for its wetness. Church’d been quiet, a fine place to sit in the usual Cawthra pew and think about Tom’s letters, and Maggie’s changes. Time were, when the chores were heavy and farming tasks called as well, Mam and Nan’d have hired a village lass to wash or iron, bake or brew. Da would have hired a day labourer to muck out or harrow. Now no one were hired, and the work fell on the family, the boys outside, Tizzie and Agnes doing the inside tasks. It surely meant more money for the family, but you’d not think it to hear Maggie and Jack moaning. So would they keep Tom’s letters to make her stop with them? She couldn’t bear to think it, prayed hard that it weren’t so before she sped back to the farm
The snow made Jack grumble about the hay they had to feed to the ewes brought down from the tops and folded in the lambing barn, but then he always did. Tizzie sneaked extra hay for her cows.
“Little enough work really you give me, ladies, now you’re dry,” Tizzie told them, giving each a lick of salt from her hands. “Only the house cow to milk, aye, Princess? Your babe will be a June blessing.” The others were expanding daily, ribs barrelling out, would calf in four or five weeks. “Away with you,” she chided, as Queen Rosie nudged her roughly. Rosie lumbered off, sighing out smoky breath through her big brown nostrils. Her hip bones jutted sharply with each step, belly swaying independently, at odds with the hips, but gently so. Tizzie gave all ten of her girls a careful look over. They were in fine fettle, should, oh, please, dear Lord, calf easily. She didn’t add a prayer for mild nights and no freezing winds, that’d be a selfish prayer. She’d just hope.
Now, if she were careful, and Maggie’s sharp eyes looked inward, and not out to the shippon, she might just seize an hour to herself. She’d more thinking to do and knew just where to find a peaceful place. Tizzie looked across the yards, no one there to see her. She slipped away, keeping to the lee of the stone walls until she could climb the stile, cross the top field, trudging through the ice and slush until she reached the point where moor and dale met in a small valley. Not much of a place really, but fine and quiet, her private place to reckon up things and con their meanings. Today she hunted snowdrops and, hopefully, the signs of an early primrose or two, looking for the first to pick and take home, a reminder for herself and Agnes, in this raw cold and bitter damp, that spring were creeping back into the dale. There were none yet, but the snow thinned in patches and a few precious rosettes of leaves showed through.
Agnes, that were another problem. Those wretched Saint Columba’s lambs and the lass wanting to be a school teacher. Tizzie almost failed to note the pussy willow buds swelling, almost, but not totally. The hazel bushes, well sheltered in the valley from cold and freezing winds, showed stubs of catkins emerging. Spring were on its way, slow as ever, but there, it came. What could she do for Agnes? Her own mam’d not lift a finger for the lass, and if anything were to happen, it’d be up to Tizzie.
A passing breeze gusted a splatter of chilling drops from the branches into Tizzie’s face. She hitched her coat’s broad collar high up round her old bonnet and snuggled down into it. The large shepherd’s coat she’d borrowed from the peg in the porch might be old, smell strongly of sheep, and weigh a ton, but its fleece lining was warm. ‘Twas only her feet felt the cold, the slush soaking her boots despite the well oiled leather and three pairs of knitted socks. Times like this, with cold feet and chapped cheeks, she thought she should be happy to turn housemaid, live in town even, enjoy a wage for all her work. Money, that she never had, and it’d be what Agnes would need to be a schoolmarm.
Turning for home, ducking under the scratchy branches of an elderly holly tree, the rising wind brought more than the valley’s snow-moist, strong, wet earth smell. A taint of sheep filled her nose. Tizzie lifted her head and sniffed. No, it wasn’t from the coat. “Oh, please, God, a live stray,” she prayed. How she loathed plucking wool from a dead sheep. Searching she found, in a snug hollow between fallen branches and a decaying trunk, an old ewe, one of three missing. The ewe gave her a hard yellow-eyed stare and continued chewing cud. A venerable lady this one, her black face unmarked save for two penny-shaped white spots. Tizzie recognised her. “Wandering again, Tuppence? Tha daft old besom. Come away home with me.” She reached down, grabbed two deep handfuls of back wool and tugged the sheep upwards. Tuppence resisted, then heaved herself to her feet, standing reluctantly. Tizzie felt in her pocket for a few grains of salt to use as a bribe, and the old ewe gave in, knowing there’d be hay and turnips in the fold yard. She walked lame on her near foreleg so Tizzie suited her pace to the sheep’s.
“Ah, tha poor beastie, we’ll see that hoof treated once I get you in the fold.” Tizzie smiled a little. Finding the ewe gave reason to her walk. Maggie’d not ride her about slipping off with ironing to do when she brought back a missing ewe.
Tizzie dragged, coaxed and pushed Tuppence towards Tup’s Keld, which the lambing ewes always occupied, an odd shaped field but handy to the farmyard. Jack and the boys had folded the ewes, piece by piece, down the Keld, dunging and treading it for spring ploughing and oat sowing. It were a long walk, for the ewes were in the last section, closest to the sheep barn. There, sheltered by the high dry-stone wall, they were settled in the newly erected hurdle pens, ready to lamb. It meant a long cold slither down the slope, guiding the ewe along by her back wool as she limped and skidded on the uneven ground, her cloven hoofs crackling through icy patches, or threatening to slip out from under her.
As they reached the folded area Tuppence blatted out a greeting; several ewes baaed back. Tizzie opened the hurdle gates. “In tha goes,” she said, pushed Tuppence in, and backed out. She bumped into an unexpected obstruction behind her, where nothing should be, and jumped.
“Eh, Jack,” she said, turning round, “you startled me. See what I’ve found in the valley....” The tall man behind her wasn’t Jack. Tizzie looked up into blue eyes, noted the fair beard and the crooked nose. It might be ten years since he’d gone to Leeds, but she remembered that face. She’d loved it once, kissed those eager lips many times, been held close and tight in those well muscled arms. He had altered little, just the lean bones more prominent. The words fell out of her mouth. “My goodness. It’s never Johnnie Oldby is it? What you doing here?”
“I’m looking for Jack. Sent to ask him about giving any spare treddle lambs for the Friendly Society to rear and sell. The committee’s wanting to raise a bit of extra cash.” He pulled a rueful face. “With things the way they are for farmers there’s bound to be more call on the Society for aid from workless members. Sir Charles suggested we raise some extra money to add to the investments.”
Tizzie tucked her gloved hands into the scruffy shepherd’s coat pockets and thought sadly of her cherry work coat unworn inside. “I...it’s Jack to say, but we always raise third lambs and any orphans ourselves.” She tore her gaze away from the once familiar face, those kind blue eyes, looked down at her boots, noticed Johnnie’s polished black ones opposite her stained brown work boots, and lifted her head to quickly glance across the fold. “Jack’s a member of the Society, of course. He might help. Shall I fetch him for you?” She moved away, but Johnnie caught her elbow, gently restrained her.
“It’s good to see you again, Tizzie.” His smile touched his eyes, gave her a glimpse of the inner man. Tizzie knew he spoke true, he always had. “I wanted to talk to you, now I’m back in the Dale. I’m working for Sir Charles, living at Linden Hall village, I’m his new wages clerk.”
Tizzie, blocked from retreat, felt herself blush enough to warm her ears and regarded her boots.
“Look at you, lass, edging away, your cheeks all rosy, your eyes downcast, shy as ever. You haven’t changed a bit, always running away. Right sorry I was that you’d not wed me and make the move to Leeds, but that’s all done. I wanted to tell you that, to be easy when we meet. I’ve found a good wife, we’ve two bairns, little nippers, and hopefully a wee lass on the way. Happen you’ll be able to smile at us if we catch sight of each other in town or the village.”
Tizzie, head whizzing like a whirligig, blinked her eyes hard, opened her mouth to ask Johnnie to explain. How could he say that? She’d never had a chance to say nay, he’d never asked her. Why he’d left before he asked her to wed him, how could he...but a bellowed greeting and footsteps crunching loudly over icy snow halted her slow tongue framing the words.
“Maggie said she saw you coming this way.” Jack tramped towards them. “Heard you’d come back to the Dale, John Oldby. Found a job with His Lordship they say.” He turned to Tizzie. “Maggie needs your help, she wondered where you’d gone.”
Tizzie knew she flapped her mouth like a flounder, but she finally made herself point to the ewe. “I...here’s... I found old Tuppence, brought her home,” she managed.
Jack beamed, patted her back, and turned her house-wards. “Tha’s a grand sister. I couldna do without you.” His face glowed with good humour, his push sent her skittering over the snow. “Make us a cuppa, Tiz.”
Tizzie scurried away, squelching the need to hold her head and scream, wanting to speak to Johnnie, struggling to make sense of his words. She’d have gone to Leeds with him if he’d asked her, gone to the moon if he’d wanted that an’ all, but he just up and went. All those months paying court to her, and then he left her without a word. Broke her heart he had. ‘Twas Jack who told her, Maggie who’d found out. How could Johnnie think she’d refused him? She’d never had the chance. Tizzie caught hold of the gate post by the path to the house as an answer came like a lightening flash, a bolt to the heart, the pain of it dreadful. She had to stop and gasp, clutching tight to the rough stone. It were Tom’s letter all over again weren’t it? Nay, it couldn’t be...could it? Family didn’t do that to each other, family helped.... Maggie and Jack wouldn’t have broken her heart surely?
Somewhere in Tizzie, within her private self, the pain struck again, squeezing ‘til her breathing constricted and every nerve in her body objected. ‘You ran away,’ Johnnie said. Nay. They’d taken her away, Jack and Maggie, rushed her off on the train that Friday, ten year ago, sent her to Harry’s for the weekend. Johnnie hadn’t gone had he? She had.
Bent over, doubling up against bone deep pain, Tizzie tried to think through the haze of horrific images. Had Johnnie meant to come and speak to her that weekend? Did Harry know, had he been a part too? Tears threatened, and Tizzie, who hated tears, who never cried or fussed, felt drops, one by one, scalding hot against her cold chapped cheeks. Had her brother truly stopped her best chance of being a wife, of having bairns of her own? He couldn’t have been so cruel? For why? Not wanting to pay wages to a dairy maid? Aye, well she knew Jack and Maggie were both careful for themselves and the lads, a bit close, even tight handed, though they didn't let outsiders see that. At church and for community they promised as much as the next tenant farmer. It didn't always get there though, like those letters of Tom’s.
Tom! He’d asked her to come and she’d never known. Tizzie fought again to breath, drew air in heaves and gasps. She was family, sister and aunt. You didn’t stop a brother’s or sister’s happiness, didn’t give hurt to those you cared for. Family didn’t do that...she wouldn’t do that...couldn’t do that. But what if her family had done that to her?
“Tizzie, what is it?” Maggie arrived in a rush, slithering and sliding in her house slippers, and without even a shawl. She put an arm round Tizzie’s shoulders pulling her upright. “Are you hurt? Come in, come in to the warm.”
Jack panted up, all in a flurry, feet floundering in the snow, breathing hard. “Eh, Tizzie lass, don’t cry. Didst tha slip? Where art tha hurt?”
Tizzie tried to shape words between shudders, to ask about Johnnie. “Johnnie, he...” her words vanished in gulping sobs.
“Och, and I knew the sight of him’d be upsetting you,” Maggie clucked her tongue and tisked. “Did you see him off, Jack?”
“What? Oh, aye, he’s gone, I promised him a couple of orphan lambs, seeing how it’s His Lordship’s wanting them for the Society. He’ll not be back. I warned him away. Bloody cheek to come after what he did to Tiz, and I’ll be sure and tell him next....”
Maggie shushed him urgently, as Tizzie shook, sobs forced through her, words lost in her distress. Between them Jack and Maggie walked Tizzie into the farmhouse and sat her in Jack’s chair beside the fire at the eating end of the long kitchen. Maggie fussed over her, undid her boots and helped her out of her coat and bonnet, even giving them to Jack to put away. She roused up the kitchen stove and moved the kettle to the hot side. “We’ll have some tea, ” she said. Jack hovered. “A drop of brandy in Tizzie’s might help.”
Jack grunted and went to fetch the medicinal bottle from the remedy box on top of the kitchen dresser.
Tizzie pushed herself up and out of the chair. She wanted the quiet of her room and a chance to think through what Johnnie said. And it were Thursday. Agnes counted on her going to night class. If she didn’t go Maggie would find a way to keep Agnes back too. She weren’t keen on Agnes going, didn’t like her so thick with the schoolmaster. Tizzie hung on to the chair, trying to feel her feet under her, and Jack, returning with the little bottle of brandy, caught her elbow. “Now then, Tiz, sit here until you’re right.”
“I’m going to my room.” She managed to pull her mouth into a smile and forced each foot forward, left, right, sliding her stockings over the flagstone floor, making herself step out each of the twelve steps it took to reach the stair door. Jack beat her there, clicked the latch and opened the door for her.
“That’s it lass, you have a bit of a rest. Maggie’ll manage, won’t you, love?”
“Of course I will. You have a good cry and get over it.”
Tizzie went to bed, wept herself dry and slept a little. She woke and lay stiff, her body rebelling, her mind churning over and over, refusing to believe what she’d learnt. She found it hard to think ill of Jack and Maggie. Why, they spoke well of her, praised her work and boasted of her cheeses. They’d done this room for her. She weren't stinted on good cloth for clothes and aprons. She had a Sunday outfit with matching shoes, a warm wool coat, a fancy hat for winter and summer along of all her working clothes, boots and clogs. True, she never saw wages, but none of them did. This were a family farm, and when money were tight money went into the farm purse not out to family members. Maggie often gave her a little something to spend on Market Day, and Jack gave her a sovereign for her birthday. They all knew that when...if...she married, she was due her share. It were in Da’s will. She'd just never claimed it. And never likely to now.
Tizzie heard again Johnnie Oldby’s words, her Johnnie, her man she’d loved so. Her gentle Johnnie who’d held her in comforting arms and kissed her like no other man. A great sob wrenched itself out of her, she covered her mouth, but more came. She ached under the weight of such terrible doubts. It were too late now, far too late, naught could be done or said about Johnnie, married with family of his own. Best left unsaid any accusation until she knew the truth of it. Maggie and Jack might have believed Johnnie had upped and gone. Johnnie might have left without a word, might be lying now to smooth his way. She would never know for sure. Asking Johnnie might wake old memories and he had a wife and bairns to care for. And it were ten years old, flat beer, stale cake, long gone into the past. Only she hurt so, for Johnnie had been her heart’s mate. Now she feared that what she’d believed to be true about her family had been lies, deceits, a carefully planned stealing of her life. Maggie and Jack had deliberately spoiled her chance of a home and bairns all her own, and she must face that and live with it.
***
Thursday, February 10th
Agnes showed a bushel of talent for teaching. Valentine’s Day being close she’d persuaded the women at Thursday Night School to practise writing by making cards. With coloured inks and stiff card even Tizzie, who had no one to send a card to, enjoyed the practise. Now she attempted to copy the beautiful copperplate of the schoolmaster.
Jared, what kind of a name was that? Tizzie rested her pencil on her paper and looked from the list of names he had carefully written for her to the schoolmaster himself. He sat, relaxed, for all the other adults had gone, surrounded by his four helpers, his best students from the school, all huddling close to the stove, with Agnes the only lass. It eased Tizzie’s heartache somewhat, this pride she felt for her niece. She’d missed her chance, but Agnes wouldn’t, not whilst Tizzie held breath in her body. A teacher she should be.
A nippy breeze, raw and sharp, along with heavy rain and the dark night, had kept most of the usual night school students at home, or only attending for the first hour. Well, weather and lambing, Tizzie told herself. She’d be going home tonight to a night watch over the lambing ewes, but she hadn’t stayed home to rest up. She’d made Agnes miss last week, and the lass needed these classes. She were that good. She’d persuaded the women students to read more by using Mrs Beeton’s ‘Book of Household Management’, and Eliza Acton’s books of recipes, the newest editions, not yet found in many Dale homes. His Lordship had bought them for the school library. That’s where they met each Thursday night. The men in one study alcove, the women in the other, the stove burning and a kettle steaming away. Just once His Lordship came to encourage them.
“Reading and writing might gain you re-employment if you must seek it,” he said. Old Jorncey, who’d never been known to work for longer than a week at a time, grinned and mumbled in his gums. His Lordship turned sharply on him. “You can learn to read your newspaper for yourself, Jornce, and let your poor daughter have some peace.”
Tizzie weren’t the only one who sniggered behind her hands.
Her Ladyship spoke to the women of the pleasure of letters, writing them to sons away in the West Riding mills and reading their replies. “You may borrow the books, but I’d like to see your own recipes written in a book you make,” she’d told them. “How many havercake, griddle scone or gingerbread recipes do you have? One for each home? We’ll make a book of them, your book.”
She stayed, even sat amongst them, writing down the recipes they shared, made a copy for herself and helped those who couldn’t write much to write out at least one simple recipe. Tizzie smiled at the memory. Quakers were funny folk, right queer notions about place and position they held, but good hearted. She picked up the pencil again and tried to write Jared, Topley, Tizzie, Agnes and Cawthra in plain writing. She were improving, she could see the difference. She just wished working the pencil didn’t feel like using a bent knitting needle.
Hot tea, two oil lamps per table and a warm room, that’s what it took to make people return each week, even old Jorncey, but she couldn’t work out why His Lordship made such a fuss about learning. He’d visited every one of his tenants and labourers and told them all that he expected every child on his estate to leave school with a competency certificate, and no lad or lass ought to leave before they were fourteen. People still talked about it.
Tizzie wrote her own name three times, sighed softly and set down her pencil to listen to the schoolmaster. He were reading poetry again. They always spent half an hour after class reading poems or novels. “You need to know the finest of English literature,” Mr Topley kept saying. “If you are to be good teachers, you must be aware of the best you can offer your students.”
Herbert, Eddie and George, all fourteen and proud of being clever ‘uns, copied their master’s style, and, for which Tizzie blessed them every Thursday night, they followed his treatment of Agnes, allowed her to take turns reading and praised her quickness. The lass bloomed, never took advantage, held her tongue and listened, or asked them sensible questions, showing she was learning from them. Mr Topley, pride visible, challenged them with problems in logic and reasoning, and listened to their opinions. Tizzie liked that, and the expression on his face when they challenged him with a difficult question which he couldn’t answer directly.
Poem finished he closed his book, replaced it on the shelf and selected another. Tizzie hoped it’d be a novel by Charles Dickens. She’d enjoyed the bits he’d read before and planned to read ‘David Copperfield’ by herself one day. Tonight though he chose Shakespeare. Same old words like in the Bible and prayer book, but oh, they did sound grand. It were another kind of poetry and she’d learned to like hearing it. King Henry’s speech before Agincourt made the hair stand on its own all up her arms. Agnes preferred ‘Romeo and Juliet’, but then she were tender hearted, bless the lass, could spout all the balcony love scene by heart. Tonight the schoolmaster read with them from ‘The Taming of the Shrew’. His scholars chuckled, teased Agnes gently about lasses with sharp and shrewish tongues, but a line about ‘killing with kindness’ caught Tizzie’s ear and stayed with her. It made her think of Maggie and Jack, aye, killing her with their sort of cruel kindness indeed.
***
Monday, February 28th
“Never a moment,” Tizzie muttered, hurrying to the lambing pens, “always summat to do and no time to think.”
A mild couple of days followed by rain and freezing wind brought on the lambs. The boys guessed correctly, many more multiple births than the previous year, even old Tuppence had twins. Twins a ewe could manage if you watched her carefully, a job Jack gave to Tizzie. “A woman’s more patient than lads, and slow to interfere.”
Tizzie enjoyed the work. It warmed her heart to see a nervous ewe settle to two young ‘uns suckling, tails shaking, wig-wagging like poplar leaves in a breeze. It were a pleasure to hear a young ewe call to her lambs, see her nuzzling and licking both spotted faces and tucking them in close to her side. Now, as she worked, Tizzie’s thoughts wandered. Why did she feel guilty, scolding herself even, for thinking badly of her family. And how would she ever know the truth about Sam’s letter and about Johnnie Oldsby?
Wrapped in the old shepherd’s coat and her knitted bonnet, a worsted scarf covering her cheeks, wool gloves under homemade sheepskin mittens, Tizzie scrunched over iced cobbles, squelched in the mud and through grass, to the sheep barn five and six chilly times a day. Every lamb had been spared this year and eight ewes had a treddle lamb, a third lamb they could not feed, that meant eight lambs to hand feed. At least it were warm in the barn, and the mixed smells of sheep, lamb, milk, straw and cold stone pleased her nose better than the byre. There Jack had actually hired a couple of hired day labourers who were mucking out, then muck spreading, making all clean, ready for calving.
“Two lambs only for the Society,” Jack had told her, “six to sell on. And don’t be telling no one how many we’re hand rearing. Times are hard. We need every penny we can scrape and it’s been a good lambing year through the Dale, prices’ll fall again.”
First feed and evening feeds, if Maggie didn’t chase after them with other tasks or school work, the boys and Agnes came to help. This evening only John-Jack, of the lads, were free. He’d done his figuring and reckoning all correct at school. Mike hadn’t, had extra for homework. Bert had slipped off out. His Mam would think he were with her, but Tizzie knew he’d gone with his mates. Pub most likely. John-Jack arrived carrying two safety lanterns and hooked them carefully on the nails in the wall.
“Easy work, that figuring?” Tizzie handed him two bottles and sent him to feed the two young tups. She watched him. Still growing, he made a lanky fourteen, had to tip his face down to speak to her, but his face were like Tom’s, clever and kind.
John-Jack winked. “Tricky, Auntie Tiz, but for us with sharp enough wits,” he tapped his forehead, “we can do it.” He settled himself on one of the chaff stuffed sacks Tizzie’d fettled together for seats. “I’ll do it for my living,” he suddenly confided. “I’ll not be farming when there’s more money and an easier life to have.”
“Going to join your Uncle Sam, then, be foreman in a mill?”
John-Jack gave Tizzie a cautious look. “Not like Uncle Sam, I’ll be in the counting office.” He stopped to see the effect of his words, began again anxiously. “You’ll not let on to Mam, will you, Auntie Tiz? She expects me to work here, doing Da’s accounts and labouring on the farm ‘til I wed.”
“Nay then, John-Jack, tha knows I can keep mum.”
John-Jack grinned, clearly counting up some of those past mischiefs which Tizzie had kept from his Mam. “Aye, sorry, Auntie Tiz, I do remember that right well.” He exchanged a kindly smile with her. “I’m fourteen now, taking that school diploma at the end of this year, then schoolmaster says if I keep good marks for my maths and figuring, improve my writing, in January, if Uncle Sam can’t help get me into his mill office, Sir Charles will find me a clerking job in an accounting office. His Lordship’s got investments in West Riding Mills and York breweries, schoolmaster says, and schoolmaster’s going to see that I’m entered for accounting examinations. With them passed I could even get work like clerking at the Friendly Society or perhaps, one day, in a bank. That’s lots of figuring and well paid for it. I fancy that.” One of his lambs lost the elder twig straw and wailed. John-Jack started, turned his attention back to the hungry one, but Tizzie marked his excited expression and the hope in his eyes. He had a future, a plan, and a means of getting there. So this were what this new schooling were about. This were what His Lordship meant by his plan. That the lads and lasses could go elsewhere to get work and support the family back home in the Dale. Tizzie liked the idea.
The lead mines faltered when she were a babe, and vanished when she were a lass. Work lost, men lost, families gone, villages died. Farmers held on, doing well, her Da even managed to put a bit by, but now farming looked to be going like the mines. Happen the schooling were His Lordship’s plan to save the Dale. He’d told them plain, if they suffered, he did too. Tizzie shivered, shrugged herself deeper into the old coat and prayed devoutly that the plan worked. It would be sad to see this village empty and fade away. She’d be one of those left behind to watch it all happen. She paused, gazing into the future and the lambs bleated. She unwrapped another lamb to feed. The five left in their bundles amongst the thick bed of reeds, bracken and straw turned their timid bleats and baas to frantic bawling as they smelt the warmed milk and honey their companions drank.
Agnes, hurrying through the hurdle gates, saw John-Jack and cried out above the hullabaloo. “Don’t let him feed my lambs, Aunt Tizzie.”
“Your lambs, young Aggie. Don’t you be hoping, little sister. You know Da. These are all spoken for.” But he spoke kindly.
“Don’t provoke, John-Jack. Here, Agnes.” Tizzie thrust the newest and weakest at her and raised her voice. “Set yourself over there, lass, and rub this little’un warm. I’ve saved your favourites, fret not, John-Jack won’t be feeding them.”
Tizzie took John-Jack’s now satisfied lambs to rub their coats and stroke their ears and faces until they were warm and sleepy. “You take the Society lambs next, lad, that’s it, those two nearest my feet. Agnes, there’s a filled bottle for each of your lambs put behind the chaff sacks you’re sitting on.”
Tizzie tucked up the two sleepy lambs and unwrapped the last two frantically hungry ones, stopping their mouths with milk. The silence which followed eased their ears. Tizzie breathed in the quiet. “That’s it, a bit of peace.”
Agnes, cuddling her lambs, sat next to her brother, sent a speculative look John-Jack’s way. “If I don’t get St Columba’s coin this time do you reckon our Da’d let me have these two for my own, John-Jack? Would you ask for me?”
Tizzie watched John-Jack’s face, saw him open his mouth, pause, close it. Whatever he’d meant to retort, he refrained, shook his head. “Ah, Aggie, they’re all spoken for. You know that. One of us gets them on St. Columba’s Day.”
The way he said ‘us’ excluded Agnes. It is fixed, thought Tizzie, he knows it’s fixed. He knows. That coin is going to Mike.
John-Jack leaned over to pat Agnes on the head in consolation. “ And this year Uncle Harry wants a new tup, his old ram’s past it,” he sniggered, then straightened his face as Tizzie frowned him down. “And Uncle Sam always likes his Christmas mutton.”
Agnes glowered. Her lower lip jutted dangerously, but she kept her temper. Tizzie, hands full of wriggling lambs, released pent in breath, started breathing again. She smiled at the lass. Looking out for Agnes, she needed eyes and ears in the back of her head as well as four pairs of hands. Even then it might not keep her safe. That quick spurt of the Cawthra temper, when she thought things were unjust, catapulted her into such hot water.
“Happen I’ll get that lucky coin,” Agnes said, struggling to be cheerful.
John-Jack said nothing, but Tizzie, glancing sideways, saw that he knew, knew for a certainty, that Agnes wouldn’t. He flicked a glance at Tizzie, and she saw warning in his eyes. The breath of the icy breeze which blew round the barn was nothing to the one freezing Tizzie’s heart. Agnes deserved better from her Mam and Dad. Indeed both herself and the lass deserved better from them.