16

‘What d’you mean – she’s gone?’ said Da, when I went to his workshop to tell him.

There was a thud and a rattle as he put down his tools. He clicked his tongue too, which meant he wasn’t best pleased. Generally when he was working, Peg was my responsibility. I’d failed in that and I’d disturbed him in his workshop, and it made me feel pretty useless.

‘She won’t have got far,’ said Da. ‘She’ll be in the house somewhere, won’t she?’

I detected the coolness in his tone, the disappointment that I’d not quite measured up. It’d been there since Mam had died, and I’d just made it worse.

‘Tell me what happened,’ he said.

‘She … she … was upset and went to bed and now she, well, she isn’t there.’

‘Maybe she’s gone off to do laundry. Perhaps she’s up in the orchard hanging it out to dry.’

But we both knew Peg didn’t do laundry. Last time she’d tried, her frock shrank to doll-size and she’d sworn never to touch a bucket of lye again.

‘It’s sleeting,’ I said. ‘Not even Peg would put out washing in this weather.’

Da sniffed. Then came the sound of him putting on his jacket. ‘Still, we’d better have a look, hadn’t we?’

So we tried the orchard first. But it was so windblown and cold, it was obvious she wouldn’t linger there. Back inside, we called and called Peg’s name to no avail. The house was empty. All the while, my discomfort grew.

‘She’ll have gone to the village, I s’pect,’ said Da, though he was sounding increasingly concerned.

Then up in our bedchamber, I made another discovery. Peg’s woollen shawl, usually flung across the chair, wasn’t there. Nor were her stockings or her nightgown. The sixpence she kept under her pillow had gone too. The only thing she’d left was Spider, who’d woken up and was following me around, mewling for food. Though I tried my best to keep him out of Da’s way, it wasn’t long before the kitten was discovered. Da didn’t take this news well, either.

‘What’s got into you both?’ he cried. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I only found out myself this morning.’ I also wanted to point out that Peg had been out with him when she’d taken the kitten, not me. But it didn’t seem the right time to say so.

‘Well, it doesn’t look good for Peg, not now people are talking about all this poultry going missing. And if she has run off, well, that just makes her seem guilty, doesn’t it?’

‘She was upset about being blamed,’ I said. ‘She thinks everyone in Sweepfield hates her. Honestly, she sobbed her poor heart out.’

I felt truly terrible. What sort of big sister was I to let Peg get wrapped up in all this? I had to find her, and tell her everything would be all right and that we’d clear her name.

‘It’s Mr Walton that’s behind all this,’ I blurted out. ‘There’s some animal he’s got that escaped and ate our geese. It’s done it before too, but he’s letting Peg take the blame.’

Da cussed under his breath. For a split second, I thought it meant he believed me. And I was about to tell him more too, when he said, ‘That’s enough, Lizzie.’

Tears of frustration sprang into my eyes. ‘Won’t you even listen?’

‘No, because we need to find Peg, all right?’

‘It is true though, Da. I’m not making it up.’

‘I’ve not got time for this now, Lizzie,’ he snapped. ‘I’m going to ask in the village. Someone must’ve seen her or taken her in.’

I wiped my tears in my sleeve. I’d tell him all about what a genius Mr Walton was, even if I did have to wait for the right moment.

‘What shall I do?’ I asked.

‘You stay here in case she comes back,’ Da said. ‘And for once do as you’re told.’

*

It was late evening when Da returned. Straight away I knew Peg wasn’t with him. There was only one set of footsteps, and when he dropped into his seat by the fire, he gave an exasperated sigh that said more than any words.

‘No one’s seen her,’ he said, eventually. ‘It doesn’t make sense. People don’t just vanish.’

I thought of all those ducks and hens, and how our geese had gone too. Da was right; things didn’t just vanish. They got taken. Often by people or creatures who thought it was their right to do the taking.

This though was different.

Peg had been upset, enough to grab her clothes and leave. Not simply down the road, but somewhere where we couldn’t find her – all because of these awful rumours. I kept imagining her broken-limbed in a ditch or falling under the wheels of a stagecoach. It wasn’t much help. We had to think of where she might be heading.

Da didn’t sit still for long. Getting up again, he threw open the back door. I joined him in the doorway. The rain had passed, leaving the night clear and cool. Our yard was all grey stone and dark shapes.

‘The comet still up there, is it?’ I asked.

Da nodded. ‘’Tis bigger if anything. Got a grand tail on it, too.’

Which was how it’d looked on Midwinter’s Eve, a mighty tadpole shape burning through the heavens. It had been spectacular. And that same sense of dread I’d felt then still hung over me.

‘Why’s all this happening to us, Da?’ I asked. ‘All these bad things? Is it, like folks say, because of the comet?’

He took a deep breath through his nose. ‘People round here are superstitious, Lizzie. First, it was about the comet, then all this strange weather. And that day you got struck? It was a freak storm. Lightning in a snowstorm in January is mighty rare, so in a way it wasn’t a surprise that it got people talking and wondering why it happened to us.’

We’d not spoken of that day before. And now we were, I felt as if I’d been dragged from a cave, blinking at the daylight.

‘And,’ he said, ‘I’m not sure how to put this, but the talk’s not just been about Peg. It’s been about you, too.’

My stomach dropped away.

‘What d’you mean?’ Yet I knew exactly. I’d sensed those bellringers gawping. I guessed why Mrs Heathly had given us the brush-off, and perhaps even why Mrs Pringle didn’t really want Peg to have a kitten. And I knew that Mercy, out of kindness, had tried to keep me away from the village. Though it didn’t prepare me for hearing Da say it.

‘Your mother died, but somehow you survived,’ Da said. ‘Here you are, scarred and blind, and when people see you it reminds them of what happened. It unsettles them.’

‘Do you feel like that too, then?’ I asked. ‘Is that why you’ve been distant with me?’

He sighed, deep and weary, in a way that made him sound old.

‘No, Lizzie, I don’t and it isn’t,’ he said. ‘You went along with your mother that day when it clearly wasn’t safe. She had many strengths, your mam, but she was stubborn as a donkey. I just hoped you’d have more sense.’

The disappointment was there in his voice. Again.

*

I didn’t think I’d slept a wink that night. Nor did I bother going to bed. But the next I knew, I’d woken stiff and sore in a chair by the fire with Peg’s kitten curled in my lap. It was dawn. Someone was hammering on our door. This time it wasn’t Mr Henderson. Mercy was on our back step, having run all the way from the village, and was now almost too breathless to speak.

‘I’ve news,’ she gasped. ‘Peg was seen … late last night … getting on … mail coach … Bristol.’

My legs went weak with relief.

‘Oh thank goodness!’ Though I didn’t understand. ‘But Bristol? Why would she be going there?’

Or, come to think of it, why wouldn’t she, especially after how the people of Sweepfield had behaved towards her.

Bristol.

In my mind’s eye it was a place of tall brick houses and wide pavements where well-dressed, feather-hatted ladies walked. The whole city would be abuzz with talk of new ideas. They wouldn’t blame an innocent little girl if their hens went missing. Perhaps they didn’t even have hens.

Then the gate clicked again. The footsteps, slow and heavy, were Da’s. He’d been out all night scouring the fields for Peg.

‘Da!’ I cried. ‘We’ve news!’

He rushed over. ‘Where is she? Is she all right?’

Mercy repeated what she’d told me. Then Da asked her to tell it again, holding my hand and trembling from head to foot as she did so.

‘Bristol?’ he kept saying. ‘Why would she want to go to Bristol?’

But it was dawning on him too. Bristol was only twenty-five miles away, and coaches that went there and on to London travelled the Netherton road every day. It’d be easy enough to get to. And perhaps in such a busy place, Peg wouldn’t stand out and be talked about, but could melt into the crowds. I had to admit it sounded appealing.

‘Who saw her?’ I asked.

‘The man from the flour mill,’ Mercy said. ‘He came just this morning with our delivery. Said he saw her getting on the Bristol coach.’

‘He’s certain it was her?’ asked Da.

‘He said she had this puff of blonde curls and was wearing a green frock with a dirty apron over it. And that she gave the horses a pat before getting on board.’

It had to be Peg. Especially the last part.

‘How would she pay the fare?’ Da said.

‘She had a sixpence under her pillow,’ I told him. ‘She found it in the gutter and kept it, though she claimed she’d earned it in the summer clearing hay.’

It was another little Peg lie.

‘Was she with anyone else?’ I asked Mercy. ‘Did she seem upset?’

‘I’m sorry, I don’t know any more. I’d better get back before Mam thinks I’ve run off too. She needs me in the shop today. She sends you both this and her prayers.’ Mercy handed me a still-warm pie. Then she was gone.

Moments later Da was leaving too – to Bristol, he said, to find Peg and bring her home. Though not before he’d scratched out a note and pressed it into my hand.

‘Take this to Eden Court, Lizzie. It explains where I’ve gone and why it might delay my work a day or two.’

‘Eden Court?

‘Yes. Give the note to Mr Walton.’

I gulped. ‘Mr W-Walton? Won’t the footman do?’

‘No, poor Mr Jeffers is run off his feet up there. He’ll stuff that piece of paper in his pocket and forget it until suppertime. It must go directly to Mr Walton.’

‘Oh.’ I turned the note over in my fingers. ‘Right.’

‘And be polite, won’t you? I’m lucky Mr Walton wants to employ me after what happened last time you went there.’

My cheeks grew hot at the memory.

‘Take the main road and mind you keep close to the hedge. Come straight home; no going to Mercy’s when she’s working. Do it this morning, if you will.’

I nodded, trying to look attentive. I was desperate to prove to Da that I could do something properly. But the idea of going to Eden Court alone made me feel very nervous, especially if I had to see Mr Walton, who’d distinctly told me not to ‘visit’ again.

‘Da,’ I said. ‘I’ll be all right, won’t I?’

‘You’ll be fine, my girl,’ he said. ‘You might be as stubborn as your mother but you’re brave like her too.’

Though he didn’t kiss me, his words, at least, were something. The gate clicked shut behind him. Then he was gone.

The kitchen fell silent. It was too early to go to Eden Court. Fashionable households didn’t rise before ten, Mercy once told me. So I picked up some sewing, then put it down again. I added wood to the stove, brought in armfuls more from the barn, played with Spider and a piece of string. Nothing seemed to settle me. In the end, I grabbed my shawl and stuffed Da’s note in my pocket.

Never mind what time fashionable people rose. I was up and awake. Unlike before with the brass button, this time I’d make sure Mr Walton’s delivery reached him.