Alice wondered whether she would always remember the moment she found out. Would she always carry that pain with her? Would there be long years of adjusting to it, until it became a tight, hard kernel, buried deep inside, a secret to take with her to the grave?
It was Louisa, their neighbour, who’d told her, pausing as she opened her gate to exclaim over Elisabeth and how she was growing. ‘Nearly six months old already! Why, it doesn’t seem five minutes since she was born!’ Louisa confided that she was dead on her feet. The marriage of Master Richard and that stuck-up Miss Caroline was due to take place on Saturday and it was all bustle and panic at the big house. What with guests from Leeds and Manchester, and the bride’s parents coming all the way from Cambridge, there were beds to be made up all over the house and dishes to be prepared for the wedding breakfast. Louisa couldn’t see how they would ever get everything done in time, what with Mrs Weatherall changing her mind every five minutes about menus, and who was to have the rooms with the best views. And had she heard that Mr Weatherall was to give his workers a half-day on the Saturday, so they could come and toast the newly-weds?
Louisa registered the shock on Alice’s face. ‘I know – it’s the talk of the mill. A half-day! That means a whole day and a half at the weekend. And a glass or two of ale thrown in, to boot. Not that we’ll benefit, mind. It’s just another job for us on a day when we’ll be rushed off our feet from first light as it is.’
Louisa turned to head up her path when a thought struck her. ‘Why don’t you come along too? When word spreads around the village, anyone who’s able to make it up that path will be there, I’ll be bound. Miss Caroline’s dress is going to cause a stir. She sent for it to London. I’ve heard it’s one of the new fashions from Paris: all silk and lace.’
Louisa carried on up the path to her front door, bone weary and longing for her bed, with the knowledge of the start of another day but a few hours away. Alice remained rooted to the spot on her own path, Elisabeth clutched to her breast, all thought of what she was supposed to be doing – delivering a remedy to one of Sarah’s housebound patients – wiped from her mind. When she’d last seen Richard, in their usual spot above the river, he’d said nothing. Her mind raced. Was it possible that he wasn’t planning to go through with it? That he would come and claim her, claim them both, his little family? Even as the thought passed through her mind, she knew the answer, and her mind leapt ahead to what this would mean for them. Her heart felt as if it had been pierced by an arrow, its tip alternately a tongue of flame or a shard of ice. If it hadn’t been for the dim awareness of Elisabeth in her arms she would have sunk to her knees. She wasn’t sure how long she stood there, motionless, but dusk was falling when suddenly she was aware of Sarah at her side, and of Elisabeth struggling and wailing, pink in the face.
‘What ails you? Here, let me take Elisabeth. You’ll crush all the breath out of her.’ Sarah gently unclenched Alice’s hands and released Elisabeth, then put her free arm around Alice and drew her into the house, entreating her to take her arm, to rest her weight on her. Once in the house, she bade the younger ones play with Elisabeth and distract her from her fretfulness, while she cajoled Alice up the stairs and into the bedroom.
‘There, there,’ she soothed, murmuring into Alice’s hair as if she were a small child again, helping her into the bed and under the covers. Alice turned her blank, pale face to the wall. Sarah found her like this when she came up the stairs a little while later, bearing a cup of steaming liquid.
‘Drink this. It will help you sleep, help to ease whatever it is that causes you pain.’
In the days that followed, the little house at the end of the village was home to a very subdued family. Sarah yearned to know what ailed Alice, who kept to her bed, quiet and ashen-faced, rousing herself to ask occasionally, ‘Has there been word for me?’ before sinking back into her reverie when it was clear there was none. Sarah’s anxiety over Alice made her short-tempered with the little ones, who crept around and amused themselves as much as possible, glad of the lovely weather that allowed them to be out in the garden, away from the tense atmosphere that pervaded the house.
Elisabeth was probably the most bewildered. She lay beside Alice in the bed, kicking her legs and waving her fists, occasionally turning her head to gaze at her mother. It distressed Sarah to see how quickly Elisabeth picked up on Alice’s mood. Getting no response from her mother, she ceased to make eye contact and lay quiet beside her, pupils big in the half-light of the room, already learning what sorrow meant. Sarah had hoped that Elisabeth’s presence would rouse Alice but, fearful for the effect on the baby, she started to keep her away, downstairs where the atmosphere was a little more cheerful. Thomas, Annie and Beattie couldn’t keep still and quiet for long, and Sarah was relieved to see Elisabeth respond to their high spirits, giggling and beaming smiles at one and all. Sarah hoped it was just over-sensitivity on her part that made her see a reservation, a dark cloud, an anxiousness in Elisabeth’s moments of repose, when she would gaze around the room as if looking for something, or someone, lost or missing.
On the third evening, Ella burst in from the mill in her usual fashion, exhausted but delighted to be home. She swept Elisabeth up from the nest of quilts and blankets that Annie and Beattie had created for her and gave her a big kiss, prompting squeals and giggles.
‘We’re to have a half-day on Saturday,’ she announced. ‘And we’re to go up to the big house to celebrate. Master Richard is getting married and there’s to be a party!’
‘Can we come? Can we come?’ Annie and Beattie clustered around her, tugging at her skirts, trying to catch her hands.
‘No, no,’ Ella protested, brushing them off as she turned to go up the stairs. ‘Mill workers only. At least, I think so,’ she added, frowning. ‘Maybe the village will be invited too? You’ll have to wait and see.’
Sarah stood in the kitchen, listening and wondering. She smoothed her apron and bit her lip, turning automatically to set a pan of water to boil on the range. Could this have anything to do with Alice’s grief? She thought for a few moments, then brushed the thought away. From the little that she’d seen of him, Master Richard didn’t seem like the sort of man to try to take advantage of the women at the mill. He was nothing like the rough brutes they chose as overlookers. He always looked as though his thoughts were many miles away from the valley, in a much better place.