Thankfully the men left shortly after to begin their jobs so she settled the child down with a saucepan and a wooden spoon to play with while she cleared the breakfast pots from the table. The room looked very different now to when she had first arrived, for during the time she’d been there Amber had scrubbed and polished everything in sight – not that any of the family seemed to appreciate it. They seemed quite happy living in squalor so long as their meals were on the table, but at least Amber had the satisfaction of knowing that Charlotte was sitting on a clean floor now.
By the time the old lady appeared, her wispy grey hair standing about her head in a halo and still in her grubby nightgown, the pots were all washed and dried.
‘So what do you want me to do today?’ Amber asked as she poured her a cup of tea from the large brown earthenware teapot. It was quite stewed by then but Mrs Barstow didn’t seem to mind as she slurped at it.
‘Yer can try yer ’and in the dairy,’ she told her. ‘We could do wi’ some cheese to tek to market on Thursday.’
Amber’s heart sank as she glanced at Charlotte who was sitting like a little statue staring into space. There was no way she could take the baby in there with her, but as if she had read what she was thinking Mrs Barstow piped up, ‘I’ll keep me ear open fer the bairn.’
‘Thank you.’ Amber bent to drop a kiss on Charlotte’s springy curls. ‘I’ll be back mid-morning to give her some milk. Are you sure you’ll manage?’
‘I ’ad three o’ me own, didn’t I? Though there’s only two of ’em survived,’ Mrs Barstow said as she began to lavishly butter a slice of toast. So with some trepidation Amber set off for the dairy.
As promised, when she judged it to be mid-morning, she scurried back to the kitchen only to stop dead in her tracks when there was no sign of Charlotte.
‘Where is she?’ she demanded. But before Mrs Barstow could answer she heard a sound coming from the small cupboard where the men kept their coats and boots and flying over to it she flung the door wide to see Charlotte sitting on the floor in the darkness sobbing her little heart out. Amber snatched the quivering little body into her arms and turned on the old woman. ‘What thehelldid you lock her in there for?’ Her voice shook with fury as she rocked Charlotte up and down.
‘She wouldn’t stop whingin’ so I thought I’d teach ’er a lesson. You’re too soft wi’ that bairn, that’s the problem!’
‘Howdareyou!’ Amber had never been so angry in her life. ‘If you ever?.?.?.everdo that to her again I’ll be out of here like a shot, I promise you that!’
‘Oh, keep yer ’air on. She’s all right, ain’t she?’
Amber slammed over to the range to warm some milk for the infant but she was shaking with rage. Thankfully Charlotte’s crying had stopped and before the milk was warm she had fallen asleep on her mother’s shoulder, worn out with fear and crying.
‘It’s all right my little lass,’ she whispered to her. ‘That’ll never happen again, I promise.’ She sat for a good half an hour holding the child and if the old woman didn’t like it then Amber decided she could lump it.
On Thursday the farmer and his wife set off for market and Amber sighed with relief when the little pony and cart pulled out of the farmyard. Had Melvin and Harold gone with them it would have been better still, but unfortunately they stayed behind to continue with their chores, although thankfully Amber didn’t see much of them apart from when they came in for their meals and she was heartened to find that as the day progressed Charlotte seemed to be a little more alert.
It was early evening when the farmer got back and both he and his wife were pleased as they’d sold all of their produce.
‘They still ain’t caught the buggers who done fer the old postmistress,’ Mrs Barstow told her over dinner. ‘But Bertie Preston an’ ’is cronies are nowhere to be found. That tells yer somethin’, don’t it? They’re the prime suspects be all accounts an’ the police are offerin’ a reward if anyone can tell ’em where they are.’
Amber kept her eyes on her plate. She saw no reason to tell them that Bertie had once wanted to marry her and that they’d been brought up in the same yard.
‘Some o’ the women that came to the stall was on about the young mistress up at Greenacres an’ all.’ Mrs Barstow went on as she loaded her fork and rammed the food into her mouth. ‘They reckon the poor young bugger is on ’er last legs now. The reverend were called out to see ’er yesterday, apparently, so I doubt it’ll be long now.’ Food was spraying all over the table and Amber averted her eyes, revolted. She was sure the pigs in the sties had better table manners than this family did.
Amber glanced at Charlotte, who was lying quietly on the hearthrug in front of the fire. For some reason over the last few days she had stopped crying. In fact, she seemed to have stopped doing everything and she was worried that she might be sickening for something. She just lay there hour after hour like a little rag doll with a glazed look in her eyes. Amber almost preferred the crying; this wasn’t like Charlotte at all.
‘Do you think I should call the doctor in to take a look at her?’ she’d asked Mrs Barstow before she left for market and after quickly feeling the baby’s forehead the old woman shook her head.
‘Ner, she ain’t ’ot. She’s probably just realised that ’er cryin’ won’t get ’er anywhere.’
And so Amber had reluctantly taken her advice, but she had hardly taken her eyes off Charlotte all day.
Once dinner was over and she had washed and dried all the pots, Mrs Barstow, who had resumed her favourite position in the fireside chair smoking her clay pipe, pointed to the bucket of pig swill by the door.
‘Pop that over to the pigs would yer?’
Amber frowned. ‘But I was just about to give Charlotte some milk. Couldn’t one of the men do it?’
‘They’ve been graftin’ all day,’ Mrs Barstow remarked, as if Amber hadn’t. ‘An’ I’ll give the little ’un her milk. Pass it over ’ere!’
Reluctantly Amber handed it over and once she had placed Charlotte on the old woman’s lap, she lifted the bucket and set off across the yard to the pigsties where she quickly emptied the food into the long metal trough. Instantly the enormous pigs came snuffling towards it and she leant on the wall surrounding the sty, watching them with a smile. She couldn’t deny that the animals were cared for and that was something at least.
It was a beautiful evening and she suddenly wished that she could go for a walk to Whitby Abbey and watch the sea from the clifftop. But that was out of the question. The fewer people who knew where she was the better so it was for the best if she didn’t venture far from the farm. She had written to her mother to tell her where she was and had received a letter in reply in which her mother urged her to take Charlotte to Scarborough where she and the baby would be welcome, but Amber didn’t want to do that. Her uncle and Mrs Carter would be getting married very soon and they had already been kind enough to offer her mother a home when she was widowed so Amber didn’t want to be a further burden on them, as tempting as the offer was. But overriding this, she was far more afraid that her uncle’s would be one of the first places Barnaby might go to look for her and she shuddered at the thought of losing Charlotte again.
She was so lost in thought that she didn’t hear someone come up behind her until an arm snaked about her waist. She started and pulled away. She knew who it was before she even turned around by the smell of him: it was Melvin and his expression was ugly.
