‘Thank you.’ Amber inclined her head and after taking a deep breath she entered the shop.
She saw her uncle immediately. He was standing behind the counter serving a customer so she stood back until he’d finished. He looked older than she remembered, but then it had been some years since she’d seen him. His hair was streaked with grey now but his eyes were still exactly the same colour as her mother’s and she could tell straightaway that they were related. She approached the counter cautiously and when he looked up, she said, ‘Hello, Uncle Jeremiah, I’m Amber. Your sister Alice’s daughter.’
He stared at her for a moment before nodding. ‘Yes, I can see you are now. But my, how you’ve grown. You were just a child the last time I saw you. How is your mother and what brings you here?’
Amber blushed as she noticed that some of the customers who were browsing in the shop were staring at her. Jeremiah noticed too and lifting the lid on the counter he beckoned to her. ‘Come on through to the back. Young Archie here can mind the shop for a while.’
Archie proved to be the young man she had met outside and he gave her a smile as her uncle ushered her into a small room at the back of the shop. There was a little stove in the corner where they obviously boiled water for their tea breaks and two mismatched wing chairs that had certainly seen better days. The rest of the room was stacked with surplus stock.
‘So,’ he said as lifted the kettle onto the small stove to boil. ‘I hope you’re not the bearer of bad news?’
Without a word, Amber handed him the letter from her mother and wrung her hands as he placed a pair of spectacles on the end of his nose and proceeded to read it. Once he was done, he narrowed his eyes and stared at her as Amber shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot.
‘So why can’t you stay at home with your mother until the child is born?’ he asked curiously and Amber gulped.
‘I, er?.?.?. that is, me husband and me had our own place an’ I’ve had to give it up,’ she mumbled. She had never been very good at lying. ‘An’ me mam ain’t got room for me there wi’ all me brothers an’ all. But just as soon as the baby is born, I can go back,’ she hurried on. ‘An’ me mam will have found a place fer me by then an’?.?.?.’ Her words trailed off as she saw the look on her uncle’s face. He clearly didn’t believe a word her mother had written and certainly nothing she’d said.
Her shoulders sagged as she slowly turned to leave, but before she had reached the door her uncle’s voice stayed her as he said gently, ‘So why don’t we start again and we’ll have the truth this time.’
She turned back and stared at him for a moment and then stumblingly she began to tell him what had happened. Of her affair with her master and the gold sovereign he had given her to get rid of the child, and once she was done, tears were raining down her cheeks.
‘I?.?.?. I thought he loved me,’ she choked. ‘But I was a fool, he was just using me.’
Jeremiah frowned. ‘Hm, well it seems to me that what has happened to you isn’t all your fault. You were led astray by someone who should have known better and I can see why you couldn’t stay at home,’ he said cautiously. ‘But what are you planning to do with the child once it’s born?’
‘I, er?.?.?. was goin’ to leave it on the steps o’ the poorhouse,’ Amber admitted in a small voice.
‘I see.’ He stroked his chin as the kettle began to sing. ‘Look, I’m going to need to think about this. Go back to the house. Mrs Carter will take care of you and we’ll talk more tonight when I get home.’
Amber nodded and on feet that felt like lead she slowly left the shop to retrace her steps. Once she had reached the house again, she took a deep breath and this time when she knocked on the door it was opened by the maid. Mrs Carter had obviously told her about Amber’s visit and she ushered her into the hallway just as Mrs Carter came bustling along towards her.
‘Ah, you’re back then. Did you manage to see your uncle?’
‘Yes, thank you, he told me to wait here till he got home from work.’
‘Then we must get you something to eat to tide you over till dinner time. You must be hungry,’ Mrs Carter said, not unkindly, and turning to the maid she asked her, ‘Bring some bread and cheese and a pot of tea into the drawing room, would you please, Biddy?’
Biddy nodded as she stared at Amber curiously. She was a short, plump woman who Amber judged to be in her mid- to late-thirties. She was neatly clad in a plain grey gown over which she wore a white apron, and her mousy-coloured hair was covered by a white mob cap, which sat askew on her head.
‘Yes, ma’am,’ she answered as she turned away and Amber noted that she had a severe limp that made her waddle from side to side as she set off in the direction of the kitchen.
‘Right, my dear, this is the drawing room,’ Mrs Carter told Amber ushering her into a large room with a deep bay window that had a glorious view across the road towards the sea. It was plainly but comfortably furnished and very much a man’s room. There were no flowers or feminine touches about the place and as Mrs Carter saw Amber taking it all in she lifted a cushion from a leather wing chair to one side of the empty fireplace and plumping it up she grinned. ‘Your uncle has very simple tastes,’ she told her as if she could read her mind. ‘He’s never been one for frills and furbelows. Oh, and I should warn you, Biddy is a little, er?.?.?.’ She tried to think of a kindly way to explain the woman. ‘Slow,’ she said eventually. ‘But she’s a good worker and totally devoted to Mr Harding. She’s worked here for almost as long as I have. He took her from the poorhouse when she was fourteen years old. They were going to turn her out on to the streets but Mr Harding took her in for a trial and she’s been here ever since. Biddy and I keep the house running between us. I do the cooking and manage the accounts and Biddy does the laundry and the majority of the cleaning.’
At mention of the poorhouse Amber’s stomach sank. Would her child be tipped on to the streets when it reached fourteen? she wondered. But then she pushed the thought away. There was no point in going soft now; she had chosen the path she must go down and there could be no going back.
Biddy hobbled back in shortly after with a tray of sandwiches and a pot of tea which she placed on a small table in the bay window and now Amber saw what Mrs Carter had meant about her. There was a childlike manner in the way she spoke and she seemed to be constantly looking at Mrs Carter for instructions.
‘You may go now, Biddy. Perhaps you could go out to the yard to see if the washing is dry?’ Mrs Carter suggested, and with a lopsided smile the woman shuffled away and Mrs Carter turned back to Amber. ‘I’ll leave you to enjoy your snack for now then, Miss Ainsley.’
‘Oh please?.?.?. just call me Amber.’
‘Very well, Amber,’ the woman answered with a kindly smile before she swept from the room in a rustle of stiff skirts and petticoats.
The rest of the afternoon passed slowly for Amber as she sat watching the world go by from the window, until at six o’clock sharp, just as Mrs Carter had predicted, she saw her uncle heading along the road. She took a deep breath. All she could do now was pray that he would allow her to stay here until after the baby’s birth. If he didn’t, she had no idea what she was going to do, but one thing was for sure, there could be no going back home. If she did she dreaded to think of what her father might do when he learnt she was with child, or worse still, what Barnaby might do when he discovered that she hadn’t got rid of it as he’d ordered!
Chapter Five
Sitting across the dining room table from her uncle, Amber pushed the food about her plate. Apart from acknowledging her when he had returned home and requesting that she join him for dinner, he had said not a word and now she was nervous as she wondered if he would allow her to stay.
