‘Will you drop me and Alice off in Thorn, Uncle Jack?’ one of the girls called.
‘Aye. What about you, Ben? Do you want dropping off in ’village?’
‘Aye, please,’ the other boy said. ‘I can walk up ’lane. You’d not get ’wagon up there anyway.’
‘I wasn’t offering to tek you to ’door,’ Louisa’s father muttered. ‘You’ve got a good pair o’ legs, haven’t you?’
All the children raised their eyebrows and some snorted behind their hands when Ben said cheekily, ‘Well, I had a fine pair last time I looked.’
The wagon was drawn to a halt by a road sign marked Thorngumbald and the three children jumped down.
‘See ’lasses safe home, young Ben, and go straight home yoursen,’ their driver called after the lad, who lifted his arm in answer and ran off, with the two girls trailing behind him.
‘Are you all cousins?’ Jack whispered to Louisa. ‘Or friends?’ He thought it would be wonderful to have either. He didn’t know any children of his own age; he never attended one school for long enough to make friends. I might like to stay here, he thought, when Louisa nodded.
They took a right turn out of the village and trundled down a very long rutted road. ‘Where are we going now?’ he whispered again.
‘Home,’ Louisa whispered back, and then asked, ‘Why are we whispering?’
He bit on the side of his thumb where a loose piece of skin dangled. ‘Will they let me stay?’
Louisa’s lips parted. She clearly hadn’t given it any thought. She shook her head. ‘Don’t know,’ she breathed. ‘Gran might. Ma won’t like it.’
‘I’m a very useful boy,’ he murmured.
She nodded. ‘We’ll tell them that.’
‘Where do you live? Is it far?’
‘Not far now. We live near Paull. On a farm.’
His heart sank. That’s where we went last night; to my mother’s parents’ house. What if it was the same house? What if Louisa’s gran was the woman who had turned them away? He hadn’t seen her well enough to be sure, but he thought she couldn’t be the same person as the woman who had sat opposite him at the table. The woman last night didn’t like children or she would have let them in, and the woman sitting opposite had seemed very jolly and smiley with everyone.
The road was different too, he thought; the fields and hedges looked well kept to a city boy unused to the country. There was a lowing of cattle and the bleating of sheep, and as the road dipped up and down he saw low shelters over the hedges and heard the grunting of pigs. He was pleased that he could once again smell salt water; the sky was beginning to darken and long silver and purple streaks ran across it. He turned his head to look behind him and saw that the sunset was filling the whole sky, and he gazed at it in wonder.
‘Look there,’ Louisa whispered and pointed beyond her father’s head. ‘From here you can see Lincolnshire on ’other side of ’Humber.’
‘Oh, yes!’ he said. It wasn’t like looking across the Thames from the Embankment where there were many fine buildings on the other side. Across this water could be seen a long low landscape with chimneys issuing thick grey smoke into the sky, and on the estuary itself were sea-going ships and trawlers, coal barges and smaller fishing boats.
‘Open ’gate, Louisa.’ Her father’s command was terse as he drew up the horse. ‘Come on, look sharp. I’m gasping for a mug o’ tea.’
Louisa climbed over the side of the wagon and dropped down to push open a wide farm gate, which she held until they had driven through and then closed after them, dropping a metal bar over the top of the post. An old horse still harnessed to a trap stood in the yard.
The woman with the reddish hair came out of the door of a long and well-built farmhouse. ‘Your ma’s gone to have a lie down,’ she said to the girls as they all climbed out of the wagon, ‘so don’t mek a noise when you go upstairs.’
The boy waited for Molly, who was last, and helped her to jump down. Then he turned and saw the woman gazing at him, and he glanced at Louisa.
‘So who’s this then? Are you our Janet’s grandson? Richard’s lad?’
He pressed his lips together and shook his head; heading towards the door Louisa’s father turned when he heard the question, hesitated, and then took a step back.
Louisa came and stood next to him. ‘He’s come to stay wi’ us for a bit, Gran,’ she said, taking hold of his hand. ‘I said you wouldn’t mind. He’s a very useful boy.’
CHAPTER FIVE
It was beginning to drizzle with rain and Peggy told them to go inside. They went through a small room where there were cupboards and a small grate with a metal pot set above it, and a deep sink with a water pump at the side. Jack had never seen such things before. Louisa took off her boots and placed them next to others in a box, so he did the same and stood waiting in his socks for further instruction.
‘Well, are you coming in or staying out there all night?’ The question was brisk but not unkind, and the curly-haired woman gestured to an open door into another room where a bright fire burned in an enormous range. Louisa took his hand again and led him in; there was a large table in the middle of the room, with benches on both sides and high-backed wooden chairs at each end. The grey-bearded man who had been sitting next to the woman in the Sun Inn was reclining comfortably in an old chair by the range, his stockinged feet stretched towards the warmth.
He glanced up as they entered and said, ‘Shut ’door behind you, Jack. You’re letting all ’heat out.’
The boy was about to obey when he realized that the command wasn’t meant for him but
