CHAPTER SEVEN
Whilst Jack was washing his hands Peggy took his breakfast – bacon, eggs and sausages – out of the bottom oven where it had been keeping warm and put it on the table, then went to the bread crock, brought out a large loaf and put it on a wooden board with a knife.
‘Don’t let it get cold,’ she told him. ‘Where’s your da? Is he done wi’ milking?’
‘Aye. He said he’ll be in in a minute.’
Peggy went into the scullery to wash up the girls’ breakfast crockery and called to Molly to fetch her coat from the hook in the lobby. ‘Ask Robin to help you wi’ buttons.’
‘I can do them by myself,’ she said as she went to do as she was bid, ‘but he can help me wi’ my boot laces.’
Robin followed her into the lobby and helped her on with her coat, whispering, ‘You fasten the top buttons, Molly, and I’ll fasten them from the bottom and then they’ll be done in double quick time and won’t Granny be surprised?’
Molly screwed up her face in delight, but struggled to fasten the top one and lifted her chin so that Robin could do it. He tied her boot laces and then put on his own jacket whilst she went back into the kitchen.
‘Look Gran! Look Da,’ he heard her say. ‘I’m ready in double quick time.’
‘So you are, honey lamb,’ her granny said. ‘What a clever girl.’
‘Where are you off to?’ he heard her father say. ‘You don’t usually go out at this time of a morning.’
‘I’m going on a great ’venture,’ she answered. ‘Wiv Robin.’
‘Are you now?’ Jack’s chair scraped back from the table as Robin came back into the kitchen and he sat with a sausage skewered on his fork as he gazed at Robin. ‘Who says?’
‘I do,’ Peggy said, drying her hands on a cloth as she came back in. ‘I’m going into Hedon and was planning on tekking Molly with me, but if you’ve got other ideas for her that’s all right. Or mebbe your wife will get out o’ bed and stop with her?’
Her tone was challenging and Jack turned back to the table to continue with his breakfast. ‘You know Susan’s not well,’ he mumbled.
‘You don’t have to mek excuses to me about her,’ his mother said sharply. ‘Pregnancy isn’t an illness, and after having four bairns she should know that.’
Jack shrugged and went on eating and then Aaron came in, saw Molly dressed in her coat and remarked, ‘Well you look very nice, Molly. Are you going off somewhere?’
She repeated what she’d already told her father and Robin glanced with interest from one to the other, wondering who would be the next to comment, but Aaron simply glanced at his wife, who said, ‘I’ll put your breakfast out, Aaron, if you’re ready. Molly, why don’t you show Robin the chickens?’
Molly at once took Robin’s hand, and as they went out of the outer door, he heard Jack arguing with his mother.
The air was cold and damp, the morning mist hovering over the fields, and the bare branches of trees stretched out like dark limbs against the grey sky. Robin looked into the near distance and saw shadowy shapes of animals cropping the ground.
‘Are those pigs?’ he asked.
‘Yes!’ Molly laughed. ‘They’re having their breakfast.’
‘Not bacon and eggs?’ he joked. ‘Like your da’s having?’
‘No, silly. Course not. They’ll be having barley and apple and leftover dinner, and milk! They like everything and they’re really, really greedy.’
‘Yum yum!’ Robin grinned. ‘Shall we go and have a look at them?’
‘If you like,’ Molly said. ‘But we can’t go into ’field cos there’re some pregnant ones – that means having babies,’ she explained, looking up at him, ‘and they don’t like being disturbed. My ma doesn’t either. She’s allus telling me to go away and play.’
They wandered over to the fence and stood on the bottom rail to look over into the field where the pigs were rooting about in straw and apples.
‘Those little roundish tin sheds. Is that where they sleep?’ he asked.
‘You are funny, Robin. Don’t you know anyfink?’
‘Not about farming, Molly,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to teach me.’
The little girl took a deep breath and then beamed at him. ‘I will,’ she said eagerly. ‘Nobody’s ever asked me afore and I know loads o’ fings.’
Granny Robinson called them from the doorway to come and get ready to go out.
‘I am ready,’ Robin said when they reached her. ‘Apart from my cap and scarf. I’ll get them now.’
‘Will you be warm enough?’ she said, and Robin saw her glance at his thin and rather worn jacket. ‘I’ll fetch a thicker scarf for you.’
As Peggy clicked her tongue and urged the old horse on towards Hedon, the thought trickled into her head that if she couldn’t find his mother and there was nowhere else for him to stay but with them, then he’d need winter clothes. I don’t know what I’m thinking of, she ruminated. We must find his mother.
She’d brought him a woollen muffler and a blanket, which she said they could put over their knees if they were cold.
‘This is lovely, isn’t it, Robin?’ Molly said gleefully, tucking the blanket around hers and Robin’s knees. ‘Is this our ’venture?’
‘You’ve been to Hedon lots o’ times, Molly,’ Peggy said. ‘We were there for ’hiring fair yesterday, weren’t we?’
‘But I haven’t been wiv Robin afore and Robin asks me fings that he don’t know and I do.’
‘What kind o’ things?’
Molly giggled. ‘About pigs and their little huts; they’re called pigsties, Robin, or they would be if they were in ’yard and built o’ brick; and do you know what, Gran? He asked me if they were having bacon and eggs for breakfast!’
‘I reckon he’s a town or city boy, don’t you, Molly?’ Peggy called over her shoulder and wondered if innocent little Molly might find out more about Robin than they could.
‘He doesn’t know very much, but I’m
