The hammering of nails being put into the slates to secure the roof could be heard from above, and Lucy listened as she heard Adam stop and start again as he balanced himself precariously on the roof. Then she heard him swear and curse, as something had dropped out of his hands and had slid down the roof, bouncing and clattering the full length and ending up on the ground below. Knowing what a struggle it must have been for him to get up on the roof in the first place, Lucy ran out of the house and went round to the back, where the ladder was positioned against the wall, with Adam still cursing on the roof.
‘Sir, are you alright? I don’t think you should be up there,’ Lucy yelled.
‘I’ve dropped my bloody hammer, and I need another of those two slates.’ Adam wobbled and tried to straighten his leg in order to come back down the roof to get what he needed.
‘Stay there. I’ll bring them up to you and then I’ll see you down,’ Lucy shouted up to him and grabbed both hammer and slates, tucking them under her arm as she gathered her long skirts up and climbed, rung by rung, up the ladder.
‘Mind you don’t break your neck. Your father would hang me if you fell, because it would be all my fault.’ Adam looked at the determined young lass as she balanced what he needed under her arm and appeared at the edge of the roof, with flushed cheeks.
‘You are more likely to break your neck than me. I told you it wasn’t a fit job for you to do, with that dicky leg.’ Lucy caught her breath and looked up at Adam, forgetting who she was talking to as she passed him the slates. ‘Don’t worry about me. I’ve always been a tomboy – I could climb any tree better than my brothers, if it wasn’t for these skirts that us women have to wear.’ She grinned as Adam took the slates and placed the tiling nails securely between his lips, unable to argue with her, as she waited for him to finish the job in hand. ‘It’s a grand view up here. You feel like you are on top of the world.’ Lucy gazed around her as Adam hammered the nails down, securing the slates into position and making the roof dry.
‘I’ll just be glad to get back down – never mind the view.’ Adam cautiously edged his way back to the ladder, after throwing the hammer down onto the grassy bank at the back of the house. ‘Mind out. I’m coming, and my leg feels dead with cramp, so if I don’t fall on you, you’ll be lucky.’ He waited for a second, watching Lucy, who quickly climbed down the ladder out of his way, then stood and watched attentively as he reached for each rung of the ladder with his good leg first, and then his bad one. Eventually he reached the ground, his legs shaking with the effort, and brushed himself down and looked at Lucy. ‘Thank you. I don’t think I could have done that without your help.’
‘Perhaps next time you need to get a fitter man to do the job, sir, or at least someone with two good legs,’ Lucy stated as she looked drily at him.
‘Perhaps you are right, Lucy. I should know my limitations.’ Adam smiled at his straight-talking maid, without whom he’d have still been up on the roof. ‘But I’m a stubborn devil and I don’t like to admit defeat.’
‘No, neither do I, sir, but there are some things I’m not daft enough to do, especially when I could kill myself doing them. Now I’ll put the kettle on and go and put my bread in the oven; it should have risen well by now.’
Adam sat at the table and looked across at Lucy. ‘You seem to have made yourself at home here already.’
‘Well, I know that you are in need of looking after – it’s as plain as the nose on my face. It’s like my mother says: it’s a woman’s touch that makes a home, and menfolk are no good at making things pretty about the house.’ Lucy grinned as she watched Adam sip his tea, while he glanced at the Welsh dresser with its array of blue-and-white china proudly displayed upon it. ‘I’ll make the list that you need for when you go into Keighley, after the bread has come out of the oven. You’ve no polish left and there are not many candles, not to mention flour, eggs and the like. What you have already won’t last very long, so I hope that you are not short of brass.’
‘No, I think I can manage to pay for what we need. Stocking the house’s cupboards is the least of my worries. Next week I’ll have to start and look for some stock for the land, but first I’ll have to get some better pain relief for this leg of mine. It’s letting me down, and I can’t be having that, when I need to inspect the boundary walls and perhaps mend and repair them.’ Adam sighed. He was beginning to think his idea of living back in his old home had been a foolish fantasy and that he was going to struggle with his new lifestyle.
‘You need somebody to help you. Archie Robinson, the lad who brought your limewash, is a good hand at anything. He only works three days a week for my father, and the rest of the time he does odd jobs for people.
