Harriet approached the water’s edge and coolly acknowledged the half-a-dozen women gathered there stooping, filling and gossiping, for some of whom she had vague prior knowledge. Their conversation petered out as they eyed her distrustfully. Harriet ignored them and plunged the first pail into the depths of the stream, the ice-cold water shocking her as it rushed over her hands. She placed the pail carefully beside her and went to fill the next. As she did so, she looked up at the gaggle of women and watched with a hint of mirth as they hastily averted their gaze and attempted to rekindle the embers of the conversation that her presence had temporarily extinguished.
She went to turn her focus back to the task in hand when something caught her attention. Just beyond the Priory Bridge, a lone male figure stood staring in her direction. He held her gaze for longer than he might, owing to the fact that his poise and appearance conveyed that he was not from the Priory Ground; he was handsomely dressed and had the countenance of someone of importance. Harriet squinted and demanded more detail from the distant figure than her eyes could furnish.
Holding the second pail in the stream, she watched as the water quickly rushed in and spilled over her hand. She withdrew it, bent to pick the other up then set about her return journey. She turned one last time to glimpse the stranger on the hill, but he had vanished, as if he were only ever a creation of her own imagining.
Harriet arrived at the Black Horse exhausted. Her arms and hands were aching terribly but she was determined not to show it. She would not be beaten on her first foray into being treated as an adult.
Her mother arched an eyebrow and seemed suitably impressed so far. ‘I were expecting half pails on your first go,’ she commented with a wry smile.
Once she had set the water down, Harriet took a surreptitious glance at the insides of her fingers: stark, bloodless and white. She watched as her mother took one of the pails and began to sluice the floor. ‘I be off to Widow Elphick’s, then,’ Harriet said, hoping that her mother might have other more pressing jobs for her to attend to here.
A nodded agreement was all that Harriet received before her mother began to thrust a mop backwards and forwards over the wet floor.
Harriet found the street door and all of the window shutters on Widow Elphick’s house closed and thought for a moment about what to do. She had watched her mother do a particular kind of knock then simply enter the house without invitation. Could she also show the same informality? The alternative, to knock and wait was absurd; since the accident, Widow Elphick had been confined to bed and couldn’t come to the door even if she were so minded. Harriet knew that Christopher would be busy serving as an apprentice shoemaker to Mr Brazier, so she felt that she really had no choice in the matter. Tapping the door twice in quick succession, she lifted the latch and pushed it open. ‘Widow Elphick? Harriet Lovekin here. Can I be a-coming in?’ Harriet placed her head inside the parlour and strained her ear. Nothing. ‘Widow Elphick?’ she called again.
No response came and a sudden flash in her mind that perhaps Widow Elphick had fallen out of bed and was injured on the floor sent a cold shiver down Harriet’s spine. The image of her crippled body lying beside her bed was enough for Harriet to step into the house. Inside was dark and chilled; the fire grate held nothing more than a pile of ivory-white ash. Harriet closed the street door and listened. Nothing. She called out again but still heard nothing.
Setting down the pail of water, Harriet made her way to the bottom of the thin wooden staircase. ‘Widow Elphick? Do you be alright?’ She paused and then, with her heart beginning to thump, began a slow ascent of the stairs. Widow Elphick’s house was, like the Lovekin home, built of a simple timber construction. Upstairs Harriet found two bedrooms, both with their doors firmly shut. Taking a chance, she knocked on the backroom door then gently pushed it open.
She had chosen the correct room. There, sitting in bed wearing a white petticoat and a contemptuous look on her face, was Widow Elphick. ‘Certain-sure, I don’t be knowing what you’re a-doing in my bedroom, Miss Lovekin. If I weren’t bethered, I’d give you a darned good hiding,’ she barked. Great globules of spittle flew from her mouth as she spoke and her eyes were vexed with deep rage.
Harriet flinched, dumbfounded. Despite being the same age as her mother, Widow Elphick could easily have been twenty years her senior.
‘Well? What you sowing gape seed at? Your Pa will be a-giving you such a dish of tongues when he be hearing what you done,’ Widow Elphick seethed.
Finally, Harriet found her voice. ‘It were him what sent me, Widow Elphick—it were Pa. And Ma—I fetched you water from the stream.’
‘I don’t be seeing no water, Miss Lovekin,’ she said, her accusatory tone softening marginally.
‘It be downstairs, Widow Elphick. I were worried that…something had happened—what with the shutters being closed up and
