Brushing the coating of snow from one of the large stones that rose up from the streambed, Harriet perched herself on its flat cold surface. She scanned the snow-covered hills but knew that the stranger hadn’t come again. There had been no sign of him since the night of the incident. When the aftershocks of the event had settled, she had casually asked her mother about the mysterious man at the bar. ‘He were an odd one, he were,’ her mother had judged. ‘Something untoward in his character. Thought he weren’t stopping long when he skipped out soon after getting his first drink. Must have liked us, though, because he came back and spent most of the night in liquor.’ When Harriet had probed further, her mother had dismissed her questions and changed the subject.
Harriet shuddered as the feelings she had felt that night resurfaced, suddenly coiling around her chest, like a constricting snake. Her eyes darted all around, half expecting to catch the formless shape of her assailant lumbering up the hill towards her. She exhaled slowly, trying to rid herself of the choking sensation. He’s gone, she told herself. Pa said so. ‘He were an itinerant cadger on the look for anything his grimy hands could be a-getting,’ he had told her when she had pressed him as to the outcome of the conflict. ‘And he don’t be a-coming back.’ Her father had been uncharacteristically sympathetic towards her since then, largely directing his displeasure at Keziah and Ann having been left alone at night. Harriet had, of course, promised never to venture out at night again, which had seemed to satisfy her mother and father.
As her breathing returned to normal, Harriet noticed that the coldness from the stone was beginning to sting the backs of her thighs. Warm prickly blood surged back into her legs as she stood and carried the pails to the edge of the stream and began to fill them.
With each pail filled to the brim, Harriet left the stream and walked briskly towards the Black Horse. The snow, cascading now in larger chunks, fell silently around her, slowly encasing the landscape in white. As she walked she made sure to keep her eyes fixed to the floor, avoiding the condemning gazes of folk who had heard snatches of half-truths about her being caught outside the houses of ill-fame after dark.
Harriet was frozen through when she finally reached the Black Horse. She pushed on the handle, expecting it to burst open and to see her mother cleaning the floor as usual, but the door resisted against her, forcing water to slop over the side of the buckets. She set the pails down and tried again, but it was locked and she noticed then that the window shutters were also still closed. Where was her mother? she wondered. She had seemed perfectly normal at the breakfast table this morning and gave no indication that she wouldn’t be undertaking her usual routine. Harriet continued along the path to the house, set the pails down outside and entered the dim parlour. A thin reed candle was burning on the dresser, strong shadows climbing the windows and ceiling and a fire was gently burning in the stone hearth.
‘Hello? Does anyone be here?’ she called.
There was a sound upstairs then Keziah and Ann appeared. ‘We be here!’ Ann called happily.
‘Where be Pa and Ma?’ Harriet asked.
‘Widow Elphick’s,’ Keziah answered.
That both her parents were at Widow Elphick’s first thing in the morning struck Harriet as odd. She suddenly feared that something bad had happened. ‘What do they be doing there?’
Keziah shrugged. ‘They only just be gone.’
Harriet turned around, collected the water and strode through the snow to Widow Elphick’s house. She hurriedly knocked the special tap on the street door, then stepped inside. The parlour, much like the one that she had just left, was empty but for a burning fire. Standing still and listening carefully, Harriet heard muffled voices from Widow Elphick’s bedroom. She made her way to the stairs and began to creep up, the voices solidifying as she neared. She had quickly learned, from the times when Widow Elphick had been napping, how to navigate the stairs undetected; fear of waking the sleeping dragon had been a good teacher. The voices crispened as she achieved the top and Harriet hunkered down and listened.
‘Do you be certain-sure you be wanting me to read it?’ Harriet heard her father’s voice ask.
A barked affirmation was all the response that Harriet caught from Widow Elphick.
‘Dear Widow Elphick, we beg leave to transmit the interim conclusions and findings from a report into the ownership and legal entitlements of the dwelling tenement in which you currently reside. Following consultation with the Law Officers, it has been determined that these derelict lands form neither part of the adjoining land in the ownership of Lord Chichester nor the lands issued by a grant made to the Corporation of Hastings in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. It has been the will of the Law Officers to pass the matter to the Commissioners for Woods, Forests and Land Revenues for further investigation. We regret that this decision might not be aligned to your expectations in wishing to assert your right to sell the tenement currently held by you.’
‘Blame me! What a load of balderdash,’ Widow Elphick cried. ‘I don’t get a word of it!’
‘It mean you don’t be owning
