The thread of conversation lulled and Harriet shifted slightly, straining her ears to recapture it. Then she realised that nobody was speaking: the three adults were trying to digest the words that her father had just relayed.
‘I be a-needing rest,’ Widow Elphick snarled, shattering the silence and making Harriet leap up and hurry down the stairs.
In the kitchen, she plunged a glass into the bucket of water, put it to one side, then began busying herself in the larder.
‘Hattie?’ her mother’s voice said moments later.
‘Oh, hello, Ma—I were preparing some food and drink for Widow Elphick—I be thinking water, beer, bread and cheese,’ Harriet suggested innocently.
Eliza nodded suspiciously. ‘You be behaving right, Hattie?’
‘Yes, Ma.’
‘Come back home when you be done here—I got more jobs in the house for you. No dithering.’
‘Yes, Ma,’ Harriet answered, beginning to slice into a penny loaf. She felt the house shudder as her father tugged open the street door and she watched as he disappeared into the snow’s embrace. Her mother followed swiftly, pulling the door closed behind her.
Harriet set the food and drinks onto a tea tray and made her way upstairs, this time ensuring that her feet fell on each and every noisy board, so as to be sure to alert the woman of her arrival.
‘Butter-my-wig, if it ain’t the newest of draggle-tails come into my room,’ Widow Elphick chided. She was sitting up in bed wearing a cream petticoat. ‘Miss Rutherford be sparing you the day, has she?’
Harriet bit down on her lip and placed the tray beside the bed. ‘Beer, water, bread and cheese for you,’ she said warmly, hastening towards the door.
‘I be a-talking to you, you filthy little wretch. You be thick of hearing?’ Widow Elphick shouted, making Harriet stop dead. ‘Least you could do is a-look at me.’
Harriet turned unhurriedly and faced her.
‘I be asking you—did Miss Rutherford spare you the day?’ Widow Elphick repeated, slowly enunciating each word.
‘I ain’t never been working for Miss Rutherford,’ Harriet answered, desperately trying to hold back the anger from her voice.
Widow Elphick laughed maniacally, rocking back and forth before stopping abruptly. ‘Well what do a young girl be a-doing outside a house of ill-fame in the middle of the night, if she ain’t no draggle-tail?’
Harriet felt her cheeks flush crimson as her rage boiled up from within. ‘It don’t be none of your concern what I were a-doing, you tempersome woman. I mislike you very much and I ain’t working for you no more!’
The woman hurled obscenities into the air, but Harriet had closed her ears, dashing from the bedroom. Downstairs, she slumped into the chair beside the parlour fire and began to sob. Her desperation to be treated as an adult had gone disastrously wrong, but all she cared about right now was never working for the old crone again.
The street door suddenly opened, sending in another gust of blustery wind. And there, standing with a frown and a look of surprise on his face, was Christopher. ‘Hattie,’ he said, more of an acknowledgment than a greeting.
Harriet sighed and quickly dried her tears, not wanting him to see her defenceless and in need of rescuing yet again. ‘Christopher,’ Harriet began, her eyes meeting his, ‘I be wanting to thank you for what you did that night. I be truly sorry you catched hurt like you have.’
Christopher nodded but said nothing, as he tossed a small log onto the fire.
‘Do you be wanting lunch?’ Harriet asked. ‘I be making-’
‘No—I don’t be hungry,’ he interjected.
She looked at him in wonder: something was different. Or wrong. He appeared to have altered since their last meeting. Harriet stood and took his arm, imploring him to face her. He turned, his cheek, still bruised from that night, and she noticed a look in his eyes that shocked her: it was one of disgust. ‘What be wrong?’ she asked.
‘There don’t be nothing wrong, Hattie,’ he replied. ‘I ain’t stopping. I just be seeing how Mother is.’ He moved towards the staircase and Harriet’s hand fell limply from his arm.
‘She be resting,’ Harriet said quickly, hoping to keep him in the parlour so that he might reveal the cause of his displeasure. He nodded again and stopped.
‘What be wrong, Christopher? I know there be something,’ she said quietly, her voice almost lost in the cackle of burning oak from the hearth.
‘That gentleman in the Black Horse the other night—he be a friend of yours?’ he asked.
The opaque disharmony that sat heavily in the room between them suddenly sharpened into focus in Harriet’s mind. Christopher’s tone was soft and low but the wounded look on his face revealed that he was blighted by jealousy. ‘I don’t be knowing him whatsoever—he be just another man steeped in liquor,’ she said with a smile.
Christopher exhaled. ‘I best be getting back to work. Bye, Hattie,’ he said, disappearing outside and slamming the door shut behind him.
‘Goodbye,’ she breathed, noting with sadness the finality of their parting.
For several minutes Harriet stood in front of the fire, transfixed by the flames that engulfed the blackened oak. Finally, she opened the street door and stepped outside. All trace of her parents’ and Christopher’s footprints had vanished, covered with a thick layer of snow. She pulled her shawl tight and darted for home, failing to spot the shadowed man concealed in the doorway opposite, watching her until she vanished into the snowy haze.
When she entered the warm parlour, Harriet found Keziah and Ann engaged in a game of dominoes. She removed her shawl and continued into the kitchen, where she found her mother stirring a spoon around a wooden bowl.
‘Everything be alright?’ her mother asked, setting down the bowl and fingering some
