They went on a little way past the church, past hedges bordering the fields, and then the horse determinedly turned into a narrow lane almost, Molly noticed, without her uncle needing to touch the reins at all.
‘Old Dobbin knows the way home, all right,’ Tom remarked, seeing her noticing. ‘I really think he could do it blindfold.’
Molly looked about her with more interest, noting that the narrow lane was just wide enough for the cart to pass down with thick hawthorn hedges in both sides. She could see beyond the hedges because of the height of the cart seat. Fields stretched for miles, some cultivated, others with cows in them, and some of these were milling around the five-barred gate set into the hedge.
‘Waiting to be milked,’ Tom explained with a nod. ‘Bit early yet, though.’
Molly looked at the cows’ distended udders and, though she knew that was where milk came from, because her mother had told her, she would have preferred to get it from the Co-op milkman.
The lane led to a cobbled yard that seemed full of pecking chickens. Tom drew the horse to a halt in front of a thatched whitewashed cottage with the dark red door that looked as if it opened in two halves.
‘This is it,’ he said to Molly, hauling the luggage from the cart. ‘What do you think?’
Before Molly was able to reply, two black and white dogs, which Tom greeted as Skip and Fly, came to meet them, barking a welcome. Molly was not used to animals, for she and Kevin had had no pets, and the dogs unnerved her a little.
‘They’re saying hallo just,’ Tom said reassuringly, seeing that Molly was a little edgy. ‘Let them sniff your hand and then they’ll know you are a friend.’
Molly would rather not have done any such thing, but she knew that dogs were an important part of any farm and she would have to get used to them. So she extended her hand and let the dogs sniff. When she met her grandmother’s malevolent gaze, she said in a voice she willed not to shake, ‘My mother was always saying that what can’t be cured must be endured and I suppose that is what she would think about this situation. I haven’t chosen to come here, but now I have arrived, I suppose I will like it well enough in time.’
She saw her grandmother seemed almost disappointed, but Tom clapped her on the shoulder. ‘Well said, young Molly. Come away in and see the place.’
In all her life, Molly had never seen anything quite like it. She stepped into a low room, the flagged floor covered with rugs. To her left was a door that she learned later housed the two bedrooms, hers first and then beyond that Tom’s. Next to a dresser displaying plates and bowls and cups was a large bin that she was to learn was where the oaten meal was stored. A cupboard and a sideboard stood against the back wall next to a heavily curtained area that Tom told her closed off the bed her grandmother slept in.
To her right was a stool with one bucket of water standing on it and one bucket of water beneath it. There were no taps here and all water had to be fetched from the spring well halfway up the lane, which Tom had pointed out to her as they passed. Beside that was a large scrubbed wooden table with chairs grouped around it.
‘That doesn’t look very comfy,’ Molly said, pointing to the wooden bench seat bedecked with cushions and set beneath the window.
‘That’s a settle,’ Tom said. ‘It opens to a bed that the children can sleep in when the house is full. I have used it a time or two, but you are right, it is very uncomfortable to sit on. The easy chairs before the fire are better.’
There were two, and when Tom said, ‘We’ll have to think about getting another for you,’ Biddy snapped, ‘You won’t need to bother. I aim to see to it that that girl isn’t going to have much time for sitting resting herself and for the times she is allowed to sit, a creepie will do her.’
‘A creepie is way too low for her, Mammy,’ Tom said. A creepie, Molly was to learn, was a very low seat made of bog oak. ‘And if you want Molly to work hard, then she has to have time to rest too. I have an easy chair in my room and as it is only to put my clothes on, a wooden kitchen chair will do the job well enough.’ And at this he gave Molly a wink.
‘Molly and I understand each other,’ Biddy said with a sardonic smile. ‘She knows that if she doesn’t work effectively, then she doesn’t eat – and thinking of eating, I am famished. The meal on the boat I have brought back up. What have you in?’
‘I bought ham and tomatoes in the town,’ Tom said. ‘And I have the potatoes scrubbed and in the pot, ready to be put on.’
‘Well, put them on. What are you waiting for?’ Biddy snapped, and Molly wondered how the potatoes were to be cooked, because she had seen no cooker. Tom, however, went towards the open fire and pulled out a bracket with hooks on of different lengths. He hung the black pot he had ready on one of these hooks before giving the fire a poke and throwing something on it that looked like little more than lumps of dirt.
When her grandmother saw Molly staring, she shrieked, ‘Don’t just stand there, girl. I told you this was no rest cure. Away to the room and take off your coat, then lay the table at the very least.’
It was one of the most uncomfortable meals that Molly had endured. While eating it, Biddy regaled Tom with tales about Birmingham. She hadn’t a good word to say about it, and fairly ripped into the character of Molly’s parents and her grandfather. Many times, Molly was going to leap to the defence of those she loved, but the first time she opened her mouth to do this, she felt the pressure of Tom’s foot on hers and when she looked up quizzically, he made an almost imperceptible shake of his head. So she let her grandmother’s words wash over her, because really she was too tired to argue.
After the meal, Tom fetched the chair from his room as he had said he would, then said, ‘Right, that’s that, then. Now, I’ll bring the cows in for milking.’
‘Wait,’ said Biddy. ‘Molly will go with you.’
Both Molly and Tom looked at Biddy as if they couldn’t believe their ears. Molly was so weary she was having trouble functioning and she had been wondering how soon she would be allowed to go to bed, but now this. She couldn’t do this. She barely knew one end of a cow from the other and hadn’t dreamed that milking them would be part of her duties.
Tom had no idea of Molly’s rising panic, but he had noted her exhausted state and said. ‘There is no need for this, Mammy. I don’t need anyone to help me. Haven’t I been doing it alone for a fair few years anyway?’
‘Aye, but there is no need for you to do it alone now. You have help.’
‘Can’t you see the child is worn out?’ Tom said. ‘She has been travelling all the day.’
‘I have told Molly there is no place for passengers on a farm, and the sooner she is made aware of this, the better it will be for everybody,’ Biddy said with some satisfaction.
Molly wanted to say she had never had any desire to milk a cow and didn’t particularly want to learn either, but she had already decided that she would show no weakness in front of this woman. So, turning to Tom, she said, ‘You will have to show me how it is done.’
Biddy may have been disappointed with Molly’s response, but Tom was full of admiration. ‘There is nothing to it,’ he said. ‘You’ll pick it up in no time. Let’s whistle up the dogs to help bring them down.’
Tom was patient and kind, and his voice so calm that Molly could never imagine it raised in anger, or indeed anything else, and it was like balm to her bruised and battered soul. He seemed to understand her initial distaste, but he was so gentle and reassuring that Molly battled to overcome this because she knew it would please him.
She was quick to learn generally, and soon got the hang of milking. She even began to enjoy it, finding, like many more, there was something incredibly soothing about sitting astride a three-legged stool, her face pressed against the velvet flank of the cow, and gently but firmly squeezing the