Free Fields of Blue Flax by Sue Lawrence Page B

this aft. Quiche in larder if you fancy.x.’
    A ping came back. ‘Thought that said quickie.’
    She shook her head and grinned. He was so predictable, but God, they were lucky – still besotted with each other, after all these years. So many of her friends were having marital problems: one was in the middle of a steamy affair and another completely indifferent towards her husband of twenty-five years. Which was worse, she wondered.
    Mags switched her phone onto silent, threw it into her basket, and continued trawling through the 1871 census for Elizabeth Barrie. Eventually she found an entry that seemed to match, though again her age didn’t fit. This Elizabeth Barrie was registered at a farmhouse in Strathmartine, which after a quick Google, Mags found was just north of Dundee. The farm was the home of the Patullo family – farmer John Patullo, his wife and their seven children along with a nurse, a cook and a table maid called Elizabeth Barrie, born in Tannadice.
    It was definitely her, there can’t possibly have been two Elizabeth Barries in a tiny village like Tannadice. But she was now said to be thirteen, which didn’t tie in with either her wedding certificate or the 1881 census. And she was the only Barrie working at the Patullos’, her sister was obviously too young.
    Mags tried to track down a birth certificate for Elizabeth, thinking that might shed some light on the mystery of her age, but with no luck. She did, however, find Elizabeth’s sister, Jane, born in April 1860 to mother Margaret and father David Barrie. She was about to print when something caught her eye. On the birth certificate, after David Barrie’s name and profession – ploughman – was a cross. He must have been illiterate.
    She continued trawling through births for a few years either side of Jane’s dates but found nothing for ElizabethBarrie. So she went back to the 1861 Census and tried other Barries. When she came to Margaret Barrie in Tannadice, she gasped. The man in the next seat turned to look at her. ‘Brilliant when you find something you’re not expecting, isn’t it!’
    ‘Do you know what it means if it says “pauper”?’ asked Mags.
    ‘No idea, sorry. I’m stuck in 1917, Flanders. All they say is “Missing Presumed Dead”… Imagine!’
    Mags shook her head in sympathy then returned to the census on her screen. There was Margaret Barrie, aged thirty-eight, widow of David Barrie, ploughman, and she was classified as a pauper. Her daughter Jane was there, aged one. Where the hell was Elizabeth?
    She quickly looked back to the 1851 census and found Margaret Barrie aged twenty-eight, wife of David Barrie aged twenty-nine. No children were mentioned; so perhaps they had just got married. Their address in both censuses was simply ‘the village’, no street name. Mags printed everything off and went to the desk to ask the research assistant what it meant to be a pauper in the 1860s.
    The earnest young man talked at length about the Poor Law of 1845, explaining that after the Act was passed, it was up to an Inspector of the Poor to decide whether applicants for poor relief were legitimate. Obviously Elizabeth Barrie’s mother was suitable, otherwise she would not have had the word pauper written against her name in the census.
    Pretty sad, Mags thought, but surely that wasn’t the family secret?

 
    Chapter Sixteen
    1871
    ‘Why dae I have to put flowers on her grave, Ma?’
    ‘You liked Miss Charlotte, did you no’?’
    Elizabeth’s head dropped and she nodded, not looking up.
    ‘Right, so just come along wi’ me and we’ll hae a wee blether later.’
    Margaret Barrie handed Elizabeth a little posy of snowdrops tied with a length of twine. ‘Never seen snowdrops sae late, maybe the flax’ll be late flowering this year an a’.’
    They walked along the main road, heading out of Tannadice, the woman short and stout, the girl by her side tall and gangly. They passed the last little cottage in the main