Free Black Sheep by Susan Hill Page A

moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained . . .
’
    Reuben rested his head against the chair back and closed his eyes.
    Ted read until his grandfather was asleep, lulled by the words as he had been lulled by them as a child. He had never known what they meant and he did not think he knew now. It did not matter. The words were the background to his entire growing up and woven into his life like another skin. He realised that he had missed nothing of home during his time at the farm but he had noticed the spaces where the words had been.

13
    ROSE HAD DONE nothing more than dance with Lem and let him walk her home, and once he had been waiting for her when she left the shop, and walked back with her then. She had made no secret of it and been defiant in her belief that she had done nothing wrong, and if anyone wanted to tell Charlie, let them. He barely needed telling. Word about something of this sort was breathed out onto the air and breathed in again by everyone else in turn until it reached the person for whom it was intended.
    Charlie had thrown everything she had brought with her to his house onto the street, Rose herself last of all, and barred the door against her. That had been a week before the pit disaster and which had been worse for Evie Howker to bear could not be told.
    Rose had come home in shame but John and Clive had gone down within five minutes to pick up her things and lug them home, to try and put a limit on her disgrace. If everyone knew what had happened at least they would not be given the satisfaction of having clothes and a trunk, a bedspread and an embroidered tablecloth to gaze upon and pick over. Once they had finished and shut the door again on family privacy, John Howker had told Rose that he could not have turned her away but that he could not welcome her either. ‘I’ll put up with you, but I can never like it. I’ll give you a roof again but I can never think of you as anything but a lodger.’
    She could not have borne to return to her married home, but she was a stranger in Lower Terrace, her father barely speaking to her, Evie shaking her head and drawing in her breath every time she looked at her. If Ted had been there it would have been easier. Only Reuben knew nothing of what had gone on and showed no interest in her return.
    On the day of the explosion she was in the scullery when the men went, had packed their bait tins and set out their boots, as if she were twelve years old again and obliged to help Evie with every chore. The men had gone without a word, though Clive had glanced back and caught Rose’s eye and forever afterwards she was sure that he had winked at her, though if he had it was for the very first as well as the last time.
    When she had heard Ted’s voice from below, she had stayed in her room. Evie must tell him. The deaths of the men, the way the disaster had seemed to explode not just part of the coal mine but the lives of everyone in Mount of Zeal, had made Rose’s crisis fade almost to invisibility. She had been needed by Evie, she had taken over the house and looking after Reuben and her mother without a word, and when she went out, no one looked at her in the old way – perhaps they did not even see her. A household whose men have been taken in a pit disaster is not only marked out, it is spared any comment or criticism of any kind, and for good.
    She went down now and found Ted washing the pots.
    â€˜Rosie.’
    He was the only one ever to call her this and he did not do so often. Now, it overwhelmed her with sadness.
    â€˜I suppose you’ve heard it all.’
    â€˜Enough.’ He turned to find the tea towel but she had it already.
    â€˜I’ve done nothing wrong, Ted. I know what’s believed about me but I’m the only one to know the truth.’
    â€˜And him.’
    â€˜Lem.’
    â€˜You’ve a husband, Rose.’
    â€˜Don’t come like that to me. I know well what I have and what