Free A Child of Jarrow by Janet MacLeod Trotter Page A

finished her jobs quicker than any of the other girls. Sometimes Cook would set her to small tasks in the kitchen, which she carried out willingly. The older woman quickly came to accept that Kate could not work in silence. If she wasn’t chatting and laughing, she was singing songs. With sighs of resignation, Cook let her be.
    Kate was happy. The work at Farnacre was hard and physical, but she felt full of energy since coming to Ravensworth, and relished her new life. She enjoyed Suky’s droll company and Cook’s fussing kindness, and she returned home to a friendly welcome at the gardener’s cottage where she regaled them with the tales of the day.
    Best of all, in the evening, she liked to walk around the vast gardens with Uncle Peter and the boys, helping him with fruit picking and watering, making the most of the dying daylight. Her uncle was only one of five gardeners, but he had a natural touch with fruit and salads, and his special concern was the orchards and hothouses. Kate touched and tasted fruits she had never seen before: redcurrants, gooseberries and apricots. The first crop of pears were ready, growing up the side of sheltered brick walls kept warm by coal stoves.
    Peter showed her the dark heated forcing houses where chicory, asparagus and new potatoes were brought on quickly. Kate loved the warm earthy smell of the sheds and marvelled at the huge endless trenches of food: lettuce, radishes and fennel, rhubarb, sweet parsley and artichokes, exotic names and bitter-sweet tastes that made her tongue tingle.
    Best of all she liked to breathe in the hot, honeyed air of the glasshouses where the peaches and melons grew. For it was here that she had first seen the mysterious gentleman friend of Lady Ravensworth biting into the flesh of a peach, juice running down his strong jaw. His long hair had glinted in the lantern light and his deep voice had made her insides flutter. He reminded her of a lion, a picture in a scripture book from school that had fascinated her as a child.
    She longed for another sight of the man that her uncle had called Master Alex and this was the unspoken reason for her keenness to help in the gardens each evening. But she had not seen him in his evening finery since that night. Once, when carrying a basket of cherries to Cook at the hall, she had glimpsed a man in the distance with a similar stance. He was watching some field workers bending to their task and recording something in a book. Kate had strained to see if it could be the same man, but decided it could not. What would a relation of the Liddells be doing showing such interest in the work of common labourers?
    It was a disappointment not to see the man again; it had become almost like a game to go out in the evening hoping to spy him. Most likely he had long gone from the castle, important business having taken him elsewhere. She laughed at her own fanciful notion that he would even notice her should she happen upon him again.
    ***
    Alexander tossed another fretful letter from his father on to the unlit fire in his garret room and strode to the door. It was the usual plea to finish his business at Ravensworth and set sail for Scandinavia. But this time Jeremiah Davies was threatening to come himself to the castle and prise him out. Making for the stables, Alexander knew his time here was running out. While Lord and Lady Ravensworth were happy to indulge him, his cousin would pack him off quickly if he thought the young man’s continued presence was causing harm to his business interests. The earl seemed not to notice his cousin’s adoration of Lady Ravensworth or if so, tolerated it as a young man’s calf love.
    Alexander took the saddled horse that the yawning stable boy had made ready for his usual early morning ride, almost curt in his annoyance. That was the best he could ever expect; to be tolerated by his elders and betters. He could never lay claim to the riches of Ravensworth, which he felt deeply