Free Feathers in the Fire by Catherine Cookson Page A

closed on him . . .
    Will Curran, on the point of leading the horses out of the yard and to the plough, was given the message by young Mickey. ‘Me?’ he said. ‘Just gone seven in the mornin’, Master wants me in the office?’
    ‘That’s what Winnie says,’ said young Mickey.
    ‘You’re not havin’ me on, boy, Aa hope?’
    ‘No, Will, no. Winnie . . . look, there she is.’ The boy pointed, and Will Curran looked towards the kitchen door where Winnie was waving him forward.
    Three minutes later, chaffing his hands together as if to rid them of dirt, then wiping them down the back of his breeches, he knocked on the office door and was bidden to enter.
    McBain looked at his ploughman and he didn’t like what he saw; he had never liked the man. Perhaps it was his appearance that put him off, red hair, red nose, nearly always with a permanent drop on the end. He was an ignorant man, dull-witted in one way, yet sharp and sly in another.
    His voice curt, the words clipped, he said, ‘I won’t beat about the bush, Curran. Are you agreeable to take a wife again?’
    ‘A wife! Me, Master? What wife?’
    ‘Molly.’
    He watched three drops in rapid succession leave the end of Curran’s nose, two being caught by the man’s chin, and one falling to the floor. It was odd, but a thing like this could make him feel sick; there were niceties in him that years of dealing with animal nature had not erased.
    Curran was now rubbing the palms of his hands together in a circular movement, but his voice had a touch of genuine amazement as he said, ‘Molly! Why she’d have no truck with me, Master; I’m a couple of years older than her dad.’
    Ignoring this, McBain said, ‘She wants a father for her child; no man has come forward. She will do as she is bid, if you are willing.’
    Will Curran’s head wobbled on his shoulders. A smile, sly, yet filled with amazement spread over his face. ‘I’m willin’, Master. I’m as willin’ as a tethered bull.’
    ‘Very well. Get back about your work; I’ll see you later.’
    ‘Thanks, Master. Thank you, Master, thank you right kindly.’ Will Curran was backing towards the door, touching his forelock, when McBain said to him, ‘Tell Winnie to send Molly into me.’
    ‘Aye, Master. Aye, Aa will, Master.’
    McBain sat back in his chair, drooped his head on to his chest, and waited. The term ‘lamb to the slaughter’ came to his mind. But Molly was no lamb; she hadn’t even been a virgin when he took her for the first time, and she wasn’t sixteen then. Whoever had taken her virginity she hadn’t said, not even hinted at it; but one thing seemed certain, it hadn’t been young Davie. The name coming into his mind made him think he was going to find it hard to replace young Davie; but still, there was never a good but that there was a better. Even so, he didn’t like new faces about the place, and he’d always had a personal liking for the boy. But not for the man he had suddenly sprung into; it was no boy that had faced him across this desk yesterday. Still, it was a pity he had to go. But go he must; he could not allow himself to be thwarted by one of his work people.
    When the tap came on the door he answered softly, ‘Come in,’ and Molly entered.
    After closing the door behind her she rested her buttocks against it for a moment, then came slowly forward. She had her eyes tight on his face, and she hesitated at the side of the desk wondering whether to go round to him or stand with the desk between them as a servant should. Something in his face made her take the latter course and she took two further steps, then stopped and stared at him. What she saw disquietened her.
    He wasn’t the master of the malt house. He wasn’t the man who tumbled her in the straw. There was no vestige now of the man who had told her to slip back from the fair to the malt house, nor of the man who had arranged there should be no-one on the farm but old Sep Rummery, for he had taken the