Free The Telling by Jo Baker Page B

the time she got to the half-landing, and I was at the bottom, stepping uneasily backwards down the stairs and taking most of the weight. The carpet drooped heavily between us. Mrs Wolfenden watched from the landing, not because we needed watching; we’d been in the household longer than she had. Maggie and I had to bite our tongues all the way from the bedroom to the scullery. It was only once we’d heaved the carpet out into the yard that we were free to mutter and gripe, though the freedom was short-lived . We slung the carpet over the rope, and started beating, and then there was no more opportunity for complaint; talk meant getting a mouthful of dust.
    *
     
    The boys were playing in the street when Thomas came. I heard them shout to him and heard the scuffle and laughter when he joined in the game. I’d washed my face and hair, and the rest of me at the washstand in my parents’ room, stripped to my shift, while Sally leaned against the inside of the door to keep anyone from coming in, talking about Mrs Forster’s new bonnet as I scrubbed off the carpet-dust and perspiration and mumbled my replies. Sally left her post to help me rinse my hair, pouring the water for me, making me catch my breath at the cold, at the rill she let run down the back of my neck and on between my shoulder blades. After, as we tidied away the tea things, I could feel the faint dampness of my braids against my head, the scent of sage and rosemary, the crispness of fresh clothes, the cool tautness of my skin. It was pleasant to feel so clean.
    But now that I heard Thomas about to come in it seemed an awkwardness; he might notice, he might say something. I stacked plates, then wiped the table, trying to cover my confusion, knowing Sally wouldn’t miss it, because she misses nothing. There were other voices too; men’s voices, kept too low to distinguish the speakers. Then the door opened and Dad came in, his cap pushed back. Thomas followed him, took off his cap, nodded to me and Sally, said good evening. Then Mr Moore came in. He said nothing. I noticed that he looked at me, and that his eyes lingered a moment too long. He took off his hat, and went over to the dresser, and stood considering my books.
    ‘All right young Williams?’ Dad said.
    ‘My dad’ll be up shortly,’ Thomas replied. ‘The Huttons and Mr Gorst are coming too, from down our end of the village. Once they’re done for the evening.’
    Dad brushed down his jacket front, drew himself up a little taller. ‘That’ll do rightly, lad.’
    ‘We should be getting on,’ Mr Moore observed.
    Dad agreed effusively and gestured Mr Moore towards the stairs. Thomas seemed suddenly very conscious of himself. I caught a glance of his, there was a pinkish flush to his forehead. He followed the two older men up the stairs, and I just stood there, holding a dish and a teacloth in my hands. I heard them move around above me: they were in my room.
    ‘Come on,’ Sally said, ‘or we’ll be here till suppertime.’
    She finished clearing the tea things, and I poured the hot water from the kettle into the tub and washed up the crocks. I listened to the movement and the ongoing exchange of conversation upstairs but I couldn’t catch the words. It seemed to be Dad’s voice mainly. When Mr Moore spoke, it would cause flurries of agreement from my dad; Thomas didn’t seem to say anything at all. Sally set down a dried dish, and waited for the next, and she looked at me as if to say, Of course I know what’s going on; so there was no way under heaven that I would actually ask her. The chimes began for half-eight, and I handed her the last tea plate, and she dried it, and put it down on the stack, and I went out of the back door with the tub and slopped the water on to the herb patch. I took a pinch of melissa, and rubbed it between my fingers, then tucked it into my bodice for the scent. I came back in, dangling the tub from one hand, as Mr Gorst was coming in the front door, tobacco