Read Online A Time for Courage by Margaret Graham - Free Book Online Page A

quite so much next time.’
    Hannah flushed. ‘I’m sorry.’ She brushed at her soaked bodice and took the towel that Joe offered but at least Mrs Arness had said there would be a next time and it gave her a feeling of pleasure.
    ‘Rub yourself down with that,’ Joe said. ‘We’ll go out soon and the sun will sort it out for you.’ He tipped some of the water out into the sink and again she saw the red flecks.
    ‘That’s what I meant really.’ Hannah pointed to the red flakes which now lay on the bottom of the deep white sink. ‘Are they all right?’
    ‘Oh yes, they’re iron. They’ll make you good and strong, bring some colour to your cheeks.’ He turned and put the kettle on the hob and Hannah thought she would only have one cup because colour was something her mother did not like. She had a boiled egg too, while she waited for the tea.
    ‘If you don’t mind having things the wrong way round,’ Joe’s mother said, and Hannah did not mind; she loved the ease of this woman, this boy.
    The egg had been collected that morning and it oozed thick and orange on to her spoon. The tea was strong and served in thick ceramic mugs that Mrs Arness had thrown on her potter’s wheel, Joe said, and Hannah thought that she would like to try that one day as he explained how the clay was worked when it was soft and malleable, then fired and painted. Hannah looked at Mrs Arness’s hands, they were wide and capable; safe hands. She liked to think of a woman creating something useful, something solid. It was strange but good. This whole world was good, it was full of words and useful work, not stitches and antimacassars.
    Mrs Arness put the milk in first. Esther would have called her a miffer, and sniffed as she said that milk-in-firsts don’t know what’s what; but it was nice and tasted no different to Mother’s so why should it matter? She felt the question waiting to burst out of her but she pushed it down. No, she was going to behave, to do as Mother wanted, wasn’t she. She mustn’t make her worse than she had done already. Father had said that to her as she left and Hannah had felt pain that she had never known before twist inside her at the thought that she was at least part of the cause of her mother’s decline.
    ‘I think it would be nice to go across the moor today.’ Mrs Arness spoke as she folded up some dry washing. ‘Take Hannah in the jingle as far as Old Bernie’s and then have a walk, Joe. I have the books to sort out from last term. I’ve packed up the lunch.’
    She put the folded washing on to a side table, passed Joe a half-full string bag which had been sitting on the pantry shelf and filled a flask with tea from the pot. The picnic bulged through the gaps in the bag and Joe slung it over his shoulder. Mrs Arness looked at Hannah and raised her eyes. ‘Careful, that’s Hannah’s pasty. It will be crumbs in a moment.’ Hannah laughed. The pain subsided. ‘Out you go now but take these round to the compost first, please.’ Mrs Arness swept the egg into a bucket which held potato peelings and lettuce.
    The light and heat hit Hannah as though it had taken its hand to her. There was so much sky here above the garden and the fields and the distant moor. There were no other houses between them and the horizon. No wonder Mr Arness lived here. Wouldn’t Miss Fletcher love it, though the roofs of the village would have been better. She loved to insist that the girls drew roofs. The angles, the colour, the shadows, she would say. Her face would light up and her eyebrows rise as they did when she was absorbed and enthusiastic, which she was for most of the lessons, especially with Hannah. You, my dear, she would say, have so much to offer the world. Inside your head there is a brain and it should be exercised; a scholarship for you should be quite possible, I think. And she had passed some of the younger children over to Hannah for some coaching, to improve her confidence, she had said, but in