Read Online Break of Dawn by Rita Bradshaw - Free Book Online

as she hugged herself in anticipation. Pears in ginger sauce, and her birthday tomorrow. Last year Bridget, Kitty and Patrick had bought her a sketchbook and coloured pencils which she kept hidden under her bed away from prying eyes. They always bought her something. One year it had been a whole box of chocolates to herself, another, a picture book which resided with the sketchpad and pencils and had been looked at so often it was falling apart. Her favourite present, though, was one she’d received when she was five years old, a cloth dolly she’d named Maisie. She slept with Maisie every night and in the day tucked her well down under her blankets on the pallet bed, knowing if Patience or her aunt ever became aware of the doll’s existence, that would be the end of Maisie. ‘I’ll stay in bed and look at my picture book and if we hear anyone coming I’ll hide it under the covers and pretend I’m asleep.’
    ‘Aye, that’s right, hinny, you do that.’ Kitty’s voice held a tinge of sadness, and as she had done countless times before, she thought, You poor little mite. There was this bairn, as bonny as a summer’s day and as sweet as a nut in nature despite the way she was treated by her own kith and kin, and then there was Miss Patience, as spiteful and mean-minded a little madam as ever had been born, who was spoiled rotten by the mistress.
    ‘Kitty?’
    ‘Aye, me lamb?’
    ‘Do you think my mother can see me? From heaven, I mean?’
    Kitty stopped what she was doing and stared down into the earnest little face. ‘Whatever’s brought that into your head?’ she said softly. ‘Of course your mam can see you, hinny. She watches over you every day, I’ll be bound.’
    Sophy nodded but without conviction. ‘Uncle Jeremiah said in his sermon last week that there’s a divide between heaven and earth like there is between heaven and hell, and that when you’rein heaven you don’t care about earth any more and you just praise God all the time.’
    ‘Did he?’ Kitty had to confess she turned off once the master got on his bandwagon in the pulpit.
    ‘He said God and the angels can see us but not real people who have died. They’re not allowed.’
    ‘Not allowed my backside.’ Kitty didn’t have a clue one way or the other, but her voice was adamant. ‘Your mam
can
see you, hinny, an’ don’t let anyone tell you different. I’d stake my life on it. All right?’
    Sophy gave a small smile. ‘All right.’
    ‘An’ preachers an’ suchlike, even ones like your uncle, they don’t know everything,’ Kitty added, hoping she wasn’t perjuring her own soul. ‘Their own take on things comes into it and the master, well, he isn’t the most merry of men, now is he? If there’s a black way to look at something, he’ll find it, but it don’t necessarily mean it’s right.’
    Sophy took a few moments to consider this. She hadn’t looked at it like that before. Her expression lightened and now her voice carried more confidence when she said, ‘I think my mother can see me. Heaven is somewhere where all your wishes come true and she would want to see me if she could, wouldn’t she?’
    ‘Aye, for sure, hinny.’
    Two small slender arms went round her middle and Kitty found herself hugged briefly before Sophy disappeared off back to the scullery. Kitty stared after the child for a moment before getting back to the salmon. Whatever next? she thought with wry humour. You never knew what that little ’un was going to come out with. Bright as a button she was. Fancy her listening to the master’s sermon like that when most of his parishioners, including herself, couldn’t have repeated a word the minute they’d left the church.
    She shook her head, dropping the filleted fish into a dish where it would poach in a drop of milk with a dash of vinegar before being flaked.
    She was a thinker, was little Sophy, and knowing with it. That didn’t bode well for any woman in what was definitely a man’sworld,