Read Online The Ribbon Weaver by Rosie Goodwin - Free Book Online

now I want to make life a little easier for her.’
    ‘But you do make her life easier,’ he argued. ‘You wash, iron, cook and clean. In fact, you do more than your share.’
    Sighing in exasperation, Amy started into the fire. ‘I know that – but it’s not enough, is it? Gran works far too hard for a woman of her age but unfortunately I’m nowhere near as good as she is at weaving. I just don’t seem to have the knack.‘
    Her head wagged miserably. ‘I know lately, because she hasn’t been feeling so grand, that she’s been dipping into her savings jar to make ends meet and I just feel so useless.’
    Toby sympathised. He could understand how Amy felt, but he could also see Molly’s point too. ‘Well, there’s no sense in fretting,’ he told her. ‘Things will come right in the end, you’ll see.’
    But the very next morning Amy had cause to wonder, for when she took her gran a cup of tea, she found her burning up with fever and soaked to the skin with sweat. Even her blankets were damp and her eyes were unnaturally bright.
    ‘Gran, Gran, what’s wrong?’ Amy’s heart began to thud painfully against her ribs as she stared down at the woman she adored. Molly seemed incapable of answering and, panicking now, Amy put down the mug, slopping tea on to the chest of drawers at the side of the bed. She then flew down the stairs and along the row of cottages into Bessie’s kitchen.
    ‘Please come quickly,’ she begged as tears rained down her cheeks. ‘Gran’s really bad and I don’t know what to do!’
    Bessie was in the act of clearing the breakfast pots from the table but she immediately dumped them unceremoniously into the deep sink and hitching up her skirts followed Amy back along the fronts of the cottages at a trot.
    When she saw Molly looking very old and frail in the great brass bed she wasted no time at all.
    ‘Run for the doctor now,’ she ordered sharply. ‘And tell him to be quick about it, else he’ll have me to answer to.’
    Amy needed no second bidding, and without waiting to even snatch up her shawl she flew to do as she was told.
    Luckily she caught the doctor just as he was leaving his house in Swan Lane and he followed her back to the cottage immediately. Once inside the tiny bedroom he ushered both Amy and Bessie into the next room. Then quickly he began to examine the old woman in the spotlessly clean bed. When he called them back in some minutes later, his face was grave. ‘I’m afraid it’s pneumonia,’ he told them, and Amy began to cry. Molly was all she had in the world and the thought that she could lose her was terrifying. Bessie’s arm snaked about her slim waist comfortingly. She felt like crying herself but knew that if she was to be of any help at all, then she must hold herself together.
    ‘What can be done for her?’ she asked as calmly as she could.
    ‘Well, for a start-off I want her bed brought down into the kitchen; she must be kept warm. I want you to sponge her down regularly with cool water and you must get some fluids into her. Do you think you can manage that?’
    Bessie nodded. ‘We’ll manage. Our Toby can come and carry her downstairs, and the bed, and then me and Amy can see to the rest. I know that Jim will help too as much as he can, when he gets back from the pit.’
    Satisfied that his orders would be obeyed, the doctor nodded then after fumbling about in his seemingly bottomless bag he produced a bottle of dark brown medicine. ‘She must have one teaspoon of this four times a day,’ he told her. ‘And I’ll call back again this evening on my way home.’ Seeing their worried faces, he added kindly, ‘Don’t worry about payment tonight. We’ll work something out.’
    Bessie nodded as she took the medicine. ‘Everything will be done just as you say,’ she assured him and he smiled.
    Amy was still crying but as soon as the doctor had gone, Bessie rounded on her. There were times when you had to be cruel to be kind and Bessie felt