A Carriage for the Midwife Read Online Free

roast pig-meat and she had talked with Master Edward until dark. Would she ever see him again? Did he even remember her? She knew that she would never forget how happy she had been.
    Everything was changed now. It was ten days into January, though Susan had lost count of time. The year had begun with continuous snow for a night and a day and another night, and it still lay frozen in great drifts. The familiar winter landscape of ploughed fields and leafless trees had turned into a silent white wasteland by day and a pathless darkness by night; the huddle of windowless cottages known as the Ash-Pits were pencilled outlines on a blank canvas as the dull red sun rose and fell, bringing scarcely seven hours of light to each day.
    A hoarse grunt erupted from the bundle of rags and straw where Bartlemy lay, and Susan held her breath, hoping he would not wake yet. She was beginning to realise that Da was the source of the trouble that had overtaken them, as much as the hard winter. He had been laid up since Christmas with an injured leg, having fallen in Farmer Bennett’s bottom field while returning from the alehouse; he had lain there until a farm hand, out early, had found him half-frozen and brought him home. Dolly had scarcely spoken to him since, but Susan had heard her saying to nobody in particular that she was worse off than a widowed mother of orphans, ‘fur then Oi might ha’ asked fur parish relief, an’ folks might ha’ bin more forthcomin’.’
    But Bartlemy had made the name of Lucket a byword, and the shame fell upon them all. Susan felt it more keenly than her younger siblings, and asked herself why the Calthorpe boy should trouble himself with such riffraff as the Luckets.
    Yet he had sought her out and talked with her, just as if she had been one of his pretty little sisters. Remembering again his kindness to her and Goody Firkin, she smiled and let her thoughts dwell on the better life she had glimpsed. One day, she told herself, one day she would find her way out of the Ash-Pits, and take Polly with her.
    But meanwhile shouldn’t she try to do something for them all – her mother and sisters and brothers? Shouldn’t she go out and beg, as some other poor folks did? But where could she go?
    The nearest farm belonged to Thomas Bennett, a dour-faced, taciturn man who had long ago ordered Bartlemy Lucket off his property. Mrs Bennett was a thrifty housewife with a son and three daughters; she kept a couple of maidservants and was known for her good, plain fare. Surely she would take pity on the starving family if Susan were to knock on her kitchen door and beg for the leftover rinds of bacon or crusts of bread? Vegetable peelings could be boiled up to make soup, and half a pound of oats would go a long way. And if Mrs Bennett could spare a little honey . . . Susan’s mouth watered.
    Yet the Bennett farmhouse was a good half-mile away up a steep track, now covered with snow, and Susan had neither cloak nor boots. In braving the wrath of the farmer, the danger of falling and freezing to death in the bitter cold was a real possibility: a nameless traveller had been found still and cold in Quarry Lane a few days ago.
    Yet something had to be done, she knew, or at least tried. She
would
go, she decided, but not until the afternoon, when the air would be slightly less cold.
    But before then they had a visitor, an angel of deliverance in the guise of poor Parson Smart in his ancient greatcoat and cracked leather boots that let in the snow.
    Dolly’s dull eyes widened hopefully at the sight of the black figure at the door, and she called over her shoulder to Susan as he stepped across the threshhold.
    ‘Sukey! Make haste an’ line up Polly an’ yer brothers – the parson be come!’
    Picking up little cross-eyed Jack in her arms, she stood waiting for Mr Smart to speak of parish relief; Susan and the other children stood staring dumbly at the glistening dewdrop on the end of their visitor’s