The Lantern Moon Read Online Free Page A

dark circles under her eyes and her stifled yawns.
    â€˜I’m not thin, mother, just tired. I must have run up and down those kitchen stairs a hundred times today. Let’s all go to bed. I could sleep and sleep.’
    Since they had told her she could go home for the night, she had been looking forward to lying under the quilt beside her little sister, listening to her quiet breathing, instead of Mrs Stringer’s snoring or the weeping of the homesick French maids in the room next door.
    â€˜You go on to bed, Annie,’ her mother told her, ‘and have your rest, but Libby and myself must get on with our work.’
    â€˜Oh, mother, have a heart and let Libby come to bed with me. You can see the poor mite is worn out.’
    â€˜We cannot stop yet, Annie. All these gloves must be finished by morning for Evans will be here first thing to collect them. As it is, we have done only enough to cover the rent. We shall end up in the workhouse if we do not deliver all of these for I have nothing left to sell, neither furniture norclothes. Nothing at all.’ She rubbed the empty space where her wedding ring should have been. Annie watched her mother’s face, knowing she was thinking of Annie’s father, but said nothing.
    â€˜What time will William be back?’ she asked after a while. ‘Surely he should be home by now?’
    â€˜Poor William won’t be back until Saturday next at the earliest,’ said her mother.
    â€˜Oh,’ said Annie, ‘that means I won’t see him for weeks.’
    â€˜It’s on account of all the orders for new hats that Mr Smart has got recently. William has to sleep over in the workshop in Quality Square until they have them all made up.’
    â€˜That will be because of the ball,’ said Annie, pleased to pass on a bit of gossip. ‘Arthur told me there’s going to be a ball at the Assembly Rooms next week with the Bonapartes invited: all Ludlow society will be there.’
    â€˜Well, thank God for Lucien Bonaparte, I say, for new hats for rich folk mean extra work for William and more money in our pockets. You mark my words, Annie and Libby too, we will hold our heads up high in this town again. We will never go cap in hand to the churchwarden asking for help like paupers. We may have to work till we drop, Annie, but we shall never set foot in that workhouse. Just three more years and the worst will be over.’
    Annie looked at her mother’s tight angry face. ‘Have you heard any news of father?’ she asked.
    Her mother shook her head. ‘May God have mercy on him and keep him safe.’
    â€˜Has there been no ship in at all with the mail?’
    â€˜Not a one. It’s because of the war with France, they say. No ship has sailed for the Colony for months and the fleet that went to Australia last summer and that ought by rights to have got back by now was requisitioned at the Canary Islands on its way home and sent directly into battle. I dare say there’s a letter on it that will reach us when the ship returns to Portsmouth. They say that the poor wretched convicts that are waiting to be transported are being pressganged in to the army to fight instead. Until they start sending ships to Australia again, we can expect no news.’
    â€˜But it’s been four years since he was sent away. Surely he could have got word out to us in all that time. Why does he not write?’
    â€˜Shush, Annie. If there was some way he could send a letter, believe me, he would. We don’t know what it’s like there in Botany Bay. Your father is a convict,’ Annie’s mother’s face darkened, ‘at least that is what they say he is, though God knows there was never a more honourable man in all of England. It may not be possible for him to get a letter sent out on the ships bound for London.’
    â€˜Perhaps father is dead, mother,’ said Libby, who had been listening all the while