In Search of Hope Read Online Free

it is. Grandma Rose grew up near there and sometimes she took me walking across the moors, showing me the places she’d loved as a child.’
    ‘The house she grew up in has been knocked down, but she’d inherited money from a friend and was able to buy another property. She loved living up near the moors.’
    ‘I’m sure I’ll have no trouble finding the house. But what about a key?’
    ‘The front-door key is on top of the lintel of the coal shed at the back. Do you have enough money to buy food and necessities for tonight and the morning?’
    She could feel herself flushing again. ‘I raided the fridge before I left, so Ned and I will be all right tonight as long as we have a roof over our heads.’
    ‘Come in to see me tomorrow morning, then. I’m free at nine. Is that too early?’
    ‘No. I’ll look forward to it.’
    She thanked the woman for her help and left.
    Ned protested again about getting back into the car, throwing a tantrum, and Libby had to spend a few moments coaxing him. ‘We’re nearly there now. Just a little while longer, darling. We’re going to … a friend’s house.’
    She lost her way almost immediately because they’d made a lot of changes to the road system in Rochdale since she was a child. But when she stopped to ask for directions, the northern accent of the woman who pointed out the way comforted her. Grandma Rose had talked like that, slowly and with flat vowels.
    Libby smiled as she saw the sign, wincing as a movement made her ribs twinge again. Top o’ the Hill was a strange name for a village, but a very accurate description of the position of this modest group of houses.
    The road twisted up a cleft in the edge of the moors. It was only single lane for the most part, with occasional wider places where vehicles could pass one another. The village itself sat almost at the top, with a few houses straggling down the upper reaches of the cleft.
    She’d wondered whether the village would have been developed into a dormitory for nearby Rochdale and Todmorden, with rows of dwellings thrown up at minimal cost, ready to become the slums of the future. To her relief it still looked much the same: a few older, stone-built weavers’ cottages with huge third-floor windows to give the weavers light. There were a couple of short terraces of smaller houses, as well as bigger ones round a central paved area. There were one or two newer homes lower down the hill, but that was all.
    Two smiling older men were walking into the Crown, the only pub, gesticulating as they chatted, and a little girl was skipping along the street, her lips moving as she earnestly counted something.
    The little village shop was shutting, the cheerful, well-lit displays in its twin windows brightening the evening scene. Apart from the cars parked everywhere, it was as if Libby had stepped back into her childhood.
    Slowing down, she muttered the directions Mr Greaves had given to get to her grandmother’s new house. She had to turn up towards the tiny church.
    For a moment her mind went blank as she tried to find the little lane that led up the final stretch of hillside to the church and graveyard. Surely it should be round here somewhere? She slowed down to a crawl, relieved there were no other cars impatient to overtake her.
    She nearly passed the turn and braked so suddenly Ned jerked awake and cried out in protest. ‘Sorry, darling.’
    ‘First and only turn left,’ she muttered. She missed that completely and had to turn round in the little car park outside the church and go back. Ah, there it was!
    Other tyre marks in the curving dirt track showed clearly in the damp ground, but from here she couldn’t see the four cottages she was looking for. Then they came into sight a hundred yards down the track. None of them was showing lights, even though the daylight was fading now. There was a car outside one house, though, so someone else lived here.
    Stopping the car, she bowed her head over the steering wheel