Lynne Francis - Sarah’s Story - An emotional family saga that you won’t be able to put down

Sarah hurried back through the streets of Northwaite, slowing her steps as she passed The Old Bell. Was it possible that Joe was in there, oblivious to the passage of time? She had no way of finding out; entering would be inconceivable, and loitering with the intention of asking a departing customer whether Joe was there would likely cause a scandal. The door swung open and she peered in, but could make out little of the interior other than figures huddled at the bar, so she put her head down against the rain, which had resumed, borne on a driving wind, and headed back towards home.

At Two-Ways Cross she paused again. After a few moments she could hear whistling, faint at first but drawing ever closer along the road she had just traversed. Her heart leapt. ‘Joe,’ she thought, and sure enough he strode into view shortly after.

‘Well, lass, a’ thought it were you in Northwaite just now.’

She could smell the ale on his breath, but told herself that since he’d been forced to bide his time before meeting her, then of course it was likely he would be in the tavern. She was expecting a kiss but instead he seized her hand and pulled her through a gate leading into the field beside them.

‘We’ll be drownded like rats if we don’t take shelter,’ he said, taking her hand to guide her through the sticky, slippery mud – made even worse by the passage of hooves of cattle – towards the barn, which provided a trysting place less attractive than the deer pool, but no less welcome.

Joe stamped his feet and waved his arms to drive the cattle out into the field to allow them access. The cows had sheltered glumly under a tree at first but then edged back, gathering around the door and bumping into each other as they jostled for space, the breath from their nostrils hanging in the damp air.

As soon as Joe had Sarah safe within the barn, laid on the straw, he fell on her like a man ravenous. She felt a sense of disappointment that he hadn’t wooed her and coaxed her, followed by a feeling of detachment from the situation. Afterwards, he was silent, head turned away from her, and she thought he had fallen asleep. Just when she was beginning to feel that she couldn’t bear the weight of him a moment longer he turned towards her.

‘So, hast thou missed me?’ he said, stroking the side of her face and allowing his fingers to linger as he moved to caress her body. Finally, she felt the stirrings of the feelings that had both sustained her and tormented her over the last few weeks. He trailed his fingers across her belly, then laid his hand flat on it. He looked at her questioningly.

‘With child?’

She shook her head, willing him to go on with his exploration of her.

He bit the flesh on the back of her hand lightly, gazing at her all the while, then grazed her shoulder with his teeth. She shivered and he stopped.

‘Ist thou cold?’

Sarah shook her head again. The weather was chilly for a July day, sodden and damp with rain as it was, but her skin burned. She reached her hands up around his neck and pulled her down to him.

‘If it’s a baby you’re wanting, then you must do something about it,’ she whispered.

He was kissing her more gently now and Sarah was barely aware of the scratch of damp straw against her skin, but a thought she wanted to express kept rising to the surface even though her whole being wished to be simply swept along on a tide of pleasure.

‘You must marry me,’ she murmured.

Joe paused and pulled away to look at her. Had she been too bold? Sarah wondered. Had she made a mistake in voicing this thought out loud, a thought that had taken root and nagged away at her all the time he had been gone?

‘Aye, well, happen I must,’ he said, and fell to kissing her again so that Sarah barely knew whether she had heard him aright.

Within a week of Joe’s return, summer was back. He’d joked that the skies had been crying over his departure but now all was well, and it was certainly true that each day brought increased sunshine, a rise in the temperatures and a rapid drying up of the mud.

Sarah used the excuse of needing to see how the herbs that she collected from the wild had fared during the rain as a reason to absent herself from the house. This, along with the delivery of remedies around the area, found her able to arrange meetings with Joe nearly every other day. Ada, absorbed in the nurturing of the herb beds at home, and in the creation of the ointments and remedies, didn’t seem to notice the length of Sarah’s absences. But Sarah found herself made greedy. She had so longed for Joe’s return that now she had him back, an hour or so of his company two or three times a week wasn’t enough for her. She wanted to spend more time with him, to do ordinary things with him. Although she didn’t regret one minute of their fevered assignations, she did find herself wondering what it might be like to sit across the table from him at breakfast, or to prepare a meal for him at the end of the day.

As July and then August passed, and the weather held out, she waited for Joe to speak again of their marriage. Come September, as the month wore on and the leaves started to fall, colder, wetter weather swept in. Outdoor meetings would soon be impossible, Sarah reasoned, and she resolved to raise the subject of marriage with Joe once more. Two events forced her hand. As she straightened her skirt and buttoned her blouse one autumnal afternoon, sheltered this time from the blustery winds by the enclosed nature of the deer pool, which had become their regular trysting place, Joe spoke. He had his back to her as he pulled on his jacket and his voice was casual.

‘I’ll be away from next week. There’s work to be had for a while.’

Sarah stilled her fingers. ‘Will we be married before you go?’ she asked.

Joe still had his back to her when he spoke again. ‘Nay, why the hurry? We can talk on it when I’m back.’

Sarah felt her colour rise along with a rush of anger. ‘And when will that be?’ she demanded.

Joe swung round to face her. ‘Why, tha’ knows I canna say for sure.’

By now, Sarah knew that Joe worked on the canal, taking boats with their loads of cotton, wool and coal up to Manchester. She’d been shocked at first; her grandmother always spoke badly of the canal dwellers, deeming them uneducated, low and thieving folk. Sarah would have liked to be able to refute this but Joe had described his life on the canal to her in the time that they were able to spare for talking when they met. He’d joked about the vegetables that they took from the gardens alongside the canal, and of his prowess as a poacher. He’d offered her pheasants and rabbits but Sarah had laughingly refused, asking him just how did he think she could explain them away to her grandmother?

He’d told her how jobs on the canal could run on for weeks and months, when the arrival of a delivery at its destination could be met with a demand for the boat to transport a new cargo back to the other end of the canal. He’d declined work over the summer in order to be free to spend time with Sarah, he’d said, but could no longer afford to miss the wages.

This time, Sarah had a pressing need to be sure of his return date.

‘I’ve a baby on the way,’ she said.

Joe looked at her with an expression she couldn’t fathom. She would have hazarded a guess at a mixture of pleased, alarmed and wary.

When he didn’t speak, she pressed on.

‘I don’t think I can wait five or six weeks for your return, Joe. I will be showing by then.’

He nodded slowly. ‘Afore I go, then. Afore I go, we will marry.’

He stood up and pulled her to her feet and hugged her close to him. They both stood without speaking for some time, wrapped in their own thoughts.