Band of Angel Read Free

old sheep.
    “No thank you.” She felt tears rising. “I am expected at home.”
    “You all right, love?” Meg looked at her sharply, and said, “Deio’s away this week with his father. There’s a sale on Ludlow way. He’s got a grand new horse, I expect he’ll show you.”
    “How is he?”
    Meg lit a pipe and looked at her. “He misses you. He never says so but he always does. You met each other too young.”
    “Too young for what?” She put her head in her hands.
    “Don’t! Don’t, love.” Meg looked shocked at her distress. “There’s always time,” she said, “but he’s like his father, he needs to live a bit first.”
    “But we do live,” she sobbed. “We do. I would never stop him doing that.” She could do nothing now to stop the tears.
    “I know you do, love, I know you do, but this sort of love at your age—it does hurt so.”
    “Why does it have to hurt?” she almost shouted.
    “It’s too much and I should shut my trap.” Meg knocked out herpipe and stood up, now almost as pale as Catherine. “Deio would tell me to shut it.”
    “Finish what you were saying.” Catherine felt in this moment that she hated Meg.
    “There’s nothing to finish, love. All I was trying to say is he’d hate a life too settled.”
    “And do you think I want that?”
    “No, but it’s what you will have.”
    “I don’t think I will.” Catherine stood up and put on her cloak. “But you have no need to trouble yourself with this anymore.” This was coming out so wrong, but she pressed on. “You won’t see me here again. I won’t be coming back.”
    “Love, calm down.” Meg took her hand and, for a moment, she grabbed it like a lifeline. “All I was saying was be patient, give it time.”
    “I won’t be coming back. I can’t.” It was Meg’s turn to look confused.
    “So where are you going, love? Somewhere exciting?”
    “I don’t know. Nowhere,” she stammered. “Mother is much better, you see, and now I can’t come back. But thank you very much anyway.”
    “I see.” The penny was starting to drop. She could see it in the stiff way Meg took her cake away from the table and placed it on the shelf. “I thought you’d come for something else.” Later, she’d led her to the door and, in a polite voice Catherine had never heard before, thanked her for coming.
    Running home along the riverbank, Catherine, her empty basket in her hand, felt shocked and unreal. She cursed herself for her abrupt treatment of Meg, wished she had had the courage to at least sit and eat the cake and explain things more fully. She imagined a scandalized Meg explaining the scene to Deio and Lewis in the English accent she often teased her in.
    “Stuck up little madam, comes in and says, ‘Sorry we won’t be needing yew anymore thank yew,’” and cringed to imagine their response. Lewis, who had started with nothing and worked his way up by selling hunters to the gentry, was a proud and prickly man, even more so now he had real power in the community. Deio washis father’s son. She would not be forgiven, she knew that. But what was so unfair, what made her pant with agitation as she ran, was that Father would stay friends with Lewis, maybe even with Deio. The big world of men’s work would go on. They dip each other’s sheep, meet in the tavern, lean over gates together and smoke pipes as if nothing of any importance had happened and they were all still brothers under one skin.
    A catastrophe for her, nothing to them. Her world suddenly shrunk to the kitchen, the dairy, the parlor: the whole world of footling tasks that made up being a woman. And there, barring a miracle, she would stay.

Chapter 2

    Poor Mother looked excited when Catherine got home. She had left the door to the parlor slightly ajar so that she could hear her coming. A fire crackled in the grate, the beaded lamp was lit. She had the
Caernarfon and Denbigh Herald
on her lap.
    “I’ve been making a list of all the things we can do