Darkest Before Dawn Read Free Page B

spoke, she was settling Mrs Wilmslow back amongst her pillows, wrestling with a strong desire to tell her employer’s wife where she got off. But when she looked at the older woman’s thin, pain-racked face, she merely gave her a cheerful smile. It was probably the pain speaking, she told herself, rearranging Mrs Wilmslow’s faded pink bedjacket and preparing to carry the chamber pot through to the back yard. ‘I’ll put the kettle on while Mr Todd is keeping an eye on things; then you can have a nice cup of tea.’
    Mrs Wilmslow sniffed. ‘I wouldn’t mind a cup of tea,’ she admitted grudgingly. ‘And when them gels of yourn come back, you tell ’em they ain’t to go off in future wi’out they asks permission first. Mr Wilmslow telled me what rent you pay, so I reckon we’ve every right . . .’
    Martha gritted her teeth and sailed out of the room, feeling the heat rush into her cheeks. That’s the trouble with being a redhead, she reminded herself, pushing the back door open and crossing the cobbled yard: your temper sometimes gets the better of you and you don’t just blush a pretty pink when you’re cross, you go the colour of a beetroot. So I’ll rinse out this here jeremiah and splash my face with cold water before I put the kettle on. By the time I return to the shop, no one will guess how cross I felt.
    When Martha returned to the Wilmslows’ bed-sitting room, she heard her husband’s deep tones mingling with those of the customers and smiled with relief. She checked that Mrs Wilmslow was all right, then went back to the shop. Harry was standing behind the counter, alongside Mrs Bunwell, writing down each item she had placed in the cardboard box and checking the shelf stickers for the appropriate price. He turned as Martha entered and grinned at her. He was a tall, spare man, his hay-coloured hair just beginning to turn grey at the temples, and he was still very tanned, his skin leathery and deeply creased from a lifetime on the canal, for Harry’s father and grandfather before him had been barge masters and until three months earlier his entire life had been spent aboard the Mary Jane . He greeted his wife cheerfully but looked rather helplessly at the customers waiting to be served. ‘I’m afraid I’m a bit slow like, because I don’t know where the things are kept,’ he said apologetically. ‘But Mrs Bunwell and meself have teamed up; she fetches the items off the shelves and I write down the prices. It seems to work pretty well.’
    â€˜Right. Well, you two get on with the orders and I’ll serve customers who don’t want stuff delivered,’ Martha said briskly. ‘Mrs Wilmslow fancied a cup of tea so I’ve put the kettle on, but until it boils I’ll get on here.’
    The three of them worked frantically for the next twenty minutes, but as soon as a lull came Martha hurried into the tiny back kitchen, turned the gas off under the kettle – the room was full of steam though she had left the back door ajar – and made a pot of tea. She poured a delicate porcelain cup for her employer’s wife and filled three chipped mugs for herself, her husband and Mrs Bunwell before carrying the teacup through into the bed-sitting room and putting it down on the bedside table. Mrs Wilmslow gave her a reptilian glance. ‘Where’s me biscuits?’ she rasped. ‘It’s eleven o’clock, ain’t it? I allus has two Marie biscuits and a squashed fly for me elevenses.’
    â€˜Sorry, Mrs Wilmslow,’ Martha said with forced cheerfulness. Why couldn’t the woman simply ask for the biscuits? She must know very well that it was Mr Wilmslow who normally brought her elevenses. She went into the kitchen and flung open the pantry door. She found the biscuits in a tin and put three on a plate, carrying them back into the bed-sitting room and placing them