Longbourn Read Free Page A

things ineffectually in the scullery; they could hear the slapping water, the scraping and clattering. Mrs. Hill winced for the china.
    Later, Mr. B. would ring the library bell for a slice of cake to go with his Madeira wine, making Mr. Hill start bad-temperedly awake andshamble off to give it to him. An hour or so after that, Mrs. Hill would fetch away his crumby plate and smeared glass, and Sarah would gather the ladies’ supper things from the parlour and carry them down on a chinking tray, and that would be that. On washday, the supper dishes could wait for tomorrow’s water. On a washday, too, Sarah did not have the attention necessary to read whatever book she had borrowed last from Mr. B. Instead she had a lend of his old Courier , and read out loud, for Mrs. Hill’s benefit, the news from three days ago, soft with folding and refolding, the ink smudging on her goose-greased hands. She read softly—so as not to disturb the sleeping child or the drowsy old man—the account of new hopes for a swift victory in Spain, and how Buonaparte had now been put on the back foot, and would soon be on the hop, the notion of which made her think of the war as a dance, and generals joining hands and spinning. And then there was a noise.
    Sarah let the paper hang from her hand. “Did you hear that?”
    “Eh?” asked Mrs. Hill, blinking up from the edge of sleep. “What?”
    “I don’t know, a noise outside. Something.”
    A soft whinny then, and the bump and thud of horses unsettled in their stalls.
    “I think there’s someone out there.” Sarah set the paper aside, went to lift the child’s sleeping head off her knee.
    “It’s nothing,” Mrs. Hill said.
    Polly sat up, still three-quarters asleep. Mr. Hill muttered, blinked, then reared up suddenly, wiping his chin. “What is it?”
    “I heard something.”
    They all listened for a moment.
    “It might be gypsies—” Sarah said.
    “What would gypsies want here?” Mr. Hill asked.
    “Well, the horses.”
    “Gypsies know horses; gypsies would have more sense.”
    They listened again. Polly leaned her head against Sarah’s shoulder, eyes closing.
    “It’s nothing. It’s probably a rat,” said Mrs. Hill. “Puss’ll see to it.”
    Sarah nodded, but still listened. Polly’s breathing softened again, her body going slack.
    “All right, then,” Sarah said. “Bed.”

    As Sarah stripped the lacing from her stays, moonlight seeped underneath the curtains, and soaked right through their weave. In her shift, she drew back the drapes and looked out across the yard, at the moon hanging huge and yellow above the stables. All was clear, almost, as day; the buildings stood silent, the windows dark; there was no movement. No gypsies certainly, not even the slip-scurry of a rat.
    Might it be the scotchman? Might he be bedding down for the night here, and away at dawn before anybody knew? His pack empty, he’d be off to restock at one of the market or manufacturing towns. Now that would be a thing indeed, to live like that. To be there and gone and never staying anywhere a moment longer than you wanted; to wander through the narrow lanes and the wide city streets, perhaps even as far as the sea. By tomorrow, who knew: he could be at Stevenage, or maybe even London.
    Her candle guttered in the draught. Sarah blew out the flame, dropped the curtain, and crept into bed beside Polly’s sleeping warmth. She lay looking across at the veiled window: she would not get a wink, not tonight; she was quite sure of it, not with the bright moonlight and the knowledge that the pedlar might yet be out there. But Sarah, being young, and having been on her feet and hard at work since four thirty, and it now striking eleven, was soon breathing softly, lost in sleep.

“Whatever bears affinity to cunning is despicable.”
    They were lucky to get him. That was what Mr. B. said, as he folded his newspaper and set it aside. What with the War in Spain, and the press of so many able fellows