The Innkeeper's Daughter

The Innkeeper's Daughter Read Free Page B

Book: The Innkeeper's Daughter Read Free
Author: Val Wood
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turn the lessons to his advantage. Both of them, if they had anything to say or grumble about, chose to say it to Bella.
    ‘It’s for your own good,’ she told Joe after an outburst. ‘Father’s only thinking of your future.’
    ‘My future’s here,’ he snapped. ‘I’ll be ’innkeeper one day.’
    She wanted to explain; explain that if the doctor’s prognosis was correct, then he would be too young to be a landlord, and if their mother wasn’t allowed to hold the licence for the inn they would all have to leave.
    William whispered to her that he couldn’t believe his luck. ‘I’ll be one up when I join ’military. Harry ’blacksmith is a farrier as well as a smith. He’ll teach me to shoe horses as well as meld iron. And I’ll build up muscle, cos I’ve to strike wi’ sledgehammer an’ it’s that heavy you wouldn’t even be able to lift it, Bella.’
    Bella looked at him and thought muscle would be an advantage to William, being so stick thin, unlike Joe who was broad and sturdy. She herself was plump and curvy and Nell looked as if she would be the same once she had grown out of childhood.
    Their father, during his short enforced convalescence, had been filling his time with thinking and organizing, and as soon as he thought he was fit he made an appointment to see the local licensing magistrate.
    ‘I’ve applied for a joint tenancy licence, Sarah,’ he said on his return. ‘I told Saunders that as you did half of ’work and saw to ’food and accommodation it was onny right that you should be named as landlord as well as me. He agreed and stamped ’licence there an’ then.’ He heaved a sigh of satisfaction. ‘So that’s one worry out of ’way. We’ll get both our names put ower ’door this weekend.’

CHAPTER THREE
    DURING THE SUMMER , Bella helped her mother with the housework, and in the evenings served the lodgers with their food and drink. There were three casual labourers staying with them during harvest. As the weeks drew on their skin grew steadily darker and their arms more sinewy and muscular. Sarah gave them an early breakfast in the taproom every day and then served Joe and William at the kitchen table before packing up bread and beef or cheese for their midday meal, or lowance as they called it. When the men had left for the fields and Joe and William for work, Bella dished up breakfast for her father, her mother, Nell and herself.
    ‘Don’t give me too much, Bella,’ her mother said, but Bella, conscious that her mother was feeding two, put two rashers of bacon and an egg on her plate. Her father had two rashers, two sausages and two fried eggs whilst Bella and Nell each had a boiled egg, which they ate with bread and butter.
    ‘Ducks have started laying again,’ Bella remarked. ‘I found three eggs under ’hedge yesterday.’
    ‘Can you be sure they’re fresh?’ her mother asked. ‘Ducks have a habit of hiding ’em.’
    ‘They weren’t there ’day before,’ Bella told her. ‘I’ll try ’em. I love duck eggs.’
    ‘If they’re all right, you can mek me a Yorkshire pudding,’ her father said. ‘Shall we be having beef for dinner?’
    Sarah nodded. ‘We can do. I’ve got a nice piece of brisket. I was going to put it out for ’customers.’
    ‘I’ll just have a slice,’ he said. ‘An’ extra Yorkshires.’
    He smiled at Sarah, and she commented, ‘I’m pleased you’ve got your appetite back, Joseph.’
    ‘But you haven’t,’ he observed. ‘You’ve hardly touched your bacon.’
    ‘You have it,’ she said, forking up a rasher and putting it on his plate. ‘Bella allus gives me too much.’
    He cut up the rasher and ate it. ‘You’ll have me as fat as yon pig.’ Then he pushed his chair back. ‘I’ll go and set up in ’taproom.’
    ‘I’ll come and help you in a minute, Father,’ Bella said. ‘I’ll just clear up ’breakfast things.’
    ‘Me and Nell will do it,’ her mother said hastily, and frowned at Nell as she began

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