Time Shall Reap Read Free Page B

dark, but her father had cleared a passage from the porch to the gate, and much of the snow had been blown off the road into the fields overnight, and what was left was crisp now and easy to walk on.
    Early as Elspeth was, Nettie Duffus and Kirsty Tough were in the little anteroom behind the workroom when she arrived, hanging their heavy coats and shawls on the hooks provided by their employer, Miss Fraser.
    ‘What a storm last night.’ Kirsty lived just along from the shop and couldn’t really have known how bad it was.
    ‘How did you manage home, Elspeth?’ Nettie asked.
    ‘It took me a long time,’ Elspeth admitted, ‘and I’d went right past our house without seeing it. I thought I was lost, but I met John Forrest and he saw me home.’ As she had hoped, the other two girls pricked up their ears at this, and wee Kirsty, only fourteen, listened with open curiosity when Nettie, a year older, plied Elspeth with questions. ‘John Forrest? What’s he like? What did he say? Did he ask to see you again?’
    Elspeth blushed. ‘He’s awful nice, and I asked him in.’
    Kirsty’s large brown eyes widened, and Nettie’s breath was so taken away that it was a few seconds before she said, ‘What did your mother say about that?’
    ‘She wasna there, and my father wasna back from seeing to the beasts.’ Elspeth savoured their shocked wonder to the utmost.
    Nettie was first to recover. ‘Elspeth Gray! You were never in the house wi’ him on your own? Did anything happen?’
    Fortunately for Elspeth, Miss Fraser put her head round the door at that moment. ‘Stop chattering, girls. It’s turned half past seven and there’s work waiting to be done.’
    In the workroom, three box-topped treadle sewing machines stood against one wall, and two long benches in the centre of the floor. Elspeth was now trusted with some cutting, she and Nettie carried out all the machining, while Kirsty, as well as basting for them, had been learning how to sew buttonholes and invisible hems. Grace Fraser herself added braid or frogging to the heavier costumes after they were assembled. She was a strict taskmistress, but her young assistants accepted any reprimands from her in the same way as they accepted the low wages and long hours – with gratitude for being taught their trade by such an excellent needlewoman. Only when their employer was closeted with a material salesman, or a valued customer, did the girls talk in whispers, discussing the plots of the cheap love stories Nettie got from her older sister, or turning over the gossip of the area.
    As soon as she could, Nettie returned to the attack. ‘I’m near sure somebody tell’t me John Forrest was in the Gordons, but maybe it wasna him. Did anything happen, Elspeth?’
    ‘He’s home on embroc ... embarkation leave, for he’s being sent to France, and he’s going to Canada when the war’s finished.’
    Nettie was obviously disappointed. If he was intending to go away, there was little chance of him allowing himself to become serious about Elspeth or anyone else, but that didn’t mean that he hadn’t tried something when he was presented with such an opportunity. ‘Did he not even kiss you?’
    Flushing deeply, Elspeth kept her head down.
    ‘Aye, I can see he did.’ Nettie was triumphant. ‘You wouldna have went all hot and bothered like that if he hadna.’
    ‘All right, then, he did kiss me, and ...’
    ‘Was it like it was in the Awakening of Emma?’ Nettie interrupted eagerly, referring to a romance they had all read recently. ‘Did you get shivers up your back and the shakes in your legs?’
    ‘Aye, and my stomach was going round and round and all, but ...’ Elspeth broke off, then said, earnestly, ‘Oh, I can’t describe it, it was that exciting, but I think he loves me ... and I ken I love him.’
    Young Kirsty, who had been drinking everything in, shocked them suddenly by saying, ‘Did he seduce you, Elspeth, and take you against your will?’
    Nettie