Sarah paled and took a step back. “Leadbetter,” she said. “I’ve heard my father mention his name”

Stranger At The Door, Day 30

S arah looked up from her sewing as Daniel sat down opposite her. “I’m just in,” she said. “I walked over to Maggie Pender’s to get extra supplies. I don’t want you to starve when I’m away in Edinburgh. I’ll need to start making arrangements about the school and suchlike as soon as Aunt Bertha sends a reply to my letter. That should come any day now.”

Daniel tried to smile. He couldn’t bear the thought of Sarah going away for just a few days. “What’s that you’re sewing?” he asked, desperate to change the subject.

“Just a blouse that needed mending,” she said, snipping off a thread. “Getting my best clothes ready to go in the valise. I’ll have to look at my most respectable. Aunt Bertha has an eagle eye where clothes are concerned.”

Daniel didn’t say anything, but stared into the fire. A moment later, there was a tapping at the front door.

“You have a visitor,” Daniel announced, leading Rachel Makin into the room. She was clutching a book to her chest.

“I brought my book wi’ the medicines in it, Mistress Morrison,” she began. “Wee Benjy was playin’ wi’ it and tore one o’ the pages, an’...” Her eyes welled up with tears as she thrust the book at Sarah. “An it’ll get a’ wasted in oor hoose, ’cause there’s nae place to keep it. Could you keep it safe for me, Mistress Morrison, please?”

Very special

“Come and look at this, Daniel.” Sarah smiled as she began to leaf through the book. “There’s dandelion, sorrel, wild garlic – oh, look, there’s even nettle.” Settling Rachel down on a footstool with a glass of milk, they examined her book of cures, each plant sprig neatly pressed and labelled.

“This is very special, Rachel. I’ll look after it for you.” Sarah took the little girl’s hand and gave it a gentle shake. The visitor smiled. “Maybe when I’m big enough, I could be like Mary Ellen. A herba.. herbal...” “Herbalist,” Daniel supplied.

Later, when Sarah had made up a little parcel of cake for the Makin children and a happy Rachel had left, Daniel drew Sarah on to his knee and hugged her tightly as they warmed themselves by the fire.

“No wonder the bairns at the Wee School love you, Sarah,” he said at last. “You have a real gift with them. That struck me when I watched you with wee Rachel Makin.”

As she turned to smile at him, he kissed her. “And watching you, I could just imagine you and me, Sarah, with our own bairns around us. That would be a happy fireside.” Sarah gave a dreamy smile at the thought. Mary Ellen’s voice suddenly cut through their romantic imaginings.

“Are yis in?” she called, her voice loud with urgency as the front door flew open. The tone of her voice made both Sarah and Daniel spring to their feet.

“Sit down, Mary Ellen, and catch your breath.” Daniel drew out a chair. Mary Ellen ignored his offer.

“I was passin’ the Wee School just after I saw you goin’ away doon to Maggie’s shop,” she told Sarah, “and there was a man at the door lookin’ for you, Sarah. A wee man wi’ a bowler hat, kind o’ offeecious in his manner. Said his name was Leadbetter.”

Sarah paled and took a step back. “Leadbetter. I’ve heard my father mention his name. He’s from the School Board,” she said faintly.

“Said to tell you that he’ll be back the day after the morra, 10 o’clock sharp,” Mary Ellen finished.

Daniel glanced in concern at his wife. She said nothing. Paler still, her hands clasped at her throat gave her reply.

Preparations

Sarah stared despairingly at the jumble of clothes scattered across the bed. What would she wear for Mr Leadbetter’s visit?

She went over the preparations she had made the previous day, checking again that she hadn’t missed anything. The children had been told that they were to have a special visitor and were to be on their best behaviour.

The register and every book in the classroom had been checked to make sure that they were in perfect order. Rachel Makin had waited behind after class to help sweep and polish the Wee School to a high shine and to lay the fire.

After a sleepless night, Sarah had risen as soon as she’d heard Daniel close the back door and go off to work and had started to prepare for the day which she was beginning to dread.

An hour early, she arrived at the door of the Wee School to find Rachel waiting for her, wearing a russet pinafore and with her hair neatly braided. Her face shone with anticipation, and she beamed when Sarah admired the pinafore.

“Mammy made it,” she said proudly. “It’s to be kept for best, but she let me wear it the day ’cause the man in the bowler hat’s comin’.”

Sarah couldn’t help smiling. An exact description of the visitor had obviously travelled round Langrigg like wildfire. Inside, Rachel bustled around, lighting the fire which had been laid the night before.

She beamed with pride at the special flower book she had shown Sarah, which now formed the centrepiece of the examples of pupils’ work laid out on a table at the back of the room.

Sarah wondered if Mr Leadbetter would think the display frivolous. The School Board liked their classrooms to be unadorned, save for evidence that the Three Rs were being taught.

She had little time to reflect as the children arrived, all scrubbed to a shine and dressed in their best. For once, all of them, with the exception of Abie, Rachel’s brother, were early for school. His seat in the front row was still empty when Mr Leadbetter arrived.

He was obviously a man who did not stand on ceremony. As a flustered Sarah gestured to the children to stand and welcome their visitor, he made a dismissive gesture.

“Never mind that,” he said brusquely. “Just give me the register, if you please, and go on with the lessons.”

Track of mud

Removing his hat and placing his large briefcase by her table, he sat down.

A moment later, the scullery door opened and a dishevelled Abie Makin clattered across the floor, his boots leaving a track of mud across the clean floor.

Rachel leapt from her seat at the rear of the room and grabbed him by the back of his neck.

“Get back in there, ye wee midden,” she said, her voice sounding loud in the breathless silence of the room. “Ye’re late again. An’ rakin’ aboot up the ferm road by the look o’ they boots.”

Still holding him by the back of his neck, she propelled him into the scullery. Some of the children giggled nervously but stopped as Mr Leadbetter fixed them with a gimlet stare.

Pud Maxton, who was two years too old for the Wee School, and big for his age besides, started to laugh, attracting Mr Leadbetter’s attention. For a moment, Sarah felt tearful.

Order was restored when Rachel delivered Abie to his seat, bootless and looking chastened.

More on Monday.

This story was originally written specially for The People’s Friend, which published it under the title The Life We Choose. There’s more fiction in The People’s Friend every week, available from newsagents and supermarkets at £1.30.

Artwork: Andrew Lloyd Jones