Sarah glanced at him, the slightest pinprick of apprehension making her suddenly alert

Stranger At The Door, Day 35

The look on Miss Bunty’s face made Rushforth’s words peter out into an uncertain silence. “And until he gets back, Rushforth, you answer to me. I have never found it necessary to discuss family business with...” She paused and treated him to a glance that would have withered the leaves on a tree. “With the likes of you, who deserves no respect from me, my brother or any of the people who work here at Langrigg.”

She paused for breath, pink in the face. Then, after a minute or two, when the air thrummed with tension and Harry held his breath, Bunty finished her tirade.

“I’ll have you know that my brother and I are joint owners of this pit, Rushforth. Up till now, I’ve left the running of it to him, but in his absence, I have the right to take charge.

“And that I will do, as from now,” she continued, her voice rising again.

“And just in case you think to deprive me of the information which I require to set things straight here, to correct your neglect and to safeguard the workers, I’m sure there are those who are well qualified to advise me.”

Harry stood very still, hoping that he had become invisible and reflecting gleefully that he would have a great tale to tell the others when this bad-tempered meeting ended.

Lost in thought

By the time Bunty had set off home, Daniel was sitting by the kitchen range, trying to poke a dour fire into life and staring without appetite at the Scotch broth and cold cut of boiling beef that Mary Ellen had left for him.

Sarah had been gone for days now, but from the moment she’d stepped out the door, the heart had gone from the house.

He was lost in thought, turning over in his mind what Lofty had told him, trying to visualise again the plan of the old workings that Rushforth had snatched away from him, when there was a thunderous banging at the door.

The noise made the front window tremble in its frame.

It was Rushforth. Face contorted in fury, he confronted Daniel as he opened the door.

“Ah warned you, Morrison,” he shouted, “an’ you went runnin’ tae Miss Grant. Well, it’s doon the road for you this time an’ nae mistake. Collect the pay that’s due tae you and dinna come back.”

With one last long look of loathing, he leaned forward, a smile of triumph on his sneering face.

“An’ you an’ that wife o’ yours are oot o’ this hoose. Two weeks ye have tae gather up yer stuff. An’ if ye’re still here at the end o’ two weeks, I’ll come an’ pit ye oot mysel’.”

As the train left the grey bulk of Edinburgh behind and sped into the green landscape of the countryside, Sarah settled back in her seat, glad that she’d chosen an empty compartment for her journey.

Her journey home was a quiet time when she could go over every detail of her visit to her father.

She smiled to herself, thinking of the days they’d spent talking together, the way in which her father had seemed able to speak of her mother, bringing her into their conversations, letting her understand at last the careful plans they’d made for her.

Thoughtfully, she opened her handbag and took out the two envelopes that her father had given her the night before.

“Open these only when you return home,” her father had instructed her.

“Much will be explained by their contents, which must be shared now with your husband.”

Resisted

For a moment, Sarah was tempted to open the envelopes, but she resisted. She’d wait, she decided, until she and Daniel could open them together.

She settled back in her seat, staring, unseeing, at the green landscape that sped past, her thoughts back in her father’s big, sunny room in Aunt Bertha’s house where they’d talked for hours on end until he’d become tired and had drifted off into a gentle sleep.

She smiled to herself as the train began to slow towards the Junction, remembering Aunt Bertha’s final words to her as she had taken her leave at Waverley Station.

“I think you’ve managed to mend your father’s broken heart,” she’d said. “Come back soon, Sarah, and bring Daniel with you.”

At the Junction, Chisholm, the carter, was taking delivery of several large packages from the guard’s van of the train. He glanced over his shoulder.

“It’s yoursel’, Mistress Morrison. Mary Ellen said you’d likely be back in the next day or twa, an’ tae keep a look oot for you. Juist gie me a meenit.”

On the way back to Langrigg, Chisholm was strangely quiet.

For a while, Sarah tried to make conversation with little success and then gave up, choosing instead to look forward to her homecoming.

She would tell Daniel all the good news from Edinburgh, and open those mysterious envelopes together.

“Mary Ellen said t’bring ye up to her hoose,” the carter said as they reached the Front Raw.

“No. I want to be at home when Daniel comes off his shift.” Sarah glanced at him, the slightest pinprick of apprehension making her suddenly alert.

It grew as a group of women standing at a corner stared curiously at her before turning back into a gossiping huddle.

As she let herself into the house, the cold hit her in the face. The fire was out and a trail of ashes lay across the hearth.

An unwashed plate lay on the little table. In the scullery, Daniel’s working clothes lay in a heap by the back door.

Trembling

Trembling, Sarah leaned back against the sink board, fear sucking the breath from her body.

As she did, the door suddenly flew open and there stood Mary Ellen.

“It’s a’ right, henny. It’s a’ right,” she said, enveloping Sarah in an embrace,

“Daniel?” Sarah’s voice was scarcely audible. “Safe an’ sound. Dinna you fret, lass. Come through ben the kitchen wi’ me and I’ll tell you what’s happened.”

Holding Sarah’s hand and patting it encouragingly now and then, Mary Ellen related the whole sorry tale of Daniel’s sacking, and of Rushforth’s spite.

At last Sarah managed to speak. “None of it matters, Mary Ellen,” she said. “As long as he is safe and we’re together.”

It was then that Mary Ellen gave her the letter Daniel had left for her.

It bore no date and was a hurried scrawl, showing Daniel’s agitation as he had written it.

“Rushforth has done his worst,” it read. “I have gone to look for work. Mary Ellen and Pate will look after you until I return. Till then, I carry you in my heart, my Sarah.

Your loving husband, Daniel.”

More tomorrow.

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