His dark gaze locked into hers and brought warmth to her cheeks. She managed a smile

THE schoolhouse was quiet, faint sounds and scents of a summer afternoon wafting through open windows. As she passed her father’s chair, Sarah Ogilvie glanced down at the book which lay on his knee, noting that in the past half-hour he hadn’t turned a single page. She sighed and went through to the schoolroom, knowing that he was deep in thought and wouldn’t welcome any interruption.

It had been three years now that there had been a sadness in the house. It had only been eased by the children who came to the two schoolrooms for lessons, filling the place with their laughter in the small room where Sarah taught the little ones.

In the big schoolroom, Master Ogilvie had become stern and unsmiling. In the evenings, he worked with Sarah on her studies and then retreated into silence, gazing into the fire.

Sarah knew that the loss of her mother had changed him, distancing him from the daughter who reminded him so much of the wife he had loved so completely.

Sarah busied herself by inspecting the schoolrooms, which had been tidied and scoured to shining perfection in the days since the children had tumbled eagerly out of the door for their long summer holiday.

Laughter

At last, she slid open one of the long sash windows and perched on the window-sill while she considered how she might fill the rest of the afternoon.

Her thoughts turned to the Gowan Fair and brought with them the faintest blush to her cheeks. Looking out across the fields, she could see the top of the Gowan Banks, white-edged like a wave with the profusion of flowers which ran down to meadowland.

A week before, that meadowland had come alive to the sound of the cheers, laughter and bustle of the Gowan Fair.

Sarah pressed her cheek to the coolness of the window-pane and closed her eyes as she remembered the afternoon she had gone to the fair.

She had slipped out of the house to meet her friend, Jess Mcandrew. “We’re going for a walk,” she’d told her father, but he’d paid little heed.

She and Jess had gone only as far as the Gowan Banks, to where the miners and their wives, the farming folk, and even the workers from as far away as the Junction, were disporting themselves.

There were stalls and sideshows; the travelling people had arrived, as they did every summer, and were selling their wares. A running track had been marked out for the races which would start later, but the usual competitions were already under way.

Jess had tugged Sarah’s hand and led her along to where two young men appeared to be having a pillow fight on a crosspiece between two lofty wooden pillars. They were wielding straw-filled bags in an effort to dislodge each other. The crowd shouted encouragement.

“Come on, Sandy.” Jess let out a most unladylike shout before clapping her hands over her mouth and blushing.

“There’s no shame in supporting your husband,” Sarah told her. Jess and Sandy had been married for less than a month.

Hearing Jess’s voice seemed to make him double his efforts, at the same time distracting his opponent, who glanced down and met Sarah’s gaze. He hesitated for an instant and was sent flying by an almighty whack from Sandy’s bag of straw and landed at Sarah’s feet. He held out his hand to her.

High spirits

“Please help me up, pretty lady,” he said, dark eyes dancing with laughter. “After all, I fell for you and I could be injured.”

He leaped to his feet and trapped her hand in his. “Daniel Morrison,” he said, smiling.

Sarah returned the smile.

“Sarah Ogilvie,” she replied, wondering when Daniel would release her hand. He didn’t.

As the crowd surged around them, noisy with high spirits, they were borne away with Jess and Sandy.

For a while, Sarah and Daniel had been in the company of Jess and Sandy, then as the newlyweds went off to find a quiet spot under the trees, they had wandered hand in hand around the stalls and booths, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

When the races began, Daniel had taken off his boots and asked Sarah to guard them while he ran. He won his race and returned, jingling a pocketful of coins.

“My prize.” He held them out for Sarah’s inspection. “I’m a rich man, so now I’ll buy you a present.”

She protested, pushing tendrils of hair away from her face. Daniel bought her a clasp for her hair. She had never seen one like it, surmounted as it was by a brightly painted butterfly.

“It’ll bring you luck,” a gypsy girl said as she handed it over. “Today, the luck is mine,” was Daniel’s answer.

Jess and Sandy had come back in search of Sarah, full of apologies. Sandy and Daniel knew each other and the four of them enjoyed one another’s company for the rest of the afternoon, until the crowd gradually drifted away in the slight chill of the early evening.

Their parting was almost formal, as if a spell had been broken.

“Thank you for your company,” Sarah had said stiffly, trying to avoid Daniel’s intent gaze.

But as Jess and Sandy turned away to speak to acquaintances, he leaned forward and whispered in Sarah’s ear.

“I come up to the Gowan Banks and sit by the stream in the evening,” he told her, his voice urgent. “I hope we meet again.”

His dark gaze locked into hers and brought warmth to her cheeks. She managed a smile.

But since that day, she had told herself that she had not behaved as her father would have expected. He had plans for her – plans which did not include a friendship with the handsome young man whom Sandy had told her was a miner from the village of Langrigg.

Waiting

So Sarah had tried to content herself with only the memory of Daniel on a sunlit afternoon which might soon disappear into the mists of time.

But as afternoon had slipped away into evening every single day since the Gowan Fair, Sarah had sat by the window, looking out over the fields, knowing that there, just out of sight and sitting by the stream, Daniel would be waiting for her.

A sudden urgent rapping at the door of the schoolhouse broke her reverie and brought her to her feet. The caller stood on the doorstep, an imposing figure, stout, and buttoned securely into black bombazine.

The veil on her black hat obscured her eyes, but as she twitched it back with a gloved hand, Sarah looked into the face of a woman in late middle age who might have been described as “handsome”.

“Mistress Mary Ellen Walker,” she announced herself stiffly. “I have come to see Master Ogilvie.” “Is he expecting you?” Sarah asked.

“I shouldna think so, Miss Ogilvie. I wrote to him a while back, but I’ve had no answer, and the time’s gettin’ on so here I am.”

Sarah sighed. Her father had developed a disregard for letters recently.

“Come in, Mistress Walker,” she said.

More tomorrow.

This story was originally written specially for The People’s Friend, which published it under the title The Life We Choose.

Artwork: Andrew Lloyd Jones