BooksBarbecue
Back A Season for Hope
Chapters (57)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Chapter One
  4. Chapter Two
  5. Chapter Three
  6. Chapter Four
  7. Chapter Five
  8. Chapter Six
  9. Chapter Seven
  10. Chapter Eight
  11. Chapter Nine
  12. Chapter Ten
  13. Chapter Eleven
  14. Chapter Twelve
  15. Chapter Thirteen
  16. Chapter Fourteen
  17. Chapter Fifteen
  18. Chapter Sixteen
  19. Chapter Seventeen
  20. Chapter Eighteen
  21. Chapter Nineteen
  22. Chapter Twenty
  23. Chapter Twenty-One
  24. Chapter Twenty-Two
  25. Chapter Twenty-Three
  26. Chapter Twenty-Four
  27. Chapter Twenty-Five
  28. Chapter Twenty-Six
  29. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  30. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  31. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  32. Chapter Thirty
  33. Chapter Thirty-One
  34. Chapter Thirty-Two
  35. Chapter Thirty-Three
  36. Chapter Thirty-Four
  37. Chapter Thirty-Five
  38. Chapter Thirty-Six
  39. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  40. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  41. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  42. Chapter Forty
  43. Chapter Forty-One
  44. Chapter Forty-Two
  45. Chapter Forty-Three
  46. Chapter Forty-Four
  47. Acknowledgements
  48. About the Authors
  49. Also by Rosie Goodwin
  50. Welcome to the world of Rosie Goodwin!
  51. Letter from Author
  52. Meat and Potato Pie
  53. The Precious Stones series
  54. The Days of the Week Collection
  55. Mothering Sunday
  56. Victorian Tales from Memory Lane
  57. Memory Lane Club

‘Isla, that’s one of the girls I’m working with, said it would help if I soaked ’em in the urine in me chamber pot,’ Amber said weakly, although the thought of doing anything so disgusting didn’t appeal to her at all. ‘It hardens ’em up, apparently. They’ve gone soft cos I ain’t been workin’ fer awhile.’

‘Well, I don’t think you should go back tomorrow,’ her mother muttered as she gently bathed her hands.

‘They’ll be gone within a couple o’ weeks. Anyway, there ain’t so many herrin’s bein’ caught now so the girls will be movin’ on. I might as well try an’ stick it out for that long at least.’

‘An’ then what do you intend to do?’ Her mother raised an eyebrow. ‘I hope you ain’t thinkin’ o’ goin’ with ’em?’

‘I ain’t decided yet.’ Amber snuggled further down into the blanket and by the time her mother had tipped away the dirty water she had already fallen into an exhausted sleep.

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

Amber had been working with the herring girls for almost a week. It was a cold, drizzly late September day with a biting wind blowing in off the sea. Despite all her mother’s pleas to end the job, Amber had struggled on, although that morning, she had been secretly relieved to hear that the girls would be moving on the following week. Both Isla and Bridget had asked her to move on with them but as much as she had enjoyed their company she wasn’t so sure this was a life she would want to live for very long.

Every night when she got back to the cottage in Argument’s Yard, she would find her top drenched in milk and she was still bleeding heavily, but at least while she was busy, she didn’t have time to think of the child she had given away. And she flatly refused to talk to her mother about it. It was only at night when she lay in bed listening to the wind in the rafters of the cottage that she allowed her tears to fall. Her biggest regret now was not allowing herself to see the baby, and she constantly wondered what she looked like. Did she favour Barnaby Greenwood with his blue eyes and fair hair, or did she look like herself with strawberry-blonde hair and tawny eyes? She would never know now but deep down the sensible side of her told her that it was perhaps for the best.