BooksBarbecue
Back Sisters of Gold
Chapters (64)
  1. Cover
  2. Title page
  3. Dedication page
  4. A Week’s Work in Birmingham
  5. I
  6. One
  7. Two
  8. Three
  9. Four
  10. Five
  11. Six
  12. Seven
  13. Eight
  14. Nine
  15. Ten
  16. Eleven
  17. Twelve
  18. Thirteen
  19. Fourteen
  20. Fifteen
  21. Sixteen
  22. Seventeen
  23. Eighteen
  24. Nineteen
  25. Twenty
  26. Twenty-One
  27. Twenty-Two
  28. Twenty-Three
  29. Twenty-Four
  30. II
  31. Twenty-Five
  32. Twenty-Six
  33. Twenty-Seven
  34. Twenty-Eight
  35. Twenty-Nine
  36. Thirty
  37. Thirty-One
  38. Thirty-Two
  39. Thirty-Three
  40. Thirty-Four
  41. Thirty-Five
  42. Thirty-Six
  43. Thirty-Seven
  44. Thirty-Eight
  45. Thirty-Nine
  46. III
  47. Forty
  48. Forty-One
  49. Forty-Two
  50. Forty-Three
  51. Forty-Four
  52. Forty-Five
  53. Forty-Six
  54. Forty-Seven
  55. Forty-Eight
  56. Forty-Nine
  57. Fifty
  58. Fifty-One
  59. Fifty-Two
  60. Fifty-Three
  61. Acknowledgements
  62. Further Reading
  63. About the Author
  64. By the Same Author

‘All right,’ she said. ‘You’d best go and finish the job. But Den, you’ve got to stop this – you could get into terrible trouble.’

‘I know it’s good money, but you don’t want to end up in gaol, do you?’ Margaret spoke very seriously. ‘Then where would your mother be?’ She looked into his face. ‘Is it any good me coming with you?’

‘No!’ Den said in alarm, shoving his cap back on his head. In a moment he had run out of the house. Annie sank her head into her hands.

‘I hope he’s going to be all right.’

‘He should be,’ Margaret said. ‘So long as he just does what he’s been asked.’

‘He must never, ever do it again,’ Annie said fiercely. She gave Margaret a surprised look.

‘You don’t seem shocked. You would have been – before.’

‘So would you. I am shocked – and it’s got to stop, but . . . Yes, not how I would have been once, it’s true.’

They both smiled, then Annie yawned, stretching her stiff back. ‘Oh – it’s been a long day.’

‘There’s one more thing,’ Margaret said. Annie could see from her expression that she had been saving this up to say all day. A feeling of foreboding grew in her as her sister reached into the waistband of her skirt and drew out a letter.

‘From Father,’ she said. She had decided not to show Annie the one from Charles – not yet, anyway.

Thirty-Three

Thirty-Three

‘I can’t go over all this again,’ Annie said later, furiously. She lay with her hair strewn over the pillow as Margaret stood by the bed, brushing hers. ‘Whatever is it that Father thinks he’s got to forgive us for? He does have the most astonishing way of turning things about to suit himself.’

Margaret looked at her, brush in hand, grateful for her sister’s conviction. ‘Every time I hear from him – or think about it, I . . .’ She trailed off, looking in the mirror, where she could see Annie lean up on one elbow, her face fierce in the candlelight.

‘You what? Think it was all your fault?’

Margaret sank on to the edge of the bed with a deep sigh. She thought of that other letter, just beneath her now, under the mattress, tugging at her feelings, throwing her into confusion again. ‘No, not all.’ She parted her hair roughly in two at the back and drew the left portion over her shoulder to plait it. ‘But I just . . .’ She paused a moment, looking across at the candle’s flickering shadows on the wall. ‘He was so . . . confused. Charles, I mean. And I was . . .’

‘Innocent is what you were.’ Annie flung herself back on to the pillow. ‘Maggs – he may have been confused, but he attacked you.’

Margaret sat silently doing her hair.