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Back Sisters of Gold Save as PDF
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

Margaret allowed herself to lie in bed for a few more minutes than usual, the blankets pulled up to her chin, cosy in her thick nightgown, even though there was a rime of ice on the windows and she could feel the cold of the air in her nostrils. Annie had pulled the curtains and the day looked bright and crisp. The Sunday street was quieter, without the clatter of hooves and clamour of voices. A bell was tolling somewhere and the calm rhythm of it soothed her. She lay thinking about Philip Tallis, a warmth spreading through her as she remembered how he looked at her, the gentle, caressing way he spoke to her. Under the gruffness he showed with some people, she knew he was a man of deep feeling, kindly, a lover of beauty. She knew she could love him – did love him. But uprooting her life to stay here in Birmingham? It was something that would never in a thousand years have occurred to her when she first left home.

There would be ice in the ruts of the muddy tracks around the village today. Longing filled her as she thought of all the beauty of the countryside. She could imagine golden light on the trees, the clear, mirror-like surface of the winter river, reflecting willows, the flight of rooks scattering in the air . . . A powerful pang of homesickness went through her. Was that no longer to be where she belonged?

But then the reality of it drummed its way into her. Father. The rigid routine, which could feel heaven blessed if you chose to think of it that way: church three times on a Sunday, the school, the visiting and living always in the line of duty. All the things she thought she had been born to do, and yet which, as a young woman, her sick body had refused to let her participate in, as if it bore a different message to her, one she could not directly interpret. And how strange it was, the rush of excitement she felt at the sight of colour, of the objects of beauty made by Philip and others, the way they set her heart pounding, a thrill going through her that was almost like . . . She could not form the word. The word for what the body might feel for a man . . . And were all these instincts wrong? The texture and beauty and colour and love that living here had given her? Or was it all a trap, in a glittering disguise, the way Charles had been a trap? Was it God testing her – or his adversary?

Heart pounding with the tension of it all, she sat up and swung her legs out of bed. It was not too late to throw on her clothes and follow Annie to Carrs Lane – to turn her back on all this newness of feeling, the temptation it offered, and return to the straight and narrow.