Chapters (64)
- Cover
- Title page
- Dedication page
- A Week’s Work in Birmingham
- I
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- II
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- III
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- Forty-Seven
- Forty-Eight
- Forty-Nine
- Fifty
- Fifty-One
- Fifty-Two
- Fifty-Three
- Acknowledgements
- Further Reading
- About the Author
- By the Same Author
‘I know,’ Margaret said. ‘I wondered too – though I couldn’t do anything about it. When I got to Oxford station I realized that if she let him out it was the first place he would come looking for me. So I waited until I had found out the time of the first train and went away again – out along the cut, until it was time. I was scared stiff he’d be there waiting, at the station . . .’ She turned to Daisy. ‘What was that you said about Den?’
‘He followed you,’ she said.
‘But why?’
‘He said . . .’ Daisy tilted her head to one side and suddenly put on Den’s gruff voice. ‘“That feller – he looks like a bad’un. And when ’er saw ’im, ’er copped ’old ’o my hand so hard I thought ’er’d pull it off. It was ’cause she were frightened of ’im.”’
Margaret’s eyes filled with tears and when she looked at Annie, she saw the same emotion.
‘What a boy,’ Annie said, having to wipe her eyes.
‘But why could everyone see it except me?’ Margaret said.
‘Well, I couldn’t,’ Aunt Hatt said. ‘He seemed perfectly nice to me.’
‘All that time – I couldn’t see the bad in him. There was good in him – and I suppose I only wanted to see the good – I know that when I see it.’ She smiled at Philip Tallis and he gave her a loving smile back.
‘When he came along, I was so . . . And he has a way of getting inside your thoughts, burrowing in like . . .’ She shrugged.
‘An earwig?’ Daisy suggested. Everyone laughed.
‘Yes – a great big fat earwig,’ Margaret said, putting her arm round Daisy for a moment.
There was a movement at the side of the room and they all looked to see William Hanson getting stiffly to his feet. Even the way he did this seemed the action of a man older than she remembered and Margaret felt a jolt of sorrow. Still in his black coat, he came and stood beside her and reached out a hand as if to put it on her shoulder, before, on second thoughts, removing it again. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, bending forward slightly, and his stance silenced everyone else.
‘I owe you an apology of the profoundest kind,’ he said. Even though he was speaking quietly, his resonant preacher’s voice resounded about the room.