But it was the best she could do. Moreover, she had an end
house in one of the top blocks, and thus had only one neighbour; on
the other side an extra strip of garden. And, having an end house, she
enjoyed a kind of aristocracy among the other women of the "between"
houses, because her rent was five shillings and sixpence instead of
five shillings a week. But this superiority in station was not much
consolation to Mrs. Morel.
She was thirty-one years old, and had been married eight years. A rather
small woman, of delicate mould but resolute bearing, she shrank a little
from the first contact with the Bottoms women. She came down in the
July, and in the September expected her third baby.
Her husband was a miner. They had only been in their new home three
weeks when the wakes, or fair, began. Morel, she knew, was sure to make
a holiday of it. He went off early on the Monday morning, the day of
the fair. The two children were highly excited. William, a boy of seven,
fled off immediately after breakfast, to prowl round the wakes ground,
leaving Annie, who was only five, to whine all morning to go also.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25