A Time for Courage Read Online Free PDF

she must challenge him with her sense of injustice. Her father sat quite still and she wondered if he had heard her.
    ‘Mrs Brennan talks a great deal too much,’ he replied, his voice as cold as usual.
    He took a cigarette from his case and lit it, sucking the smoke right down before drawing back his lips and letting the smoke stream through his widely spaced teeth in strips. Hannah looked away; his teeth were like old park railings. They’d probably drop out like Grandfather’s and he’d chew his gums. She shuddered. He had returned to his book and she felt a flush of anger. He didn’t read when Harry was home or her mother was well enough to eat downstairs. He made no pretence at liking her. She was a girl, wasn’t she?
    Hannah persisted. ‘But it doesn’t seem right that they choose work which kills them just so that they can make sure their families eat.’ Her heart was beating very fast now and it seemed to have moved up into her throat from her chest.
    He put his leather bookmark in place before snapping the covers shut. She flinched at his violence. ‘This subject should not arise in a girl’s mind. Suffice it to say that society is not in any way responsible for these people. Every man starts with quite sufficient opportunities, as you would know if you paid attention at all to the Vicar in Matins. Therefore it is solely the fault of the people concerned if they do not rise to our station; they deserve their poverty and I wish to hear no more about this. You may leave the table and prepare for bed.’
    It was still so hot in her room, up on the floor above her mother, but she had opened the windows so there was at least a breeze. She hoped that air still circulated in the room below. Hannah leant back against the pillows. Yes, her father had certainly taken opportunities when they presented themselves. After all she had overheard Eliza once saying to Simon that he had married mother along with one-third of the tin mine profits. But how could a needle grinder ever meet a rich woman? Or his daughter have enough money to attend Miss Fletcher’s? There never seemed to be an answer to these questions and it still wasn’t acceptable that they should die, or for that matter that Simon should die. If her mother had another baby would she then finally die? She felt the fear return, the anger. Why keep having the babies? She lay, looking at the play of light on the ceiling. Did the heart just stop beating, she wondered, or did it slow down so that you had time to call for help? She put her hand on her left breast, even though it was a sin to touch, but yes, there it was, thud, thud, thud.
    She would lie each night like this so that there was no danger of being gathered while she slept and then, if it began to stop, the doctor could be fetched. She felt easier now, though what if her left breast grew more slowly than the other one because it was having to push against her hand?
    Hannah leant forward, her arms round her knees, listening to the carriages as they passed until she found the answer. She would open her fingers so that the breast would grow through the gap and drag the rest along behind, then no one would know that she had touched herself. Only God, and if she was feeling her heart she would have time to ask for forgiveness should it stop.
    The moon was high now, casting its light into the room. Harry would be home soon and perhaps, just perhaps, they would go to Cornwall again.

2
    The dogcart looked new although Aunt Eliza had bought it last year; the leather seats were the colour of the sweet sherry in the decanter on Penhallon’s dining-room sideboard and still smelt of the polish the groom had used. Harry shook out the reins and the pony broke into a trot along the broadening track which led up to the junction where they would turn left away from the house and out into the high-banked Cornish lanes. He smiled. Yes, it was as comfortable as he had thought it would be. His father stirred beside him