Longbourn Read Online Free PDF

about battling with its wooden rungs.
    “Can I help you there, missus?”
    “I can manage, thank you, Sarah.”
    Mrs. Hill heaved the clothes in a heap on the stone bench, then lifted a jacket off the top of the pile. She shook it out, and turned it round, inspecting it. She snapped it out again, and draped it over the top rung of the clothes-horse. Seeing Sarah still lingering there, she said, “Them chickies do need fed, miss, though. Hop to it.”
    The rest of the morning Sarah kept crossing the yard. He could not stay in the stable loft all day, she told herself; he must come out at some point, and when he did, she would say “Good morning,” and he would say “Good morning” back. Then she would thank him for sweeping up the yard for them, and he would say “You’re welcome,” and it would go from there, and that would be that.
    But if he did emerge at all, in the middle part of that day, she missed him. She caught the smell of fresh whitewash, though, and from time to time the sound of him whistling.
    The afternoon stretched out like catgut. She thought he might come across to the kitchen to beg a cup of tea. She wondered if she oughtto take a cup over for him, but then she’d have to ask Mrs. Hill to brew up, and dinner preparations were now in full flood, and Mrs. Hill would not welcome the suggestion that she pause in the middle of all that, just to put the kettle on.
    Sarah was chopping the fennel, the aniseed-smell of it sweet and clean, her lip caught between her front teeth while she considered the likeliness and otherwise of tea; Mrs. Hill was gutting the carp, with Puss twining and coiling around her ankles, demanding notice; she dropped the innards for it to catch. Polly, meanwhile, pumped the bellows at the fire, watching as the fuel flared and sparked. They could hear Mr. Hill thumping around below them, down in the cellar, where he was selecting the wine. Mrs. Hill took up her scaling knife and set to scraping the milky-silver scales from the flank of the fish. Then her hands went still.
    “The apple pie!”
    “Apple pie?”
    “I forgot all about it.”
    “I thought it was to be gooseberry.”
    Sarah had seen the pastry made the night before; she’d topped and tailed the gooseberries with her own hands. She had watched Mrs. Hill grate the sugar over the berries.
    Mrs. Hill flapped a fishy hand. “It was to be apple, and I forgot all about it.”
    “What’s to do then, missus?”
    “You run and pick the apples; I’ll make the pastry.”
    Sarah was on her feet and heading for the door before Polly could realize what was happening, and volunteer herself for a jaunt down to the orchard in Sarah’s stead.
    “How many do you need?”
    Mrs. Hill looked down at her fists, uncurling one finger then another in an attempt at calculation. Though she must have been distracted by the state of them, red and thick, and slippery with oil from the fish, because the numbers themselves continued to elude her.
    “Just fill that trug with them nice Broad-eyed Pippins, they’re good cookers and they’re ripe. They’ll do just fine.”
    Sarah undid her apron, and grabbed the gallon trug from the low shelf by the door. She was half in, half out when Mrs. Hill called out to her, “And thank you, lovey. I don’t know what’s wrong with me today.”
    Basket on her arm, Sarah was out of the fug and fluster of the kitchen, and into the autumn cool. She dawdled past the stable door; dust motes hung in the air, along with the limey smell of whitewash. The top half of the door was open. Inside, it looked warm; she got a glimpse of the chestnut mare’s glossy flank, and sun shafting through a high window. Of the new manservant, still no sign.
    Every step she took was as slow as a step could possibly be. And still he did not come out.
    The ladder had been left against the pippin tree. Head and shoulders amongst the leaves, she stretched out for the heavy blushed fruit, taking whatever was within easiest reach,