Longbourn Read Online Free PDF Page B

with little thought to size or ripeness. As soon as she had filled the trug, she scrambled straight down the ladder, skirts gathered. She hurried up to the house, the basket handle hooked over her folded arms. The apples might bruise a little, knocking about like that, but they’d hardly have time to spoil.
    As she strode along the side of the stable block, the basket bumping against her thighs, feeling bright with possibility, the new manservant was at the same moment striding along the front of the stables, pushing a heavily laden wheelbarrow before him. The two met as they swung round the corner from opposite directions: the corner of the wheelbarrow hacked into Sarah’s shin; she grabbed at her basket; he stumbled to a halt, clutching the barrow handles.
    They stood face to face. She was wide-eyed, lips parted; he was a mess of loosened hair. The barrowload of ripe and stinking stable-muck steamed faintly in the autumn cool between them.
    “Sorry!” she said.
    He pulled the barrow back, then pushed the hair out of his eyes. His skin was the colour of tea; his eyes were light hazel and caught the sun. He peered down at her skirts, where he’d hit her.
    “Does it hurt?”
    She bit her lip, shook her head. It really did.
    “I didn’t see you—”
    “You should be more careful.” She could feel the trickle of heat where her shin bled. “I nearly dropped my apples.”
    “Oh yes,” he said. “I see that. Apples.”
    “Yes. Well, you should really—”
    “So, if you’re all right—” He jerked his head: “Kitchen garden down this way?”
    She nodded. He wheeled the barrow back another step and swerved past her.
    “Right, then. Thanks.”
    Then he was away, rattling down the track and round the bend, his waistcoat hanging loose around him, britches gathered in at his middle like a flour sack, one boot sole flapping half off. So this was the fine upstanding young man. This was the great addition to the household. As far as Sarah could see, he was no great addition to anything at all.
    “And a good afternoon to you, too!” she yelled after him.
    Sarah’s shin was bloodied, red seeping through her black worsted stocking. Not really a cut, more a split in the skin, all blue with bruise and oozing blood. Her stocking was not torn, however, and for that she was not entirely grateful. If it had been ruined too, then she could have allowed herself to be proportionately more cross. She shook down her skirts.
    “I finally met the new man, missus,” she said.
    “Oh yes?” Mrs. Hill, her forehead beaded, was rubbing lard into flour, but paused at this. “Pleasant lad, I think.”
    “He ran smack into me. With a barrowload of dung.”
    “And were you running too, by any chance?”
    “You needed the apples, so I was, perhaps.” She looked pointedly down at her shin. “He hurt my leg.”
    “Could you get on with the peeling, do you think?”
    “It’s really sore.”
    “Oh dear.” Mrs. Hill still did not look round.
    “I think my leg’s going to fall off altogether.”
    “What a shame.”
    “It’s only hanging on by a bit of gristle.”
    “Well, never mind.”
    Sarah got up from her seat and limped emphatically to the kitchen table. She took up a paring knife. Mrs. Hill glanced up at her then; she ran the back of her hand across her forehead, leaving behind a fine dusting of flour.
    “Are you all right, though, Sarah, love?”
    “No. And he’s not either. Not in the head. I’ll bet that’s the only reason we could get him. That’s why he’s not in the service of some earl or away fighting in the war. Because nobody else would have him.Nobody wants him because he’s a cack-handed lummox who’s a danger to everyone around him.”
    Mrs. Hill gave Sarah a warning look.
    “Well—”
    “Sarah. Don’t you dare go blaming others for what you’ve brung upon yourself.”
    Sarah lifted an apple and chunked her knife into it. She peeled away a ragged strip of skin and watched it coil onto the