Lovers Meeting Read Online Free PDF

morning face, framed by her bonnet trimmed with fur. Peggy had not bought black for her child, despite Mrs Entwistle’s obvious disapproval, because she had felt David would not have wanted it. But she wore the black coat and dress she had bought for the funeral because she grieved and because it was her best.
    They followed the directions given them by the bus conductor and at the end Peggy asked the driver of a provision merchant’s delivery van, perched on his box of a seat behind his horse’s rump and smart in striped apron: ‘Excuse me, sir, but is this New Cavendish Street?’
    He guessed at her illiteracy but touched his whip to his cap. ‘It is, missus. Which one did you want? Mr Urquhart?’ Now he was impressed. ‘Ah! Fine gentleman.’ And he pointed out the house then clicked his tongue at the horse and rolled away on iron-shod wheels.
    The Urquhart house was tall and high-windowed with three storeys standing above the street. Peggy paused on the pavement opposite, hesitating nervously. Josie, holding her mother’s hand, pulled on it impatiently. ‘What’s the matter, Mam? What have you stopped for?’ But Peggy could not explain how much hung on the next hour or so, knew the child would not understand if her mother told her they would have to go to the workhouse if she could not find work. That institution would put a roof over their heads but its spartan cleanliness and pitiless regime were as bad as any prison. Peggy prayed silently, ‘Not for Josie, please, oh Lord.’ Then she took a deep breath and walked across the street.
    A flight of wide steps flanked by handrails rose up to the big front door with its shining brass knocker, but Peggy turned instead to the narrow steps that led down to the cellar kitchen under the house. She tapped at the door there and it was opened by a girl of sixteen or so, a kitchen-maid with a mob-cap on her curls and a white apron tied around her waist. Peggy asked, ‘Can I speak to Mr Harvey, please?’
    The girl’s eyes widened. ‘Ooh! I dunno. Arf a mo’ an’ I’ll arsk. Who shall I say it is?’
    Peggy shook her head. ‘He won’t know me. Just say I’m from Monkwearmouth.’
    The wide eyes blinked. ‘Where?’ The girl had never heard of it.
    Peggy repeated, ‘Monkwearmouth.’
    ‘Ah!’ The girl mouthed the syllables silently, rehearsing, then said, ‘Awright, I’ll see if he’s in.’
    Peggy knew what that meant. As the girl disappeared and she was left to wait at the door she wondered if Harvey would see her. And thought with weary pessimism: Why should he?
    ‘’Scuse me, Mr Harvey, but there’s a woman at the kitchen door arskin’ to see you.’ The girl, Elsie, stood respectfully at the door to the butler’s pantry, a small, neat room that was his office. Albert Harvey, at thirty-one, was a young man for his job but he had already held it for five years. He was tall and lean with dark hair and shrewd dark eyes. He sat at the little table that served as his desk, in shirt-sleeves and black waistcoat, but his tailcoat hung ready on a hook. He had risen a long way in the world but was determined to go a lot further.
    He knew what it meant when a strange woman came to the kitchen door asking to see him. They often did and they always wanted work. He never took them on. Instead he looked for the staff he wanted and then set about getting them. At that time he knew there would soon be a vacancy in the household – today if he allowed the assistant cook to leave without working her notice; she wanted to join her husband in service in a house in the shires. But Harvey already had his eye on the potential replacement, working in a large house only a few hundred yards away. Still …
    The girl’s mention of ‘Monk-wear-mouth she says she’s from.’ That was something different. And Elsie went on, ‘She’s got this girl with her I think must be hers; little thing, all eyes.’ That was different, too. The women seeking work never brought their