Wild Lands Read Online Free PDF

disinterestedly with her apron and sat them on the table. ‘I’ve said it before, haven’t I, the very same words. It’s a boon it is to be a woman and to be pretty. Men will do anything for a pretty face. They can’t ’elp ’emselves. Why, if you were a convict lined up with the rest of the prettiest girls ready for the choosing, some fancy soldier would drop his hanky in front of you and you’d not be desperate like the rest of us to pick it up. No, there’d be a better one for you, young Kate. There’ll be a better proposal of marriage for you in the offing.’
    â€˜Plenty better,’ Madge agreed.
    Kate thought of what she’d seen last night. If that’s what men and women did she was never getting married. She would die an old maid with two cats for company.
    â€˜You, Lambeth,’ the Reverend commanded from the door. ‘Get your things and come out.’
    The cook turned white. ‘Please, sir, I didn’t do it. I was asleep in my bed, I swear, just like I told you. Ask her, ask young Kate. She gets sleepless at nights she does, sir, and wanders about, not meaning anything of it of course, sir, and she gets cold, sir, so she took me shawl, not that I mind, sir. But it wasn’t me, sir. Please, sir, I’ve done me best for you, never done nothing wrong, served you loyal I have these three years, I swear. I’ve only got a year to go, sir, please, sir, a year to go.’ Mrs Lambeth pressed her squat body into the far corner of the kitchen, between barrels of preserved fruit and bags of salt and sugar.
    Madge and Kate moved to stand before the hearth, their faces downcast.
    The Reverend gave Madge a hard look and then turned to Kate. ‘Is what Lambeth says true? Did you take her shawl and enter the cottage last night without permission?’
    Kate licked at the sweat on her upper lip. Behind the man in the dark cloth suit were two soldiers wearing the distinctive red tunics of the British Infantry.
    â€˜If you are lying, God will strike you down in your sleep. You know that, don’t you, Kate?’
    It was an accident. She’d only borrowed the shawl and then left it there by mistake when she’d run away. Surely God forgave mistakes.
    â€˜Kate!’
    She flinched.
    â€˜So you’ve nothing to say?’
    What could she say? If Kate told the truth the Reverend would certainly punish her, perhaps send her away, and if she told the truth he might guess that she’d spied on him and her mother and that seemed worse than taking Mrs Lambeth’s shawl and sneaking into the cottage. Kate felt bad for Mrs Lambeth, but she pressed her lips together and said nothing. The Reverend gave her a stony stare. Kate swallowed. If God didn’t forgive her Kate figured she would be a lot worse off than Lambeth.
    The cook rushed at Kate, lifted a bowl from the stack on the table and hit her on the forehead.
    â€˜Take her,’ the Reverend said disinterestedly, as Kate fell to the floor.
    Mrs Lambeth screamed and begged and wailed but the soldiers grabbed her and dragged the older woman through the kitchen.
    â€˜I’ll get your things,’ Madge called out above the din, running into their room and reappearing with a few items of clothing bundled into a ball. ‘Take ’em and God bless.’ She pushed the bunch into the cook’s hands.
    When the soldiers and their noisy charge finally departed, the Reverend mopped his brow with a handkerchief. ‘Well, tend to her,’ he said to Madge.
    The kitchen was moving in a circle. Pots and pans spun. Kate put her palms to the floor to steady herself as Madge dampened a cloth and squatted next to her.
    â€˜It’s a bad cut.’ She pressed the wad of material to the side of Kate’s head. ‘She needs a doctor.’
    â€˜Clean it, bandage it and put her to bed. She’s young, she’ll survive.’

    Kate woke lying on the pallet in the room