All the dear faces by Audrey Howard Page A

could make it and she would turn over in her grave if she could see it now, Annie thought sadly .
    Her clear, brown eyes became clouded as she looked back sadly at the hard and empty life her mother had led. And yet had her mother ever done anything to attempt to better it? Had she, in the beginning, when she was young and strong and pretty, perhaps able to cajole a kiss and a smile from her young husband, determined on a place for herself, one of importance in her husband's life, not that of a drudge but as an equal in the equally divided labour they shared? Had she made an effort to achieve for Lizzie Abbott and the family which she presumably hoped to have, some grasp of independence, some comfort, an identity which was hers, a knowledge of who Lizzie Abbott was, not Joshua Abbott's wife, but herself, or had life and Joshua Abbott trodden her down to the browbeaten woman Annie herself had known? Had she done her best to force her will on the harsh reality a daleswoman was destined to know, to twist it until it gave her some measure of peace, content, hope, joy? Perhaps she herself was being unfair. Perhaps there was no way a woman such as her mother could ever gain what surely was due every human being, in some quantity and which Annie Abbott meant to have. Oh yes, make no mistake about it. She had been given this farm, this chance, and she would have all the things her mother had been deprived of. She would have these things. She was not awfully sure what these things were but if hard work, tenacity, a resolute will, a powerful determination and a knowledge of her own individuality, her own uniqueness was a gauge to reckon by, then she would succeed. She would not be another Lizzie Abbott. She would not depend on, nor answer to, any man, as her mother had, as she herself had been forced to do when she had run off with Anthony Graham. She would get there by herself. Again she was not awfully certain where there was, or how long it would take but she'd reach it somehow. On her own it would be difficult. It would be doubly so with Cat. A child born out of wedlock. A woman with no man's protection. She would be hard-pressed to find a friendly smile, particularly among these taciturn, independent, moral men and women of the dales and fells of Lakeland, not one of whom would give her the time of day when they saw what she had brought back with her from the outside world .
    But she had this farm, this land. She had no money, no livestock, nothing but the coppice wood standing beyond the field at the back of the house, but in which surely, with the knowledge her father had ground into her as soon as she could toddle, just as he would a son, she could make a living, something on which to feed her and Cat until she got on her feet? She would dig and plant and sow, weed and hoe and grasp sustenance from the earth as the Abbotts had always done. She would take one day at a time until the winter was over, find work, perhaps, in some other woman's kitchen as her mother had done in hard times. Anything to earn and save some money so that when spring came .. .
    Spring! Dear God, here she was, her blood thinning in her veins, her breath ready to freeze in the air about her, her bare feet shuddering on the icy slate floor, no fire, no food, day-dreaming about spring when the harsh Lakeland winter was still to be got through. She should be looking for kindling to light the fire, for the oats to make clapbread to put in her child's mouth. Oh, please, God . . . just this once . . . Dear God . . . look kindly on me . . . Let there be peat . . . and oats in the kist . .
    It was there, just where her mother had placed it before she went up the stairs to her death. The kindling beneath the sconce, plenty of it, enough to start a fire and out in the barn would be the stacked, dried peat, the tree roots and ash tops her mother would have gathered to put on the slow burning fire. On the little shelf above the fireplace was the flint and striker and