Inherit the Skies by Janet Tanner

frustration feasted upon itself and grew until it came close to being an obsession.
    â€˜Why ever I married you I don’t know!’ she would say to Amos whenever some action or omission irritated her into giving vent to the barely controlled fury which simmered inside her large ungainly body. ‘ You’re the most useless man I ever met!’ And Amos would fix her with those patient brown eyes, shake his head and find some job about the farm that demanded his urgent attention so that there were only the hens who strutted placidly around the farmyard and wandered into the kitchen when the door was left open to the summer sun to hear her.
    That warm evening in late June however there was no escape for Amos though, with the hay almost ready to be cut in the long meadows beneath Home Farm, there were a hundred and one things he could think of that still needed doing. He stood at the window of the big flagged kitchen looking out at the sky that was deepening from blue to violet above the tall elms and listening to his wife’s voice reaching scratchy fever pitch.
    â€˜ Why , Amos? Why did you tell Gilbert Morse we’d have that Thomas child here?’ she demanded and the fact that she had already asked the question half a dozen times since he had come in from the fields in no way detracted from the ferocity of the attack. ‘What ever were you thinking of?’
    â€˜I didn’t have no choice, Bertha,’ Amos replied solidly. ‘ Mr Morse come to see me when I were working over in Top Meadow and he put it to me straight. The poor little soul’s mother is dead an’ she’s got nowhere to go an’ that’s an end of it.’
    â€˜But why should he think we’d have her here?’
    â€˜Well, we’ve got plenty of room, I s’pose,’ Amos reasoned. ‘ T’ain’t as if we got nippers of our own, be it?’
    The reminder only added to Bertha’s annoyance.
    â€˜What’s that got to do with it? She’s nothing to us. Just because we haven’t got family of our own that don’t mean we’ve got to take in every waif and stray for miles around.’
    â€˜Not every one, Bertha. Just young Sarah.’
    â€˜I think it’s a nerve to even suggest such a thing! And what’s it to do with him anyway?’
    â€˜You know her mother worked for Mrs Morse – and Mrs Rose Morse before her. The Morses always look after them as work for ’em.’
    The idea of patronage added fuel to Bertha’s fire. Her ruddy countrywoman’s complexion deepened to a blotchy unattractive puce and her heavy jowls quivered with indignation.
    â€˜If he’s so bloomin’ concerned, why can’t he have her up there with them at the Big House?’
    Amos half turned to look at her, his mild eyes expressing amazement that she should even think of such a thing.
    â€˜Up at the Big House o’ the gentry? Oh, talk sense, Bertha, do!’
    â€˜And what’s so daft about it I’d like to know?’ She skirted the table, angrily banging the pickle jar which she had been too preoccupied to clear away after supper. ‘I suppose Mrs High and Mighty Blanche Morse wouldn’t want a common ragamuffin whose mother was no better than she should be. But I’m expected to take her in under my roof.’
    Amos ran a hand through his thinning thatch of hair so that it stood on end like badly baled straw.
    â€˜It ain’t like that, Bertha, and you know it. It wouldn’t be fitting. Anyway, like I said, we got plenty of room. And I didn’t think you’d take on like this. I thought you’d be … well, quite tickled to have a girl about the place to help you. You’re always on about how much you’ve got to do and not having any nippers of your own an’ that …’
    For Amos it was a lengthy speech. He lapsed into silence as if surprised by his own verbosity.
    â€˜An’ what good