Tangled Threads by Margaret Dickinson

damnation, that’s where he
said I was headed. Aye . . .’ Once more she began to sink back into self-pity. ‘And if it hadn’t been for your dad, that’s where I would have ended up.’
    ‘That was years ago. Surely, he won’t still feel – well – that way towards you. Not now.’
    ‘Oho, you don’t know Harry. He’s the “if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off” type. So,’ she added simply, ‘that’s what he did. He cut me
off.’
    Eveleen took her mother’s hand. Softly, she asked, ‘Was it so very dreadful? What you did?’
    Slowly Mary raised her head and looked straight into Eveleen’s eyes. ‘Oh yes. It was very dreadful. At least, in his eyes. And in the eyes of the whole community. Everyone shunned
me. Everyone.’
    Tears spilled down Mary’s face and Eveleen patted her hand. ‘Don’t, Mam. Please don’t cry.’ Once more she silently gave heartfelt thanks that she had resisted
Stephen’s pleading and his sweet words. She understood her mother so much better now.
    With renewed resolve, Eveleen put her arm about her mother’s shoulders and glanced towards Jimmy. ‘We’re going to take you home, Mam. Back to your family. Surely, after all
this time, they will have forgiven you.’
    ‘I doubt it,’ Mary murmured.
    Well,’ Eveleen said, ‘whether they want us or not, they’re going to get us. Watch out, Flawford, here we come.’

 
Fourteen
    ‘Have we got everything, Mam?’ Eveleen asked, taking a last look around all the rooms. ‘Are you sure you’ve got everything you want? We don’t seem
to be keeping very much. Our trunks and boxes have only taken up half the length of the dray.’
    Her mother stood in front of the cold range. It was the first time that Eveleen could remember not seeing a fire burning in the grate. The whole house seemed chilly because of it. Mary glanced
about her. ‘I’ve got everything I can take,’ she said pointedly. ‘It’s no good taking a lot of furniture. There’ll be nowhere to put it.’ Then her
face crumpled. ‘Oh Evie, I don’t want to go. I don’t want to leave here. It’s the only place I’ve ever been really happy.’
    ‘Weren’t you happy as a child? Before – before your trouble?’
    Mary pressed her lips together to stop herself weeping and shook her head. ‘My father was a hard man. He ruled us all with a rod of iron, and the men that worked for him, an’
all.’
    ‘Worked for him? Your father employed people?’
    Mary nodded and said airily, ‘Oh yes.’
    ‘What doing? I mean, was he a farmer?’
    ‘No. He was a stockinger.’
    ‘A what?’
    ‘A hosier. He ran a workshop making socks and stockings and other knitted garments.’
    Eveleen stared at her mother.
    ‘I ’spect it’s all still there,’ Mary mused, more to herself now than to her daughter. ‘I ’spect Harry’s got it all now.’ She stood for a moment
as if the memories of her childhood were crowding in on her. Then she shook her head again. ‘I don’t want to go back, Evie. I really don’t. I love the countryside. I love
Lincolnshire. Even though I wasn’t born here, it’s my home and I don’t want to leave it. Oh, Evie,’ Mary held up her arms and wailed, ‘I don’t want to
go.’
    ‘Mam.’ Eveleen enfolded the older woman in her embrace. ‘We have to go. You know we can’t stay here. They won’t let us. And we have to go somewhere.’
    ‘But they won’t want us either. They’ll turn us away and where will we go then? The workhouse?’
    ‘I told you, Mam,’ Eveleen tried to make her voice playfully stern. ‘You’re not to mention that again. I promise you, you’ll never have to go into the workhouse.
Don’t even think it.’ She hugged Mary harder, noticing with a pang of regret how thin her mother had become even in the short space of time since Walter’s death. ‘And one
day I’ll bring you back to Lincolnshire. I swear to you that I’ll bring you back home.’
    It was a solemn vow, but the young girl,