‘Mrs Bligh?’
‘Can I help you?’
Alice took a breath. ‘Good maoahning! Ah’m from the travelling laahbrurry,’ she said carefully. ‘Ah wuz wondering if yew would lahk some bewks, fer you and the young’uns. Fer to do some book learnin’.’
The woman’s smile faded.
‘It’s okay. They don’t cawst nuffink,’ Alice added, smiling. She pulled a book from her saddlebag. ‘Yew kin borreh four and ah’ll jest come pick ’em up next week.’
The woman was silent. She narrowed her eyes, pursed her lips and looked down at her shoes. Then she brushed her hands on her apron and looked up again.
‘Miss, are you mocking me?’
Alice’s eyes widened.
‘You’re the English one, right? Married to Van Cleve’s boy? Because if you’re after mocking me you can head straight off back down that mountain.’
‘I’m not mocking you,’ Alice said quickly.
‘Then you got somethin’ wrong with your jaw?’
Alice swallowed. The woman was frowning at her. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I was told people wouldn’t trust me enough to take books from me if I sounded too English. I was just …’ Her voice trailed away.
‘You was trying to sound like you was from round here?’ The woman’s chin pulled into her neck.
‘I know. Said like that it sounds rather – I –’ Alice closed her eyes and groaned inwardly.
The woman snorted with laughter. Alice’s eyes snapped open. The woman started to laugh again, bent over her apron. ‘You tried to sound like you was from round here. Garrett? You hear that?’
‘I heard,’ came a man’s voice, followed by a burst of coughing.
Mrs Bligh clutched her sides and laughed until she had to wipe the corners of her eyes. The children, watching her, began to chuckle too, with the hopeful, bemused faces of those who weren’t quite sure what they were laughing at.
‘Oh, my. Oh, Miss, I ain’t laughed like that since as long as I can remember. You come on in now. I’d take books off you if you was from the other side of the world. I’m Kathleen. C’mon in. You need some water? It’s hot enough to fry a snake out here.’
Alice tied Spirit to the nearest tree and pulled a selection of books out of her pack. She followed the young woman up to the cabin, noting that there was no glass in the windows, just wooden shutters, and wondered absently what it must be like in the winter. She waited in the doorway, as her eyes acclimatized to the darkness, and gradually the interior revealed itself. The cabin appeared to be divided into two rooms. The walls of the front one were lined with newspaper, and on the far side stood a large wood-burning stove, beside which stood a stack of logs. Above the fireplace hung a string of tied candles, and a large hunting rifle on the wall. A table and four chairs stood in the corner, and a baby lay in a large crate beside it, its little fists pummelling the air as it cried. The woman stooped and picked it up with a vague air of exhaustion and the crying stopped.
It was then that Alice noticed the man in the bed across the room. The quilted covers pulled up to his chest, he was young and handsome, but his skin had the waxy pallor of the chronically ill. The air was still and stale around him, despite the open windows, and every thirty seconds or so he coughed.
‘Good morning,’ she said, when she saw he was looking at her.
‘Morning,’ he said, his voice weak and raspy. ‘Garrett Bligh. Sorry I can’t stand just now to –’
She shook her head, as if it was of no matter.
‘Have you got any of those Woman’s Home Companion magazines?’ said the young woman. ‘This baby is just a devil to settle right now and I was wondering if they had anything would help? I can read good enough, can’t I, Garrett? Miss O’Hare brought me some a while back and they had advice on all sorts. I think it’s his teeth but he don’t want to chew on nothin’.’
Alice startled, pulled back into action. She began flicking through the books and magazines, eventually pulling out two that she handed over. ‘Would the children like something?’
‘You got any of those picture books? Pauly’s got his alphabet but his sister just looks at the pictures. She loves them, though.’
‘Of course.’ Alice found two primers and handed them over.
Kathleen smiled, placing them reverently on the table, and handed Alice a cup of water. ‘I got some recipes. Got one for honey apple cake handed down from my mama. If you want it, I’d be happy to write it out and give it to you.’
Mountain people, Margery had instructed her, were proud. Many of them didn’t feel comfortable receiving without giving something back. ‘I’d love that. Thank you so much.’ Alice drank the water and handed back her cup. She made to leave, muttering about time getting on, when she realized that Kathleen and her husband were exchanging a look. She stood, wondering if she had missed something. They looked back at her, and the woman smiled brightly. Neither said a word.
Alice waited a moment, until it became awkward.
‘Well, it’s lovely to meet you all. I’ll see you in a week and I’ll make sure to look out for more articles about teething babies. Anything you want, I’ll be happy to search it out. We have new books and magazines coming in by the week.’ She gathered up the remaining books.
‘I’ll see you next time, then.’
‘Much obliged to you,’ came the whispering voice from the bed, and then the words were lost in another bout of coughing.
The outside seemed impossibly bright after the gloom of the cabin. Alice found herself squinting as she waved goodbye to the children and made her way back across the grass to Spirit. She hadn’t realized how high up they were here: she could see halfway across the county. She stopped for a minute, revelling in the view.
‘Miss?’
She turned. Kathleen Bligh was running towards her. She stopped a few feet from Alice, then compressed her lips briefly as if she were afraid to speak.
‘Is there something else?’
‘Miss, my husband, he loves to read but his eyes ain’t too good in the dark and, to be honest, he struggles to focus because of the black lung. He’s in some pain most days. Could you read to him a little?’
‘Read to him?’
‘It takes his mind away. I can’t do it because I got the house to mind and the baby, and kindling to chop. I wouldn’t ask but Margery did it the other week, and if you could spare a half-hour just to read him a chapter of something, well … it would mean the world to both of us.’
Kathleen’s face, away from her husband, had collapsed into exhaustion and strain, as if she dared not show what she felt in front of him. Her eyes glittered. She lifted her chin abruptly, as if she were embarrassed to be asking for anything. ‘Of course if you’re too busy –’
Alice reached out and put a hand on her arm. ‘Why don’t you tell me a little of what he likes? I have a new book of short stories here that sounds like it might be just the ticket. What do you think?’
Forty minutes later Alice picked her way down the mountain. Garrett Bligh had closed his eyes while she read and, sure enough, twenty minutes into the story – a stirring tale of a sailor shipwrecked on high seas – she had glanced from her stool beside the bed and observed that the muscles of his face, which had been taut with discomfort, had indeed relaxed as if he had taken himself somewhere else entirely. She kept her voice low, murmuring, and even the baby seemed to settle at the sound. Outside, Kathleen was a pale blur, chopping kindling, fetching, picking and carrying, alternately calming arguments and scolding. By the time the story finished, Garrett was asleep, his breath rasping in his chest.
‘Thank you,’ Kathleen said, as Alice loaded her saddlebags. She held out two large apples and a piece of paper on which she had carefully written a recipe. ‘That’s what I was telling you about. These apples are good for baking because they don’t go all to a mush. Just don’t overcook them.’ Her face had brightened again, her former resolve apparently restored.