Bruar's Rest

was not much money, but still food and drink was always offered.
    ‘Hello to you, my dear Mrs Aske,’ said Ruth, who seemed to know everyone by name. ‘Want me to read the tea-leaves for you?’
    Mrs Aske, who walked with a limp and had the use of only one eye, laughed out loud. ‘What good would it do me knowing about tomorrow, lass, when I’m grateful I rise with the day’s sun. I’m as withered as last year’s briar rose.’
    ‘My dear lady, me old gran always says, “Life can change in the flicking of a lamb’s tail”. For all you know, a smuggler’s fortune may be lying under that flowerbed of yours. Just one more dig with the fork and up it comes. You could go on a luxury cruise. Meet some handsome fella and live another twenty years. Now what think ye of that?’
    ‘I think you cheer me no end. Come in and have a meal with me, meagre though it be.’
    The threesome stooped under the low entrance to the cottage, went inside and spent a short time with the lonely woman. Later Megan was to discover she had three sons; all lost during yet another horrific battle of the past war.
    The girls did a few chores for Mrs Aske, before setting off to hawk flowers in another village further on in the moor.
    Other villages offered a better return for their wares, paying them with clothes or crockery. Soon the three girls headed off across Bleak Fell to meet Lucy at the fork in the road. She was waiting with a faraway look on her young face; a bunch of misshapen red roses hung loosely between her fingers. Her clothes smelled of honeysuckle, prompting Ruth to give her a look of disgust. ‘Been rolling about in the undergrowth, satisfying the gentry with your body?’
    Lucy shrugged her shoulders and told Ruth to find a man of her own.
    ‘Filth, that’s all you are, my lass, sheer filth!’
    ‘Well, better that than cowing to Bull Buckley.’
    Megan felt a shiver at the mention of that man once more.
    ‘Now, now, Lucy,’ said Anna, ‘you know since he battered her last she’s not even going to look at him.’
    ‘If she don’t hold a torch, why was she angry that time he took back a godger woman from York, when he beat Gripper Smith at his last street fight?’
    Ruth stormed off, with Anna at her heels apologising for Lucy’s looseness of tongue.
    Megan had no idea what they were arguing about, but thought that whoever Mr Newton was, he certainly knew how to bring a rosy bloom to Lucy’s face.
    ‘You had a good day, Lucy?’ she asked, as they walked back to the camp. For a while no answer came, until the smell of cooking and the familiar spiral of smoke told her they were nearing the quarry. Suddenly Lucy drew her to a stop and said, ‘Tomorrow night I’m leaving, my man is coming for me. He came last night, but couldn’t find my wagon. Tonight I’ll meet him at the fork in the road. Promise me you won’t say a word, because when Mam finds me gone, she’ll whip them that know about Mr Newton and me.’
    ‘Then I was right, there was someone outside the wagon last night,’ Megan thought.
    ‘Of course I won’t say anything, but does your man not love his wife and children enough that he has to leave them for a gypsy girl?’ She felt like biting on her tongue, that she had pushed too far. After all, she was a mere guest, someone hitching a ride, so to speak. ‘I’m sorry, Lucy, I didn’t mean to poke my nose in. It’s your business, and I’d no right.’
    Lucy smiled, and whispered, ‘He makes me feel like a queen. We laugh at the same things and he makes the gentlest love to me.’ She opened her palm to Megan and said, ‘This is not the hand of a well-bred person. I am no lady, but he has a way with him that takes the difference out of our lives. When together I am neither low-bred, nor he high—we are entwined by one thing, and that is the heaven-sent gift of love. Surely ye can see that?’
    ‘Lucy, far be it from me to hurt you, but heaven sent him another, and what you are doing is to steal. It’s not for you. My man and I, we were joined. No third party. I wish you all success, but that’s all I can say. Don’t worry, my lips are sealed. If your Mam finds out, I’ll take a whipping. Still, it’s a high price you set; everybody living in harmony here will have to move on, because you let a heart rule a head. In the glens I had to be strong, thankfully while my man fought in the war no other tempted me, but if there had been anybody, I’d not have yielded—no way!’
    All