Luckpenny Land by Freda Lightfoot Read Free Book Online Page B

alternately melting and freezing as the weather changed. Progress was proving difficult with her booted feet skidding and skating on the frozen puddles one moment, and the next knee deep in a drift. But she meant to get through, no matter what.
    Stomach churning with excitement, she wished she’d thought to bring some lipstick with her, or a dab of Boots 711 Cologne to put behind her ears. In her old raincoat and wellington boots she looked a bit too plain and well scrubbed. But the anticipation of seeing Jack grew stronger with every step, making her hurry so that by the time she finally reached Broombank she was sticky and flushed with the effort.
    The farmhouse, with its projecting wings and dilapidated barn, saddened her. Its once white walls, roughcast to better withstand the weather, looked grey and pockmarked. To think this had once been one of the biggest and best sheep farms in the district with its two hundred and fifty acres of intake land and six or seven hundred more on the fells above. But with his son away so long in Preston, old Lanky had lost heart.
    Meg greeted him with a cheerful smile when he opened the door, trying to prevent her eyes from sliding past him to see if Jack was home.
    ‘Eeh, now then,’ he said, looking pleased. ‘Thee’s a grand sight on a cold day.’
    She hugged the old man, kissing his too-thin cheek. The scent of St Bruno flake tobacco, wood smoke, and something indefinable that might have been animal feed clung to his parchment skin, like old leather against the softness of her lips.
    Horny hands gripped hers with a strength that always surprised her, coming from such a small man.
    ‘Come in and warm theeself,’ he said, pushing the door closed behind her. ‘There’s a bit of a fire going.’
    Moments later she had her hands cupped about a hot mug of cocoa, toasting her toes in the great fireplace which was wide enough, Lanky said, to take a horse and cart should you have one handy. No doubt the ladies of Tudor England spun their wool within its embrace, and wove the hodden grey clothing Lakeland was famous for. They would bake their oatcakes, known as clapbread since it was clapped flat by the palm of a hand, on the huge griddle that hung from the ratten hook in the centre of the huge chimney. Another hook held the great black kettle that now steamed and spat hot water into the flames as Lanky moved it to one side so she could feel the heat. The andirons still stood in the hearth but they did not hold in place a huge log on this cold day as they might once have done. Instead, an insignificant wood fire burned in an old iron basket, giving off very little heat and a good deal of smoke. It was no wonder that Lanky still kept a scarf looped about his neck, tucked into the vee of his waistcoat.
    Lanky Lawson, for all his name, was a small, slight man with trousers that hung on braces from armpit to glossy boots, making his legs look like a pair of brown liquorice sticks, a bit frayed at the bottom as if someone had chewed them. And over it all he wore an old saggy tweed jacket that he declared ‘had an easy fit to give him room to grow’.
    ‘I’m right glad you came,’ he said. ‘Always did like a pretty woman to gossip with.’
    Meg was at once sorry that she hadn’t called more often recently. Her mother had been a frequent visitor with home-made titbits, Meg often accompanying her. Annie had loved Broombank with its spacious old grandeur crouching low in the rolling hillside.
    Through the low oak door that led into the back dairy Meg could see the stone sink filled with dirty pots and plates. What was Jack thinking of to let them pile up so? She’d see if she couldn’t tactfully deal with a few of those before she left.
    There was no sign of Jack himself anywhere, which was a blow. Perhaps he was out looking for lambs, she reasoned, an endless job in this weather. Stifling the disappointment of missing him, she set the pie to warm on the trivet.
    ‘How’s Connie