back into the homely little kitchen and slammed the door shut behind her. Luckily the fire was burning brightly now and the room was getting warmer, so after she had mashed the tea, she poured out a cup for Molly and took it up to her room to her.
Later that afternoon, much against Molly’s wishes, Amy took the old pram out to the slagheap to try and replenish their dwindling coal supply. Molly’s troubled eyes kept going to the window.
‘She should never have gone out on a day like this,’ she fretted. ‘Why, it ain’t fit for a dog to be out.’
She and Bessie were huddled up by the fire, and reaching over, Bessie patted her hand comfortingly.
‘She’ll be all right, love,’ she reassured her. ‘She might not be very big but she’s young and strong. Anyway, she’s been gone well over an hour now; happen she’ll be back soon.’
Molly hoped she was right. ‘I need to get back to me weaving,’ she told Bessie. ‘The money I had put by has almost gone, but me damn hands don’t seem to want to do what me head tells ’em!’
Bessie sighed at her dilemma until all of a sudden a solution to Molly’s problems occurred to her.
‘What about the locket?’ She had never mentioned it once in all the years since Molly had brought Amy home.
But Molly discounted it immediately. In truth, she had almost forgotten about it herself. It was still hidden in the back of the attic in the tapestry bag where she had placed it so long ago.
‘I know it seems wrong to sell it, but then desperate situations call for desperate measures, and were yer to sell it, it would probably fetch enough to keep yer both for years,’ Bessie sensibly pointed out.
‘That’s Amy’s legacy,’ Molly said firmly. ‘It’s all I have to give her of her poor mother, apart from them clothes she were found in. I know you’re only trying to help, Bessie, but if I sold that, I’d never be able to forgive myself.’
Bessie sighed, and the two women sat, trying to think of some other solution, but try as they might, nothing came to mind.
That evening, when supper was over, Amy plucked up her courage and dared to broach the subject that Molly had avoided for so long.
‘Gran … did you know that the money in the jar is almost gone now?’
‘I know well enough,’ snapped Molly, ‘but don’t go worritin’ over that. I’m feeling better by the day now. Why, I’ve already decided that come tomorrow I’m going to get back to me loom.’
Amy sighed in despair. ‘But you’re not properly well yet, and anyway, it’s freezing up in that room. If you go up there too soon, you’ll be back to square one and in your sickbed again.’
They glared at each other for a moment, each as stubborn as the other until Molly’s old shoulders suddenly slumped.
Amy’s hand crept across the table and squeezed Molly’s lovingly.
‘You’ve been really ill,’ she said tenderly. ‘I can’t let you start weaving again until you’re properly better, and in the meantime we’ve got to live. You don’t need me to tell you that though, do you, Gran?’
Molly shook her head as tears welled in her eyes, and seizing her chance, Amy went on, ‘It’s high time I got a job.’ She held up her hand as Molly opened her mouth to protest. ‘You know that all the other girls hereabouts have been working for years, so why should I be any different?’
‘Because you are different, that’s why! You’re a cut above everyone around here, just as yer mother was before yer, and I want the best fer yer.’
‘But you’ve always given me the best, Gran, and now it’s my turn.’ Amy’s eyes were bright with tears too. ‘Please let me do this,’ she begged, and Molly chewed on her lip as she sensed defeat. She could see that Amy was determined to have her own way this time and all the fight went out of her.
‘I’ll tell yer what, if yer can find a job somewhere respectable, where it’s safe fer a well-brought-up girl to be, I’ll consider it. How does that suit yer?’
Amy’s whole face lit up. At least this was a step in the right direction.
‘It’s a bargain.’ She laughed and they hugged each other fondly.
In actual fact, finding a job that suited them both proved to be a much more difficult task than Amy had anticipated. It was actually Mary on her