her latest trip. Molly listened with interest; she was very proud of Amy but she also worried that the girl was doing too much. She seemed to be constantly flitting from Forrester’s Folly to London, and when she wasn’t doing that her nose was always stuck in a sketchpad. To Molly’s mind it wasn’t healthy at all. Amy was only a young woman and she should be out having fun in her free time like other girls her age, instead of working all the while. Not that Amy seemed to mind hard work – in fact, she seemed to be thriving on it – and when Molly aired her concerns she would just laugh them off and tell her that she was perfectly content with her life just the way it was.
Once the meal was out of the way, Molly carried the dirty dishes to the deep stone sink as Amy watched her with concern.
‘Are your legs hurting you again, Gran?’ she asked.
Studiously avoiding her eyes, Molly shrugged. ‘No more than usual. They’re always worse in cold weather, as well you know. Come the summer they’ll ease off again, so don’t get frettin’.’
Amy sighed as she looked at her gran’s gnarled old hands. Her days of ribbon weaving were long since over, and the loom had not been used for years now, but stood idle gathering dust. Amy had begged Molly to let her and Toby move it into one of the small outbuildings, but it had been her beloved husband’s loom and Molly was adamant that it should stay where it was. This had posed a problem for Amy, although she could understand how her gran felt. Molly had been struggling with the stairs and the small room under the eaves she slept in for some time and so Amy came up with a solution.
‘Very well, if you won’t let me move the loom then you and I can exchange rooms,’ she told Molly sensibly. ‘My room is much bigger than yours and I don’t need much space. You’d be so much more comfortable in my room.’
‘I’ll do no such thing,’ Molly had protested, but on this point Amy would not be swayed and so she and Toby had spent the whole of one Sunday transferring Molly’s bed and possessions into Amy’s room. Amy then made sure that her gran’s new bedroom was warm and comfortable, with new curtains at the window and soft thick blankets to keep out the cold on the bed as well as thick rugs on the floor. In truth, there was no longer any need for Molly to weave. The money that she had once earned, each bronze penny so important back then, was no longer necessary. Mr Forrester was a more than generous master and Amy was now earning more money than they could spend.
Amy had also ensured that the rest of the cottage was made more comfortable too with some of her earnings, and although Molly grumbled Amy knew that she was secretly pleased with the things she had bought. Her old rocking chair, which she would not hear of being done away with, was now padded with thick cushions, and Amy had bought her a stool to put her feet up on. Bright rugs were scattered all across the floor and good thick curtains hung at the windows. The coal house was full to brimming, as was the pantry, and Molly felt as if she had never had it so good. She was a good girl, was her Amy.
‘Are you in for the night now?’ she asked hopefully as she returned the washed crocks to the dresser a short while later.
Amy was lying in the fireside chair with her stockinged feet stretched out to the warmth of the fire.
She stretched lazily. ‘No. I’ve promised the old mistress I’d take some of my new sketches to The Folly tonight for her to look at. In fact, I ought to be getting off soon or I’ll get so comfy that I won’t want to go.’ As she pulled herself out of the chair with an effort, Molly clucked her tongue disapprovingly.
‘You should never be going back out in weather like this,’ she scolded. ‘It’s fit for neither man nor beast, an’ I was hopin’ Toby might come round an’ have a glass o’ me special home-made wine wi’ us tonight.’
‘You two go ahead,’ Amy told her as she pulled her soft high-buttoned leather boots on. ‘And don’t worry, Gran, I’ll wrap up warmly.