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Twice during short spells Timothy had brought the carriage over and taken her back to the house, and she had enjoyed these breaks in the monotonous routine. But even so, he had done much of the talking, telling her about London and the publisher and making light and fun of what the critics might say about his book, which was to be published in the coming spring. On the last occasion he had driven her home, and just before they alighted, he had taken her hand and said, "Oh, Anna, Anna, come back." She didn't need to ask. Come back from where? she knew what he meant.

Today she was sitting in the tack-room rub bing a wax mixture into the harness when the door opened and Jimmy appeared, which made her say immediately, "You're back early. Anything wrong?"

"I ... I asked if I could come away. I've ... I've had the runs all day and I'm not feeling too good ... You shouldn't be doing that; it's hard work, that. "

"A little bit of hard work won't hurt me."

"Dada or Ma always does it."

"Yes, but they're busy."

He sat down on an upturned box, then asked quietly, "Have they given you any of the cash they came into from our unknown grandmother? I thought she had died years ago; and then our grandfather married again, which was why Ma couldn't lay claim to Low Meadow after he died."

She looked at him in surprise: "No. No," she said.

"Why do you ask?"

"Just thinkin'. We've been kept in the dark about lots of things, while the fact of our beginnings has been thumped into us. And now this money business that they are being close about."

"Well, you have your wage, and they take only half of it now."

"Aye. Aye, that's right. But I must tell you, Anna, I'm leaving for sure."

"Oh, Jimmy! Please."

"I've got to, Anna. There's something inside of me raging to be away.

Anyway, I've shot me bolt:

I gave him me notice, I'm not bonded. A month, I said. He doesn't believe I've got the bellyache;

thinks I'm getting' a bit uppish because I asked to come off early.

"

"They're going to be upset." She motioned with her hand towards the door.

"Oh, I don't know. You know, I once said to you, as long as they've got themselves, that's all they need. And I'm more convinced of that than ever. You could have died. Any of us could have died and they would have missed us and mourned us, but if one of them were to go the other would go an' all."

"Why do you think like this, Jimmy?"

"Don't you?"

She allowed her gaze to fall on to the harness, then said, "You're bitter about something. You didn't used to be."

"Aye, perhaps I am, but I can see nothing ahead here. I want to get away, escape. And there's another one that'll be escaping shortly, and that's Oswald. He's sweet on the daughter." He laughed, but then put his hand to his stomach, saying, "Here I go again," and turned to leave, and she said, "How long have you been feeling like this?"

"Oh, since the day afore yesterday."

"You could have picked something up in the market."

He halted at the door and turned and looked at her, and she said, "What is it?" But he shook his head and went out.

Jimmy couldn't go to work the next day. He had bad diarrhoea and headache, and Anna said to Maria in the afternoon, "You should call the doctor." But Maria said, "It's only a bout of diarrhoea; he will eat apples before they're ripe."

"Ma, I think Jimmy should have the doctor. He's bad."

"All right, all right, girl. You've all had diarrhoea at one time or another. It's the season of the year."

"I thought the season for a loose bowel was in the Spring."

"Oh, it could come any time; it all depends on what you eat, but if it will ease your mind, dear, I'll get your dada to go for the doctor ..

Nathaniel was lucky. He caught the doctor actually coming out of a house in the village and when he told him his boy had diarrhoea the doctor had looked at him hard and said immediately, " Well, let's get away. "

He was now standing in the kitchen, his two hands on his black bag which he had placed on the table, and he was saying, "I'm sorry to tell you the lad's got cholera. There's one case in the village and a number in the town. And more in Gateshead Fell. It started there again. It's the water. They've built a blooming hospital for the cases, when what they should be doing is preventing anybody going into it. It's clean water everybody wants. Now, you get your water from the pump, don't you?"

No one answered him.

"Well, boil every drop of it, every drop. And let's hope the lad's a light case. Who have you got coming home?"

After a short intake of breath Nathaniel said, "My daughter. She works for the Praggetts."

"Well, get word to her. Tell her to stay there."

"And tomorrow my two eldest sons come in from Gateshead. And there's a young man sleeps in the barn."

"Oh, you must put a stop to that. Get word to them." He now bit on his lower lip, saying, "Well, you'd better all stay put. I myself will call at Praggett's on my way back home. Where do you say your sons work?"

When Nathaniel told him, Anna put in, "Mr. Barrington, he knows where the shop is; he would get word to them if you asked him."

"I'll do that. I have to pass his house so I'll call in on my way. Now do what I tell you: boil the water, then wash everything that comes in contact with him. There's no need to worry; he's a strong fellow. They can get through better than some. Well, I'm away. We're probably in for another bad patch, as this has spread from the towns. I thought we had seen the last of it years ago. They've hardly got over the smallpox scare, and now this. Well, I must away. I'll call in tomorrow or the next day if possible. But you can't do very much, only what I've told you." And as he was going out of the door he asked,

"Where do you bury your slops?"

"In the cesspool at the far end of the land."

"Any running water near it?"

They exchanged glances, and then Nathaniel said, "There's a tinkle of a stream goes by. It comes out of a boulder."

"Do you use that often?"

Maria now put in, "For washing the clothes. Yes, I often do; it seems fresh."

"Where do you take it from? Where it's running along the ground? or where it's coming out of the stone?"

She paused before she said, "Well, some way from the boulder, where it's about three feet wide; at times it's a good foot deep."

"Well, from now on, take it from the boulder. But boil it, always boil it. It's likely picked up less infection from its source than it will have done in passing the cesspool."

"Oh, it isn't all that near."

"Doesn't matter, be on the safe side. Good day to you now. And the best of luck with the lad."

They all looked stunned, yet Anna was asking herself. Why? because she had guessed what was wrong with Jimmy when he had turned and looked at her in the doorway of the tack-room, after he had been to the market.

"Cholera. Cholera, that's all we need now. Another affliction.

Why?"

Both Anna and Maria looked at Nathaniel and he, looking at Anna, said,

"Fate never lets up, does it?"

Four days later, it looked as if Jimmy might be about to take a turn for the better: his diarrhoea had eased, he hadn't been sick once during the day. And now it was one o'clock in the morning.

Anna sat by his bedside. A candle was burning under the cover of a red glass globe, giving a warm glow to the room, which was hers and Cherry's room. For the last three nights she had sat here, sleeping some part of the day, during which time Nathaniel and Maria took over.

But the strain was now showing on them, especially on Maria, for Jimmy had to be changed every two hours or so and his nightshirt and the sheets washed. There was a perpetual mist of steam in the long room, where the linen was hung round the fire which Nathaniel kept going.

The only one any of them had been in contact with, and then at a distance, was Timothy. He brought food, medical supplies and extra linen. These he put over the fence, for when he called on that first evening after the doctor had given him the news, Anna had raised her voice for the first time in weeks and yelled at him, "Stay where you are! Don't come in! Please! Please!" And so each day he had come to the railings and left milk and oddments of food, such as jars of calf's foot jelly, a cooked chicken and fresh bread.

When Jimmy stirred, she picked up a wet cloth from a number piled on a plate to her side and placed it across his sweating brow. When his lids lifted and he looked at her she said. Try to sleep, dear. You'll feel better in the morning. It'll soon be over. "

"Yes, Anna, 'twill soon be over."

"Now, now! Jimmy."

"Anna."

"Yes, my dear."

"I ... I'm going to be free."

She said nothing but stared down into the pallor of his face, which at the moment looked like that of an old man.

"I am."

"Now, now! Jimmy. Be quiet."

He gasped before he said, "No time, Anna." Then again he repeated her name, "Anna."

"Yes? Yes, my dear?"

"Escape. You escape, soon, or else ... else they'll not let ... you go. They'll ... they'll cling on."

"Oh Jimmy, Jimmy."

"Go ... escape. Escape ... they'll want someone ... to ... to look after them. Twill be you. Selfish, yes ... yes, selfish. Get away .

Anna."

"Jimmy, please! You don't know really what you're saying, dear. Now go to sleep."

"Love you, Anna. Love you."

"Yes, and I love you, too. Jimmy. You'll be better in the morning.

Doctor said you're on the turn. "

He closed his eyes and made a sound like a sigh, and she said, "That's it. Go to sleep."

She sat now gently stroking his square hand. The hand that had been calloused and hard up till a few days ago now seemed as soft as a child's. It lay limp in hers, and she kept her eyes on it as her own hand moved over it. For how long she sat like this she couldn't remember, but something in the hand seemed to change and caused her to look at her brother's face. It seemed unchanged, just as if he was sleeping. Yet no; his eyes were half open. She gave a gasp, then let out a low moan: "Oh! Jimmy. Jimmy. No/ No/ No/ The doctor said you were ... Oh! Jimmy, Jimmy. Oh, my God!" She now took his face between her hands, and when she released her hold the head lolled to the side.

She covered her eyes, then dropped forward over the slim, depleted body under the sheets, murmuring all the time, "Oh! Jimmy. Jimmy."

When finally she stood up she was amazed at the feeling of calmness in herself and, looking down on him, she said, "You did it. You did what you wanted to do, you escaped. Oh, my dear, dean Turning now, she lifted up the candlestick with the red glass shade attached and left the room to go to her parents' door. But she didn't knock. Walking straight into the room, she held the light above her head and looked down on them. They were lying face to face, and her father's hand was on the coverlet and resting on her mother's shoulder. She said quietly, " Dada. "

She had to say his name three times before he turned on his back, looked at her, then pulled himself upwards, saying, "What is it? What is it?"

"Jimmy has gone," she said simply.

On hearing these words, it seemed that her mother sprang out of the bed, that they both sprang out of the bed. She watched them rush from the room, and slowly she followed them. At the door of the bedroom she put the candle on top of the chest of drawers and it showed them both lying over their son's body.

She turned and went out and down the long room and blew the fire embers into a blaze.

"Get away," he had said.

"Escape. Get away. Or they'll keep you here to look after them."

Well, would that be such a bad thing?

Yes. Yes! The cry in her head startled her; but she turned to see her father come staggering down the room. He was in his nightshirt and he too looked an old man. She watched him drop into a chair by the table and rest his head on his hands, and then she heard him say, The sins of the father indeed shall be visited on the children and the children's children even to the third and fourth generations. " Then turning his head slowly towards her, he said, " I always knew we should have to pay. Which one will He take next? "

There was no formal funeral for Jimmy. They came in a black hearse and took him away, as they also did Stan Cole, the butcher's son from the village.

Two days later Maria went down with it and Nathaniel seemed to enter a period of madness. For four nights and days he hardly left her side.

And Anna seemed to spend her whole life running between the bedroom and the cesspool. The doctor said to her, "Let up, girl. Let up." And his voice was harsh when he spoke to Nathaniel, saying, "There's other things to be done besides sitting beside the bed. Your daughter will be next if she doesn't get help." And Nathaniel, after apparently coming out of a daze, said, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry; but I can't lose Maria. I can't lose her."

And to this the doctor replied, "You'll lose them both if you're not careful, and yourself an' all."

"That would make no odds, because if she goes I g"."

It was the evening of the fourth night that he left the bedroom and came into the long room and sat at the little desk and began to write.

As Anna passed him for the countless time with the emptied pail, he stopped her and said, "I hadn't made a will but I've written it down here. If we should go' he didn't say. If your mother should go, or.

If I should go, but. If we should go 'the house and the money in the bank will go to Oswald and Olan. They'll look after you.

Cherry will be all right; Bobby will take care of her. "

She put the pail down on the floor and stared at him, and he turned to her and said, "What is it?"

She couldn't tell him. She couldn't say to him, "You're leaving me in care of the boys; you're not saying to me, there is fifty pounds, or a hundred pounds, or two hundred pounds, you're leaving me in care of the boys. I am to grow old here in this house ... in care of the boys.