‘Do you think my mother can see me? From heaven, I mean?’
Kitty stopped what she was doing and stared down into the earnest little face. ‘Whatever’s brought that into your head?’ she said softly. ‘Of course your mam can see you, hinny. She watches over you every day, I’ll be bound.’
Sophy nodded but without conviction. ‘Uncle Jeremiah said in his sermon last week that there’s a divide between heaven and earth like there is between heaven and hell, and that when you’re in heaven you don’t care about earth any more and you just praise God all the time.’
‘Did he?’ Kitty had to confess she turned off once the master got on his bandwagon in the pulpit.
‘He said God and the angels can see us but not real people who have died. They’re not allowed.’
‘Not allowed my backside.’ Kitty didn’t have a clue one way or the other, but her voice was adamant. ‘Your mam can see you, hinny, an’ don’t let anyone tell you different. I’d stake my life on it. All right?’
Sophy gave a small smile. ‘All right.’
‘An’ preachers an’ suchlike, even ones like your uncle, they don’t know everything,’ Kitty added, hoping she wasn’t perjuring her own soul. ‘Their own take on things comes into it and the master, well, he isn’t the most merry of men, now is he? If there’s a black way to look at something, he’ll find it, but it don’t necessarily mean it’s right.’
Sophy took a few moments to consider this. She hadn’t looked at it like that before. Her expression lightened and now her voice carried more confidence when she said, ‘I think my mother can see me. Heaven is somewhere where all your wishes come true and she would want to see me if she could, wouldn’t she?’
‘Aye, for sure, hinny.’
Two small slender arms went round her middle and Kitty found herself hugged briefly before Sophy disappeared off back to the scullery. Kitty stared after the child for a moment before getting back to the salmon. Whatever next? she thought with wry humour. You never knew what that little ’un was going to come out with. Bright as a button she was. Fancy her listening to the master’s sermon like that when most of his parishioners, including herself, couldn’t have repeated a word the minute they’d left the church.
She shook her head, dropping the filleted fish into a dish where it would poach in a drop of milk with a dash of vinegar before being flaked.
She was a thinker, was little Sophy, and knowing with it. That didn’t bode well for any woman in what was definitely a man’s world, but Sophy’s position was worse than most. She was between two worlds, neither gentry nor servant, and likely to remain there until she was wed. And what sort of husband would the master and mistress choose for the lass? Likely some dusty old widower who would incarcerate her in a life of toil bringing up children who were not her own, or some psalm-singing hypocrite like the master, who preached one thing and did another.
Eeh, where had that last thought come from? Kitty shook her head again, but this time at herself. A few minutes with the bairn and she was thinking all sorts of things. But it was true. In spite of how he was, she had respected the master at one time, him being a man of the cloth an’ all, but since the child had been born she had seen another side to his pious nature that couldn’t be ignored. He knew full well how his lady wife treated the bairn, yet he let her get on with it – and why? Because he’d disapproved of Sophy’s mam marrying a Frenchman. Now she wasn’t learned like the master, and she dare say he’d forgotten more about the Good Book than she’d ever know, but to hold a grudge all these years? It wasn’t right. Whatever way you looked at it, it wasn’t right. One day, chickens would come home to roost and then the roof would go off this house – she could see it coming. Aye, the older the bairn got, the more she could see it coming.
Settling her chin into the ample folds of her neck, Kitty continued with her preparations, not dreaming that that day was closer than she had imagined.
The dinner party had gone off splendidly. Mary had been trained by her mother in the arts of being a good hostess and it was something she excelled in and thoroughly enjoyed. The other three couples – Dr Lawrence and his wife, Mr Longhurst, a local magistrate, and Mrs Longhurst, and the Williamsons – he was standing for Parliament this year and Mrs Williamson was involved in a string of good works – knew each other very well and the conversation at the dinner table had been merry. Jeremiah had roused himself to join in the general joviality, even making the odd quip or two, which was unusual.