About The Hollow Ground – Episode 44
About The Hollow Ground by Pamela Kavanagh
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The rest of the summer dragged by, mostly wet, with occasional bursts of sunshine and dull days of stifling heat.
The dismal weather did nothing to help Nan’s frame of mind. With Merriman gone, it was up to her to deal with the ruined harvest.
They salvaged what they could of the wheat, corn and barley, but without Merriman’s expertise Nan had no way of knowing if the stored grains would last them over the coming winter, and she spent hours poring over the farm ledgers trying to find out.
Time and again Nan berated herself for letting him go.
She wondered how he had fared in his mission to clear his name. She missed his staunch presence in her life. It was an ache that would not go away.
On a brighter note, a tenuous relationship had developed with her mama. On Charlotte’s urging, Nan had taken the gig and visited Candice at her house on the outskirts of Chester.
Talk on both sides had been stilted initially. Little by little, Nan had revealed her concerns over the loss of Piers Merriman, the reason for his departure and Nan’s regret over her treatment of him.
Her involvement with Daniel Harrison was another topic, and Candice, wise to affairs of the heart, made her own assumptions as to the cause of her daughter’s unhappiness.
* * * *
“Beg pardon, but what’s to be done about the catering for the harvest home?” Mercy enquired one morning.
Under normal circumstances the maid would have faced instant dismissal for her misdeeds, but as Nan had ruefully reflected, circumstances at Cross Lanes were not normal.
As a result, Mercy was given a second chance and was plainly making an effort to mend her ways.
“Only I’d best see about provisions,” Mercy finished.
A pig had been killed the week before and flitches of bacon and sides of ham hung from the rafters, drying in the smoky pall from the range.
“There should be sufficient to go round. Let me know if you need anything more and I shall go to Tattenhall for it.”
“Very well, missus. Will I pass on a date?”
“Yes, do that. Make it the last Saturday in the month. Tell Brassey to arrange the entertainment.” Nan shrugged dispiritedly.
The harvest home presented a problem, it being the ultimatum for her answer to Daniel’s offer of matrimony. What would she tell him?
She was no further on in her decision than she had been at the Haysel in July.
“Are you all right, missus?” Mercy asked.
“Just tired,” Nan replied. “I shall go and sit a while in the parlour, and then I must feed the horses.”
This had been one of Piers Merriman’s tasks. How he had fitted all he accomplished into a single day was hard to fathom, Nan reflected soberly.
In the parlour, sitting with the window open to the song of a blackbird in the pear tree against the wall, Nan wrestled to take stock of her emotions.
No matter how diligently she tried to keep Daniel’s handsome face in focus, Merriman’s rugged visage and intelligent eyes intruded. The truth caught her unawares.
She loved Piers Merriman. She had lost her heart to one of a totally different background from herself. How was this possible?
“There is no accounting for human emotions.”
They were words spoken by her papa when the daughter of a neighbour had run off with a farmhand to live hand to mouth in a humble cottage, and now they came back to her. By all account the marriage had turned out a happy one.
“Dear Papa. How I miss you,” Nan whispered and, levering herself up from the sofa, she went to attend to the horses.
