Bree, half a lifetime ago
The day her mother died it was sunny. Only eleven years old, she didn’t stop crying for weeks. If the skies were dry, her tears would replace the mourning of rain.
Her father barely cried at all. Instead, he drank. In some ways, Arlane lost two parents that day.
When a month had gone by with little food, as her father slipped further and further into drink and wasted what little money he had in games of dice, she dried her eyes and went to find a job.
Arthur Northropp and his wife Sonya were friends of her mother, and the two women had often spent time together baking and weaving. So it was these farmers she approached to beg for a job.
They were gruff folk, sun-hardened, but kind, and soon she spent her days feeding chickens and caring for the sheep and goats while the other farmhands baled hay and plowed fields. Life found a rhythm and she found some peace in the warm air and barnyard smells. Almost enough to forget the cold and lonely home she returned to at night, hoping against hope that her father would be there instead of in the taverns. She was always disappointed.
It took two more years for him to drink himself to death. When she found him unresponsive on the floor, she fled back to the farm.
“Art! Sonya! Please, my da…”
Art got his hat and quickly came with her, but he didn’t let her go in the house. When he came back out, his face was solemn. “Ye’ll stay with us now, lass.”
She didn’t cry this time. There was little left to mourn.
But when it came time to sell the house, the man named Harold Ashe revealed himself. Dressed in fine linen and silk and carrying a silver-headed walking cane, he was at the doorstep the day she and Art were to meet with the housing brokers to make arrangements.
“Ah, miss Farnham. I’ve been looking for you. You see, your father owes me a large sum of money, and I fear it has passed to you now.”
“Look ‘ere-” Art started, moving forward protectively, but the tip of the cane prodded into his chest.
“I hear you’ve given the lass a job, and I expect to see payments from her now that she has her own funds. But this house I am claiming, as payment in part for what is owed.” He gave an oily smile. “I expect you will find the lack of burden of selling it quite an ease to your mind. Much better than the lass finding herself in prison for the debts.”
Neither Arlane nor Art could argue, and the man’s threats were genuine. They were forced to concede and leave, though Art glared at the man over his shoulder as he turned away silently, not deigning to respond. Arlane handed over the papers of ownership with trembling hands before darting after Art.
Sonya was furious. “I should give that man a piece o’ my mind, I should!”
But Art laid a hand on her arm. “All we can do is leave it alone. He’s got more power than us and ye’d just get hurt.”
She relented but spent the rest of the afternoon kneading bread with angry vigor. Arlane simply retreated to the fields, pulling weeds from the vegetable patches with vigor until she was too exhausted to think.
And so began the young girl’s life as a farmhand, living in the farmhouse with the gruff but caring farmers, and paying most of her wages towards debts she feared she would remain under forever.
