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shouldn’t alter some existing garment. But so long as she could keep Gospel, she didn’t mind. She would do without a fire in her bedroom. A stone bottle filled with hot water from the kitchen range and placed between the sheets at bedtime would be quite sufficient. As a household, they ate well, but cheaper cuts of meat, for instance, could be just as tasty when cooked to Florrie’s special recipes. There were numerous sacrifices they could make that were so small they would scarcely be noticed, and all their problems would be solved.
    Yes, she decided with satisfaction, as she contemplated the progress along the track outside the house of a small wagon under whose tightly secured tarpaulin she knew would be stowed carefully filled leather-clad one-hundred-pound barrels of gunpowder, or ready pressed cartridges. The horse that pulled the wagon plodded steadily, its coat gleaming and the long hair or feathers at the back of its lower legs washed and brushed, probably by Joe since his main employment was in the powder-mills stables.
    The thought of Joe made Rose purse her lips. As long as they all stayed together, nothing else mattered. She had two or three special dresses, such as the one she had worn the previous evening, all made by her own hand in attractive but good quality, sensible materials that would last for years. In her wardrobe also hung a warm coat that fitted over them, and her riding habit. She possessed several hats, not because she liked them, for she would rather go bare-headed, but because it was considered unseemly for any female of even the lowest class to walk abroad without one. She had one pair of dainty shoes to wear with the dresses, her riding boots, and two pairs of strong, sturdy boots for her everyday life on the moor. Generally, as today, she dressed in a simple blouse and skirt without the encumbrance of any bustle, adding a jacket or shawl or extra layers of underwear for warmth, according to the weather. Her father was equally well attired, so she had no need to visit Ellen Williams’s shop for anything but groceries for many a long year. They could do without wine on the table except perhaps on Sundays, and with her sewing skills she could always repair instead of replace, as she was doing now. Her father’s position as manager brought with it this comfortable, rent-free house, which had been her home ever since she could remember, and a generous salary. If her father had taken a small drop in his wages as she imagined he might have done, well, there really was nothing to worry about.
    She dragged her gaze away from the wagon as it trundled on into the mist, and turned her eyes instead in the opposite direction towards the scattered buildings of the gunpowder factory itself. Sure enough, her father was walking past the cooperage next door, dead on time for his luncheon at half-past twelve. Rose smiled to herself as she wondered if old Silas had anything left to eat for
his
croust, or midday meal. The fellow had been a powder-maker at Cherrybrook since the whole enterprise had been started by Mr George Frean over thirty years before, and knew his job so well he was scarcely likely to cause himself an accident. Nevertheless, walking in at the crack of dawn from his home in Postbridge, Silas always ate the midday pasty he brought with him at the same time as his breakfast – just in case he should be blown up beforehand and never get to consume it!
    The corners of Rose’s coral lips were still turned upwards as she hurried out into the kitchen to make sure everything was on the table. It was cold enough to light a fire in the dining room, where they would normally have eaten, but they might as well start as they meant to go on, so she had ordered a reluctant Florrie to set the meal in the warm kitchen where the range was continually alight. It seemed no hardship to Rose, since she spent most of her time there anyway, and her father was a sensible man and would