Luckpenny Land
Freda Lightfoot
Language: English
Pages: 480
ISBN: 0340635193
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Life is hard for Meg Turner. She lives on a lonely farm in the bleak but beautiful mountains of the Lake District with a bully of a father and a brother who resents her. They want to keep her stuck at home, but Meg knows there's more to life than the kitchen sink and she's determined to find it. Meg wants to be a sheep farmer - unusual for a woman - and life in this man's world proves tougher at times than she expected. For love and comfort, she turns to her best friend, Kath, and to Lanky Lawson, who's more of a father figure to her than her own will ever be. But it's Lanky Lawson's son, Jack, with his dark good looks she loves and hopes to marry one day. But loyalties are threatened as World War II approaches, and Meg gradually realises that the only thing she can really count on is her passion for the haunting land she loves so much ...
Making a living for them all was all that mattered now. In the days and weeks that followed, Meg buried her pain in work. She was glad of it, welcomed it. Up before dawn each day she laboured, blotting all thought from her mind. She concentrated entirely upon seeing to her flock, milking her two cows, seeking ways to make her farm pay. Her heart wasn’t in the task, the work feeling little more than drudgery but it got her through each day. Come the evening she would eat one of Effie’s suppers,
staying. I quite understand. Come on, Rust, let’s go.’ ‘Aye, I do.’ Meg’s heart leaped. ‘Do what?’ The child was standing beside her now, having slipped silently from the car. Still clutching the brown paper bag and with her gas mask hanging on a string over a coat that very nearly reached her ankles now that she was standing, her scrawny figure looked an even more pathetic sight. ‘Like dogs.’ ‘Oh.’ ‘I used to ’ave a dog once. Of me own.’ ‘Really.’ ‘It got died.’ ‘Ah, that’s sad.’ ‘Me
presence filled the frame. ‘I’m not stoppin’, so no need to put the kettle on.’ Meg hadn’t thought to do so. ‘I’m always glad to see you, Dan,’ she said quietly. ‘But I’d appreciate it if you’d knock in future.’ ‘Knock?’ ‘On the door. This is an all female establishment. I’d appreciate it.’ The sneer was back and his ears seemed to stick out further than usual as he grinned. ‘Gettin’ fussy, are you, now you ’ave a place of your own?’ ‘I just want our privacy respected, that’s all.’ ‘Aye,
father and Dan had brought a horse and cart and robbed her of her winter feed. Weeping never did anyone any good, Meg told herself crossly, rubbing her eyes red raw with her efforts to make the tears stop. The Herdwicks didn’t do well on hay anyway and she no longer had any cows. But it was upsetting all the same for them just to come and take it. Every farmer likes to know he has a barn full of hay, just in case the weather turns bad and the grass is used up. But she’d manage. She wouldn’t let
fine. She saw herself sitting neatly at a typewriter. Not that she knew how to type, but she could soon learn. No need to mention her little ‘difficulty’, just wear a jacket all the time, or a loose blouse and a light corset. They wouldn’t be too fussy anyway, not with a war on. She could buy a cheap ring from Woolworths in case it got to be a problem. Then find herself good digs and enjoy city life. Just what the doctor ordered. She might even look up Jack. She should have come to Liverpool in