Read Online A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley - Free Book Online Page A

chickens and ducklings we have. I’ve done very well without reading and writing, and I keep my wits clear by not addling them with rubbish. But Mistress Foljambe will be glad of thee. She’ll maybe make thee her own maid.”
    They all talked together, but I was too much astonished to utter a word, and I looked round the Thackers kitchen as if I had never seen it before. The passage to the dairy had gone, and the pantry was part of the big room. Aunt Tissie was different too, although I should have recognized her anywhere, whatever she wore. She had on a full dress, not much bulkier than the one she wore that morning when we sat down to breakfast at the same table, in a time that had slipped from my memory, so that I could not remember who sat there with us. The cherry-red woollen skirt was short enough to show her square, buckled shoes, rough and strong, but neatly made. Her black bodice was fastened up the front with little wooden buttons carved like acorns, each button slightly different from its fellow. A white cambric collar creased and crumpled with work was round her neck, tied at the front with a black, tasselled cord. On her thick hair was a fold of linen, like a cap, snowy and fresh, and her apron was gathered and pleated in many folds round her large waist. Her face had the same serenity, and she twinkled at me and laughed with loud laughter like a man’s as she saw my astonished eyes which were open as wide as they could be in complete bewilderment.
    â€œThou art an odd moppet,” she cried heartily and she laughed so much that tears came sparkling into her eyes, and all the maids laughed too. But the green-eyed boy glowered at me, and covered his eyes with his hands when I peered his way.
    â€œYe are a sweet toad, and as like my great-niece Penelope was at thy age as two peas in a peascod. Come here, my sweeting, and give me a kiss.”
    She enfolded me in her floury arms and printed a loud, warm kiss on my lips, in just the way Aunt Tissie always welcomed me when she saw me in the mornings.
    â€œBut dunno ye call me Aunt Tissie! That’s a name for a she-cat! Call me Aunt Cicely. Cicely Taberner is my name, and Thackers is my home, and Heaven’s my destination.”
    She gave a rollicking laugh and went back to her bread-making.
    â€œNow make thyself useful,” she continued, “and ye mun feel at home.”
    â€œI do, Aunt Cicely,” I murmured, breathlessly.
    â€œGo and pile wood in the bread-oven, for the loaves will soon be raised, and it’s not near hot enow.”
    She pointed with a stout forefinger to the heap of brushwood in the corner and I went across the flagged floor, treading softly on the rushes through which I could see the yellow-bordered stones.
    I pushed the green wood in the deep oven which went into the wall at the side of the fire, on the left of the open fireplace. Above my head, slung across hooks in the wall, were longbows and spiked halberds, long-shafted with hatchet heads, but the blades were rusty and the wooden handles dark with age and wood-smoke. Next to them was my aunt’s warming-pan, which she used for airing my bed. “To take the chill off, mind you, for you’ll be nesh, my dear, coming from London.” It was polished like a mirror, and one of the girls stood before its reflecting surface and tidied her cap. I stared fascinated, wondering at its strange companions which might have been used in an ancient war.
    â€œYe’ve mebbe never seen a longbow afore,” said Aunt Cicely as she caught my curious glances. “They don’t have ’em in Chelsey, but here we keep to the old ways, and these were used in long-ago battles by our family. We’m got many an aged thing kept from days long past, and if they could speak they’d have perilous tales to tell. The warming-pan is new and as good as a mirror for the wenches to set their caps straight.”
    She stooped over the trough and pommelled