Chapter 5

Because Mrs. Redcliffe had paid her generously, Hazel bought a shawl for her mother on the way back home. She wished she could do more. The smile on her mother's face everytime her mother got any gift from her made the effort worth it.

Slowly, Hazel allowed herself to relax into a leisurely stroll as she headed to the cottage she shared with her mother on the outskirts. Most of the villagers were not up and about yet, although a few shops we're opening up for the day here and there. The village itself was asleep, it did not yet have that anonymous buzz of noise created by no one, and yet by everyone, so that if you stood a few places away from someone, you had to shout to be heard by the person.

Hazel liked the quietness. How awesome the world would be if at least half it's inhabitants were quiet. She smiled to herself, or at least, if only for a minute. They would be allowed to sing perhaps, she allowed reluctantly - but it would be done in the most melodious of voices.

She herself began to sing, and although it was not as melodious as she would have liked, it rang rich, light, and clear, it's quality resonating through the empty streets. Hazel realized that she was happy. Perhaps her happiness was as a result of the sale she had made, or it was in anticipation of the joy that would be on her mother's face when Hazel gave her the shawl, she did not know. She only knew that she was happy. It did not occur to her that perhaps teenage girls like her were allowed to be happy, even with no reaare at all.

The cottage was strangely quiet when she arrived. Her mama, though not a noise maker, was an early riser, and there was always aA difference between a household asleep, and one that woken.

She had become slow these days in making her famous quilts, and Hazel wanted her to stop outright, the young huntress was perfectly capable of fending for her family of two on what she made from the game she caught, but deep down in her heart, in a place where she kept emotions she did not understand, Hazel knew that her mother had to keep knitting the quilts, if only so that the older woman didn't slip into regretful thinking. Of what could have been if only she had not gone up to be a scullery maid in the city, or what might have happened if she had come back to the village early enough, or what might have happened if she had not been caught in the dead of the night, stealing cake from the kitchen, by Jason Blukett, the young lord of the house.

Hazel's mama, those many years ago had been wearing a flimsy night dress and nothing underneath. Master Blukett had been in his early twenties, and could only be described as handsome by the young scullery maid. He had smiled, transfixing her with his dazzling grace, then he had asked her for a slice.

It was when she had been pregnant with Hazel that the young scullery maid realized that apart from providing unexpected sport in a cold night, she meant nothing to Master Blukett. He had listened to her teary proposals, wearily but not unkindly at first, then his weariness gave way to exasperation, and then finally to rage, and he had beaten her and thrown her out of his house.

Still the young woman persisted. She had taken to living on the streets and eating scraps that were sometimes given to her by servants from other households. She would wait until Jason was on the streets so she could accost him, begging, pleading, crying. She was willing to be his mistress if he could not keep her as a wife. Once, she had even told him she was willing to remain in his bed chamber under lock and key, and away from eyesight, as long as it meant they could be together. Mr. Thomas Blukett had seen the matter beyond him then, and had invited his father who had Hazel's mother flogged. The older Lord Blukett had looked at her with his pale green, pitiless eyes, and told her he would have her shot if she did not leave the city.

She had come back to the village then, heavily pregnant with Hazel, her virtue lost forever.

Hazel's mother had told her this a countless number of times, all the while, a dreamy sadness in the older woman's eyes, and Hazel who had not yet learnt to hate was filled with a sickening dread for the male species.