Here’s a scene from my next story in Jackie’s Climb, the next novel in A Twist Upon a Regency Tale. Guess the folk tale that inspired this one!

Bessie did not attract much interest at the market. She was nearly ten years old and would not be in milk again until she had been successfully bred and had given birth to the resulting calf, which meant no milk for at least nine months.

The first person to make an offer said he would pay two pounds, for he could get that much value out of her hide and her bones. “Not much value in the meat,” he opined. “It might be fit for the dogs.”

Jackie was horrified. “She has many useful years yet,” she insisted. She could not sell her old friend to be made into handbags, dog food and glue.

She received three more offers in the next two hours, and all of them were insultingly low. “A good cow might fetch as much as twenty pounds,” she told one man, indignantly, after he’d suggested that he could take Bessie away if she’d accept ten shillings.

“Aye, lad,” the man agreed. “A good cow. But that’s not what you have to sell now, is it?”

By the middle of the afternoon, she was tired, hungry, thirsty, and discouraged. She hated the thought that she might have to take Bessie home and admit that she had failed. Finally, a fifth buyer approached. Humbly, and without much hope. Poorly dressed and bent with age, she did not look like a buyer, but as she examined Bessie with gentle touches and soft murmurings, Jackie found herself warming to the woman.

“You’ve allowed her to dry off,” the woman commented.

“She calved two years ago, and gave good quantities of milk for twenty months,” Jackie explained. “We thought we would breed her again after we sold the calf, a lovely little heifer.” She shrugged. “It was not possible.” Though Civerton was not on Hunnard land, many people from the estate and the village came here for market. It would not be wise to explain that she and her mother were being victimised.

The woman asked how long Bessie had given milk, and in what quantities. “She seems sweet natured,” she commented.

“She is,” Jackie assured her. “She has a very sweet nature. Do you want her for yourself, Mistress?”

“I do. To join my little herd. I cannot pay much, mind. I’ll have to feed her for nearly a year before I get anything back. Ten shillings, lad. What do you say?”

“I’ve been offered two pounds,” Jackie said, honestly.

The old woman examined Bessie with narrowed eyes. “I could not go to two pounds,” she said. “You should take it, lad.”

“It was a knacker,” Jackie explained. “I couldn’t sell dear Bessie to a knacker.”

“No,” the old woman agreed. “It would be a great shame. I will tell you what, young man. I will give you one pound and a packet of my never-fail heavy crop beans. Come up like magic, they do, and taste delicious. I don’t give them to just anyone, mind. But I do like a boy who wants a good home for his cow.”

A pound. It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t nearly enough, but it was a better offer than any but the one from the knacker. “I’ll take it,” Jackie said.

It was on the walk home that Jackie had her idea. A pound wasn’t enough to pay the rent, but it was the entrance fee to the Crown and Pumpkin’s gambling night, which was on tonight. Yes, and Jack Le Gume had two pounds of stake money hidden in a hollow oak just outside the village. Jackie had planned to give it to Maman with the price paid for Bessie, but even three pounds, with the money they had already saved, would fall short of what was needed.

But what if she could double her stake? Or better? Hunnard was one of the habituees at the Crown and Pumpkin. How fitting it would be if his losses paid the extortionate rent that he was demanding. Yes. Jack Le Gume would certainly be visiting the Crown and Pumpkin tonight.

First, she needed to face her mother and admit that all she’d received for the cow was a package of bean seeds. Maman was as upset as Jackie expected.

“Bean seeds? Jacqueline, how could you! You foolish, foolish girl. Even a few shillings would have been better than that!”

Almost, Jackie confessed to having the pound, but she clung to the picture she’d imagined—Maman’s face tomorrow morning, when Jackie showered her with money and admitted that she had withheld the pound the woman had paid in the interests of multiplying it.

It would all be worth it.

Maman snatched the little pot of bean seeds from Jackie’s hand, strode across the room, slammed the window open, and threw the seeds—pot and all—out the window. “That for you bean seeds. Do you think we will be here to see them grow? Or will have any ground to grow them in after that scoundrel Hunnard throws us out? Do you not understand what he has planned for you, you foolish child? Out. Get out now, and find some work to do. Clean a few more horse stalls. Wash dishes at the inn. We need money, Jacqueline.”

Poor Maman. She always got angry when she was upset. Perhaps Jackie should tell her about the pound, and how she planned to make more money. “It is not quite as bad as it seems, Maman.”

But Maman interrupted her. “You are just like your father. It was the same with him. Always, something would come along to save us. He was certain of it. Always. And always the same. He would gamble away our last coins and things would be worse. Get out of my sight, Jacqueline. I do not wish to see you.”

Jackie left.