Daughter of Dark River Farm (38 page)

‘At least as much as your mother and Frances love you.’

‘No. I mean really
love
her. Not just feel responsible for her.’ She glanced at Frances as she said it. ‘And I believe, if you’ve done the terrible thing I think you’ve done, you’ll take it back.’

‘I haven’t!’

‘Just as you say.’ Her voice was calmer, but she sniffed. ‘Whatever it was that made Frances cling to you like her own, I hope it’s over now. Look after Amy.’

‘Stay tonight, at least,’ I said desperately. ‘Let this settle. We can talk about it properly.’

She ignored the hankie I offered; the sleeve will always be the nose-wiper of choice for the truly heartbroken. ‘No. I’ve had enough of being lied to.’

‘No-one has lied to you.’

‘Nor have they told the truth! I believed Frances saved me because she was a good person, not because she wanted to get back the child she sold to the grave.’

‘Stop it! She might not even be dead.’ I turned to Frances. ‘Jessie said not all the children died. Maybe yours was one of the lucky ones, a new name, a new home… You don’t
know
, Frances!’

‘Don’t be naïve, Kitty.’ Jessie looked oddly sympathetic. Then she turned away. ‘It’s your turn to replace her lost child now. Apparently I’ve been doing it for twenty-one years.’

If I’d had something heavy in my hand at that moment I might have indeed done a terrible thing, but all Frances and I could do was watch her pick up the case with the few bits she had thrown into it, and walk out of the door. There had been so many times I had wanted her to do just that, but not at the expense of Frances, who had always seemed so strong, and who now sat broken and bereft in a too-small chair, listening to the child whose life she had saved clumping down the stairs with her pathetically small suitcase.

I remembered something then, and bent to pull the heavier case out from where she had pushed it under the bed. I loosened the buckles and lifted the lid to see, not just books, as she had said, although there were some, but probably every other thing Jessie owned and had ever cared for. The weight was mostly due to several large, framed photographs, some obviously her and her mother, but many more of Frances, and a woman I didn’t recognise but I thought might be Elizabeth Shorey’s aunt.

‘She wasn’t ever going home, was she?’ Frances said in a low, hurt voice. ‘She left her mother, and never told her she wasn’t going back, and now she’s left me.’

‘Then she’s as much a liar as she’s accused you of being,’ I said shortly. Frances sighed, a heavy, tearing sound, and I crouched beside her. ‘Go to Lizzy’s house tonight, put your smile back, for those who need you, and we’ll talk tomorrow about how we can patch things up with Jessie. She’s bound to see sense, given time.’

‘I’m worried about her,’ she admitted. ‘What if she can’t find nowhere to go?’

‘It’s summer; it won’t hurt her to sleep under a hedge once or twice.’

Frances sniffed and stood up, bringing me with her. ‘You don’t blame me, do you? For what I did?’

‘How can I? I might have just done that very same thing, believing I had Amy’s interests at heart.’

Frances drew me against her in a hug. ‘I’m not trying to replace…her,’ she said, her voice low.

‘What was her name?’ I don’t know why I asked, and Frances stiffened slightly, then sagged, as if the name had been lying heavy on her heart all these years and now she could finally speak it aloud and banish its weight. ‘Alice.’

‘Tonight, when you raise a glass to Lizzy’s mother, say Alice’s name in your head too, and I’ll do the same. We’ll give her that same peace we sent our fallen.’

Frances nodded and pressed the heels of her palms to her eyes, blotting the last of her tears. ‘You’re a good girl, Kitty,’ she said, a little roughly. ‘Now go on with you. If I’m going out I’ll need to wash and tidy myself. And don’t forget those tools haven’t been cleaned yet.’

Frances, Evie, Will and Lizzy had already gone by the time the others came back in from the field. I didn’t know whether to tell them about Jessie, but Bel and Nathan probably wouldn’t spare her a thought in any case, and it might open up awkward conversations. So I made sure her bedroom door was shut, and let everyone assume she had gone to her room for the night. Amy sat at the kitchen table with her drawing paper, and I looked down to see if the random straight marks she made were starting to look as if they represented anything. Not yet, but they were less heavy. I looked closely and even saw a curved line here and there.

I smoothed my hand over her head as I passed. ‘Mister Archie will be back soon,’ I promised. ‘Maybe he’ll take you up the lane to look at the rabbits.’ The family of brownish-grey wild rabbits were as much a source of fascination for her as all the other animals she’d seen; late in the evening, just before bed, she would crouch down and stare at them as they came out to hop around the corner of the field at the top of the lane.

I’d expected her to repeat
rabbits
, but instead she said, ‘Mister Arsh,’ and I swallowed a lump in my suddenly tight throat as I tried to find the words to tell her he was leaving, and so was I.

I heard the three of them coming across the yard, Nathan coughing a little after his exertion, and Belinda chattering away as she peeled off her hat and let her hair fly free. Only Archie was quiet, but not through a sombre mood; he walked with the lazy, comfortable stride of a hard-working man at home in his surroundings, his movements strong and graceful as he swung his jacket from where it lay across his shoulder and hung it on the peg by the door.

When he ducked into the kitchen his gaze found me immediately, and the smile that lit his face was reflected in my own, but I nodded at Amy and he switched his attention to her.

‘Why, it’s Miss Amy-Anna-Banana!’ he said, and held out his hand. She giggled and shook it, and he ruffled her white-blonde hair before turning, again, to me. He seemed to fill the large kitchen with his presence, and as he crossed the room and took my face in his hands to kiss me, I realised that he’d been waiting for this moment as long as I had. It was a strange feeling, exciting and frightening, and it gave me a warm, liquid sensation in the pit of my stomach. I kissed him back, feeling the heat of his work-warmed skin grazing mine, and I slipped my arms around him to pull him closer.

But he held back a little, and broke the kiss with a little grimace. ‘Sweetheart, I’m all sweat and muck. Don’t dirty your apron.’

‘Might I remind you of the evening you arrived?’ I countered, sliding my hands up his back and stepping closer again. ‘I’d just finished a day’s work too.’

‘Aye, and you stank of horse,’ he said with a grin. ‘Still, it’d been so long since I’d seen you I wouldn’t have minded if you’d been up to your shoulders in swill.’

‘Well then, you’ll know,’ I said, and stretched up and nipped lightly at his throat, tasting the cool, salt sweat on his skin. He groaned, and I smiled against his neck, which made him groan again and turn his head to take my mouth with his. Locked in his arms, feeling his damp shirt through my thin apron-top, I breathed deeply. Muck and sweat be blowed, I had never smelled anything sweeter.

When we released each other from the initial tight grasp, our arms stayed around each other and Archie twisted to look around. ‘Where’s everyone?’ he asked, belatedly realising we were alone but for Amy.

I told him about Lizzy’s mother’s birthday. ‘I don’t suppose they’ll be back much before midnight,’ I said, with slow insinuation in every word. The well-bred young lady I had once been couldn’t believe I was speaking like this, but with my hand resting on Archie’s hip, and his cupping my side, his long fingers playing silent, absent-minded tunes on my ribcage, it didn’t seem the slightest bit forward.

He turned to look down at me, and a smile pulled at one corner of his mouth. ‘Well then, best we get the rest of the jobs done early.’

‘We can clean the hand tools together,’ I suggested. ‘That’ll get them done faster. And I’ve told Amy you might take her up the lane to look at the rabbits.’

‘Rabbits?’ Archie swung back to Amy. ‘Will you show me the rabbits, Amy?’

‘Rabbits,’ she confirmed solemnly. ‘Inna lane.’

‘Right, well then I’d better get cleaned up, then Kitty and I will do our last jobs of the day, and as soon as we’re finished, you—’ he tapped her little hand where it lay curled on the table, clutching her pencil ‘—can take me to where the rabbits are playing, before it gets dark.’

He dropped a last kiss on my forehead and went upstairs to wash, and I sat down opposite Amy. For a moment I didn’t say anything, but watched her pencil move across the paper, and saw more curved lines appearing; I couldn’t have said exactly why, but it gave me hope to see it. They seemed so much gentler than those harsh black diagonal lines that slashed the paper from corner to corner.

‘Amy, did you like those girls you met today?’ She nodded, but showed no particular interest; I might as well have asked her if she liked the table at which we sat. ‘Do you like living here?’ Another nod, slightly more enthusiastic this time. I waited a moment, then tried again. ‘Do you remember the man who took you away from your mother?’

‘Da.’

‘Yes.’ He must have told her, but she’d never before said the word out loud. The tingle of hope grew; if she was taking in more than we thought even back then, she had probably stored up all kinds of knowledge she had yet to share. It both helped and hurt since I was, in all likelihood, going to miss it when she did.

‘Sweetheart, your da will come and find you one day, and you must tell him if you’re happy here, and don’t want to leave. He won’t make you go if you don’t want to. It’s just…I might have to go away too, in a day or so. For a little while.’

‘Kitty goin’?’

‘Maybe, yes.’

‘I comin’ too?’

I swallowed hard and wondered again if I had chosen the right path. ‘No, darling, not this time. But you will have Evie, and Lizzy, and all the others.’

‘Mister Arsh?’

‘Mister Archie has to go too,’ I said gently. ‘He’s a soldier. And he has other soldiers to look after, just like he looks after you.’

‘Da’s a soldier.’

‘Yes, he was,’ I said, surprised again.

When she looked at me with wide, worried eyes, I saw the connection she had made before she said, ‘Da got no arm. Gone.’

I didn’t know what to say, but I desperately wanted to ease her fear. ‘Your da is a brave, brave man, and he was badly hurt. But Archie will be too busy looking after the other brave men to go anywhere dangerous.’ Of all the lies I’d told these past few days, this seemed the most innocent.

‘Kitty not a soldier?’

‘No. They don’t let ladies be soldiers. But I help them, just like Archie does. I take them to the doctor when they need one. Like someone took your da when he got hurt.’

This seemed to satisfy her about both mine and Archie’s safety, and she went back to her drawing. But as I stood up, relieved, and started to clear the table for our evening meal, I saw her draw a thick black line right across the page.

Amy didn’t repeat any of our conversation to Archie when he came back down, and I was relieved; I wanted to tell him myself about my decision to return to Belgium. Happy to be with us both, she swung between us as we walked towards the barn, her hands gripped in ours as we lifted her over the muddiest parts of the yard. I unlocked the door and we went inside, and I dragged Pippin’s harness across to prop the door open and let in the daylight.

Archie nearly tripped over the box of tools. ‘Bit of a daft place to leave them, right in the middle of the floor.’

‘Sorry, that was me,’ I admitted. ‘I was a bit…cross with Belinda, at the time.’

He raised an eyebrow, but I changed the subject quickly. ‘Speaking of Belinda, she’s already planning what she’s going to wear to the Harvest Festival dance.’

‘When’s that?’

‘The end of September,’ I said, then remembered, and a cool feeling swept over me and made me feel a little bit ill; Archie would definitely not be here, and there was a strong chance I wouldn’t be either.

‘What a pity I’ll miss it,’ he said calmly, then smiled at the look on my face. ‘But I plan to be here for the next one—Kaiser Bill will have had enough by then, I’m sure.’

‘I hope so.’

‘And then I’ll be able to show you all a wee thing or two about the dance.’

‘You can dance?’ It shouldn’t have surprised me though; for his size, he had always moved smoothly and well.

‘Aye,’ he said, in wounded tones. ‘Don’t sound so shocked. I’ll have you know I was famed for my sedate and elegant foxtrot back in Fort William.’

‘Show me,’ I challenged, and stood up straight, for once thankful for the torturous hours spent at dance lessons in the large sitting room at Ecclesley. He gave me a haughty look and placed one hand against mine, resting the other behind my shoulder, then cleared his throat, lifted his chin…and pulled me into an energetic and horribly executed Scottish reel, flinging me around the barn and leaving me gasping for breath and doubled over laughing.

‘What was
that
?’ I managed eventually, still giggling and trying to regain my equilibrium.

He gave me a pitying look. ‘It’s no my fault you can’t dance. I’ll teach you, don’t worry. Right, come with me, Miss Banana,’ he added to Amy, picking up a bucket. ‘Let’s get some water.’

They went outside, and, still laughing, I emptied the box of hand tools onto the long worktable that ran down the side of the barn. Covered in mud and bits of grass, they’d been sitting in their box for too long for this to be the quick, easy job I’d hoped. Still, being with Archie out here would be almost as good as being with him in the privacy of a quiet room, with nothing between us but a promise. Almost.

He and Amy came back in, and Amy went to sit on the hay bales we’d brought in. I handed Archie a stiff-bristled brush, and we set to work scrubbing at the dried mud on the assortment of tools. It turned into a race, and we made short work of the first few.

‘What on earth’s this?’ Archie held up the next in the line, a perplexed look on his face.

‘Ah. That’s the reason I was angry with Belinda,’ I said. ‘It’s a dibble.’