The Tulip Girl (7 page)

Or maybe she would be shut in a cupboard somewhere, though offhand she couldn’t think of one here that resembled the one under the stairs at the Home . . .

She would have stood any one of these punishments without a murmur, Maddie thought, if only they would let her go with them to the market today. But she knew that Harriet Trowbridge would guess
that the very worst punishment she could inflict upon Maddie would be to leave her at home.

Maddie bit her lip as she looked up at Michael. ‘Mrs T won’t want me to come.’

Michael straightened up. ‘Well then, I’ll take you. We’ll go on our own, just you and me. But hurry up, ’cos if we’ve got to walk all the way to town, we’d
best be off now.’

Maddie swallowed and her heart began to thump with excitement. ‘D’you mean it? Really?’

He was grinning at her now. ‘’Course I do. Go on.’

Ten minutes later she was back downstairs, face scrubbed, hair brushed and dress changed, though the latter still caused her anguish. The yellow cotton dress, one of the second-hand garments
from the market stall, hung shapelessly on her thin frame, the hem too long and uneven. And her stout, lace-up brown shoes were too heavy for a fine early summer day. But Michael smiled down at her
and winked.

‘Pretty as a tulip,’ he said kindly, but she knew he couldn’t mean it. ‘Come on, then.’

As they were leaving by the back door, they collided with Frank coming in.

‘Hello, you two. All ready?’

‘We thought we’d go on our own, Dad,’ Michael said quietly. ‘Leave more room in the car.’

Frank glanced shrewdly from one to the other. ‘Well, that’s all right, but I was looking forward to us all going together. Won’t you come with us?’ He glanced from one to
the other and then Maddie felt Michael’s gaze upon her. He was trying to shield her, but it was up to her to tell the truth. Hadn’t she said, so vehemently, that she never told lies.
Well, neither would she let someone else even bend the truth to help her.

Squarely she faced Frank. ‘I didn’t think I’d be allowed to go. Not after what happened yesterday. So Michael said he – he’d . . .’ She shot a glance at the
older boy, hoping she wasn’t about to get him into trouble with his father. ‘He’d take me.’

‘Oh Maddie.’ To her surprise, Frank’s voice was sorrowful rather than angry. His expression told her that maybe he guessed what had been in her mind, perhaps even imagined the
harsh discipline she had endured already in her young life. ‘You’re not at the Home now, love. We’re not going to punish you like that. If you do something wrong, well,
we’ll tell you about it at the time.’ He moved closer to her and put his arm about her shoulders, looking down into her upturned face. ‘We might get a bit cross now and again, but
once it’s over, that’s it. See?’

Wordlessly, Maddie nodded. She couldn’t speak for the lump in her throat, not caused by misery now, but by this man’s kindness. She was even prepared to forgive him for seeming not
to believe her the previous day.

‘So,’ he was saying, ‘shall we all go together?’

Maddie looked at Michael, who smiled and nodded.

‘Yes, please,’ Maddie said in a small voice.

He gave her shoulder a quick squeeze and said, ‘Good. Now, I’d better go and make myself look respectable.’

Harriet made a great play of limping across the yard to the motor car and easing herself into the front passenger seat beside Frank. Maddie, squashed between Michael and Nick
in the back seat, said nothing.

‘All set?’ Frank asked as all the doors were slammed shut. ‘Here we go. Come on, Bertha, old girl. I hope you haven’t forgotten how to do it after all this
time.’

With a grating of gears and a couple of kangaroo hops, they were out of the gate and gaining speed down the lane.

‘I don’t think it’s Bertha that’s forgotten, Dad,’ Michael shouted. ‘I reckon it’s you that’s forgotten how to drive her.’

‘You could be right, son. Hang on to your hat, Harriet, I’m about to take you round this next corner on two wheels.’

Harriet gave a little shriek of alarm and clutched at her black hat whilst in the back seat the three youngsters held onto each other and thrust their hands across their mouths to stifle their
laughter.

The cattle market was held in a wide street. There were no pens for the animals, like in the sheep market, and the beast just stood, quite patiently, in the open, cobbled
street in clusters of four, five or six with only a drover to tend them.

Brought up in an all-female establishment, Maddie had never seen so many men together in one place in her life.

‘Where have they all come from?’ she asked, gazing around her in wide-eyed amazement.

‘All over Lincolnshire,’ Michael said. ‘They even come from Nottingham, Leicester and Cambridgeshire.’

‘Really?’ She couldn’t take her eyes off them. Some were dressed in farmers’ workaday clothes, jackets, caps and stout boots, but some were smartly dressed in checked
jackets and plus-fours. There were even one or two elderly gentlemen who wore black suits and bowler hats.

Maddie was fascinated by the sounds, the sights and even the smells. She breathed in the whole atmosphere, revelling in being a part of it, relishing the feeling of belonging. She watched the
beast being paraded around before interested buyers and listened, open-mouthed, to the auctioneer rattling off the bids so quickly that she could scarcely follow him.

‘Mind you don’t nod your head, young’un, else you might find yourself the proud owner of half a dozen cows,’ Michael teased.

Maddie laughed, but the next time the auctioneer’s glance went around the crowd, she stood rigidly still, even holding her breath.

‘Maddie! Maddie!’

She knew the voice even before she saw the small figure darting amongst the crowd, pushing her way through to reach her.

‘Jen. Oh Jen.’ The two girls flew into each other’s arms.

‘I’ve missed you so much,’ the young girl was crying now, tears running down her face as she hugged her friend. ‘It’s awful there without you.’

‘Did you get my letter?’

‘Yes, yes.’ She pulled back and looked up into Maddie’s face, smiling now through her tears. ‘It’s the first letter I’ve ever had in me whole life.’

Maddie giggled. ‘It’s the first time I’ve ever been able to write one. But what are you doing here? In town?’

‘Mrs Potter brought me. She’s over there. I had an interview with someone who grows flowers, but I don’t think I’ll get the job. I’m too little to stand at the
bench to pack them into the boxes, the man said.’ She pulled a face. ‘I don’t think she’s very pleased with me.’

‘So, what’s new?’ Maddie grinned and they hugged each other again until Frank cleared his throat and said, ‘Aren’t you going to introduce us to your friend,
Maddie?’

The girls pulled apart and Maddie, with the habit of years, pulled Jenny’s coat straight and smoothed back her wayward hair. Then she bent and pulled up the girl’s socks that were
wrinkled about her ankles, as she said, ‘I’m sorry, Mr Frank. This is my friend, Jenny, from the Home.’

Jenny smiled shyly as each member of the household from Few Farm acknowledged her in their different ways. Frank stepped forward and shook her hand, Michael flashed her his engaging grin whilst
Nick smiled shyly from behind his spectacles. Only Harriet gave a curt, unsmiling nod, though her glance took in the child’s appearance from head to toe. Maddie heard her sniff of disapproval
when Frank said, ‘Would you like to join us, Jenny? We were just going to have lunch at the White Hart.’

Jenny glanced over her shoulder. ‘I’d love to, Mr Brackenbury. But I daren’t. Mrs Potter . . .’

‘Well now . . .’ Frank held out his hand, ‘let’s you and me go and find this Mrs Potter and ask her if the Brackenbury family might have the pleasure of your company for
lunch. How would that be, eh?’

‘Ooh yes, please.’

It was the earnest ‘please’ that touched Frank’s heart. He cleared his throat quickly and said firmly, ‘Come on, then.’

They set off through the crowd together, the broad-shouldered farmer and the little girl who, though almost fourteen looked only eleven or twelve years old. Behind them, Maddie followed,
intrigued to see Mrs Potter’s face when confronted by a request that one of her charges, not to mention the infamous Maddie March too, should be asked out to lunch with a gentleman and his
family. She turned briefly to tell Michael that she’d be back in a minute or two, but found, to her surprise, that not only he but Harriet and Nick were following in her wake.

This’ll be good, the girl thought and smiled.

‘Good morning, Mrs Potter.’ Moments later Frank was raising his hat to the startled matron.

There was suspicion in her eyes as she eyed the man before her, then, ignoring his greeting, she hissed at the child, ‘Get back where you belong, girl, and don’t let me catch you
darting off again. Ain’t I told you about talking to strange men?’

Maddie stifled her laughter at the indignant look on Frank’s face. ‘My name,’ he said stiffly, ‘is Frank Brackenbury and I believe you know this young lady?’

He moved aside to reveal Maddie, and the others, standing behind him.

Mrs Potter’s eyes narrowed. ‘Indeed I do.’ She sniffed and, seeing Harriet too, she nodded. ‘I suppose you want to bring her back to me, eh? Well, there’s no place
for her now. She’s too old to come back to the Home. You’ll have to fend for yourself, Maddie March.’ She turned back to face Frank. ‘I’m sorry, sir, if she’s
caused you bother, but I can’t say I’m surprised.’

‘On the contrary, Mrs Potter, we are delighted to have Maddie live with us.’ He paused and then added quietly, as if unable to resist doing so, ‘I wouldn’t send her back
to your orphanage if I was to go bankrupt tomorrow.’

Mrs Potter had the grace to flush in embarrassment and, flustered, to say, ‘Oh well, sir, I am pleased to hear it. Perhaps all my efforts were worthwhile in the end.’

With a hint of sarcasm, Frank said, ‘Maybe so, Mrs Potter, maybe so.’ He cleared his throat and said, ‘What I came to ask you was would you allow young Jenny here to have lunch
with us? I will bring her back to the Home later, if that would be convenient. In fact,’ he added, as if he had just thought about it, ‘she could go home with us and I would bring her
back to you at whatever time you say later this evening.’

‘Oh well, now, sir, I don’t know about that.’ Mrs Potter’s mouth pursed primly. ‘We don’t normally let any of our girls go out with strangers.’ But then
she appeared to be calculating swiftly in her mind, the girl was coming up to school-leaving age. That very morning she had been turned down for one job. Maybe if Mr Brackenbury was pleased with
one of her orphans then . . .? Mrs Potter smiled. ‘But, of course, in your case, sir, since I know Mrs Trowbridge and you have already taken Maddie March, then I don’t see any
problem.’

She turned now and prodded the young girl on the shoulder. ‘You just mind you behave yourself, miss.’

‘Yes, Matron,’ Jenny said in her meek voice and slipped her hand into Maddie’s.

As they moved away from Mrs Potter, Jenny began to skip and chatter. Her excited, piping voice rose above the hubbub around them. ‘Guess what happened last week? Mr Theo Mayfield came to
the Home to visit. You know, Sir Peter’s son. We was all called together and he told us that he’s been appointed to the Board of – of – what is it they call them,
Maddie?’

‘Governors.’

‘That’s it. To the Board of Governors. He’s ever so nice, Maddie. Ever so friendly and handsome. Fair curly hair, he’s got. I always used to be a bit frightened of Sir
Peter, but I don’t think I will be of Mr Theo. I wish you could see him, Maddie.’

After they had walked all round the market again and Frank and Michael had stood before two cows for sale, pondering whether to make a bid and then deciding against it, Frank turned and said,
‘It’s too early for dinner yet, but I could murder a cuppa. How about the rest of you?’

‘I could do with a sit down, Mr Frank. I can’t stand on me feet any longer.’

Frank’s eyes twinkled. ‘You should have worn your comfortable shoes, Harriet, not your “Sunday-go-to-meeting” pair that pinch your toes.’ He turned to the younger
members of the party. ‘You coming, or do you want to go off by yourselves?’

‘We’ll go and have a look at the fair, Dad.’

‘Don’t leave these two young lassies on their own, will you now?’

‘’Course not,’ Michael said, almost indignantly.

‘Right then. We’ll come and find you there.’

As Frank and Harriet moved away, Michael said, ‘Come on, I’ll buy us all an ice cream each.’

Now that his mother was out of earshot, Nick was not to be outdone. ‘Fancy a ride on the roundabout?’ he said to Maddie. ‘I’ll treat you.’

Maddie grinned. ‘You’re on. What about you, Jen?’ But the younger girl hung back. ‘I daresunt. You go, Maddie. I’ll just stand and watch.’

‘We’ll watch ’em and laugh at ’em when they fall off, shall we, young’un?’ Michael said to Jenny and put his arm casually about her shoulders.

Maddie was startled by a sudden strange feeling that stabbed at her. She had never felt this way before, but when she looked at Michael with his arm around Jenny and saw him smiling down at her,
she felt such resentment towards Jenny that it frightened her. And he’d called her ‘young’un’ too, the nickname that Maddie had thought was only for her.

The fair had come to Wellandon, as Frank had said, to the field behind the Black Swan a short distance from the cattle market. Fairground organ music greeted them as they drew
near and they could hear the merry laughter and the shrieks from young girls as the handsome, dark-haired young man in charge of the roundabout sent it faster and faster. There were swing boats,
dodgem cars, a waltzer, a helter-skelter and even a big wheel, as well as all manner of stalls; hoopla, a coconut shy and a shooting gallery. There was even a gypsy fortune teller in a small
striped tent with an elaborate sign that said ‘Madam Pallengro, Palmist and Clairvoyant’.

‘Come on, Nick,’ Maddie said deliberately, ‘we’ll show ’em.’

‘Let’s go on the Galloping Horses,’ Nick said and held out his hand for her to climb up onto one of the white-painted horses whilst he climbed onto the one next to her. The
ride, when it began, not only went round but also up and down and Maddie had not expected the peculiar feeling in her stomach. ‘When it goes down,’ she shouted to Nick above the hubbub,
‘my tummy feels as if I’ve left it up there and then I meet it coming down as I’m going back up.’