Wildflower Hill (37 page)

“Well, then,” Charlie said softly, crooking his finger to
brush a tear off her cheek, “if the lawyer got you into it, perhaps he can get you out. Let’s go home, Beattie, and you can drop in on Leo Sampson on the way.”

Beattie nodded, pulled herself together. “You’re right. They can’t have just disappeared. He’ll help me find her.”

The drive back to Lewinford was so different in tone and intent from the drive down that it was almost agonizing. Beattie leaned her head on her hand against the window and watched the landscape slip by, contemplating the miles and miles between her and Lucy. By the time Charlie stopped the car outside Leo’s office, she had started to fear she might never see her daughter again.

The usual crowd across the street craned their necks to see her. When she climbed out of the passenger side, they craned even farther to see who was driving, but Charlie steadfastly kept his hat on and his window wound up.

“Come in with me,” Beattie pleaded, leaning back in the door.

“No, Beattie. The last thing you want is for me to parade around next to you while those folks are watching.” He kept his hands firmly on the steering wheel.

She closed the door and steadied herself. Her face felt hot even though the air was bitterly cold, and she was aware that she still was not well enough to be out. Her left ear ached and rang faintly.

Deep breaths.
She pushed open Leo’s door.

Leo was filing in his tiny office; a redolent pipe waited for him on his desk. He turned and saw her, smiled . . . then read her expression, and the smile turned to a frown.

“What happened?” he asked.

“They’ve taken her,” she managed before breaking once more into sobs.

With a generous brandy in her hand, she told him the whole story. He took notes, nodded sympathetically. Outside the window, the hedges shivered.

“I’ll be in touch with their lawyer fortwith,” he said. “He might know where they’ve gone. Beattie, you need to go home, and you need to rest. You look very unwell.”

“I can’t rest until I know where she is.”

“I think you’re going to have to accept that it may be some time before we know where she is. Rest. Is there . . . someone who can look after you at the farm?” This last was delivered in a quiet tone.

“Charlie’s there.”

He nodded, smiled a little sadly. “I’m glad.” He tapped the page of notes in front of him. “I’ll call you the moment I hear anything.”

The icy air outside made her cough. She stopped, trying to catch her breath. Then found herself pitching forward.

The cold grassy path hit her hard, but the hands around her waist, pulling her up, were gentle.

“Beattie? Are you all right?”

“Charlie, I’m not well.”

“Get your hands off her, you black bastard.”

Beattie looked up to see a slit-eyed Frank Harrow standing a few feet off.

“I’m helping her,” Charlie said.

“You shouldn’t be touching a white woman like that.”
Frank pushed his way in, bumping Charlie aside and steadying Beattie under her elbow.

Overwhelmed by Lucy’s loss, Beattie could not endure his rudeness. “Get your hands off me!” she shrieked at Frank, shrugging him off violently. “How dare you speak to Charlie like that?”

An audience was forming, drawn by her raised voice. Two outside the general store, one from the post office, three neighbors of Leo’s.

“Are you going to let him touch you like that? Like he owns you?” Frank spat.

“Come on, missus,” Charlie mumbled, “we’d best get back to the farm.”

Missus.
The name was an insult to her, a symbol of the time before they had loved each other. She was not going back there, and Frank and his army of bigots weren’t going to make her.

“He does own me,” she said boldly. “He owns my heart. And I own his.”

Muttered disapproval. Charlie was in the driver’s seat, slamming his door, revving the car.

“So don’t you dare say a word against him again. He’s a better man than you.” She looked around, raising her voice. “He’s a better man than any of you.”

She steadied herself on the car, found the handle, and let herself in. Gratefully slid into the seat.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Charlie said, his voice icy.

She turned to him. “Charlie? You’re angry with me?”

He pulled onto the road, not answering her.

“Say something,” she said to him.

“You wouldn’t want to hear what I want to say,” he replied. “Now you’re going home to bed, and I’m going to get the doctor from Bothwell. We can’t do anything about Lucy, but I’m going to make bloody sure she has a mother to come back to when it’s time.”

Beattie turned to the window again, letting hot, silent tears make their way down her face.

Beattie was sick for nine days. An infection in her ear kept her flat on her back, fighting a high fever. She slept for long stretches, punctuated by vivid dreams about Lucy and Henry. Charlie made her soup that she didn’t eat, made sure she had clean linen when she sweated through her sheets, and had the doctor come to see her.

On the ninth day, feeling clearer, she sat up and ate properly for the first time. Charlie sat on the end of her bed, watching her closely. He was quiet, had been quiet the whole time. She presumed he was still angry at her for what she had said to Frank Harrow. Why shouldn’t she have said it, though? She cared nothing for their opinions.

She tore up a piece of bread and dipped it in her soup. “I’ve been thinking about Henry telling his neighbor he was heading north, and I remembered that Billy Wilder, an old friend of his, moved up to Launceston. I think I should get in touch.”

The corner of Charlie’s mouth twitched. “Beattie . . .”

“North could mean the mainland, too, but it wouldn’t be
like Henry to go where he knew nobody and had no job. He’s essentially a coward so—”

“Beattie,” he said more forcefully. “Leo Sampson called two days ago.”

She froze, her bread halfway to her mouth. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I wanted you to get better.”

Her stomach shivered with fear. “It’s bad news, isn’t it?”

He spread his hands apart. “Leo spoke to Henry’s lawyer. He and Molly and Lucy have gone to Scotland.”

Scotland.
The distance froze her. Lucy was in Scotland . . . or still on her way there. Beattie’s stomach twitched as though the umbilical cord had never been cut, as though Lucy’s distance were threatening to pull out her insides. She put her hands over her belly.

“I’m sorry, Beattie,” Charlie said.

“I have to go find her,” Beattie replied, putting aside her soup and throwing back the covers.

Charlie grasped her firmly, smoothed the covers over her again. “Not so fast. Think this through.”

“My daughter is on the other side of the world. I have to go and get her.” Beattie’s voice was tense, high. She hadn’t expected it to come out that way.

“Listen, and try to be calm,” Charlie said. “Henry said he’d contact you with an address as soon as they’ve settled somewhere. You’re going to have to wait.”

“Why should I wait?”

“Because if you run away to Scotland now, you won’t know where to find them.”

“He’ll be in Glasgow somewhere. I could find his mother . . .” Even as she said it, she knew she sounded desperate and foolish. There were no guarantees Henry would contact his mother, and she could wind up in Glasgow with no idea how to find Lucy. “But it’s not fair,” she wailed. “He can’t just take her. He can’t dictate the rules. She’ll be missing me. She’ll be wondering what’s going on. She’ll be confused.”

“Lucy is nearly ten. She’ll understand.”

“What have they told her about me?”

Charlie fell silent.

“Charlie?” she said, examining him closely. His eyebrows were drawn down hard. “Are you angry at me?”

“I told you nothing good would come of us being together.”

“This isn’t our fault.” But was Charlie right? If Molly had heard any town gossip, she might have thought that Lucy would end up with Charlie as her father. Was that the catalyst for them to run away to Scotland?

Beattie sagged back into her bed. Charlie lay down next to her, on top of the covers, his cheek against her pillow.

“I’m sorry, Beattie,” he said, his hand twining in her hair.

“It’s like I can feel the weight of all the cities and seas between us.” She touched her chest. “Sitting here on my heart.”

“Let me take some of that load,” Charlie said.

“You can’t,” Beattie replied. “The burden is mine.”

Beattie suspected that she wasn’t recovering from her illness as day after day passed with leaden limbs and a weary head.
Then she came to understand that this was an illness not of the body but of the heart.

The awful thing was that life went on as normal. She was used to being separated from her daughter, so nothing actually felt any different. No mourning in the empty bedroom, no sense of loss at the absence of childish laughter. In many ways, life was the same as it had been before. Weeks slipped by, yet still the feeling of heaviness pervaded her. Charlie was her sole comfort, but he had work to do to prepare for shearing season. Beattie had work to do, too, designs to sew, but she could barely lift her head.

Because her imagination told her terrible things. Now that Lucy was in Scotland, would Beattie ever get her back? Her mind circled and circled around the problem. By the time Beattie got over there, what things would Molly and Henry have told her? How could she rip Lucy away from the father she adored so much? How could she be away from Charlie for such a long time to fetch Lucy? What would people make of a white woman and a black man traveling any distance together? What would happen to the farm if they were both away?

She came to understand that she was stuck in an impossible place. The anger turned inward, and she blamed herself. If she hadn’t set in motion the custody hearing, they wouldn’t have felt the need to run . . .

Then, finally, a letter arrived.

Charlie brought it up from the postbox when he came in for lunch. It was one of the first days of spring, and he’d been mustering with the dogs. Peter and Matt weren’t due for another two weeks, then the shearers would arrive the week
after. With Beattie so preoccupied, Charlie had been doing everything.

He solemnly handed her the letter in the kitchen, where she was making lunch. She tore the envelope open with shaking hands and unfolded the letter. Charlie read over her shoulder.

Henry’s handwriting, not Molly’s.

Dear Beattie

We have bought a townhouse in Glasgow and have settled in well. Lucy is very happy with her new school and church, but it will be easier if you don’t contact her for a month or so to allow her to concentrate on forming new attachments here.

Beattie had to look away and take a deep breath before continuing.

I hope you understand why we took such drastic measures. Faced with a choice between keeping our daughter close to God and letting her be witness to iniquity, we did what any loving parents would do.

That sentence was definitely dictated by Molly. Beattie felt a squall of fury rise up in her and was terrified to realize that she would be happy to kill Molly at that moment.

Our return address is on the back of the letter if you wish to write, though I won’t pass on any letters to Lucy until I’m sure they won’t upset her.

Beattie crumpled up the letter and threw it on the ground.

“Steady on, you’re going to need that,” Charlie said, retrieving the letter. “You’ll need the address to write to Lucy.”

“I’m not going to write to Lucy,” she said.

Charlie looked at her wordlessly.

“I’m going to Scotland,” she said. “I’m going to turn up on their doorstep and demand my child back.”

He nodded. “When will you go?” he asked.

“Tomorrow. This week. As soon as I can.”

“We’re three weeks out from shearing season.”

“You can manage without me.”

He pressed his lips together tightly.

“I don’t care about sheep. I don’t care about anything but getting my daughter back.”

“And if you don’t? If they won’t let her go?”

“I’ll make them let her go.”

That night Beattie was sorting her papers on the floor of the sitting room. The fire was warm, the wireless crackled, Charlie drew up plans for the shearing season. Beattie had dug out her passport and was consumed with a sense of purpose. She had phoned a shipping company that could give her a berth to London in two days. She had to finish up some important bookwork before then. From London she’d make her way to Glasgow, show up on Henry’s doorstep before he could protest. How dare he? How dare he take her child away and then try to control how and when Beattie saw her?

The piece of music on the wireless finished. An announcer’s
voice came on, smooth and rich. He was talking to another man, but Beattie was only half listening. There had been talk in the last month of an increasingly aggressive Germany, but it seemed so far away, so removed from her simple life down here at the bottom of the world.

She became aware that Charlie had stood and turned up the wireless.

“What is it?” she asked, looking up from her bookwork.

“Did you hear?” he said.

She shook her head.

Music burst once more from the wireless. “We missed the news. Germany invaded Poland.”

Beattie didn’t admit that she wasn’t even sure where Poland was. “Is that right?”

Charlie shook his head. “You don’t understand. England had a pact with Poland.”

Beattie’s heart grew hot.

“We’re at war, Beattie.”

He begged her not to go. The night before, he held her against his warm body all night. She barely slept, waking over and over with a swirling ache inside her. To be apart from him for so long . . . But she held true to her purpose. She would get Lucy, she would bring her home, they would live as a family.

Deep down, she knew this fantasy had many things wrong with it, but she refused to acknowledge them. To make this journey, she had to be single-minded. She couldn’t sacrifice a moment of her focus.