Strawberry Fields (7 page)
He went to hand the baby over, but Jess shook her head. To his horror, he realised that even as he watched she was growing fainter, until she was no more than a mist of a girl against the flower-filled meadow.
‘No, I can’t take ’er; it wouldn’t be right. And I’ve gorra go. But you’ll tek care of ’er for me, won’t you, Brogan? You’ll take care of me baby sister, me heart’s darlin’? You wouldn’t throw ’er on the world’s mercy, Brogan, when it don’t ’ave none?’
‘Oh, but I’m a feller, fellers don’t look after babies . . .’ Brogan began, but it was too late. The girl Jess had faded like a wraith of mist in the morning sun, and even as he drew the baby out of his coat and held her imploringly towards her sister, the dream faded and he found himself awake and cold, whilst the guard’s van continued to clatter along the tracks towards the city.
And presently, when the train came to a halt in the station yard and the men tumbled out, the dream had vanished and Brogan headed for the cabin with no premonition of what he was to find.
Brogan stared around the little cabin, scarcely able to believe his eyes. The girl Jess had gone! She was not curled up on the floor in front of the still-glowing coke burner, she was not sitting on the oil drum, nor taking the opportunity to have a bite from the food they had left for her. She was nowhere to be seen. Brogan stared around unbelievingly for a moment, then turned to his father, who had followed him in. The other men had taken the shovels and equipment back to the store.
‘Daddy, she’s gone! There’s neither hide nor hair of her – she’s even taken the little bit o’ blanket so she has!’
‘She’ll have woken up and taken a little walk, perhaps,’ Peader said doubtfully. ‘Only . . . ’tis mortal cold out there for a skinny lass wit’ nobbut rags to her back.’
‘But she knew I had the baby,’ Brogan said. ‘When she fell asleep I was still playin’ wit’ the little one. Surely she’d have searched for us, not just – just gone?’
‘She mebbe only woke up minutes ago,’ Peader said reassuringly. ‘She’ll be out there now.’ He turned back towards the doorway. ‘Come on, wit’ the pair of us callin’, ’twill take us but a moment to find the lass.’
‘I only took the baby out because she would crawl towards the stove,’ Brogan muttered, turning up his coat collar and plunging into the darkness close on his father’s heels. ‘No baby-stealer, me, though she’s a good little one, this one. Oh, Daddy, will she hear us against this storm?’
For now the wind was stronger, if anything, the flakes thicker.
‘Never a peep will she hear if we don’t shout,’ his father called back, crossly. ‘Let’s be hearin’ you, lad – Hey, Jess, JESS! Where are you hidin’, alanna?’
But no sound came back to them out of the silent, snow-covered yard. In fact after covering most of the ground between the cabin and the engine sheds, Peader turned to his son and shook his head.
‘She’s took shelter somewhere, to wait out the storm,’ he shouted. ‘No use to search further, lad. We’d best get back to the cabin ourselves, see what . . .’
‘There’s someone over there, Daddy,’ Brogan shouted back, gesturing to what looked like a thickening of the snow ahead of them. ‘It’s the fellers – have they found her?’
They hurried eagerly towards the other men; Declan walked along with a shovel over his shoulder but Paddy had taken off his working coat and was carrying something wrapped in it. The cold was so bitter that with one accord all the men turned back to the cabin; it was no weather for explanations. But once inside Paddy laid his coat tenderly on the floor and opened it out so that a face just showed between the rough lapels. No one looking at that pale, still face could have thought her still alive.
Brogan gasped. ‘Dear God, it’s the girl Jess! Is she froze, Paddy? What in the name of all that’s dreadful happened to her?’
‘The train must ha’ caught her crossin’ the lines,’ Paddy said heavily. ‘Hours since, probably . . . eh, it must have been our engine, on the way to move that bloody tree. She must ha’ died at once, Brogan, lad, she’d not have known a t’ing, I promise you that.’
‘The train hit her? But what was she doin’, Paddy, wanderin’ around the yard in such weather? When I left her she was sleepin’ sound, I swear it.’
Paddy shrugged and went to cover the face again, but Peader stayed his hand.
‘No, Paddy, don’t! Are you sure she’s gone?’
‘Aye. We found her across the lines, man – what was left of her.’ Paddy drew the coat almost reverently across the ash-pale face. ‘On Christmas Day! But He’s taken her to be with His angels, no man can doubt that. I’ll go for a priest.’
‘And the police,’ Declan said wearily. ‘They’ll have to stick their long noses in, no doubt.’
‘Aye, no doubt.’ Peader looked across at his son. ‘’Tis a sad and cruel way to go, son,’ he said carefully. ‘And we’d all have give our right hands to save the child’s life, but it’s happened. We’ve all seen death before, the death of an innocent. You must never blame yourself, for I know you, Brog. You’ll start thinkin’ that if you’d not taken the baby, if you’d left her here, the girl might be alive now. Well, I’m tellin’ you, son, that first it was the will o’ God and second that if you’d left the baby it might have been that little one who died. She could have pulled the coke burner over . . .’
Brogan was staring at the dark bundle, which had once been a loving, caring girl. Now he leaned forward and pulled back the coat. He gazed at the girl’s face and suddenly his dream came back to him in every detail, he could hear her voice, low, pleading, speaking to him from the heart.
You’ll tek care of ’er for me, Brogan? You’ll take care of me heart’s darling? You won’t throw her on the world’s mercy, when it don’t ’ave none?
‘Brogan? She was a good girl she was, she’ll not bear you any grudge, nor haunt you in any way.’
His father’s voice was fairly throbbing with the intensity of his feelings, and he put a hand out to draw the coat back over the dead face, but Brogan stopped him.
‘In a moment, Daddy,’ he said gently. ‘But Mollie must look her last on her sister.’ He drew the baby, rosy and only just stirring, out of the breast of his coat. ‘See, Mollie? That’s your sister who loved you, who died for you. She wanted me to take care of you for her, and I’ll not disappoint her.’
‘Take care of her? But she’s got parents . . . brothers and sisters . . .’ Peader said doubtfully, only to have his son round on him.
‘To be sure she has; a drunken father who beats his kids and a mother who has no time for them. Daddy, I should have known Jess was dead, because I dreamed of her, when we were coming home in the guard’s van. She begged me to take care of the baby . . . she said Mollie was her heart’s darling and she didn’t want her thrown on the world’s mercy, for it has none. What can I do but try to take care of Mollie for her?’
‘But the parents will want her back; the police will be round here . . .’
Brogan knelt on the floor and put the baby down beside the dead girl and Mollie touched the cold, white face, then turned back to him. She scrambled back on to his knees and pushed her thumb into her mouth, then turned her face into him. Brogan tucked her back inside his coat and looked squarely at the ring of faces surrounding him. ‘Well, fellers? What would you do?’
There was a long, long pause whilst each man consulted his own thoughts, his own conscience. Then Paddy spoke for them all.
‘If I had a dream like that, sure an’ I’d keep the littl’un as long as I was able. But it’ll be a hard road for you, Brogan me boy. I must say, I don’t hold wit’ fathers who rule their kids wit’ their belts nor mothers who give birth and then hand their babbies over to the older kids to bring up, but there’s laws in England same as there are back home. It won’t be easy.’
Peader looked thoughtfully around the cabin, at the faces in the glow from the coke burner, all serious, concerned.
‘You must go home, boy,’ he said after a moment. ‘Right away, you must go home. We’ll tell the authorities we found the lass on the line, it’ll be a while before they know who she is or where she hails from, and we’ll say nothing about the baby.’ He smiled at his son. ‘Ah, your mammy’s wanted a girl all her life, aren’t you the lucky fella to be bringin’ her a little daughter!’
‘Home!’ Brogan could feel a smile starting. To go home – and with such a gift for his beloved mammy! ‘Oh, but someone’s bound to notice the baby on the ship, there’ll be talk . . .’
‘Go on the next boat out, and keep the babby quiet until then,’ Paddy said. ‘If you feed her well and keep her warm she’ll not bawl out. Do as your daddy says, boy. Take her to your mammy.’
‘More sprouts, Sara? How about you, Nanny? We’ve left most of the tureen untouched, don’t distress Cook by sending such a quantity of vegetables back to the kitchens, I beg of you!’
Mr Cordwainer was trying to be jovial, to instil some Christmas spirit into the proceedings, but his best efforts were being thwarted by his wife, who was plainly sulking, and slightly by Sara, who had not got over the disappointment of losing Jess. This is turning out to be the oddest Christmas ever, Sara decided, as she allowed her father to spoon a few more sprouts on to her plate. Why on earth had Nanny passed on Mrs Rushton’s message? It had only made mother angry.
But that had been no excuse for Mrs Cordwainer’s behaviour ever since. She had criticised every single course, found fault with Sara’s table manners and told her husband that he had chosen the wrong wine.
Sara realised that her mother’s anger was partly directed against herself; she had undoubtedly invited Nanny for Christmas Day without realising that the older woman would assume she was not welcome for Boxing Day. This had made her look grudging in her husband’s eyes. But to continue to make everyone feel uncomfortable seemed so unnecessary that Sara could not begin to account for it. Grownups, Sara decided – not for the first time – simply went their own way regardless and expected children to make the best of it.
And Nanny was too quiet; it worried Sara, who knew that Mrs Prescott liked to talk and laugh. In fact her Christmas Day was already in grave danger of being spoiled.
‘Well, Sara? Have you quite finished? Sure? Then since you’re the last I’ll tell Cook to bring in the pudding.’
Mr Cordwainer tinkled a little bell by his right hand and after a pause, the long door at the end of the dining room was flung open and Cook appeared, extremely red in the face, bearing the flaming pudding before her. Mr Cordwainer clapped rather selfconsciously and Mrs Prescott followed suit so Sara, trying hard as well now, said, ‘Hooray!’ in a rather squeaky little voice and then clapped too.
‘Really, Adolphus,’ Mrs Cordwainer said as soon as the cook had left the room, ‘you’ve not even tasted the pudding yet; the time for congratulating Cook is when we’ve tried the pudding, not before we’ve even cut into it. I daresay it will be nasty and we’ll have to send it back untouched.’
Mr Cordwainer turned to his wife but before he could say a word Nanny was before him, and she was clearly furious – even more furious than either Cordwainer, Sara could see.
‘Letty, you should be ashamed of yourself! I hope never to see a nastier exhibition of unrestrained temper . . . and from a child I brought up to the best of my ability, too! Now are you going to apologise and begin to behave prettily or shall I order the car to come round and take me straight home?’
There was an appalled silence. Sara, looking from face to face, thought she had never seen her parents so dumbstruck. And what on earth did it mean? Surely not that her beloved nanny was going to turn round and leave, after they had persuaded her to stay, too? She knew Mrs Prescott had been Mother’s nanny, too, but she had never heard Mrs Prescott speak to her mother in any but the mildest terms, she had certainly never heard her so angry. But her father was nodding his head slowly, as though he agreed – oh, what on earth was going to happen?
And it had all started, she was sure, because Nanny had mentioned Mrs Rushton and Sid and a Sunday school outing, long ago. Sara supposed that there must have been a Sunday school trip both from the Snowdrop Street area and from wherever her mother had been brought up. But why Mrs Cordwainer should so dislike it being mentioned . . . and then Mrs Rushton had seemed to know Mrs Cordwainer quite well, she’d said ‘when we were twelve’. Actually, that gave Sara her first moment of doubt. Mrs Rushton was
old,
her hair was grey and her figure sagging. Oh, she was nice all right, but definitely old.
old,
her hair was grey and her figure sagging. Oh, she was nice all right, but definitely old.
But a moment’s thought cancelled that one out, too. Mrs Cordwainer had one child, not six or seven, and she had servants and a big house, a car, a chauffeur . . . naturally she looked less strained than a woman who did all her own work, and cleaned public houses, as well. And Mother dyes her hair, too, Sara remembered. Its bright colour sometimes faded and then became bright once more, so Sara knew she dyed it. It was probably true, then, that Mrs Rushton and Sara’s own mother were the same age and had gone on the same Sunday school trip. But that didn’t explain Mrs Cordwainer’s crossness, nor the martial sparkle in Nanny’s eyes.
‘Well, Letty?’ That was Mrs Prescott. She’s really brave, Sara thought, seeing the scarlet flame in her mother’s cheeks. Suppose she’s too brave – suppose Mother just tells her to go? But it was Christmas and Nanny, in some mysterious way, seemed to have the upper hand. Even as Sara stared, round-eyed, her mother heaved a sigh, glanced up towards the ceiling with an expression of pained longsuffering, and spoke.
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