Elijah’s skin prickled. “I’m seeing to the horses.”
“Leave them. Yer mam wants you.” Bill jerked his thumb toward camp.
Elijah squared his shoulders and walked away.
Bill stuck out his good leg and tripped Elijah, sending him sprawling to the ground. “Clumsy, in’t you.” He smiled and limped off.
Seething, Elijah headed back to their wagon.
His mother sat on the wooden steps cuddling Rose while she fed her a bottle. Granddad Ambrose perched on a nearby log and whittled clothes pegs from alder branches.
Elijah swallowed. “Granddad, I’m going to sell Lady at the fair.” The words stuck in his throat.
Granddad Ambrose put down his knife and tamped a wad of tobacco into his pipe. “You must be certain, my Elijah. If you sell her, she’s gone fer good.”
“I know, Granddad. But we needs the money.”
His grandfather lit the pipe, scenting the air with tobacco.
Rose burped and Mammy patted her back. “We can manage without the money.”
“Think on it while you check the snares fer me,” Granddad Ambrose said.
“Ambrose, he can’t go and check the snares. I need him to mind Rosabella. I can’t tell fortunes with a babby in me arms.”
“I’ll take her with me,” Elijah offered. “She likes a walk.”
Mammy wrapped Rose in a blanket and fetched an extra quilt. She handed the baby to Elijah. “Look after her, now. Mind she comes to no harm.”
Chapter Seven
ELIJAH
WITH JACK TROTTING at his heels, Elijah carried Rose through the flat meadows by the river. Her warm breath tickled his neck. When his arms began to ache, he balanced her on his hip. Skirting the village, he cut through the churchyard to the beck, then followed the little stream up the dale toward Granddad Ambrose’s snares.
He stooped to pluck a flower for Rose and almost lost his balance when Bill stepped out from behind a tree. In one hand, Bill held a shovel, in the other, the neck of a sack. Something alive wriggled inside the sack, making the sides bulge and heave.
“I want you to come rabbitin’ with me,” Bill said.
“I can’t,” Elijah answered. “I’ve to check me granddad’s snares. And besides, I’ve got our Rose.”
“The snares are empty. I’ve already looked. Set the babby down. You can leave her here. We’ll not be gone fer long.”
Surely he couldn’t mean for them to leave Rose alone. Not even Bill could be that heartless.
“I can’t leave her here—she’s too little!”
“You’ll do as I say. Because if you don’t come rabbitin’ with me, I’ll tell yer granddad that secret I knows about you.” Bill tapped the side of his nose with his index finger.
Elijah’s knees almost gave way. The secret—always the threat of the secret. That was Bill’s weapon against him.
If Bill told the secret, what would Granddad Ambrose say? He’d be disappointed and angry. Would he send Elijah away? Elijah didn’t want to find out.
But how could he abandon Rose?
“Mammy’ll kill you if she finds out you made me leave our Rose in a field.”
Bill stepped closer. He stank of stale beer and onions. “She won’t find out, because you won’t tell ’er. We both knows you’ll do as I say. Set the babby down. I won’t say it again.”
Elijah looked around in panic. There must be something he could do. Something to appease Bill. Something to keep his sister safe.
He could think of nothing.
A lone hawthorn tree stood in the center of the field.
Elijah tilted his head at the tree. “Wait while I put Rose over there.”
“Be quick about it,” Bill said.
Dragging his feet through the rough grass, Elijah walked slowly toward the tree. He kicked away a dried cowpat and knelt down by the trunk. Brushing away sharp bits of twig, he laid Rose on her back on Mammy’s quilt and covered her with the blanket.
She smiled up at him. She was so small and helpless. He was nothing but a cringing coward for abandoning her.
He called to Bill. “Don’t make me leave her here. Please let me take her back to camp. Then I’ll come rabbitin’ with you.”
Bill’s answer was a short laugh. “You’ll come now. Leave her there.”
Anger and misery flooded through Elijah in equal measures as he rose to his feet. Bill poked the shovel handle into his back and steered him down the field toward the beck, but Elijah hesitated on the stream bank while Bill splashed ahead through the water.
Glaring, Bill shouted at him from the far bank. “Get a move on!”
Elijah didn’t bother to find a shallow place to cross. He just plowed through the water, letting it soak his trousers and boots. On the far side, he looked back toward the tree. Rose had a warm blanket. There weren’t any cows in the field. She’d be all right for a while. He wouldn’t be gone long.
But somewhere in the deepest part of his mind, the part that oozed superstition and dark thoughts, he knew that you couldn’t abandon your baby sister and not pay a price.
Chapter Eight
LIZZIE
LIZZIE TUCKED THE LETTERS for her mother and grandmother into her cardigan pocket. She would follow the lane, and when she got to the village, she’d ask someone where she could find the postbox.
“Where are you going?” Peter asked. “Can I come?”
She wanted to say no because he’d be a bother, but he was her responsibility now. “I’m going to post my letters. Come on.”
Bright sunshine seeped from behind a cloud. A brisk breeze snapped the washing on the lines behind the houses. The air was scented with something earthy, pungent, and rich. Solid dry stone walls on either side of the lane hemmed them in as they walked, obscuring their view of the fields and moorland beyond.
Lizzie heard a mewling cry coming from the other side of the wall on her right—it sounded like an injured animal.
“Something’s hurt,” Peter said, standing still and cocking his head to one side.
The whimpers became louder and more insistent. Lizzie saw mossy stone steps built into the wall. She ran to the stile and clambered up. At the top, she tilted her head and listened. The ground sloped down and away from her toward a stream. She saw no animals, just a lone tree in the middle of the field.
The wind billowed her skirt and blew her hair into her eyes.
Peter tilted his chin to look up at her. “What can you see? Is it a kitten? Or a lamb? Or a baby fox?”
Suddenly, she felt impatient with him and his questions. “I can’t see anything. I’ll go and look. You stay here.”
But as she scrambled down the worn steps on the other side of the stile, he was already climbing up behind her.
Lizzie ran, dodging prickly thistles and jumping over the dried cowpats that dotted the coarse grass. The noise grew louder and she ran faster. When she reached the tree, she stopped so suddenly that Peter almost barreled into her.
Lying on her back, on a frayed patchwork quilt, was a red-faced, bawling baby.
“Waaa, waaa, waaa.” The baby’s little fists pounded the air. She had kicked away a knitted pink blanket, revealing a filthy mess oozing from her nappy.
Peter pinched his nose. “Eeuw! That’s poo. It stinks.”
The baby’s cries reached a volume that Lizzie wouldn’t have believed possible from something so small. Where were her parents?
“Hello?” Lizzie called. “Your baby’s crying.”
A blackbird trilled from the branches above them. No one else answered.
Shading her eyes, she scanned the field. “We have to find her parents.” She pointed. “You look over that wall. I’ll see if they’re down by the beck.”
While Peter ran toward the wall, Lizzie hurried to the ribbon of trees beside the stream. There was no one in the cool shade, no one paddling in the shallows, no one picnicking in the lush grasses at the water’s edge—just a trampled area of mud and sloppy manure where cows
had come to drink.
Lizzie ran back to the tree. The baby was crying so hard now that she couldn’t catch her breath.
Peter’s eyes glistened as he stood over her. “I didn’t see anyone, Lizzie. What should we do?” He pressed his knuckles against his mouth.
Lizzie shut her eyes. Think. What would Mummy do?
“Give me your hankie.”
Peter handed her a grubby square of cloth. She ran back to the beck, dipped the handkerchief in the cold water, and wrung it out.
She knelt beside the quilt in the dappled shade of the tree. Scrunching up her nose, she removed the filthy cotton rag that was wrapped around the baby’s bottom. She gently cleaned the baby with Peter’s handkerchief. When she’d finished, she wiped her hands on the grass.
The baby stopped crying in mid-yell. She kicked her legs, hiccupped, and reached out a chubby hand to Lizzie. She was plump and sweet with a mop of coal-black hair, huge chestnut eyes, and lush lashes like Peter’s. Someone had embroidered a row of pink roses around the neck of her cardigan and the hem of her frilly pink dress.
“What should we do now?” Peter asked.
Lizzie sat back on her heels. There was no sign of the baby’s family, and they couldn’t just leave her. “We’ll take her back to Elsie’s.”
Peter shook his head. “We can’t take her. She’s not ours.”
“We can’t leave her. Feel how cold she is.”
He felt the baby’s hands and frowned. “Where did she come from? Why is she here on her own?”
“I don’t know. But she might be hungry. We’d better go.”
Lizzie wrapped the baby in the blanket. Then she rolled the quilt around the dirty nappy and handed the bundle to Peter. “You carry this. I’ll carry the baby.”
He held the quilt at arm’s length, grumbling. “It smells bad.”
“Buck up. It’s not far to Elsie’s.”
Without the dirty nappy, the baby smelled of milk and grass. Lizzie held her tight, but she was a heavy, wriggly burden, and Lizzie almost dropped her when they climbed the stile.
“Why did someone leave her in a field? Don’t they want her anymore?” Peter asked.
Lizzie wondered the same thing. What kind of person would abandon a little baby in a field? Only someone horrible would do an awful thing like that.
Chapter Nine
ELIJAH
BILL LIMPED ON through meadows, hay fields, and pastures. Elijah stumbled after him, turning every few paces to look back at the field where he’d left Rose until he could no longer see the hawthorn tree. Jack trotted beside him.
They finally stopped at the foot of an egg-shaped hill topped by tall trees twisted into strange shapes by the wind. The close-cropped grass was dotted with burrows and piles of small black animal droppings.
Bill untied a string from around his waist, removed the nets looped onto it, and dropped them on the ground.
“This is Colonel Clegg’s field. He dun’t like us on his land,” Elijah said.
“Who cares what he dun’t like. Set them nets.”
Elijah draped the nets over the nearest holes and pegged them in place.
Bill untied the neck of his sack and pulled out a squirming albino ferret. The jill stared at him from mean pink eyes. He stuffed her down the nearest rabbit hole, then reached into the sack and pulled out a second ferret. The cream-and-brown hob had a mask of dark fur around his glittering eyes; he was prettier than the female, but just as vicious. Bill released him into the rabbit warren.
A terrified rabbit bolted out of a burrow and straight into one of the nets. The more it struggled, the more tangled it became until Bill gripped its hind legs with one hand and its head with the other. He yanked his hands apart. Snap. He untangled the limp corpse and dropped it onto the ground.
Soon three dead rabbits lay side by side on the grass.
“Three’s enough.” Elijah fought to keep his voice even. His heart beat a tattoo of panic in his breast. He had to get back to Rose.
“I’ll decide when we’ve enough,” Bill said as he dispatched a fourth rabbit with a quick twist of its neck.
The jill poked her head out of a hole, her pink nose twitching. Bill grabbed her and dropped her in the sack. But the hob did not reappear.
Bill paced. “Got himself tucked away with a rabbit, I bet.”
“I’ll send Jack,” Elijah said.
Kneeling beside his dog, he pointed to the warren. “Find him, boy!”
The little terrier ran back and forth, sniffing and listening. Finally he stood in one spot and stared at the ground. Elijah picked up the shovel and dug where Jack stared. A pair of inquisitive black eyes appeared in the hole. A jerking rabbit dangled from the ferret’s mouth.
“Hey! You! What do you think you’re doing?”
Colonel Clegg stormed through the gate at the opposite end of the field. “No poaching on my land! I’ll have you arrested for this!”
Elijah pulled down his cap to hide his face. Bill yanked the twitching rabbit from the ferret’s mouth and dropped it. He shoved the hob into the sack, grabbed two of the dead rabbits, and limped briskly off toward the cover of a nearby stand of trees.
“You there! Stop!” The colonel raised his gun and fired. The shot scattered a flock of crows in a flurry of squawks and flapping wings.
Abandoning the nets, the remaining rabbits, and the shovel, Elijah sprinted across the field with Jack at his heels. He vaulted the gate and ran as if the German army were after him.
If the colonel caught him, what would happen to Rose?
He couldn’t be caught. He ran faster.
When he reached the cover of a willow stand beside the beck, Elijah hid and doubled over, gasping for breath. Jack panted by his feet.
Elijah parted the whippy branches and saw no sign of the colonel in pursuit. Abandoning all caution, he forded the stream and ran toward the center of the field where he’d left Rose.
When he reached the hawthorn tree, he froze, a rigid pillar of horror and fear. He did not believe what he saw.
Rose was gone.
How could she be gone?
He forced his feet to move. He circled the tree. “Rose!” he called. “Where are you? Rose!” He shouted himself hoarse.
The beck! What if she’d somehow rolled down to the water? He scoured the stream banks, oblivious to the stinging red welts the nettles raised on his arms.
Stupid! If she’d rolled away, her blanket and quilt would still be under the tree. But they were gone too.
“Where are you, Rose?” he bellowed.
But the field revealed no secrets.
Elijah clutched his stomach, doubled over, and retched. Why had he obeyed Bill?
Bill! That was it! Bill had taken Rose back to camp. He was there now, probably telling everyone how Elijah had abandoned his baby sister.
Fury built in Elijah as he sprinted back to camp. Bill would do anything to make him look bad, even if it meant putting Rose at risk. And Elijah had played right into his hands.
When Elijah arrived back at camp, he found Bill leaning against Mammy’s wagon.
“Where’s them rabbits? Where’s me nets? Where’s me shovel?” Bill said.
Elijah’s shouts were frantic. “Where’s Rose? What have you done with her? Is she in the wagon?”
The corners of Bill’s mouth turned down. “You’re the one as left her. It was up to you to fetch her back.”
Elijah’s mind couldn’t accept the facts. Bill hadn’t brought Rose back. Rose was lost. And it was Elijah’s fault.
Granddad Ambrose appeared at his doorway. “What’s going on?”
“It’s Rose, Granddad. She’s gone. I left her in a field and someone took her.”
The words were inadequate—they could not convey the horror of what had happened.
The lines etched into Granddad Ambrose’s forehead crinkled in confusion. “I don’t understand. What do you mean?”
Fear for his sister made Elijah reckless. “Bill made
me go poaching on the colonel’s land. He made me leave Rose in a field up the dale. But someone took her while I was gone.”
“That’s a lie,” Bill said. “I never made ’im leave the babby. I found ’im idling by the beck, so I took ’im rabbitin’. Rose weren’t nowhere in sight.”
Blood roared in Elijah’s ears. “You’re the liar. You made me leave our Rose. You knows it.”
Granddad Ambrose stepped into the space between them. “If the babby’s lost, we must find her. Then we’ll get to the bottom of this.”
Elijah winced at the condemnation in his grandfather’s eyes.
Chapter Ten
LIZZIE
LIZZIE HELD the baby close with one arm supporting her bottom and the other around her back. They’d almost reached Elsie’s when a loud boom reverberated through the dale. Crows circled above a stand of misshapen trees at the top of a small hill.
“Was that a gun?” Peter asked. “Is it the Germans? Are they coming to get us?”
“If the Germans had invaded, someone would have told us,” Lizzie said. “It’s probably just a farmer shooting those crows.”
She shifted the baby and stepped carefully around the potholes in the back lane. Peter held the back door open for her, and Lizzie stepped inside.
The sagging cushion on Elsie’s chair showed the indentation of her back, but she was nowhere to be seen.
Lizzie sat down and supported the heavy baby on her legs. “Go and get Madge. I’ll wait here.”
“Well, I never,” Madge said when she bustled in. “The lad wasn’t making things up.” She leaned over and took the baby from Lizzie. “This little one needs a nappy and some clean clothes.”
The stairs creaked. Elsie stopped halfway down and stared. Her hair was flattened at one side as if she’d been asleep. She blinked. Then she closed her eyes and rubbed them. When she opened them again, a smile blossomed on her face.
“My little Alice is awake, then. Come to Mummy, love.” She opened her arms.
Madge’s ruddy face turned pale. “Oh my Lord, Elsie. This isn’t your baby. She isn’t Alice.”
Lizzie and the Lost Baby Page 3