Lizzie and the Lost Baby

by Cheryl Blackford

  Elsie took the baby from Madge. “I’ll just go and change her.” She hummed a tune as she climbed the stairs.

  “Has Elsie got a baby?” Peter asked.

  A tiny moan escaped from Madge’s lips. “Elsie’s confused, love. Her mind’s playing tricks on her.”

  She touched Lizzie’s shoulder. “Go and fetch Fred. He’ll be at the police station by the Coach and Horses. Take my bike. It’s by the coal shed. Tell him to come home quick.”

  Madge’s bike was big and heavy. Lizzie grasped the handlebars and pushed off. She sailed down the hills with the wind in her face and her hair flying out behind her. For the sheer joy of riding a bike, she stuck her legs out to the side and rang the rusty bell.

  The ground leveled out when she passed a squat church at the edge of the village. Rows of mossy gravestones tilted like old books forgotten on a shelf. She spotted the familiar red cylinder of a postbox and rode toward it. Taking her letters from her pocket, she dropped the envelopes through the slot.

  Then she wheeled the bike toward a large building with hanging baskets of orange nasturtiums, pink petunias, and bright blue lobelia dangling beside its big black doors. A painted picture of a stagecoach pulled by four strutting horses hung over the porch of the Coach and Horses pub. Next door a sign that said POLICE STATION jutted from the front wall of a house.

  Lizzie leaned the bike against the wall and knocked on the door.

  “Come in,” boomed a voice.

  The front room of the house had been turned into an office. Fred sat behind a massive oak desk, sipping tea from a blue mug. His jacket hung on the back of his chair, and his sleeves were rolled up to his elbows. Everything about him—from his barrel chest to his big smile to his huge ears protruding like dinner plates—was wide and comforting.

  “Well, now, young Lizzie Dewhurst, what brings you down here?” he said.

  “Madge sent me. She says you’re to come quickly because I found a baby in a field.”

  Fred scratched his chin. “You found a baby? What kind of a baby?”

  “A little girl. She was all by herself. She was crying. Elsie thinks she’s a baby called Alice.”

  Fred thumped down his mug, sloshing tea over the rim. “Dearie me. Now we’re in a pickle. I’d better go and sort this out.”

  “Why does Elsie think it’s a baby called Alice?” Lizzie asked him.

  Fred rolled down his sleeves, buttoned his cuffs, and put on his jacket. “Tell me where you found this baby.”

  “She was in a field down the lane from the houses. She was lying on a quilt. I shouted, but no one came. I looked down by the beck and Peter looked in the next field, but there was no one there. Why would someone leave a baby alone in a field?”

  Fred didn’t answer Lizzie’s questions. Instead, he plunked a tall helmet over his thin hair and fastened bicycle clips around his trouser legs.

  Lizzie tried again. “Why does Elsie think it’s a baby called Alice?”

  Fred shook his head. “It’s a queer kettle of fish, that’s what it is. Come on.”

  The two of them stepped outside, and Fred locked the door behind them.

  Despite pedaling as fast as she could, Lizzie couldn’t keep up with Fred. By the time she arrived back at Elsie’s, he was already installed in the kitchen with another mug of tea in his hand.

  Peter stood by Fred’s side holding the police helmet as if it were a precious treasure. Elsie sat in her chair, cradling the sleeping baby in her arms.

  “There you are,” Madge said. “Did you put my bike back where you found it?”

  Lizzie nodded, out of breath from her efforts.

  “Good girl, Lizzie. You were right to bring the baby back here,” Fred said. “She can stay with our Elsie while I make inquiries.”

  “Who’d leave a baby in a field, Fred?” Madge shook her head. “It’s inhuman. She could have froze to death. Or been stepped on by a cow.”

  “Folks do desperate things in wartime, love. There’s lots of women can’t manage with their men gone off to fight.”

  Fred took his helmet from Peter and set it back on his head. “It’s odd that they’d abandon a little one all the way out here though. I’ll stop at the Manor and tell the colonel what’s happened. He’ll want to be kept informed.”

  No one explained Elsie’s strange behavior.

  Chapter Eleven

  ELIJAH

  “SOMEONE MUST HAVE SEEN our Rose,” Granddad Ambrose said. “She didn’t vanish by herself.”

  He sent the men to ride around the farms and the women to ask in the village. He pulled Uncle Jeremiah aside, and the two men bent their heads together. Then Uncle Jeremiah hitched up the cart and set off down the lane.

  “He’s gone to get yer mam. We’ll wait here,” Granddad Ambrose said.

  Waiting was torture. Waiting left room for thoughts of carelessness, cowardice, and failure. Elijah pleaded, “Let me go and search too, Granddad.”

  But Granddad Ambrose shook his head. “You and me must talk.”

  They sat on the bottom of Mammy’s steps. Elijah picked at sunshine-yellow paint flakes peeling from the wood. Granddad Ambrose fished his pipe out of his pocket and tapped it against his boot heel. “What happened with Rose?”

  Elijah swallowed. “I took her with me to check the snares and Bill saw us. He said I had to go rabbitin’ with him. He wouldn’t let me bring Rose back to camp. He made me leave her in a field while we went to catch rabbits on the colonel’s land.”

  Granddad Ambrose sucked in his breath. “I’d never credit Bill with abandoning a babby. Why would he do that?”

  “He’d do anything to make me look bad.”

  Granddad Ambrose shook his head. “Bill’s a rough un right enough, but he’s kept an eye out fer you lot since yer dad joined the army. Why would he make you leave our Rose? And even if he did, why would you do it?”

  Tell him. Tell him now.

  Then there’d be no more secret and no more blackmail.

  But the girl in Malton. The one Bill had seen him kiss. She was a Gorgio—one of the settled folk. Gorgios and Travelers don’t mix, Granddad Ambrose always said. Oil and water, that’s what we are, my Elijah. Best we stay separate.

  Bill would see to it that Elijah was punished for kissing the girl—he might even persuade the others to shun Elijah.

  So Elijah lied. “I thought Bill would hurt me bad if I didn’t do what he said.”

  Granddad Ambrose’s eyes darkened. When he spoke, his voice was brittle. “You left yer little sister alone because you were afraid of Bill? What if Rose is hurt?”

  Elijah couldn’t look at his grandfather.

  They heard the even clopping of a horse’s hooves and the rattle of a cart in the lane.

  Mammy flew across the grass toward them. Her hair framed her white face in knotted tangles. She gripped Elijah’s shoulders and shook him. “Where’s Rose? Have you found her?”

  His teeth knocked together. He shook his head, mute.

  Mammy screamed. “Rosabella! My poor Rose!”

  If Mammy hadn’t been clutching his shoulders, Elijah would have sagged to the ground in shame.

  When the searchers returned, they brought no news. Mammy took to her bed. When Elijah brought her a cup of tea, she rolled away from him and faced the wall, her back rigid with accusation. He set the tea down on the little table by the window and backed away.

  At nightfall, when the small children had all been put to bed, Granddad Ambrose called a council.

  The grownups sat on rickety old chairs and sturdy logs while the older children stood in the darkness behind their parents. The fire crackled, spitting sparks into the night air. The smell of tobacco mingled with the smell of wood smoke. Flames lit the circle of anxious, weary faces. Only Mammy was missing.

  Elijah paced, wearing a path between their wagon and the fire.

  Granddad Ambrose, his face ashen with worry, cleared his throat. “No one’s found our Rose. We’ll search again at dawn tomorrer.
”

  “What about Ephraim?” Uncle Jeremiah said. “Should we send word to him?”

  Elijah shuddered. Not Dad. Dad would never forgive him.

  “Nay. It would take too long, and he’s enough on his plate with learning the army’s ways,” Granddad Ambrose said.

  “What about the fair?” someone asked. “Blakey Fair’s the biggest of the year and we’ve horses to sell.”

  “Jeremiah and Lilah and their bairns will stay with me and Vi and Elijah and the girls. We’ll look fer Rose,” Granddad Ambrose said. “The rest of you can leave fer the fair in the morning. We’ll catch up with you after we find the babby. Does anyone have owt to say about that?”

  Elijah stepped into the center of the circle. He felt eyes boring into him, judging him. He licked his dry lips and said, “If everyone goes to the fair, there won’t be enough of us left to look fer Rose.”

  “We’ll make do,” Granddad Ambrose said.

  But how could so few of them search all the nearby villages and farms?

  “We’ll need help, Granddad. We could ask the police.”

  A chorus of rumbling dissent erupted around the fire. Granddad Ambrose shook his head. “Police’ll not help us. You know that.”

  Elijah hung his head. Of course it was a stupid idea. But he was desperate or he’d never have suggested it.

  “Fool!” Bill said. “The police’d sooner arrest us as look at us.” He turned toward Granddad Ambrose. “I’ve no horses to sell. I’ll stay here with you and search fer the babby.”

  Bill lived for the fair; he thrived on the gambling and the money he got for his fiddle playing. He’d miss the biggest fair of the year only if he were dead or had something important to gain.

  “It’s settled, then.” Granddad Ambrose looked at each member of the group for confirmation.

  A log collapsed into the fire in a heap of hissing embers. Bill stood and pointed an accusing finger at Elijah. “I’ve summat to say about ’im. He couldn’t even look after his sister. His mam’s beside herself in there.” He jerked his thumb at Mammy’s wagon. “He’s a disgrace. I say we shun ’im to teach ’im a lesson.”

  Elijah tensed. Surely they wouldn’t make him an outcast—banish him from his home and everything he loved.

  Yet his deepest, darkest thoughts told him that exile was the punishment he deserved for deserting his sister.

  Granddad Ambrose pushed himself up off his log seat. He straightened his back and thrust out his chin. His voice was sharp, his eyes narrowed and hard. “There’ll be no talk of shunning. The lost babby is punishment enough fer the lad.”

  Bill looked away from Granddad Ambrose. If he was disappointed, he didn’t show it.

  The rest of the group scattered to pack and prepare for travel. Elijah retreated to the patch of grass beneath Mammy’s wagon. He curled up beside Jack, too miserable to care about the damp chill.

  Elijah woke to the warbling trill of a thrush and the first faint smudge of dawn lighting the sky. Along with the awful memory of losing Rose came the realization that he’d forgotten about Lady—today she’d leave for the fair. He rubbed some warmth back into his stiff legs and set off for the lane.

  Lady was tethered on the grass beside the road. He wound his hands in her thick mane and laid his face against her cheek.

  “I’ve made a mess of things, lass.”

  She nuzzled him, blowing her warm breath onto his neck.

  “I’ll miss you, but I have to sell you.”

  A boulder filled his throat. Dad wouldn’t want him to sell Lady. She was the best horse they’d ever had.

  But Dad wasn’t here. It was up to Elijah to make the decision. He unfastened the rope that tethered her.

  Chapter Twelve

  LIZZIE

  LIZZIE SAT on the garden wall and tucked her skirt beneath her legs to protect them from the rough stones.

  Peter perched next to her and kicked his heels against the wall. “Is that baby Elsie’s?”

  “I don’t think so,” Lizzie said.

  The baby’s cries had woken her in the night, and she had lain awake, wondering, Why does Elsie think the baby is hers? How could anyone mistake someone else’s baby for her own?

  “Didn’t the baby’s mummy want her?” Peter asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  Lizzie remembered her own mother’s sorrow when she and Peter boarded the bus that would drive them away from home. She thought of all the other sad-faced parents who’d had to say goodbye to their children. Hadn’t whoever left the baby been sad to walk away from her?

  Peter poked his elbow into her side, interrupting her thoughts. “I’m going to see the pig.”

  He jumped off the wall, opened the gate, and hopped down the uneven garden path. Lizzie followed him past neat rows of onions, carrots, and runner beans to a low brick building at the bottom of the garden.

  An enormous pig lay on his side on a pile of straw in a pen outside the building. When he saw them, he flapped his ears and struggled to his feet. His small eyes disappeared into folds of pink flesh.

  Peter reached between the bars of the pen and scratched the pig’s hairy snout. “Hello, boy.”

  “Don’t do that. He might bite.”

  “He won’t. I’m going to call him Curly.”

  “You can’t. He’s not yours.”

  Peter knit his eyebrows into a scowl. “You’re just cross ’cos you didn’t think of it first.”

  “Giving a pig a name is silly.”

  Peter turned away and kicked at a clod of earth. The back of his scrawny neck had a ring of dirt above his grimy collar.

  Lizzie sighed; she was supposed to be looking after him, not being mean to him.

  She patted his back. “Sorry. Curly’s a good name for him.”

  The sharp crack of a cricket bat hitting a ball came from the lane behind them, followed by excited shouts. Lizzie and Peter turned to watch the game. The batter ran between wickets as the bowler stamped his foot in exasperation.

  “Do you think they’ll let me play?” Peter said.

  “Go and ask,” Lizzie replied.

  As soon as Peter was installed as a fielder at the far end of the lane, Lizzie sneaked away. She walked to the field where she’d found the baby and circled the tree. Something shiny glinted in the long grass. Lizzie bent down, parted the clump, and found a brass horseshoe, about the size of her palm, attached to a red ribbon.

  It was too big and heavy to be a necklace, but it could be a baby’s toy. Was it a clue? Lizzie tucked the horseshoe into her pocket and set off to show it to Fred.

  As she walked through the village, she noticed a handwritten sign in the window of the shop:

  LOCAL BOY JOINS UP.

  ANOTHER LAD TO MAKE US PROUD.

  Lizzie pressed her nose against the glass and squinted at the newspaper on the top of the pile beneath the sign. It showed a photograph of a smiling young man waving from a train window. The man’s uniform made Lizzie think of her father; it had been so strange to see Daddy dressed in khaki instead of his usual work suit.

  Where was he now?

  Adolf Hitler had started the war by sending his army to invade Poland, but Poland was far away and no British soldiers had been sent to fight there—at least that’s what Lizzie’s mother had told her. So surely Daddy was safe. But if Hitler decided he wanted to take other countries as well as Poland, then Daddy might be sent over the sea to fight.

  And if Hitler decided to invade England, then no one would be safe!

  Lizzie turned away from the window and its unwelcome reminders of the war. She saw Fred standing by the village green with a thin woman and walked toward them.

  The woman’s stringy gray hair framed a face that was all jutting edges and sharp corners. “That field they’re camped in is full of rubbish, and their horse droppings foul the road,” she said to Fred. “Those Gypsies are a disgrace. And why aren’t their men in the army like our boys?”

  Fred clasped his hands behind h
is back and rocked on his heels. “They’ve been helping Bert Baines with his potatoes. I daresay they’ll be off to the Blakey horse fair soon, and then they’ll not trouble us.”

  “Bert should know better,” the woman continued. “They never do a decent day’s work. They’re common thieves. I’ve had to keep my door locked ever since they arrived. Betty Arkright says they’re looking for a lost baby. How on earth did they lose a baby? They’re irresponsible.”

  Lizzie fingered the horseshoe in her pocket. The Gypsies had lost a baby? It must be the baby she had found!

  She looked up at Fred, expecting him to have the same thought, but Fred showed no reaction. Instead, he inclined his head at Lizzie. “This here’s one of our evacuees. Lizzie, say hello to Mrs. Sidebottom.”

  Lizzie sucked in the giggle that fought to escape at the sound of the funny name. “Hello, Mrs. Sidebottom.”

  “That’s another thing, Fred. How long are these evacuees staying? The one I’ve got is eating me out of house and home.”

  “Have a heart, Ethel. They’re just little nippers sent away from their parents. The least we can do is feed them up.”

  Mrs. Sidebottom gave Fred a curt nod, straightened the carnations in her basket, and scurried off toward the church.

  Fred pushed back his helmet and wiped his forehead with a huge handkerchief. “Ethel Sidebottom never has a kind word to say about anyone. Come on, Lizzie. I could do with a cup of tea after that.”

  Lizzie perched on the edge of a straight-backed chair in the police station. She wanted to ask Fred about the lost Gypsy baby, to see whether he thought it was the baby she’d found, but she waited while he pushed a pile of papers to the side of his desk and took half of an oblong loaf out of a breadbox. He spread a thin layer of butter onto the cut end of the bread, held the loaf in place against his chest, and carved off a slice. He handed it to Lizzie along with a pickled onion and a cube of cheese.

  Lizzie nibbled the crusty bread and crumbly cheese, saving the vinegary onion until last. Pickled onions were her favorite—Daddy’s, too.