“Petrol’s been rationed, and now they say food will be rationed too,” Fred said. “Enjoy it while you can, lass—we might have to manage without soon enough. But I can do without butter and cheese if it’ll help our lads in the army.” He chewed thoughtfully.
“That lady said the Gypsies were looking for a baby,” Lizzie said. “Do you think it’s the baby I found?”
Fred paused. “It could be. Ethel Sidebottom’s not the only one who’s told me about a lost Gypsy baby.”
“Why does Elsie think it’s a baby called Alice?” Lizzie asked.
“That’s nothing for you to worry about,” Fred said, screwing the top back on to the pickled onion jar.
Lizzie fished the horseshoe out of her pocket. “I went back to the field where we found the baby and this was in the grass. I think it belongs to the baby. I think it’s a clue.”
Fred fingered the shiny object. “It’s a horse brass. The Gypsies hang them on their horses’ harnesses. It’s supposed to bring good luck.”
“Then she must be a Gypsy baby! Will you look for her family?” Lizzie asked.
Fred paused. “If them Gypsies left that sweet little thing in a field, they don’t deserve to keep her. They’ve got too many little ones as it is. She’ll be better off with our Elsie instead of being dragged around the country in all weathers with that lot, but I’ll see what the colonel says about it.”
“What does the colonel have to do with it?”
“He’s our magistrate. He enforces the local law—acts like a judge, you might say.”
Fred wrapped the ribbon around the horseshoe and stowed the little bundle away in his trouser pocket. “You’d best run along now. I’ve got work to do.”
Lizzie walked slowly back through the village. Grownups made all the decisions for children. Grownups had decided that the baby should stay with Elsie. Grownups had decided that children should be evacuated to the country to live with strangers.
But what if the baby would rather go home than stay with Elsie? What if Lizzie and Peter would rather face the bombs than live with strangers?
Chapter Thirteen
LIZZIE
LIZZIE STOPPED at the old stone bridge. Leaning over the mossy parapet, she stared down into the fast-flowing river. Water weeds trailed in long streamers, wafting with the current. A few small fish darted into the sandy shallows.
Pow! Pow! Pow! A rowdy gang of boys raced across the grassy oval of the village green aiming crude wooden guns at one another and imitating the sound of gunshots.
A tall, freckle-faced boy at the head of the group skidded to a halt. His red hair was shaved high on the sides of his head revealing a scalp the color of Elsie’s pig. “I’m bored of this game. Let’s go and see them Gypos instead,” he shouted at the others.
The boy ran past Lizzie and over the bridge with the rest of his gang in hot pursuit.
Except for the rag-and-bone man who drove his horse and cart down their street and the woman who came to their door selling clothes pegs, Lizzie had never seen Gypsies. She was curious, so she followed the boys along the wide path by the river. They stopped and huddled in the shadow of a hedge beside a barred gate. Hiding behind the wide trunk of an oak tree, Lizzie peeked through a gap in the tangled bushes.
She saw a row of Gypsy wagons parked in a field beside the river. Most of the wagons looked like wooden carts with curved green canvas tents fitted on top. But one wagon, parked separately from the others, had fancy carved wooden sides and bright yellow steps leading up to a red door decorated with paintings of horses. Smoke billowed out of a chimney poking up through the roof.
Despite their unusual homes, the Gypsies themselves didn’t look very different from anyone else in Swainedale. A woman wearing a pinafore over her cotton dress gathered blackened cooking pots from the ashes of a fire and tied them to the back of a wagon. A sun-browned man with shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows and a bright blue scarf knotted around his neck led a beautiful horse past Lizzie’s hiding place. The horse had splashes of brown over its white body, feathery hair dangling over its hooves, and a luxurious long tail.
A small rock sailed through the air, startling Lizzie. The rock landed on the ground behind the horse’s hind feet, but neither the horse nor the man noticed the missile.
Lizzie turned and saw the red-haired boy poke another boy in the chest. “You throw like a sissy. Watch me.”
He picked up a chunk of gray rock, hefted its weight, and lobbed it into the field. The rock smacked into the nearest wagon with a dull thud.
A girl collecting washing from a hedge pointed and shouted something that Lizzie didn’t understand.
“They can’t even speak proper English,” the red-haired boy said.
Then the gang of boys hurled a volley of rocks into the field before running past Lizzie, hooting with glee. A woman, her face screwed into a mask of fury, shook her fist at their retreating backs.
Shocked, Lizzie bobbed down behind a thick part of the hedge. Lots of people didn’t like Gypsies. But throwing stones at them! That was a horrible thing to do.
As the boys disappeared into the distance, the Gypsies continued with their tasks. Several men hitched brown- and black-splashed horses to five of the nine wagons. Then an old man wearing a wrinkled three-piece suit and a flat cap held the gate open while the wagons rumbled and creaked out of the field.
Men drove three little metal carts pulled by three of the spotted horses while other horses were led away by teenage boys. Lizzie had never seen so many horses in one place before.
The Gypsy women and children walked silently beside the wagons to the clattering accompaniment of the horses’ hooves on the road.
The Gypsies were leaving. Did that mean the baby wasn’t theirs after all? Or was Fred right to think that they didn’t want her?
But not everyone left. When the old man closed the gate, four wagons remained in the field.
Lizzie stood up, slowly straightening her stiff legs, just as a lean boy with wavy black hair crawled out from beneath the fancy wagon. He walked toward her, his eyes locking on hers and his face creasing in anger.
In panic, Lizzie backed away, turned, and sprinted toward the bridge and away from the rage in his dark eyes.
Chapter Fourteen
LIZZIE
LIZZIE RAN all the way back to Elsie’s.
“Any later and you’d have got no lunch,” Madge said, handing her a slice of bread and a hard-boiled egg.
She spoke her next words softly. “I want a word with you two before Elsie comes down.” She cast an anxious glance up the stairs. “It’s about the baby. You’re not to tell anyone where you found her. You’re to say she’s an evacuee that came on the train with you.”
Peter’s eyes were as round as an owl’s. “But that’s not true. Mummy says we’re not supposed to tell lies.”
“Peter . . .” Lizzie shook her head at him, trying to stop him from making Madge angry.
Madge responded by putting her hands on her wide hips. “Well, now. You’re not afraid to say what you think, are you?”
Peter never seemed to get into trouble.
Madge leaned toward him, bringing her face close to his as if sharing a secret with him. “That baby makes our Elsie smile. She hasn’t done that in a long while. Whoever abandoned the little one didn’t want her. The baby’s better off with Elsie, so a little white lie won’t harm anyone.”
The baby did make Elsie smile. And Lizzie had seen most of the Gypsies leaving. If they didn’t want the baby, then why shouldn’t Elsie keep her?
“We won’t tell where we found the baby,” Lizzie promised.
“Good girl. I knew you had some common sense,” Madge said.
“Well, I can’t stand around here all day chatting—I’ve got things to do. Remember what I said: Mum’s the word.” Madge tapped her finger against her lips and then hurried out the door.
“We can’t tell lies. Mummy would be cross,” Peter said. He put his thumb in his mouth
and sucked on it.
“We have to do what Madge says now, not Mummy.” But Lizzie sounded more confident than she felt.
Elsie appeared and navigated the steep stairs with the whimpering baby cradled in her arms. She had dressed the little girl in a pink knitted pram suit and pixie hat. “I’m going to take Alice for a walk to settle her down. You two can come if you want. Lizzie, can you hold her for a minute while I put on my coat?”
While Elsie buttoned her coat, Lizzie cradled the fussy baby. The little girl stopped crying, reached up a tiny hand, touched Lizzie’s cheek, and gurgled.
“She likes you,” Elsie said, smiling. “You’re a natural with her.”
But when Elsie laid the baby in the big blue pram and covered her with a blanket, the baby began to cry again.
Outside, dreary gray skies and a damp chill greeted them. Leaden clouds hung low over the moors. Elsie raised the pram hood and fastened it in place.
The springs squeaked as Elsie pushed the pram down the lane, but the movement soothed the fussing baby. Soon she slept, looking like a fat, fuzzy caterpillar in her cocoon of blankets.
Peter hung back and whacked at roadside plants with a stick.
A woman and two small girls approached from the direction of the village. The woman wore a shapeless dark skirt and a short jacket. A flowered scarf covered her hair, and she carried a big basket over one arm.
“Gypsies!” Elsie frowned. “Those girls will be full of germs.” She pulled the corner of a blanket over the sleeping baby’s head and pushed the pram to one side of the lane, leaving the Gypsies room to pass.
But the woman stopped. The little girls clutched at her skirt.
“Pardon me, missus. Is that yer babby?” the woman said.
“Of course she’s my baby.” Elsie gripped the pram handle and leaned in as if to continue down the lane, but the woman blocked her way.
“Little uns are a blessing. Care to buy a ribbon fer yer precious?” The woman lifted a red ribbon from her basket.
Elsie shook her head, but the woman was persistent. “Let’s have a look at yer little un? Then I’ll know what color suits her. I’ll even give you a ribbon fer free.” She leaned over the pram and reached out a thin hand.
“Don’t touch her!” Elsie’s voice was sharp.
The woman grabbed at the blanket. “Just a quick look.”
Elsie slapped her hand away. “Get away from her.” She spat the words. Then she spun the pram around, running it over the woman’s feet, and turned back up the lane.
Elsie’s angry actions and the fury in her voice shocked Lizzie.
The Gypsy woman trembled. Her lips were a thin white line. Her eyes were soft pools of velvet darkness drowning in sadness. One of her little girls began to cry.
The woman clutched Lizzie’s arm. “Someone took me babby yesterday. I’m looking fer her. Can you help me?”
A large raindrop plopped onto Lizzie’s nose. More fell on her head. Shivery prickles ran down her spine.
This must be the baby’s mother. Should Lizzie tell her about finding a baby in the field? Or should she keep her promise and the secret?
The Gypsy’s eyes blazed with a sudden determined intensity. “If that woman’s got me babby, there’ll be trouble.”
Lizzie yanked her arm from the woman’s grasp and turned to get Peter, but he was nowhere in sight.
Chapter Fifteen
ELIJAH
CAMP WAS QUIET, like a country churchyard. Elijah couldn’t bear the silence without Lady and Rose. He whistled for Jack and set off up the lane. Someone knew where his sister was; he had to find that someone. He’d start with the field where he’d left Rose. Maybe whoever took her had left a clue there.
When he arrived, he found a small boy wearing a lopsided school cap and a pair of very muddy shoes standing beneath the hawthorn tree.
“Who are you?” the boy asked. “Is that your dog? I like him. What’s his name? Where do you live?”
His clear-eyed enthusiasm was infectious, and Elijah smiled in spite of himself. “His name’s Jack. We’re camped down by the river. Where do you live?”
“In Hull. But we were sent here ’cos of the bombs. My daddy’s in the army. He’s going to fight the Germans. Is yours?”
Elijah nodded. “Me dad’s in the army too. If you’re not living at home, where are you staying now?”
The boy pointed at the row of stone houses. “Over there with Elsie.”
A flurry of raindrops spattered their heads. Elijah turned up his collar. He kept his voice light. “Have you heard owt about a babby found in this field?”
Two small lines appeared between the boy’s eyebrows. He looked worried, as if he wasn’t sure what to say. “Do you mean a baby? It’s a secret. I’m not s’posed to . . .”
“Peter!” A girl stood on the top of the stile by the lane. Frizzy tendrils of hair framed her thin face. Stick legs poked out from beneath her knee-length skirt. “We have to go back to Elsie’s,” she called. “It’s raining.”
“That’s my sister. I have to go,” the boy said, and ran off across the field.
Elijah called after him, “Wait. What about the babby?”
But the boy was already climbing the rough stone steps, the girl reaching down to help him up.
Something about her tangle of hair jogged Elijah’s memory. Wasn’t she the girl he’d seen lurking near the hedge by camp? Was she another of the Gorgio stone-throwers who tormented them? Or had she been spying on them? The boy had looked almost guilty when Elijah asked about a baby. Did they know something about Rose?
He’d have to catch up with them to find out.
Elijah sprinted across the field and scrambled over the stile, but instead of the two Gorgio children, he found Mammy standing in the lane. Angela and May huddled against her skirt, shivering in the rain.
“Mammy? It’s pouring. What are you doing here?”
“There were a woman in the lane just now. She had a babby in a pram. She wouldn’t let me look. It were our Rose. I know it were.”
“How do you know it were Rose?”
“I felt it here.” Mammy pummeled her fist against her chest. Wet tendrils of hair escaped from her sodden scarf, but she didn’t seem to notice the rain.
“Where did the woman go?” Elijah asked.
Mammy stabbed a finger at the houses. “Up there.”
A familiar shape materialized out of the rain ahead of them. Duchess slowed to a lumbering halt, and Granddad Ambrose looked down at them from her back. The wool of his jacket was dark with rain. Droplets dripped from the brim of his cap.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“Mammy says she saw a woman with our Rose.”
“She was in a pram, Ambrose. The woman wouldn’t let me look at her, but it were Rose, I’d bet me life on it.” Mammy pointed up the lane. “The woman went up yonder.”
Hope swelled in Elijah. Mammy had a sixth sense; if she said the baby was Rose, it was Rose.
“If the babby’s with that woman, she’s more than likely safe and dry fer now, but these little uns is froze.” Granddad Ambrose tipped his head at Angela and May. “We must get them back to camp.”
“You and Mammy can take them. I’ll find Rose.” Elijah would not, could not, leave her again, not if she was this close.
“Nay, lad. These people won’t open their doors to a Gypsy in this weather. We’ll wait until the rain stops.”
“But, Granddad . . .”
“Folks ’round here are suspicious of us as it is, my Elijah. We can’t barge in and make trouble. We’ll talk with the others and decide what to do.”
Elijah hoisted Angela and May up onto Duchess’s broad back. He walked beside Mammy with his head down against the wind and rain. But now he had hope. Now he knew Rose was near. He would get her back. He just needed a plan.
Chapter Sixteen
LIZZIE
LIZZIE FOUND A TOWEL for Peter’s dripping hair. “You shouldn’t disappear like that. I d
idn’t know where you’d gone.” She paused. “That boy looked like one of the Gypsies. What did you say to him?”
She bent down and whispered into his ear, “You didn’t say anything about the baby, did you?”
He mumbled into his chest. “I didn’t tell the secret.”
Elsie rocked in her chair, cuddling the sleeping baby. “Madge has some wellies for you two. You’d better go and get them, Lizzie. You’ll need them if this keeps up.” She nodded her head at the rain-streaked window.
Lizzie ran to Madge’s house and knocked on the door.
“Come in out of the rain. I expect you’ve come for these.” Madge pointed to two pairs of olive-green boots on the floor by the sink.
Madge’s kitchen was cozier than Elsie’s, with a big rug on the flagstone floor and flowered curtains at the window. On a shelf above the stove, Lizzie saw three silver-framed photographs. In one, a young woman wearing a sundress reclined in a deck chair.
“That’s our Susan when we went to Scarborough,” Madge said. “She came home when her young man joined the air force. She’s lucky to be working for the colonel now.”
“What does she do there?” Lizzie asked.
“She helps him with his paperwork and such. He’s a very busy man these days, what with his Local Defense Volunteer work on top of everything else. He says he couldn’t manage without her.” Madge beamed with pride. “I expect you’ll see her at the weekend—she gets Saturdays and Sundays off.”
In the second photograph, a woman wearing a floaty dress danced with a man whose long coattails streamed out behind him.
Madge followed Lizzie’s gaze. “That’s me and Fred. Dancing in Harrogate.”
Lizzie leaned in for a closer look. The man was a younger, slimmer version of Fred, but it was hard to believe that the glamorous woman, with her hair slicked back in waves, was Madge.
“You wouldn’t know it to look at us now, but we was good. We even won some competitions.” Madge’s voice had a wistful edge.
“You look like a film star,” Lizzie said.
Madge’s smile smoothed out all the angry little creases around her lips.
Lizzie and the Lost Baby Page 5