Lizzie and the Lost Baby

by Cheryl Blackford

  She jutted her chin at him. “We’re not all rotten. And if you hadn’t left your sister in that field, none of this would have happened.”

  It was a punch to his stomach. “You’re right. It is my fault. But I’ve got to get Rose back. Please help me.”

  The sharp planes of her face softened. “All right. I’ll help you.”

  Hope coursed through him, but a low growl rumbled in Jack’s throat.

  “Someone’s coming,” Elijah said, and peered around the corner of the barn.

  Bill slid off his horse by the gate. He tied the horse to a post, smoothed his jacket, and limped toward the farm.

  What was he doing here?

  “Who is it?” Lizzie whispered.

  “Bill. The one as made me leave our Rose.”

  Bill rapped on the farmhouse door with his knuckles. When Hetty Baines opened it, he removed his cap and clasped it in his hands. Hetty Baines folded her arms across her chest and frowned at him.

  Elijah strained to listen but caught only a few words of the conversation.

  Bill twirled his cap as he spoke. “. . . boy . . . trouble . . . good-fer-nothing . . . thief.”

  Hetty Baines shook her head. “Not Elijah . . . Ambrose . . . good lad.”

  Lizzie poked Elijah’s shoulder. “What’s happening?”

  “Shh!” he said. “Let me listen.”

  But the conversation ended abruptly when Bill gestured at the barn. Hetty Baines shook her head again, more vigorously this time, and pointed down the track before closing the door. Bill crammed his cap back onto his head and limped back to his horse. He led the animal through the gate, then looked back over his shoulder as he fastened the loop of rope.

  The scrawny green-eyed cat chose that moment to dart across the farmyard. Jack pointed his ears and gave chase. Lizzie reached out to grab him, but the little dog was too fast and pursued the cat around the back of the hen house.

  Bill stared at the barn.

  Elijah shrank behind the cover of the wall. Had Bill seen Jack? If Bill returned and found Elijah with Lizzie, there’d be more trouble.

  “I’ve got to get our Rose,” Elijah told Lizzy. “I’ve got to get her back home. Quick! Show me where she is.”

  “How are you going to get her away from Elsie?” Lizzie asked. “You can’t just rush in. Fred’s a policeman. If he sees you, he could arrest you.”

  Hold yer horses, Elijah. That’s what Granddad Ambrose said whenever Elijah was impatient. Think on it first.

  Lizzie was right—he couldn’t just barge in and grab Rose. He needed to think and plan.

  “Come with me up to the moor,” he said. “We’ll be safe up there—you can see fer miles so no one can sneak up on us. Please come and help me find a way to rescue Rose.”

  Chapter Twenty

  LIZZIE

  LIZZIE STOOD at the corner of the barn and risked a quick look into the farmyard. She saw the big Gypsy heaving himself up onto his horse. If she went straight back to Elsie’s, she might meet him on the track or the road. And, anyway, Elijah and his baby sister needed her help, and she did want to see the moorland.

  “I’ll come with you,” she said.

  “We can’t walk on the road—Bill might see us,” Elijah told her. “We’ll have to climb up the hill. Can you manage it?”

  She looked where he pointed. The hillside was steep and uneven, crisscrossed by narrow sheep paths cutting through the thick bracken. Fortunately, she was wearing her wellies—her shoes would have been useless in the mud.

  “I can manage.”

  Elijah led her up the dale side, following one of the sheep paths. His movements were quick and fluid, as if he was born to run over this wild land. Bracken fronds so tall they almost reached her waist brushed against Lizzie’s legs and tripped her. She felt clumsy beside Elijah.

  “Keep low,” he said as he stopped to look toward the lane. “I can’t see where Bill’s gone.”

  Elijah’s clothes blended with the colors of the hillside, but Lizzie’s bright red cardigan was a stark contrast to the greens and browns around her. She tried to crouch as she walked.

  A small brown-streaked bird tweeted at them from a prickly bush. Lizzie tilted her head to listen.

  “Yon’s a meadow pipit,” Elijah said. “There’s lots of them ’round here. Pretty little things, they are.”

  Lizzie thought of Mary Lennox’s friend Dickon, who befriended the wild creatures. She smiled. Elijah liked wild things just like Dickon.

  As they climbed higher up the dale side, Lizzie lagged behind Elijah. She was panting and thirsty by the time she reached the top.

  Below her, the dale stretched for miles in a patchwork quilt of fields. Miniature animals, like toys in a farm set, dotted the land. Pencil scribbles of smoke drifted up from cottage chimneys. But up on the moor, there wasn’t a single dwelling or tree, just a vast windswept expanse of empty land.

  “Look.” Elijah pointed. “Bill’s gone back to camp. We’re safe fer a while.”

  Far away a tiny horse walked down the lane toward the village.

  In the distance to Lizzie’s right, something tall jutted from the ground. They followed a narrow path toward it through the rough heather. She saw that it was a cross made from big rectangular blocks of pitted gray stone placed on top of each other.

  “Why is there a cross up here?” she asked Elijah.

  “Granddad says the monks put it here to guide pilgrims across the moor to the abbey,” he said. “The abbey burned down, but the cross is still here.”

  Lizzie looked out across the bleak landscape—wherever the pilgrims came from, they must have had a long, lonely walk to the abbey.

  Elijah climbed up the stepped base of the cross, shaded his eyes with his hand, and peered out over the moorland.

  “There’s no one around,” he said. “And we can see if anyone comes up the road.”

  He sat down on the top step and leaned against the cross. Lizzie sat beside him. The wind tousled her hair and lifted her skirt, but the sun-warmed stone offered some shelter.

  “We have to make a plan,” Elijah said. “Does that woman ever leave Rose on her own?”

  Lizzie shook her head. She struggled to think of something that would make Elsie leave the baby alone. Then the seeds of an idea sprouted.

  “Elsie’s got a pig,” she said.

  “Lots of people ’round here have pigs,” Elijah said.

  Lizzie told him her idea.

  “That’s a grand plan! Let’s go and do it,” Elijah said.

  “We can’t go now. We’ll have to wait until tomorrow morning when Fred’s at work and Madge has gone down to the shop.”

  Elijah chewed a stalk of grass as he considered what she’d said. “I don’t want to wait another day, but I’ve no plan to beat yours. We’ll do it. It’s a grand idea, Lizzie.”

  Warmth crept up Lizzie’s neck and into her cheeks. Elijah sat so close that she felt the heat of his body. She slid along the step to make a gap between them.

  Elijah’s little dog barked at a fat brown bird hiding in the heather.

  “Leave it,” Elijah said, and the dog lay down at his feet.

  “What kind of bird was that?” Lizzie asked as it hop-flew away.

  “Grouse. The colonel owns all this land. Him and his fancy friends come up to shoot them.”

  It was such a pretty bird with its bright red eye stripes. “It’s wrong to shoot wild things,” Lizzie said.

  Elijah snorted. “Grouse is good eating. And shooting’s good sport—to the colonel, anyway.”

  “It’s wicked to shoot birds for sport,” Lizzie said. Dickon would never kill a pretty grouse, not for sport or food.

  Elijah just shrugged. He slipped his arms out of his jacket and held it out to her. “Here. You look cold.”

  She draped the heavy jacket over her shoulders. The coarse wool was itchy and smelled like wet grass mixed with sweat.

  “Listen,” he said, cocking his head to one side. “The wi
nd sounds like lost bairns crying fer their mams.”

  “Wuthering.” That was the word they used to describe the howling of the wind at Misselthwaite Hall in The Secret Garden. It was a good word for such a lonely lost sound. Lizzie pulled the jacket tighter around her.

  “Rose is a Traveler like me. She belongs out here in the wind and the wild,” Elijah said, flinging his arms out wide. “Not shut up in some stone house where she can’t see the sky and the stars.”

  “But what about when it’s cold and rainy?” Lizzie asked.

  “Our wagon’s cozy, and there’s always a fire and summat hot to warm us up.”

  “Why do you move around so much? Why don’t you live in one place?”

  “We go where there’s work. In the summer, that’s in the fields,” Elijah told her.

  “But how can you go to school if you’re always moving around?” She sounded like Peter—asking too many questions. But she wanted to know what life was like for Elijah and his little sister.

  He tensed and spoke bitterly. “We don’t go to school because if we do, Gorgio children pick on us. And they’re not the only ones—the teachers pick on us too.”

  Lizzie remembered the stone-throwing boys. “Why don’t the people in the village like Gypsies?”

  “No one likes us. Gorgios, settled folk like you, say we’re thieves. But plenty of Gorgios is thieves. I’ve worked many a day and not been paid what I were promised.”

  Lizzie looked down at the houses. “I’m sorry people are so mean to you.”

  She stood and handed him his jacket. “I’d better go now. Elsie will be wondering where I am. Meet me behind the pigsty tomorrow. I’ll be there after breakfast.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  LIZZIE

  THE ROAD SNAKED down the dale side in a series of zigzag loops. While Lizzie walked down it, she had to lean backwards to keep her balance on the steepest parts.

  She thought about what Elijah had told her. What would it be like if everyone you met disliked or even hated you? She wondered where he’d go and what he’d do while he waited to rescue his sister.

  She arrived back at Elsie’s house at the same time as Peter.

  “I’ve been playing with Sam,” he said. “He showed me where the hens hide their eggs. We found four.”

  “That sounds like fun,” Lizzie said.

  Peter chattered on while he unlaced his shoes. “Sam’s been riding on a horse, that lucky duck. He said he’ll ask Mrs. Baines if I can have a go.”

  Sam was Lizzie’s age. She was curious about why he’d want to spend time with a seven-year-old boy. But Peter was kind and he wouldn’t tease Sam about his German accent like some of the other boys at school had done.

  Elsie tiptoed down the creaky stairs. “Don’t make a noise you two—Alice is sleeping.” She reached into her apron pocket. “This came while you were out.”

  Mummy’s neat handwriting marched across the envelope. Lizzie took the letter and ran upstairs to read it in the privacy of the bedroom.

  Peter followed her to the chilly room. Lizzie drew the blackout curtain to one side and climbed onto the window seat, scrunching up against the whitewashed wall to make room for her brother. Sliding her finger into one side of the envelope, she tore it open and pulled out the letter, savoring the faint whiff of lavender.

  “Read it out loud, please,” Peter said.

  Dear Lizzie and Peter,

  How are you both? Have you settled in? Do you know which school you’ll be going to yet?

  School! So much had happened since they’d arrived in Swainedale that Lizzie hadn’t even thought about going to school.

  There haven’t been any bombs yet, thank goodness. I’ve had a letter from Daddy. He’s been marching a lot and he says he’s a crack shot now, but the army food is terrible! Nana’s moved in with me to keep me company, and we’re growing lettuce on top of the bomb shelter. Nana’s knitted three balaclavas and two scarves for our brave soldier boys.

  Lizzie folded her arms over her chest to squeeze away the sudden wave of homesickness.

  I miss you so much. It’s very quiet here without you.

  Love and kisses, Mummy

  “I’m starving. I’m going to tell Elsie about the letter and see if she’s got anything to eat,” Peter said.

  Mummy hadn’t mentioned Lizzie’s letter—she must not have received it yet. Lizzie took her pen and notepad out of her satchel, pushed the lamp on the bedside table to one side, and began to write.

  Dear Mummy,

  Elsie is kind, but Madge is bossy. I’m trying to be good and look after Peter.

  A blob of ink splotched from the pen nib. Lizzie dabbed it with a sheet of blotting paper.

  I found a lost baby in a field. She was all alone and she was crying, so I brought her back to Elsie’s. Elsie had a baby called Alice but Alice died. And Elsie’s husband died too. Now Elsie thinks the baby we found is Alice.

  Lizzie hadn’t meant to tell her mother about the baby, but the minute she began to write, the words poured out.

  The baby’s a Gypsy and her family wants her back. But Madge and Fred say the baby’s better off with Elsie. Colonel Clegg says so too. They made me promise not to tell anyone where I found the baby so Elsie can keep her. Isn’t that kidnapping?

  Stealing. Kidnapping. Whatever you called it, surely it was wrong.

  Madge is cross with me because I want to give the baby back. I don’t know what to do.

  Love, Lizzie

  She folded the letter, slipped it into her dress pocket, and curled up on the window seat.

  The baby cried in the next room, softly at first and then becoming more insistent.

  Lizzie heard Elsie push open the door and comfort the little girl. “There, there. Don’t fret. Mummy’s here.”

  Elsie brought the baby in to Lizzie. “Was it a letter from home?”

  Lizzie nodded. “Mummy says she misses us.”

  “Of course she does. And you must miss her too.” Elsie smiled sympathetically. “How would you like to hold our Alice while I get the supper ready?”

  The baby reached up to grasp a strand of Lizzie’s hair. Lizzie kissed the top of her head. To help Elijah and this sweet little bundle, she would have to betray Elsie. How could she do that?

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  LIZZIE

  THE NEXT DAY, threatening steel-gray clouds blanketed the dale. Rivers of rainwater gushed from the drainpipes, creating puddles the size of small ponds. Wind battered the windows and sent dustbin lids clanging down the back lane.

  The awful weather kept everyone inside, and Lizzie could not put her plan for the pig into action. Instead, she stared out the window at the bleak rain-soaked landscape and thought about Elijah. Had he gone home? Or was he out in the wild weather somewhere?

  She wondered if it was raining in Hull. At home on a day like this, Daddy speared slices of bread on a long-pronged fork and toasted them over the fire. Mummy made hot sweet cocoa, and they all did jigsaw puzzles and read stories together. But Lizzie’s parents were far away now, and Elsie didn’t have cocoa or jigsaw puzzles or even any books.

  Elsie’s newspaper lay on the kitchen table and Lizzie picked it up. On the first page, above a photograph of a scowling Adolf Hitler, were big black letters:

  WANTED FOR MURDER

  Lizzie scrutinized the ugly face with its staring eyes and blocky black mustache. Adolf Hitler was the chancellor of Germany. His army had invaded Poland. His soldiers had destroyed the shops and homes of the German Jews. His actions had forced children like herself, Peter, and Sam to leave their families. How was it possible that one man could cause so much fear and suffering?

  She set the newspaper down. Elsie fetched a ball of wool and some needles, and Lizzie cast on enough stitches to make a scarf. Remembering what Nana had taught her, she made alternate knit and purl stitches across the row until her needles became tangled with her thumbs. She held the knitting out to Elsie. “I’ve dropped a stitch, and I don’t
know how to pick it back up again.”

  “I’m not much good at it, I’m afraid,” Elsie said. “But I’ll try. Here, you hold Alice.”

  Lizzie took the baby and watched Elsie struggle with the knitting—Nana would have been able to sort it out in a jiffy. Lizzie cuddled the baby and sang nursery rhymes to her while Peter cut pictures from an old magazine with a blunt pair of scissors. The little girl wriggled, drooling over a white teething ring, and Lizzie wondered whether a baby could be homesick. Did this one miss her real family, or was she happy here with Elsie, Lizzie, and Peter?

  The back door burst open. Madge blew in with one hand holding down her skirt and the other gripping her dripping umbrella. She stood with her feet apart, oblivious to the puddle growing on the floor.

  “Lizzie, come over to our house for a minute.” Her voice was flint hard.

  Elsie looked up from the knitting. “Is everything all right?”

  Madge nodded. “I’ve something for Lizzie, that’s all. It’s at our house.”

  After handing the baby back to Elsie, Lizzie followed Madge through the rain and worried. Had the colonel told of her visit? Had Susan said something? Had someone seen her with Elijah?

  Madge took a crumpled piece of paper from her pocket and shook it in Lizzie’s face. “Explain this!”

  Fear washed over Lizzie. She saw her own handwriting, her own notepaper, her own letter!

  Madge waved the paper at Lizzie. “I found this in your pocket when Elsie brought me your clothes to wash. What do you have to say for yourself?”

  Lizzie spoke through chattering teeth. “That’s private. You shouldn’t have read it.”

  Madge puffed out her chest like an angry rooster. “After all we’ve done for you, this is how you repay us? I said you weren’t to tell anyone about finding that baby!”