The Nurse's Child

by Abigail Gordon

  There was a park close by with dry leaves left over from autumn beneath the seats and empty flower-beds. It looked desolate and cheerless and as Richard strode towards it Freya thought that the place was in keeping with the moment.

  She was aghast. Alice, who wouldn't hurt a fly, had precipitated the moment that Richard had been dreading.

  Amelia had found out that she was adopted in the worst possible way. She was feeling hurt and confused and neither Richard nor herself were going to come out of it smelling of roses.

  The moment they were out of sight of curious eyes, Richard took Amelia in his arms and cradled her to him. As his eyes met Freya's above her bent head there was bleak desolation in them.

  'Why didn't Amelia know she was adopted?' Alice was asking anxiously.

  'I didn't know 'cos I'm not!' Amelia cried, and sprang out of his arms. She flung herself in front of Freya. 'You're not my mum, are you, Freya?' she asked, with tear-bright eyes.

  'Yes. I'm afraid I am,' she said gently, as past nightmares faded into insignificance beside this one.

  'But you can't be,' she protested in continuing bewilderment. 'I belong to Mum and Dad.'

  'That's true, Amelia,' Richard said quietly. 'You've belonged to us ever since you were a tiny baby, but Freya is your blood mother. She was the one who gave birth to you.'

  'Why did you never tell me?'

  'Because your mother...Jenny pleaded with me not to. I wanted to tell you long ago, but she was so afraid of you being hurt.'

  He put his arms around her again but she shrugged him off, and with a sigh he said, 'Let's go home where it's warm and quiet, shall we, and have a chat about all this?'

  Looking across at Alice, who was sniffling into a tissue, he said gravely, 'Don't distress yourself, Alice. You meant no harm. The blame for this lies at my door, not yours.' He turned to Freya, who was choking back tears herself. 'Let's get these children home, shall we?'

  In that moment she loved Richard more than ever. His world had just crashed around him, but after those first few moments of heart-breaking dismay he was in control. Desperate to do what was best for all of them, but most of all for Amelia who had stalked off to the end of the path and was standing with her back to them with head bent and shoulders hunched.

  'I'm so sorry about this, Freya,' he said, touching her cheek for a fleeting second. 'I never meant it to happen like this.'

  'I know you didn't, my darling,' she said in a low voice, 'but it's Amelia who matters, not me. Somehow we've got to help her to understand that everyone concerned only did what they did because they loved her.'

  At that moment Alice cried, 'She's gone, Freya! Amelia's gone.'

  'Wha-at?' Richard cried, and then he was running, with Freya and Alice close behind, towards where Amelia had been standing just seconds before.

  It was incredible. There was no sign of her. In those moments Amelia had vanished, and because they were in a park with many trees and winding pathways it was like searching through a maze as they tried to find her.

  'She has to be hiding somewhere,' Richard said grimly, 'but where?'

  'Supposing that she's already left the park and is on her way somewhere else?' Freya cried frantically. 'She's done what she threatened to do if you married Anita...run away.'

  He groaned. 'You've just put my worst imaginings into words. I'm going to call the police.'

  As he reached for his mobile Alice said forlornly, 'Maybe Amelia has gone home.'

  'The bus station!' he said quickly. 'If she's decided to do that, she'll have to get the bus to take her back.'

  But there was no sign of a skinny young girl with corn-coloured hair in the vicinity and no one remembered seeing anyone like that.

  'You'll probably find your daughter at home when you get there,' the policeman said when they reported Amelia missing, 'but we'll send out a squad car to patrol the area where she disappeared and will ask any of the force out on the beat to keep a lookout for her. In the meantime, we advise you to go home. If she has gone there, it's best that she finds you waiting.'

  'That's all very well,' Freya said raggedly when he told her what the police had said. 'But supposing she's watching us from somewhere around the park area and sees us drive away? It's so cold, Richard. I can't bear the thought of her being out all night in this.'

  'Neither can I,' he said grimly, 'but if there's a chance that she's gone home I want to be there when she arrives.'

  'I'll stay here in the town and continue looking for her,' Freya suggested, 'while you go back home with Alice. That way we've got both ends covered.'

  'Maybe I should be the one to carry on searching,' he said doubtfully, 'and you go back to my place with Alice.'

  She shook her head.

  'It's you that Amelia will want. She won't want to be with me at the moment. Her hurt is too raw. So go, Richard. Don't waste time in case she's on her way home.'

  As she continued to search the park with the assistance of two young constables who had turned up to help, Freya was facing up to what had happened. If only they could find Amelia safe and sound, she would do anything to atone, she thought wretchedly. If it meant going out of Amelia's life and leaving the child in peace with Richard, she would do it no matter what the cost. Even though she loved them both more than life itself, she would do it, but first they had to find her child.

  Every time she rang Richard during the cold, cheerless search the answer was the same. Amelia hadn't gone home. There'd been no sightings of her in the town either, and as darkness fell Freya let the police persuade her to go home for the time being.

  'We'll be in touch the moment we have any news, Mrs Haslett,' they told her. Too weary to care, she didn't bother to put them right.

  They'd offered to run her home in a police car but she'd refused, knowing that Richard wouldn't want to draw any attention to Amelia and himself under the circumstances. Time enough to make public her absence if it continued— and that was something else that didn't bear thinking about.

  So she picked up a taxi, and as it sped along dark country roads Freya had time to reflect on the day's awful happenings.

  She was hurting for them all. Alice in her ill-timed attempt to surprise her friend. Herself for the long finger of time that had come back to point out her mistakes again. For Amelia, young, vulnerable and uninformed, but most of all for Richard, who had done nothing to deserve what was being served up to him.

  I put the blight on everything I touch, Freya thought miserably. If I really love him I should go and leave him to gather up the threads of what is left of life after Jenny. They were at least coping before I came on the scene. I've only added to his burdens. But first, where is my child?

  Supposing someone's seen her wandering around and she's been abducted? Or she's caught a train to London or somewhere equally risky? Did she have any money with her? Why hadn't she checked that out with Richard? What about clubs? Would the police think to look in those sorts of places? But she was too young. The management wouldn't let her in.

  When she got to Richard's house he told her in a voice taut with anxiety that there was still no sign of Amelia.

  'We've searched everywhere we could think of in the park and the rest of the town,' she informed him, 'and now the police have persuaded me to come home to clean myself up and change into some warmer clothes. Then I'm going back there.'

  'I'm going with you,' he said. 'I can't hang around here any longer. It's driving me crazy. I'm going to ask Annie to come round to stay with Alice, so that if she turns up while we're away they'll both be here for her.

  'It would be bad enough if Amelia had run away for some trivial reason, but with all that on her mind she might do anything to blot it out. I bitterly regret letting Jenny persuade me to keep the adoption secret until she was eighteen. If ever I do anything against my better judgement, it always turns out catastrophic.'

  'Like falling in love with me?'

  He gave a twisted smile and, shaking his head, said, 'No! Never t
hat. But, oh, Freya, why does happiness always have such a high price?'

  'I don't know, my darling,' she said gently, holding him close, 'but one thing I do know is that Amelia is a very special child. Not just because she belongs to us, but because she's always been brought up with love in her life. It doesn't matter who provided it. Once she's calmed down she'll come back, to you, I know she will.

  'Now, I'm going back to my place to get changed—the taxi's still outside. Give me a few minutes, then follow me and we'll go back to Cheltenham together.'

  As she paid off the taxi at the school, Freya was aware that she'd sounded very confident back there at Richard's house, so sure that Amelia would soon be back in the fold.

  She'd been desperate to offer comfort but were they going to find her safe and well?

  It was late and Marchmont was in darkness, for which she was thankful. The last thing she wanted was to encounter Marjorie or one of the teachers.

  There wouldn't have been any problems about Alice's absence as she'd been given permission to stay at Amelia's for the night, but her own dishevelled appearance after scrambling through bushes and marshy ground in the park might bring about some questions, and no way did she want the school to know that Amelia was missing...not yet anyway.

  She let herself in at a side door near the sanatorium and went quietly into her own quarters, breathing a sigh of relief once the door was closed behind her.

  Before stripping off, she went into the bedroom to find some clean clothes and stopped in mid-stride. There was a slender, hunched-up figure in her bed and two eyes of deepest blue looking at her over the top of the covers.

  'Why did you give me away?' she asked.

  In the whole of her life Freya had never felt so clearly that here was a moment to be handled with care.

  'I was sixteen,' she said quietly, perching herself on the side of the bed. 'My mother had died and my father had no time for me. He packed me off to boarding school, where I was a lot of things. Lonely, rebellious, sad. Until one of the teachers said he loved me and everything changed. I was desperate for affection and let him make me pregnant. When he found out he didn't want to know as he had a wife and children.

  'When my father found out that I was pregnant he was furious and insisted that I had to have my baby adopted. I didn't want that, but he wouldn't listen and I didn't know what to do. In the end I agreed and because I was so desperate never to have anything to do with him again I ran away.

  'That was how I met Poppy. She took me home to live with her and her family, and for a while I was happy. Until my father traced me and sent me back to boarding school to finish my education.

  'But once I was eighteen I found a place of my own and with Poppy as my dearest friend, just as Alice is yours, I made a new life for myself.

  'And you know, Amelia, I should have been happy then, but I wasn't. I spent all my time thinking about you. What a fool I'd been to let you go. I've spent the last eleven years trying to find you.'

  Amelia hadn't spoken so far but now she asked croakily, 'How did you find me?'

  'Alice's mother saw you when she brought Alice here on her first day at Marchmont, and when she got back to London she told me that she'd seen a girl who looked like me.'

  'And that's why you got the job here?'

  'Yes. I had to come and see for myself, and the moment I saw you I knew.'

  'So why didn't you say something?'

  'I asked your dad if you were adopted and he said no...so I thought I was mistaken.'

  'He told a lie?'

  'Yes, he told a lie because your...other mother, Jenny, hadn't wanted you to know until you were older and, knowing how sad you were at losing her, he didn't want you upset by anything else. But because he's a good and honest man he told me the truth eventually, and I promised to keep my identity secret until he thought you would be able to cope with being adopted and having a new mother in your life.'

  'Can you forgive us for loving you too much?' Richard's voice said from the doorway, and Amelia smiled.

  'I suppose so. It does make me rather special, doesn't it?'

  'What? Being loved?' he questioned gently.

  'No. Being adopted,' she said, holding out her arms to them.

  The two girls, now reconciled, were asleep and Freya and Richard were recovering from the day's happenings in front of the fire. The police had been informed that the wanderer had returned and the search had been called off.

  They were both weak with relief that the burden of Amelia's parentage had been lifted from them, but still traumatised by the way in which it had happened.

  'From now on I want my life to be an open book,' Richard said. 'Secrets are dangerous things. But thankfully ours has seen the light of day and been vanquished. We can get on with our lives, Freya. Will you marry me? I love you...and Amelia needs you.'

  Freya didn't answer immediately, just sat staring into the glowing coals, and he asked softly, 'Did you hear what I said?'

  'Yes, I heard you,' she told him. 'I'm still trying to come to grips with the fact that my quest is over. That I've found the two loves of my life.

  'I'd told myself that I would walk away from you both if that was the price for Amelia's safe return as I couldn't have faced it if she'd hated me for what I'd done, but at last it looks as if payback time is over. So, yes, please, I'll marry you, Richard, and be prepared...'

  'What for?' he murmured as he took her in his arms.

  'That Poppy will want to be a bridesmaid.'

  'Along with Amelia and Alice?'

  'Of course,' she agreed as joybells finally rang in her heart.