Wildflower Hill

by Freeman, Kimberley

  Charlie’s grip on her arm was firm.

  “You could drive me,” she ventured.

  He smiled bitterly. “Beattie, I’ve seen the way Molly looks at me.”

  “I don’t care about Molly.”

  “You probably should.”

  “You’re my employee. It wouldn’t be unusual for you to drive me somewhere.” She touched his hand softly. “Please? My little girl is waiting for me.”

  “You can’t get them on the telephone?”

  “Something’s wrong with it.”

  He sighed, reaching for his hat. “All right, but I’m waiting in the car when we get there.”

  It was the first time they’d driven anywhere together. Away from the farm, the fog rolled back to reveal grass silvered with ice. Beattie’s throbbing ear and constant sense of vertigo couldn’t detract from how lovely it felt to be speeding down the road, past winter-bare trees and wide rolling fields, with the man she loved. A sense of injustice pricked her. Other women could enjoy such simple pleasures. Molly could go driving with Henry, Tilly Harrow with Frank . . . but Beattie and Charlie’s love was so much purer and stronger than either of those couples’. Once this business with Lucy’s custody was sorted out, she was going to marry Charlie and laugh at all the disapproving faces in the township.

  They arrived outside Henry’s house just before eleven. Beattie eased herself out of the car, waiting for the dizziness to pass before letting herself go through the gate and up the path. She knocked.

  No answer.

  A prickling feeling of dread was suddenly upon her. No answer on the phone, no answer at the door. She knocked again, louder. Then went around the side of the house. She heard the car door slam. Charlie was coming to help her, but she barely registered. The edges of her vision blurred into black. Something was wrong, and she felt it coldly and sharply.

  Knocking at the back door, no answer. She found Molly’s mop bucket by the back door and upturned it under the window to Lucy’s room. Climbed up as Charlie arrived to steady her. Her breath fogged the glass.

  “What can you see?” he asked.

  The curtain was open a crack, but it was enough to see in. To see the empty room.

  No bed. No toys. No wardrobe. All gone.

  Her heart seized, refused to beat. Then she was falling, falling into Charlie’s arms.

  “It’s empty!” she cried.

  “Shh, don’t worry. Not yet,” he said.

  He helped her around the side of the house. Henry’s neighbor was pegging her laundry.

  “Can you help?” Charlie called.

  The woman looked up, saw Charlie with his arms around Beattie, and scowled. “What is it?”

  “Did you see them leave?” Beattie asked desperately. “The man and the little red-haired girl?”

  “About three weeks ago,” she said grudgingly. “Why?”

  Three weeks ago? How could she not have known? “I’m the girl’s mother,” she said, her blood fluttering loudly in her ears. “I need to know where they’ve gone.”

  “He said he was heading north. That’s all.” She picked up her laundry basket and turned her back.

  “Please!” Beattie called.

  “I don’t know anything else,” she replied as she closed the door behind her.

  Beattie felt the bottom drop out of her world. Sobs heaved in her throat.

  Charlie folded her in his arms.

  “Where’s my baby, Charlie?” she sobbed. “Where have they taken my baby?”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Beattie woke in the grainy predawn light and wondered for a moment where she was. Then she remembered: the threadbare sheets, the smell of old tobacco smoke in the curtains and rugs . . . She was in the only hotel in Hobart that would accept a white woman staying with a black man. And she was still trapped in the nightmare of Lucy’s disappearance.

  She rolled over and saw that Charlie was already awake, looking at her with his soft eyes.

  “How long have you been awake?” she asked.

  “About an hour,” he said. “I wanted to be right here when you woke up. When you remembered.”

  She smiled weakly. The previous day had been a long blur of running around, asking questions of neighbors, the local pastor at Henry and Molly’s church. Henry’s employee, Molly’s friend from FitzGerald’s. She and Charlie had tracked all over Hobart, asking questions and getting no answers. Most people knew nothing at all; Pastor Gibbins said they had simply stopped coming to church. Some knew a little, but it was all the same information. They had talked of going north. Nobody knew how far or where. But they were all surprised to hear that Beattie was Lucy’s mother. In fact, she suspected some of them didn’t believe her at all.

  Finally, Charlie had tried to convince her to go home, but she had refused to leave town without her daughter. Foolish, of course. Her daughter was probably nowhere in Hobart. They had tracked about looking for a hotel, then fallen into exhausted sleep.

  Now Beattie was faced with the decision about what to do next.

  “You’ll be better off at home, Beattie,” Charlie said, climbing out of bed and pulling on his jeans. “We’ve done everything we can here.”

  “This is my fault,” she said, lying on her back and putting her arm over her eyes. Her heart thudded heavily under her ribs. “If I had just talked to them about custody rather than taking them to court . . .”

  Charlie slipped on his shirt and came to sit on the bed, deftly buttoning it up. “You said yourself that Henry was prepared to get a lawyer first.”

  “I just want to know she’s all right.”

  “Of course she’s all right. They dote on her, they’re not going to hurt her.”

  Beattie took small comfort in this but couldn’t articulate to Charlie how lost she felt, not knowing where Lucy was. Not knowing when she would hold her again. She tried to stop herself from crying, but it was impossible.

  “Well, then,” Charlie said softly, crooking his finger to brush a tear off her cheek, “if the lawyer got you into it, perhaps he can get you out. Let’s go home, Beattie, and you can drop in on Leo Sampson on the way.”

  Beattie nodded, pulled herself together. “You’re right. They can’t have just disappeared. He’ll help me find her.”

  The drive back to Lewinford was so different in tone and intent from the drive down that it was almost agonizing. Beattie leaned her head on her hand against the window and watched the landscape slip by, contemplating the miles and miles between her and Lucy. By the time Charlie stopped the car outside Leo’s office, she had started to fear she might never see her daughter again.

  The usual crowd across the street craned their necks to see her. When she climbed out of the passenger side, they craned even farther to see who was driving, but Charlie steadfastly kept his hat on and his window wound up.

  “Come in with me,” Beattie pleaded, leaning back in the door.

  “No, Beattie. The last thing you want is for me to parade around next to you while those folks are watching.” He kept his hands firmly on the steering wheel.

  She closed the door and steadied herself. Her face felt hot even though the air was bitterly cold, and she was aware that she still was not well enough to be out. Her left ear ached and rang faintly.

  Deep breaths. She pushed open Leo’s door.

  Leo was filing in his tiny office; a redolent pipe waited for him on his desk. He turned and saw her, smiled . . . then read her expression, and the smile turned to a frown.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “They’ve taken her,” she managed before breaking once more into sobs.

  With a generous brandy in her hand, she told him the whole story. He took notes, nodded sympathetically. Outside the window, the hedges shivered.

  “I’ll be in touch with their lawyer fortwith,” he said. “He might know where they’ve gone. Beattie, you need to go home, and you need to rest. You look very unwell.”

  “I can’t rest until I know where she is.”


  “I think you’re going to have to accept that it may be some time before we know where she is. Rest. Is there . . . someone who can look after you at the farm?” This last was delivered in a quiet tone.

  “Charlie’s there.”

  He nodded, smiled a little sadly. “I’m glad.” He tapped the page of notes in front of him. “I’ll call you the moment I hear anything.”

  The icy air outside made her cough. She stopped, trying to catch her breath. Then found herself pitching forward.

  The cold grassy path hit her hard, but the hands around her waist, pulling her up, were gentle.

  “Beattie? Are you all right?”

  “Charlie, I’m not well.”

  “Get your hands off her, you black bastard.”

  Beattie looked up to see a slit-eyed Frank Harrow standing a few feet off.

  “I’m helping her,” Charlie said.

  “You shouldn’t be touching a white woman like that.” Frank pushed his way in, bumping Charlie aside and steadying Beattie under her elbow.

  Overwhelmed by Lucy’s loss, Beattie could not endure his rudeness. “Get your hands off me!” she shrieked at Frank, shrugging him off violently. “How dare you speak to Charlie like that?”

  An audience was forming, drawn by her raised voice. Two outside the general store, one from the post office, three neighbors of Leo’s.

  “Are you going to let him touch you like that? Like he owns you?” Frank spat.

  “Come on, missus,” Charlie mumbled, “we’d best get back to the farm.”

  Missus. The name was an insult to her, a symbol of the time before they had loved each other. She was not going back there, and Frank and his army of bigots weren’t going to make her.

  “He does own me,” she said boldly. “He owns my heart. And I own his.”

  Muttered disapproval. Charlie was in the driver’s seat, slamming his door, revving the car.

  “So don’t you dare say a word against him again. He’s a better man than you.” She looked around, raising her voice. “He’s a better man than any of you.”

  She steadied herself on the car, found the handle, and let herself in. Gratefully slid into the seat.

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” Charlie said, his voice icy.

  She turned to him. “Charlie? You’re angry with me?”

  He pulled onto the road, not answering her.

  “Say something,” she said to him.

  “You wouldn’t want to hear what I want to say,” he replied. “Now you’re going home to bed, and I’m going to get the doctor from Bothwell. We can’t do anything about Lucy, but I’m going to make bloody sure she has a mother to come back to when it’s time.”

  Beattie turned to the window again, letting hot, silent tears make their way down her face.

  Beattie was sick for nine days. An infection in her ear kept her flat on her back, fighting a high fever. She slept for long stretches, punctuated by vivid dreams about Lucy and Henry. Charlie made her soup that she didn’t eat, made sure she had clean linen when she sweated through her sheets, and had the doctor come to see her.

  On the ninth day, feeling clearer, she sat up and ate properly for the first time. Charlie sat on the end of her bed, watching her closely. He was quiet, had been quiet the whole time. She presumed he was still angry at her for what she had said to Frank Harrow. Why shouldn’t she have said it, though? She cared nothing for their opinions.

  She tore up a piece of bread and dipped it in her soup. “I’ve been thinking about Henry telling his neighbor he was heading north, and I remembered that Billy Wilder, an old friend of his, moved up to Launceston. I think I should get in touch.”

  The corner of Charlie’s mouth twitched. “Beattie . . .”

  “North could mean the mainland, too, but it wouldn’t be like Henry to go where he knew nobody and had no job. He’s essentially a coward so—”

  “Beattie,” he said more forcefully. “Leo Sampson called two days ago.”

  She froze, her bread halfway to her mouth. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I wanted you to get better.”

  Her stomach shivered with fear. “It’s bad news, isn’t it?”

  He spread his hands apart. “Leo spoke to Henry’s lawyer. He and Molly and Lucy have gone to Scotland.”

  Scotland. The distance froze her. Lucy was in Scotland . . . or still on her way there. Beattie’s stomach twitched as though the umbilical cord had never been cut, as though Lucy’s distance were threatening to pull out her insides. She put her hands over her belly.

  “I’m sorry, Beattie,” Charlie said.

  “I have to go find her,” Beattie replied, putting aside her soup and throwing back the covers.

  Charlie grasped her firmly, smoothed the covers over her again. “Not so fast. Think this through.”

  “My daughter is on the other side of the world. I have to go and get her.” Beattie’s voice was tense, high. She hadn’t expected it to come out that way.

  “Listen, and try to be calm,” Charlie said. “Henry said he’d contact you with an address as soon as they’ve settled somewhere. You’re going to have to wait.”

  “Why should I wait?”

  “Because if you run away to Scotland now, you won’t know where to find them.”

  “He’ll be in Glasgow somewhere. I could find his mother . . .” Even as she said it, she knew she sounded desperate and foolish. There were no guarantees Henry would contact his mother, and she could wind up in Glasgow with no idea how to find Lucy. “But it’s not fair,” she wailed. “He can’t just take her. He can’t dictate the rules. She’ll be missing me. She’ll be wondering what’s going on. She’ll be confused.”

  “Lucy is nearly ten. She’ll understand.”

  “What have they told her about me?”

  Charlie fell silent.

  “Charlie?” she said, examining him closely. His eyebrows were drawn down hard. “Are you angry at me?”

  “I told you nothing good would come of us being together.”

  “This isn’t our fault.” But was Charlie right? If Molly had heard any town gossip, she might have thought that Lucy would end up with Charlie as her father. Was that the catalyst for them to run away to Scotland?

  Beattie sagged back into her bed. Charlie lay down next to her, on top of the covers, his cheek against her pillow.

  “I’m sorry, Beattie,” he said, his hand twining in her hair.

  “It’s like I can feel the weight of all the cities and seas between us.” She touched her chest. “Sitting here on my heart.”

  “Let me take some of that load,” Charlie said.

  “You can’t,” Beattie replied. “The burden is mine.”

  Beattie suspected that she wasn’t recovering from her illness as day after day passed with leaden limbs and a weary head. Then she came to understand that this was an illness not of the body but of the heart.

  The awful thing was that life went on as normal. She was used to being separated from her daughter, so nothing actually felt any different. No mourning in the empty bedroom, no sense of loss at the absence of childish laughter. In many ways, life was the same as it had been before. Weeks slipped by, yet still the feeling of heaviness pervaded her. Charlie was her sole comfort, but he had work to do to prepare for shearing season. Beattie had work to do, too, designs to sew, but she could barely lift her head.

  Because her imagination told her terrible things. Now that Lucy was in Scotland, would Beattie ever get her back? Her mind circled and circled around the problem. By the time Beattie got over there, what things would Molly and Henry have told her? How could she rip Lucy away from the father she adored so much? How could she be away from Charlie for such a long time to fetch Lucy? What would people make of a white woman and a black man traveling any distance together? What would happen to the farm if they were both away?

  She came to understand that she was stuck in an impossible place. The anger turned inward, and she blamed herself.
If she hadn’t set in motion the custody hearing, they wouldn’t have felt the need to run . . .

  Then, finally, a letter arrived.

  Charlie brought it up from the postbox when he came in for lunch. It was one of the first days of spring, and he’d been mustering with the dogs. Peter and Matt weren’t due for another two weeks, then the shearers would arrive the week after. With Beattie so preoccupied, Charlie had been doing everything.

  He solemnly handed her the letter in the kitchen, where she was making lunch. She tore the envelope open with shaking hands and unfolded the letter. Charlie read over her shoulder.

  Henry’s handwriting, not Molly’s.

  Dear Beattie

  We have bought a townhouse in Glasgow and have settled in well. Lucy is very happy with her new school and church, but it will be easier if you don’t contact her for a month or so to allow her to concentrate on forming new attachments here.

  Beattie had to look away and take a deep breath before continuing.

  I hope you understand why we took such drastic measures. Faced with a choice between keeping our daughter close to God and letting her be witness to iniquity, we did what any loving parents would do.

  That sentence was definitely dictated by Molly. Beattie felt a squall of fury rise up in her and was terrified to realize that she would be happy to kill Molly at that moment.

  Our return address is on the back of the letter if you wish to write, though I won’t pass on any letters to Lucy until I’m sure they won’t upset her.

  Beattie crumpled up the letter and threw it on the ground.

  “Steady on, you’re going to need that,” Charlie said, retrieving the letter. “You’ll need the address to write to Lucy.”

  “I’m not going to write to Lucy,” she said.

  Charlie looked at her wordlessly.

  “I’m going to Scotland,” she said. “I’m going to turn up on their doorstep and demand my child back.”

  He nodded. “When will you go?” he asked.

  “Tomorrow. This week. As soon as I can.”