by Dee Yates
‘Aye, but we could do with him to help us look,’ her father muttered, before saying louder, ‘Dinnae fret, lass. I’m sure there’s a simple explanation.’
Duncan pulled on his trousers quickly and followed Ellen through into the living room, heaving his braces over his shoulders as he did so. Together they searched again. By now Eva was screaming with hunger.
‘Look, lassie. You sit down and feed wee Eva. I’ll carry on looking for Netta. Like I say, there must be a simple explanation.’
Ellen sat on the sofa, her heart racing, and attempted to feed her baby. She listened to her father’s muffled footsteps passing the window as he negotiated the slope down to the barn. A while later, she heard him return, stamp the snow off his boots and slam the door. His worried face told her what she dreaded.
‘I’ve checked the barn… not that it’s likely she got that far. But she does like playing in there on a fine day. But she’s no’ there.’ He frowned. ‘There’s footsteps in the snow around the entry to the barn though… big footsteps.’
‘Aye, Tom said he had to see to the sheep before tea last night. They’ll belong to him.’
‘Maybe, though there are none anywhere else, unless the wind has flattened them.’ Duncan sat down heavily, rubbing his brow in thought. ‘Right, lassie, as soon as you’ve finished, you search the cottage again. I’ll go down to Kenneth at the farm and ask him and Elizabeth to help us.’
Presently Ellen emerged, skidding on the snowy path after another unsuccessful indoor hunt for Netta. She had wrapped Eva warmly in a shawl and buried her deep within the safety of the perambulator. Expecting to see a small search party of two or three, she was amazed to see a group of men numbering twenty to thirty gathered outside the barn. Duncan, seeing her appear outside the cottage, trudged up the path to join her.
‘A stroke of luck, lassie. The men were just arriving to take over the building of the reservoir. Kenneth waylaid them and they’re only too keen to help. Kenneth’s wife suggests you go and wait with her in the farmhouse while we go and look for the lassie.’
‘Oh no, I couldn’t do that… but I’ll ask Elizabeth if she’ll look after Eva for me and I’ll come with yous.’
By the time Ellen had joined the men, they had spread out in a large fan shape and were making their way across the field behind the cottage. She watched appalled as two of them climbed through the freezing waters of the gill that tumbled down the hillside to join the river in the base of the valley. They were exploring behind stones and bending to examine beneath overhanging grasses. Reason told her they must look everywhere, but she couldn’t prevent her panic-stricken brain from flying to the worst conclusion possible.
And all the while the clock was ticking the minutes and the hours away.
She forced herself to return to the farmhouse at dinnertime to feed Eva. There had been no sign, no small footprint, no soft toy discarded in the snow. Nothing that could give them a clue as to Netta’s whereabouts. And no sign of her husband, whose intimate knowledge of the hills would have been invaluable in the search for their daughter. Where, in heaven's name could he have got to?
By the time she rejoined them, the crescent of men had made their way deep into the hill. Ellen’s face was puffy with crying and her cheeks inflamed with the salt tears drying there. Never, never would they be able to find her little girl.
But then a sudden shout echoed round the hills. All faces were raised to the shout. It came again.
‘Over here. She’s here. Quickly.’
She saw a man’s wave before he sank to the ground. Ellen stumbled over the uneven terrain, and could see several men converge on the place from which the shout had come. Then one of them was up, cradling a bundle in his arms, another covering the bundle with a coat, and they were running, all of them together, coming towards her across the field.
Ellen stood, bracing herself for the words that she dreaded to hear.
‘I think she’s alive… I think she’s alive,’ one of the men panted, repeating the words, as though unable to believe them.
A surge of elation and Ellen was running with the men towards her cottage. They burst into a room turned upside down with the search for her daughter, ashes cold in the grate, but warmer than the chill air of the late December day outside.
They lay the small body on the sofa. Her lips were blue, and her face and hands white as the snow in which they had found her. She made no response to their touch, but one of the men pointed out to Ellen a small pulse that beat at her daughter’s neck. Ellen brought blankets from the bed and laid them over Netta. One of the rescuers massaged her cold hands, while Ellen removed the little girl’s soaking socks and rubbed her feet to warm them. All the time, the man who had rescued her was talking, anxiously telling Ellen how he had found her.
‘She was in with the sheep… in the sheep pen, curled up, ken. It must have been them that kept her warm… a woolly blanket, ken. How the sheep didn’t suffocate her, I’ll never know. She was lucky to find it though. She would have died out in the snow all this time.’
‘Wisht now. Less of your wild talk, pal. The lassie doesn’t want to hear all about what might have been.’
‘I found her once before like that,’ Ellen said suddenly.
‘How do you mean, lassie?’
‘Once before. We were up by the reservoir, visiting a friend. There had been a lot of rain. The banking collapsed.’
‘Och Aye. We heard about that. Someone got killed, didn’t they… one of the prisoners?’
‘Aye. I went to see if I could help and when I got back to the pram, Netta had gone. I looked everywhere for her. And there she was, asleep in a stell. Maybe, somehow, she remembered and knew it was a safe place to be.’ Ellen pictured the scene again in her mind. Netta fast asleep and unharmed in the stell. Josef calling to her across the meadow. Josef’s hand brushing her cheek. Josef looking at her with his faraway eyes, the eyes of Netta’s little sister.
Just then Netta turned her head, her eyelids fluttering, and coughed. And Ellen, laying her head down beside her daughter’s, began to sob uncontrollably.
39
The Decisions We Make
Spring came late to the hills that first year after the ending of the war. Farmers struggled through the lingering snow. Sheep were found dead, suffocated beneath the frozen blanket. Life was hard, but at least they were safe from the scourge of influenza that was wreaking havoc up and down the country.
Duncan told his daughter that Margaret Murdie was finding it difficult to manage. He made the journey out to her farm whenever he had time. One day in mid-March he drove her back in the wagon to the cottage.
Ellen, hands white with flour as she mixed pastry, looked up at the rattle of the latch, feeling again the rush of apprehension that accompanied every unexpected visitor.
‘Here’s someone to see you,’ Duncan announced, opening the door wide and stepping back to allow Margaret to enter. ‘She’s lonely out in the hills and fancied a bit of company.’
Ellen crossed the room quickly and gave Margaret a hug. ‘It’s so good to see you, Margaret. Come and sit down here by the fire. I’ll put the kettle on.’
‘I’ll be back in twenty minutes, lassie,’ Duncan said. ‘I have a couple of jobs to do. I’ll take a cup of tea though, when I come in.’ He smiled at his daughter, glanced at Margaret and left.
Ellen turned away to fill the kettle. The visit had all the appearance of having been arranged by Duncan so that Margaret could have ‘a little talk’ with his daughter about her missing husband, and Ellen had no wish to talk about him. As far as she was concerned, he could stay out of her life.
‘How’s little Netta?’ Margaret began. ‘No more running off into the snow?’
‘No, though it’s no’ been easy keeping an eye on her all the time.’
‘She’s a very lucky little girl.’ Margaret turned to Netta, who was playing on the rug in front of the fire. ‘Out there like that in all that weather. It’s a wonder you di
dn’t suffer from frostbite.’ She stroked Netta’s hair and the little girl clambered on her lap. ‘How long was she outside, Ellen?’
‘I don’t know. But I must have woken up soon after she went. Maybe she disturbed Eva as she left.’ Ellen shivered. ‘Every time I think about what might have happened, I can’t believe that she was found safe and sound.’
‘Your father says you’ve heard nothing at all from Tom.’
‘Nothing,’ Ellen replied. She plunged her hands into the half-finished pastry, sending a puff of flour into the air.
‘Have you any idea where he is?’
‘None at all.’ She hesitated, before deciding to continue. ‘But I’ve a feeling he’ll no’ be back this time.’
‘Surely he’s no’ got to return to the army now.’
Ellen shrugged and said nothing.
‘But why would he go?’ Margaret persisted. ‘He thinks the world of little Netta. Just imagine if he had known what happened to her… he would be distraught.’
Ellen sighed and glanced behind her, as though she expected eavesdroppers. ‘We weren’t getting on too well, Tom and me,’ Ellen confided. ‘And there was someone else, another woman who he thought a lot about. They were friends at school. He used to talk about her, and I could see he was very taken with her whenever she came to see us.’
Margaret’s face registered shock. ‘You don’t think he ran off with her?’
‘No, not that. But she came to visit at Christmas and she brought a husband with her. I could see it came as a big surprise for Tom. I think it was all too much for him. He was very low. He wanted to be out of the house at every opportunity, although the weather was so bad. I think he may have gone away because of that.’
‘You don’t think’ he might have gone off because of the Germans?'
Ellen’s fingers paused their activity in the mixing bowl. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean… it didn’t escape my notice that you kept up a friendship with that prisoner you looked after.’
Ellen stared at Margaret, colour suffusing her face. Then her shoulders slumped and she looked down into the bowl of flour, kneading it aimlessly again. ‘Aye, it’s true,’ she murmured. ‘There’s no point in saying otherwise. But maybe I wouldn’t have been so drawn to him if Tom had shown me more consideration,’ she added, lifting her head defiantly.
‘I’m not criticising you, lassie, neither of you. I dare say you both tried your best. If it hadn’t been for little Netta’s arrival, maybe you wouldn’t have wed.’
Ellen nodded slowly. ‘I’m sure you’re right.’
Margaret rose from the chair and, coming up behind Ellen, put her arm round the girl's shoulders. ‘Aye, lass. But we all have to live with the decisions we make. It might interest you to know that it was no’…’
Duncan’s abrupt entry interrupted her sentence and made them both jump. ‘Busy gabbing, I can see,’ he joked. ‘I hope that tea’s ready because I’m ready for it.’ He sat down by the fire and lifted his granddaughter onto his knee. ‘You’ll be able to go out and play soon, wee one. The snow’s melting fast now and it’s much warmer.’
‘Not until I’ve bought her some more boots,’ Ellen said, shaking her head. ‘I still can’t find her others anywhere.’
‘You must go into town next week, if the snow’s away,’ Duncan said. ‘Catch the train. It’ll do yous good to have a day out. Margaret might like to go with you, help you with wee Eva.’ He looked at their visitor. ‘Have you said anything?’
‘Of course not, Duncan.’
Duncan cleared his throat and met his daughter’s enquiring eyes.
‘Said anything about what?’ Ellen asked, wishing they would all leave her alone with her troubles.
Duncan coughed again and then blurted out, ‘About the fact that I’ve asked Margaret to marry me.’
So unexpected was the revelation that Ellen could only stare wide-eyed from one to the other of them.
‘There, Duncan, I warned you it was too soon. The lass is too upset about Tom to even think about anything else.’
‘No… no, not at all. I think it’s a wonderful idea.’ Ellen crossed to Margaret, enveloping her in floury arms. ‘It’s the best news I’ve heard in ages. It’s just that I thought… well… it might be a bit early for you with Robert dying only a year ago. I know how close you were.’
‘Nowhere near as close as your father and me. Shall I tell her, Duncan?’
‘Aye, you better had.’
‘Your father and me, we were childhood sweethearts. We were meant for one another. But then one day we quarrelled. I don’t even ken now what it was about. But we fell out… and Robert saw his chance and asked me if I would go with him… and, before we knew it, there I was expecting a baby. So that was that. We had to get married. We were happy enough… we had to be… but it was never the love I had for your father.’
‘But what about mother?’ Ellen asked accusingly, the rosy image of her parents’ short life together falling around her ears. ‘Didn’t you love her?’
‘Of course I did. I loved her very much.’ Duncan kissed the top of Netta’s dark head. ‘I was upset when I lost Margaret here… very upset. But eventually I got over it. I loved your mother… it was awful when I lost her.’
‘He was heartbroken,’ Margaret interrupted. ‘It was only having you to look after that brought him round. I used to come over and help when you were small. And all the time I would think, if only things had been different. But, like I said, we all have to live with the decisions we make. And things have a habit of working themselves out.’
Ellen looked at Margaret doubtfully. ‘I don’t know that they have.’ She brightened, ‘But I’m so glad they have for yous.’ She kissed Margaret warmly, before bending down to her father and doing the same to him.
‘With all the upheaval going on down the valley and Margaret soon to be out of her home, it seemed the right time to do it,’ Duncan went on. ‘She’s struggling to keep the farm going… and for what? In a few years the farmhouse and in-bye fields will be under water.’ He sighed. ‘Are you sure you don’t mind, lassie? Thee and me, we’ll still be as close as we’ve always been. You ken that, don’t you?’
‘Of course I ken that, Feyther. And I’m very happy for you both.’
‘Only we weren’t sure whether it was a good idea, with Tom away.’
Ellen snorted. ‘If you wait for Tom to come home and stay home, you’ll never get married. You’ve been long enough on your own, Feyther. You mustn’t let this chance of happiness escape you a second time.’ She had seen her own chance of happiness escape with the departing prisoners. From now on she must forge a new life for herself and her two young daughters.
*
A week later, Duncan hitched Archie to the wagon and drove Margaret, Ellen and the two little ones out to the railway station. Over the last day or two the air had turned warmer and overhead, the determined trilling of a lark confirmed spring’s arrival. Sheep, heavy with wool and pregnancy, shambled away from them on their thin legs. When Duncan had dropped them at the station, he planned to take the opportunity of this improvement in the weather to inspect the higher slopes. There was plenty to be done, he said, especially now that Ellen’s wastrel of a husband had left them short-handed.
*
Duncan unhitched the horse and led him to the stable, leaving the wagon outside for later in the day. Whistling to Fleet, his latest dog, he set off across the fields to the lower slopes. His comment about Ellen’s husband was one born of frustration. He and Kenneth had been pondering how they would cope with lambing when they were one man short.
Duncan had liked Tom well enough in the early days. The lad was a man of few words and with little sense of humour but he had been a good worker. His opinion had changed with the suspicion that Tom was ill-treating his wife, and although Ellen repeatedly denied that this was the case, her bruises and black eyes could surely not be put down to mere carelessness.
But now the lad had
disappeared for no reason, when the war was over and there was every possibility of things getting back to normal.
Duncan followed the gill as it scrambled between the rocks scattered in its path, sending rainbow shards of water this way and that. Once through the curtain of trees that encircled the farm, he took a track away from the water and began to climb. With a patience born of many years tramping the hills, he made his way slowly up the unrelenting slope. Before many minutes had elapsed, he was sweating in the unaccustomed warmth and stopped to catch his breath. His keen eyes swept the land westward, where a trail of dispersing smoke indicated the position of the railway line. Ellen and Margaret would be on the train by now and he allowed himself a small smile and a rare quiver of excitement at the thought of what the year would bring. The sensation was a strange one for a man who had, for so many years, with dogged determination, faced all that the weather, the uneven terrain and life itself could throw at him.
Taking a deep breath, he recommenced his climb. The ground beneath his feet was boggy with melting snow. It sucked at his boots and more than once he skidded on the wetness. Ahead, the ewes scattered, sure-footed as ever. Seeking to gain firmer ground, he cut off to the right until he stood on the edge of a semicircle hewn out of the hills by the stream that sparkled so innocently far below. The greening hills trapped snow in deep pockets. It would be weeks before these cool reminders of winter disappeared, even if spring continued its advance, and they would all need to be checked for stranded sheep. His eye was caught by one of these snow pockets, near the base of the steep drop in front of him. Screwing up his eyes to see more clearly, he felt his blood run cold.
40
A Promise of Happiness
Ellen stowed a packet of sandwiches in the base of the pram, adding cake and orange squash before replacing the mattress and covers. Next, she sat Eva in one end, strapped securely so that she could enjoy the surroundings. Netta insisted on walking, but a space at the other end of the pram was ready, in case her legs began to tire. Waving goodbye to her father, Ellen carefully made her way to the base of the slope to join the muddy track that led away from the farm. At the railway line they paused, looking to left and right, before crossing to the road and turning eastward.